Ifl!
 
 s
 
 * 
 
 THE 
 
 
 PAPAi' CONSPIRACY 
 
 m EXPOSED, 
 
 PROTESTANTISM DEFENDED, 
 
 TN THE LIGHT OF 
 
 REASON, HISTORY, AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. EDWARD BEE CHER, D.D. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD, 
 
 COKNEK OF SPEUCE ST. AND CITY HALL SQUARE. 
 1855.
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
 
 EDWARD BEECHER, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
 
 FRIENDLY CONSIDERATIONS FOR AMERICAN 
 PROTESTANTS AND FREEMEN. 
 
 GOD, my fellow-countrymen, has conferred on you the peculiar 
 honor and the eminent responsibility of being jurors in behalf of 
 the great commonwealth of humanity in a momentous case in 
 which he himself is Judge. 
 
 The great criminal arraigned for trial before his bar is that pecu- 
 liar corporation claiming the right to be called the church of Rome. 
 
 You are called on to decide whether this corporation, for treason 
 against God and hostility to the human race, deserves the execra- 
 tion of mankind and the righteous and avenging judgment of God. 
 
 In order to decide this question, you are to consider, not any 
 plausible professions which the corporation may put forth, but the 
 organic laws of the corporation, its avowed principles, the inevitable 
 tendency of such laws and principles, and finally the actual results 
 of these tendencies as imbodied in history. When you have in- 
 telligently considered these things, you will be able to decide wha 
 this corporation is and what ought to be its doom. 
 
 You are therefore called on also to decide whether this corpora- 
 tion has changed for the better or not since its principles were fully 
 developed during the era or dispensation of their notorious head, 
 Gregory VII., sometimes called Hildebrand; whether the lion's 
 claws that it then had have been extracted, or only concealed; 
 
 (3)
 
 4 FRIENDLY CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 whether its teeth have been knocked out, or only hidden till it 
 can find another opportunity to bite and devour. On these points 
 some of the orators of the corporation have made most beautiful 
 and touching appeals, protesting that in these auspicious days of 
 liberality the lion has laid aside its ancient ferocity and repented 
 of its bloody deeds, and is ready to lie down with the lamb, and the 
 leopard with the kid, and that a little child can lead them. 5fou, 
 as good men and true, are called upon to say upon your oaths 
 whether you find that there is any evidence that this blessed trans- 
 formation has taken place. 
 
 Indeed, in coming to your ultimate results, you are called on to 
 decide a still more important question that is to say, What is the 
 character of this corporation for truth and fidelity to engagements ? 
 You are called on to decide whether it is ever safe to trust any af- 
 firmations or denials of this corporation, or of any of its agents, as 
 to any matters of fact touching their own interests or involved in 
 their own defence. 
 
 You are therefore called on to decide, first, What has been the 
 character of this corporation in these respects in ages past ? And 
 if you find that it has been infamous to the last degree, then you 
 are to decide whether it has ever repented and brought forth works 
 meet for repentance, so as at last to deserve to be admitted into 
 decent, civilized, and Christian society. 
 
 Not merely in ages past, but also at the present day, this corpora- 
 tion has promulgated certain bills of rights designed to define the 
 extent of their own claims and prerogatives. These may, by way of 
 distinction, be called the Papal bills of rights. On these you are 
 also called to sit in judgment. The amount of them in brief is 
 this : This Papal corporation have avowed a conscientious convic- 
 tion that God has empowered them to do all the thinking of all 
 mankind on all points of Christian faith and practice, and that he 
 has retired all the rest of mankind to think as this corporation 
 thinks, on pain of eternal damnation ; also that God has given them
 
 FOR AMERICAN PROTESTANTS AND FREEMEN. 5 
 
 full power over kings and all rulers, to use them as instruments in 
 enforcing this right, by crusades, confiscations, proscriptions, and 
 boundless slaughters. Such are their avowed and conscientious 
 convictions on these important and interesting topics. 
 
 Their ideas of their own rights of conscience correspond ; that 
 is to say, they claim the right to act out these conscientious convic- 
 tions without let or impediment. This is in brief the bill of Papal 
 rights of conscience. 
 
 Their ideas of the rights of conscience in all others are no less 
 interesting and instructive. They liberally concede to all mankind 
 the right to obey such laws and decisions of all sorts as they shall 
 declare that God has promulgated through themselves, and none 
 others in contravention of these. In short, their theory of the rights 
 of man is in brief this : That all mankind have an inalienable right 
 to obey the laws of the Papal corporation, and that all who refuse to 
 obey these laws have no other rights whatever. 
 
 The doctrines of this corporation on the subject of persecution are 
 no less instructive. They are these : 
 
 Inasmuch as God has given to them the rights of conscience above 
 stated, it is not persecution in them to carry those rights into full 
 and perfect effect, by deposing rebellious kings and rulers, and by 
 using such rulers as are obedient to them, in the laudable and divine 
 work of torturing, and then butchering or burning, all rebels against 
 Papal authority, confiscating their goods, and rendering them and 
 their children infamous forever. For the Papal corporation to do 
 all this is not persecution, but the exercise of just authority. 
 
 On the other hand, if any man shall have the hardihood and 
 audacity even secretly to think that this is wrong, and much more to 
 say so, that man is a persecutor. Much more is he a persecutor if 
 he shall dare to endeavor to create a public sentiment that shall 
 throw infamy upon the corporation simply because they have exer- 
 cised their just rights of conscience in butchering a few millions of 
 heretics say, for example, about fifty millions, more or less. 
 1*
 
 6 FRIENDLY CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 Still more, it would be inexcusable persecution for this nation to 
 pass any laws to prevent them from gaining, as soon as possible, the 
 ability to carry out their rights of conscience aforesaid in this country. 
 
 In particular, if the head of the corporation shall send to this 
 country pecuniary agents, whom, he sees fit to call bishops, and to 
 concentrate in them all the property of all the religious societies in 
 this land who own his sway, as one means of gaining the power at 
 which he aims, then to interpose by law to prohibit and prevent 
 such accumulation would be a still higher grade of persecution. 
 
 Above all, to expel by law from this land the sworn pecuniary 
 agents of the foreign head of this corporation, even although they 
 should be manifestly, and openly, and undeniably guilty of a treason- 
 able conspiracy with foreign Romish powers to subvert the consti- 
 tution and laws of these United States and of each particular state 
 in this confederacy, would be the summit of persecution. This is 
 self-evident ; because any government that refuses to submit to the 
 jurisdiction of this corporation has no right to exist, and therefore it 
 is a duty to conspire to overthrow it. Indeed it is the conscientious 
 conviction of the members of this corporation that they are called 
 on, AS SOON AS THEY CAN GET THE POWER, to rule all such govern- 
 ments with a rod of iron and to dash them in pieces like a potter's 
 vessel. 
 
 That these are the present claims of this corporation, without col- 
 oring or exaggeration, I think you will be satisfied when you shall 
 have read the evidence adduced in this volume, which is but a 
 small part of what could be offered. 
 
 I will, however, in this place present one item more, which I re- 
 quest you to consider in connection with that in the body of this 
 work. 
 
 Pope Pius VII., whose papacy occupied nearly the first quarter 
 of the present century, gave to his nuncio at Vienna the following 
 instructions, in view of the claims of certain Protestant princes on 
 his ecclesiastical property in Germany for indemnity for certain
 
 FOR AMERICAN PROTESTANTS AND FREEMEN. 7 
 
 injuries. He says, " Not only has the church succeeded to prevent 
 heretics from possessing themselves of ecclesiastical property, but 
 she has established the confiscation and the loss of goods as the 
 punishment of those guilty of the crime of heresy. This punish- 
 ment, as it respects the goods of individuals, is decreed by a bull 
 of Innocent III. ; and, in respect of principalities and fiefs, it is a 
 rule of the canon law (Chap. Absolutes xvi., De Hsereticis) that the 
 subjects of an heretical prince are enfranchised from every duty to- 
 wards him and dispensed from all fealty and homage. However 
 slightly one may be versed in history, he cannot but know that sen- 
 tences of deposition have been pronounced by pontiffs and by 
 councils against princes guilty of heresy. Indeed we have fallen 
 upon such calamitous times, times of such humiliation to the 
 spouse of Jesus Christ, (!) that it is not possible for her to practise 
 nor expedient to invoke HER MOST SACRED MAXIMS OF JUST RIGOR 
 against the enemies and rebels of the faith. But, if she cannot 
 exercise HER RIGHT of deposing heretics from their principalities 
 and of declaring their goods forfeited, can she ever positively per- 
 mit herself to be despoiled to add to them new principalities and new 
 goods ? What occasion of deriding the church would not be given 
 to the heretics and unbelievers themselves, who, insulting over her 
 grief, would say that means at length had been found out TO MAKE 
 HER TOLERANT ! " Such are the doctrines of this corporation in the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 This interesting document was obtained by M. Daunou from the 
 archives of the Vatican when they were removed by Bonaparte to 
 Paris, and were by the government committed to him for custody. 
 The Italian original may be found in the second volume of his able 
 History of the Court of Rome. This invaluable work every Ameri- 
 can ought to study, though its author is a lay Romanist. Of him I 
 have said more in another part of my work. 
 
 In the light of this equitable document, we see clearly that the 
 Romish church, so called, is under no obligation to make any com-
 
 8 FRIENDLY CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 pensation to Protestants for any injuries -whatever in the shape, for 
 example, of deposition, confiscation, plunder, murder, &c. ; for it is 
 HER RIGHT to do such things to heretics, and her MOST SACRED 
 MAXIMS OF JUST RIGOR require her to do them, whenever she can 
 
 But how is it with regard to Protestants ? Even thus : If a mob, 
 without violence to life, happens to burn a single convent, then THE 
 STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS is to be held up to eternal infamy by the 
 pope, and all his pecuniary agents called bishops, if she refuses to 
 make restitution to the Romish corporation to the uttermost farthing. 
 
 Accordingly the Papal corporation never has made any restitution, 
 and intends never to make any restitution, for cities sacked, churches 
 burned, families plundered of their all, husbands and wives, parents 
 and children, tortured and butchered by it with the most savage 
 ferocity. The MOST SACRED MAXIMS OF JUST RIGOR established 
 by that corporation authorize and demand all these things ; for it is 
 self-evident that rebels against this corporation have no rights. But, 
 if this state shall not make full restitution for property which they 
 did not destroy, human language cannot utter the infamy and the 
 deep damnation that this corporation will assign to all her Protestant 
 citizens for such atrocious persecution. 
 
 Moreover from this document it appears that this gentle spouse 
 of Christ is dissolved in grief in view of the present calamitous times, 
 which prevent her from fully exercising her just rights of confiscation 
 and murder, and regards the very supposition by the heretics that 
 any means can possibly be founfl out sufficiently powerful TO MAKE 
 HER TOLERANT an insult over her grief. 
 
 What heart can be so hard as not to be touched with sympathetic 
 sorrow in view of such deep grief of this most interesting and affec- 
 tionate corporation ? 
 
 That the present pope, Pius IX., fully sympathizes with these 
 views, is plain from his brief dated June 10, 1851, in condemnation 
 of Francis G. Vigil, of Lima, Peru, which I have not room to quote, 
 and from his allocution to the cardinals of the church, delivered
 
 FOR AMERICAN PROTESTANTS AND FREEMEN. 9 
 
 September, 1851, in which, he says that "he hath taken this prin- 
 ciple for basis, that the Catholic religion, with all its rights, ought to be 
 exclusively dominant in such sort that every other worship shall be 
 banislied and interdicted." Well then may he, as he does, unite with 
 his bishops in this country in applauding 0. A. Brownson's maga- 
 zine. Moreover I shall show in my work that the doctrines which 
 I have just stated are an essential part of the constitutional law of 
 this corporation, and that they are at this day taught and defended by 
 Mr. Brownson and sanctioned by the Bishops of Rome at present 
 sojourning in these United States. 
 
 On these principles, then, you are called by the providence of 
 God to sit in judgment, and to decide whether the principles of our 
 government were designed to defend such rights of such consciences 
 and to protect and establish the claims and authority of such a cor- 
 poration. 
 
 You are also called to sit in judgment upon the influence of the 
 corporation putting forth such claims upon all the religious, civil, 
 and social interests of the community in ages past and at this day. 
 Especially are you called onto decide upon the influence of the celi- 
 bacy of the clergy in connection with the confessional, and also of the 
 whole system of monasteries and nunneries established in this land. 
 No other subject more deeply affects the interests of the future mil 
 lions of this continent, which God has given in trust to you. 
 
 You are also called upon to consider upon what grounds the mem 
 bers of this corporation base their claims to such prerogatives and 
 rights as they arrogate to themselves ; whether they have, indeed, 
 a divine warrant for them, or whether they are based upon a foun- 
 dation of forgeries and frauds as atrocious as their claims are all- 
 comprehending and exclusive. 
 
 My object in this volume is to furnish you with some authentic 
 evidence for your careful consideration in forming your judgment 
 on all these momentous questions. 
 
 God's great books of revelation and of history are open before this
 
 10 CONSIDERATIONS FOE PROTESTANTS AND FREEMEN. 
 
 nation. The evidence which I adduce is derived from their pages. 
 The foundations of this corporation I have examined and the process 
 of its formation. I have given an historical view of the deeds of 
 three of its leading master builders one of them the patron saint 
 of the Romish bishops residing in these United States. 
 
 I have also considered its influence in the period of its greatest 
 power and most perfect development, and also from that day to this. 
 Its true character is developed in its history and in the word of 
 God. 
 
 To this course of historical investigation, as well as to all the 
 other evidence, I ask your careful attention. Remember that you 
 are judges with God in the greatest case of all ages a case radi- 
 cally affecting the glory and the reign of God and every interest of 
 the whole human family. 
 
 May the supreme Judge, in whose court you are jurors, so 
 instruct you that you shall pronounce a righteous judgment accord- 
 ing to the law and the facts of the case.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. I. The Romish Corporation against our Protestant Fathers, . 13 
 
 CHAP. II. Illustrations of the Spirit and Aims of Popery, ... 16 
 
 CHAP. III. The Central Power of Popery, 20 
 
 CHAP. IV. The Essence of Protestantism, 24 
 
 PART I. 
 
 ROMANISM A FRAUDULENT AND PERSECUTING CONSPIRACY. 
 
 CHAP. I. Romanism invades the Rights of Man as to Truth, Fidelity, 
 
 Property, and Life, 30 
 
 CHAP. II. Popish Principles of Veracity and Fidelity, .... 32 
 CHAP. III. Popish Professions in Great Britain and America, . . 36 
 CHAP. IV. What ought we to believe ? What is the supreme Tri- 
 bunal ? .- 42 
 
 CHAP. V. Positions to be proved, 47 
 
 CHAP. VI. Testimony adduced 50 
 
 CHAP. VII. Appeal for Judgment to all true Americans, ... 81 
 CHAP. VIII. The Gallican, or French, Doctrine, . . . . .88 
 
 CHAP. IX. Evasion of Charles Butler 92 
 
 CHAP. X. Evasion of Bishops Hughes and Kenrick, .... 96 
 
 CHAP." XL The Jesuits on Lying and Slander, 110 
 
 CHAP. XII. Cautions to Americans in View of modern Romish Exam- 
 ples of Lying and Perjury, 121 
 
 (11)
 
 12 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 ROMANISM THE ENEMY OF MANKIND. 
 
 CHAP I. The Case stated, and Principles of Judgment, . . . 131 
 
 CHAP. II. Popery a Religion, a trading Corporation, a Government, . 134 
 
 CHAP. III. Operation and pernicious Effects of the System, . . 138 
 
 CHAP. IV. The Celibacy of the Clergy, and the Confessional, . . 148 
 
 CHAP. V. Reasons for a thorough Consideration of this Subject, . . 155 
 
 CHAP. VI. The Voice of History and Experience, .... 161 
 
 CHAP. VII. Bishop Kenrick's audacious Defence, .... 172 
 
 CHAP. VIII. Testimony of Romish Priests, 191 
 
 CHAP. IX. The Result. Infamous "Character of the Romish Cor- 
 poration, 206 
 
 PAKT III. 
 
 ROMANISM AN IMPOSITION AND A FORGERY. 
 
 CHAP. I. Presumptive Evidence of the Fact, 212 
 
 CHAP. II. Argument from History 234 
 
 CHAP. III. History of the Formation of the Romish Corporation by 
 
 Fraud and Forgery, 239 
 
 CHAP. IV. Nicholas I. and the Forgeries and Frauds of the Dark 
 
 Ages, 274 
 
 CHAP. V. The Rock Peter and the Frauds of Leo the Great, . . 306 
 CHAP. VI. The Plots and Frauds of Gregory VII., the patron Saint 
 
 of the Bishops of the United States. The Bishops' Oath, . 331 
 CHAP. VII. Characteristics and Developments of Popery during the 
 
 Era of Gregory VIL, 342 
 
 PAKT IV. 
 
 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD AND THE BURNING OF BABYLON. 
 
 CHAI. I. Babylon on Fire, 365 
 
 CHAP. II. The Fire of God 371 
 
 CHAP. III. Protestantism defended, 391 
 
 CHAP. IV. The Treason of the Romish Bishops in America, . , 399 
 
 CHAP. V. Appeal for the Judgment of God, 408 
 
 CHAP. VI. What ought to be done ? 412
 
 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CASE STATED AND THE ISSUE DEFINED. 
 
 THE Pilgrim Fathers of New England and the other 
 Protestant founders of this great nation came to this 
 continent, soon after the reformation had shaken the Eu- 
 ropean world, to lay the foundations of a new order of 
 things, by erecting a new social system upon the great 
 principles of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 As one illustration of the results of this colonization, 
 we now witness in New England a state of society which, 
 with all its defects, has never been exceeded, and rarely 
 equalled, on earth. Our state of society, too, is the result 
 of the principles and institutions of our fathers. It was 
 their glory, in their own esteem, that they had receded to 
 the uttermost point from the corruptions and pollutions 
 of Rome in doctrine, organization, and morals. Their 
 2 (is)
 
 14 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 foundation was the Bible, and the Bible alone not the 
 Bible neutralized or rendered poisonous by the traditions 
 of man ; the Bible in the hands of the churches and of 
 the people, and not in the hands of a hierarchy falsely 
 calling herself the church. Under it have sprung up free 
 governments in church and -state, systems of education, 
 purity in the family state, regenerated ministers and 
 churches, benevolent enterprise, science, literature, and 
 the arts. 
 
 Results similar to these are also extensively witnessed 
 throughout our land ; and it is our fixed purpose, by the 
 aid of God, to make them universal. At this we aim; 
 because it is our firm conviction that we, as a Protestant 
 nation, have received our principles from God, and that 
 he has assigned to us the sublime mission and the glorious 
 destiny of making them universal. 
 
 But lo, whilst we are obediently moving on to attain 
 our destiny, an assault is made upon us by a system unique 
 and peculiar, and assuming the style and title of the 
 Church of Rome, the Mother and Mistress of all churches. 
 
 We turn to listen to her words. They are bold and 
 lofty. Laying aside all ceremony, she at once denounces 
 us and our fathers as in rebellion against her, our only 
 lawful and religious sovereign, and therefore against 
 Almighty God himself. 
 
 We stop to consider more particularly the system which 
 makes such charges and puts forth such pretensions. 
 
 We find it to be a system nominally Christian, yet not 
 friendly to other Christian bodies, but excluding and 
 anathematizing them all. It is confined to no nation or 
 government, but exists under all. Its parts in various 
 nations are not, like other religious bodies, independent of 
 each other, but are all organized as one compact system 
 around one head. That head is a temporal ruler in a
 
 THE CASE STATED AND THE ISSUE DEFINED. 15 
 
 territory exclusively his own. He is also a spiritual 
 ruler, and to some extent a temporal ruler, over his sub- 
 jects in all lands. He claims supremacy oyer all earthly 
 governments ; and, so far as he has had at any time the 
 ability, has exercised this supremacy, and at all times 
 aims to secure the requisite power. 
 
 In our land the system has great and constantly in- 
 creasing numbers. Seven archbishops, thirty-two bishops, 
 one thousand five hundred and seventy-four priests, and a 
 population of three millions are subjected to its sway. 
 
 It has exerted great power in politics. Politicians 
 have courted the favor of those who sway this mass of 
 voters. It has also constantly aimed, through pecuniary 
 and political motives, to paralyze and control the Protes- 
 tant political and secular press. 
 
 It has under its control numerous and dangerous or- 
 ganized societies, composed of unmarried men and women 
 withdrawn from domestic life, and specially sworn to ex- 
 tend and defend the authority of the Pope of Rome, the 
 head of the great system. 
 
 It is organizing seductive and proselyting systems of 
 education, and aims by means of them to corrupt and en- 
 list in their vast schemes the children of Protestant par- 
 ents. It has at this time twenty colleges, with two thou- 
 sand two hundred and forty-seven students ; twenty-nine 
 theological seminaries, with upwards of four hundred 
 students ; and one hundred and twelve female academies. 
 
 It is accumulating property and aiming to concentrate 
 it in the hands of the bishops the sworn vassals of a for- 
 eign monarch. It meets us at every turn in this and in all 
 lands. It shows its true spirit as fast as it gains power ; 
 and it significantly threatens us with future retribution 
 whenever it shall gain universal sway.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SPIRIT AND AIMS OF POPERY. 
 
 WE will illustrate these statements by a few impressive 
 facts. It has ever been the policy of the Papists to charge 
 on Protestants a tendency to all kinds of radical and dis- 
 organizing errors, and to assert that the only defence 
 against it is submission to the Papacy. "Whenever such ten- 
 dencies appear to exist in fact, the Papists are emboldened 
 to endeavor to produce a reaction towards their system. 
 Accordingly, when signs of such a state of things began to 
 appear in New England, they put forth new efforts to 
 make proselytes ; nor were those efforts entirely fruitless. 
 
 In particular, one well-known personage, of New Eng- 
 land parentage and education, Orestes A. Brownson, who 
 had himself neared the gulf of infidelity and atheism, un- 
 able to extricate himself from the mazes of scepticism, fled 
 for refuge to Rome, and now pronounces the experiment 
 of our fathers a failure, and calls on us to return from our 
 revolt. Thus, in this centre of New England, this bold 
 proposal is made by a descendant of the Puritans to the 
 American mind. Our system is pronounced a failure. 
 Romanism is offered to us in its place ; yea, urged upon 
 us as our only refuge from ruin. 
 
 Listen to the following words, in which he discloses 
 not only his own feelings, but also the purposes of the 
 Papal corporation: 
 
 (16)
 
 SPIRIT AND AIMS OF POPERY. 17 
 
 " The church may be assailed, will be assailed : but we 
 know it is founded on a rock ; and the gates of hell shall 
 not prevail against it. It is now firmly established in 
 this country ; and persecution will but cause it to thrive. 
 Our countrymen may be grieved that it is so ; but it is 
 useless for them to kick against the decrees of Almighty 
 God. They have had an open field and fair play for 
 Protestantism. Here Protestantism has had free scope, 
 has reigned without a rival, and proved what she could 
 do, and that her best is evil ; for the very good she boasts 
 is not hers. A new day is dawning on this chosen land ; a 
 new chapter is about to open in our history, and the church 
 to assume her rightful position and influence. Ours shall 
 yet become consecrated ground ; and here the kingdom 
 of God's dear Son shall be established. Our hills and 
 valleys shall yet echo to the convent bell. No matter 
 who writes, who declaims, who intrigues, who is alarmed, 
 or what leagues are formed ; this is to be a Catholic coun- 
 try ; and from Maine to Georgia, from the broad Atlantic 
 to the broader Pacific, the clean sacrifice is to be offered 
 daily for the quick and the dead." 
 
 But these words are not original with him ; they are 
 but an echo of the voice of the church. The society at 
 Lyons for the propagation of the faith, a Papal organiza- 
 tion of great power, to which I shall hereafter recur 
 again, says the same. Speaking of the discovery of 
 America by Columbus, and of the fact that France 
 and Spain took possession for the church, the society 
 says, 
 
 " At a late hour heresy made her appearance, and led 
 to the coasts of North America the most violent of her 
 disciples the restless Puritans. Soon other sects cast 
 their scum on the same shores, and Protestantism gained
 
 18 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 sovereignty in the thirteen colonies -which were destined 
 to become the United States. Yet the Catholic church 
 could never abandon THE INVADED TERRITORY." 
 
 After unfolding her plans and her vigorous prosecution 
 of them, she says, 
 
 " In view of such beneficial results, we may well believe 
 that the creation of the American episcopate will rank 
 as one of the most important events in the ecclesiastical 
 history of the nineteenth century. Its efficacious activity 
 recalls to mind something of those labors of organi- 
 zation by which the illustrious bishops of primitive times, 
 among the depraved Romans, the Arians, and the bar- 
 barians, provided for the future welfare of modern 
 nations." 
 
 Nay, Mr. B. openly confesses that there is a system de- 
 signed to exterminate Protestantism: "Not by force," he 
 says, " but by argument and conviction. The church," he 
 says, " never uses force." Just as true as this has been, so 
 true will it be when they gain the power. We see the parts, 
 therefore, of a universal system ; and they agree with the 
 declaration of the Duke of Eichmond. He, as is well 
 known, declared that there was a combination of the 
 despots of the old world to destroy our institutions in 
 order to sustain their own. This and other statements 
 of a similar kind will be fully detailed in the succeeding 
 portions of this work. Let no man, then, call it illiberali- 
 ty or persecution if we subject this arrogant and in- 
 vading system to a thorough scrutiny. We are still the 
 majority. We have liberty and a free press; and God 
 has raised us up, given us the power, and calls us to the 
 work. Yet I desire to say, in passing, that my confidence 
 of success does not rest on man. There is no sufficient 
 power to prevent the spread of that system but God. Its
 
 SPIRIT AND AIMS OF POPERY. 19 
 
 past sway is owing to its accordance with human depravi- 
 ty ; and the same cause will give it power in time to come 
 if God does not interpose. But his glory calls for its 
 ruin. He is strong enough to judge it ; and he will. 
 That the time of this judgment is near, gathering signs 
 foretell. The hosts are moving to the field of Arma- 
 geddon.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CENTRAL POWER OF POPERY. 
 
 So long as men admit the being of a God and believe 
 in the immortality of the soul, their most powerful motives 
 will be derived from their hopes and fears as to eternal 
 life. It matters not whether these hopes or fears are 
 founded on truth or falsehood, genuine religion or super- 
 stition ; so long as they exist they will sway the masses 
 of mankind with resistless power. The sway of Popery 
 over the popular mind is derived from this source. It all 
 depends upon a false answer to the question, " What shall 
 I do to be saved ? " 
 
 The sublimity and importance of the ideas called up 
 before the mind by this brief question I suppose no one 
 will deny. It calls up God ; a spiritual world ; a moral 
 government ; a law and its penalty ; a revolt ; an atone- 
 ment ; reconciliation to God, resulting in heaven ; eternal 
 alienation, resulting in hell. But what has it to do with 
 the central error of Romanism and the main issue be- 
 tween Romanists and Protestants ? Much every way, as 
 I shall soon show. 
 
 The answer to this question given by the great re- 
 formers is plain and distinct. It unfolds God, the correla- 
 tion of the mind to him, the nature of his law, and of life 
 in him by love, and shows that this perfects the mind and 
 conducts it to its true end. It unfolds sin in its nature, 
 
 (20)
 
 THE CENTRAL POWER OF POPERY. 21 
 
 forms, and effects upon the mind its guilt, and desert, 
 and eternal consequences. It unfolds the divinity and 
 incarnation of the Son of God and his atonement, and the 
 possibility of pardon on the ground of repentance, faith, 
 and a holy life. And then, with the apostles, it says, 
 " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 
 This is the answer of the whole evangelical Protestant 
 world. In this they all agree. "With them the church 
 of Rome does not agree. Teaching a hell, she admits the 
 need of the question, but answers it falsely. Her answer 
 is, Believe in the church of Rome, and in Christ as the 
 church of Rome believes in him, and thou shalt be saved ; 
 believe not, and thou shalt be damned. 
 
 But you reply, I have had the Bible from childhood ; I 
 have studied it ; I have been aided in my study by the 
 instruction of holy men ; I think I know what sin is, and 
 that I have repented of it, and trusted in Christ, and am 
 striving to cultivate all the Christian graces and to lead 
 a holy life ; and through the mercy of God, through Christ, 
 I hope for heaven. Are not my hopes well founded ? But 
 do you believe in the church of Rome ? No ; I believe in 
 the Bible. But do you believe in the Bible in her sense 
 and according to her interpretation ? In some things I 
 do, and in some I do not. In a great multitude of things I 
 regard her as utterly misinterpreting and radically cor- 
 rupting the word of God ; and, on the whole, I regard that 
 church as the man of sin spoken of by Paul and the great 
 harlot spoken of by John. Then of course you cannot be 
 saved ; since you not only do not believe in the church of 
 Rome, but blaspheme her the bride, the spouse, of 
 Christ. But where has God told me to believe in the 
 church of Rome ? My Bible says nothing about it. It 
 says, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
 saved." And Paul, in his letter to the church of Rome,
 
 22 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 says, " Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall 
 be saved ; " but not a syllable about believing in the church 
 of Rome any where. 
 
 Now, what has the church of Home to say to" all this, 
 think you ? Why, as follows : 
 
 1. You cannot tell what the canon of the Bible is ex- 
 cept through the church of Rome. 
 
 2. After the canon is made out, you cannot so tell what 
 the Bible means, without the aid of the church of Rome, 
 that it is possible for you to exercise saving faith. 
 
 3. The Bible, without the traditions of the church of 
 Rome, is so defective and imperfect that it is not safe to 
 depend upon it. 
 
 4. There is only one thing upon which you can depend 
 safely; and that is the church of Rome. Through her you 
 can tell what the canon of the Bible is ; through her you 
 can tell what it means ; through her you can have all its 
 deficiencies supplied ; and thus through her you can trust 
 in Christ, be holy, and be saved. 
 
 But what is this church of Rome ? Does it mean the 
 whole body of believers under the pope ? No, indeed ; 
 we are not Congregationalists. It is not their duty to 
 judge or teach ; but to hear their superiors, believe and 
 obey. What, then, is the church ? If you would know 
 definitely, then hear. It is the body of bishops in .union 
 with the pope, their head ; and they are inspired, not as 
 individuals, but in their corporate capacity. This is the 
 church that we mean. It is the ecclesia docens the teach- 
 ing church. It is an inspired, infallible, indefectible body 
 of teachers. These, as a corporation, are, as it were, an 
 incarnation of God the body of Christ. Through them 
 God speaks and acts. Through them he interprets the 
 Bible and settles all questions of doctrine. Through 
 them he governs the church. Through no other body of
 
 THE CENTRAL POWER OF POPERY. 23 
 
 men does he so act or speak. If you hear them, you hear 
 him ; if you reject them, you reject him. They occupy 
 precisely the same place relatively to the world that the 
 apostles did of old. Indeed, they are the successors of 
 the apostles, and inherit all their prerogatives and powers ; 
 and as a rejection of the apostles would have been fatal 
 then, so is a rejection of this inspired and infallible body 
 of their successors now. Therefore, if you do not believe 
 in the church of Rome, you cannot believe in Christ or be 
 saved. Believe, therefore, in the church of Rome, and 
 through her in Christ, and thou shalt be saved, is still the 
 reply. 
 
 We have thus arrived at what is, beyond all doubt, the 
 central power of the Romish system. This is the great 
 citadel of spiritual Babylon. On this point comes up the 
 main, the dividing, issue between Romanists and Prot- 
 estants. The demand of faith in the Romish corporation 
 as an infallible church, as essential to salvation, is the 
 vital power of the greai Romish apostasy ; its denial is the 
 fundamental position of Protestantism.
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 THE PRECEDING STATEMENTS CONFIRMED. 
 
 THAT the rejection of the pope and the corporation of 
 bishops is the essence of Protestantism is exceedingly 
 manifest, as will appear from the following among other 
 reasons : 
 
 1. Though there are numerous other errors in the 
 system, as image worship, transubstantiation, the mass, 
 purgatory, &c., yet any one of them can be removed, yea, 
 many of them, and yet leave the mainspring of the system 
 in powerful operation ; but take this corporation away, and 
 the system dies. As an ox smitten on the side does not 
 die, nor if you cut off a leg or a horn does he die, but if 
 you smite him on his forehead, on his brain, his whole system 
 is dissolved, and he dies, so is it here. This is the forehead 
 beneath which lies the brain of the system ; smite it, and 
 it dies. God has seven hammers, any one of which can 
 smite it with omnipotent power ; how much more all ! In 
 the proper place I shall produce them. My object now is 
 simply to bring forward the system and show where to smite. 
 
 2. Till this is smitten down, it is a wall of defence 
 around all the interior absurdities of the system. In vain 
 do you object against them ; it is all set aside as mere pri- 
 vate judgment. You deem them false, say they ; but what 
 is the worth of your individual opinion? The church 
 deems them true ; and who is most likely to be right ? 
 
 (24)
 
 THE PRECEDING STATEMENTS CONFIRMED. 25 
 
 Has she not God's promise "to be with her always and to 
 guide her into all truth ? 
 
 3. It effects a ruinous perversion of the principle of 
 faith one of the most important and powerful of the soul, 
 and the most injurious in its perversion. Any absurdity 
 however great, once taken into this enclosure, is exempted 
 from the scrutiny of reason, and belief is debased to re- 
 ceive it. 
 
 4. It makes the system essentially, logically, and of 
 necessity, intolerant and exterminating, regarding all 
 other systems as the gospel does idolatry i. e., as rebel- 
 lion against God. Many Protestants do not seem to be 
 aware of this, and think that Protestants ought to regard 
 Romanism as one of the many fraternal Christian sects. 
 But they mistake its necessary logical relation to all other 
 bodies. It does not acknowledge any of them as any part 
 of the church of Christ, nor as Christians. It does not 
 ask to be put on a level with them. It has no part or lot 
 with them. They are sons of Belial, all of them 
 enemies of God, children of perdition, on the road to hell ; 
 and its only duty and avowed end is to convert or extermi- 
 nate them. 
 
 Indeed, it denounces them all as pagans. The cele- 
 brated Brownson, speaking, as he declares, under the 
 sanction of the American Papal bishops, says, (Quarterly 
 Review, January, 1854, p. 96,) " Our American society is 
 pagan, not Christian." Hence he affirms that the Papists 
 are situated as were the first Christians under pagan Rome, 
 and that they are an insulated system in which are all the 
 hopes of society. 
 
 "Almost every where the faithful, as under the pagan 
 
 emperors of Rome, must constitute a society of their own, 
 
 independent of the pagan society in the midst of which 
 
 they live, complete in itself, and adequate to all social 
 
 3
 
 26 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 wants and necessities. This Catholic society is in the old 
 world the remains of a once general Catholic society ; in 
 our country it is, as under the pagan Caesars, the germ or 
 nucleus of a new Catholic state. All the hopes of the old 
 world centre in these Catholic remnants ; all the hopes of 
 the new in this Catholic germ. It is this Catholic society, 
 sustaining itself or forming itself under overshadowing 
 heathenism, that we must consult in our addresses and dis- 
 cussions. To save the non-Catholic society from continued 
 decline and corruption is as hopeless as it was to save the 
 Jewish state under the Roman governors, or pagan society 
 under Nero or Diocletian. The thing is out of the ques- 
 tion ; because modern society, as distinguished from the 
 Catholic, has in itself no recuperative energy, no germ of 
 life. All society must conform to the principles of our holy 
 religion, and spring from Catholicity as its root, or sooner 
 or later lapse into barbarism. The living germ in all 
 modern nations, the nucleus of all future living society, 
 is in the Catholic portion of the population. They are the 
 salt of the earth ; they are the leaven that is to leaven 
 the whole lump." Quarterly Review, pp. 97, 98. 
 
 The feelings of some Romanists, and even their com- 
 mon sense, may revolt from this ; nay, in view of the 
 debased Romanist masses among us, it is both impudent 
 and ludicrous ; but it is the stern, inevitable, logical 
 result of the system, avowed in public formulas, fully 
 brought out by Mr. B. 
 
 " ' It is the intention of the pope to possess this coun- 
 try.' Undoubtedly. 'In this intention he is aided by 
 the Jesuits and all the Catholic prelates and priests.' 
 Undoubtedly, if they are faithful to their religion. ' If 
 the Catholic church becomes predominant here, Protes- 
 tants will all be exterminated.' "We hope so, if extermi- 
 nated as Protestants by being converted to the Catholic 
 faith."
 
 THE PRECEDING STATEMENTS CONFIRMED. 27 
 
 He at this time deems it politic to disclaim in behalf 
 of the church all force but moral, and says that is enough, 
 and also concedes equal civil rights. His subsequent 
 doctrine as to extermination will depend upon the power 
 of the church. He then proceeds : 
 
 " Save, then, in the discharge of our civil duties and in 
 the ordinary business of life, there is and can be no har- 
 mony between Catholics and Protestants. The two par- 
 ties stand opposed ; separated, not by a mere paper wall, 
 as some of the sects are, but by a great gulf. The peo- 
 ple of Christ (i. e., the Romanists) are a peculiar people ; 
 they stand out from the world, distinct, separate ; and 
 must, if they will be the people of Christ. They can 
 have no fellowship with Belial, nor live in peace and har- 
 mony with his children, (i. e., the Protestants.") 
 
 From such views he anticipates a Protestant reaction ; 
 but he treats it with supreme contempt. He says, 
 
 "The signs of the times seem to indicate that the sev- 
 eral tribes of Goths, Vandals, Huns, and other barbarians 
 are forming a league for a new invasion of Rome. "Well, 
 be it so. He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh at 
 them, and the Lord shall deride them. The Episcopalians 
 may read their destiny in that of the old Donatists, whom 
 in many respects they resemble ; and all the Protestant 
 sects combined are not so formidable to the church as were 
 at one period the old Arians. The church triumphed over 
 the Arians ; she will triumph over the Protestants. A 
 union whose principle is hatred will not long subsist, but 
 will soon break asunder. Protestantism is doomed. The 
 devil may be very active and full of wrath and utter 
 great swelling words for a season, because he knows 
 that his time is short ; but Protestantism must go the way 
 of all the earth." 
 
 This seems to be sufficiently explicit. Yet doubtless
 
 28 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 there will be still some charitable souls who will think 
 it illiberal to suspect the Romanists of ulterior evil 
 designs, and call even argument in self-defence persecu- 
 tion, and wonder why we will persecute a sect of Chris- 
 tians who have been so far liberalized by modern progress 
 as to outgrow their ancient bigotry and exclusiveness. 
 
 5. So far as it is believed, it becomes a corporation in- 
 vested with the highest powers of despotism that the mind 
 of man can conceive. It has the monopoly, not of bank- 
 ing, or corn, or wheat, but of the grace of God, of heaven 
 and hell ; and such a body will bind men to their sway 
 by the whole weight of eternal joys and eternal woes. 
 It has logically carried out its views ; and kings and na- 
 tions have quailed before its terrors. Its logical tenden- 
 cies are still the same. Nothing but the counterpoise of 
 Protestantism prevents it. On this it gnashes its teeth, 
 and longs to exterminate it. To be sure, they tell us that 
 it will be safe to put such power into the hands of such a 
 corporation ; for God will not let his bride, his wife, 
 abuse it. Gentle souls! As if the experience of more 
 than a thousand years had thrown no light on that point ! 
 
 6. It urges, in the nature of the case, the most important 
 and momentous claim that a body of men can make. It 
 involves not merely a question of truth or falsehood, as in 
 the case of common historical facts. It admits of no mid- 
 dle ground between the highest and most momentous truth 
 and a falsehood of the deepest and most damning guilt. 
 God either sanctions the claim with his whole soul, or 
 with his whole soul he abhors it. 
 
 7. If such a question is involved, it can be settled. 
 There must be truth on such a point. Interest and 
 organic power may resist ; but God is almighty ; and 
 he can so wield truth that they will give way. 
 
 8. It is the great question of the age. For three hundred
 
 THE PRECEDING STATEMENTS CONFIRMED. 29 
 
 years Christendom has been divided into two contending 
 camps. Things cannot remain so : there must be a de- 
 cision ; there will be. The systems are diametrically op- 
 posed : one must and will exterminate the other. But it 
 will not be without a moral conflict unknown before 
 the battle of the great day of God Almighty. 
 
 From this brief view of the state of the case one thinp- 
 is clear that it is a system that ought, especially at this 
 time, to be thoroughly understood ; not misrepresented, 
 not dealt with on grounds of prejudice, but studied, 
 analyzed, understood in the light of history, philosophy, 
 and Scripture. 
 
 We ought not to be simple, credulous, and the dupes of 
 craft and delusion. The main stress of the conflict will 
 be upon such points as these : Is there evidence in the 
 nature of things, or in the word or in the providence of 
 God, as developed in history, that the claims of this cor- 
 poration are well founded ? Or do they prove them to be 
 false, impious, and destructive ? 
 
 In reply to these inquiries, I shall undertake to show 
 that, so far is the Romish corporation from being an 
 ordinance of God, it is rather a fraudulent conspiracy 
 against the interests of God and humanity ; that it is so 
 far from having its basis in Scripture and reason that it 
 is rather an imposture and a forgery ; that it is so far 
 from being God's messenger of blessings to men that it 
 is rather the enemy of mankind and hostile to the best 
 interests of society ; and that Protestantism, so far from 
 deserving the anathemas and curses heaped upon it by 
 that proud and aspiring corporation, is founded in truth, 
 is honorable to God, and is the only sure defence of our 
 country and of mankind. 
 3*
 
 PAET I. 
 
 ROMANISM A FRAUDULENT AND PERSECUTING 
 CONSPIRACY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BIGHTS OF HEX AS TO TRUTH AND FIDELITY 
 INVADED BY ROMANISM. 
 
 THE nature of man as a social being is such that his 
 fundamental necessity is a knowledge of the truth. He is 
 called on to act in a great system with man and with 
 God. How, then, can he act aright unless he knows what 
 that system is and what are his relations to it? How can 
 man act safely and confidently in his intercourse with man 
 unless he knows the real state and relations of the things 
 and events around him? Every man, therefore, has an 
 indefeasible claim on his fellow-man to know from him 
 the truth. To establish and justify the utterance of false- 
 hood, is to strike a blow at the very basis of the social 
 system. 
 
 If, then, all men have a right to know the truth as to 
 God and man, no man or body of men has a right to 
 
 (30)
 
 THE EIGHTS OP MEN INVADED BY ROMANISM. 31 
 
 delude them, even under the pretence of promoting their 
 good, or for the sake of any alleged general interest. 
 
 All men have a right also to truth and fidelity as to 
 promises and contracts. 
 
 They have no less a right to defence in a free use of 
 their powers in the study of God and his laws and works 
 and truth in general. 
 
 All these rights the Romish corporation invades. In 
 fact, it is a conspiracy to defraud men of all their rights, 
 and to disfranchise and extirpate all who refuse to submit 
 to its claims. 
 
 They take the ground that no man has a right to know 
 the truth from them in any case where they regard it as 
 inconsistent with their own interests. 
 
 That no promises or oaths are binding- to those who 
 oppose their interests and renounce their authority ; and 
 that all the civil and political rights of those who thus 
 oppose their interests are forfeited, as well as their prop- 
 erty and lives. 
 
 A corporation which takes this ground is, in the strictest 
 and most absolute sense, a fraudulent conspiracy against 
 the interests and the rights of mankind. 
 
 In discussing these allegations, we should not deem it 
 sufficient to look at the professions made by the advocates 
 of the corporation when weak and in the minority, but 
 should ask, What are the principles of the corporation 
 itself? What has it always avowed and done whenever 
 no external power has prevented its full development? 
 These inquiries shall be answered by an appeal to history. 
 
 Xo system has a history more full and definite. The 
 tendencies which we shall allege have imbodied them- 
 selves in facts ; indeed, its history is one great tragedy. 
 It is like the prophet's roll written, within and without, 
 with mourning, lamentation, and woe.
 
 CHAPTER- II. 
 
 POPISH PRINCIPLES OF VERACITY AND FIDELITY 
 
 No man can understand the Papal church until he has 
 thoroughly learned that it is a corporation which, on fixed 
 principle, authorizes the practice of perfidy in its own de- 
 fence. It is no less certain that no man is qualified to 
 deal with the system and its defenders until their use of 
 falsehood is perfectly understood. 
 
 There is among Protestants a tacit understanding that 
 a solemn assertion of falsehood before God is wrong ; 
 and when ministers, bishops, and universities swear to the 
 truth of certain assertions, it seems dishonorable not to 
 believe them. 
 
 But he who does believe them in any case affecting the 
 interests of their religion is simple. In precisely such 
 circumstances, their most eminent popes and prelates have 
 not hesitated to equivocate, deceive, and even directly and 
 unequivocally to lie. Yea, their principles offer rewards 
 to such lying, as eminently meritorious in the sight of God. 
 
 It is, therefore, no want of charity, it is no want of 
 magnanimity, to deny any credence to any of the advocates 
 of this system on their mere word and in cases affecting 
 its interests. It would be, on the other hand, inexcusable 
 weakness and simplicity to believe them. In addition to 
 the effects of the perverted teaching of this corporation, 
 there is also the influence of the fact, which I shall soon 
 
 (32)
 
 POPISH PRINCIPLES OP VERACITY AND FIDELITY. 33 
 
 develop, that it is so founded on fraud and forgeries that 
 it cannot bear the scrutiny of an impartial historian. 
 But it is obvious, that if a true view of history is ruinous 
 to powerful existing organizations, even if they were not 
 educated to lie, great would be the temptation to color, 
 distort, or deny the real facts of history. But if any cor- 
 poration is from education prone to falsify history, and is 
 under the influence of base examples and principles, how 
 much more sure the results ! If, therefore, of the Romish 
 corporation all these things are true ; if a true view of 
 history will destroy them ; if they are trained to the use of 
 forgery and fraud, and are under the influence of base 
 principles and precedents, we need to be fully aware of 
 these facts. For this purpose I propose to state at some 
 length what are the genuine principles and what has-been 
 the practice of the Romish corporation as it regards lying 
 and perjury for the good of the church. 
 
 I have no intention, in this inquiry, to bring any sweep- 
 ing charges against every individual who is found in the 
 Catholic laity. I do not confound them with the corpora- 
 tion by which they are ruled, and of which few of them 
 study or understand the real principles. To a great ex- 
 tent, they are more deceived than deceiving. Nor do I 
 intend to overlook the fact that there are, in the great 
 body of Romish ecclesiastics and historians, a few writers 
 of very honorable principles and practice. Thus I do not 
 intend to include in any one general statement persons 
 whose principles and practice are so unlike as those of 
 Pascal, Fenelon, Dupin, Sarpi, De Thou, Daunou, on the 
 one hand, and Escobar, Molina, Baronius, Bellarmine, De 
 Maistre, &c., on the other. In a body so divided into 
 parties and factions as the church of Rome has always 
 been, and in which characters and principles are so various, 
 all indiscriminating charges on masses are to be utterly
 
 34 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 reprobated. Nor do I intend to hurt the feelings of any 
 by charging on them the belief of principles which they 
 disavow in theory and repudiate in practice. 
 
 But, as a great conflict is before us, I do propose to in- 
 quire, What ought a wise, honorable, just, and benevolent 
 Protestant to think of the principles and influence of the 
 great Romish system that opposes him, as it regards speak- 
 ing the truth, and also as to the observance of truth, 
 as it regards history, reputation, contracts, covenants, and 
 oaths ? This is essential, 
 
 1. As a safeguard against the abuse of that benevolent 
 and honorable simplicity of unsuspecting minds on which 
 unprincipled deceivers are ready at all times to practice. 
 If we are to deal with a society who have reduced the art 
 of lying or equivocation to system, we ought to know 
 them, and not be overreached by them. 
 
 2. As essential in order to aid in forming a judgment as 
 to the real facts of history. If a whole body is tempted, 
 by fear of ruin, to misrepresent facts, we ought ever to 
 bear it in mind. 
 
 3. As having a direct bearing on the logic of the main 
 question the existence of an infallible corporation ; for, 
 if in the middle ages the Romish corporation decreed what 
 all concede to be false and immoral, their claims are 
 destroyed. 
 
 I come, therefore, directly to the question, How shall 
 these principles be ascertained ? What is the highest and 
 most decisive evidence ? And I reply, Not the testimony of 
 British laymen or ecclesiastics in the Papal church, who 
 had in this age of light a high interest to deny certain 
 allegations as to the doctrines of that church, in order to 
 gain political privileges, whilst still they had no power to 
 settle points of faith ; nor the testimony of foreign uni- 
 versities, who are equally devoid of power to settle points 
 of faith.
 
 POPISH PRINCIPLES OP VERACITY AND FIDELITY. 35 
 
 I make these remarks in order to introduce the ex- 
 perience of Great Britain upon the point in question. 
 This will open a most instructive chapter of history, which 
 the people of this nation would do well to study. Ques- 
 tions are at issue in this country as to the relations of the 
 Papacy to all civil governments which are of fundamental 
 moment. They will be met with the whole energy of the 
 Papal corporation. We need fully to understand the 
 ground on which we stand. They will affect also every 
 historical or religious question that may come up in deal- 
 ing with that corporation.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PAPAL PROFESSIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA. 
 
 DURING the long controversy on Catholic emancipation, 
 incessant efforts were made by Charles Butler, a learned 
 Popish lawyer, and by others, to convince the British public 
 that it was safe to restore to British Romanists full politi- 
 cal powers and privileges, on the ground that the Romish 
 system did not justify a violation of faith or of good 
 morals. To obtain satisfaction for the British government, 
 appeal was made to individual divines and to certain foreign 
 universities to ascertain whether the real principles of the 
 Papacy justified the pope in deposing heretical monarchs 
 and absolving their subjects from the oath of allegiance, 
 and, in general, the violation of faith with heretics. 
 
 The universities addressed were those of Louvain, 
 Douay, and Paris, in France, and Alcala, Valladolid, 
 and Salamanca, in "Spain. The faculties of all these uni- 
 versities unanimously declared that the principles of the 
 Romish system did not justify any of these things. They 
 were even, in the words of the University of Louvain, 
 " struck with astonishment that such questions should, at 
 the end of this eighteenth century, be proposed to any 
 learned body by inhabitants of a kingdom that glories in the 
 talent and discernment of its natives." The University 
 of Alcala does not hesitate to say that those who imputed 
 to the Romish church such doctrines were instigated by 
 
 (36)
 
 PAPAL PROFESSIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA. 37 
 
 the devil, even as of old the Jews were instigated by him 
 to slander Christ. 
 
 The reply of the University of Douay, as the shortest^ 
 we will quote from Butler's Historical Memoirs, vol. i., 
 pp. 445-448. 
 
 Extracted from the Register of the Sacred Faculty of Divinity 
 of the University of Douay. 
 
 January 5, 1789. 
 
 At a meeting of the faculty of divinity of the Univer- 
 sity of Douay, the dean informed them that the Catholics 
 of England were desirous of the opinion of the faculty 
 upon three questions, the tenor of which was as follows : 
 
 1. Has the pope, by virtue of any authority, power, or 
 jurisdiction derived to him from God, or have the cardi- 
 nals, or even the church itself, any civil authority, civil 
 power, or civil jurisdiction whatsoever in the kingdom 
 of England ? 
 
 2. Can the pope, the cardinals, or the church herself 
 absolve or free the subjects of the King of England from 
 their oath of allegiance ? 
 
 3. Is there any principle of the Catholic faith by which 
 Catholics are justified in not keeping faith with heretics 
 or other persons who differ from them in religious opinions ? 
 
 These questions first having been privately considered 
 by each professor of divinity, and afterwards having been 
 attentively discussed by the public meeting, 
 
 To the first and second of them the sacred faculty 
 answers, That no power whatsoever, in civil or temporal 
 concerns, was given by the Almighty, either to the pope, 
 the cardinals, or the church herself ; and consequently 
 that kings and sovereigns are not, in temporal concerns, 
 subject by the ordination of God to any ecclesiastical 
 power whatsoever; neither can their subjects, by any 
 authority granted to the pope or the church from above, 
 be freed from their obedience or absolved from their oath 
 of allegiance. 
 
 This is the doctrine which the doctors and professors of 
 4
 
 38 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 divinity hold and teach in our schools; and this all the 
 candidates for degrees in divinity maintain in their public 
 theses. 
 
 To the third question the sacred faculty answers, That 
 there is no principle of the Catholic faith by which Catho- 
 lics are justified in not keeping faith with heretics who 
 differ from them in religious opinions. On the contrary, 
 it is the unanimous doctrine of Catholics, that the respect 
 due to the name of God, so called to witness, requires 
 that the oath be inviolably kept to -whomsoever it is 
 pledged, whether Catholic, heretic, or infidel. 
 
 Done on the day and in the year above stated, by order 
 of the illustrious lords of the holy faculty. 
 
 (Signed) BACQ, beadle and secretary. 
 
 It agrees with the original. Witness my hand. 
 
 BACQ, beadle and secretary. 
 
 "We, the sheriffs of the town of Douay and justices of 
 the police, certify, to all whom it may concern, that the 
 Sieur Bacq, who has signed the above deliberation, is 
 beadle, as well as secretary and registrar, to the faculty 
 of holy theology in the university of this town, and that 
 to all acts so signed by him credence is to be given in and 
 out of court. In witness whereof, we have caused these 
 presents to be signed by one of the registrars of the said 
 town, and the seal of the said town, where neither stamped 
 paper nor a small seal are in use, to be fixed to them. 
 The 12th January, 1789. 
 
 HERBAUT, by order. 
 
 The Answer of the Faculty of the Canon and Civil Law 
 in t/ie same University of Douay. 
 
 Having seen and attentively considered the above 
 written questions and the answers of the sacred faculty 
 of divinity to them, the faculties both of the canon law 
 and of the civil law declare that they, without hesitation 
 or doubt, concur in the aforesaid answers of the 5th 
 instant, and that they have always firmly believed and
 
 PAPAL PROFESSIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA. 39 
 
 uniformly taught that neither the cardinals, nor the pope, 
 nor even the church herself have any jurisdiction or 
 power, by divine right, over the temporals of kings, 
 sovereigns, or their subjects ; and consequently that kings 
 and sovereigns are not, in temporal concerns, subject by 
 the ordination of God to any ecclesiastical power whatso- 
 ever ; nor can their subjects, by any authority granted to 
 the pope or the church from above, be freed from their 
 obedience or absolved from their oaths of allegiance. 
 
 Further : the doctors of these faculties declare, That an 
 oath implies an obligation of natural and divine right, by 
 which the party is bound to perform the promise contained 
 in his oath to whomsoever that promise be made, whether 
 he be a Catholic, a heretic, or an infidel ; and that no 
 person, through pretext of heresy or infidelity in the party 
 to whom the promise is given, can be released from his 
 obligation. The Catholic religion, far from admitting any 
 principle by which oaths can be dispensed with, holds such 
 peijuries in abhorrence. 
 
 In testimony of which we have ordered our scribe to 
 sign this instrument. Done at Douay this 9th of January, 
 1789. 
 
 SIMON, beadle and secretary. 
 
 We, the sheriffs of the town of Douay and justices of 
 the police, certify to all whom it may concern, that the 
 Sieur Simon, who has signed the above deliberation, is 
 beadle, as well as secretary and registrar, to the faculty 
 of civil and canon law in the university of this town, and 
 that to all acts so signed by him credence is to be given in 
 and out of court. In witness whereof, we have caused these 
 presents to be signed by one of the registrars of the said 
 town, and the seal of the said town, where neither stamped 
 paper uor a small seal are in use, to be affixed to them. 
 The 12th January, 1789. 
 
 HERABUT, by order. 
 
 The effect of such assertions on Protestants, ignorant 
 of the mazes of Romanism, would of necessity be great. 
 Nor do we wonder at it. Men of such eminence and
 
 40 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 learning, they would naturally conclude, know what the 
 Romish system is ; and we ought not to distrust such confi- 
 dent assertions. 
 
 The Romish committee of Ireland in 1792, in the name 
 of all their Popish countrymen, and the Irish bishops, 
 Murray, Doyle, and Kelley, in their examination before 
 the British Commons in 1826, made similar protestations 
 against the doctrines charged. 
 
 The past history of Great Britain ought to have taught 
 them caution ; but they believed, and, to a certain extent, 
 have acted accordingly. 
 
 PAPAL PROFESSIONS IN AMERICA. 
 
 Even in Boston, at a time when the public mind began 
 to be aroused in view of the dangers impending from th 
 developments of the Papal conspiracy against these United 
 States, these same responses of foreign universities were 
 referred to as evincing that there was no ground for dis 
 trust and alarm by those who, for various reasons, were 
 disposed to look on the best side of Romanism. The 
 reply of the University of Douay, which is before them, 
 will enable iny readers to judge of the tenor of all the 
 others ; and certainly its denial of the doctrines imputed 
 is sufficiently explicit. If it were safe to regard such 
 statements at all as having authority, it would probably 
 increase the force of this particular document that we 
 have in it the statement of the faculty of the canon and 
 civil law, which was not the case in the other univer- 
 sities. 
 
 Mr. Brownson, too, on this side of the Atlantic, has un- 
 dertaken to speak in the name of his church, and to de- 
 nounce in no measured terms all who, with Professor Park,
 
 PAPAL PROFESSIONS IN GEEAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA. 41 
 
 have dared to impute to her the maxim that no faith is to 
 be kept with heretics. Hear his indignant disclaimer : 
 
 " ' No faith to be kept with heretics.' Where did the 
 professor learn that this is a maxim of Catholicity ? It 
 is false. Catholicity knows no such maxim ; and Catholic 
 history authorizes no inference that she practically adopts 
 or in the least conceivable manner countenances it. In- 
 dividuals of bad faith may be found, no doubt, even among 
 Catholics ; but that Catholicity or Catholic doctors any 
 where countenance any thing of the sort, is a malignant 
 falsehood. We are taught and required to keep our faith 
 with all men ; and faith plighted to a heretic can no more 
 be broken without sin than faith plighted to a true be- 
 liever. We would that Protestants would observe a tithe 
 of the good faith towards Catholics that Catholics do to- 
 wards Protestants ; and, when they shall do so, we give 
 them leave to abuse our morals to their full satisfaction." 
 
 Bishop Kenrick, of Philadelphia, has also given assur- 
 ances of a similar import. He was induced to do it in 
 order to produce the belief that no danger is to be appre- 
 hended to the political institutions of this country from 
 the extensive spread of the Romish system. Romanists, 
 he assures us, whether ecclesiastics or laymen, are as good 
 citizens as any Protestants whatever, and do not hold the 
 odious dogmas as to the violation of faith to heretics that 
 are imputed to them. See his treatise on the Primacy, 
 pp. 469-471. 
 
 4*
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 WHAT OUGHT WE TO BELIEVE? 
 
 WHY ought we not to believe such statements ? Can 
 we suppose that such men are mistaken, or that they will 
 wilfully falsify ? 
 
 Without answering the question as to wilful falsification, 
 I reply, all such statements are of no force, because they 
 produce no evidence from those whose prerogative it is to 
 decide what is, and what is not, a part of the Romish faith. 
 That there is such a body, they know as well as we. Why, 
 then, instead of giving us their own assertions, do they 
 not give us the words of that supreme authority ? 
 
 They know, as well as we, that no bishop, and no fac- 
 ulty of any university, can settle a principle of the Romish 
 faith. The fundamental principles of the system forbid 
 it. They know, too, that all such statements are worth no 
 more than so much waste paper. 
 
 These universities, as well as Charles Butler, the histo- 
 rian and leader of the Romish party in England, and the 
 Romish laity, followed the principles of the Gallican or 
 cisalpine divines, at the head of whom was Bossuet, who 
 wrote under the influence of the great monarch of France. 
 But neither the Pope of Rome nor a general council ever 
 sanctioned the views of these divines. Of what use, then, 
 is it, in such a case, to appeal to the opinions of such au- 
 thorities ? 
 
 (42)
 
 WHAT OUGHT WE TO BELIEVE? 43 
 
 Nor is any more weight due to the American protesta- 
 tions, especially to the statements of Mr. Brownson. "We 
 may well ask what is his authority, that he should under- 
 take to settle a question like this? He is not even an 
 ecclesiastic ; he is a mere layman ; and he knows, as well as 
 any one else, that on a point like this his assertions have no 
 more weight than the light dust of the balance. 
 
 WHAT IS THE SUPREME TRIBUNAL? 
 
 What, then, is binding on all Romanists as an article of 
 faith? "What is the highest authority in such a case? 
 Whose decision is final and supreme? I answer, that 
 which is binding according to the views of all ; that which 
 is the highest evidence is the decision of a general coun- 
 cil, sanctioned by the pope, or a decision of the pope, 
 ex cathedra, acquiesced in by the bishops. 
 
 That this is the true view of the case, Mr. Brownson 
 will not pretend to deny. He has distinctly affirmed it. 
 The statement of Peter. Dens is perfectly coincident. 
 
 "To whom does the authority of judgment in contro- 
 versies respecting the faith belong?" 
 
 " Ans. To the superiors of the church : namely, to the 
 bishops, and above all to the supreme pontiff." 
 
 " Does this judgment in matters of faith not appertain 
 to theological doctors or other ecclesiastics ? " 
 
 " Ans. No ; and hence, in general councils, they have 
 not a decisive vote ; but they are admitted to them only 
 for the examination of subjects and for consultation ; 
 much less, therefore, are laymen judges in matters of 
 faith." 
 
 He also says of the bishops not assembled in council, 
 that, if they coincide with a decision of a pope, it is of 
 equal authority as if they were in council ; for " the
 
 44 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 church dispersed is equally infallible as if assembled in 
 general council, and is the same tribunal." 
 
 Nor is it necessary that all the bishops should be unan- 
 imous ; " but a moral uniformity of the bishops is sufficient, 
 or the greater part of them agreeing with their head, the 
 supreme pontiff." Nos. 80, 81. 
 
 "We demand, therefore, not the protestation of Mr. 
 Brownson, nor of the Universities of Paris, Louvain, Dou- 
 ay, Alcala, and Salamanca, nor of the Romanist prelates, 
 priests, and laity of Great Britain made after the reforma- 
 tion had shown so clearly the horrors of the doctrines of the 
 Roman corporation that they were compelled to renounce 
 them to escape the detestation of outraged humanity, and 
 made to gain political privileges of which the genuine 
 doctrines of that corporation rendered them unworthy ; 
 we demand the decision of that corporation to whom 
 alone, on Romish principles, it belongs to settle questions 
 of truth and duty for the Romish world. And I am con- 
 strained to ask, Why did not Mr. Pitt propose directly his 
 queries to the court of Rome, and request a bull, to be 
 acquiesced in by all bishops, in which the pope should re- 
 nounce all claims to civil authority out of his own terri- 
 tories, and all power to depose monarchs and other rulers, 
 and to release their subjects from their oath of allegiance, 
 and in which especially he should condemn as heretical 
 the maxim of so many of his predecessors, that no faith is 
 to be kept with heretics ? Or why did he not request a 
 general council, in which these things should be clearly 
 defined and settled to the satisfaction of his Protestant 
 majesty the King of Great Britain? Did he infer from 
 the previous systematic opposition of the popes to sanc- 
 tioning those disclaimers on these points, which had been 
 inserted by the British kings in the oaths of allegiance 
 tendered to their Romanist subjects, and which opposition
 
 WHAT OUGHT WE TO BELIEVE? 45 
 
 even Charles Butler is obliged to condemn as wrong, that 
 the pope was unwilling to commit himself on these points, 
 lest he should renounce powers which it might be expe- 
 dient still to retain for future use ? 
 
 If so, was it not the extreme of simplicity in him to think 
 that, by a mode so purely congregational, he could decide 
 what are the doctrines of the Romish church? What 
 right have laymen, and priests, and professors in univer- 
 sities to decide what are the doctrines of the Romish 
 church ? Who authorized them ? Who gave them their 
 authority ? So, too, Mr. Brownson's indignant disclaimer 
 of Professor Park's implication, that the Romish church 
 have taught the maxim, no faith is to be kept with heretics, 
 of what worth is it ? He is neither the pope nor a 
 general council, and his opinion is worth no more than 
 that of any Protestant, and far less than that of Professor 
 Park, as we shall soon see. From all private opinions, 
 then, I shall appeal to the decisions of popes, acquiesced 
 in by the bishops of the Catholic world, and of general 
 councils, for direct and decisive evidence on the point in 
 question. 
 
 There is also another kind of evidence to which I shall 
 resort. It is the ARGUMENT CUMULATIVE FROM FACTS, on 
 the obvious principle that though one case of forgery, ly- 
 ing, or perjury does not prove that the system tends to 
 such results, yet the repetition of such facts, in great num- 
 bers and on the great scale, does implicate the radical 
 character of the system. The coming up of one poison- 
 ous weed does not prove that a given soil has in it the 
 seed of such weeds ; but if, year after year, such weeds 
 spring up in all directions and in spite of all kinds of 
 culture, it is proof that the seed of such weeds is in the 
 soil. So if, for centuries, when the system of Romanism 
 was most fully developed, forgeries, lying, and perjury
 
 46 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 became the order of the day, and if the chief advocates for 
 the Papacy have introduced the most perfect system of 
 perjury and lying by rule ever known on earth, then it 
 must be conceded that the roots of lying and perjury lie 
 deep in the soil of the system, and that the foremen tioned 
 facts of history are their natural and genuine develop- 
 ment. 

 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 POSITIONS TO BE PROVED. 
 
 - IN conducting the examination, I shall consider mainly 
 that period in history when the system was left most to 
 itself, when there were no Protestant nations to fear or 
 to delude, and when it felt that the world was its own. 
 Then, surely, would a divinely established and infallible 
 corporation show its true character and develop its real 
 principles. 
 
 I refer to the period between the consummation of the 
 Papal power by the forged decretals and the time of the 
 council of Constance. During this time the following 
 general councils were held : 1123, 1st Lateran ; 1139, 2d 
 Lateran ; 1179,3d Lateran ; 1215, 4th Lateran ; 1245, 1st 
 of Lyons ; 1274, 2d of Lyons ; 1311, council of Vienna ; 
 1409, council of Pisa, which the Italian party consider as 
 not established among the general councils ; 1414, the 
 council of Constance. 
 
 The decrees of these councils are now before me in the 
 third volume of Binius, from which I shall make extracts. 
 This is a part of the Roman Bible. It has, in fact, had far 
 more authority in the Roman world than the word of God. 
 As in the days of Christ, they have made void the law of 
 God by their traditions. Referring to this and to other 
 sources of evidence, then, I affirm the following things : 
 
 1. That the Romish church has taught and sanctioned 
 
 (47)
 
 48 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 lying and perjury, by professing to dissolve political oaths 
 and other obligations, and authorizing and commanding 
 men to act as if they were dissolved. Thereby she has 
 involved them in the guilt of lying and perjury before 
 God and man, as all enlightened Christians at this time 
 fully believe. 
 
 2. The principle that no faith is to be kept with a her- 
 etic was formally established by the church as an article 
 of faith, and all were solemnly anathematized who should 
 dare to call it in question. 
 
 3. The real nature of the dispensing power exercised 
 by the popes was in history illustrated in such a variety 
 of cases that there can be no possibility of misunderstand- 
 ing it. It has been used to dissolve, 1. A most solemn 
 covenant sanctioned by oath between the pope and a Cath- 
 olic sovereign. 2. To dissolve most solemn covenants on 
 oath between themselves and the body of cardinals. 3. To 
 dissolve solemn covenants on oath between two Catholic 
 sovereigns. 4. To dissolve a most solemn covenant on 
 oath between a Catholic and a Mahometan sovereign. 
 5. To dissolve the oaths of subjects to rulers, both Cath- 
 olic and heretical. 6. To dissolve all obligation of all 
 kinds and of all men towards heretics. 
 
 4. The effects on human society and on the feelings of 
 men, as to the obligations of truth and the sacredness of 
 an oath in the Romish world, have been such as would 
 naturally be produced by such doctrines. 
 
 5. Even since the reformation, a code of morals has 
 been promulgated, especially on the subject of lying and 
 perjury, which is adapted to sap the very foundations of 
 civil society and reduce the world to a state of perfect 
 moral degradation and anarchy. And, what is worthy of 
 special notice, it was promulgated by the most prominent 
 deienders of the Papacy, the society of the Jesuits con-
 
 POSITIONS TO BE PROVED. 49 
 
 cerning whom we are now taught by Mr. Brownson that 
 they have been hated in all ages for righteousness' sake. 
 They were so holy, he would have us believe, that this 
 wicked world could not endure them ; and their suppres- 
 sion and restoration he compares to the crucifixion and 
 resurrection of Christ. 
 
 6. In connection with these facts, we are to consider the 
 forgeries which have disgraced the Romish corporation in 
 all ages, the notorious frauds as it regards relics and mir- 
 acles, and the cases in which prominent ecclesiastics have 
 been detected in notorious falsehoods as a means of pro- 
 moting their system, and then ask, Is such a coincidence 
 of so many different systems of lying and perjury in con- 
 nection with the same body, followed up by correspondent 
 practice, an accident ? 
 
 Does it not rather look like the carrying out of certain 
 great original and fundamental principles of the system ? 
 If, then, we find these principles formally laid down by 
 supreme authority, and in numerous and various modes 
 reduced to practice, can any evidence be conceived of 
 more decisive? 
 
 7. In order to complete the statement of facts, we add, 
 finally, that this system of perfidy and fraud has been 
 linked in with, and ministered to, an extended and exe- 
 crable system of persecution, with which the corporation 
 of Rome has endeavored cruelly to exterminate all whom 
 it has perfidiously disfranchised. 
 
 5
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 
 
 I HAVE now arraigned the Romish corporation before 
 the bar of God and of the community on a charge of no 
 light moment, either to them as a body, or to us as a na- 
 tion, or to the human race. Let, then, every thinking mind 
 closely scrutinize the sufficiency of my evidence. 
 
 JOHN HUSS AND THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 
 
 I shall begin with a clear development of the principles 
 and practice of the Romish church, as defined by the coun- 
 cil of Constance. This, as all know, was convened to ter- 
 minate the great schism. Of it, Charles Butler, a distin- 
 guished English Romanist, says, "It is eminent by the 
 number and character of the persons present at its delib- 
 erations, the regularity of its proceedings, and the wisdom 
 and energy of its decrees. It was attended by thirty car- 
 dinals, four patriarchs, twenty archbishops, three hundred 
 bishops, and one thousand other ecclesiastics." 
 
 Bonnechose says, " The composition of the council was 
 worthy of the great interests that were to be discussed. 
 There was not a kingdom, or state, or republic, or scarcely 
 a city or community that was not represented at Con- 
 stance. Two popes, John XXIII. and Martin V., acted 
 
 (50)
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 51 
 
 as presidents, one at the beginning, the other at the end." 
 John Huss was summoned to appear before the council and 
 answer to charges against him for heresy. Before going, 
 he applied to the Emperor Sigismund for a safe conduct. 
 It was given. The terms were as follows : 
 
 " We have received the honorable Mr. John Huss under 
 our protection and defence." To all authorities he says, 
 " Allow him without any impediment to go, to stop, to re- 
 main, and TO RETURN freely ; and, whenever it shall be ne- 
 cessary, let it be your pleasure, as it is your duty, to make 
 provision for his secure and safe conduct, for the honor 
 and reverence of our majesty." 
 
 Notwithstanding this, the council, by a deputation to the 
 emperor, distinctly urged it upon him that he was under 
 no obligation to keep his promise to a heretic. Dachery, 
 an eye witness, in his German history of the council, con- 
 firms this fact : he says, " The deputation, in a long speech, 
 persuaded the emperor that, by decretal authority, he should 
 not keep faith with a man accused of heresy." And in the 
 canon law, Decret. Greg., book v. tit. viii. cap. xvi., we 
 find as follows : 
 
 " Those who were bound by any obligations to heretics 
 are freed from all obligation." "Let those who were 
 bound to those who have manifestly fallen into heresy by 
 any compact, NO MATTER WITH WHAT DEGREE OF STRENGTH IT 
 MAY HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED, know that they are absolved 
 from all obligations of FIDELITY, authority, and obedience 
 of any kind." 
 
 In the third Lateran 'council, twenty-seventh canon, a 
 similar injunction exists as it regards those who coun- 
 tenance certain heretics whom the council had excommu- 
 nicated. 
 
 " Let those who are bound to them by any compact or 
 covenant know that they are released from all obligation 
 of fidelity, homage, and every kind of obedience whilst 
 they remain in so great iniquity."
 
 52 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Tliis, it seems, they urged on the emperor, as applicable 
 to him if he protected Huss. The council also threatened 
 Sigismund, as he expressly affirms, that they would break 
 up the sessions and disperse, and thus defeat his great end, 
 that is, the healing the schism, if he persisted in his 
 purpose to defend Huss according to his safe conduct. In 
 these and other ways they prevailed. Sigismund was 
 taught by them that no faith was to be kept with a heretic, 
 and urged against his better feelings, till he consented to 
 do the will of the council. Huss refused to" perjure him- 
 self by abjuring errors which he did not hold ; nor would 
 he renounce what the council called errors till convinced 
 by them from the Bible that they were so. Hence they 
 condemned him to the stake ; degraded him to the con- 
 dition of a layman ; delivered him to the emperor; he deliv- 
 ered him to the chief magistrate of Constance, and he to 
 the executioners. 
 
 Let us survey the closing scene. I give it in the words 
 of Emile de Bonnechose, in his Reformers before the Ref- 
 ormation, pp. 103, 104, New York edition : 
 
 " They placed on his head a sort of crown, or pyramidal 
 mitre, on which were painted frightful figures of demons, 
 with this inscription : ' THE ARCH-HERETIC ; ' and, when he 
 was thus arrayed, the prelates devoted his soul to the 
 devils. John Huss, however, recommended his spirit to 
 God, and said aloud, ' I wear with joy this crown of op- 
 probrium, for the love of Him who bore a crown of 
 thorns.' 
 
 " The church then gave up all claim to him ; declared 
 him a layman ; and, as such, delivered him over to the 
 secular power, to conduct him to the place of punishment. 
 John Huss, by the order of Sigismund, was given up by the 
 Elector Palatine, vicar of tJie empire, to the chief magistrate 
 of Constance, who, in his turn, abandoned him to the officers 
 of justice. He walked between four town Serjeants to the 
 place of execution. The princes followed, with an escort
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 53 
 
 of eight hundred men, strongly armed ; and the concourse 
 of the people was so prodigious that a bridge was very 
 near breaking down under the multitude. ' In passing by 
 the episcopal palace, Huss beheld a great fire consuming 
 his books ; and he smiled at the sight. 
 
 " The place of punishment was a meadow adjoining the 
 gardens of the city, outside the gate of Gotleben. On ar- 
 riving there, Huss kneeled down and recited some of the 
 Penitential Psalms. Several of the people, hearing him 
 pray with fervor, said aloud, '"We are ignorant of this 
 man's crime ; but he offers up to God most excellent 
 prayers.' 
 
 '' When he was in front of the pile of wood which was 
 to consume his body he was recommended to confess his 
 sins. Huss consented, and a priest was brought to him, a 
 man of great learning and high reputation. The priest 
 refused to hear him unless he avowed his errors and re- 
 tracted. 'A heretic,' he observed, 'can neither give nor 
 receive the sacraments.' Huss replied, ' I do not feel my- 
 self to be guilty of any mortal sin ; and, now that I am on 
 the point of appearing before God, I will not purchase 
 absolution by a perjury.' 
 
 " When he wished to address the crowd in German, the 
 Elector Palatine opposed it, and ordered him to be forth- 
 with burned. 'Lord Jesus,' cried John Huss, 'I shall 
 endeavor to endure with humility this frightful death, 
 which I am awarded for thy holy gospel. Pardon all my 
 enemies.' Whilst he was praying thus, with his eyes raised 
 up to heaven, the paper crown fell off : he smiled ; but the 
 soldiers replaced it on his head, in order, as they declared, 
 that he might be burned with the devils whom he had 
 obeyed. 
 
 "Having obtained permission to speak to his keepers, 
 he thanked them for the good treatment he had received 
 at their hands. 'My brethren,' said he, 'learn that I firm- 
 ly believe in my Savior : it is in his name that I suffer ; and 
 this very day shall I go and reign with him.' 
 
 " His body was then bound with thongs, with which he 
 
 was firmly tied to a stake driven deep into the ground. 
 
 "When he was so affixed some persons objected to his 
 
 face being turned to the east, saying that this ought not to 
 
 5*
 
 54 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. _ 
 
 be, since he was a heretic. He was then untied and bound 
 again to the stake with his face to the west. His head 
 was held close to the wood by a chain smeared with soot, 
 and the view of which inspired him with pious reflections 
 on the ignominy of our Savior's sufferings. 
 
 " Fagots were then arranged about and Under his feet, 
 and around him was piled up a quantity of wood and straw. 
 When all these preparations were completed, the Elector 
 Palatine, accompanied by Count d'Oppenheim, marshal of 
 the empire, came up to him, and for the last time recom- 
 mended him to retract. But he, looking up to heaven, 
 said with a loud voice, ' I call God to witness, that I have 
 never either taught or written what those false witnesses 
 have laid to my charge. My sermons, my books, my writ- 
 ings have all been done with the sole view of rescuing 
 souls from the tyranny of sin ; and therefore most joy- 
 fully will I confirm with my blood that truth which I have 
 taught, written, and preached, and which is confirmed by 
 the divine law and the holy fathers. 7 
 
 " The elector and the marshal then withdrew, and fire 
 was set to the pile. ' Jesus, Son of the living God,' cried 
 John Huss, ' have pity on me ! ' He prayed and sung a 
 hymn in the midst of his torments; but soon after, the wind 
 having risen, his voice was drowned by the roaring of the 
 flames. He was perceived for some time longer moving 
 his head and lips, and as if still praying ; and then he 
 gave up the spirit. His habits were burned with him ; and 
 the executioners tore in pieces the remains of his body and 
 threw them back into the funeral pile until the fire had 
 absolutely consumed every thing. The ashes were then 
 collected together and thrown, into the Rhine." 
 
 Of these proceedings the council of Constance are the 
 real authors. So they regarded the case, and felt them- 
 selves called on to defend both themselves and Sigismund. 
 To effect this they passed two decrees one relating to 
 the impropriety of allowing a safe conduct to arrest trial 
 and punishment for heresy ; the other to defend Sigismund 
 for his treachery to John Huss, in authorizing his punish-
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 55 
 
 ment and giving him up to the magistrates of Constance 
 to be burned. In this second decree they not only state 
 the doctrine that no faith is to be kept with heretics, but 
 solemnly anathematize all who shall dare to call in ques- 
 tion the proceedings of the council or of Sigismund. 
 
 Concerning this Gieseler says, " To justify the emperor 
 for the infringement of his safe conduct, the council passed 
 the shameful decree, that no faith need be held with a 
 heretic." The following is a literal translation of these 
 decrees : 
 
 " This holy synod declares that no prejudice to the Cath- 
 olic faith can or ought to be produced, and no impediment 
 to ecclesiastical jurisdiction interposed, by any safe con- 
 duct given by the emperor, kings, and other secular pow- 
 ers to heretics or those charged with heresy, supposing 
 that they shall thus recall them from their errors, what- 
 ever be the obligation with which they have bound them- 
 selves. But, notwithstanding the said safe conduct, it shall 
 be lawful for a competent ecclesiastical judge to inquire 
 into the errors of such persons, and to proceed against 
 such errors in other ways, according to their deserts, and 
 to punish them as much as justice demands if they shall ob- 
 stinately refuse to recant their errors, although they came 
 to the place of trial relying on the safe conduct, and other- 
 wise would not have come." 
 
 The second decree is this : 
 
 "Whereas some ill-informed or ill-disposed persons, 
 or some accustomed, perhaps, to think themselves wiser 
 than they ought, not only assail his royal majesty with 
 slanderous tongues, but even, as it is said, this holy 
 council, saying or insinuating, publicly or privately, that 
 the safe conduct given by that most unconquerable prince 
 Lord Sigismund, King of the Romans and of Hungary, 
 to John Huss, that heresiarch of damnable memory, was 
 violated when it ought not to have been, contrary to 
 justice or honor ; when still the said John Huss, obsti-
 
 56 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 nately assailing the orthodox faith, had rendered him- 
 self undeserving of any safe conduct and privilege ; nor 
 ought any faith or promise to be observed to him, to the injury 
 of the Catholic faith, by any law, natural, divine, or human. 
 Therefore the said holy synod, by the terms of this decree, 
 declares that the aforesaid most unconquerable prince did 
 what was suitable according to the claims of justice, and 
 what was becoming his royal majesty, concerning the afore- 
 said John Huss, notwithstanding the aforesaid safe con- 
 duct ordaining and enjoining on all faithful Christians, 
 in general and in particular, that no one hereafter shall 
 reproach this sacred council or his royal majesty with 
 their conduct towards the aforesaid John Huss, or in any 
 way speak to their discredit. But whoever shall do 
 otherwise, let him be punished without mercy, as a sup- 
 porter of heresy and guilty of treason." 
 
 Notwithstanding, therefore, the accumulated protesta- 
 tion of the foreign universities to Mr. Pitt and the in- 
 dignation of Mr. Brownson, this infallible council has 
 taught the doctrine, in theory and practice,, that no faith 
 is to be kept with heretics ; and not only so, but they have 
 taught it as an article of faith, and declared him worthy 
 of punishment without mercy, as a heretic, if he denies it. 
 
 And why should not the council take this ground ? 
 Had it not been the avowed principle of the most influ- 
 ential pontiffs during that "glorious period," the middle 
 ages ? Had not other councils, in effect, decreed the same 
 thing ? I shall soon show that they had. If, then, these 
 things are so, there is presented to Mr. B., and to all other 
 Romanists, this dilemma either to adopt the maxim, or 
 to reject the authority of that church which has thus, by 
 sanctioning perjury in its basest form, alike invaded the 
 most sacred rights and outraged the most holy moral 
 convictions of God and man. 
 
 Nothing can be more decisive than this testimony ; yet 
 I will, for the sake of rendering assurance doubly sure,
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 57 
 
 proceed to adduce more " facts, names, and dates " on the 
 points involved. My additional witnesses will be Urban 
 VI., Innocent VIII., Innocent III., and the fourth Lateran 
 council. 
 
 POPE URBAN VI. VERSUS 0. A. BROWNSOX. 
 
 It would almost seem to have been the object of Urban 
 VI. to contradict Mr. Brownson's assertion in the strongest 
 possible terms. He lays down explicitly, and in the most 
 general terms possible, that no promises, covenants, leagues, 
 or engagements of any kind with heretics are to be re- 
 garded as of any binding force. 
 
 But who was Urban VI. ? He sat in the pontifical 
 chair from the year 1378 to the year 1389. He was a 
 Neapolitan, known by the name of Bartholomew Pregnano 
 before he ascended the Papal throne. He is found in 
 the list of Bishop Kenrick as the one hundred and ninety- 
 eighth pope. In that of M. Daunou he is the two hundred 
 and fifth. Both coincide in regarding him as one of the 
 genuine successors of Peter, through whom all manner of 
 truth and grace has come down even to the present 
 generation. 
 
 On the fourth year of his pontificate, on the third day 
 of the calends of April, and from the palace of St. Peter 
 at Rome, he issued a decree of great moment. To this I 
 invite the special attention of Mr. Brownson, and of all 
 who desire to judge of Mr. Brownson's orthodoxy as a 
 genuine Romanist. It is a matter of no small moment for 
 Mr. Brownson to look to it ; for, unless Pope Urban is mis- 
 taken, Mr. Brownson is at this time lying beneath the 
 indignation of Almighty God, and of the blessed Paul 
 and Peter, his apostles, for having dared to infringe and 
 contravene the decree of his sovereign lord the pope.
 
 58 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 As it is thus a matter intimately connected with the 
 salvation of his soul, that Mr. Brownson may have all the 
 means necessary for ascertaining his deplorable condition, 
 I would refer him to the decree in question, in order that 
 he may give it a careful examination. He will find it on 
 page 352 of the seventh volume of Rymer's Fcedera, begin- 
 ning thus : " Urbanus Episcopus, servus servorum Dei, ad 
 futuram rei memoriam ; " i. e., " Bishop Urban, the servant 
 of the servants of God, in order to keep the thing in 
 everlasting remembrance, issues this decree." Mr. Brown- 
 son can find a copy of this work in the law library of 
 Harvard College, and another in the college library of the 
 same institution. From the first I copy the substance of 
 the decree. 
 
 From the first and second sections of the decree it ap- 
 pears that, to nse the words of Urban, " Winceslaus, King 
 of the Romans and of Bohemia, and the most illustrious 
 Charles, Emperor of the Romans, had, either simultaneously 
 or in succession, entered into and made certain confedera- 
 tions, or contracts, or leagues, and agreements with divers 
 kings, princes, dukes, counts, chief men, nobles, and certain 
 others, and that some of these kings, princes, dukes, counts, 
 &c., either then were, or afterwards became, manifest schis- 
 matics, or heretics, and separated from the unity of the 
 holy Roman and universal church ; " therefore, in view of 
 these things, Bishop Urban was filled with deep anxiety 
 lest true Romanists should be shaken from the faith by in- 
 tercourse with such heretics, and felt himself called on to 
 issue this decree, " for the everlasting memory of the thing." 
 
 The great question to be settled, of course, was, in what 
 manner ought such confederations, or contracts, or leagues, 
 and agreements with heretics to be regarded and treated, 
 Are they binding, and to be observed in good faith ? or are 
 they null and void ?
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 59 
 
 In these circumstances, and with reference to this ques- 
 tion, Pope Urban issued his decree, and closed it with the 
 solemn assurance that the wrath of Almighty God, and of 
 the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, would rest on those 
 who with impious temerity should dare to resist or infringe 
 it. Now, that this is the very thing that Mr. Brownson 
 has done, I propose next to show. Let us, then, attend to 
 the solemn decision of the pope upon a point so grave. 
 He first proceeds in the most explicit and solemn manner 
 to state the general principles on which his decision was 
 to be based, and then to apply them to the case in question. 
 Notice his words : 
 
 " We therefore, in view of the fact that confederations, or 
 contracts, or- leagues, and agreements made with heretics of 
 this kind, or with schismatics, after they have become such, 
 are unreasonable, unlawful, and of right to be regarded as 
 not existing, (even although they may have been made be- 
 fore they fell into schism or heresy ;) and although they 
 may have been confirmed by an oath, or a solemn pledge 
 of fidelity, or by an apostolic confirmation, OB STRENGTH- 
 ENED BY ANY OTHER CONFIRMATION," &C. So much for 
 
 the statement of principles. And surely it is sufficiently 
 explicit to satisfy even the most confirmed sceptic. 
 
 Now for the practical application. On such grounds 
 the pontiff proceeds solemnly to declare, that " the king 
 and others who together with him may have entered into 
 or made such confederations, or contracts, or leagues, and 
 agreements, and to whom such confederations, or contracts, 
 or leagues, and agreements can be extended, or who have 
 or can have any interest in them, are absolved from them, 
 and OUGHT NOT TO OBSERVE THEM." 
 
 Nor is this all. In the third section the pontiff enjoini
 
 60 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 it upon the king to assail such heretics with his whole 
 power, on the ground that all communion with them 13 
 dangerous to the soul. 
 
 In the fourth section he declares that he is animated by 
 a motive similar to that which Mr. Brownson avows as 
 the mainspring of his zeal i. e., an earnest desire of 
 saving the soul of the king and of others from ruin by- 
 heresy. 
 
 In order, therefore, to effect so laudable a purpose, he 
 proceeds in the fifth section, in due form, to absolve the 
 king and all others from all obligation of any sort to keep 
 foith with heretics. Listen to his words : " We therefore, 
 by the tenor of these letters and by apostolic authority, 
 declare that the aforesaid king, and all others who are- or 
 can be concerned, have been and are wholly absolved from 
 the observance of such confederations, or contracts, or 
 leagues, and agreements, and are not bound to observe 
 them in the least degree. Moreover, so far as, de facto, 
 they have proceeded in them, we invalidate them, render 
 them void, and declare them to be destitute of all binding 
 power." 
 
 / 
 
 Nor is this enough. As if to make assurance doubly 
 sure, in the great work of saving souls, he proceeds in the 
 sixth section absolutely to forbid the observance of such 
 leagues and agreements. " Moreover, to avert dangers from 
 the soul of the Icing and all others concerned, we utterly forbid 
 them at all to regard such confederations, contracts, leagues, 
 and agreements, or to suffer them to be regarded by ot/iers." 
 
 He then elevates his mind to the contemplation of future 
 ages,.and considers the probability that ignorant or wicked 
 men, like Mr. Brownson, will assail the sublime principles 
 thus promulgated, and binds them to desist by a solemn
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 61 
 
 decree. Thus in the seventh section he proceeds : " We 
 decree that from this time, whatever shall be attempted in 
 opposition to us, by whomsoever undertaken, or by what- 
 ever authority, and whether ignorantly or intelligently, 
 shall be utterly devoid of authority and force." 
 
 Then in the eighth section follows his final warning to 
 all ages against so great a crime, and a denunciation of 
 his highest anathemas against its authors. " Let no man 
 dare to infringe this declaration or with foolhardy au- 
 dacity rush against it. But if any one shall presume to 
 attempt this deed, let him know that he will surely incur 
 the indignation of Almighty God and of his blessed 
 apostles Peter and Paul." 
 
 " Sub filis sericis Flavi, Rubique coloris, De Curia T. 
 Frabi." 
 
 The margin of Rymer informs us that the document in 
 question was copied from the original autographs. Who, 
 now, can read this decree and not be struck with the im- 
 minent peril in which the soul of Mr. Brownson is placed ? 
 For he has not only, dared in general to oppose the prin- 
 ciples of this decree, but utterly to denounce them as im- 
 pious and profane. Professor Park had ascribed to the 
 Roman Catholic church the advocacy of the very princi- 
 ples so clearly set forth by Pope Urban ; and Mr. Brown- 
 son, instead of recognizing them and standing up like a 
 man in defence of his sovereign lord the pope, Peter-like 
 denies him and Judas-like betrays him. Listen to his 
 daring words : 
 
 " ' No faith to be kept with heretics.' Where did the 
 professor learn that this is a maxim of Catholicity? It 
 is false. Catholicity knows no such maxim, and Catho- 
 lic history authorizes no inference that she practically 
 adopts or in the least conceivable manner countenances' 
 it. Individuals of bad faith may be found, no doubt, even 
 among Catholics ; but that Catholicity or Catholic doc-
 
 G2 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 tors any where countenance any thing of the sort is a 
 malignant falsehood. We are taught and required to 
 keep our faith with all men ; and faith plighted to a here- 
 tic can no more be broken without sin than faith plighted 
 to a true believer. We would that Protestants would 
 observe a tithe of the good faith towards Catholics that 
 Catholics do towards Protestants ; and, when they shall 
 do so, we give them free leave to abuse our morals to 
 their full satisfaction." 
 
 Here Mr. Brownson boldly declares that the maxim, 
 " that no faith is to be kept with heretics," is not a maxim 
 of Catholicity, and manifests an utter detestation of it. 
 Pope Urban declares that it is. Mr. Brownson declares 
 that " Catholic history authorizes no inference that she 
 practically adopts or in the least conceivable manner coun- 
 tenances it." Pope Urban declares that the wrath of 
 Almighty God and the blessed apostles Peter and Paul 
 shall rest upon all who dare to assail so fundamental a 
 doctrine. Mr. Brownson plainly declares that keeping 
 faith with heretics is a duty, and intimates that it is essen- 
 tial to the salvation of the soul. Pope Urban declares 
 that it is a crime, and enjoins the duty of violating faith 
 with heretics as essential to save the soul. Thus we see 
 that there is a direct and fatal collision between Pope 
 Urban VI. and Orestes A. Brownson, and that, if Pope Ur- 
 ban is right, the wrath of God is resting on Mr. Brownson. 
 
 Let no one say that there was no general council assem- 
 bled to confirm this decision of Pope Urban. It was given 
 ex cathedra, and was acquiesced in by all the bishops with- 
 out any known dissent. It is, therefore, a solemn decision 
 of the church ; and it is sustained by councils in abun- 
 dance. 
 
 And now let Mr. Brownson recall his public declara- 
 tions of his entire submission to the authority of the pope. 
 He has openly declared that for him it is liberty enough
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 63 
 
 to think as the pope thinks. And, in view of all the facts 
 in the premises, let him, if he dares, candidly answer the 
 following questions : 
 
 1. Does he believe that Pope Urban spoke the truth of 
 God, or that he promulgated the doctrines of devils ? 
 
 2. If he spoke the truth of God, then is not Mr. Brown- 
 sou under the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed 
 apostles Peter and Paul for his impious statements above 
 quoted ? And, as he is very anxious to save his soul, 
 ought he not at once and publicly to recant them ? 
 
 3. If Pope Urban spoke the doctrines of devils, then is 
 not his whole decree a specimen of the highest impiety 
 and blasphemy ever uttered in the name of God ? 
 
 4. Of what use is a head of the church when it is 
 necessary to reject his blasphemies to save the soul ? 
 
 5. By what rule can it be decided whether a pope 
 speaks the truth of God or utters the blasphemies of the 
 devil ? 
 
 If Mr. Brownson "will devote his energies to a careful 
 investigation of these questions, and will give them an 
 honest answer, then for his reward I will continue to pro- 
 pose similar questions till he shall have had a full oppor- 
 tunity to illustrate to the whole American people one of 
 the most important and practical questions of the age. 
 
 POPE INXOCEXT VIII. AXD THE WALDENSES. 
 
 We have seen, in the case of John Huss, and of Winces- 
 laus, and Charles, that the principle, "no faith is to be 
 kept with heretics," was not a mere theoretical principle. 
 It had a dread practical power. Nor are these solitary 
 instances of its terrific operation. 
 
 The fate of the Waldenses is too familiar to need an
 
 64 TIIE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 elaborate historical narration. I will simply present the 
 principles on which the head of the church dealt with 
 that people, whose only crime was disobedience to the 
 see of Rome. 
 
 Pope Innocent VIII., in preparing to consign to death, 
 not one martyr, but a whole body of Christians, thus com- 
 missions Albert de Capitaneis, Archdeacon of the church 
 of Cremona, as nuncio and commissioner of the apostolic 
 see, to labor, in concert with the inquisitor general, in the 
 extermination of the Waldenses. The pope subjects' to 
 his authority for this end all archbishops, bishops, their 
 vicars and chief officers. If ever a pope was called on to 
 act on the real principles of the church, it was in such a 
 case. For what end, then, are all these church powers 
 subjected to the legate of the pope ? Hear him : 
 
 " In order that they may be obliged with you and the 
 said inquisitor to take up arms against the said Walden- 
 ses and other heretics, and to come to an understanding 
 to crush them like venomous asps, and to contribute all 
 in their care to so HOLY and so necessary an extermi- 
 nation." 
 
 After this, can any one expect that any faith will be 
 kept with men all of whose rights are thus exterminated 
 at one blow ? The head of the Romish corporation then 
 proceeds to overturn all foundations of morality by ex- 
 cusing and sanctioning the sins of those who will labor 
 to exterminate the Waldenses, and declaring in express 
 terms that none are under any obligation to keep faith 
 with heretics. 
 
 " We give you power to have the crusade preached up 
 by fit men ; to grant that such persons as shall enter on 
 the crusade and fight against these same heretics, and 
 shall contribute to it, may gain plenary indulgence and 
 remission of all their sins once in their life, and also at
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 65 
 
 their death ; to command, in virtue of their holy obe- 
 dience, and under penalty of excommunication, all preach- 
 ers of God's word to animate and incite the same believers 
 to exterminate the pestilence, without sparing, by force 
 and by arms. "We further give you power to absolve 
 those who enter on the crusade, fight, or contribute to it, 
 from all sentences, censures, and ecclesiastical penalties, 
 general or particular, by which they may be bound, as 
 also to give them dispensation for any irregularity con- 
 tracted in divine matters, or for any apostasy, and to 
 enter into some terms of composition with them for the 
 goods which they may have secretly amassed, badly acquired, 
 or held doubtfully, applying them to the expenses attend- 
 ant on this extirpation of heretics ; * * * to concede 
 to each permission to lawfully seize on the property, real or 
 personal, of heretics ; also to command all being in the 
 service of these same heretics, in whatsoever place they 
 may be, to withdraw from it under whatever penalty you 
 may deem fit ; and by the same authority to declare that 
 they and all others who may be held and obliged by contract 
 or other manner to pay them any thing are not for the 
 future in any way obliged to do so ; and to deprive all 
 those refusing to obey your admonitions and commands, of 
 whatever dignity, state, order, and preeminence they may 
 possess, to wit, the ecclesiastics of their dignities, offices, 
 and benefices, and the laity of their hon-ors, titles, fefs, and 
 privileges, if they persist in their rebellion ; * * * 
 and to fulminate all kinds of censures, according as the 
 casein your judgment may demand ; * * * to absolve 
 and reestablish such as may wish to return to the lap of 
 the church, although they may have sworn to favor the 
 heretics, provided, taking the contrary oath, they promise 
 to abstain most carefully from doing so. * * * You, 
 therefore, beloved son, receiving with a devout spirit the 
 charge of so praiseworthy an affair, must show yourself 
 diligent and careful of word and deed in its execution. 
 Act so that by your acts, accompanied by the divine grace, 
 all may succeed in conformity with our expectation, and 
 that by your solicitude you may merit, not only the glory 
 which falls to the lot of those engaged in works of piety, 
 but that you also may be in far greater favor with us and 
 (5*
 
 66 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 the apostolic see on account of your very exact diligence 
 and "faithful integrity. 
 
 " Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, the year of the in- 
 carnation of our Lord 1487, fifth of the calends of May, 
 and the thirteenth year of our pontificate." 
 
 Let it be noticed here that we are not now considering 
 an individual of bad faith here and there among the 
 Catholics, such as Mr. Brownson admits may be found, 
 but the head of the church, laying down principles on 
 which all Romanists were to act. He authorizes his 
 legate to declare that it is lawful to seize on t/ie property, 
 reed or personal, of the heretics, and to declare that all 
 who may be held and obliged by contract or other manner 
 to pay them any thing are not for the future in any way 
 obliged to do so ; to absolve those who have sworn to favor 
 the heretics, provided, talcing t/ie contrary oath, they pr,om- 
 ise to abstain most carefully from doing so. Here robbery, 
 cheating, and perjury towards heretics in their grossest 
 forms are authorized by the head of the Romish corpora- 
 tion ; and in his bull the whole corporation and church 
 acquiesced : no dissent, no protest, was heard. Nay, more : 
 they carried out these principles, to their utmost extent, 
 without mitigation and without mercy. It is, therefore, 
 the voice of the Romish church and her act. And yet, in 
 view of such facts, Mr. Brownson has the audacity to say, 
 "'No faith to be kept with heretics.' Where did the 
 professor learn that this is a maxim of Catholicity? It 
 is false. Catholicity knows no such maxim, and Catholic 
 history authorizes no inference that she practically adopts 
 or in the least conceivable manner countenances it." 
 
 Is it to be supposed that Mr. Brownsou was ignorant of 
 these facts? Or was he acting on the principle, that a lie 
 for ecclesiastical utility is both defensible and meritorious? 
 If the latter, he is a proficient in this kind of morality.
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 67 
 
 POPE INNOCENT III. AND A GENERAL COUNCIL. 
 
 But let us go back a little farther, and we come to 
 another of the Innocents, who seem to have delighted to 
 exhibit the highest possible contrast between their name 
 and their deeds. We come to Innocent III. Let us listen 
 to him, for in his days the Papal corporation was at the 
 summit of its power ; and if it had any ideas of fidelity or 
 mercy towards those weak and defenceless Christians 
 whom they stigmatized as heretics, then it ought to have 
 developed itself. Hear him, then : " Whoever are bound 
 to those who have manifestly fallen into heresy by any 
 compact, confirmed by any degree of strength whatever, 
 let them know that they are absolved from all duty of 
 fidelity, homage, and all kinds of obedience to them." 
 
 These are the words of Innocent ; and from his decree 
 the principle passed into the canon law, from which I have 
 already quoted it, and where it still stands ; so that it 
 has not only the authority of Innocent, but of all the 
 popes who have sanctioned the canon law. 
 
 Nor is this all : the fourth council of the Lateran, 1215, 
 representing the whole of Christendom, has sanctioned 
 the same principle. Of this council Innocent III. was the 
 lord and life ; they did but register his decisions. Yet 
 the decisions of a pope, acquiesced in by a general coun- 
 cil, are those of the church ; and the decisions of this coun- 
 cil as to heretics have also been transferred to the canon 
 law, as any one may see who will compare cap. iii. De 
 Hereticis of the council with Decret. Greg., lib. v. tit. vii. 
 capit. xiii.-xv. 
 
 They in the first place anathematize all heretics simply 
 on the ground of heresy ; and in the whole chapter they 
 say nothing of any other offence. No sin against morals
 
 68 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 or good order is referred to ; the only sin is heresy. 
 Hear them : " We excommunicate and anathematize all 
 heresy that shall lift itself up against this sacred ortho- 
 dox Catholic faith which we have already set forth. We 
 condemn all heresies by whatever names they may be 
 called, fades quidem habentes diversas, sed caudas ad in- 
 vicem colligatas, quia de vanitate communicant in idipsum." 
 I give the elegant Latin of Innocent and the council in 
 part, that all may judge of the translation. It means, 
 " Having faces diverse, but tails tied together, because in 
 their vain conceptions they hold to the same thing in 
 essence i. e., the condemned heretics in aspect are vari- 
 ous, but agree in the belief of radical error." The coun- 
 cil then proceeds to the annihilation of all their rights 
 by consigning them to death, and then also to annihilate 
 the rights of their defenders, or friends, by cutting every 
 tie by which they are bound to human society unless they 
 assail the heretics, and by laying them open to every 
 possible aggression and insult, even if they are not cut off 
 by a cruel and violent death. 
 
 " Let all the secular powers be led, and if necessary 
 forced by ecclesiastical censure, to take an oath in public 
 for the defence of the faith, swearing to exert themselves 
 to exterminate from the countries subject to their jurisdic- 
 tion all the heretics designated by the church. Eah 
 person, when he has received any authority, whether spir- 
 itual or temporal, shall be bound to take this oath. 
 Should any temporal lord, when warned by the church, 
 neglect to purge his country of the stain of heresy, let 
 him be excommunicated by the archbishop and the pro- 
 vincial bishops ; and, should he refuse to give satisfaction 
 within the year, let advice be given of it to the sovereign 
 pontiff, in order that he may free the said lord's vassals 
 from their oath of fidelity and give his lands to Catholics, 
 in order that they may possess them without any contra- 
 diction and maintain them in the purity of the faith, after
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 69 
 
 having exterminated the heretics. Catholics who shall 
 take the cross to exterminate heretics shall enjoy the same 
 indulgences and the same holy privilege as they who 
 fight the infidels. He who listens to unbelievers, receives, 
 defends, and aids them, is excommunicated like them, and, 
 after a year has revolved, becomes infamous ipso jure. He 
 cannot from that moment be called to public employments 
 or councils ; he cannot rote for the election of inquisitors 
 or councillors ; he cannot even be admitted as a witness ; 
 he loses all faculty of acting as witness to a will, or of 
 accepting an inheritance or legacy. No person shall be 
 bound to appear before a court of law at his suit for any 
 affair whatever ; but he shall be forced to appear at the 
 demand of every one. Should he -be a judge, his sen- 
 tences shall not have any force, and no suit can legally be 
 brought before his tribunal ; if an advocate, he shall not 
 be permitted to defend : if a notary, the acts which he 
 passes shall be of no value, and they shall be condemned 
 with him who drew them. * * * All that shall not fly 
 those whom the church shall have thus noted shall also be 
 excommunicated : priests are not to administer to them 
 the holy sacraments, or give them ecclesiastical burial, or 
 receive their gifts and offerings, under pain of depo- 
 sition." 
 
 All this and more still stands in full force in the records 
 of the fourth Lateran council and in the canon law of 
 Home. And yet Mr. Brownson has the assurance to tell 
 us that it is no part of Romanism. 
 
 Her more general maxim, that no oath contrary to ec- 
 clesiastical utility is binding, I shall now proceed to con- 
 sider. 
 
 THE LAW OF ECCLESIASTICAL UTILITY. INNOCENT III. 
 ALEXANDER III. THIRD LATERAN COUNCIL.- 
 
 We have considered some of the evidence furnished by 
 popes, general councils, and the canon law, that Romanism 
 did adopt and sanction, both in theory and practice, that
 
 70 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 no faith is to be kept with heretics. "We have seen, too, 
 in the case of John Huss and the Waldenses, that mere 
 doctrinal correctness and exemplary piety were no defence 
 against the charge of heresy, if the authority of the pope 
 and the Roman corporation were denied. This arrogant 
 and usurping corporation has, in all ages, made obedience 
 to themselves the chief test of orthodoxy. Give them 
 supreme power to rule and tax the Christian world, and 
 all is well, even though the clergy shall be a disgrace to 
 the name of God and a scandal to the civilized world. 
 This is the key to the unspeakable bitterness and cruelty 
 with which that corporation has hunted down heretics 
 from age to age. They have arrogated to themselves the 
 place of God upon earth, and made disobedience to their 
 authority equivalent to high treason against God, and 
 have treated it as a crime so enormous as to forfeit every 
 right, and justify every kind of violence and cruelty in 
 its extermination. The fundamental element, therefore, 
 in this system, is an exaggeration of the importance of the 
 Romish corporation above all other interests in the uni- 
 verse, be they those of God or man. God has never, even 
 for the highest sins against himself, authorized a violation 
 of faith ; no, not even to his bitterest enemies. But a re- 
 bellion against the Pope and Bishops of Rome is a sin that 
 cannot be forgiven ; and to him who is guilty of it, the 
 most solemn oaths, vows, and covenants are no defence. 
 Pope Urban tells us they must be regarded as not in ex- 
 istence. Nothing must be allowed to shield the guilty 
 rebel from the bloody vengeance of Rome. Such is the 
 real philosophy of this maxim of that abandoned and 
 profligate corporation. 
 
 But the same cause that led to this specific principle 
 would lead, of necessity, to a principle still more general ; 
 i. e., that no oath contrary to ecclesiastical utility is of
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 71 
 
 any force ; that is, all principles of truth and integrity in 
 the universe are of less importance than the interests of 
 the Romish corporation. Moreover, of what these inter- 
 ests demand, that corporation is the only judge. That 
 this maxim, also, has been adopted and practised on by 
 that corporation, there is evidence ample and explicit. 
 
 The principle is laid down in express terms in the canon 
 law, Decret. Greg., lib. ii. tit. xxiv. cap. xxvii. : " Juramen- 
 tum contra utUitatem ecclesiasticam prcestitum non tenet." 
 " An oath taken contrary to ECCLESIASTICAL UTILITY is not 
 binding." This is the general principle, as stated in the 
 caption of the canon. In the body the principle is thus 
 expressed : " Non j uramenta sed perjuria potius sunt dicenda, 
 qiiae, contra utUitatem ecclesiasticam adtentantur." " Oaths 
 taken contrary to ecclesiastical utility are not to be re- 
 garded as oaths, but perjuries." This part of the canon 
 law is taken from the decisions of the notorious Innocent 
 III., the same who first laid down in scientific form the 
 detestable maxim, that no faith is to be kept with heretics. 
 Still, however, he is not entitled to the infamy of origi- 
 nating the maxim in its present form. This infamy prop- 
 erly belongs to the third Lateran council, under Alexander 
 III. - It there occurs in this form : "Non enim dicenda sunt 
 juramenta sed potius perjuria, qua contra utUitatem ecclesias- 
 ticam, et sanctorum patrum veniunt institua." " Those oaths 
 which operate against ecclesiastical utility and the insti- 
 tutions of the holy fathers are not to be called oaths, but 
 rather perjuries." Here, then, there is a concurrence of a 
 general council, the decrees of Innocent III., and the au- 
 thority of all the popes who have sanctioned the canon 
 law, in establishing this as a maxim of the Romish corpo- 
 ration. And, inasmuch as they are the only judges of 
 what ecclesiastical utility is, this principle gives them full
 
 72 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 power to dissolve all oaths of every kind which they 
 deem inconsistent with their own interests. 
 
 A principle more thoroughly immoral and profligate 
 than this cannot be conceived. But it was not one whit 
 more immoral and profligate than the practice to which 
 it gave rise. Hallam remarks, with no less truth than 
 severity, that " this maxim gave the most unlimited priv- 
 ilege to the popes of breaking all faith of treaties which 
 thwarted their interest or passion a privilege which 
 they continually exercised." 
 
 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. THOMAS A BECKET. 
 
 Let us, then, for a commentary on this principle, turn to 
 the page of history. During the pontificate of this same 
 Alexander III., Henry II., of England, established, at the 
 council of Clarendon, certain ordinances designed to de- 
 fend the rights of the king and civil powers of England 
 over the clergy, against the arrogant invasions of the Pa- 
 pacy. Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, sol- 
 emnly accepted and signed these ; but the pope decided 
 that they were against "ecclesiastical utility." Becket 
 forthwith professed sorrow for his oath to the pope, and 
 the pope absolved him from it. What the meaning of ec- 
 clesiastical utility is in this case, in the opinion of Alex- 
 ander III., the lord of the third Lateran council, is per- 
 fectly plain. It is the right to exempt his bishops and 
 clergy from the control of the civil government under 
 which they live, in a manner which not an existing gov- 
 ernment on earth will now allow. The ordinances of 
 Henry II. were right. The oath of Thomas a Becket was 
 not in opposition to the law of God, but in strict accord-
 
 % TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 73 
 
 ance with it ; for God commands ecclesiastics, as well as 
 others, to be subject to the laws of their legitimate civil 
 rulers. The pope, therefore, authorized and required of 
 Becket perjury ; and the Archbishop of Canterbury did 
 perjure himself out of a regard to ecclesiastical utility ; 
 that is, the ambitious plans of the pope. 
 
 POPE PASCAL II. 
 
 But in doing this he followed illustrious precedents. 
 Pope Pascal II. carried on a long conflict with Henry V. 
 on the subject of investitures. At last Henry took him 
 captive, and would not release him till he and sixteen car- 
 dinals signed a treaty, by which he guarantied to the em- 
 peror the right of investiture, provided he mingled no 
 simony with it. He also crowned the emperor, and sol- 
 emnly bound himself never to excommunicate him. The 
 oath was taken in the most solemn form conceivable. The 
 communion was celebrated at the time of the coronation. 
 When the host was broken, the pope, taking a part, and 
 giving a part to the emperor, said, " As this part of the 
 living body is divided, so let him be divided from the 
 kingdom of Christ and of God who shall attempt to vio- 
 late this covenant." Nor was this all : the pope, after he 
 had regained his liberty, renewed the same oath. (See Dau- 
 nou, Court of Rome, p. 98.) Here, then, we have the head 
 of the church bound by the most solemn oath that the 
 mind of man can conceive. Moreover, all that the pope 
 had promised was to give up usurped powers, to which he 
 never had the slightest legal claim, and which had been 
 secured only by falsehood and forgery. Without an oath 
 it was his duty to renounce these usurped powers, much 
 7
 
 74 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 more with one so solemnly sanctioned over the body ol 
 Christ. 
 
 But before "ecclesiastical utility" what can stand? 
 The most solemn oaths, touched by this magic wand, be- 
 eome a rope of sand. The oath of Pascal brought upon 
 aim the bitter censures of the Roman clergy. Hear, now, 
 the narrative of the sequel, from the powerful and justly 
 earcastic pen of a Roman Catholic : "Now, the head of 
 the church suffers himself to be accused of double dealing. 
 He retires to Terracina to weep over his sin. He suffers 
 the cardinals to annul his decrees and promises. He is 
 going (so he says) to abdicate the tiara. Happily this 
 purpose is opposed ; and such is the docility of the pon- 
 tiff, that he consents with resignation to retain the power, 
 so that he may have the opportunity to make a better use 
 of it. Finally, in a council, he revoked the treaty which 
 he had the misfortune to subscribe. Nevertheless he re- 
 fuses personally to excommunicate Henry V., so great, even 
 yet, were his scruples to violate an engagement. The 
 cardinals, they pronounced this anathema in the presence 
 of Pascal." Daunou, p. 99. 
 
 The records of the council in Binius show that Pascal 
 submitted all his proceedings to the council and that they 
 absolved him from his oath. "We all," say they, "in 
 this sacred council, assembled with our lord the pope, in 
 accordance with the decision of the Holy Spirit, condemn 
 it (i. e., the covenant) with canonical censure and by ec- 
 clesiastical authority. We decide that it is null and void. 
 We annihilate its binding force ; and, that it may be utter- 
 ly destitute of authority and power, we utterly excommu- 
 nicate (!) it." 
 
 " When this result was read, the whole council cried 
 out, Amen ! Amen ! So be it ! so be it ! " Binius, vol. iii. 
 part ii. p. 445.
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 75 
 
 What oath now can stand before such principles of per- 
 jury ? If the highest ecclesiastic swears a solemn oath to 
 his king, the pope can absolve him from it. If the pope 
 swears a solemn oath to an emperor, he has only to call a 
 council, and they absolve him from it. In blasphemous 
 mockery of the Holy Ghost, they dissolve and excommu- 
 nicate the oath by his divine authority. 
 
 THE PROCESS SIMPLIFIED. PAUL IV. AND OTHERS. 
 
 But at last it was discovered that this formality of a 
 council was needless. The pope found out that he not 
 only had the authority to absolve others from their oaths, 
 but that he had also full authority to absolve himself from 
 any oath whatever. This greatly simplified the whole 
 business. Take an example from Edgar, Variations, p. 
 249 : "Paul IV., in 1555. absolved himself from an oath 
 which he had taken in the conclave. His holiness had 
 sworn to make only four cardinals, but violated his obli- 
 gation. His supremacy declared that the pontiff could 
 not be bound, or his authority limited, even by an oath. The 
 contrary he characterizes ' as a manifest heresy.' " (Paolo, 
 ii. xxvii.) Indeed, so common was it to violate solemn oaths 
 taken in conclave among the cardinals before election, 
 binding whoever was elected pope to comply with certain 
 conditions, that it became the regular course of events. 
 Indeed, I am not aware that any pope was ever guilty, in 
 such circumstances, of the heresy of feeling himself bound 
 by the most solemn oath that it is possible to take. 
 
 Of course the principle of ecclesiastical utility was ex- 
 tended to all other oaths that were deemed injurious to 
 the interests of the Romish corporation. Edgar, p. 251, 
 illustrates this use of the principle : " Clement, in 1526,
 
 76 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 absolved Francis II., the French king, from a treaty which 
 he had formed in Spain. The Emperor of Germany had 
 taken his Christian majesty a prisoner in the battle of 
 Pavia and carried him to Madrid. The conditions of his 
 engagement, which were disadvantageous, Francis con- 
 firmed by an oath. This engagement, however, the pon- 
 tiff, by his apostolic power, soon dissolved, for the purpose 
 of gaining the French king as an ally in a holy confed- 
 eracy which his infallibility had organized against the 
 German emperor." Before " ecclesiastical utility " the 
 power of a solemn oath, not to a heretic, but to a Cath- 
 olic king, melted away. 
 
 Of course a Mahometan sultan could expect no better 
 treatment. Ladislaus, King of Hungary, formed a treaty 
 with the Sultan Amurath, and the king and sultan con- 
 firmed it by mutual oaths on the Gospels and the Koran. 
 Eugenius IV., by his legate Julian, declared it in the high- 
 est degree criminal to observe an oath so much opposed to 
 " ecclesiastical utility." " I absolve you," said the legate, 
 " from perjury, and sanctify your arms." " The sultan, it 
 is said, displayed a copy of the violated treaty in the front 
 of battle, implored the protection of the God of truth, and 
 called aloud on the prophet Jesus to avenge the mockery 
 of his religion and authority." (Edgar, p. 251.) The re- 
 sult was the defeat and death of Ladislaus. When all liars 
 are cast into the lake of fire, where will Eugenius, the 
 teacher of perjury, be found ? 
 
 Take another instance from Hallam, Middle Ages, p. 293, 
 note. Piccininio, the famous condottiere of the fifteenth 
 century, had promised not to attack Francis Sforza, at 
 that time at war with the pope. Eugenius IV. (the same 
 excellent person who had annulled the compactata with the 
 Hussites, releasing those who had sworn to them, and who 
 afterwards made the King of Hungary break his treaty
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 77 
 
 with Amurath II.) absolves him from his promise, on the 
 express ground that a treaty disadvantageous to the 
 church ought not to be kept. 
 
 Of course, if " ecclesiastical utility " can dissolve oaths 
 of popes, archbishops, and kings, it can dissolve all oaths 
 of allegiance, not merely to heretical rulers, but to all 
 who act against the ambition, pride, or passions of the 
 pope. 
 
 On this ground, Gregory VII., in the third Roman coun- 
 cil, excommunicated Henry IV., and dissolved all oaths 
 of allegiance between him and his subjects. His words 
 are : " I absolve all Christians from the obligations of the 
 oath which they have taken or shall take to him, and I 
 forbid any one to obey him as king." The same thing was 
 repeated in the seventh Roman council. Nor has the 
 church of Rome ever condemned these proceedings. Nay, 
 Paul V. canonized Gregory VII., and inserted an office in 
 the Roman breviary praising his holiness " for freeing the 
 Emperor Henry's subjects from the oath of fidelity." Thus 
 the praise of the doctrine of perjury was solemnly intro- 
 duced into the worship of the Romish church. Alexander, 
 Clement, and Benedict sanctioned the transactions of 
 Paul. 
 
 The same doctrine was sanctioned by the coincident ac- 
 tion of the first general council of Lyons, and the pope, 
 the highest authority in the Romish church. Innocent 
 IV., in the presence of the sacred council, pronounced 
 sentence of deposition on Frederic II., and declared all 
 his subjects absolved from their oaths of allegiance ; for- 
 bade any to obey or aid him as emperor or king ; and de- 
 clared that all who should be guilty of obeying or aiding 
 him should, ipso facto, be excommunicated, and directed 
 the electors to choose a successor. But there is not room 
 to give in detail the particulars and the results of this
 
 78 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 abominable transaction. Nor have I designed to detail 
 all the cases in which the same principles were reduced to 
 practice by the popes and councils from the time of Greg- 
 ory VII. to Pius VII.' Time would fail me to complete 
 such an enumeration. It would present at least twenty 
 cases of teaching perjury on the great scale, by professing 
 to dissolve national oaths. But the facts are too noto- 
 rious to need more than a general reference. 
 
 THE FINAL ISSUE. 
 
 What, then, will Mr. Brownson say ? Will he admit 
 that the popes and general councils of the Romish church 
 did, in the name of God, mislead the whole world for 
 centuries on the most fundamental point of morals and 
 religion ? or will he defend their doctrine ? One or the 
 other he must do ; for the facts admit of no denial. 
 
 Is the pope indeed the vicar of God ? Does he, accord- 
 ing to the canon law, " fill the place, not of a mere man, 
 but of the true God on earth " ? (" Non puri hominis sed 
 veri Dei vicem gerit in terris ; " Decret. Greg., lib. i. tit. vii. 
 cap. iii.) Then let Mr. Brownson listen to the voice of 
 Gregory as he inveighs "against the insanity of those who 
 with impious mouth prate that the authority of the sacred 
 and apostolic see cannot absolve any one from his oath of 
 fidelity." (" Contra illorum insaniam, qui, nefando ore, 
 garriunt auctoritatem sanctae et apostolicas sedis non po- 
 tuisse quemquam a sacramento fidelitatis ejus absolvere.") 
 Let him listen to the voice of Innocent X. as he declares 
 that " the Roman pontiff can invalidate civil contracts, 
 promises,' or oaths made by Catholics to heretics, and that 
 simply because they are heretics ; " and " that to deny the 
 proposition is heresy and an attack upon the pontifical
 
 TESTIMONY ADDUCED. 79 
 
 authority in questions relating to the faith, deserving of 
 the severest punishment." Let him listen to the voice of 
 Gregory IX., the father of the five books of decretals, as 
 he declares that " none should keep faith with the person 
 who opposes God and the saints." Let him, in addition to 
 this, faithfully study the canon law of his own church and 
 the decrees of her general councils, and then reconcile 
 his own statements with a due regard to historical truth 
 if he can. If he was so utterly ignorant of the history 
 and principles of his own church as to write what he did 
 in sincerity, then an intelligent public can judge how much 
 confidence ought to be reposed in his other historical 
 statements. If he did understand the history and princi- 
 ples of his own church, then either he adopts the maxim, 
 that no faith is to be kept with heretics, as an excuse for 
 his assertions, or else he has dared to make them without 
 even the shadow of an excuse. 
 
 MORAL EFFECTS OF SUCH PRINCIPLES. 
 
 The effects on the morals of the community of such 
 principles and such examples as I have described were 
 such as might have been expected. When seventeen of 
 the heads of the church were perjurers, and popes and 
 councils taught perjury on principle, the hope of producing 
 in the common mind a sacred regard for truth would be 
 just about as reasonable as to suppose that the example 
 of the orgies of Venus would produce chastity, or the 
 worship of Bacchus temperance. 
 
 Of the eleventh century Guilelmus says, "Faith was not 
 found on earth. All flesh had corrupted their way. Jus- 
 tice, equity, virtue, sobriety, and the fear of God perished, 
 and were succeeded by violence, fraud, circumveTition,
 
 80 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 stratagem." In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, ac- 
 cording to Morlaix, "Piety and religion seemed to bid 
 adieu to man ; and for these were substituted treachery, 
 fraud, impurity, rapine, schism, quarrels, war, and assas- 
 sination." St. Bernard speaks of "perjury" as one of the 
 leading characteristics of the degenerate ecclesiastics of 
 his day. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the 
 same state of things is found. Petrarch laments the 
 " general destruction in his day of all integrity, justice, hon- 
 esty, and fear of God." Mariana says, " The most dreadful 
 outrages, perfidy and treason, were better recompensed 
 than the brightest virtue. THE WICKEDNESS OF THE PON- 
 TIFF DESCENDED TO THE PEOPLE." And what else could 
 we expect ? Fordun says, " Inferiors devoted themselves 
 to malediction and perjury. Superiors studied to oppress 
 their underlings in every possible manner." Antonius, in 
 his oration before the council of Trent, says, speaking of 
 the state of the community in the sixteenth century, 
 " Usury, fraud, &c., enjoyed distinction : worldly and per- 
 verse men, encouraged in their wickedness, boasted of 
 their villany." Let it be well noted that none of this is 
 Protestant testimony. Nothing can be more full and ex- 
 plicit than the testimony of Romanist writers on this 
 point. I have given but a small specimen from abundant 
 stores.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 APPEAL FOR JUDGMENT TO ALL TRUE AMERICANS. 
 
 A PART of the evidence which it was ray purpose to 
 adduce has been presented. Before I proceed to make 
 additional statements, I ask leave to say a few words to 
 my Protestant fellow-countrymen throughout this nation. 
 
 In the providence of God, you are placed in circum- 
 stances of great interest and responsibility. You are 
 called on to judge of the character of the Papal corpora- 
 tion, not as a theme of abstract speculation, not as a mere 
 historical question, but as a matter of individual and per- 
 sonal as well as of general interest. You have sought 
 no war with the Papacy ; but the Papacy has declared war 
 on you and on your children. This nation, as a Protes- 
 tant nation, has commenced an attack upon no religious 
 system, but has proclaimed equal rights to all ; but upon 
 us, as a Protestant nation, the Papal corporation and their 
 agents have commenced an attack. 
 
 They declare that the territory which we occupy be- 
 longs to them and to their lord the pope. They declare 
 that we Protestants have invaded their territory, but that 
 they have never relinquished their claims to it, but intend 
 yet to make them good. 
 
 How great their power may be to execute these 
 schemes this is not the place to consider. If we may 
 
 (81)
 
 82 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 trust their own statements, they regard it as adequate and 
 their success as sure. 
 
 One thing, at least, is certain the system still wields 
 immense power throughout the world ; and as it is or- 
 ganized by a permanent central power, sustained by the 
 society of the Jesuits and other extensive combinations, it 
 has greatly the advantage over unorganized resistance, or 
 resistance of men not aware of the depth of its principles 
 of perfidy and treachery. 
 
 There is, therefore, no more important point in this 
 whole controversy than that which meets you here. 
 Charges have been laid before you and evidence adduced ; 
 and now you are called on to give judgment. Linked in 
 with this evidence is proof of the use made of such prin- 
 ciples of treachery in the work of persecution and blood- 
 shed. 
 
 From a regard to our national welfare, you are called 
 on, then, to judge fairly, but fearlessly and thoroughly, of 
 the true character and the fundamental principles of this 
 corporation. Nor is this all. The interests of humanity, 
 and the dishonor and wrongs of the martyrs of past ages, 
 equally demand such a judgment from you ; and to this 
 work you are summoned by the providence of God. 
 
 You occupy, therefore, a station of peculiar dignity 
 and of immense responsibility. A judgment is demanded 
 of you, based upon the highest principles of historical 
 truth and justice, and invested with the highest power of 
 moral emotion. 
 
 And now I ask, in view of the evidence adduced, Is it 
 not manifest that the Romish corporation do avowedly 
 place their own interests, as a corporation, above all other 
 interests whatever? Do they not declare that all who 
 dissent from their views and renounce their authority are
 
 APPEAL FOR JUDGMENT TO ALL TRUE AMERICANS. 83 
 
 by that act at once disfranchised ot all their rights ? All 
 obligations of veracity and fidelity towards them cease. 
 Their rights of protection and defence are vacated. They 
 are at once outlawed and intestate. Nay, more : to massacre 
 and exterminate them is a duty. 
 
 Are not these things so, according to the constitutional 
 law of this corporation ? And is it not a dictate of justice, 
 as well as of common sense, to judge of such a corporation 
 by its constitutional law, and not by the irresponsible state- 
 ments of interested apologists ? 
 
 Moreover, have not these principles been imbodied in 
 facts on a most stupendous scale for at least seven cen- 
 turies ? and have not leagues, and bonds, and covenants 
 been broken ? Have not fraud and delusion been employed, 
 and has not the blood of millions been shed, under the in- 
 fluence of these principles ? 
 
 Is not this corporation, therefore, responsible this day 
 before God and before man for these principles and for 
 their results ? Do you not judge of any national admin- 
 istration, whether whig or democratic, by their avowed 
 principles and measures as carried out in fact, and not by 
 the plausible statements of interested partisans here and 
 there ? Ought you not to judge of this corporation on 
 the same principle ? And if you thus judge it, can you 
 come to any other conclusion than that it is a conspiracy 
 against the interests, and rights, and even the lives of all 
 who disown their sway, which no principles of veracity or 
 integrity can bind ? 
 
 If the voice of blood could cry from the ground, if the 
 slaughtered millions who have been disfranchised by them, 
 and who have fallen on the plains of France, Spain, Holland, 
 and northern Italy, or have closed their lives in dungeons 
 or in the autos dafe of the Inquisition, could call aloud to 
 you, they would say, " Be not deceived : we know by sad and
 
 84 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 "bloody experience the reality and the relentless power of 
 those principles in the hands of that despotism on which, 
 in the providence of God, you are now called to sit in 
 iudgment. Awake, then, from all delusions, and, at the call 
 of divine Providence, exercise righteous judgment for God 
 and for humanity. Be not outwitted. Let no plausible 
 pretences or smooth evasions turn you aside from a deep 
 and thorough scrutiny of the facts of the case." 
 
 Consider, then, in the first place, that there have been 
 laid before you, not the mere assertions of single in- 
 dividuals like Mr. Brownson and Charles Butler, nor of 
 scholastic bodies devoid of authority like the foreign 
 universities, nor of individual bishops. There have been 
 laid before you solemn and authentic decisions of the 
 highest and most authoritative bodies known in the Roman 
 world. The constitution of the United States is not more 
 a standard of judgment as to the principles of this nation 
 than are these decisions as to the principles of the RomisL 
 system. Nor can any pope or council hereafter condemn 
 and rescind them as false. Such an act would be suicidal. 
 It would be a public confession that the pope and a coun- 
 cil are fallible. Nay, more : that they have taught the 
 doctrines of devils on points of the highest moment. It 
 is, therefore, death to the system to condemn and renounce 
 tfiese decisions as false. 
 
 2. Consider, also, that these are only a specimen from a 
 great storehouse of similar facts. It would be tedious 
 to adduce all the evidence that -exists, especially in the 
 form of Papal acts, assuming and based on these principles. 
 For long centuries they were the established principles and 
 practice of the Papal world, in connection with thek indred 
 doctrine of the persecution and slaughter of heretics. 
 They were announced by the greatest of the popes, acqui- 
 esced in by bishops, confirmed by general and provincial
 
 APPEAL FOR JUDGMENT TO ALL TEUE AMERICANS. 85 
 
 councils, and introduced into the canon law, and carried 
 into effect, without remorse and without ecclesiastical 
 protest, for long ages. 
 
 3. Consider once more, and this is a point of the deep- 
 est and most thrilling interest, that nothing but want of 
 power prevented their thorough application to all Euro- 
 pean Protestants as they were applied to the Albigenses 
 and the Waldenses. Repeated leagues and conspiracies 
 of the Romish powers of Europe were formed, and false- 
 hood and treachery were unsparingly used, to effect this 
 purpose. The massacre of St. Bartholomew was the re- 
 sult of such a conspiracy ; and it was effected by the use 
 of the most detestable fraud to delude and entrap the too 
 confiding Protestants of France. 
 
 A reconciliation was treacherously proposed between 
 the Protestants and Romanists. It was to be inaugurated 
 and confirmed by the marriage of Henry, the leader of the 
 Protestants and King of Navarre, to Margaret, the sister 
 of Charles IX., the Popish King of France. Under this 
 pretext, multitudes of Protestants, and Coligny, their great 
 general, were allured to Paris. Such were the assurances 
 of friendship made by Charles, and his mother, Catharine 
 de Medici, the infamous author of the plot, that he and all 
 the Protestants were thrown entirely off their guard and 
 led blindfolded into the toils of Popish malignity and 
 treachery. Then followed scenes of horror unprecedented 
 in the history of man. At midnight the tocsin tolled ; and 
 at the signal the work of slaughter began. The streets 
 of Paris were deluged with blood. From Paris, as from 
 a centre, the massacre spread through France. Upon such 
 a scene of infernal treachery and bloodshed the angels 
 of God never looked down before. A thrill of horror 
 pervaded the Protestant world. 
 
 From the same principles and conspiracy came the mas-
 
 86 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 sacres perpetrated by the Duke of Alva in the Nether- 
 lands. Hence came the Inquisition hence the Spanish 
 Armada. Hence came the plot to destroy the King of 
 England and the Houses of Lords and Commons by one 
 tremendous explosion of gunpowder, ever since known as 
 the infamous Gunpowder Plot. 
 
 4. Consider still more attentively the great fact, that all 
 such acts of treachery, fraud, and violence, outraging alike 
 truth and justice, God and man, were regarded by the 
 Pope and court of Rome as the discharge of an exalted 
 Christian duty. The treachery and massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew, in particular, were commemorated, among other 
 religious services, by a Te Deum, as well as by the casting 
 of two medals, with inscriptions commemorative of the 
 defj$f. On one side of one of the medals was the inscrip- 
 tion, Virtus in rebelles " Valor against rebels." On the 
 other, Pietas excitavit justitiam '"Piety aroused justice." 
 On another coin issued by Pope Gregory is seen an 
 angel, armed with a sword and a cross, attacking the her- 
 etics. Thus the pope gave the sanction of God and his 
 angels to this infamous deed of treachery and blood. 
 
 5. Consider once more, that in view of all the preced- 
 ing facts, even according to their own doctrines, the Rom- 
 ish corporation and all who choose to remain Romanists 
 are irretrievably committed to the avowal and defence of 
 these principles and their practical results. There is no 
 one point which they urge on us so incessantly as the in- 
 dispensable necessity of this infallible corporation to set- 
 tle the canon of the Bible and the rest of the rule of faith, 
 and then to interpret them and promulgate infallibly the 
 true doctrines of the church. This is, as I have shown, 
 the central point, the very life, of the system. And now, 
 will they turn around and repudiate the decisions of this 
 very infallible body, to whom they are urging us to sub-
 
 APPEAL FOR JUDGMENT TO ALL TRUE AMERICANS. 87 
 
 mit in order to escape endless perdition ? Will they con- 
 cede the fallibility of their church in a case the most mo- 
 mentous that the mind of man can conceive ? A sacred 
 regard to truth is the great bond of human society. But 
 not only to violate truth, but to do it as a means of mur- 
 der, and that on a scale of terrific magnitude, is the estab- 
 lished doctrine and practice of the Romish corporation. 
 If, in a case so momentous as this, they have deluged the 
 nations with blood by their false and damnable doctrines, 
 then what shadow of confidence do they deserve in any 
 other case ? 
 
 The only logical course by which any Romanist can 
 avoid a rejection of this corporation is to advocate and 
 defend the principles themselves. 
 
 Yet such principles are in thfs age so odious and ob- 
 noxious, especially in Great Britain and in this country, 
 that every effort has been made to escape from this po- 
 sition. 
 
 To these efforts I shall next call your attention.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE GALLICAN, OR FRENCH, DOCTRINE. 
 
 To understand this, it is necessary to consider a few 
 historical facts. In consequence of the extreme despotism 
 and corruption of the Pope and court of Rome, an effort 
 was made a little before the reformation to limit his power 
 and to reform his court. At the council of Constance, 
 by a solemn decree, a general council was declared su- 
 perior to the pope, and authorized to reform him and his 
 court. Even the Romish world were driven to this course 
 by the extremity of his despotism. But, after the coun- 
 cil rose, the centralizing power of the pope, operating 
 steadily, baffled their efforts ; and the Papal court has ever 
 since repudiated their decree. 
 
 After the reformation, Louis XIV., of France, the most 
 powerful monarch of the age, determined to make another 
 effort to limit the power of the pope. He therefore aimed 
 a blow at the doctrine of the pope's supremacy over kings. 
 Up to this time, that supremacy, and the consequent right 
 of deposing them and of absolving their subjects from 
 their oaths, had been the firmly-established doctrine of the 
 Romish system. But, under the influence of Louis, the 
 Romish clergy of France, in 1682, made a declaration, in 
 which, among other things, they declared that " kings and 
 sovereigns are not subjected to any ecclesiastical power 
 by the order of God in temporal things ; and their sub- 
 
 (88)
 
 THE GALLICAN, OB FRENCH, DOCTRINE. 89 
 
 jects cannot be released from the obedience which they 
 owe them, nor absolved from their oath of allegiance." 
 
 The Pope and the court of Borne were, of course, indig- 
 nant in the extreme. By a multitude of writers they viru- 
 lently assailed the declaration, and threatened anathemas 
 and excommunications. 
 
 But Louis rallied his forces for the defence of his clergy. 
 By an edict, he forbade all persons, secular and regular, 
 subjects or strangers, throughout his dominions, to teach 
 or write any thing contrary to this declaration, and com- 
 manded his whole clergy to inculcate and defend the doc- 
 trine therein contained. 
 
 No doubt Louis would have been deposed and his bish- 
 ops excommunicated by the pope had he not feared to see 
 France in revolt from him, after the example of England. 
 He feared to see Louis XIV. walking in the steps of Hen- 
 ry VIII. He therefore endured what he could not pre- 
 vent. Yet, for some time, he refused to send bulls of in- 
 stitution to French bishops newly elected until they wrote 
 to him, each for himself, protesting that the clergy of 
 France did not intend to make a decree of faith by their 
 declaration, and assuring him of their profound submis- 
 sion to the rights of the holy chair. 
 
 The doctrine of this declaration is called, indifferently, 
 the Gallican, or the French, or the Cisalpine, doctrine. 
 That of the court of Rome is called the Italian, or Trans- 
 alpine, doctrine. It is, in fact, the doctrine of the popes 
 of the middle ages. Of the Gallican doctrine, the chief 
 defender was the celebrated Bossuet. 
 
 The French Catholic historians, Dupin and Fleury, 
 stood upon this ground. Hence, in their histories, they 
 are free to expose and condemn to a certain extent the 
 arrogant encroachments of the pope on the church as well 
 as on the state. Hence, from their writings, Protestants
 
 90 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 derive valuable aid in their warfare with the court of 
 Rome. But, for the same reason, they are odious to the 
 thorough defenders of the Papal power. 
 
 All the universities consulted by Pitt also belonged to 
 the same school, and were consulted for this reason. 
 
 Besides the divines and laymen of the Gallican school, 
 there are other Romanists in France and elsewhere who 
 repudiate the doctrine of the pope's temporal supremacy in 
 Italy in the States of the Church. They consider this as the 
 result of a scheme of worldly ambition, and pernicious in its 
 tendencies and results to the spiritual character of the Pa- 
 pacy and to all the interests of civil society. Of this class 
 is M. Daunou, a learned French civilian, who has written 
 an able history of the court of Rome, designed to expose 
 the frauds and forgeries through which this temporal 
 power was first gained and its destructive influence on the 
 interests of Europe. From such writers, also, who still re- 
 gard the pope as properly the spiritual head of the church, 
 much aid can be derived in our warfare with the Papacy. 
 But of course such writers are more hated by the court 
 of Rome than even the writers of the Gallican school. 
 
 We are now prepared to understand the course of 
 events in England and America and the present position 
 of the defenders of the Papal corporation. 
 
 The genuine doctrines of that corporation are so re- 
 pugnant to the convictions of England and America, and 
 so odious to every friend of humanity, that in some way it 
 is necessary to blind and delude the too confiding Protes- 
 tants, so as to put them off their guard until the system 
 has gained foothold and power. 
 
 To effect this, two courses have been adopted. The 
 first was tried in England by Charles Butler and others ; 
 the second in this country, by Bishops Kenrick and 
 Hughes.
 
 THE GALLICAN, OR FRENCH, DOCTRINE. 91 
 
 But at last the servants of the court of Rome are dis- 
 covering reasons for abandoning these modes of defence 
 and returning to the genuine Papal ground which has been 
 set forth. This will appear as we shall consider, in order, 
 the two great evasions to which reference has been made.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EVASION OF CHARLES BUTLER. 
 
 IN the light of the present age, and before the bar of 
 the omniscient Judge of nations, the Romish corporation 
 has been long summoned to give an account for those 
 principles and deeds which have been set forth. But, as a 
 corporation, it has, thus far, made no reply. It is not 
 willing openly to avow and justify its past deeds of treach- 
 ery and blood ; and it cannot, or will not, confess fallibility 
 and damning guilt. 
 
 Its partisans, therefore, have come forward from time to 
 time to speak in its behalf. In England, Charles Butler 
 has taken the lead ; in America, Bishops Kenrick, Hughes, 
 and Purcell, and Mr. Brownson. 
 
 The first mode of defence resorted to is that of Charles 
 Butler. He follows Bossuet, and the Gallican, or French, 
 school of divines. He abandons to just mnra^ation such 
 decisions and deeds of the Popes of-R<3*ne As have been 
 stated, but endeavors to prove that the doctrines in ques- 
 tion are not taught by any general council, but solely by 
 the popes, and that the doctrines and conduct of the 
 popes in such cases were not the voice of the church. 
 
 This defence is obviously at war, not only with that 
 most unequivocal documentary evidence which I have pro- 
 duced, but also with much not yet presented. 
 
 The doctrines in question were as truly promulgated and 
 
 (92)
 
 EVASION OF CHARLES BUTLER. 93 
 
 sustained by general councils as by popes. This has been 
 proved as to some councils, and is true of others. Six gen- 
 eral councils, in principle or in practice, or in both, sanc- 
 tioned the violation of engagements and breach of trust for 
 the sake of ecclesiastical utility. This view cannot be 
 carried out except by misrepresenting, evading, or denying 
 the plainest facts of history. Yet Charles Butler adopted 
 this course and used such fraud and evasion, because to 
 conduct the Eomish cause to a safe issue on any other 
 ground seemed hopeless at the time. It seems to have 
 been with him a stroke of policy. 
 
 Mr. Brownson, however, coincides with me in thinking 
 it poor policy to defend the Papacy by denying or ignoring 
 any obvious and notorious matters of fact. 
 
 The course of Butler and of all others who adopt the 
 principles of the Gallican party he repudiates as at war 
 with facts, dishonorable to the great popes of the middle 
 ages, and ruinous to Romanism in its ultimate tendencies 
 and results. It was only adopted, he tells us, because the 
 Romanists were then weak and cowed down, and is utterly 
 unfit for these times of higher courage and bolder enterprise. 
 
 As to the acts of popes in deposing sovereigns and dis- 
 solving oaths of allegiance, which Butler repudiates as no 
 part of the system of Romanism, he says, 
 
 " The answers which the church gives to all great prac- 
 tical questions have become historical. These answers 
 are in many instances, no doubt, very offensive to the 
 spirit of the present age, and such as the prevailing public 
 opinion denounces ; but there they stand on the page of 
 history, and can be neither honestly nor successfully de- 
 nied or explained away. What the church has done, what 
 she has expressly or tacitly approved in the past, that 
 is exactly what she will do, expressly or tacitly approve, 
 in the future, if the same circumstances occur. This may
 
 94 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 be a difficulty, an embarrassment ; but it will not do to shrink 
 from it. We are responsible for the past history of the 
 church in so far as she herself has acted ; and to attempt to 
 apologize for it by an appeal to the opinion of the times, 
 or to explain it in conformity with the prevailing spirit 
 and theories of non-Catholics in our age, is only to 
 weaken the reverence of the faithful for the church and 
 yield the victory to her enemies." 
 
 "We agree with Mr. Brownson in regarding the course 
 of Butler and the Gallicans as fatal to the church. 
 
 For, suppose that it were true which it is not that 
 no general councils had sanctioned such decisions and 
 deeds of the great popes of the middle ages ; suppose, too, 
 that the popes are not infallible without a general council ; 
 suppose what is not true that a decision ex cathedra, 
 acquiesced in by the bishops, is not deemed infallible. 
 We ask, Why did not th'e church in some form rebuke the 
 popes, and set them right, if they were teaching the doc- 
 trines of devils and reducing them to practice ? If there 
 was infallibility any where in the Romish corporation dur- 
 ing those long and bloody centuries, why did it not in 
 some way show itself? Did not the Romish corporation 
 then know that those principles and deeds of the popes 
 were wrong which Charles Butler and the Gallicans now 
 so loudly condemn ? If they did, then why did they not 
 condemn them ? If they did not, then what a mockery is 
 it to call that an infallible corporation which could not, 
 and did not, defend either themselves or their head for 
 long centuries from errors so gigantic, promulgated to the 
 nations as the truths of God Almighty, the rejection of 
 which would surely encounter his wrath, or from their in- 
 evitable results in deeds of treachery and blood that have 
 ever since caused a thrill of horror among the nations! 
 After Charles Butler has denounced as errors and crimes
 
 EVASION OF CHARLES BUTLER. 95 
 
 the solemn decisions and acts of the popes of the middle 
 ages, deemed the most illustrious in the long line of the 
 sovereigns of the church, how can he expect any Prot- 
 estant to retain the least respect for the Papal church or 
 her head in any age ?
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 EVASION OF BISHOPS HUGHES AND E.ENR.ICK. 
 
 THE other mode of evading the facts, as to the deposing 
 power of the pope and the invalidation of oaths, is to 
 resolve the whole matter into the peculiar state of society 
 in the middle ages, in which it was the will of the rulers 
 and of the people that the pope should exercise such 
 power. 
 
 On this ground Bishop Hughes, in 1843, defended the 
 Papal corporation, in his lecture before the Irish Emigra- 
 tion Society in New York. Speaking of the Papal cor- 
 poration, he says, p. 12, " If she has, at times, interfered 
 with the civil prerogatives of temporal sovereigns, her 
 right to do so is not founded on her divine charter, but 
 resulted either from the concession of the states themselves, 
 or from the absolute exigency of the circumstances." 
 
 At still greater length has Bishop Kenrick defended 
 this view, in his labored Vindication of the Primacy of the 
 Pope of Rome. He says, " By the will of princes and of 
 nations, and at their earnest solicitation, he intervened in 
 former ages, and, exercising a pacific protectorate, main- 
 tained the rights of all. * * * g u t he no longer em- 
 ploys a power which the will and the wants of the nations 
 once placed in his hands, but which they have again in 
 their caprice wrested from him." Pp. 304, 305. 
 
 (96)
 
 EVASION OF BISHOPS HUGHES AND KENRICK. 97 
 
 Both of these bishops also assure us that from this state 
 of things. vast benefits flowed to the world. 
 
 Concerning this stupendous evasion, I remark, in the 
 first place, that it is directly at war with facts. 
 
 The Papal deposing power and dissolution of oaths 
 was not a " pacific protectorate," established by the na- 
 tions, but a constant stimulus to revolt and civil war. 
 Against all sovereigns who did not blindly obey the pope 
 it gave him full power to fan the flames of discontent 
 and to arouse his subjects to rebellion. It was even used to 
 stir up the children of kings to the vilest treachery towards 
 their parents. Such was the course taken by the popes 
 towards the children of the hated and anathematized 
 Henry IV. 
 
 On this point it is well to place in pointed contrast the 
 words of Bishop Kenrick and those of the celebrated pri- 
 mate Bossuet. It is an illustrious specimen of t"he "va- 
 riations " of Romanism. 
 
 In his Defence of the Declaration of the Gallican Clergy, 
 book iv. chap, xvii., Bossuet says, 
 
 " Whenever kings have been deposed by the Roman pon- 
 tiffs in the exercise of such authority, NEVER by any king, 
 NEVER by the different orders of any kingdom, has this author- 
 ity been recognized as lawful. On the other hand, kingdoms 
 and kings have resisted it, and the result has been bloody 
 foreign and civil wars ; wherefore the pope has not, in fact, 
 ever bestowed kingdoms, but has only produced causes of 
 war, and given a pretext and color to ambition and rebel- 
 lion, and involved the whole world in the flames of war ; 
 and, in a word, these depositions of kings by the authority of 
 the pope have never been of the least use, but have caused 
 immense odium and injury." . 
 
 In the second place, both of these writers, and Bishop 
 Kenrick in particular, have inexcusably misrepresented
 
 98 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 the real nature of the Papal claim as put forth by Gregory 
 VII., the great founder of the system, and by his successors. 
 "Vftth true Jesuitical craft, Bishop Kenrick has avoided 
 all quotations from the letters of Gregory to the sovereigns 
 and ecclesiastics of Europe, in which he unequivocally 
 developed his purpose to reduce all temporal rulers to the 
 position of feudal vassals to the holy see, binding them by 
 an oath of allegiance similar to that by which the bishops 
 were soon bound, and which they take even to this day. 
 He does not quote his reputed claims of a divine right to 
 do all this. On the other hand, against both the letter 
 and the spirit of the act of deposition, he represents 
 Gregory as acting by an authority conferred on him by 
 the nations. In a series of twelve letters to the bishop, 
 published in the Christian Alliance some years since, I 
 at some length exposed what I could not but consider as 
 his deliberate Jesuitical frauds, designed to Ifoodwink and 
 delude my honorable and magnanimous fellow-citizens. 
 I have not room at present to go farther into the details 
 of the case. 
 
 It is enough to say, in general, that nothing can be more 
 at war with notorious facts than this evasion. Where or 
 when did Gregory VII., or Innocent III., or Boniface 
 VIII., or any other of those imperious lords of the church 
 declare or even hint that they derived their powers from 
 either rulers or the people, or that they were acting in 
 their name ? They claimed their powers directly from 
 God, through Peter, the great head of the church. Nor 
 did the nations ever pretend that it belonged to them to 
 confer such power on the pope. The very idea is ridicu- 
 lous to any one who knows the spirit and the convictions 
 of that age. 
 
 It deserves notice, also, that these claims of the pope, as 
 head of the church, do not rest on his own unsustained
 
 EVASION OF BISHOPS HUGHES AND KENRICK. 99 
 
 assumptions. In the great general council of Lyons, in 
 1245, Pope Innocent IY. and the council together con- 
 firmed the doctrine of the divine right of the pope and 
 of the Papal corporation to depose monarchs. The pope 
 deposed Frederic II. ; and they concurred with the pope, 
 proclaiming their decision as the judgment of God and 
 their own, but not referring, even remotely, to a delegated 
 power received from the people. The same principles 
 were established in the fourth Lateran council under 
 Innocent III. and by many other general councils. 
 
 Moreover, in the long run, this evasion is no less fatal 
 to the Papal system than the other. According to it, on 
 questions of the highest conceivable moment, the pope 
 leaves his lofty position, as filling the place of God on 
 earth, to become a mere fallible tribune, or president, or 
 referee of human appointment among contending nations. 
 He is a mere fallible agent of human, uninspired society, 
 and not Us lord and head. It in fact betrays the cause 
 of the Papacy and the Romish church, through fear of the 
 enlightened, popular sentiments of the present age. 
 
 Mr. Browrison sees the logical results of this evasion also, 
 and boldly repudiates it. He also declares it to be at war 
 with facts. Civil governments and human society, he er- 
 roneously affirms, did acknowledge the supremacy of the 
 pope over earthly rulers and his power to dissolve oaths ; 
 but he insists that they did not confer it. Nor did the 
 pope ever concede or intimate that such was the basis of 
 his power. Nothing can be stronger than the assertions of 
 Mr. Brownson in his review of M. Gosselin. He says, 
 
 " The whole current of history is against the author. 
 He cannot adduce a single official act of pope or council 
 which concedes that the temporal authority exercised was 
 held only by a human title. All history fails to show an 
 instance in which the pope, in deposing a temporal sover-
 
 100 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 eign, professes to do it by the authority vested in him 
 by the pious belief of the faithful, generally received max- 
 ims, the opinion of the age, the concessions of sovereigns, 
 or the civil constitution and public laws of Catholic states. 
 On the contrary, he always claims to do it by the authori- 
 ty committed to him as the successor of the prince of 
 the apostles, by the authority of his apostolic ministry, by 
 the authority committed to him of binding and loosing, by 
 the authority of Almighty God, of Jesus Christ, King of 
 kings and Lord of lords, whose minister, though unworthy, 
 he asserts that he is ; or some such formula, which solemnly 
 and expressly sets forth that his authority is held by 
 divine right, by virtue of his ministry, and exercised sole- 
 ly in his character of vicar of Jesus Christ on earth. To 
 this, we believe, there is not a single exception. Wher- 
 ever the popes cite their titles, they never, so far as we can 
 find, cite a human title, but always a divine title. Whence 
 is this ? Did the popes cite a false title ? Were they ig- 
 norant of their own title ? or was this assertion of title 
 an empty form, meaning nothing ? This is a grave matter ; 
 and this fact alone seems to us decisive against the author." 
 
 He also says, 
 
 " One of two things, it seems to us, must be admitted, 
 if we have regard to the undeniable facts in the case ; 
 namely, either the popes usurped the authority tJiey exercised 
 over sovereigns in the middle ages, or they possessed it by 
 virtue of their title as vicars of Jesus Christ on earth. We 
 do not, therefore, regard M. Gosselin's theory as tenable ; 
 and we count his attempted defence of the pope on the 
 ground of human right a failure. 
 
 " There is, in our judgment, but one valid defence of the 
 popes in their exercise of temporal authority in the mid- 
 dle ages over sovereigns ; and that is, that they possess it 
 by divine right, or that the pope holds that authority by 
 virtue of his commission from Jesus Christ, as the succes- 
 sor of Peter, the prince of the apostles, and visible head 
 of the church. Any defence of them on a lower ground 
 must, in our judgment, fail to meet the real points in the 
 case, and is rather an evasion than a fair, honest, direct,
 
 EVASION OF BISHOPS HUGHES AND KENRICK. 101 
 
 and satisfactory reply. To defend their power as an ex- 
 traordinary power, or as an accident in church history, 
 growing out of the peculiar circumstances, civil constitu- 
 tion, and laws of the times, no\y passed away, perhaps for- 
 ever, may be regarded as less likely to displease non- 
 Catholics and to offend the sensibilities of power than to 
 defend it on the ground of divine right and as inherent in 
 the divine constitution of the church ; but, even on the low 
 ground of policy, we do not think it the wisest in the long 
 run. Say what we will, we can gain little credit with 
 those we would conciliate. Always, to their minds, will 
 the temporal power of the pope by divine right loom up 
 in the distance ; and always will they believe, however 
 individual Catholics here and thero may deny it or nom- 
 inally Catholic governments oppose it, that it is the real 
 Roman Catholic doctrine, to be reasserted and acted the 
 moment that circumstances render it prudent or expe- 
 dient. We gain nothing with them but doubts of our sin- 
 cerity, and we only weaken among ourselves that warm 
 and generous devotion to the holy father which is due 
 from every one of the faithful, and which is so essential 
 to the prosperity of the church in her unceasing struggles 
 with the godless powers of this world." 
 
 He also asserts that the position thus defended by him 
 is that of the leading Romish divines : 
 
 " He cannot be unaware that the doctrine he rejects is 
 the most logical, the most consonant to Catholic instincts, 
 the most honorable to the dignity and majesty of the Pa- 
 pacy, or that it has undeniably the weight of authority on 
 its side. The principal Catholic authorities are certainly 
 in favor of the divine right ; and the principal authorities 
 which he is able to oppose to them are of parliaments, 
 sovereigns, jurisconsults, courtiers, and prelates and doc- 
 tors who sustained the temporal powers in their wars 
 against the popes. The Gallican doctrine was, from the 
 first, the doctrine of the courts, in opposition to that of 
 the vicars of Jesus Christ, and should, therefore, be re- 
 garded by every Catholic with suspicion." 
 9*
 
 102 THE PAPAL CONSPIKACY EXPOSED. 
 
 It is interesting to notice that nevertheless, in view of 
 the popular feeling in this country, Bishops Hughes and 
 Kenrick have both undertaken to defend the course of the 
 popes during the middle ages on the very grounds which 
 Mr. Brownson so pointedly condemns. 
 
 Their defence, however, deserves no confidence as an 
 expression of their real opinions. It was, no doubt, de- 
 signed to delude Protestants for the time, till the Romish 
 corporation might gain strength to assume a new po- 
 sition. 
 
 I am led to this conclusion by the fact that the Romish 
 agents, both in France and in this country, seem to be at 
 length disclosing their purpose to assume the ground 
 which I- have stated as the real Papal ground, and which 
 is the only consistent and logical basis on which to at- 
 tempt a defence of the Papacy. The old Gallican doc- 
 trine is also generally abandoned in France ; and we are 
 coming to the simple position, that all who revolt from 
 the Romish corporation, by that very act are disfranchised 
 and stripped of all their rights. 
 
 Mr. Brownson, in his Review for January, 1852, makes 
 the bold and explicit avowal that Protestantism of every 
 form has,, not, and never can have, any rights. P. 64. 
 ^ He says also that "we lose all the breath we expend 
 in declaiming against bigotry and intolerance, and in 
 favor of religious liberty, or the right of any man to be 
 of religion or no religion, as best pleases him, which some 
 two or three of our journalists would fain persuade the 
 world is Catholic doctrine." 
 
 It seems, then, that when Mr. Brownson, in a former 
 extract, speaks of conceding to us equal rights, he means, 
 as we intimated, so long as they have no power to take 
 them away. But as soon as Catholicity is triumphant, 
 then beware.
 
 EVASION OP BISHOPS HUGHES AND KENRICK. 103 
 
 I find in the Letters of an Independent Irishman, ad- 
 dressed to Bishop Fitzpatrick, the following passage : 
 
 "Says Bishop Kenrick, 'No faith with heretics;' and 
 says Bishop O'Connor, of Pittsburg, 'Religious liberty is 
 merely endured until the opposite can be carried into execution 
 without peril to the Catholic world.' This bigoted sentiment 
 is the same in kind with that quoted from the Catholic 
 Review no rights for Protestants, or any body else ex- 
 cept Catholics. Fine doctrine for a republic ! Of pre- 
 cisely the same nature was the sentiment lately uttered 
 by the Bishop of St. Louis : ' Catholicity will one day 
 rule America ; and then religious liberty is at an end.' No 
 doubt of it. The St. Louis bishop and I agree exactly 
 on this point ; and such, I presume, is your opinion also." 
 
 I have not verified these quotations ; but, whether they 
 have used these precise words or not, I have no doubt 
 that they express the real sentiments of those men. 
 
 Whatever any American bishop may say, one act of 
 theirs speaks louder than all their professions of patriot- 
 ism ; yea, louder than seven thunders. They have, by a 
 solemn decision of their provincial council at Baltimore, 
 significantly proclaimed that they adopt the system of 
 which the maxims are such as have been set forth. 
 
 Into the midst of this Protestant nation, by a special 
 act of the Baltimore council of Rornish bishops, they have 
 introduced the idolatrous worship of Gregory VII. ; thu? 
 selecting and presenting him, of all the saints of the 
 Romish calendar, to our own people as an object of wor- 
 ship, and fixing the eyes of this nation on him as the 
 object of peculiar attention and reverence. 
 
 We accordingly look at his character, and find him to 
 be the notorious author of the system of deposing kings, 
 and the projector of a universal feudal monarchy, of which 
 he was to be the head, and all kings, nobles, and rulers 
 his sworn vassals. We find him, in endeavoring to carry
 
 104 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 out his claims and plans, involving Italy and Germany for 
 more than thirty years in a bloody civil war, and estab- 
 lishing precedents which for centuries disturbed the peace 
 of all Europe and subjected the nations to the most ap- 
 palling despotism ever known. Pius Y. canonized him as 
 a saint. 
 
 The service prescribed by him for the festival of Greg- 
 ory, in the Roman breviary, specially commemorates his 
 acts in the following terms : " Gregory shone like the 
 sun in the house of God. He deprived Henry of his king- 
 dom and freed his vassals from their fealty. All the 
 earth is full of his doctrine. He has departed to heaven. 
 Enable us, by his example and advocacy, to overcome all 
 adversity. May he intercede for all the sins of the peo- 
 ple." Alexander VII. introduced this office into the Ro- 
 man basilics. Clement XI., in 1704, recommended it to 
 the Cistercians, and, in 1710, to the Benedictines. It 
 was approved by Benedict XIII., and retains its place in 
 the Roman breviary. 
 
 Let it now be noticed still further, that this act of can- 
 onization had special reference to the deposing doctrine. 
 It indorses it, as practised by Gregory, in the most ample 
 manner. It regards it as the doctrine of all times and 
 all countries, and declares that the earth is full of that 
 doctrine. 
 
 Nor is this all. The maxims of Gregory VII. have not 
 been renounced by the court of Rome in the nineteenth 
 century. I refer you to the following statement of Dau- 
 nou, that eminently learned and candid Roman Catholic : 
 "If we had lost the twenty-seven propositions of Hilde- 
 brand, they might all be found in the acts of Pius VII., 
 A. ]). 1800-1823. This will not astonish those who have 
 studied the history of the court of Rome. While it exists, 
 this court will have no other principles. Scarcely will it
 
 EVASION OP BISHOPS HUGHES AXD KENRICK. 105 
 
 be able to dissemble them, even in times which require the 
 most circumspection. We shall, without doubt, see this 
 court taking advantage of all circumstances, which will 
 allow her still to maintain them, by anathemas, by wars, 
 by catastrophes, and by vast proscriptions." 
 
 If this seems to be bold language for a Roman Catholic, 
 let it be compared with the language of Bossuet, whose 
 words I have already quoted. It is but a faithful carrying 
 out of the spirit of his statements. 
 
 Let me then disclose, for the benefit of American repub- 
 licans, some of this doctrine of Gregory, of which the 
 earth is declared to be full. Baronius regards the twenty- 
 seven propositions as a genuine composition of Gregory 
 himself ; others regard them as a collection of sentiments 
 derived from his letters ; but all agree that they truly rep- 
 resent the doctrine of his epistles and of his acts. Indeed 
 they can all be derived from his letters. 
 
 " He alone can invest himself with the insignia of em- 
 pire." 
 
 " He has authority to depose emperors." 
 
 " He can absolve the subjects of bad princes from every 
 oath of fe'alty." 
 
 " All princes kiss his feet alone." 
 
 " His name only is to be pronounced in the churches." 
 
 "It is the only name in the world." 
 
 Such is the doctrine of Gregory VII., of which, accord- 
 ing to the services of the Papal church, the world is full. 
 
 But in all this it seems that the bishops of that church 
 in the United States of America see no ambition and no 
 usurpation. No ; for Bishop Kenrick tells us that Pope 
 Gregory VII. " is recognized as a saint, and cannot, without 
 temerity, be accused of ambition." Moreover, that very 
 church which recognizes him as a saint celebrates his 
 deposing doctrine and deeds in acts of solemn worship 
 at his shrine.
 
 106 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Moreover, Bishop Kenrick really, though not openly, 
 declares that the true and proper state of society was that 
 which existed whilst these doctrines were in force, and 
 that the world has been a loser by rejecting them. All 
 this was fully evinced in the letters to which reference has 
 been made. 
 
 With such facts before us, is there any reason to doubt 
 that the Romish bishops of America would, if they could, 
 carry out the extremest views of the Italian school, of 
 which Gregory VII. is the founder and head ? 
 
 It is also a sign of the times that the same views are 
 reproduced in England, France, and America. The 
 French school is dying out ; and all-pervading efforts are 
 made to establish the most absolute doctrines of the court 
 of Rome, which have already deluged the world in blood. 
 
 In England, a Romish paper called the Rambler speaks 
 as follows : 
 
 " Religious liberty, in the sense of a liberty possessed 
 by every man to choose his own religion, is one of the 
 most wicked delusions ever foisted upon this age by the 
 father of all deceit. The very name of liberty except in 
 the sense of a permission to do certain definite acts 
 ought to be banished from the domain of religion. It is neither 
 more nor less than a falsehood. JVb man has a right to choose 
 his religion. None but an atheist can uphold the principles 
 of religious liberty. Shall I, therefore, fall in with this 
 abominable delusion? Shall I foster that damnable doctrine, 
 that Socinianism, and Calvinism, and Anglicanism, and Ju- 
 daism are not every one of them mortal sins like murder and 
 adultery ? Shall I hold out hopes to my erring Protestant 
 brother that I will not meddle with his creed if he will 
 not meddle with mine ? Shall I tempt him to forget that 
 he has no more right to his religious views than he has to 
 my purse, or my house, or my lifeblood ? No. Catholicism 
 is the most intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself ; for 
 it is the truth itself. We might as rationally maintain 
 that a sane man has a right to believe that two and two
 
 EVASION OP BISHOPS HUGHES AND KENRICK. 107 
 
 do not make four, as this theory of religious liberty. Its 
 impiety is only equalled by its absurdity." 
 
 This was republished and indorsed by the Shepherd of 
 the Valley, a Romish paper at St. Louis. 
 
 Bishop Kenrick also is quoted by the Independent Irish- 
 man as saying, 
 
 " Heresy and unbelief are CRIMES ; that is the whole of 
 the matter. And in Christian countries, as in Italy and 
 Spain for instance, where all the people are Catholic, 
 and where the Catholic religion is an essential part of the 
 law of the land, they will be punished as other crimes." 
 
 The Bishop of St. Louis also is quoted by him as say- 
 ing. 
 
 "Protestantism of every kind Catholicity inserts in her 
 catalogue of mortal sins ; she endures it when and where 
 she must ; but she hates it, and directs all her energies to 
 effect its destruction. If the Catholics ever gain, which 
 they surely will do, an immense numerical majority, re- 
 ligious freedom in this country is at an end."* 
 
 Honestly they cannot say any thing else ; and clearly 
 the principles of Brownson, with reference to the de- 
 cisions of the pope and the church in the middle ages, 
 involve all this, and also a full sanction of all their doc- 
 trines, as to fraud, treachery, and falsehood, towards all 
 out of the pale of the Romish church. They involve the 
 maxim, which once he repudiated with indignation, that 
 no faith is to be kept with heretics. 
 
 All of these decisions are, as truly as any others, the an- 
 swers of the church on great practical questions, and have- 
 become historical. To these he ought to apply his own 
 words. 
 
 " These answers are in many instances, no doubt, very 
 offensive to the spirit of the present age, and such as the
 
 108 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 prevailing public opinion denounces ; but there they stand 
 on the page of history, and can be neither honestly nor 
 successfully denied or explained away. What the church 
 has done, what she has expressly or tacitly approved in 
 the past, that is exactly what she will do, expressly or 
 tacitly approve, in the future, if the same circumstances 
 occur. This may be a difficulty, an embarrasment ; but it 
 will not do to shrink from it. We are responsible for the 
 past history of the church in so far as she herself has 
 acted ; and to attempt to apologize for it by an appeal to 
 the opinion of the times, or to explain it in conformity 
 with the prevailing spirit and theories of non- Catholics 
 in our age, is only to weaken the reverence of the faithful 
 for the church and yield the victory to her enemies." 
 
 This part of the subject, then, is plain. The real and 
 infamous doctrines of the Romish corporation on veracity 
 and the rights of Protestants can neither be concealed nor 
 evaded. 
 
 The question of their power to gain the ascendency in 
 this nation, and to carry out such principles, is not at 
 present under discussion. Our present purpose is to en- 
 able all candid men to decide what the principles of the 
 Romish corporation are, to see that they are immutable, 
 and that nothing will prevent them from carrying them 
 out but want of power. 
 
 Have I not, then, proved the propositions which I have 
 announced ? Do not the pope and his corporation place 
 their own interests above all others whatever? Do they 
 not at once disfranchise all who renounce their authority ? 
 Do they not declare all their rights vacated ? Do they 
 not declare that all obligations of veracity and fidelity 
 towards them cease ; that all claims of protection or de- 
 fence are vacated ; that they are at once outlawed and in- 
 testate ; and that to massacre and exterminate them is a 
 duty? 
 
 Such is the fraudulent, treacherous, f ruol, malignant, and
 
 EVASION OP BISHOPS HUGHES AND KENRICK. 109 
 
 diabolical system that is conspiring against this country 
 and against humanity, and with which we are called to 
 contend. 
 
 But there is a still lower depth of treachery into which 
 the chief defenders of this system have fallen. The Jesuits 
 advocate and defend all that I have stated, because they 
 are the sworn defenders of the Pope of Rome. 
 
 But, in carrying out their plans, they have carried the 
 system of fraud and delusion to a more perfect develop- 
 ment than ever before. 
 
 We shall not understand the full power of the great 
 conspiracy until we understand these men. 
 10
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE JESUITS ON LYING. 
 
 WE are called on by divine Providence, as American 
 citizens, not only to sit in judgment on the principles of the 
 great central Romish corporation as to truth and human 
 rights, but also of those subordinate corporations which are 
 banded together in one great conspiracy to sustain and 
 extend the authority of the central power. 
 
 Of these, by far the most powerful and notorious is the 
 order of the Jesuits. It arose soon after the reformation, 
 and was organized for the express purpose of resisting its 
 progress. It has rendered itself so infamous that it was 
 once suppressed ; yet it was so essential to the Papacy 
 that it has been again revived, and, under its head at 
 Rome, is again pervading the world. 
 
 It developed a code of morals which, as a whole, is per- 
 fectly diabolical. It is not, however, my purpose here to 
 expound that code in full, but to show that, on the great 
 question of veracity, it is a fit exemplification of the au- 
 thorized principles and general tendencies of the system 
 of Rome. We should naturally expect this, since they 
 have ever been the chief defenders of the see of Rome. 
 It will not, then, be deemed an accidental coincidence if 
 we find them engaged in reducing the principles of lying, 
 perjury, and slander to a systematic form. Their labors 
 in this department I shall proceed to review. 
 
 (110)
 
 THE JESUITS ON LYING. Ill 
 
 Nor is this needless. No body of men are making such 
 efforts to extend their power throughout our land. They 
 know well that in consequence of their former conduct 
 their order still rests under a load of infamy that has 
 made the very name Jesuit a proverb, and a byword, and 
 a hissing, and the terms Jesuitical and diabolical well 
 nigh synonymous in the public mind. 
 
 Mr. Brownson, therefore, in his newborn zeal for Ro- 
 manism, has felt himself especially called on to vindicate 
 these servants of the Papacy, as in a preeminent degree 
 hated and slandered for righteousness' sake. 
 
 It is, therefore, a work of no common interest and im- 
 portance to investigate the avowed principles of the lead- 
 ing authors .of this order of men as it regards speaking 
 the truth in our dealings with our fellow-men. 
 
 To any one who has ever read the letters of Pascal 
 there is little need to say much on this point. He made 
 it notorious throughout the civilized world that their most 
 prominent writers on morals totally subverted by their 
 doctrines the very foundations of truth in the intercourse 
 of man with man. 
 
 I will but quote a few of their profligate maxims from 
 the works of their standard authors. Pascal gives from 
 Sanchez the following choice specimens of morality : 
 
 " It is lawful to use ambiguous terms, to give the impres- 
 sion a different sense from that which you yourself under- 
 stand." Op. Mor., p. 2, b. iii. c. vi. n. 13. 
 
 In the same place he says, " A person may take an oath 
 that he has not done such a thing, though in fact he has, 
 by saying to himself it was not done on a certain specified 
 day, or before he was born, or by concealing any other 
 circumstance which gives another meaning to the state- 
 ment. This is, in numberless instances, extremely conven-
 
 112 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 rent, and is always very just when it is necessary to your 
 health, honor, or property." 
 
 Again : " It is the intention which stamps the character 
 of the action." 
 
 To illustrate this, Escobar, tr. iii. ex. iii. n. 48, gives 
 this general rule : 
 
 " Promises are not obligatory when a man has no inten- 
 tion of being bound to fulfil them." 
 
 Again : Bourne quotes from Sanchez, Op. Mor., lib. i. 
 cap. x. Nos. 12, 13, p. 49 : " An oath, obliges not beyond 
 the intention of him who takes it." Here we have the fa- 
 mous Jesuitical doctrine of " directing the intention " so 
 as to promise or swear any thing that is desired, either 
 for the church or for individual interest, and yet not be 
 bound. 
 
 The mode by which a Jesuit or any Romanist can enter 
 a Protestant church by oath or covenant, without sin, is 
 thus given, Bauny Sum., cap. vi. cone. iv. p. 73 : " He 
 who maintains an heretical proposition without believing 
 it, or who is a communicant among the Protestants with- 
 out having his heart there, but out of pure derision, or to 
 comply with the times, and to accomplish his designs, ought 
 not to be esteemed a Protestant, because his understand- 
 ing is not infected with error." 
 
 As to truth in civil courts, Taberna, vol. ii. part ii. 
 tract, ii. cap. xxxi. p. 288, speaks thus : " Is a witness 
 bound to declare the truth before a legitimate judge ? No, 
 if his deposition will injure himself, his family, or prop- 
 erty, or if he be a priest i for a priest cannot be forced to tes- 
 tify before a secular judge " 
 
 Again: Layman, lib. iv. tract, iii. cap. i. p. 78 : "It is 
 not sufficient for an oath that we use the formal words, if 
 we have not the intention and wiH to swear" (See McGaviu's 
 Prdtestant, vol. ii. pp. 705-7.)
 
 THE JESUITS ON LYING. 113 
 
 It is worthy of notice that these profligate principles 
 go beyond the maxim, that it is right to lie for ecclesias- 
 tical utility. They subvert the foundations of truth in all 
 things. No matter what words a man uses, if he secretly 
 intends something else, he is not bound by promises or 
 by oaths. 
 
 No less damnable are their doctrines as to slander. 
 These, of course, have a wide range, and have been ex- 
 tensively used by the Jesuits in controversies and in 
 blackening the characters of Protestants. They there- 
 fore sustain an intimate relation to the management of all 
 controversies between Komanists and Protestants. It is 
 an obvious dictate of honor to avoid personalities in ar- 
 gument and to confine the attention to principles and 
 facts. Especially is it a dictate, not only of honor, but of 
 the word of God, not to try to destroy the force of argu- 
 ments by slandering their authors. 
 
 When a writer has endeavored to throw light upon an 
 important subject, and stated principles and sustained his 
 assertions by documents of unquestioned authority, it may 
 be much easier to slander him personally, and call him a liar, 
 a drunkard, an adulterer, than to answer his arguments. 
 But one would hardly expect that men who are such saints 
 that the world is not worthy of them would sanction such 
 a mode of proceeding. Yet this the Jesuits have done. 
 Their maxim is this : " It is no mortal sin to oppose a slan- 
 derer by slandering him." Of course they must judge who 
 a slanderer is ; and it is very easy to conclude that who- 
 ever says any thing to the disadvantage of the order of 
 the Jesuits is a slanderer, and that it becomes no mortal 
 sin to slander him. This was charged upon them by Pas- 
 cal in his fifteenth Provincial Letter, without the slightest 
 hesitation, as a notorious principle of theirs ; and he sus- 
 tained his charge by such an array of evidence that no 
 10*
 
 114 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Jesuit to this day has been able in the slightest degree to 
 destroy its force. Let us listen to the charge in the 
 words of Pascal : 
 
 "It is my purpose. to advance a step farther than merely 
 to show that your writings are replete with calumnious 
 representations. Falsehoods may be stated under an im- 
 pression that they are truths ; but lying is characterized by 
 the intention to deceive. I shall show that you design to 
 deceive and calumniate, and that you purposely impute 
 crimes to your enemies of which you know they are per- 
 fectly innocent, because you believe it may be done with- 
 out falling from a state of grace. And, though you may 
 be as well acquainted as myself with this point of your 
 morality, I shall beg permission to state it, that no further 
 doubt may exist, by showing that I challenge you person- 
 ally and individually on the subject, without even your 
 being able to deny it, with all your assurance, unless at the 
 same time you own that for which I reproach you. For this 
 is a doctrine so common in your schools that you have not 
 only maintained it in your writings, but even in your public 
 theses, which is an act of the utmost presumption as, for 
 example, in that of Louvain, in the year 1645, in the fol- 
 lowing words : ' It is only a venial sin to calumniate and 
 ruin the credit of such as speak evil of you by accusing them 
 of false crimes ' Quidni non nisi veniale sit, detrahentis 
 auctoritatem magnam tibi noxiam falso crimine elidere ? 
 This doctrine is so current amongst you that whoever 
 dares to attack it you treat as an ignoramus and a stu- 
 pid fellow." 
 
 To one who has been brought up in a Protestant coun- 
 try, and who is happily ignorant of those unfathomable 
 depths of Satan into which the system of Romanism can 
 sink the human mind, it seems impossible that any body 
 of men pretending to call themselves Christians should ever 
 have dared to teach such doctrines of devils, or could have 
 so seared their consciences with a hot iron as thus to au- 
 thorize and sanction the grossest slander, and even to
 
 THE JESUITS ON LYING. 115 
 
 treat as an ignoramus and a stupid fellow whoever dares 
 to attack such doctrines. 
 
 Listen, then, to the unanswerable proof of his asser- 
 tions which Pascal produces : 
 
 " Not long ago this took place in regard to Father Qui- 
 roga, a German capuchin, who opposed this doctrine, and 
 was immediately attacked by Father Dicastillus, who 
 speaks of this dispute in these terms, (De Just., 1. ii. tr. ii. 
 disp. xii. n. 404 :) ' A certain grave friar, barefooted and 
 deep cowled, cucuttatus, gymnopoda, whose name I shall 
 conceal, had the temerity to decry this opinion amongst 
 some women and ignorant people as pernicious and scan- 
 dalous, contrary to good manners, subversive of the peace 
 of states and societies, and opposed, not only to all the 
 Catholic doctors, but to all who may become so. But I 
 have maintained against him, and still maintain, that cal- 
 umny, when made use of against a calumniator, though it 
 be a lie, yet is not a mortal sin, nor contrary to justice 
 or charity ; and, as a demonstration of this, I furnished 
 him with a crowd of our fathers and whole universities 
 whom I consulted, among others the Rev. Father John 
 Gans, confessor to the emperor ; the Rev. Father Daniel 
 Bastele, confessor to the Archduke Leopold ; Father 
 Henry, who was the tutor of these two princes : all 
 the public and ordinary professors of the University of 
 Vienna, (consisting entirely of Jesuits ;) all the professors 
 of the University of Gratz, (all Jesuits ;) all the professors 
 of the University of Prague, (of which the Jesuits are mas- 
 ters ;) from all of whom I have in my possession a written, 
 signed, and sealed approbation of my opinion ; in addition 
 to which I have Father Pennalossa, a Jesuit, preacher to 
 the emperor and the King of Spain ; Father Piliiceroli, a 
 Jesuit ; and many others, who have all judged this opin- 
 ion probable previous to our dispute.' You see, fathers, 
 there are few opinions which you have taken so much 
 pains to establish ; and, in fact, there are few which are 
 so serviceable to you. For this reason, you have impressed 
 so much authority upon it that your casuists have made 
 use of it as an indubitable principle. ' It is certain/ says
 
 116 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Caramuel, n. 1151, 'that it is a probable opinion that it 
 is no mortal sin to bring a false accusation for the sake of 
 preserving one's honor ; for it is maintained by upwards 
 of twenty grave doctors, Gaspar Hurtado, Dicastillus, &c. 
 Hence, if this doctrine be not probable, there is scarcely 
 any one that is so in the whole system of divinity.' " 
 
 Such is the proof adduced by Pascal ; and what can be 
 more overwhelming ? And in what manner did the Jesu- 
 its reply to it ? In an attempt to answer the Provincial 
 Letters, published in Paris, 1659, p. 342, instead of condemn- 
 ing Father Dicastillus's position, THEY ADDED MORE AUTHORI- 
 TY TO IT, by citing several authors, besides those mentioned 
 before, in defence of it. 
 
 Let any one now reflect on the length and breadth of 
 the principles involved in this doctrine of the Jesuits, 
 and he will fully sympathize with Pascal in the strong 
 language of abhorrence with which he speaks of the 
 system : 
 
 " 0, what an execrable system is this, and how utterly 
 corrupt in all its main points and principles, that if this 
 doctrine be not probable and safe in conscience, ' that a 
 person may be accused falsely in order to preserve one's 
 honor,' there is scarcely any one that is ! What can be 
 more probable, fathers, than that those who hold this prin- 
 ciple should sometimes put it in practice ? The depraved 
 passions of mankind hurry them on with such impetuosity 
 that it is inconceivable, when all conscientious scruples are 
 done away, how violently they proceed. For instance, 
 Caramuel writes in the same place, ' This maxim of Father 
 Dicastillus the Jesuit, respecting calumny, was taught by 
 a German countess to the daughter of the empress, who, 
 believing that calumnies were but venial sins, spread 
 abroad so many scandals and false reports every day that 
 the whole court was put into a state of ferment and alarm. 
 It is easy to perceive the use they made of it ; so that, to 
 quiet this tumult, it was found necessary to apply to a 
 good father, a capuchin, named Quiroga, of exemplary
 
 THE JESUITS ON LYING. 117 
 
 conduct, (which was the reason Father Dicastillus had 
 such a quarrel with him,) who told them plainly that this 
 maxim was very pernicious, especially as held by women, 
 and then took such especial care that the empress totally 
 abolished the practice of it.' 
 
 " It is by no means surprising that this doctrine should 
 have produced some bad effects ; it would have been more 
 so had it been otherwise. Self-love is always ready to 
 persuade us that an attack made upon ourselves is unjust ; 
 much more you, fathers, who are so blinded by vanity that 
 you would make all the world believe, from your writings, 
 that an injury attempted against your writings is an in- 
 jury done to the honor of the church ; and thus it 
 would be strange if you were not to pu this maxim in 
 practice. We must not say, as those who do not know 
 you do, How is it these good fathers calumniate their 
 enemies, since it is endangering their own salvation ? But 
 we must say, on the contrary, How is it these good fa- 
 thers would" lose any opportunity of decrying their ene- 
 mies when they can do it without risking their own safety ? 
 Let us, then, no longer be astonished at finding the Jesuits 
 calumniators. They are so with a safe conscience, and 
 cannot be otherwise ; since, by the credit they have ac- 
 quired in the world, they may revile others without any 
 apprehension from the justice of men ; and, by that which, 
 they have acquired in cases of conscience, they have estab- 
 lished maxims by which they are empowered to do as 
 they choose, without dreading the justice of God. 
 
 Take an illustration of those principles from the same 
 
 author : 
 
 " A remarkable instance of this occurred in your disa- 
 greement with 1L Puys, a clergyman of St. Nisier, at 
 Lyons ; and, as this affair furnishes a complete illustration 
 of your spirit, I shall relate the principal circumstances. 
 You kno\v, fathers, that in 1649 M. Puys translated an 
 excellent work, written by another capuchin, into French, 
 ' On the Duty of Christians to their own Parishes against 
 those who wished to entice them away,' without using 
 any invectives, and without either pointing to any religious
 
 118 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 order or individual. Your fathers, however, took it to 
 themselves ; and, paying no respect to an aged pastor, a 
 judge in the primacy of France, and much honored by the 
 whole city, your Father Alby wrote a violent philippic 
 against him, which you yourselves sold in your churches 
 on Assumption day ; in which, amongst other charges, he 
 was accused ' of becoming scandalous by his gallantries, 
 of being suspected of impiety, of being a heretic, an ex- 
 communicated person, and deserving to be burned alive.' 
 To this M. Puys replied ; but Father Alby, in a second 
 publication, persisted in his former recriminations. Is it 
 not then evident, fathers, either that you must be calumni- 
 ators, or that you believed all the charges brought against 
 the good priest, and therefore that it was needful that 
 you should have seen him fully exculpated before you 
 deemed him worthy of your friendship ? Attend now to 
 what passed at the reconciliation, in presence of a great 
 multitude of the most distinguished persons of the city, 
 whose names are inserted below in the order in which 
 they were placed in the paper drawn up on the 25th of 
 September, 1650.* In the presence of this assembly M. 
 Puys made no other declaration than the following : 
 ' That what he had written was not intended for the Jesu- 
 its ; that he had spoken in general against those who 
 seduce the faithful from their parishes, without at all 
 meaning to attack their society, for which, on the con- 
 trary, he cherished a high regard.' This is in itself suf- 
 ficient in regard to his apostasy, his revilings, and his 
 excommunications, without any recantation or absolution. 
 Father Alby afterwards addressed him in these words : 
 'Sir, my conviction that you attacked the society to which 
 I have the honor to belong induced me to take up my pen 
 to answer you, and I thought my manner of doing it was 
 allowable ; but I have become better acquainted with your 
 
 * M. De Ville, vicar general of the Cardinal de Lyon ; M. Scarron, canon 
 and minister of St. Paul's ; M. Margat, chanter ; Messrs. Bouvand, Seve, Au- 
 bert, and Dervieu, canons of St. Nisier ; M. du Gue, president of the treasures 
 of France ; M. Groslier, provost of the merchants ; M. De Flechere, president 
 and lieutenant general ; Messrs. De Boissat, De St. Komaiii, and De Bartoly, 
 
 fentlemen ; M. Burgeoise, king's chief advocate in the treasury office of 
 'ranee ; Messrs. De Cotton, father and son ; M. Boniel ; who all signed the 
 original declaration with M. Fuys and Father Alby.
 
 THE JESUITS ON LYING. 119 
 
 intention. I now declare that there exists nothing which 
 can prevent my esteeming you as a person of very en- 
 lightened understanding, of a profound and orthodox faith, 
 of irreproachabk morals, and, in one word, a worthy pastor 
 of your church. This declaration I make with high satis- 
 faction, and beg these gentlemen to remember it.' 
 
 " In truth, fathers, these gentlemen remember it perfectly 
 well, and were more offended at your reconciliation than at 
 your quarrel. For who does not admire Father Alby's 
 speech ? He does not say that he retracts on account of dis- 
 covering M. Puys has changed his behavior and his doctrine, 
 but merely ' because he found that it was not his intention to 
 attack your society ; so that there is nothing to prevent 
 him from being a good Catholic.' He did not, therefore, 
 believe him to be a heretic at all ; nevertheless, after 
 accusing him of it, contrary to his own convictions, he 
 does not acknowledge his error, but dares, on the contrary, 
 to affirm ' that he believes the manner in which he used 
 him was allowable.' 
 
 " My good fathers, what can you be thinking about thus 
 publicly to show that you only measure the faith and virtue 
 of mankind by their opinions of your society ? How came 
 it to pass that you were not apprehensive of making 
 people believe, by your own confession, that you were im- 
 postors and calumniators? What! shall the very same 
 individual, and without any change in himself, but merely 
 as he honors or opposes your society, be ' pious or impious, 
 blameless or deserving excommunication, a worthy pastor 
 of the church or fit only to be burned ; in one word, a 
 Catholic or a heretic ' ? To oppose your society and to 
 be a heretic are then, in your language, the same thing. 
 A pretty kind of heresy indeed ! So, then, whenever 
 one sees in your writings so many good Catholics called 
 heretics, the meaning is, ' that you believe them to be in- 
 imical to you' " 
 
 Nor did this abominable system, thus opening the flood- 
 gates of hell to pour forth all conceivable forms of slander 
 on the world, remain a dead letter. It was put in force with 
 incessant energy against all who dared to leave the Romish
 
 120 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 corporation to oppose the Jesuits and to aid in the work 
 of exposing their abominations, and is in full force to this 
 day. 
 
 I shall also show the existence of the same spirit and 
 incipient attempts to practise on the same principles 
 among us so far as they dare. 
 
 "We have not, as yet, fully entered into the heart of the 
 Papal war, and have not yet been compelled to learn 
 what poisoned weapons of moral assassination the Jesuits 
 and other leading advocates of the Papacy have in other 
 ages used without scruple. But as it is a settled point 
 that we are to meet that system in one more conflict, and 
 that the last, it becomes us to study diligently the weapons 
 with which it has always fought in former wars, and to be 
 strong in the Lord and in the power of his might to arm 
 ourselves against it with the whole armor of God. 
 
 There is the more reason for this, inasmuch as the Ro- 
 mish corporation has recently sanctioned and adopted the 
 morality of the Jesuits, which was rendered justly infa- 
 mous in Europe by the exposure of its enormities and 
 abominations made by Pascal. This system, with all its 
 diabolism, is incorporated in the works of St. Alphonso 
 de Liguori ; but these works are solemnly sanctioned by 
 the Romish corporation, if we may trust Dr. Wiseman. 
 He tells us that his works "do not contain any propo- 
 sition .that is pernicious, erroneous, or rash," and that 
 "the morals of this saintly bishop cannot be censured 
 without setting up as a censor of authority itself, with- 
 out, in fine, censuring the decisions of the holy see." The 
 morals of this diabolical saint justify assassination, and 
 open murder in certain "cases, as well as lying and per- 
 jury. Never, therefore, were the morals of Rome so dia- 
 bolical as at this hour.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CAUTIONS TO AMERICANS IN VIEW OF MODERN EXEMPLIFI- 
 CATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLES OF LYING AND PERJURY. 
 
 IF, in view of all the preceding statements, any one 
 should say, After all, these are ancient principles and 
 facts ; things are now changed for the better : it is not 
 charitable or honorable to suppose that Romish bishops or 
 laymen among us will deem it a merit to lie or perjure 
 themselves for purposes of ecclesiastical utility, I would 
 request him, before coming to this conclusion, to open his 
 eyes on some very instructive and significant facts, most 
 of them of modern date. 
 
 The idea that any Romanist will take oaths of allegiance 
 to our country that he does not mean to'keep is often re- 
 pudiated as a slanderous imputation on honorable men. 
 They say this under the influence of their own Protestant 
 views, not reflecting that Romanism not only justifies, but 
 encourages, such false swearing for the good of the church. 
 If any are incredulous, then let them consider the case 
 of Judge Gaston, a distinguished Romanist of North 
 Carolina. 
 
 The facts of the case are these : The constitution of 
 that state was made when all intelligent men coincided 
 with the views expressed by the Continental Congress 
 in an address to the people o Great Britain, dated Oc- 
 tober 31, 1774. 
 
 11 (12D
 
 122 THE .PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 In this, after expostulating against the favor shown to 
 the Romanists of Canada as dangerous to the liberties of 
 the Protestant colonies, they say, " Nor can we suppress 
 our astonishment that a British Parliament should ever 
 consent to establish in that country A RELIGION THAT HAS 
 DELUGED YOUR ISLAND IN BLOOD, and dispersed IMPIETY, 
 
 BIGOTRY, PERSECUTION, MURDER, AND REBELLION through 
 
 every part of the world." So thought the patriots of the 
 revolution. 
 
 Under the influence of such convictions, the framers of 
 the constitution of North Carolina determined to exclude 
 Romanists from office in that state, and inserted an article 
 to that effect. The facts as to Judge Gaston I give in the 
 words of Dr. Breckenridge, in his able work entitled 
 Papism in the United States in the Nineteenth Century. 
 After stating that he was one of the most distinguished 
 citizens of the state and one of her ablest lawyers, he 
 says, 
 
 " By the constitution of North Carolina, he is expressly 
 disqualified to hold the office he occupies, precisely because 
 he chooses to be a Catholic. In the thirty-second article it 
 is thus written : ' That no person who shall deny the being 
 
 Of God, OR THE TRUTH OF THE PROTESTANT RELIGION, Or 
 
 the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, 
 or u'ho shall hold religious principles incompatible with the 
 freedom, and safety of the state, shall be capable of holding 
 any office, or place of trust or profit, in the civil govern- 
 ment within this state.' Now, Mr. Gaston is at this 
 moment a judge of the Court of Appeals of North Caro- 
 lina. Before he took his seat on the bench, he took an 
 oath in some usual form to support the constitution of that 
 state. Part of that constitution asserts and assumes the 
 truth of the Protestant religion. But Mr. Gaston is an 
 avowed and most decided Papist. Now, will he do him- 
 self the justice, mankind -the favor, and his religion the 
 service of explaining this conduct ?
 
 CAUTIONS TO AMERICANS. 123 
 
 " Mr. Gaston has sworn to maintain ' THE TRUTH OP THE 
 PROTESTANT RELIGION ;' he has sworn to maintain a con- 
 stitution which disqualifies him the moment he shall 
 ' deny the truth of the, Protestant religion ; ' and yet he is 
 confessedly a Papist a believer in all the necessary 
 dogmas, and a member in full exercise of all the privileges, 
 of that faith which the creed of Pope Pius IV. pronounces 
 to be exclusive not only, but indispensable to salvation 
 that church which declares itself to be, and which all who 
 repeat its creed promise and swear to maintain as, the 
 ' mother and MISTRESS' of all churches, and to use all 
 diligence, by all means in their power, to spread all around 
 them. In the name of common honesty, how could Judge 
 Gaston assent to the creed of Pope Pius IV., which is the au- 
 thorized creed of his church, and at the same time assent to 
 the provision quoted above from the constitution of North 
 Carolina ? Can a man swear with a good conscience to 
 opposite facts, statements, and opinions ? " 
 
 After a full discussion of the subject, he comes to this 
 conclusion : 
 
 " If I had acted as Judge Gaston has, my sect would 
 have deposed me from the ministry, my congregation 
 would have shut my church doors against me, my friends 
 would have wept over me as one undone, and the whole 
 world would have had but one opinion about it ; and that 
 opinion would have been, that I was a degraded man. 
 Then why not mete the same measure to Judge Gaston ? 
 I will tell you why. It is because Judge Gaston is a Papist j 
 and his creed admits and approves his conduct. Arid, there- 
 fore, let every man that loves God pity and forgive Judge 
 Gaston, and frown down his pestiferous superstition, as 
 the parent of all vice and the enemy of every virtue." 
 
 The criminal apathy of the press on a point so momen- 
 tous he thus explains : 
 
 " Is the public press already Catholic, or infidel ? Is the 
 whole editorial corps converted, subsidized, afraid, or
 
 124 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 totally indifferent ? No ; this is by no means so. If a 
 Methodist judge should take a false oath, or a Presbyte- 
 rian judge commit a flagrant violation of morality, or an 
 Episcopal judge outrage public decency, or a Deistical 
 judge be guilty of deliberate perfidy in official affairs, in 
 all these cases the public press would fully respond to the 
 public feeling, and the judge would be disgraced, if not 
 degraded. Why deal out a different measure to a Catholic 
 judge? I will tell you why. It is because every Catholic 
 in the world makes common cause with every other 
 Catholic in the world, and with the Pope of Rome, as the 
 head of all the world, and with the Catholic church, as the 
 mother and mistress of all the churches in the world. 
 Virtue is nothing, truth is nothing, religion is nothing, 
 country is nothing, liberty is nothing ; the church is ALL, 
 and the pope its head ; and all its true members form one 
 universal conspiracy against every good of man and the 
 honor of God himself. Printers feel the force, though 
 they may deny the reality, of this conspiracy." 
 
 The case of Judge Gaston is fearfully significant. His 
 church has solemnly decided that an oath contrary to 
 ecclesiastical utility is not binding. He simply believes 
 the church, and acts accordingly ; or else, according to 
 the Jesuits, he swears, not intending to do what he swears. 
 
 And what oath or promise is there that these same 
 principles will not dissolve ? No matter who it is, whether 
 bishop or layman, who swears allegiance to a national or 
 a state government, his oath does not bind him in any 
 case in which the pope or the bishops shall decide that 
 ecclesiastical utility requires its violation. 
 
 On the same principles, any Romanist, whether layman 
 or ecclesiastic, can profess to be a Protestant, and join any 
 Protestant church, for the sake of acting the more ef- 
 fectually to undermine Protestantism and to extend the 
 power of the Papacy. There is the best ground to believe 
 that this has been done in the English Protestant church
 
 CAUTIONS TO AMERICANS. 12-5 
 
 on a great scale. Why should it not be so ? According 
 to the supreme authority of the church, and Jesuit morality 
 also, it is so far from being wrong that it is highly meri- 
 torious. In the same way men or women may assume any 
 disguise, and act under any profession, in order to subserve 
 the interests of the church. 
 
 On the same ground, a Romish bishop may in the most 
 solemn and public manner proclaim as true and undeniable 
 what he knows to be utterly false ; as, for example, in the 
 case of a public discussion. 
 
 Thus Bishop Purcell, in his controversy in Cincinnati with 
 A. Campbell, denied in the most solemn manner that a 
 passage quoted by Campbell from a compend of the morals 
 of St. Liguori was ever written by him. He said to the 
 audience, " I now pledge myself to show to every man of 
 honor in this city that the last allegation read by the 
 gentleman, purporting to be from the works of Liguori, is 
 not to be found in the works of that writer. It is all a 
 base fabrication, I will not say of Mr. C., but of somebody. 
 I will meet this charge with a complete and an overwhelm- 
 ing refutation." Much more of the same kind of declama- 
 tion he employed, and produced the desired effect for the 
 time. But what was the fact ? It was proved, after the 
 debate was over and there had been time to hear from 
 New York from the author of the compend, that it was in 
 the works of Liguori, and was properly translated. It 
 was found in the bishop's own copy. This extract, how- 
 ever, revealed the fact, that although the church will ex- 
 communicate a priest for marrying a wife, yet the council 
 of Trent only imposed fines on those priests who kept con- 
 cubines ; and Liguori taught that a bishop ought to appro- 
 priate these finesybr pious uses ! It is not to be wondered 
 at that the bishop's ideas of ecclesiastical utility led him 
 to feel that it was desirable, at least during the debate, to 
 11*
 
 126 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 break the force of such statements of Liguori, and there- 
 fore he indignantly called them a base fabrication. (See 
 Debate, pp. 219, 253, and note at the end.) This is the 
 same bishop who used to manifest great zeal for the public 
 schools of Cincinnati before the people, when at the same 
 time he was writing to Europe denunciations of them as 
 pernicious and dangerous. That he was so doing became 
 manifest by the publication of one or more of his letters 
 in Europe, which found their way to this country, and were 
 translated and published for the benefit of the good peo- 
 ple of Cincinnati. The pope, of course, saw fit to remove 
 him, after this exposure, to some other post of honor, and 
 no doubt rewarded him for his zeal in behalf of ecclesi- 
 astical utility. 
 
 In like manner Pope Pius VI. did not hesitate to lie in 
 order to remove the odium of the doctrines of the church 
 in Great Britain. As quoted by Bishop Kenrick, p. 471 
 Primacy, he says, not ex cathedra and in his own name, 
 be it noticed, but through Cardinal Antonelli, " The see 
 of Rome never taught that faith is not to be kept with 
 the heterodox ; that an oath to kings separated from the 
 Catholic communion can be violated ; that it is lawful for 
 the Bishop of Rome to invade their temporal rights and 
 dominions." Now, even if the pope had said this ex ca- 
 thedra it would be of no force, for it is a mere assertion 
 as to historical facts, and he is not held even by Roman- 
 ists to be infallible as to such facts, but only as to doc- 
 trines and principles of faith ; and it is merely a denial 
 of facts as notorious as his own existence. He might as 
 well have said that Luther, and Calvin, and the reforma- 
 tion never existed as to make the notoriously false state- 
 ment above quoted. 
 
 But it was done for the sake of aiding the Romanists 
 of Great Britain in their struggles for civil power and
 
 CAUTIONS TO AMERICANS. 127 
 
 privileges ; and there is no reason why a pope should not 
 lie for ecclesiastical utility as -well as any other bishop or 
 any layman. 
 
 Thus, also, we explain the fact that the deaths of Cal- 
 vin, Luther, Zwingle, (Ecolampadius. and Carolstadt were 
 deliberately and grossly misrepresented by leading Pa- 
 pists. It was done on grounds of ecclesiastical utility, in 
 order to convey to their own party the idea that these 
 enemies of Popery died as heretics beneath the manifest 
 wrath of God. Bishop Stratford has written a large and 
 able tract, designed to expose and refute these most atro- 
 cious falsehoods. But such men as Cardinal Bellarmine 
 the Jesuit, and others concerned in this work of slander, 
 were simply carrying out the doctrine of their own order 
 as to slander, and of the church as to lying for ecclesias- 
 tical utility. 
 
 For the same reason, at Rome the Jesuit teachers of 
 Raffaele Ciocci, as he informs us, constantly told him, 
 when a youth, " that the Protestants did not worship 
 Christ ; that they slaughtered each other daily like fero- 
 cious beasts ; that they put the Roman Catholics to death ; 
 that they attended to no civil restrictions, but continually 
 lived in a state of anarchy. These misrepresentations, 
 these diabolical assertions, were received by me as in- 
 controvertible truths." (See his Narrative, p. 13.) 
 
 Also in a monastery the monks suppressed his letters to 
 his parents, and theirs to him, and forged a correspond- 
 ence on both sides, in order to induce him to sign a 
 deed giving all his property to the monastery. Narra- 
 tive, pp. 39-46. 
 
 On the same principles, all nuns that escape from con- 
 vents are declared insane, and any kind of falsehood is 
 resorted to to entrap and abduct those who forsake their 
 faith. The case of Hannah Corcoran, of Charlestown,
 
 128 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Massachusetts, will illustrate this statement. She was 
 carried off for choosing to become a Protestant. Neither 
 priests nor relations knew where she was ; but when it be- 
 came evident that an indignant community would not hold 
 them guiltless she was soon found and restored. And 
 through all the case there was no scruple to use false- 
 hood to any extent. 
 
 On the same principles, promises are freely made not to 
 interfere with the religious principles of the children of 
 Protestants in their schools, which are of course violated 
 without scruple ; and children have even been taught to 
 deceive their parents, in order to avoid their opposition or 
 censure. 
 
 We shall never understand such facts until we fully 
 comprehend their doctrines as to lying as I have ex- 
 plained them. Their system so debases and corrupts 
 their moral sense that they regard the most atrocious 
 lying for " ecclesiastical utility " as not merely no sin, but 
 a positive merit. 
 
 At the time of the Gunpowder Plot in England, de- 
 signed to blow up and destroy the king and House of 
 Lords and Commons, Catesby, one of the conspirators, 
 consulted Father Garnet, the superior of the Jesuits, 
 whether " it were lawful to promote the good of the Ro- 
 man cause by destroying some innocent among many 
 guilty." Garnet answered, "If the advantage of the 
 Catholic cause were greater by destroying some innocent 
 with many guilty, it was certainly lawful to kill and de- 
 stroy them all." 
 
 As to the propriety of blowing up the Protestants, it 
 seems, there could be no doubt. The only question was, 
 Was it right to blow up a few Romanists also who would 
 be present? His reply we have seen. Ecclesiastical util- 
 ity outweighed all else.
 
 CAUTIONS TO AMERICANS. 129 
 
 When arrested and tried for treason as an accomplice 
 in the plot, he alleged that he received the knowledge of 
 the plot in confession, and therefore could not lawfully 
 reveal it. It was proved, however, that he did not re- 
 ceive the knowledge of it in confession. 
 
 He also solemnly declared on his priesthood that he 
 had had no correspondence with Greenwell (a conspira- 
 tor) since they had met at Caughton. Yet at this very 
 time the judges had in their hands letters of his which he 
 had written to Greenwell since that time. On seeing the 
 letters he confessed the fact, but, when censured, defended 
 his perjury on the principles of his order, as right. He 
 died, moreover, with another lie in his mouth, and secretly 
 wrote to his friends to lie for him after his death. In all 
 this he was but following the rule of ecclesiastical utility 
 and the Jesuit code of morals, and was esteemed in other 
 respects as a learned, amiable, and eminent man. But his 
 system brought him to the death of a perjured traitor. 
 
 But why should I continue the painful work of illustra- 
 tion and proof? Call to mind the holy coat of Treves ; 
 call to mind the pretended miracles of modern times ; call 
 to mind the deceptions as to relics and hallowed medals, 
 with power to avert or cure diseases. 
 
 The ecclesiastics who do these things are not ignorant 
 men. They know better. They delude and defraud the 
 people on principle and systematically. Hardly can we 
 call such frauds pious frauds. They better merit the name 
 of barefaced swindling. And yet even Romish bishops do 
 not hesitate to engage in such proceedings, and to use all 
 their power to deceive and gull the simple and ignorant 
 masses, who look up to them for instruction as to the ora- 
 cles of God. 
 
 Not only, then, do the Romish ecclesiastics adopt the 
 principle, that for their own interests they may dissolve
 
 130 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 the bonds of right and honesty to those without, but, by 
 the use of fraud and delusion towards their own ignorant 
 populace for purposes of power or gain, they place their 
 own interests above theirs also, and thus above those of 
 the whole human race. 
 
 "We shall more clearly see the truth of this statement 
 when we have contemplated the fact, that from the very 
 outset the foundations of their power have been laid in 
 forgery and fraud. 
 
 Nothing gives such an idea of the patience of God as 
 the thought that he has so long endured such a system 
 and such men.
 
 PAET II. 
 
 ROMANISM THE ENEMY OF MANKIND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CASE STATED. PRINCIPLES OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 A CORPORATION which arrogates to itself so exclusively 
 the favor of God ; which regards all Protestants as pa- 
 gans ; which, for the crime of rejecting its claims, disfran- 
 chises them, and has shed the blood of millions, ought at 
 least to have some peculiar and preeminent merits of its 
 own. It ought, in theory, to tend to good ; and, after a 
 trial of more than ten centuries, it ought to have left evi- 
 dence of the reality and power of that tendency in the 
 records of history. 
 
 As this corporation is constantly thrusting itself on the 
 attention of this nation as the only hope of humanity, and 
 avows its purpose, as soon as it has power, to expel and 
 to exterminate Protestantism, it will not be amiss if we 
 subject it to a rigid and thorough scrutiny. 
 
 The principles of such a scrutiny are simple and ob- 
 vious. "We are to consider, not the pretences of its parti- 
 
 (131)
 
 132 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 sans, but its internal structure, its mode of operation, its 
 tendencies, and its results. If a company of inquisitors 
 were to introduce into this city various instruments of 
 torture such as the fertile genius of the Romish corpora- 
 tion has so abundantly devised, and carry them to a large 
 building recently erected, calling them, at the same time, 
 musical instruments, it is probable that such a name would 
 exert but little influence in satisfying the mind of the com- 
 munity of the benevolent nature of their designs, in erect- 
 ing the building and introducing the instruments. They 
 would consider their structure, their mode of operation, 
 their tendencies, and natural results. They would, after 
 considering these points, probably conclude that they were 
 instruments of torture, and that the only music that would 
 ever be produced by them would be that of groans and 
 shrieks of agony. 
 
 So it should be little to us that the Romish corporation 
 calls itself a church, and professes to aim at promoting 
 the glory of God and the welfare of man. In a case of 
 so much moment, we should not be deceived by names and 
 pretences. We ought thoroughly to examine the struc- 
 ture of the system itself, notice its tendencies, and inquire 
 what it has in fact done during its long history. 
 
 To prevent all misunderstanding, however, it is neces- 
 sary at this point to remark that we are to view the sys- 
 tem of Romanism in reference to those things which it has 
 in distinction from and in opposition to Protestantism, 
 laying out of the account any doctrines that it has in com- 
 mon with Protestantism. 
 
 This is but equitable ; for any good which may result 
 from such doctrines as it has in common with Protestant- 
 ism certainly ought not to be set down to its credit as 
 Romanism ; for it exists, not on account of the peculiar- 
 ities of Romanism, but in spite of them.
 
 THE CASE STATED. PRINCIPLES OF JUDGMENT. 133 
 
 Thus, though Romanism avows a belief of the being of 
 a God, and receives the Bible as his word, and has in its 
 doctrinal system many elements of truth which may be so 
 arranged as to meet the wants of holy minds, yet this is 
 nothing to its credit as Romanism ; for the doctrine con- 
 cerning God, and the Bible, and the same elements of truth 
 are-found without that system among the Protestants, and 
 operate there with much greater energy, and with less to 
 counteract their power. 
 
 Indeed, the power of Romanism to do evil is augment- 
 ed by the fact that it has in it so much truth. This truth 
 is, if we may so say, in a state of captivity to the Romish 
 hierarchy, and is used by them to gain their own ends. 
 They use it to give authority to their system. 
 
 By means of it they fit up some rooms in the great Ba- 
 bel in which holy men can dwell and worship God, though 
 in captivity. Meantime the existence of such good men 
 under the system is used to give it influence. They are 
 as stool pigeons to draw others into the snare. 
 
 It is a part of the policy of the system to introduce all 
 manner of inconsistent or contradictory views for va- 
 rious minds. Hence, though it contains many of the fun- 
 damental doctrines of Protestantism for the pious, yet 
 none the less does it introduce for other classes other doc- 
 trines which neutralize or contradict them. And, if the 
 contradictions are pointed out, it covers them up by the 
 plea of mystery. 
 
 But, passing from what it has in common with Protes- 
 tantism, let us consider what is peculiarly its own. 
 
 Let us, then, look at the system, stripping off its sancti- 
 monious phraseology, and testing it by an impartial con- 
 sideration of its tendencies and results. 
 12 
 
 \
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 POPERY A RELIGION, A TRADING CORPORATION AND A 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 IF we examine carefully the system of Romanism, in its 
 theory and in its practice, we shall discover a curious 
 triple combination, composed of a religion, a trading cor- 
 poration, and a government. 
 
 POPERY A RELIGION. 
 
 The great idea of the corporation as a religious body 
 is, that it has an absolute and exclusive authority to con- 
 fer the grace of God, as displayed in the pardon of sin 
 and the gift of eternal life. This grace it dispenses 
 through certain agents, who alone are empowered to con- 
 fer it and whose grace alone is genuine. All other pre- 
 tended grace is spurious and counterfeit. 
 
 Again : this grace is communicated through various 
 forms, or processes, called sacraments, and through the 
 profession of a certain creed, and through confession to 
 one of their agents, called a priest, who has full power 
 from God, through them, to forgive sins, and to impose 
 penances as the condition. 
 
 So far the system has the aspect of a religion. If, now, 
 all this were done freely, and not as a means of obtaining 
 
 (134)
 
 POPERY A RELIGION, A TRADING CORPORATION, ETC. 135 
 
 money, the aspect of a trading company would not be 
 seen. But such is not the fact. 
 
 POPERY A TRADING CORPORATION. 
 
 In all ages this system has been used as a means of ac- 
 cumulating immense sums of money in return for the grace 
 of God, of which it has the entire monopoly. This grace 
 reaches, not merely to this life, but to an indefinite period 
 beyond this life, in which the soul is neither in heaven nor 
 in hell, but somewhere between, in a place of torment 
 called purgatory. Besides the common grace of God, 
 this corporation has laid up an inexhaustible store of the 
 merits of all saints beyond what was needed for their 
 own salvation ; and of these merits, also, they have the 
 entire monopoly. Thus, by masses, and the application of 
 these merits, and by prayers for the dead, they can deliver 
 souls from purgatory ; and for a reasonable compensation 
 they are always ready to do it. This gives them great 
 power at sick beds, and over the wills of dying men and 
 women, and over the purses of living relatives and friends. 
 They have, also, various other sources of profit from the 
 living, in the form of indulgences for sin ; scapularies, as 
 defences against all evils ; masses of every variety and 
 for every purpose ; dispensations from fasts ; removals of 
 impediments to marriage ; miraculous medals ; various de- 
 fences against the devil ; grace through the images or rel- 
 ics of patron saints, especially on their annual festivals ; 
 and numerous other similar devices'. It will be found that 
 all the peculiar doctrines and practices of Popery have a 
 wonderful adaptation to produce immense pecuniary profit. 
 Thus, at the anniversaries of saints, all who visit their 
 shrines are not to expect grace unless they deposit offer-
 
 136 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 ings. In like manner, the grace of relics is most abundant 
 towards the most liberal contributors. One recent in- 
 stance will cast light on this matter. The celebrated 
 prelate, Arnold of Treves, and his priests, are said to have 
 received one hundred thousand dollars in six months from 
 offerings made in order to obtain a portion of the grace 
 stored up in the holy coat. Eighty thousand medals of 
 the Virgin, full of the same grace, were also sold, and also 
 ribbons, bits of cloth, cotton, and silk which had touched 
 the holy coat, and thus derived a portion of its salutary 
 power. All the old rags in the neighborhood of Treves 
 were thus sold for their weight in gold. The total value 
 of this particular adventure is estimated at three hundred 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 It is to be understood that the Romish corporation has 
 the monopoly of this department of gracious influence also, 
 and that no bones, hair, skulls, chairs, coats, ribbons, medals, 
 cloth, cotton, and silk are genuine except those which 
 come from their manufactory. I have mentioned other 
 important departments of traffic equally profitable, or 
 even more so. 
 
 Here, then, opens upon us the view of an immense com- 
 merce carried on for ages, the statistics of which have 
 never yet been reported. But it is well known that, at the 
 time of the reformation, this corporation and their agents 
 had gained possession of half, and sometimes of three 
 quarters, of the property of the various states of Europe. 
 Nor is there any question that, if the details were known, 
 it would be found that the commerce of Tyre, of Carthage, 
 of Venice, of the Hanse Towns, of the East India Compa- 
 ny, and of all other trading companies whatever has been 
 quite thrown into the shade by the traffic of this great 
 corporation. Hence in .prophecy its downfall is repre- 
 sented under the symbol of the ruin of an immense com- 
 mercial city.
 
 POPERY A RELIGION, A TRADING CORPORATION, ETC. 137 
 
 POPERY A GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Viewing this corporation as a government, the aspect 
 of things is no less impressive. The head of the corpora- 
 tion is both a spiritual and a temporal ruler. He claims 
 to be monarch of all monarchs. His senate of cardinals 
 and electors are princes. His bishops also are lords each 
 in his diocese, but are still his vassals, bound to him by a 
 feudal oath. To him also are bound the rulers of the 
 Jesuits and of the various orders of monks and nuns, who 
 are an all-pervading soldiery, sworn to do his will. To 
 the bishops also are subjected the secular priests, and to 
 them are subjected the people. Thus the whole system is 
 one compact and all-pervading government, the rule of 
 which is absolute obedience to the central power and its 
 agents in regular subordination. It is an immense army 
 under military discipline. 
 12*
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OPEEATION AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 
 
 LET us now study the operation of this corporation on 
 the mind. And, first of all, it is evident that in religious 
 matters it puts itself in God's place. God could, no doubt, 
 if he pleased, reveal himself and impart grace to individ- 
 uals out of this corporation ; but he will not. He has de- 
 termined not to act except through this visible corpora- 
 tion. No one can have any thing to do with him but 
 through them. All the world outside of them is empty 
 of divine grace. There is no sunshine there. All is dark 
 as hell ; all is under the despotism of the devil. God 
 comes to man only as he has stored up in them his grace. 
 Of that grace they have inexhaustible quantities. They, 
 and they only, are the great head quarters of supply. 
 
 Again : as they are infallible, and as God has subjected 
 all men to them and put all grace into their hands, all 
 men are bound to be their subjects and also their cus- 
 tomers. To believe any others, or obey any others, or 
 buy the grace of God of any others, is treason. 
 
 Again : as they are infallible, so they aim, as far as 
 possible, to be omniscient and omnipresent. This they 
 effect by their agents who hear confessions. To them 
 every act, motive, feeling, thought, and plan must be dis- 
 closed, or no pardon of sins can be obtained ; for they 
 
 (138)
 
 OPERATION AXD EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 139 
 
 cannot judge of sins unless they know all the circum- 
 stances of alleviation or aggravation. 
 
 Again : not only are the corporation to be regarded as 
 infallible, but also their agents to whom confession is 
 made are to be treated as infallible ; for, practically, the 
 people are not allowed to know what the corporation or 
 God teaches or demands by private judgment, but solely 
 through the priests. It comes to this, then, in practice, 
 that to each one his or her priest is as God, and hears 
 confessions and absolves as God ; and so their councils and 
 doctors teach. Each priest, then, is virtually an exten- 
 sion of the great divine, infallible, central corporation. 
 Thus the great central corporation branches out into 
 agencies and sub-agencies all over the world, through 
 which it teaches, governs, and trades. 
 
 It thus comes- to pass that though theoretically the 
 priest is not infallible, but only the great corporation, so 
 that they are not responsible for his statements, yet in 
 practice it is the priest who alone knows what the church, 
 who is infallible and as God, teaches, and he therefore is 
 practically infallible and as God ; and it is practical here- 
 sy or treason, as a general fact, not so to regard him. 
 
 GRAND PECULIARITY. 
 
 "We now come to a grand peculiarity of the system, 
 upon which its working power entirely depends. To the 
 masses it materializes and perverts all ideas of heaven 
 and hell ; it gives false and fanatical conceptions of God 
 as regarding this corporation more than real and genuine 
 holiness ; it fills the mind with superstitious fears, and 
 then concentrates all these forces, from the first dawn of
 
 140 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 reason, to break down all energy or courage to think or 
 to reason from the Bible or from any other source against 
 their authority or decisions. Even to doubt is heresy ; it 
 is infidelity. It thus aims by the whole power of educa- 
 tion thoroughly to cut the sinews of reason and of reason- 
 ing, and to establish a habit-of blind and implicit belief. 
 In this they have most incredible success. 
 
 Few have ever adequately considered the wide range 
 of this operation. We know God as he is by love. Ev- 
 ery one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. 
 The elements of heaven are found in the perfection of 
 love and of communion with God. 
 
 But the miseries of hell are but the opposite of the joys 
 of heaven ; they are the full development of malignant 
 passions and a sense of the just displeasure of God. 
 There is no need of literal penal fires ; nor does the Bible 
 teach their existence. 
 
 But the moment that God is conceived of as the partial 
 God of a corporation for the most part grossly immoral, 
 and holy men out of that church are consigned to literal 
 fire, no true ideas of God, heaven, or hell remain. He is 
 conceived of as an infinite, almighty, malignant demon. 
 Malignity and revenge are sanctified as zeal for him. Ar- 
 bitrary and fanatical terrors are multiplied. They pen- 
 etrate the youthful mind and freeze it with horror at the 
 thought of doubting the word of a corporation outside 
 of which he has consigned all to perdition. From the 
 effects of such training few ever recover. 
 
 Such is the corporation and such its mode of opera- 
 tion. 
 
 Let us next consider its tendencies and effects. 
 
 As Protestants, we are of course regarded as heretics. 
 Let us, then, first consider its aspects towards us.
 
 OPEBATION AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 141 
 
 TREATMENT OF HERETICS. 
 
 First, then, it tends to make heresy the greatest of all 
 crimes, and especially the heresy of doubting or denying 
 the divine authority and the infallibility of the corpora- 
 tion. 
 
 The reason of this is plain. In the belief of this divine 
 authority and infallibility lies the whole working power 
 of the system in all its aspects religious, pecuniary, and 
 political. It is the essential, all-pervading element of its 
 vitality. Therefore it is only the natural instinct of self- 
 defence to consider the act of calling in question its di- 
 vine authority or infallibility the greatest of crimes. To 
 believe and act against its authority, its decisions, and its 
 will, is the great, the only, unpardonable sin. It is called 
 HERESY in the phraseology of theologians. Its real and 
 more intelligible name is, or ought to be, TREASON ; for this 
 is what they mean by it. It is resistance to their author- 
 ity, their power, their will, their law. Even if you are 
 not actually promulgating error, yet, if you claim the 
 right to judge of them or of their decisions by the Bible 
 or by reason, you are guilty of the very essence of trea- 
 son. It was for this, and this alone, that they burned 
 John Huss. 
 
 Again : on their premises, the destruction of heretics is 
 the natural and consistent development of the system. 
 For those who are not infallible to destroy dissentients is 
 illogical and inconsistent. But if such a corporation is a 
 true and genuine theocracy, and knows it, and is infallible 
 in all its decisions, if they are, in fact, God upon earth, 
 then they regard themselves as standing on genuine Old 
 Testament ground, and, in slaughtering heretics, as simply 
 imitating Elijah in his slaughter of the priests of Baal,
 
 142 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 or Joshua in his slaughter of the idolatrous Canaanites at 
 the command of God. 
 
 So, indeed, those who have been brought up thoroughly 
 to believe the system have always looked at the matter. 
 Believing this corporation to be a true theocracy, involv- 
 ing all the interests of Grod and of man on earth, rebel- 
 lion against it and efforts to destroy its authority they 
 have regarded as the greatest of crimes. Hence we can 
 understand why, though the Spaniards pity other criminals 
 when executed, they exult and manifest peculiar joy at the 
 burning of heretics ; which is well known to be the fact. 
 Hence, also, the religious services on the occasion of the 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew were no more than the 
 logical results of the system. 
 
 Beyond all doubt this is the only real logical, consistent 
 Roman Catholic view. On no other ground can the deeds 
 of that system be defended ; and there is now; as we have 
 seen, a general tendency to take this ground and avow its 
 consequences, and to declare that as soon as they gain the 
 power they shall carry out these principles again. 
 
 On this ground Mr. Brownson denies that the Romish 
 church ever has persecuted : she has but exercised just 
 authority in punishing those who were guilty of treason. 
 
 TREATMENT OF THE BIBLE AND OF HISTORY. 
 
 But again : it follows that if in fact this corporation has 
 no basis in the Bible, nor in history, but is founded on im- 
 posture and forgery, it of course must create in the man- 
 agers of the corporation a peculiar and an intense hatred 
 of the Bible and of history. Viewed either as a religion, 
 a trading corporation, or a government, it would exert 
 immense power to avert the disclosures of God's word
 
 OPERATION AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 143 
 
 and of the great volume of history. How much more 
 when the interests of three such systems combined in one 
 are in peril! 
 
 It is natural that the inhabitants of an immense palace 
 should regard with horror and indignation all efforts to 
 cast fire into it and consume it. Yet the Bible and his- 
 tory are merely the fire of God. Let them be fully de- 
 veloped, and this whole fabric is consumed. Of course 
 the most intense energies of this whole mighty corpora- 
 tion will be put forth to avert these results. 
 
 The doctrine of pious frauds, at its first development, 
 was feeble and its aspect plausible ; but out of it grew 
 the whole Papal system. And now, at last, all kinds of 
 fraud, pious and impious, are needed in its defence, and 
 must be and will be employed with the most intense en- 
 ergy. "We need not wonder that the system sanctions 
 them. It could not exist a day without them. 
 
 EFFECTS ON LIBERTY. 
 
 Once more : this system is, of necessity, one immense 
 conspiracy, designed to destroy the very roots of all intel- 
 lectual, civil, and religious liberty. This is essential in 
 order to sustain it. This is involved in the decision of 
 the church, " that he who only doubts concerning the faith, 
 is to be reputed an infidel." This maxim, applied from 
 the first development of the intellectual powers of a child, 
 and by every process of parental, priestly, and ecclesias- 
 tical influence, and by every terror that superstition can 
 summon up, paralyzes and cripples the minds of thorough- 
 ly educated Romanists to an extent of which it is hard to 
 conceive. This principle pervades the system with intense
 
 144 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 power, and especially all Romish educational processes. 
 A habit of free and independent thought is fatal to their 
 church. Hence the hatred of the ecclesiastics of Rome 
 against our system of free schools, our histories, and our 
 Bibles. If she would maintain herself she must have a 
 system of education entirely under her control, so that she 
 may still, as heretofore, cripple and paralyze the mind 
 from its first to its last educational processes. This is 
 what she means to have. 
 
 How can a community thus educated be free? Can 
 any outward forms of government give freedom to a na- 
 tion the minds of whose children are thus paralyzed and 
 crippled from the dawn of life ? This effect of Romanism 
 was seen and lamented in France at the time of the last 
 revolution. One of her leading statesmen declared that 
 she could not follow the example of America in sustain- 
 ing popular institutions, and assigned the influence of 
 Papal education as the reason. 
 
 On this ground Pierce Connelly, once a Romish priest, 
 eloquently says, in his letter to Lord Shrewsbury assign- 
 ing his reasons for abjuring allegiance to the see of 
 Rome, 
 
 " It is not civil liberty that is the first want of the con- 
 tinent of Europe or of the Spanish republics of America. 
 The want is, the education necessary for men to be free, 
 the perception of what 'is liberty ; the want is, EMANCI- 
 PATION FROM A PSEUDO-DIVINE JURISDICTION UPON EARTH. 
 This is the want that makes the darkness of their future, 
 as of their present and their past. Rome weighs upon 
 her victims like an eternal nightmare. Who was more 
 impatient of the oppression than Venice ? But was her 
 proudest patrician ever free ? Nay, is Prussia, reduced to 
 a semi-Papal province by concordat, is Prussia or any 
 great kingdom of the continent free ? "
 
 OPERATION AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 145 
 
 EFFECTS OX NATIONAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 Once more : the immense extortions of the system, as 
 well as its system of holidays, absorbing in idleness a 
 large portion of the time of the laboring classes, have 
 tended in all ages, and still tend, to impoverish the na- 
 tions over -which it holds sway. It is notorious that 
 kings and people in the most Catholic ages have groaned 
 most bitterly by reason of its various extortions, and have 
 been by them at last aroused to resistance. Such feelings 
 indeed, in part, caused the reformation. Hence the mis 
 erable condition of Italy, and especially of the population 
 of the Papal States. 
 
 In our own country, one of the priests has bitterly cursed 
 savings banks. The reason is plain. The church prefers 
 to extort the savings of the poor laborers of this country 
 for her own purposes rather than to have them deposited 
 for their earners in savings banks. So, also, she is deter- 
 mined to own all their church property. Moreover, be- 
 cause the system is hostile to all kinds of mental liberty, 
 it is of necessity hostile to all inventive power, and to all 
 free development of the laws of nature and of society, 
 and to "all social progress. This is self-evident ; for all 
 truth belongs to one great system ; and true freedom to in- 
 vestigate one part leads to true freedom to investigate 
 another. The only safe course is to arrest the process, 
 as when the Inquisition compelled Galileo to recant the 
 true theory of the motion of the earth. 
 
 Under such influences true social progress is impossible. 
 There will be no development of thrift, industry, energy, 
 enterprise, invention, even as we see to be the case in all 
 parts of Roman Catholic Ireland. 
 
 The historian Macaulay is disposed, even to an excess, 
 13
 
 146 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 to give all the credit that he can to Rome before the ref- 
 ormation. His judgment, therefore, is the more impartial 
 as to what she is now. Speaking of the time since the ref- 
 ormation, he says, 
 
 " To stunt the growth of the human mind has been her 
 chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance 
 has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in 
 the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has every 
 where been in inverse proportion to her power. The love- 
 liest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her 
 rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in 
 intellectual torpor ; while Protestant countries, once pro- 
 verbial for sterility and barbarism, have been turned, by 
 skill and industry, in^o gardens, and can boast of a long 
 list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. 
 Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, 
 and what, four hundred years ago, they actually were, 
 shall now compare the country round Rome with the coun- 
 try round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment 
 as to the tendency of Papal domination. The descent of 
 Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest 
 depths of degradation, the elevation of Holland, in spite 
 of many natural disadvantages, to a position' such as no 
 commonwealth so small has ever reached, teach the same 
 lesson. Whoever passes, in Germany, from a Roman 
 Catholic to a Protestant principality, in Switzerland from 
 a Roman Catholic to a Protestant canton, in Ireland from 
 a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds that he has 
 passed from a lower to a higher grade of civilization. On 
 the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails. The 
 Protestants of the United States have left far behind them 
 the Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The 
 Roman Catholics of Lower Canada remain inert ; while 
 the whole continent round them is in a ferment with Prot- 
 estant activity and enterprise."
 
 OPEKATION AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 147 
 
 ROME THE EXEMY OF MAN. 
 
 From this general survey it is obvious that the Romish 
 church is the enemy of man in all aspects religious, po- 
 litical, and social. Nor would it seem possible to add 
 any thing to the magnitude and enormity of her guilt. 
 And yet, thus far, we have hardly begun to penetrate the 
 depths of her malignant influence. It is not until we have 
 understood the moral influence of her system upon her 
 priesthood, and through them upon all departments of re- 
 ligion and of social life, that we can thoroughly under- 
 stand the blasting and desolating power of Romanism. 
 
 I refer in particular to the influence of the celibacy of 
 the clergy, and of the confessional in connection with it. 
 Rome here has one advantage over Protestants. The 
 facts of her history in these respects are so outrageous 
 that they cannot, with any regard to decency, be fully 
 stated. Moreover they are so atrocious that, until we 
 see the law and the philosophy of their origin, they seem 
 incredible. In addition, it is painful to contemplate such 
 disgusting enormities and crimes. 
 
 I shall not try to deprive Romanism of her advantages 
 of this sort. I shall not pollute the public mind by a full 
 disclosure of the truth with respect to her abominations. 
 These are the things of which an apostle says it is a shame 
 even to speak. 
 
 Nevertheless, fidelity to God, and to our country, and 
 to humanity forbids that this topic be passed over. It is 
 proper, at least, to state general principles and some 
 leading facts.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. > 
 
 IT is plain that to administer a system like Romanism 
 requires a very peculiar class of men, and an intense 
 power of combination, and concentration, and military 
 discipline. 
 
 Men are needed bound to the pope more powerfully 
 than to any local community ; men who will not shrink 
 from any needed hypocrisy, falsehood, deception, or per- 
 fidy ; men who will be hardened and fanatical enough to 
 preside over and conduct the extremest kinds of torture 
 with a firmness of nerve which no pity can affect, and no 
 weakness turn back from the infliction of torment upon 
 torment. 
 
 In short, men are needed habituated to speak lies, in hy- 
 pocrisy, and having consciences seared as with a hot iron 
 men who are able, with brazen face, to claim all manner 
 of sanctity whilst performing all kinds of diabolical deeds. 
 Men are needed, fanatical, degraded, cruel, immitigable, 
 and unprincipled, to carry out such a system. 
 
 To produce concentration, celibacy is used. It cuts off 
 the clergy from all ties of family or home, and leaves them 
 to the full power of the great centre at Rome. 
 
 To fix the despotism on the people, the confessional is 
 used ; and by both of these together the priest is de- 
 graded, polluted, and defiled, and at the same time ren- 
 
 (148)
 
 THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 149 
 
 dered a hardened and cruel hypocrite and villain, fit for 
 any deed of infamy which the system demands. I do not 
 mean to include every priest in this statement, but only to 
 develop the general law and tendency of the system. 
 
 If we would thoroughly understand the full malignity, 
 the diabolical power, and intensity of the all-pervading 
 poison of Romanism, let the full import of this statement 
 be thoroughly understood. It is needless to make any 
 remarks on the importance of the clerical body under any 
 form of Christianity. They are the administrators of the 
 whole system ; they are diffused throughout the commu- 
 nity ; they act upon every interest of life. The family, 
 the school, the church are constantly under their influence. 
 In the sacred solemnities of marriage they officiate ; in the 
 joys of parents over a newborn child they sympathize ; in 
 the hour of sickness, by the bed of death, they are present 
 to administer spiritual instruction ; and in the hour of af- 
 fliction and bereavement it is theirs to offer the consola- 
 tions of the gospel. As the blood circulates through the 
 whole body, so does their influence penetrate and pervade 
 every part of the body politic. 
 
 What, then, can be more evident than that whatever 
 corrupts and degrades the clergy extends its malign in- 
 fluence throughout the whole community ? Whatever sanc- 
 tifies and elevates them, will diffuse with equal power 
 blessings of every kind. 
 
 It is, then, enough to condemn Romanism to utter det- 
 estation, as the enemy of both God and man, that it is a 
 system framed with satanic skill and power to corrupt and 
 to debase the clergy, and render them ineffably vile, and 
 hardened, and malignant. 
 
 If to any this language shall seem unwarrantably strong, 
 let such consider the two following facts : 
 
 By usurped authority, it undertakes to suspend, in all its 
 13*
 
 150 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 clergy, the action of a great law of nature, ordained by 
 God for the welfare of man a law, too, which, from the 
 very nature of the case, acts with greater and more con- 
 stant power than any other that can be named. Love is 
 strong as death mightier than the grave. The coals 
 thereof are coals of fire, that hath a most vehement flame. 
 Many waters cannot quench love ; neither can the floods 
 drown it. If a man would give all the substance of his 
 house for love, it would be utterly contemned. 
 
 It is not without reason that God made man capable of 
 this powerful affection. The family is a little model of 
 the universal system under God and the church ; and the 
 love on which it is based is an emblem of the highest love 
 of the universe even that which exists between God 
 and the redeemed. 
 
 Though God has thus associated this love with all that 
 is holy ; though he has pronounced marriage honorable in 
 all, and the bed undefiled ; though he has clearly intimated 
 his will that the clergy should have wives and rule their 
 families well, yet the corporation of Rome dares to stig- 
 matize as unholy what God has thus honored, and has 
 prohibited marriage to all her clergy, from the highest to 
 the lowest, on the ground that thus they can attain a 
 higher degree of sanctity. This is the first great fact to 
 be considered. 
 
 THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 The second great fact is this that these unhappy men, 
 thus condemned through life to contend with those pow- 
 erful impulses which God has implanted in their breasts, 
 are not allowed to retire from temptation and call off 
 their minds from forbidden thoughts, but are deliberately, 
 remorselessly, and constantly thrust into the very centre
 
 THE CELIBACY OP THE CLERGY. 151 
 
 of the fiery furnace of temptation. This is done by requir- 
 ing them to "hear the confessions of all their flock, in which, 
 of course, are included those of females of all ages, and on 
 all the points that are involved in a thorough confession. 
 Any one who knows what this implies will not need to 
 hear any thing more. On topics upon which in common 
 life no refined person pretends to speak, they are required 
 by their theological teachers and text books to make the 
 most minute examinations as to the thoughts, imagina- 
 tions, desires, and acts of every female who comes to the 
 confessional. Not one Protestant in a thousand has any 
 idea what questions are proposed in the schedules of ex- 
 amination set forth in their most authoritative text books. 
 Decency forbids their utterance. 
 
 Now, with regard to this arrangement, it may be truly 
 said that satanic ingenuity could not devise a system 
 better adapted to corrupt and debase the clerical body as 
 a mass. It is no more certain that water will run down 
 hill than it is that they will not resist the temptations to 
 which they are exposed. They will be corrupted and 
 will become corrupters. 
 
 And yet they are bound to profess and to claim for 
 themselves and for their church great and exclusive holi- 
 ness. The Protestant clergy, who are blessed of God in 
 lawful marriage, they are bound to denounce as unclean. 
 At the same time they are distinctly conscious that the 
 only difference in the case is, that against solemn vows, 
 and without the blessing of God, and as seducers and cor- 
 rupters, they seek for and obtain that which the others 
 enjoy according to the divine and hallowed ordinance of 
 God. 
 
 Licentiousness always hardens and degrades the charac- 
 ter in any circumstances ; but in circumstances like these, 
 how unspeakably much more ! He who can carry on the
 
 152 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 lying involved in such a course is trained for any and 
 all other lying. He who is debased and hardened by 
 such a process is fitted for any and all other atrocious 
 deeds. That such is the result of the system, there is, 
 alas ! evidence beyond the power of full utterance. Some 
 of it, however, shall be presented. 
 
 VAST SOCIAL EVILS. 
 
 But, before presenting this evidence, we need to take 
 another view of the case in order to understand the full 
 extent of the evil. We need to remember that the celi- 
 bacy of the clergy is founded on the heathenish notion 
 which early corrupted the Christian church that the 
 material system which God has created in so much wis- 
 dom and benevolence is malignant in its tendencies, and 
 is the chief, if not the only, cause of sin. Of course, to 
 be connected with a material body is, on these principles, 
 a great calamity and the chief source of depravity ; and 
 the great idea in the cultivation of holiness is to mortify 
 the body and refuse to indulge its appetites. 
 
 In particular, even the well-regulated gratification of 
 that most honorable and powerful affection upon which 
 God designed the marriage union and the family state to 
 rest is dishonored and degraded, as utterly inconsistent 
 with the highest attainments in holiness. Whoever would 
 become eminently holy, whether man or woman, must first 
 of all abjure marriage and take the vow of perpetual 
 celibacy and chastity. 
 
 Thus, at the very outset, an all-pervading injury is in- 
 flicted on the great mass of mankind, who must and will 
 live in the married state, by consigning them to a state 
 of necessary uncleanness and relative moral degradation.
 
 THE CELIBACY OP THE CLERGY. 153 
 
 None of them can ever become eminently holy. That 
 blessed eminence is reserved for unmarried priests and 
 nuns. 
 
 No greater calamity can befall a community than 
 to have their fundamental ideas of true religion thus 
 darkened and confused. It lays the foundation for their 
 utter delusion in their religious experience as a whole, for 
 a low standard of morals, and for their subjugation to a 
 system which excludes the intelligent action of the mind 
 in view of truth, and substitutes for it confession to a priest, 
 and penances, and fasts, and sacraments, whose efficacy de- 
 pends solely upon the priesthood. As thus all just ideas 
 of religion as a rational and sanctified state of the affec- 
 tions and will, acting itself out in a holy life, are exploded, 
 we need not wonder that in place of it comes a religion 
 of heartless works, and forms, and shows, and imaginative 
 excitements. 
 
 Holiness no longer comes through a knowledge of God 
 and his law, producing a true sense of sin and leading to 
 repentance and faith in Christ ; it comes through a cer- 
 tain mysterious grace, through baptism, the Lord's supper, 
 and other sacraments, of which the clergy have the entire 
 monopoly ; and, as there is no discriminating standard 
 of holiness, all kinds of sympathetic and imaginative ex- 
 citements are mistaken for it. The natural affections, the 
 excitement of music, and pictures, and images, all is 
 religion. 
 
 Thus the false principles from which the celibacy of the 
 clergy originates, like a malignant poison, pervade the 
 whole system, and blast and destroy true religion at its 
 very roots, and introduce in its place a system of blind 
 delusion and of bondage. 
 
 Meantime the end at which the system professes to aim, 
 the actual chastity of the clergy, in the great ma- 
 jority of cases is not gained.
 
 154 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 It is folly to suppose that God will interpose by special 
 grace to prevent a system based on a fundamental vio- 
 lation of his great laws from working out its natural 
 results. In fact he has not interposed ; and history testi- 
 fies in all ages, and by an inconceivable amount of evi- 
 dence, that it has wrought out its legitimate results, 
 especially in the deep corruption and fatal degradation of 
 the clergy, and, through them, of the community. 
 
 Well has the word of God stigmatized this whole theory 
 as a " doctrine of devils," introduced by the great apos- 
 tasy. Like an all-pervading pestilence, it smites with 
 fatal malignity all the dearest interests of society ; for 
 it not only thus debases the clergy, but also consigns to 
 necessary degradation and bondage all the masses of 
 society, confusing and confounding all ideas of the very 
 nature of holiness itself. 
 
 Overlooking the fundamental work of eradicating the 
 great roots of sin, selfishness, pride, envy, and ambition, 
 and thus leaving the most malignant passions to reign in 
 the heart, it makes holiness in its highest forms to consist 
 in a vain and fruitless conflict with those appetites which 
 God has implanted in man's nature, which can never be 
 overcome or exterminated, and the gratification of which 
 within well-defined limits is always innocent.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 REASONS FOE, A THOROUGH CONSIDERATION OF THIS 
 PART OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 THERE are three reasons why this part of the system 
 should be wisely and thoroughly considered. First : be- 
 cause the Romish corporation, claiming to be the only holy 
 and divinely authorized church, propose to extend it 
 throughout this land and once more to subject the people 
 to it as of old. Again : because it is essential to the per- 
 manence and power of the Romish corporation. And 
 again : because on this point Romanism has so fully de- 
 veloped its tendencies and results in history that there are 
 ample materials for a full and perfect judgment. 
 
 It is plain that the Romanists contemplate the exten- 
 sion of the celibacy of the clergy, and of monks, and Jes- 
 uits, and nuns, throughout this country, from their avowals 
 and their proceedings. They would subject us to such a 
 system as France, and Spain, and Italy, and Austria have 
 known and still know by a sad experience. "We ought, 
 therefore, to know what that experience was and is. We 
 ought also to know what was the state of things in Europe 
 at large before the reformation, that we may see what the 
 system was when not counteracted by Protestantism. God, 
 by an experience of long centuries, has given to us ample 
 stores of knowledge on the subject, of which we ought to 
 avail ourselves ; for if there is a subject on which the 
 
 (155)
 
 156 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 whole world ought to feel with a holy, God-inspired, all- 
 pervading, fiery energy, it is this. In fact it is at this 
 time calling up in Europe the attention of even Romish 
 communities as well as of Protestants. On this point the 
 Eclectic Review says, 
 
 " The great movement at present going on in Germany 
 is a sufficient awakener. What has stirred like a tempest 
 the whole ocean of Catholic life over almost every district 
 of that great nation? The horrors resulting from the 
 celibacy of the clergy, against which they have long pe- 
 titioned the pope in vain. 
 
 " The scandal to public morals and to private manners 
 every where occasioned by the celibacy of the clergy, and 
 the horrors resulting from that diabolical institution, have 
 been of such a nature as completely to open the eyes of 
 the most simple and stupid, and to occasion loud demands 
 for its removal. According to German policy, every 
 means has been used to suppress the knowledge of the ter- 
 rible revelations which from time to time were taking 
 place. The press was securely prevented by the censor 
 from ever alluding to them ; the police hushed all possible 
 discussion regarding them. Yet, spite of all this, such 
 bloody and tragic facts have oozed through the thick walls 
 of nunneries, and cast a horrible shade on the still roofs 
 of village parsonages, as have thrilled Avith indignant 
 terror the heart of every hearer. In many parsonages 
 the people have preferred to see a family of children 
 growing up, of whose parentage no question could be 
 asked, to risking, even by a single remark, the increase 
 of that feeling by which infanticide was made certain and 
 fearfully frequent. In many states those religious pilgrim- 
 ages to the shrines of certain popular saints, which still 
 in Austria and Bavaria are very numerous, in which 
 often as many as ten thousand people will be engaged, 
 making long journeys through solitary forests and over the 
 mountains, encamping in obscure places far from towns by 
 night, and perhaps for days, at the end of their journey, 
 around the shrine, in some as lonely a spot, have been 
 obliged to be forbidden by government, from the license
 
 REASONS FOR CONSIDERING THIS SUBJECT. 157 
 
 and the crimes to which they gave origin, and in which 
 the clergy often figured most mischievously for the inter- 
 ests of religion. In Austria the resort to these shrines is 
 still enormous. In the month of September alone the 
 visitants to that of Maria Taferl, near Linz, often amount 
 to one hundred and thirty thousand ; and all summer the 
 people are streamiug from Vienna and numberless other 
 places to that of the Black Virgin at Mariazell, in Styria." 
 
 But, notwithstanding such things and even worse have 
 been known to the Romish corporation, they are deter- 
 mined to cling to the system with a death grasp ; for by 
 it the clergy are detached from local attachments and cen- 
 tralized around the Pope of Rome. The question of abol- 
 ishing clerical celibacy was called up by the reformation ; 
 it was earnestly argued in the council of Trent. Leading 
 Catholic sovereigns urged the measure ; but Papal policy 
 resisted and prevailed. 
 
 Nevertheless, such is the history of the past on this sub- 
 ject that injured and insulted humanity every where ought 
 to be aroused and animated by God till the whole system 
 shall be consumed with avenging fire. On this point the 
 , same reviewer says, 
 
 " The governments of the most Catholic states are com- 
 pelled to curb that license which the court of Rome allows, 
 and to put down those atrocities which have received the 
 patronage and the blessings of the most celebrated pon- 
 tiffs. The very clergy themselves writhe and groan under 
 the bondage into which the decree of Gregory VII. has 
 thrown them a decree which has condemned them to a 
 living death, and made them, where they should be the 
 fountains of holiness, the most prolific fountains of crime 
 and scandal. In vain they have implored the pope to 
 reconsider and abolish this unnatural decree ; its abolition 
 now would bring down the whole Papal fabric. In the 
 Black Songs of Benedict Dalei, purporting to be the po- 
 etic autobiography of a Catholic priest, the whole terrible 
 14
 
 158 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 mystery of iniquity, the purgatory, and lonely wretched- 
 ness of a priest's life are depicted with a feeling that makes 
 you shrink with horror from the contemplation. It is this 
 terrible reality, acting alike on priests and people in 
 Catholic countries, making the priest's life a true misery, 
 converting him into a spy and a tool, compelling him who 
 has vowed before God to proclaim the truth into a studied 
 and inevitable supporter of the most infamous frauds, a 
 cor-rupter of the minds of the young, and a tyrant where 
 he should be the friend, it is because the confessional has 
 become the soul trap of Satan and the well of all spiritual pol- 
 lutions that the popular mind has revolted from the system 
 throughout Germany, and will revolt from it, finally, every 
 where. In England we have had these horrors removed 
 from our observation ; and therefore Catholicism is toler- 
 able and even piquant to the imagination. Let M. Mi- 
 chelet say what is in France." 
 
 The concluding remarks of the Eclectic reviewer are ap- 
 plicable to this country. Popery here is not seen in its true 
 character and full development, and therefore to some it 
 seems tolerable ; and efforts have been made to render it 
 piquant to the imagination. Bishop Kenrick has, with 
 great audacity, undertaken this work. He has under- 
 taken, not only to vindicate the system, but to prove that 
 the influence of the confessional tends, " like a river of 
 pure water from the temple of God, to wash away all the 
 pollutions of society." 
 
 It is therefore essential that every true American should 
 be well informed on this great and momentous theme, af- 
 fecting as it does the morals and the whole well being of 
 coming ages. In vain does Bishop Kenrick say that the 
 system works well hei'e. A young tiger may seem, when 
 in his infancy, as harmless as a kitten ; but it is a tiger 
 still. I do not believe in the purity of the system here. 
 But if it were so, what then? What if, when not full 
 grown and surrounded by Protestant vigilance, it should
 
 REASONS FOR CONSIDERING THIS SUBJECT. 159 
 
 not reveal itself as it always has in Romanized countries? 
 Still, if ever it should gain the ascendency in this com- 
 munity, its effects will surely be the same that they always 
 have been. 
 
 Before God and this nation, then, let this system be ar- 
 raigned, charged, and tried as the great corrupter of the 
 clergy, and, through them, of mankind. The bishops who 
 defend it, if ignorant, ought to be confronted with its past 
 history. If not ignorant, as is probably the case with all 
 of them, then their criminal attempts to delude the Amer- 
 ican people ought to be exposed. 
 
 It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of this 
 part of the subject. It has been well said by an intelli- 
 gent French writer, once a Romanist, " The strength and 
 vigor of Roman Catholics depend upon their priests ; 
 through them is their only means of annoyance ; they are the 
 true column of the Papacy." On no subject did Lafayette 
 feel more deeply. Let us heed his warning voice. He 
 said, " AMERICAN LIBERTY CAN BE DESTROYED ONLY BY THE 
 POPISH CLERGY." 
 
 But let us be just. Young men are not corrupt, as a 
 general fact, when they enter the Popish seminaries to 
 prepare to become priests. It is the system of celibacy, 
 and the confessional, and the company of priests already 
 corrupted that corrupt them in successive generations in 
 actual life. Those who are thus seduced and corrupted 
 by an abominable system deserve our pity, although they 
 do finally become hardened and reprobate. 
 
 But what shall be said of that great central corpora- 
 tion which, well knowing from age to age that this system 
 was inundating the world with pollution, has, from mo- 
 tives of power and profit, under hypocritical pretences 
 of holiness, and against all protestations and remon- 
 strances, upheld the system ? Ought they not to meet, in its
 
 160 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 highest forms, the unmingled execration of mankind, and 
 to encounter the fiery judgment of God ? 
 
 I am well aware that this language is strong and these 
 charges severe ; yet they are not the result of passionate 
 excitement, but of deep conviction before God. I am 
 willing to be held responsible for them. If I do not prove 
 them, let me be dealt with as a slanderer. But if they 
 are true, then, if any thing ought to move heaven and 
 earth, yea, God and the whole universe, to retributive ven- 
 geance, it is such facts as these.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE VOICE OF HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE. 
 
 IT is fit that evidence should be adduced to sustain the 
 correctness of the views which have been presented of the 
 corrupting influence of the celibacy of the clergy and the 
 confessional. 
 
 The most common and popular evidence is found in those 
 severe allegations which converted Romish priests have 
 made against the morals of the Romish clergy, and which are 
 in full accordance with the views which have been given. 
 But the Romanists repudiate the statements of such, as the 
 foul slander of apostate priests. Thus they try to destroy 
 the force of the testimony of Anthony Gavin, in his Master 
 Key to Popery ; of Blanco White, in his Practical and 
 Internal Evidence against Catholicism ; of the Confes- 
 sions of a Catholic Priest, edited by Professor S. F. B. 
 Morse, of New York ; of Giustiniani ; of Hogue ; and of 
 others. Thus to a considerable extent the force of these 
 works, even on many thoughtful and candid Protestants, is 
 neutralized. 
 
 For a time, then, we ought to rise above them, and to 
 look at the developments of history on a great scale and 
 at the testimony of Romanists themselves. If we take 
 this course we shall come to the conclusion that these men 
 have spoken the truth, and that without exaggeration, 
 
 14 * (161)
 
 162 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 and, indeed, that the evil tendencies and malignant results 
 of the system cannot be exaggerated. 
 
 There is, in fact, abundant evidence to justify every 
 Protestant in this nation and in the world in assuming as 
 a practical basis of action the following positions : 
 
 That, in view of the known laws of human nature as 
 established by God, and in view of the uniform and un- 
 broken testimony of history, the celibacy .of the clergy, 
 especially as connected with the duty of hearing confes- 
 sions, is in the highest sense AN IMMORAL AND CRIMINAL 
 INSTITUTION, hostile beyond the power of conception or 
 expression alike to the religious, civil, and social interests 
 of mankind, by reason of its malignant and corrupting 
 power on the clergy, and, through them, on the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Moreover, though some of the Romish clergy may, in 
 consequence of peculiarities of constitution or incidental 
 or local influences, continue continent, yet in any particular 
 case the presumption is always against every one who is 
 under the influence of the system ; nor can this presumption 
 be removed except by positive evidence to the contrary. 
 
 And finally, such being the state of facts, there ought to 
 be formed by divine aid, throughout this country and 
 throughout the world, a sentiment of holy indignation so 
 intense and all-pervading that it shall consume the system, 
 and with it the energies of its guilty supporters, as with 
 devouring fire. 
 
 It is proper, in disclosing the testimony of history, to 
 look with great care at that period when the church of 
 Rome was in the ascendant throughout Europe, when 
 there were no Protestants who had power to affect her by 
 thoir public sentiment, but when all things were as she 
 nad made them. There is one advantage in looking first
 
 THE VOICE OF HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE. 163 
 
 at this period. We shall rely entirely on Roman Catholic 
 documents. But first let us glance at the earlier ages. 
 
 EARLY AGES. 
 
 Celibacy, as has been remarked, sprung from heathenish 
 errors. At first it was encouraged by public sentiment. 
 In 385 Pope Siricius enjoined it on the clergy. Other 
 popes and early provincial councils confirmed the injunc- 
 tion. Yet it was so at war with God and Nature that it 
 led to constant pollution too gross to be described. 
 
 The same was true of the early monasteries. "With re- 
 spect to these the statement of Isaac Taylor is comprehen- 
 sive and sufficient : 
 
 " It were better to sustain in patience the imputation 
 of advancing exaggerated statements, and of giving a 
 stronger color to an argument than the facts of the case 
 would justify, than to do the uninitiated reader so serious 
 an injury as to bring to light the evidence that bears upon 
 this question. An appeal, therefore, is made to whoever 
 has actually perused, or at least looked into, the ascetic 
 writers, from Macarius, Ephraem, Palladius, and Cassian, 
 downwards to those of the twelfth century. On the 
 ground of the evidence which might from those sources 
 be adduced a general result may be stated under three 
 heads ; namely, 
 
 " 1. That the monastic vow and the life of celibacy 
 
 FAILED TO SECUEE THE PROFESSED OBJECT of the institu- 
 tion iii all but a very few instances, and that it did not pro- 
 mote that purity of the heart which was acknowledged to 
 be its only good end. 
 
 " 2. That, besides the evil of cutting men off from the 
 common enjoyments, duties, and sympathies of life, the 
 work of maintaining and defending their chastity (exterior 
 and interior) absorbed almost the whole energies of those 
 (a very few excepted) who sincerely labored at it ; so that
 
 164 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 to be chaste in fact and in heart was pretty nearly the 
 sum of what the monk could do, even with the aid of 
 starvation, excessive bodily toils, and depletic medicine ; 
 to say nothing of his prayers, tears, and flagellations. 
 
 " 3. That the monastic institution, even during its earlier 
 and better era, entailed the most deplorable miseries and 
 generated the foulest and most abominable practices ; so 
 that, for every veritable saint which the monastery cherished, 
 it made twenty wretches, whose moral condition was in 
 the last degree pitiable or loathsome. 
 
 "Now, shall we leave these propositions unsupported by 
 proof? or will the Romanist, the pride and prop of whose 
 church is monkery, challenge us to make good our alle- 
 gations ? " 
 
 This tendency of the system of celibacy to great moral 
 corruption was so constant and notorious that efforts were 
 made in successive centuries to effect a reformation by 
 various councils, at which time indignant disclosures were 
 made of the real state of facts. There were no Protestants 
 at that time. It was thought that^ reforms might be ef- 
 fectually carried on within the church ; and, in order to 
 effect so desirable a purpose, open and bold disclosures 
 were made. 
 
 TIME OF GREGORY VII. 
 
 Not unfrequently, in spite of popes and councils, those 
 priests who desired to avoid the prevailing profligacy had 
 recourse to marriage, as a divine and honorable ordinance 
 of God ; and at the time of the accession of the ambitious 
 and imperious Gregory VII., in the eleventh century, 
 the priesthood very extensively lived in a state of mat- 
 rimony. 
 
 But he saw that, if this state of things continued, they 
 could not be bound as his purposes required to the Roman 
 see, nor could the property of bishops and other ecclesias-
 
 THE VOICE OP HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE. 165 
 
 tics be retained in the hands of the church. Hence he 
 rigorously enforced, against great opposition, the celibacy 
 of the clergy. He prohibited the laity from hearing mass 
 when celebrated by a married priest. The married clergy 
 called Gregory the patron of heresy and the abetter of a 
 mad system, who by violence would compel men to live as 
 angels, stop the course of nature, and give the slackened 
 reins to all pollution. But resistance was vain. By canons, 
 decretals^ councils, false miracles, threats, violence, arms, 
 fraud, flattery, anathemas, and excommunications he car- 
 ried the day. His successors followed his example. That 
 the great end aimed at has been the power of the Romish 
 corporation, and not real chastity, is obvious from the 
 fact that, whilst honorable marriage has been prohibited 
 under pain of excommunication, concubinage has been con- 
 nived at, and sometimes even licensed. 
 
 After the celibacy of the clergy had, the eleventh 
 century, been thoroughly enjoined, in the thirteenth century 
 Innocent III. fully established and enforced auricular con- 
 fession ; and thus was the existing system fully organized. 
 From Gregory VII. to the time of the reformation Popery 
 in its fullest development had been in constant operation 
 a space of four centuries. If, then, as Bishop Kenrick af- 
 firms, celibacy and the confessional tend to eminent holi- 
 ness, the clergy, the church, and the world should have 
 been eminently sanctified. How was it ? 
 
 CENTURIES BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 
 
 "We will appeal first, not to an individual, but to a 
 council the council of Paris in 1429. From them we 
 receive the astounding information that not only were the 
 clergy incontinent and immoral, but that they were noto-
 
 166 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 riously so, to such a degree as to scandalize and degrade 
 the whole Christian world. 
 
 In the preamble to a canon designed to reform the 
 existing state of things they say, 
 
 " On account of the crime of concubinage, with which 
 multitudes of the clergy and monks are infected, the 
 church of God and the whole clergy are held in derision, 
 abomination, and dishonor among all nations ; and that 
 abominable crime has so prevailed in the house of God 
 that Christians do not now consider mere fornication a 
 mortal sin." Council of Paris 1429, c. xxiii. ; Mansi, 
 xxviii. p. 1107. 
 
 Let it here be noticed that we have not a Protestant 
 slander, nor the assertion of an individual, but the solemn 
 decision of a grave Roman Catholic council, assembled in 
 Paris, the capital of France, the centre of Europe. The 
 disclosure of facts is clear and terrific ; but the attempted 
 remedy was powerless. 
 
 Turning from this council to the councils of Yalladolid 
 and Toledo, in Spain, the first in 1322, the other in 1473, 
 we find similar testimony. The first condemns " the 
 outrageously dissolute lives of a portion of the clergy, 
 who, regardless of reputation and safety, lived in public 
 concubinage." The latter represented them as living in 
 the filthiest atrocity, and as contemptible to the people, 
 and as daring to touch the body of the Lord with polluted 
 hands. A German council, in 1225, accused the priest- 
 hood of unchastity, voluptuousness, and obscenity. Two 
 councils in Cologne, in 1536 and 1549, even after the ref- 
 ormation, repeated and augmented these charges. Ac- 
 cording to them, monks, nuns, and clergy were alike de- 
 filed. Of all others, the Italian and Roman clergy were 
 most licentious. In 1538 a select council, convened by 
 Paul IV., declared that they kept courtesans in splendid
 
 THE VOICE OF HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE. 167 
 
 palaces, who at noonday walked or rode through the city, 
 attended by the clergy and nobility, the friends of the 
 cardinals. It is notorious that the Roman pontiffs were 
 often as filthy as their clergy, and exemplified every spe- 
 cies of licentiousness and pollution. Fornication, adul- 
 tery, incest, and sodomy are in the list of their crimes. 
 This testimony of Romish councils could be sustained by 
 that of Ramish historians and divines too many to re- 
 count. Nor is their testimony local ; it relates to every 
 nation under the jurisdiction of Rome. Especially in the 
 councils of Constance and of Basil were most astounding 
 disclosures made by those who were urging the necessity 
 of a reform. So also the statements of Nicholas de Cla- 
 menge, J. .Trithemius, Stephen, Bishop of Brandenburg, 
 and many others are horrific. 
 
 Indeed the whole church and the whole world groaned 
 under the all-pervading corruption generated by the law 
 of celibacy. All historians, all councils, are full of the 
 theme ; but language cannot utter all the fearful, the ap- 
 palling truth. The eminently learned, impartial, and accu- 
 rate Gieseler gives the following brief view of the state 
 of the clergy during the fifteenth century up to the time 
 of the reformation, sustaining his assertions by the irref- 
 utable testimony of numerous Roman Catholic writers 
 and councils : 
 
 " Their chief offence, their INCONTINENCE, seemed to grow 
 worse the more there was done to restrain it. The severe 
 lectures read them on the subject at the councils of Con- 
 stance and Basil had as little influence upon the conduct 
 of most of the clergy there assembled as the decrees 
 passed at those councils had on the state of the church at 
 large in this respect. In no century had there been so 
 many decrees passed against the concubinage of the clergy 
 as in the fifteenth ; yet in none were complaints so com- 
 mon of their incontinence, (which IN ITALY degenerated
 
 168 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 even into unnatural vices,) as well as derision and lamen- 
 tation over the inefficiency of all the means used to restrain 
 them. The number of the offenders made it difficult or 
 impossible to carry into effect the more severe punishments ; 
 whilst the avarice of the bishops was easily gratified by 
 substituting therefor pecuniary mulcts, which soon changed 
 into an annual tax. The commonness of the offence made 
 it seem to the clergy themselves a light thing. Of course 
 the laity could not be expected to view it in any other 
 light ; and in consequence the vice increased to a fearful 
 degree, so as at the end of the fifteenth century to give 
 birth to a new and disgusting disease. As early as the 
 council of Constance it was openly said that nothing could 
 remedy these evils but to allow the marriage of priests ; 
 but such was the strength of prejudice that men in other 
 respects liberal in their views as, for instance, the Chan- 
 cellor Gerson resisted every effort to change the existing 
 laws of the church. There always continued to be intel- 
 ligent men who advocated the marriage of priests ; but 
 THE INTERESTS OF THE HIERARCHY were too deeply involved 
 in the question to expect them to yield." Yol. iii. pp. 
 278-283, American edition. 
 
 CHARACTER OF BISHOPS AND COUNCILS. 
 
 We need not wonder that the decrees of councils pro- 
 duced no effect, since it was well known that a large pro- 
 portion of the bishops composing them were guilty of the 
 same offence, and none were free from the suspicion. In- 
 deed at the councils themselves many of the clergy openly 
 had their concubines. Hence Petrus de Pulka, professor 
 in Vienna, said, in an address delivered before the council 
 of Constance, "Attend and consider! Behold how the 
 clergy of the Roman court, which, from the commence- 
 ment of this schism, is regarded as depraved beyond hu- 
 man depravity, and in like manner the clergy of this 
 diocese, nay, more, of this city, and of the synod itself,
 
 THE VOICE OF HISTORY AXD EXPERIENCE. 169 
 
 obey our injunctions ! Consider, I pray you, whether from 
 reverence to this sacred synod, in whose presence they daily 
 are, they have even in the least degree amended their dis- 
 solute lives. Undeniably the clergy of the Roman court 
 are affirmed to retain their concubines without shame be- 
 fore all." The Viennese manuscript asserts that there 
 were in attendance on the council of Constance, by which 
 Huss was burned for heresy, fifteen hundred common or 
 public women. 
 
 This state of things in the council of Lyons was still 
 worse. It totally demoralized the city where it was con- 
 vened. 
 
 The celebrated Chancellor Gerson, who was one of the 
 ruling spirits of the council of Constance, in his answer 
 to Saignet acknowledged the impossibility of checking the 
 incontinence of the clergy, and accommodated his theory 
 of morals to the fact. He held that by incontinency the 
 clergy did not violate their vows, but by marriage they 
 did ; for they merely vowed not to contract marriage, but 
 did not vow to be continent. To remedy the evil as far 
 as may be, he recommends " to sin in that way as little as 
 possible, and meantime to do as many good deeds as pos- 
 sible, and to be very careful when they do sin not to do it 
 openly, or on the festivals, or in sacred places, or with, 
 married persons." "What must have been the effect of the 
 Romish system of celibacy on morals when the most emi- 
 nent man in the church at that time could thus write? 
 
 The decree of the council of Basil in 1435, as Gieseler 
 states it, prohibited all priests to live in open concubinage. 
 This provision would seem to be based upon the moral 
 principles of Chancellor Gerson. At a synod in Breslau 
 and in various councils, especially in Italy, fines were im- 
 posed on such offenders ; and, in spite of decrees of other 
 councils, this practice was extensively adopted by the 
 15
 
 170 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 bishops thus making the vices of the clergy a source of 
 gain. 
 
 Agrippa mentions a bishop who boasted of having in 
 his diocese eleven thousand priests, who severally paid 
 their superior every year a guinea for leave to keep con- 
 cubines. (See Edgar, p. 526.) 
 
 POPULAR BELIEF AND FEELING. 
 
 Gieseler says, " The laity were glad in any way to se- 
 cure their families from the attacks of priestly lust, and fa- 
 vored, or even furthered, the permanent connection of their 
 priests with concubines." Vol. iii. p. 83. 
 
 Nicholas of Clamenge says, " The laity are so thorough- 
 ly convinced that all the clergy are incontinent that in 
 very many parishes they will not tolerate a priest unless 
 he has a concubine. This they do to defend their wives, 
 who even thus are by no means out of danger." (Giese- 
 ler, iii. 83.) The Swiss especially took this course. ^Eneas 
 Sylvius, who became pope, says of the Frieslanders, "They 
 are unwilling to receive priests who have no wives, fear- 
 ing that they will defile those of other men ; for they re- 
 gard it as unnatural and impossible for unmarried men to 
 live in continence." Gieseler, iii. 83. 
 
 This was also the opinion of j^Eneas Sylvius himself; 
 and on this ground he defended himself when in the coun- 
 cil of Basil he received from his father the intelligence of 
 the birth of a son. Accordingly when cardinal and when 
 pope he conceded that, viewing the question simply on the 
 ground of principle, the law of clerical celibacy ought to 
 be abolished. 
 
 Alvarus Pelagius, speaking of Spain and another prov- 
 ince, says that in them the number of the children of the
 
 THE VOICE OF HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE. 171 
 
 laity little exceeded that of the children of the priests. In 
 Ireland and Norway a similar state of things existed, and 
 the synods only prohibited public concubinage. 
 
 PRESENT STATE OF THING*. 
 
 This state of open corruption did not at once disappear 
 even after the reformation. And even now the same great 
 river of pollution flows through Romish countries, al- 
 though its course is more under ground. 
 
 On this point the learned, cautious, and discriminating 
 Isaac Taylor says, " It is fair to assume that, of a body of 
 men taken at hazard from the mass and placed under the 
 restraint (or rather the profession) of continence, a con- 
 siderable portion, perhaps a third, will very early in their 
 course throw off every thing but their hypocrisy and be- 
 come thoroughly profligate. The notorious condition of 
 those countries where nothing has forbidden the natural 
 expansion of the Romish system would warrant our af- 
 firming that two thirds of its clergy come under such a 
 description. Nay, perhaps our English credulity would 
 be ridiculed at Madrid, Grenada, Lisbon, Florence, Lima, 
 or Rio Janeiro if we presumed that more than a very few 
 of the sacerdotal class were not utterly debauched." Fa- 
 naticism, p. 137.
 
 .CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BISHOP KENRICK'S DEFENCE. 
 
 MANY wonders occur in the history of this world 
 among which may be mentioned the bold assertions of 
 Bishop Kenrick in defence of the confessional in the 
 hands of an unmarried clergy. 
 
 In the number of Brownson's Quarterly for July, 1846, 
 is an article intended as a defence of the Romish system 
 of the confessional. We have good authority for ascrib- 
 ing it to the pen of Bishop Kenrick. Public attention has 
 of late been somewhat directed towards his own writings 
 on this subject, and he seems to feel that he is called on 
 to step forward in defence of the system. Bishop Kenrick 
 is, undoubtedly, one of the ablest defenders of Romanism 
 in this country ; and his works on doctrinal and moral the- 
 ology, as well as his defence of the Papal supremacy, indi- 
 cate no small degree of natural ability. If he were but 
 on the side of truth he would be an able writer indeed : 
 as it is, his naturally good powers are continually crippled 
 by the false and absurd system which he has undertaken 
 to defend. 
 
 He says, in the language of another, " If it led to licen- 
 tiousness or danger, that licentiousness or that danger 
 would have come to light, and there would be tongues 
 enough to tell it." 
 
 This implies that such licentiousness and danger have 
 
 (172)
 
 BISHOP KENRICK'S DEFENCE. 173 
 
 not come to light and have not been told by millions of 
 tongues. On this point let history testify. 
 
 He, however, does not go radically into the defence of 
 the confessional, because, as he assures us, he regards 
 it as needless to reply at great length " to the charges 
 advanced against an institution which is essentially di- 
 rected to wash away the defilements of sin, and which 
 is in the church like a majestic river, whose waters 
 absorb the impurities which they meet with in their 
 course." 
 
 On the other hand, he seems to repose most confidence 
 in an appeal to the observation of American Protestants, 
 and also to the convictions of American Romanists. With 
 affecting simplicity he says, p. 337, " Without referring 
 our readers to distant or past evidence, we at once ap- 
 peal to the instinctive feeling of the Catholic community 
 around us." 
 
 Is there not crafty philosophy in this ? One would think 
 that the proper way to test the Romish system of the con- 
 fessional would be to go to those communities in which it 
 has exercised its full power, unobstructed by Protestant- 
 ism, and developed its mature results. For example : the 
 pope has taken great pains to purge Italy by fire and 
 sword of the least leaven of Protestantism. Why not, 
 then, appeal to Italy, and hold up the spotless purity of 
 society there, where the confessional has poured out its 
 full stream of purifying influence for ages ? Why not 
 give us a little of the history of morals at Rome, the cen- 
 tre of the system ? 0, no ; the bishop does not inteud to 
 furnish us with any such distant or past evidence. With 
 striking sagacity he comes into the midst of communities 
 where Protestantism is in the ascendency and has created 
 a high tone of morals ; where Romanists are a small 
 minority, surrounded by vigilant eyes, exposed to the 
 15*
 
 174 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 searching scrutiny of Protestant presses, over which Ro- 
 manism has not yet been able to establish a censorship. 
 Yes ; he comes here and makes his appeal to Catholics in 
 these circumstances for evidence of the purifying power 
 of the confessional. We tell the bishop, in all frankness, 
 that he very much underrates the intellect of his Prot- 
 estant readers if he thinks that they are to be affected by 
 such reasoning as this. But as he does not see fit to refer 
 his readers to distant or past evidence, we shall endeavor 
 in some degree to supply his lack of service. 
 
 EXPERIENCE OF SPAIN. 
 
 "We will, then, summon the bishop and our readers to a 
 country eminently blessed with Romish influences ; fa- 
 vored as the great head quarters of the Inquisition, which, 
 by fire and sword and tortures ineffable, has thoroughly 
 purged out the leaven of Protestantism. We need not 
 say that this country is SPAIN. 
 
 Is it not a just and equitable rule to look for the true 
 tendencies of a system where it has a fair field and full 
 opportunity to develop itself, and nothing to check its 
 course ? Here, then, ought we to see the full power of 
 the confessional, as a majestic river washing away the de- 
 filements of sin. 
 
 But how was it ? We answer, It was so ordered in the 
 providence of God that precisely here was made in the 
 most conspicuous manner, and in sight of all nations, a 
 public display of the ineffable pollutions and defilements 
 of the system, and of the utter want of power and also 
 of hearty will on the part of the managers of the system 
 to prevent them. 
 
 It appears, then, that, at the close of half a century after
 
 BISHOP KEXRICK'S DEFENCE. 175 
 
 the reformation, Lutheran opinions have so far prevailed in 
 Spain as to call for four autos da fe against the Lutherans, 
 two in Valladolid and two in Seville. It was also dis- 
 covered that the tendency towards Lutheranism was in- 
 creased by a general persuasion of the profligacy of the 
 priests, and in particular by the public accusation that 
 they used the confessional as a means of seduction. This 
 led to sundry remarks, not peculiarly agreeable, with 
 respect to the Roman church as the mother of harlots and 
 of abominations. 
 
 So pressing was the exigency of the case that report 
 was made to the pope, and he felt compelled to interpose. 
 Accordingly, on January 18, 1556, Paul IY. addressed a 
 brief to the inquisitors of Grenada, in which he com- 
 manded them to prosecute those priests whom the public 
 voice accused of seduction, and not to pardon one of them. 
 The Archbishop of Grenada and the council of the Inquisi- 
 tion decided that the publication of the brief in the usual 
 form would produce great inconveniences, and that prudence 
 and moderation were needed. They therefore, to remedy 
 the evil, privately notified the confessors in general of the 
 purport of the brief, and said nothing to the people. 
 
 This course convinced the pope that the abuse was not 
 confined to the kingdom of Grenada. Accordingly, in 1561, 
 Pius IY. addressed a brief to Yaldes, the inquisitor general, 
 authorizing him to proceed against the guilty confessors in 
 all the domains of Philip, the most Catholic king. This 
 bull affirmed the crime to exist " in the kingdoms of Spain 
 and in the cities and dioceses thereof." 
 
 It seems to have been still judged inexpedient by the 
 ecclesiastics and inquisitors in most provinces to give 
 this notice. But in some, and especially in Seville, the in- 
 quisitors gave the required public notice and called for 
 information against the guilty, requiring all females thus
 
 17G THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 abused and all privy to such acts to inform the Inquisition 
 within thirty days, attaching severe penalties to the neglect 
 or disobedience of the injunction. Then followed a scene 
 unparalleled in the history of the world ; but, in the prov- 
 idence of God, it was a true and fearful revelation of 
 Popery. In the words of Edgar, " Maids and matrons of 
 the nobility and peasantry, of every rank and situation, 
 crowded to the Inquisition. The fair informers in Seville 
 alone were so numerous that all the inquisitors and twenty 
 notaries were insufficient in thirty days to take their deposi- 
 tions. Thirty additional days had three several times to be 
 appointed for the reception of informations. And finally 
 the multitude of criminals, the jealousy of husbands, and 
 the odium which the discovery threw on auricular confes- 
 sion and the Popish priesthood caused the sacred tribunal 
 to quash the prosecution and to consign the depositions to 
 oblivion." (See Edgar's Variations of Popery, pp. 528, 
 529, and McCrie's History of the Reformation in Spain, 
 p. 242.) 
 
 For authorities to sustain these facts, Edgar refers to 
 Gonsalvus, Lorente, and Limborch. The pungency and 
 particularity of the statement seem to come from Gon- 
 salvus, whom Lorente calls Raynaldus Gonzalvius Mon- 
 tanus, and McCrie Montanus. All agree that the accusa- 
 tions ceased because the demand of the Inquisition was 
 repealed. But Lorente thinks that Gonsalvus exaggerates 
 the number of the informers. It were to be hoped that it 
 is so for the honor of humanity ; but, on any view of the 
 case, what can be conceived of more horrible than such a 
 disclosure of priestly villany and depravity ? 
 
 Those who remember the account given by Gavin of the 
 discovery and exposure of the seraglio of the inquisitors 
 in Arragon by a Spanish and French army, in 1706, will 
 not have much faith in the purity of the inquisitors of an
 
 BISHOP KENRICK'S DEFENCE. 177 
 
 earlier generation. At all events, they manifested a 
 remarkable leniency towards the crime of seduction. To 
 be a Lutheran was intolerable. Nothing, could atone for 
 it but to be burned at a public auto da fe. Lorente, how- 
 ever, informs us that those guilty of seduction by the 
 confessional were never publicly exposed at an auto da fe. 
 They made a private confession and abjuration of their 
 practical heresy and of all others, and were then absolved 
 and confined for a time in a convent ! 
 
 Here, then, we have a fair illustration of the manner in 
 which the confessional washed away the pollution of Spain. 
 So, too, would it now purify America, if Romanism had 
 had the ascendency here that it has had in Spain. 
 
 Does this look like the course of a majestic river, washing 
 away the defilements of sin ? or like a part of her system 
 upon whose forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon 
 the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the 
 earth? Do not such results flow inevitably from the con- 
 fessional in the hands of an unmarried clergy? Nor is 
 this a state of things peculiar to Spain. It is impossible 
 to make such a system tend to any thing but pollution. It 
 is in direct violation of the great laws of human society 
 ordained by God himself, and it creates an intensity of 
 temptation that on the great scale never was resisted, and 
 never will be. In the words of the Eclectic Review, " It 
 is a terrible reality, acting alike on priests and people in 
 Catholic countries, making the priest's life a true misery, 
 converting him into a spy and a tool, compelling him who 
 has vowed before God to proclaim the truth into a studied 
 and inevitable supporter of the most infamous fraud, a 
 corrupter of the minds of the young, and a tyrant where he 
 should be the friend." And let any one study thoroughly 
 the state of things in Italy, and he will find it worse, if 
 worse be possible, than even in Spain, and worst of all at
 
 178 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Rome. And in Germany, Austria, France, Mexico, South 
 America, and Cuba, is there any reason why the same 
 system should not produce the same results ? To prove 
 that such is the fact, we shall proceed to state a few more 
 facts for the consideration of the bishop. 
 
 Meantime we repeat the strong statement of the Ec- 
 lectic Review, than which nothing more true was ever 
 uttered : 
 
 "IT IS BECAUSE THE CONFESSIONAL HAS BECOME THE 
 SOUL TRAP OP SATAN AND THE WELL OF ALL SPIRITUAL POL- 
 LUTIONS THAT THE POPULAR MIND HAS REVOLTED FROM THE 
 SYSTEM THROUGHOUT GERMANY, AND WILL REVOLT FROM IT, 
 FINALLY, EVERY WHERE." 
 
 And shall America nourish a system of pollution which 
 even Catholic Europe, with all its degradation, is about to 
 reject and abhor ? 
 
 PROOF FROM BISHOP KENRICK AND PAPAL LEGISLATION. 
 
 Is it to be supposed, then, that Bishop Kenrick knew 
 these facts when he said of the confessional, " If it led to 
 licentiousness or danger, that licentiousness or that danger 
 would have come to light, and there would be tongues 
 enough to tell it " ? We answer, Certainly ; there is the 
 best possible evidence of the fact even the incidental 
 testimony of the'bishop himself. 
 
 He well knew, and will not dare to deny it, as will soon 
 appear, that the evils of clerical seduction by means of the 
 confessional even since the reformation have been so great 
 in European countries as to cause a scandal so widespread 
 as to endanger the interests of the Papacy. Urged by 
 such considerations, he well knew that several popes in
 
 BISHOP KENBICKS DEFENCE. 179 
 
 succession were compelled to issue bull after bull designed 
 to rectify the evil. Moreover we have his own confession 
 on the subject. 
 
 What, then, does Bishop Kenrick say as it regards the 
 use of the confessional as a means of priestly seduction ? 
 He confesses, in express terms, that it has been so used, 
 and he occupies seven pages of the third volume of his 
 treatise on moral theology in stating the legislation that 
 the existence of this practice has rendered necessary in 
 the Romish church. These pages occur in Tractatus xix., 
 De Poenitentia, chap. x. sect, vi., entitled De Crimine 
 Solicitationis, vol. iii. pp. 235-240. Of this legislation I 
 shall give some account in its place. I will here in general 
 remark, that no one can read these seven pages in Bishop 
 Kenrick and not find in them internal evidence of the 
 widespread existence in Romish communities of the very 
 things alleged by converted Romish priests, and which 
 Romanists call slander. He will find detailed legislation on 
 the subject of seduction by the confessional of such a kind 
 as never could exist without a corresponding cause in the 
 state of the body politic demanding it. What that cause 
 is was clearly disclosed in the progress of the effort in 
 Spain which we have already detailed, put forth by the 
 full power of the pope and the Inquisition, to prosecute 
 and punish those who had been guilty of priestly seduction 
 by means of the confessional. The attempt proved that 
 the whole body of the clergy were so deeply implicated 
 that it became necessary to abandon the prosecution in 
 order to save their characters from ruin. 
 
 Let us, then, consider the confession of Bishop Kenrick 
 himself. At the commencement of his discussion of the 
 topic of priestly seduction by means of the confessional 
 he writes as follows. We translate from the Latin :
 
 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 SECTION VI. CONCERNING THE CRIME OF SEDUCTION. 
 
 " We scarcely dare to speak concerning that atrocious 
 crime in which the office of hearing confession is perverted 
 to the ruin of souls by impious men under the influence 
 of their lusts. Would that we could regard it as solely 
 a conception of the mind and as something invented by 
 the enemies of the faith for the purposes of slander ! But 
 it is not fit that we should be ignorant of the decrees 
 which the pontiffs have issued to defend the sacredness of 
 this sacrament." 
 
 So, then, Bishop Kenrick himself being judge, the crime 
 of priestly seduction by means of the confessional is not a 
 mere imaginary conception, but an atrocious reality. It 
 is not a slander of the enemies of the church, but a noto- 
 rious historic truth so notorious that it is in vain to 
 deny it so notorious that many pontiffs have been 
 obliged to issue their decrees to defend the sacredness of 
 the sacrament of confession. 
 
 Well, too, does Bishop Kenrick say that it is not fit 
 that we should be ignorant of these decrees. It is not fit. 
 We will endeavor to dissipate this ignorance. They throw 
 great light on the subject. They reveal the existence of 
 a state of society in Catholic communities which nothing 
 but the system of the private confession of females to an 
 unmarried priesthood could produce. And when Bishop 
 Kenrick now comes forward to advocate the cause of all 
 these evils, and to urge its universal introduction among 
 us, we will do all in our power to dissipate the ignorance 
 that still exists on a system so powerful and so pernicious. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF REASONING STATED AND APPLIED. 
 
 But, before we proceed to consider the Papal legislation
 
 BISHOP KENRICK'S DEFENCE. 181 
 
 on this subject, we will consider the proper mode of rea- 
 soning from such legislation. 
 
 Professor William Smyth, of the University of Cam- 
 bridge, England, in order to throw light on the state of 
 society among the barbarians, devotes part of one lecture 
 to a consideration of their codes of laws. After giving 
 a general view of the salic code, he proceeds to illustrate 
 the manner of reasoning from such codes. We quote a 
 part of his statements, with the design of applying the 
 same mode of reasoning to the Papal legislation as stated 
 by Bishop Kenrick : 
 
 " Whenever the laws of a nation can be perused, a va- 
 riety of conclusions can be drawn from them which the 
 laws themselves were never intended to convey conclu- 
 sions that relate to the manners and situation of a nation 
 more certain and important than can in any other way be 
 obtained. I will give a specimen of this sort of reason- 
 ing ; and my hearer must hereafter employ the same sort 
 of reasoning on these codes and on every system of laws 
 which he has ever an opportunity of considering. For 
 instance, there is one head that respects petty thefts of 
 different kinds. 
 
 "He who stole a knife was to be fined fifteen solidi; 
 but, though he stole as much flax as he could carry, he 
 was only tined three. Iron was, therefore, difficult to pro- 
 cure, or its manufacture not easy. The fertility of the 
 land had done more for these Franks than their own pa- 
 tience or ingenuity ; i. e., they were barbarians. Again : 
 he who killed another was only fined ; but we are not to 
 suppose that this arose from any superior tenderness of 
 disposition. There is a distinct head in these laws (the 
 thirty-first) on the subject of mutilations ; the very first 
 clause runs thus : 
 
 " ' If any one shall cut off a foot, or hand, or dig out an 
 eye, or cut off an ear or nose of any one/ &c. 
 
 ' The most horrible excesses evidently took place. 
 Nothing more need be said of the manners or disposition 
 of a people in whose laws such outrages are particularized. 
 16
 
 182 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 " That union of tenderness and courage, of sympathy 
 and fortitude, of the softer and severer virtues which 
 forms the perfection of the human character is not to be 
 found among savage nations ; it is only the occasional and 
 inestimable production of civilized life. 
 
 " Again : there is mention made of hedges and en- 
 closures. Agriculture had, therefore, made some prog- 
 ress." 
 
 In the same way, from the laws of ancient Greece and 
 Rome we can reason as to the state Of society in those na- 
 tions ; for laws are not formed on mere theory, to guard 
 against imaginary crimes, nor do they enter into the minute 
 detail of unknown crimes by way of anticipation : they 
 are designed to be a defence against real and existing 
 evils. 
 
 So is it with regard to the legislation of the popes on 
 this subject ; for it is incredible that any pope would 
 have descended into the particulars of all the various 
 modes of priestly seduction, and detailed things so offen- 
 sive and abominable, even the idea and the very sugges- 
 tion of which tend to injure the priesthood, if the corrupt 
 workings of the confessional had not brought out all these 
 details in fact. 
 
 We easily see the evil tendencies of the confessional in 
 theory ; but here we see them developed in real life, and 
 our convictions of the evils of the system are greatly 
 deepened. It is always perfectly plain that the confes- 
 sional is liable to be used for purposes of seduction in 
 numerous ways. It is also plain that the priests are, by 
 compulsory celibacy, placed in circumstances of the high- 
 est temptation to use it for such purposes. No system 
 can be more perfectly framed to secure such an end. 
 And yet, until Papal laws are read, no one would easily 
 imagine in how many ways it has been so used. To 
 get light on this point, we turn to Bishop Kenrick's
 
 BISHOP KENBICK'S DEFENCE. 183 
 
 statement of Papal legislation. By examining this legis- 
 lation, we arrive at the following results. The state 
 of things in the Roman Catholic Church has rendered it 
 necessary to specify nineteen different ways in which ad- 
 vantage can be taken of the system of the confessional as 
 a means of seduction, and to declare that whoever uses it 
 in any of these ways is to be reported to the Inquisition 
 by the female solicited. These nineteen cases are sub- 
 divided and classified as follows : 
 
 1. Solicitation during the act of confession, five cases. 
 
 2. Solicitation before the act of confession, two cases. 
 
 3. Solicitation immediately after confession, three cases. 
 
 4. Solicitation to which confession furnishes an occa- 
 sion, four cases. 
 
 5. Solicitation under the pretext of confession, two cases. 
 
 6. Solicitation in the confessional, although no con- 
 fession is made, one* case. 
 
 7. Solicitation in any other place besides the confes- 
 sional, if it is used for purposes of confession, two cases. 
 
 Now, who can even read over this general statement of 
 the topics of these laws and not receive new light as to 
 the extensive applicability of the confessional for purposes 
 of seduction ? It can be used before confession, during 
 confession, and immediately after confession. It furnishes 
 occasions for seduction long after confession is over. It 
 furnishes a pretext for seduction ; it furnishes a place for 
 it ; and, if there is no confessional, a place can be chosen 
 where the same diabolical purpose can be prosecuted. 
 
 By the celibacy of the clergy they are led into the 
 highest degree of temptation, and then by the confessional 
 there is offered to them every variety of excitement and 
 of aid to prosecute the gratification of their excited de- 
 sires. But, if we descend to the details of these nineteen 
 cases as given by Bishop Kenrick, we shall obtain a still
 
 184 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 more vivid conception of the actual use of the system for 
 this purpose. 
 
 For an example, I will take the second specification of 
 the fourth general division i. e., solicitation to which 
 confession furnishes an occasion. This is the case of one 
 Qui, ex fragilitate in confessione cognita, sumit occasianem, 
 earn tcntandi " Who, from any frailty discovered in con- 
 fession, takes an occasion afterwards to tempt the female 
 who has confessed." 
 
 How clearly does this specification bring the wide- 
 spread working of that pernicious system before the mind ! 
 Here, now, is an unmarried priest surrounded by hundreds 
 or thousands of females. They have their frailties, their 
 impure thoughts, their temptations, it may be their lapses ; 
 but, without the system of the confessional, no man could 
 tell what they are. And, if a licentious or tempted un- 
 married priest wished to seduce any of his flock, he would 
 have no guide ; and, ignorant and fearful, he might be re- 
 pelled from the attempt. But here the confessional comes 
 to his aid. It spreads before him a perfect map of every 
 female heart in his whole flock, for they are to disclose to 
 him their most secret thoughts as to God ; for in hearing 
 confession, as Dens tells us, he acts as God, and not as 
 man. And now he knows the weaknesses, the tempta- 
 tions, the frailties, and the falls of every one ; he studies 
 their characters ; he knows how to approach them ; and, 
 wherever afterwards he may meet them, the disclosures 
 of the confessional are present to his mind, and furnish 
 him with innumerable occasions to compass his end. 
 
 Of what use is it, now, to pass a law that he who avails 
 himself of any of these occasions to tempt a female shall 
 be reported by that female to the Inquisition ? You might 
 as well pour water on an inclined plane, and then by law 
 forbid it to run down. But this is only one out of nine-
 
 BISHOP KENRICK'S DEFENCE. 185 
 
 teen specifications. Let us look at another. Take the 
 fourth specification under the same division ; it is the case 
 of one Qui aliquem solicitat, promittens se earn confitentem, 
 ddnceps excepturum " Who solicits a female to sin, prom- 
 ising that he will afterwards receive her to make confes- 
 sion." What power of temptation in the system does this 
 simple statement disclose ! It not only gives to the priest 
 light to choose his victims, but, if any through fear of the 
 penalties of sin refuse to comply with his desires, it ena- 
 bles him to say. You need not fear the consequences ; have 
 I not the power to remit sins? Comply with my request, 
 and then I will hear you confess and free you from all 
 guilt. After having furnished such means of temptation 
 and delusion, how vain the hope that any law will check 
 their use ! The trial in Spain to execute the laws clearly 
 proved that the system produced its natural results and 
 that the laws were of no avail. Even the attempt to 
 execute them was abandoned. 
 
 Take another instance from the first division, case five : 
 Charta ad venerem incitans, seu liter CB amatorite, in tribunale 
 traditce, solicitationis, instar sunt "Any thing written on 
 paper adapted to excite love, or a love letter, delivered in 
 the tribunal, is equivalent to solicitation in the confession- 
 al." This principle was first established by Alexander 
 TIL, in 1655, in opposition to a contrary doctrine. This is 
 worthy of the more notice as tending to throw light on the 
 effects of the confessional on the morals of Romish ecclesi- 
 astics ; for it appears by the testimony of Bishop Kenrick 
 that the following proposition had actually been maintained 
 by some of them : "A confessor who in the sacrament of 
 confession gives the penitent a letter to be read after- 
 wards, iu which he excites her to love, is not regarded as 
 having solicited her in confession, and therefore is not to be 
 reported." (See vol. iii. Theologia Moralis, p. 236.) This 
 10
 
 186 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 proposition Alexander VII. felt himself called on to con- 
 demn. To what a state of degradation must the system 
 of the confessional have reduced priestly morals when 
 the pontiff was obliged to condemn such a proposition as 
 this ! and how clearly it shows that, although many speci- 
 fications had been at first condemned in the bull of Greg- 
 ory XV. in 1622, yet, before 1655, the priests had in- 
 vented a way of evading them all ! For though all who 
 solicited females in confession were to be reported to the 
 Inquisition, yet the discovery was made that to give a love 
 letter in the confessional, to be read after confession, was 
 not to solicit in confession, and was not therefore to bo 
 reported. Admirable sagacity ! wonderful discrimina- 
 tion ! "What cobwebs are laws against the momentum of 
 depraved desires 1 By this subtle distinction, till at last 
 the pope condemned it, the whole field was again cleared 
 for the unobstructed prosecution of their nefarious designs. 
 
 We have quoted but three out of nineteen cases. If we 
 were in like manner to specify and comment on the whole 
 nineteen, each in its turn would light up a new lamp to 
 expose the dark recesses of this dreary region of pollu- 
 tion, and justify the divine denunciation of the whole 
 system as Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and 
 abominations of the earth. 
 
 And let no one dare to call this Protestant slander. 
 Bishop Kenrick, the volunteer defender of the confes- 
 sional, and the popes, his lords and masters, are our wit- 
 nesses. 
 
 Well did Professor Smyth remark that, " whenever the 
 laws of a nation can be perused, a variety of conclusions 
 can be drawn from them which the laws themselves were 
 never intended to convey." Neither Pope Gregory XV. by 
 his laws, nor Bishop Kenrick by his digest and exposition 
 of them, intended to unfold the abominations of the con-
 
 BISHOP KENRICK'S DEFENCE. 187 
 
 fessional ; yet they have done it in the clearest and most 
 ample manner. Well does Professor Smyth say of con- 
 clusions thus derived, that they are " more certain and 
 important than can in any other way be obtained." 
 
 Let us, then, proceed in our examination of Bishop Ken- 
 rick for new light on the abominations of the confessional. 
 The third case under the fourth head is as follows : 
 
 " Qui autem pwUa vel voce, vel signo aliquo, peccati in con.- 
 fessione declarati memoriam refricaret, dum alias earn solidta- 
 ret, occasione confessionis solicitasse merito censerdur, et reus 
 foret proditi sigilli 'Whoever shall remind a female, 
 either by word or sign, of a sin which she has revealed in 
 confession, whilst at another time he solicits her, is justly 
 considered as having taken an occasion to solicit from 
 confession, and is guilty of violating the seal i. e., of 
 secrecy.' " 
 
 Here, now, how vividly do we see the effects of the con- 
 fessional in removing all those natural and divinely or- 
 dained obstacles to impure conversation between a priest 
 and the females of his flock which are the safeguard of 
 social purity ! If the natural laws of female modesty 
 were left to operate in full force, and the priest had no 
 religious pretext for introducing sensual ideas, who does 
 not see what powerful obstacles would exist to the intro- 
 duction of impure conversation ? The natural modesty, 
 both of the female mind and of an uncorrupted priest, 
 would prevent. 
 
 But here the accursed system of the confessional inter- 
 poses, and, under a pretence of religion, introduces a reg- 
 ular conversation at stated intervals between the priest 
 and every female of his flock on all topics involved in 
 the violation of chastity, in thought, word, and deed. 
 Thus the subject is introduced thus it is kept up before 
 the mind. There is not a female with whom the priest
 
 188 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 has not conversed upon it. He knows the depraved de- 
 sires, the sinful feelings, the corrupt wishes, the unclean 
 acts of all. 
 
 And now the fiery oven of temptation is heated and 
 continually burns around him. His own passions are 
 aroused. He knows how to wake up in others all those 
 trains of thought that lead to temptation ; he knows how 
 to appeal to the consciousness of the female mind by signs 
 recalling the disclosures of the confessional. And now, 
 forsooth, what is to stop him ? "Why, truly, Bishop Ken- 
 rick tells us that, if he does, it is the female's duty to re- 
 port him to the Inquisition, or, if there is none in that 
 part of the world, to the bishop, and most severe punish- 
 ments shall be inflicted on him. "We shall speak of this 
 soon* But first let us notice another case. 
 
 It is a case of solicitation under pretext of confession. 
 Kenrick, p. 237, vol. iii. : " Si autem Me suggesserit ei 
 renuenti obfarrue periculum, ut eum prcetextu c&nfessi&nis ac- 
 cerseret, denuntiandus foret, quippe qui revera prcctextu confes- 
 sionis solidtavit ' If a priest suggests to a female re- 
 fusing to comply with his desires, on account of exposing 
 her reputation to peril, that she should send for him un- 
 der a pretext of desiring to confess to him, he is to be 
 regarded as soliciting under pretext of confession.' " 
 What power of seduction does this statement develop in 
 the system ! what facts does it imply ! 
 
 Now, compare with this legislation of the Romish pon- 
 tiff the following statements from a French priest of whom 
 I shall soon speak. They reveal the state of society 
 which the legislation implies : 
 
 " There are no means which their cunning does not in- 
 vent to meet with their victims If the husband is jeal- 
 ous and suspicious, his wife, upon the advice of the curate, 
 will feign to be sick ; and it is the duty of a priest to
 
 BISHOP KENEICK'S DEFENCE. 189 
 
 visit often (every day if possible) his sick parishioners. 
 He will remain alone with her, to speak about spiritual 
 matters in appearance or to confess her." 
 
 Take anoth'er case from the same author, still further 
 illustrating the immense power of seduction given by the 
 system of the confessional to the Romish priesthood : 
 
 "By this way, through their dark ministry, they have 
 an immense power upon the minds of women ; for they at- 
 tack only those whose disposition they have long studied 
 in confession. The reader can have some just idea of 
 this power from this single fact, of which I know the per- 
 sonage, because it became public. A priest in a parish not 
 far*from mine laid his snares for a young married woman 
 who had the reputation of piety because she attended 
 mass every morning. He, through his diabolical argu- 
 ments, won her and triumphed over all her scruples. She 
 went to him almost every morning in the vestry before 
 the bell rung to call the people to the mass. He then 
 confessed and absolved her, and she received the Lord's 
 supper at his mass. The good people said, admiring her 
 daily communion, ' How pious is this young wife ! She 
 partakes of the sacrament every day ; she is doubtless a 
 saint.' " 
 
 Now, it is in vain to reply to such facts that all systems 
 are liable to abus6 ; for the system of the celibacy of 
 the clergy and of the confessional, taken together, is as 
 exactly fitted to produce such results as if it was 
 framed for it. What mockery, then, to pretend to check 
 its operation by requiring females to report to the Inqui- 
 sition those priests who solicit them, and denouncing se- 
 vere punishments on the guilty solicitors I All such legis- 
 lation will ever be in practice a dead letter. The diffi- 
 culties in the way of its execution are insurmountable. 
 Notice a few facts. 
 
 No priest can be convicted and punished on the testi-
 
 190 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 / 
 
 mony of one witness. Listen to Bishop Kenrick : " JVemo 
 damnandus est gravissimis ittis pcenis ob unius denunciationem 
 ' No one is to be condemned to those most severe pun- 
 ishments on the accusation of one -witness.' " Does the 
 female run no risk if she fails of proving her charge ? 
 
 Hear the bishop again : " Calumniam autem impactam 
 sacerdotibus innoxiis ulcisci voluit 'It is the pleasure 
 of the pope that false charges against innocent priests 
 shall subject the accuser to deserved retribution.' " 
 
 How easy, then, is it for a wily priest so to conduct his 
 solicitations that no single female shall ever dare to 
 make the charge ! and how unequal the conflict between 
 a defenceless female and a crafty priest in a case where 
 every instinct of self-preservation calls on him to destroy 
 her character in order to save his own ! 
 
 But suppose the facts so notorious that witnesses 
 enough could be produced to prove the charges ; will the 
 laws be executed then? Ask Seville. "When the terrors 
 of the Inquisition were put forth to compel females to 
 speak the truth, the fair informers, according to Gonsal- 
 vus, were so numerous that all the inquisitors and twenty 
 notaries were insufficient in thirty days to take their 
 depositions. Thirty additional days were needed three 
 times in succession. Finally the multitude of criminals, 
 the jealousy of husbands, the odium fast coming on auric- 
 ular confession and the Popish priesthood caused the In- 
 quisition to quash the prosecution and to consign tho 
 depositions to oblivion.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS. 
 
 WE have taken some notice of the efforts of Bishop 
 Kenrick to gloss over the abominations of the system of 
 auricular confession to an unmarried priesthood. All the 
 laws of cause and effect must be abolished if such a sys- 
 tem does not produce deep moral corruption. The attempt 
 in Spain, through the Inquisition, to stop seduction through 
 the confessional failed simply because the number of ec- 
 clesiastics involved was so great that to proceed involved 
 the ruin of the clergy. The facts have been given in a 
 preceding chapter ; and to it we refer our readers. We 
 have also produced some astounding evidence to the same 
 effect from Bishop Kenrick himself. To this we will add 
 the testimony of a French priest fully and practically ac- 
 quainted with the system, for whose character and integ- 
 rity Professor Morse, of New York, is voucher, under 
 whose sanction the statements were published. Of him 
 he says, 
 
 " The question will naturally be asked, ' Why does the 
 author conceal his name ? ' Reasons of prudence in con- 
 sulting the safety of dear relatives, all Catholics in the 
 south part of France, where they are surrounded by a 
 bigoted, enslaved, and most vindictive Roman Catholic 
 population, (as any one acquainted with the state of that 
 part of France well knows,) oblige the considerate and 
 truly amiable author to preserve for the present a strict 
 
 (191)
 
 192 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 incognito. His friends would suffer on his account the 
 most painful proscription. Little do we conceive the dan- 
 gers and trials, the hate and persecutions, which in our 
 own times await not merely the convert himself from Po- 
 pery in countries where it is dominant, but which pursue 
 even the innocent relatives of the apostate heretic as he is 
 called, although they remain stanch in their attachment 
 to their sect. Would they who inconsiderately affirm that 
 Popery has changed its persecuting character in modern 
 times but give a moderate share of attention in ascertain- 
 ing the facts which are every day occurring to prove its 
 true spirit, they would no longer be deceived, but watch 
 with the greater jealous}' all the movements and encroach- 
 ments of this necessarily intolerant sect. 
 
 " The public may rest assured that the author is what 
 he professes to be. He is no fictitious character. He is 
 personally known, not alone to me, but to several gentle- 
 men whose names and standing are well known to the 
 community. His testimonials which he showed me are of 
 the highest character ; and he was, when in France, under 
 the patronage of a French nobleman distinguished for his 
 liberality and philanthropy, whose name is associated in 
 Paris with plans of the most enlarged benevolence, whose 
 time and immense wealth are freely employed in the en- 
 couragement of industry, religion, and literature among 
 the French people, but whose name, for reasons obvious 
 to all, cannot now be given to the public." 
 
 His statements are a striking commentary on the great 
 development in Spain. There is in them an inherent veri- 
 similitude. They reveal the course of events that dis- 
 closed itself in those notorious results. The Catholic 
 priest says of himself, also, that he fell in love with one 
 of his flock, but concealed his passion, and after his con- 
 version fled to this country. We give his statement : 
 
 " It is not my intention to repeat here all the accusa- 
 tions so justly made against Catholic priests, -but only to 
 reveal, to publish in the light, perhaps for the first time, 
 how they defraud the poor deluded people who trust to
 
 TESTIMONY OP CATHOLIC PRIESTS. 193 
 
 ihem. I am bold to say aloud, that Protestants have noth- 
 ing yet upon this important matter so precise as what I am 
 about to say. I have confessed priests and laymen of 
 every description, a bishop (once,) superiors, curates, per- 
 sons high and low, women, girls, boys. I am therefore 
 fitted to speak of the confessional. 
 
 " The confession of men is a matter of high importance 
 in political matters, to impress their minds with slavish 
 ideas ; but, not to repeat what I have already stated on 
 this subject in my discourse, I refer the reader to it. As. 
 for other matters, confessors endeavor to give a high opin- 
 ion of their own holiness to fathers and husbands, that 
 they may be induced to send to the confessional, without 
 any fear, their wives and daughters ; because, doubtless, 
 should fathers and husbands know what passes at the con- 
 fession box between the holy man and their wives and 
 daughters, they never would permit them again to go to 
 those schools of vice. But priests command most careful- 
 ly to women never to speak of their confession to men, 
 and they inquire severally about that in every confession. 
 
 " The confession of the female sex is the great triumph, 
 the most splendid theatre, of priests. Here is completed 
 the work which is but begun through all their intercourse 
 with women. ; for all our relations with them begin from 
 their birth and continue till their death. In their baptism 
 we sprinkle their heads with holy water, at their death their 
 grave ; and the space comprised between those two epochs 
 is filled by a thousand ecclesiastical duties. The more I 
 think of this matter, the more I remember this sentence : 
 ' Priests, in taking the vows of renouncing marriage, en- 
 gage themselves to take the wives of others.' 
 
 " So soon as the first light of reason has appeared in 
 their tender minds, we have girls at our confessional ; and 
 here, with all the resources of cunning and lessons of the- 
 ology, we sow the seeds of our future power in their hearts, 
 the foundation of our future designs. Those young girls 
 from seven years of age come and kneel with all the inno- 
 cence, the purity, the inexperience of childhood, beautiful 
 as the lilies of the valley of which our Savior speaks in the 
 gospel ; they come, sent by their mothers, by the orders of 
 the priest, who watches his prey with eager eyes ; they 
 17
 
 194 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 come with all the fear and respect of their age for the man 
 of God. He, seeing in them the future tool of his passions, 
 fills their minds with prejudices, repeats to them that he is 
 the minister of Heaven, that they must look to him, revere 
 him, almost worship him as a god ; he accustoms their 
 mind to obey him absolutely and blindly, to believe hitn 
 infallible in short, a divine oracle. Thus he gives to 
 their thoughts the direction he pleases ; he prepares his 
 batteries ; he informs them upon subjects which they ought 
 never to know. At first they do not understand those les- 
 sons at so early an age ; but by and by they bear their fruit 
 when developed by time. Thus confessors instruct those 
 girls from seven, or even six, years of age ; for the youngest 
 are the best. At ten years old they come to the catechism. 
 In those long instructions he explains diffusely, three or 
 four times a week, the vileness and filthiness in that shame- 
 ful book, which they learn by heart. As a preparation to 
 the Lord's supper at the end of their year of catechism, 
 he confesses them much oftener than usual ; they make a 
 general review of their whole life. When he gives them 
 the absolution which purifies their conscience and recon- 
 ciles them to God he reveals to their mind what they owe 
 to their confessor for such a favor. In the afternoon of 
 this same day, at one of the most gorgeous ceremonies of 
 the Catholic church, the general communion of boys, the 
 confessor, at the renovation of the vows of baptism, strict- 
 ly commands them not to neglect the holy confession, for 
 if they do they will be lost. Thus young girls, well in- 
 doctrinated and bound to their confessor, are not heedless 
 enough to abandon his orders ; they come again to the 
 confessional, through custom and habit, with the same sim- 
 plicity, and entertaining the same respect and fear of their 
 spiritual father, as in their childhood ; they kneel many 
 times in the vestry, without the confessional, before a man 
 inflamed with passions a man, perhaps, who has for a long 
 time fought against himself, and who yet bears evil in his 
 heart ; before a man, perhaps, who has long since prepared 
 his work, and now is ready to profit by it ; before a man 
 honest and pure, perhaps, at first, but who, being a man, a 
 son of Adam, may not be able to resist the temptation. 
 And I ask, Is it possible, humanly speaking, for him, a
 
 TESTIMONY OP CATHOLIC PEIESTS. 195 
 
 priest, to remain pure, when at twenty-five or thirty years 
 of age he is shut either in the vestry or in the confessional 
 with a young woman who reveals to him the secrets of her 
 heart as she knows them herself, according to our rules, so 
 that he, the spiritual physician, may be able to see and to 
 judge with a woman who, being herself human, and not 
 an angel, speaks for hours to a young priest of her temp- 
 tations, her passions, her secret thoughts, &c., and convers- 
 ing of matters which I cannot reveal here, I say, is it 
 possible for human virtue to keep itself pure, not only for 
 a day, a week, a month, but during years and for the whole 
 life? 
 
 " Let not a Catholic say to me that these are the reason- 
 ings of a corrupt man, of a bad priest ; let him not say that 
 God can do what man cannot, and other similar reasons 
 which, / know it well, priests always give to explain their 
 pretended virtue. Those reasons a common Catholic may 
 be satisfied with ; but I, a priest, cannot be. No ; I can- 
 not ; I know too well the matter ; and I answer, first, that 
 I was no more inclined to evil, nor more liable to yield to 
 temptation, than others ; (for God knows that I never se- 
 duced any one through my ministry.) I was only a man 
 like others, designed by the Creator for connubial happi- 
 ness according to his word itself: 'It is not good for man 
 to be alone ; I will make a helpmeet for him ; ' designed, I 
 say, for a union intended by the all-wise and benevolent 
 Creator. Can the laws of Popery prevail over the wis- 
 dom of the Almighty ? Let not a Catholic say that a 
 priest in this situation is helped by the special grace of 
 God ; for I answer, by the words of Christ himself, ' Who- 
 soever loves danger, he shall perish in it.' And if God 
 has promised his grace, it is not granted in an unnatural, 
 immoral situation, directly against his institution. 
 
 " As soon as the young girl, for I speak peculiarly of 
 their confession, enters the confessional, ' Bless me, father/ 
 she says, kneeling and crossing herself, ' for I have sinned ; ' 
 and the priest mumbles, Dominus sit in ore tuo et in corde, 
 tuo ut conjitearis omnia peccata tua 'The Lord be in your 
 heart and lips, that you may confess all your sins.' If she 
 is an ugly, common country girl or woman she is soon de- 
 spatched ; but, on the contrary, if she is pretty and fair,
 
 196 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 the holy father puts himself at ease ; he examines her in the 
 most secret recesses of her soul ; he unfolds her mind in 
 every sense, in every manner, upon every matter. This is 
 the way which theology recommends us to follow in our 
 interrogations: ' Daughter, have you had bad thoughts?' 
 ' On what subject ? How often ? ' &c. ' Have you had bad 
 desires ? What desires ? ' ' Have you committed bad ac- 
 tions? With whom ? What actions?' &c. I am obliged 
 to stop. Many times the poor ashamed girl does not dare 
 answer the questions, they are so indecent. In that case 
 the holy man, ceasing his interrogations, says to her, ' Lis- 
 ten, daughter, to the true doctrine of the church ; you must 
 confess the truth, all the truth, to your spiritual father. 
 Do you' know that I am in the place of God that you 
 cannot deceive him? Speak, then ; reveal your heart to 
 me as God knows it ; you will be very glad when you will 
 have discharged this burden from your rnind. Will you 
 not ? ' ' Yes.' ' Begin ; I will help you ; ' and then begins 
 such a diabolical explanation as is not to be found but in 
 houses of infamy, I suppose, or in our theological books. 
 This is so well known that I have often heard of wicked 
 young men saying to each other, ' Come, let us go to con- 
 fession, and the curate will teach us a great many corrupt 
 things which we never knew ; ' and many young girls have 
 told me in confession, that, in order to become acquainted 
 with details on those matters pleasing to their corrupt na- 
 ture, they went purposely to the confessional to speak about 
 it to their spiritual father. Sometimes I have heard the 
 confession of young girls not above sixteen years of age, 
 who explained to me such disgusting things with a pre- 
 cision, a propriety (or rather impropriety) of terms, that, 
 when I asked them where they had gathered all this 
 strange learning, they seemed as much astonished at my 
 question as I was at their confession, and said to me, 
 ' Why, father, our former confessor taught us all this, and 
 commanded us never to omit these details, otherwise we 
 should be damned.' I replied to them, ' I pray you never 
 use such terms again ; they are unworthy of a Christian 
 mouth ; you have misunderstood your confessor.' I learned 
 afterwards that these misguided persons left my confes- 
 sional because, they said, I was an ignorant confessor,
 
 TESTIMONY OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS. '197 
 
 who did not confess like others, and who did not cause them to 
 say all. 
 
 "After so many instructions the young girl is well in- 
 doctrinated, well fitted to answer either the questions or 
 the purposes of the priest. This poison diffused in her 
 heart soon infects her whole mind and destroys her purity. 
 It is precisely at such a point of time that her cruel foe 
 waits for her. When he sees that she is made vicious and 
 corrupt by the teachings of the confessional he is sure of 
 his success." 
 
 To this statement Professor Morse adds the following 
 remarks : 
 
 " The modes by which the priest persuades his victim 
 that she is without sin in doing whatever he commands, 
 since he is responsible, and since he can absolve her from 
 it, and other means of deceiving at the confessional, are 
 then too graphically related to be publicly told ; and I 
 have thought it best, with the consent of the author, to 
 suppress all but the closing facts." 
 
 Now, let it be considered that I have shown that from 
 Bishop Kenrick himself evidence can be derived going to 
 confirm and substantiate all the statements of this French 
 priest. If these things are so, then it becomes Americans 
 to look well to this matter. 
 
 Let no one trust the efficacy of Papal prohibitory laws. 
 The whole system scatters broadcast the seeds of the 
 highest temptation known to man in the minds of the 
 whole priesthood, and then waters those seeds day and 
 night ; and then, as if in solemn mockery, or in bitter de- 
 rision of the interests of the human race, the pope issues 
 his bull and forbids them to spring up and grow. 
 
 If the human mind had not been debased, brutalized, and 
 
 crushed by the system, it would be incredible that it could 
 
 have been endured from generation to generation. If the 
 
 whole skill of earth and hell had been put forth to devise 
 
 17*
 
 198 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 a system designed first to corrupt the clergy, and then, 
 through them, human society, a better devised and more 
 effectual one could not have been found. Hence a con- 
 verted French priest has well said, " This intercourse of 
 young girls and young unmarried priests is the fulness of 
 immorality." And the following account which he gives 
 of the corruption of the French clergy is no less philo- 
 sophical than true. It also exactly agrees with the state- 
 ments of Blanco White. 
 
 " Catholic or Protestant writers who have spoken of the 
 corruption of the Roman clergy, who have described its 
 matchless wickedness, have not shown its cause. They 
 saw only the effect, without tracing it up to its source. I 
 will try to supply their silence. I have read a certain 
 number of those books against a body to which I be- 
 longed, a body which I know as well as it is possible 
 for one to know it, and I can say that its whole degra- 
 dation is unknown. Careful of saying nothing that can 
 shock the reader, I will reveal only what is necessary to 
 unveil those ' anointed of the Lord,' but nothing to offend 
 the eyes. I shall surprise Protestants, doubtless, by say- 
 ing that, in France, the immense majority of young men in 
 our seminaries are not corrupted, and many of them are vir- 
 tuous. It is nevertheless true. They are ignorant, super- 
 stitious, fanatical, given up to their superstitious practices, 
 to theology, &c., but, I declare it, not at all vicious. That 
 may be conceded, although in appearance in contradiction 
 to their indecent studies ; for they are taught that it is 
 necessary to learn all these in order to be able to fulfil 
 their duty ; and, to hear confession in all its extent, it is 
 necessary to know all human perversity. I do not give a 
 judgment on these reasons ; be that as it may, our superiors 
 endeavor to inspire us, in those recitations, with a great dis- 
 like of such crimes ; and I can affirm that it is very pain- 
 ful to the natural sense of decency in any man to be 
 obliged, as we are, to be familiar with such books. 
 
 " This is the true picture upon this matter of the semi- 
 naries that I know; and I am indifferent whether it 
 agrees or not with pictures drawn by others.
 
 TESTIMONY OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS. 199 
 
 " The story of the corruption of the clergy begins only 
 when they are out of the seminary. Those young men are 
 sent into a parish in the quality of curates, or vicars. In 
 the beginning they fulfil their duties with great care, and 
 for some time remain faithful to their vows. Many told 
 this to me after their fall ; and I have seen it myself, ex- 
 cept in a few exceptions. But by and by they open as- 
 tonished eyes. Restored to freedom, after ten or twelve 
 years of thraldom in a college, or seminary, they become 
 quite diiferent men : gradually they forget their vow. 
 ' O,' said a young priest to me, with tears in his eyes, after 
 having four or five years discharged the duties of his sta- 
 tion, ' God only knows what I have suffered during this 
 time ! and if I have fallen, it is not without fighting. Had 
 I been allowed to choose a wife as it is the law of God, 
 who destines man to marriage, whatever our rules teach 
 to the contrary I should have remained virtuous ; I 
 should have been the happiest man in the world ; I should 
 
 be a good, a holy priest ; while now I am 0, 1 am 
 
 ashamed of myself!' 
 
 " This is really the sad history of all their falls ; for, let 
 us be just, what can become of a young priest of twenty- 
 five years of age, confined in .the lonely wilderness of a 
 country parish, in a village where he has only the society 
 of his sacristan and of his servant, because all his parish- 
 ioners being but coarse peasants, especially in the south and 
 in the west, where scarcely any know how to read, are un- 
 able to afford any comfort to his solitude ? His duty oc- 
 cupies him but little save on the Sunday ; and during the 
 whole week, after his short mass and some confession of 
 women, he is reduced to ask himself, ' What shall I do?' 
 Study has few, if any, charms for him, because he is forbid- 
 den to read or study precisely those matters which enter- 
 tain the intellect. He is allowed only to peruse theology 
 always Dens, Gomez, Rodriguez, the Life of Saints, by 
 Godescar. If he should obtain some other books, the 
 bishop, in his episcopal visit, would chide him severely, 
 and call him a worldly priest. Our great poet Racine, 
 so pure, so chaste, is scarcely tolerated, and many bishops 
 do not allow him in the libraries of their priests. The 
 young man, before his profession, had imagined and antici-
 
 200 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 pated a pleasant existence in the ecclesiastical state, and 
 he finds but privations, ennui, disgust. His passions are 
 also raised ; the demon of bad thoughts takes possession 
 of him. Moreover, his ministry puts him in so many cir- 
 cumstances with ignorant young countrywomen, into whose 
 most secret thoughts he is obliged to enter, that his virtue 
 receives many shocks. And can it be otherwise when a 
 man has those intimate and continual relations required 
 of the Catholic priest with women ? No ; it would be 
 unreasonable, to expect from human nature more than it is 
 able to do, to put it on too difficult a trial. Such is, how- 
 ever, the situation of every Catholic priest. 
 
 " I do not say all this to veil or excuse the crimes, the 
 natural result of this institution ; but I think I am bound 
 to give the matter of fact as it is. Sometimes the resist- 
 ance is firm, the struggle long ; but at length this martyr 
 of fanaticism, this victim of his system and of his superi- 
 ors, abandons his vow through despair, shuts his eyes, and 
 throws himself into the slough of passions. This is the end 
 of almost all priests. In the beginning their consciences 
 reproach them bitterly ; they try again to be faithful ; they 
 flutter, fall, reform again, go on, fall again, and at length, to 
 finish this horrible struggle, remain in vice. Let us add 
 to this sad catalogue the temptations against their faith 
 and doctrines, which end with many in complete atheism, 
 into which they fall by the excess of degradation, temp- 
 tations to atheism in those who reason, from the impossi- 
 bility of reconciling their faith with reason." 
 
 I 
 
 What language of detestation can be found sufficiently 
 strong for such a system ? And yet of this system has 
 Bishop Kenrick come forward as the advocate. 
 
 BLANCO WHITE. 
 
 In perfect accordance with this testimony of the French 
 priest is that of Blanco White, once an eminent ecclesiastic 
 in the Spanish church. He clearly proves that there had
 
 TESTIMONY OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS. 201 
 
 been there no improvement since the disclosures of the 
 century after the reformation. He says, 
 
 " I cannot think of the wanderings of the friends of my 
 youth without heartrending pain. One now no more, 
 whose talents raised him to one of the highest dignities 
 of the church of Spain, was for many years a model of 
 Christian purity. When, by the powerful influence of his 
 mind and the warmth of his devotion, this man had drawn 
 many into the clerical and the religious life, (my youngest 
 sister among the latter,) he sunk at once into the grossest 
 and most daring profligacy. I heard him boast that the 
 night before the solemn procession of Corpus Christi, 
 where he appeared nearly at the head of his chapter, one 
 of two children had been born, which his two concubines 
 brought to light within a few days of each other. Such, 
 more or less, has been the fate of my early friends, whose 
 minds and hearts were much above the common standard 
 of the Spanish clergy. What, then, need I say of the vul- 
 gar crowd of priests, who, coming, as the Spanish phrase 
 has it, from coarse swaddling clothes, and raised by ordina- 
 tion to a rank of life for which they have not been pre- 
 pared, mingle vice and superstition, grossness of feeling 
 and pride of office, in their character ? I have known the 
 best among them ; I have heard their confessions ; I have 
 heard the confessions of young persons of both sexes who 
 fell under the influence of their suggestions and example ; 
 and 1 do declare that nothing can be more dangerous to 
 youthful virtue than their company. I have seen the most 
 promising men of my university obtain country vicarages 
 with characters unimpeached and hearts overflowing with 
 hopes of usefulness. A virtuous wife would have confirmed 
 and strengthened their purposes ; but they were to live a 
 life of angels in celibacy. They were, however, men, and 
 their duties connected them with beings of no higher de- 
 scription. Young women knelt before them in all the 
 intimacy and openness of confession. A solitary home 
 made them go abroad in search of social converse. Love, 
 long resisted, seized them at length like madness. Two 
 I knew who died insane. Hundreds might be found who 
 avoid that fate by a life of seftled systematic vice."
 
 202 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 CRUELTY OF ROMANISM. 
 
 Nowhere does the cruelty of Romanism appear so in- 
 tense as in the case of the noblest and most sincere minds 
 of men and women who are drawn into the priesthood or 
 into nunneries with the false idea that they are to find 
 themselves surrounded by holy influences. How bitter 
 their disappointment ! Some long resist temptation by a 
 kind of living martyrdom ; and of these some become in- 
 sane. The fate of many a poor deceived nun will never be 
 known in all its horrors till the revelations of the judg- 
 ment day. Whatever screams are heard, from whatever 
 cause, as was the case in the nunnery at Baltimore, no 
 Protestant can enter. And, if any victim escapes, she is, 
 of course, slandered and declared insane. 
 
 Few priests have the nobility and strength of character 
 of the French priest. His experience was this, as given 
 by himself : 
 
 " An assiduous reading of pious books, of the Holy Bible, 
 were of great use to me in confession, and gave me the 
 reputation of an able confessor. Soon, notwithstanding, 
 or I ought rather to say because of my youth, I became 
 a la mode all the fashion among devotees. In France 
 there is a 'mode,' or fashion, for every thing, for confess- 
 ors as well as for coats or hats. My downcast eyes, my 
 timidity and piety in saying mass, obtained for me the 
 reputation of a pious priest. Consequently many people 
 came to hear my sermons applied to me for my advice in 
 confession or my prayers in the mass. I was well nigh 
 believing myself a powerful saint, a heavenly being. 
 Alas ! alas ! I was to be recalled from this height to which 
 my pride had raised me, to my native earth. 
 
 " My heart, in spite of my whole pretended holiness, was 
 like mountains covered with enormous heaps of snow, 
 where a single breath is often sufficient to bring down the 
 terrible avalanche.
 
 TESTIMONY OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS. 203 
 
 " One day a young lady came to the vestry and asked me 
 if I would confess her. T complied with her request. 
 I confessed her often ; for she was pious, and received the 
 Lord's supper at least twice a week. She told me the 
 reason why she had changed her former confessor a 
 reason which it is not necessary here to tell. In the in- 
 timate relation of confessor and penitent, in those repeated 
 conversations in which a young female of nineteen opens 
 her heart every week, in every matter and the most secret 
 thoughts, to a young man of twenty-seven who feels and 
 laments his loneliness, it was not difficult to foresee what 
 would naturally happen. She spoke to me so openly, so 
 candidly, her confession displayed so fair a character, 
 such artlessness, so much innocence, that by and by, with- 
 out any intention or reflection, but by a natural course of 
 things, my heart was caught, and I fell in love with her. 
 I took heed not to give her the least hint of it, because it 
 was worse than useless, since I was prevented from being 
 married by my vow, by ecclesiastic rules, and also by the 
 laws of the state. I thought not an instant of abusing my 
 ministry on her account ; which, however, would have been 
 the easiest thing in the world. It remained, then, for me 
 but to smother this involuntary love. At first I tried to 
 believe it only the effect of my imagination too much 
 kindled. But vain illusion ! The more I endeavored to 
 trample down this feeling, the more I strengthened it ; and 
 it increased every day. My virtue, indeed, could prevent 
 me from giving my consent, but it could not prevent my 
 suffering its effects the mental agony of the conflict. 
 Ere long I saw the inutility of my exertions against it ; 
 and I thought I could not do better than to resign myself 
 to the will of God, in the hope that he would doubtless 
 help me in my struggles, since I fought for his glory, his 
 church, and my vows. 
 
 - My first thought, of course, was of removing the dan- 
 ger by refusing any longer to confess her by giving up 
 the direction of her soul, so perilous was it to mine own. 
 At first, in the next confession, I wished to sound her on 
 this subject, alleging for that purpose some Jesuitical and 
 apparent reason ; lor my superiors had taught me never 
 to be at a loss for pretexts. She answered to me, ' Fa-
 
 204 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 ther, I gave you my whole confidence, I opened to you 
 my heart, I unveiled to you my most secret thoughts with 
 as much candor as if I was but ten years old, that you 
 might direct me better. You know me as well as I know 
 myself. I do not ask the reasons why you propose to me 
 to exchange you for another. But, if you deny me your 
 ministry, I must renounce the confession altogether ; for 
 you know yourself why I left my former confessor ; and 
 you will not oblige me to go back to him, neither to Mr. 
 D., nor to Mr. L. 7 
 
 " I could not tell her the true reason of my conduct, for 
 my sake and for her own. On the other side I was very 
 superstitious, believing, heartily, confession quite necessary 
 to the salvation of the soul. Could I then, with my ideas 
 of confession, assent to the loss of her soul ? I remem- 
 bered that a true priest ought ever to expose his own 
 salvation for the sake of others ; and consequently the 
 design of sending her to another seemed a horrible tempta- 
 tion of the devil. However, in a matter of so great impor- 
 tance I feared to direct myself ; and as in the seminary I 
 had been told a hundred times that our confessor ought to 
 rule all our business, I went to him ; I looked to him as to 
 my father and the representative of God ; for I practised 
 what I taught others viz., that the confessor is the vice- 
 gerent of God. He listened to my singular declaration 
 and to my purpose of renouncing her confession if lie 
 thought best. He laughed at rne ; and, notwithstanding 
 all my explanations, he could not, or would not, understand 
 me, and at length told me that my love for her was far 
 from being a reason of depriving her of my ministry. 
 
 " There then remained no doubt in my own mind ; and I 
 thought that God himself had ordered it so. But, to di- 
 minish the danger, 1 resolved to avoid any intercourse 
 with her except in the confessional ; and henceforth I 
 ceased to pay any visit to her family, where I went before, 
 oftentimes to evening parties, for fear of seeing her and 
 increasing my fatal attachment ; for the Holy Bible says, 
 Quisquis amat periculum in illo peribit ' Whosoever loves 
 danger shall perish in it.' Her family, astonished at my 
 sudden desertion, and especially her mother, asked me 
 why I had deserted their house if they had offended me.
 
 TESTIMONY OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS. 205 
 
 Thanks to my subterfuges, I avoided the question ; and 
 thus I. who would have found my joy, my happiness, in this 
 house, banished myself from the family where all the de- 
 sires of my heart carried me. 
 
 " In speaking of what I suffered in repressing my feel- 
 ings, I shall be scarcely, if at all, understood by men 
 who put their hearts in open air, who act unreservedly, 
 who obey the just dictates of Nature instead of having 
 been inured to despise them and trample upon them by 
 men to whom the lake of great emotions is always drained, 
 because they do not subvert the sacred institutions of their 
 Creator. These men know not with what violence this 
 sea of human passion ferments, gushes out, when every 
 issue is denied to it ; how it increases, swells, overflows, 
 bursts the heart, till it has torn away its bounds and dug 
 for itself a channel." 
 
 He proceeds to state how he had recourse to the heaviest 
 mortifications, even destroying his health, and then sought 
 for death in attending on the victims of a pestilential dis- 
 ease ; how by degrees he came to a knowledge of the licen- 
 tious and mercenary character of the clergy and was rid- 
 iculed for his scrupulous conscientiousness ; how he was 
 tempted to infidelity and atheism ; how by the Bible he 
 was brought truly to know God and spiritual religion ; and, 
 finall}', how he escaped to this country without disclosing 
 his feelings to the object of his affection. 
 
 I rejoice to believe that even in Papal countries there 
 are some such in all ages whom the cruel system does not 
 succeed in corrupting, but mourn to think how few. 
 18
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE RESULT. 
 
 To conclude, it must now be added that there is no reason 
 to doubt that the intelligent and leading managers of the 
 Romish corporation, as was the case with ./Eneas Sylvius 
 and John Gerson, know this to be the real state of the 
 case, and have adapted their policy to the expectation of 
 its permanent continuance. There is no reason to regard 
 them as sincerely deluded, as were the early originators 
 of the doctrine of celibacy. It is no doubt true that the 
 celibacy of the clergy was introduced early into the 
 church by men who, under the influence of prevailing 
 errors, supposed it essential to the highest degree of holi- 
 ness. Moreover for a time it was probably maintained 
 in innocence and sincerity, notwithstanding it began im- 
 mediately to develop its corrupting influences, on the 
 ground that these were but the abuses of a good thing. 
 
 But the time in which this has been innocently possible 
 has long since passed away. So constant, so uniform, so 
 fearful is the testimony of experience that I do not hesi- 
 tate to say that the more intelligent part of the Romish cor- 
 poration, or at least those who stand nearest to the centre 
 of power, know perfectly well that all that has been 
 stated by me and others on this subject is no exaggera- 
 tion. Nay, they well know that it falls short of the truth, 
 
 (206)
 
 THE RESULT. 207 
 
 and look with contempt upon the easy simplicity of those 
 Protestants who are duped by their impudent representa- 
 tions of the holiness of the priesthood. 
 
 If, then, any one should ask, How do they look on the 
 matter ? I reply, They expect that, in all communities where 
 their system has the ascendency, the great majority of the 
 clergy of all grades will not be continent ; and they have 
 adjusted their morals so as to accord with this state of 
 things. 
 
 I desire to be distinctly understood. I do not mean by 
 this that they cease to teach the superior sanctity of celi- 
 bacy and continence, or to claim for their church superior 
 sanctity on this ground, or to represent the Protestant 
 clergy who have wives as sensual and unholy. All this is 
 necessary to preserve appearances, and is perfectly well 
 understood among the knowing ones. Those who have 
 just come from the very depths of pollution and sensual- 
 ism do not at all hesitate to speak thus. 
 
 If any say that this implies an inconceivable degree of 
 baseness, and hypocrisy, and unprincipled deceit, I answer, 
 It is no more than has notoriously existed in many of those 
 who stand at the very head of the system that is, the 
 popes. Many of them have been known to be the most 
 licentious wretches that have ever burdened this earth ; 
 and yet, in all their bulls they assume the character of 
 eminent saints, the peculiar favorites of the Most High. 
 For example, Innocent VIII., whose bull I have quoted, in 
 which he sanctions all manner of perfidy towards the poor 
 and holy Waldenses, led a most profligate life. It is a 
 matter of dispute how many illegitimate children he had 
 Onuphrius stating in general that he had several, Marullus 
 fixing the number at sixteen. Certainly, although a num- 
 ber of them died, two survived his accession to the Papacy, 
 and were advantageously married and highly promoted
 
 208 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 and enriched by him. Indeed it is notorious that the same 
 things were done by many other popes, so that they even 
 ceased to excite surprise. Yet all these popes addressed 
 the church and the world as if they were the very choicest 
 saints of God, even when they wre rallying their myr- 
 midons perfidiously to massacre the purest saints on earth. 
 What they mean by holiness we can understand when we 
 recollect that they call such butcheries " a holy work," and 
 are not at all troubled by the loathsome pollution of such 
 lives. 
 
 Such are the men whom the pen of inspiration has viv- 
 idly and indignantly described as " speaking lies in hypoc- 
 risy, having their consciences seared as with a hot iron." But 
 the system of the Romish church is exactly adapted to 
 transform her clergy into such men, and to finish the work 
 by making them infidels or atheists. 
 
 If any simple and charitable souls, or any under the 
 influence of affected candor and liberality, shall call this 
 language harsh and uncharitable, I will only ask of them 
 for themselves to read the testimony of the Roman Cath- 
 olic councils and historians in the ages preceding the 
 reformation, when Protestantism was unknown. I defy 
 any man even to imagine a state of things so bad as is 
 there described and proved by evidence of the most in- 
 controvertible kind. 
 
 And yet, even after the reformation, in the council of 
 Trent, when such facts were urged on the Papal corpora- 
 tion by Roman Catholic rulers as a reason for repealing 
 the law of celibacy, they refused merely on grounds of 
 Papal policy. On this point Edgar states the following 
 impressive facts : 
 
 " Albert, Duke of Bavaria, in 1562, by Augustine, his 
 ambassador, depicted in glowing colors, before the council 
 of Trent, the licentiousness of the German priesthood.
 
 THE RESULT. 209 
 
 The contagion of heresy, the ambassador said, had, on ac- 
 count of sacerdotal profligacy, pervaded the* people of 
 Bavaria even to the nobility. A recital of clerical crim- 
 inality would wound the ear of chastity. Debauchery had 
 covered the ecclesiastics with infamy. A hundred priests, 
 so general was the contagion, could hardly muster three 
 or four who obeyed the injunctions of chastity. The 
 French applauded the ambassador's speech. The council 
 also, by its promoter, joined in the French eulogy, and 
 styled the Duke of Bavaria the bulwark of the popedom. 
 
 "The Emperor Ferdinand, though without success, ap- 
 plied to the pope, in 1564, for a repeal of the laws against 
 sacerdotal matrimony. Maximilian also, with many of 
 the German princes, importuned Pius IV. for the same 
 purpose. The reason urged by the emperor was the 
 profligacy of the priesthood. His majesty declared that 
 among many of the clergy scarcely one could be found 
 who lived in chastity. All, with hardly an exception, 
 were public fornicators, to the greatest danger of souls 
 and scandal of the people. A repeal of clerical celibacy, 
 Maximilian stated, would gratify the populace of Bavaria, 
 Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, Austria, Cariuthia, Carniola, 
 and Hungary. All these vast regions would have rejoiced 
 in the restoration of marriage among the clergy. 
 
 " The emperor's application was supported by the Popish 
 priesthood of Germany. These, in maintenance of their 
 petition, alleged various reasons. The frailty of man ; 
 the difficulty of abstinence ; the strength of the passion 
 that prompts to marriage ; the permission of clerical wed- 
 lock by the Old and New Testaments under the Jewish 
 and Christian dispensations ; its use, with few exceptions, 
 by the apostles ; the instructions of Dionysius to Piny- 
 tus ; the decision of the Xicene council, suggested by 
 Paphnutius ; the usage of the Greeks and Latins in the 
 east and west till the popedom of Calixtus, all these 
 arguments the German ecclesiastics urged for the lawful- 
 ness of sacerdotal matrimony. A second reason the Ger- 
 mans deduced from clerical profligacy. Fifty priests, 
 these churchmen confessed, could with difficulty afford one 
 who was not a notorious fornicator, to the offence of the 
 people and the injury of piety. Sacerdotal logic and 
 18*
 
 210 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 learning, however, were unavailing when weighed against 
 pontifical policy and ecclesiastical utility." 
 
 If we would understand what this ecclesiastical utility 
 is, attend to the Romish theory as reported by Edgar : 
 
 " Cardinal Rodolf, arguing in a Roman consistory in 
 favor of clerical celibacy, affirmed that the priesthood, if 
 allowed to marry, would transfer their attachment from 
 the pope to their family and prince ; and this would tend 
 to the injury of the ecclesiastical community. The holy 
 see, the cardinal alleged, would, by this means, be soon 
 limited to the Roman city. The Transalpine party in the 
 council of Trent used the same argument. The introduc- 
 tion of priestly matrimony, this faction urged, would sever 
 the clergy from their close dependence on the popedom 
 and turn their affections to their family, and consequently 
 to their king and country. Marriage connects men with 
 their sovereign and with the land of their nativity. Cel- 
 ibacy, on the contrary, transfers the attention of the clergy 
 from his majesty and the state to his holiness and the 
 Church. The man who has a wife and children is bound 
 by conjugal and paternal attachment to his country, and 
 feels the warmest glow of parental love, mingled with the 
 flame of patriotism. His interests and affections are in- 
 twined with the honor and prosperity of his native land ; 
 and this, in consequence, he will prefer to the aggrandize- 
 ment of the Romish hierarchy or the grandeur of the 
 Roman pontiff. The dearest objects of his heart are em- 
 braced in the soil that gave them birth, the people among 
 whom they live, and the government that affords them 
 projection. Celibacy, on the contrary, precludes all these 
 engagements, and directs the undivided affections of the 
 priesthood to the church and its ecclesiastical sovereign. 
 The clergy become dependent on the pope rather than on 
 their king, and endeavor to promote the prosperity of the 
 Papacy rather than their country. Such are not linked 
 with the state by an offspring whose happiness is involved 
 in the prosperity of the nation. Gregory VII., accord- 
 ingly, the great enemy of kings, was the distinguished 
 patron of sacerdotal celibacy."
 
 THE RESULT. 211 
 
 Here then, as before, in the case of lying, perjury, and 
 murder, the Romish corporation deem universal pollution 
 and corruption a less evil than the loss of their own 
 usurped supremacy. If peculiar wrath and uncommon 
 plagues are reserved by God for any class of men, surely 
 it must be for such as these. 
 
 ADDITIONAL CHARGES. 
 
 What has been said may seem sufficient to prove that 
 Romanism is the enemy of man. It is sufficient ; and yet 
 it is far from exhausting the evidence that exists, and which 
 must be considered in order to gain a full understanding 
 of the magnitude of the interests involved in the great 
 question now at issue in this nation and in the Christian 
 world. 
 
 It is not possible, however, advantageously to present 
 some portions of the remaining argument until we have 
 considered the evidence which exists that the Romish cor- 
 poration has no historical or scriptural basis, but is the 
 result of a stupendous system of imposture and forgery. 
 
 To the consideration of this part of the subject let us 
 now proceed.
 
 PAET III. 
 
 KOMANISM AN IMPOSITION AND A FORGEKY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE FACT. 
 
 IT has been seen that the Romish corporation places it- 
 self in such an attitude that it is practically the god of 
 this world. It has an entire monopoly of the grace of 
 God and of the word of God. God is invisible and inac- 
 cessible except through the mediation of this corporation. 
 
 Such a claim ought to be sustained by an amount and 
 a clearness of evidence corresponding with its impor- 
 tance. It is estimated that Rome has shed the blood of 
 at least fifty millions of Christians for refusing to admit 
 these claims ; it appears also that she still defends her 
 past course, and would repeat the slaughters if she had 
 the power. 
 
 Has she, then, even a plausible ground for her lofty 
 claims? I answer, No. The presumption on a general 
 view of the facts of the case is against her ; and a fair 
 examination of the records of history and of inspiration 
 
 (212)
 
 PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE FACT. 213 
 
 is all that is needed to expose her as the great mother 
 of imposture and forgery. 
 
 PRESUMPTION AGAINST ROME, FROM HER SANCTION OF LYING. 
 
 The first presumptive argument against the members 
 of the Romish corporation arises from the fact that their 
 theory of morals is such on the subject of veracity and 
 fidelity that it is highly improbable that they have not 
 used forgery and fraud in obtaining their present position 
 and power. It appears that it'is a fundamental part of 
 their morals that the interests of that corporation are of 
 more importance than truth or fidelity to promises, con- 
 tracts, or oaths. It appears that they have acted upon 
 these principles for ages and on a scale of vast magnitude. 
 
 Now, it is self-evident that these same principles would 
 equally justify them in the use of forgery and fraud in 
 order to gain that power which they consider of so much 
 moment, and to extend and increase which they resort to 
 measures so treacherous and unprincipled. 
 
 Must there not be, therefore, a violent presumption that 
 a corporation that has promulgated and sanctioned, as a 
 part of its immutable and constitutional law, the princi- 
 ple that it is right and a duty to lie for the sake of eccle- 
 siastical utility, has already used this principle in laying 
 the foundations of its own power and authority ? 
 
 If the principle is deemed right, there will be nothing 
 to prevent its use at any time or to any extent that eccle- 
 siastical utility shall seem to demand. 
 
 To Protestants, no doubt, it would appear to be a great 
 crime to forge documents in the name of eminent men of 
 past ages in order to substantiate any claims of any Prot- 
 estant body. The training which they receive, and the
 
 214 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 fundamental principles of their morality, cause them to 
 recoil from it with horror. 
 
 But, if the morality of infallible popes and general coun- 
 cils is any index of the morals of Romish ecclesiastics, 
 they cannot regard it as a crime to forge any documents 
 whatever which the welfare of the church seems to demand. 
 
 There is not, therefore, in the fundamental morality of 
 that system any thing to render it at all improbable or 
 to prevent a high probability that it is entirely based up- 
 on a constant use of fraud and forgeries in the past ages 
 of history, especially in those in which there was wide- 
 spread ignorance and little or no critical skill to detect 
 such forgeries. 
 
 Thus the Romish corporation by their own acts have 
 entirely cut themselves off from all defence against such 
 imputations and presumptions, and laid themselves open 
 to the just imputation of a readiness to employ forgery or 
 fraud to any extent which their corporate interests might 
 seem to demand. 
 
 PEESUMPTION AGAINST ROME FROM PROPHECY. 
 
 If we turn to the word of God we shall be struck with 
 the remarkable fact that the rise of a great power is fore- 
 told to be distinguished by these two great characteris- 
 tics the first, that it should arrogate to itself the place 
 of God on earth ; the second, that, in sustaining such ar- 
 rogant claims, it should resort to an unparalleled extent 
 to the use of every kind of falsehood and fraud. This 
 stupendous work of deception was to be commenced soon 
 after the ascension of Christ, and was to result in a sys- 
 tem of fraud and imposture which, though nominally re- 
 ligious, should be in reality the masterwork of Satan,
 
 PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OP THE FACT. 215 
 
 exerting immense power, and enduring for ages, until at 
 last it should perish before the glorious coming of our 
 Savior to inflict just vengeance on his foes. The words 
 of inspiration are these, addressed to those who had been 
 alarmed by an apprehension of the immediate coming of 
 Christ, (2 Thess. ii. 3-12 :) 
 
 " Let no man deceive you by any means ; for that day 
 shall not come except there come a falling away first, and 
 that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who 
 opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called 
 God or that is worshipped ; so that he, as God, sitteth in 
 the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Re- 
 member ye not that, when I was yet with you, I told you 
 these things ? And now ye know what withholdeth that 
 he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of 
 iniquity doth already work ; only he who now letteth 
 will let until he be taken out of the way. And then 
 shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall con- 
 sume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with 
 the brightness of his coming even him whose coming is 
 after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and 
 lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unright- 
 eousness in them that perish ; because they received not 
 the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for 
 this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they 
 should believe a lie ; that they all might be damned who 
 believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteous- 
 ness." 
 
 Now, is it not plain that these words cannot be applied 
 to any system except one which makes peculiar pretences 
 to take God's place on earth one whose proceedings are 
 manifestly characterized by a peculiar use of fraud and 
 delusion one whose roots are found in the early ages, 
 near to the apostles, and whose development should last 
 till the remote ages of the Christian dispensation, and 
 whose power should be finally destroyed only by the com-
 
 216 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 ing of Christ with divine power to execute vengeance 
 upon his haughty and usurping adversary ? 
 
 Does not the Romish corporation practically take the 
 place of God and exhibit itself as such, especially in ex- 
 alting the pope, their head, and giving him the titles and 
 worship of God? Is not the use of falsehood, fraud, 
 and perfidy their great characteristic? Are not the 
 roots of the system in the early ages ? Is it not at this 
 time, as in past ages, the great enemy of humanity, whose 
 destruction is essential to the coming of an age of intel- 
 ligence, liberty, and social purity ? To what other sys- 
 tem, then, can the words of the prophecy so reasonably 
 be applied as to the corporation of Rome ? Is not this 
 the masterpiece of Satan ? 
 
 To this argument the Romish corporation cannot reply 
 that they do not believe in the existence of any such being 
 as Satan, the great father of lies. 
 
 No body of religionists professes a more full and un- 
 doubting faith in the existence and power of the devil 
 than the Romish corporation. They boldly proclaim 
 that the reformation of Luther is in an eminent degree 
 his work. All Bible and tract societies engaged in the 
 diffusion of divine truth they ascribe to his crafty and 
 malignant devices. But, according to them, the great en- 
 emy of the devil on earth is the church of Rome, under 
 the pope, her illustrious head. 
 
 Agreeing, then, as we do, that there is a devil, the only 
 question is, Whose principles and practice most resemble 
 his? And is it not plain that the Romish doctrine of 
 falsehood is a genuine and legitimate offspring of him 
 who is the father of lies ? Have we not reason, then, to 
 think that the Romish corporation also is his work ? 
 
 I shall not here offer any apology for professing my be- 
 lief of the doctrine of satanic agency or enter into any
 
 PKESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OP THE FACT. 217 
 
 argument in its defence ; for to the great majority of the 
 Christian world it is needless. It is held in common by 
 the Romish church, the Greek church, and all the other 
 Eastern churches, and by the whole evangelical Protestant 
 world, Lutheran, Calvinistic, Episcopal, Methodist, Bap- 
 tist, c., although comparatively little theological or phil- 
 osophical use has as yet been made of it. As presented in 
 the word of God, no doctrine is more fundamental. The 
 great end of the incarnation was to destroy the devil and 
 his kingdom by the redemption of the church. (1 John iii. 
 2. Heb. ii. 14, 15.) Christ will reign as Mediator till it 
 is done ; and then cometh the end. (1 Cor. xv. 24, 25.) 
 
 Owing to the depravity of man, he has, where God 
 does not prevent, entire ascendency over the race : he 
 forms tremendous organizations, and by them deceives 
 the nations and governs the world. (2 Cor. iv. 3, 4. 
 Eph. ii. 1, 2. Rev. xiii. 1-4.) 
 
 The millennial reign of Christ is caused, not by the un- 
 aided progress of the human mind, but by the exposure 
 and destruction of Satan's organizations, and to his being 
 bound and cast into the abyss, so as not to be an active 
 agent in the history of the world or able to deceive the 
 nations. (Rev. xix. 20, 21 ; xx. 1-8.) If these things 
 are so, it must be conceded that every system of theology, 
 history, or philosophy is fatally defective that omits him. 
 It is not God's theology, history, or philosophy, but 
 Satan's, designed to hide himself ; and any system of 
 theology or philosophy is superficial that takes a super- 
 ficial view of him. To take a profound and philosophical 
 view of the Roman hierarchy, without a thorough analysis 
 of his character, and maxims, and modes of deceit, is im- 
 possible. And, before this great controversy comes to its 
 crisis, he, and not any individual or generation, will be the 
 great subject of attack. 
 19
 
 218 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Assuming the truth of these views, I shall proceed to 
 present additional presumptive evidence that the Romish 
 corporation is the system of satanic fraud and delusion 
 which is predicted in the word of God. 
 
 It is plain, then, that the great system of fraud pre- 
 dicted, whatever it is, had its roots in ages immediately 
 after Christ, was for a time restrained, but was at last 
 developed and completed by an astounding use of impos- 
 ture and delusion, and exists even to this day. Does this 
 general view best accord with the Roman corporation or 
 with Protestantism ? I affirm that it best accords with 
 Romanism. I shall, therefore, proceed to present the 
 presumptive evidence that the Romish hierarchy is this 
 stupendous system of fraud. 
 
 Before proceeding to the proof, it is suitable to state 
 explicitly what part is to be assigned to man in this stu- 
 pendous fraud, and also to consider the nature and power 
 of the additional presumptive evidence which is to be 
 adduced. 
 
 What part, then, is to be assigned to man ? 
 
 1. Not that any one human mind ever in any age delib- 
 erately and consciously planned and organized the whole 
 system from the beginning, knowing it to be a fraud, as 
 was no doubt true in the case of Joseph Smith when he 
 formed a plan to delude his followers by the book of 
 Mormon. 
 
 2. Nor that any number of men cooperating in one 
 age, or in different ages, ever planned it as a whole, 
 knowing it to be a fraud. 
 
 3. Nor that the great mass of the laity whom it has 
 deluded and controlled have ever supposed it to be a 
 fraud. 
 
 4. Nor that all of its leading administrators and ad- 
 vocates have ever regarded it as a fraud, though very
 
 PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE FACT. 219 
 
 many have so regarded and used it when planned to their 
 hands even popes, bishops, and priests. 
 
 5. Nor that there is no important doctrinal truth in 
 some of its dogmas : there is much. 
 
 6. Nor that no good men have ignorantly contributed 
 to its formation, and lived under it, and obeyed it, as 
 victims of delusion. 
 
 7. Nor that it has never done any good ; but that the 
 truth and the peculiarities of the system do not proper- 
 ly belong together ; that one is of God, the other of the 
 devil ; and that good men under it are made by the truth 
 in spite of the system, and not because of it ; and that 
 the good done is and has been done by the same truth and 
 by good men in spite of the system, and not because of it. 
 But the system, as a system, is false and pernicious, and, 
 though not framed at once as a whole by any man or 
 body of men as a fraud, was framed by that one far-seeing, 
 comprehensive mind of whom the apostle speaks once in 
 heaven, and familiar with the whole character, laws, and 
 administration of God, deeply versed in all questions of 
 theology, skilled in organization and government, perfectly 
 acquainted with all the phases of the human mind and of 
 society, and a master of alj. the arts of sophistry and de- 
 lusion to a degree beyond the conception of a human mind, 
 and before whom all men and nations, not illuminated and 
 defended by God, are, by reason of their dislike of the 
 truth, mere simpletons objects of his craft and delusive 
 power entangled in his snares, led captive at his will. 
 
 He, living whilst generations die, is able to lay a plan 
 requiring centuries for its execution. He can take ad- 
 vantage of human depravity in all its forms and of the 
 deep dislike of men to humbling and self-denying truth ; 
 also of existing errors of philosophy or education, know- 
 ing how to combine them and push them on to their final
 
 220 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 results. Also he can avail himself of the remaining 
 depravity, worldliness, and pride of good men, and of 
 the various errors which they mingle with truth. Also 
 he can avail himself of existing defective forms of civil 
 organization, and of the spirit, associations, tastes, and 
 habits produced by them, in order by means of them to 
 vitiate the spirit and form of Christian organization. 
 Availing himself of all these, he has by a delusive pro- 
 cess, holding up great and good ends, such as preserving 
 doctrine and unity in the church, produced a system 
 adapted on the whole to do as much evil and as little 
 good as in existing circumstances was possible ; for being 
 limited to the problem of working by delusion, under the 
 guise of Christianity, he could not work at all without 
 doing some good and without some good men to work 
 with. All that he could do would be to profess enough 
 good to put men off their guard, and actually to do a cer- 
 tain amount of good, or at least allow it to be done by those 
 who had a heart to do it. But he would make the pre- 
 ponderating influence evil to the highest degree he could. 
 Now, when I call the system of the Romish hierarchy a 
 stupendous fraud, I mean that it is a system, devised by 
 Satan for this very end, and that by it he has thus far 
 gained it to an astonishing extent. The delusion has 
 been strong and complete to an amazing degree. It has 
 been strong delusion to believe a lie. The system has 
 wielded vast power and endured for century after centu- 
 ry. By it Satan has still retained his position as the god 
 of this world, and, what is still more amazing, has placed 
 his throne in the temple of God, and thence sent forth 
 his decrees to the nations and done his will without let 
 or hinderance. I therefore can even suppose that Mr. 
 Brownson and other lay Romanists are free from any at- 
 tempt to sustain a known and designed fraud. I can
 
 PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE FACT. 221 
 
 regard them simply as the sincere but deluded subjects of 
 a higher fraud, and would desire in meekness to instruct 
 them, if peradventure God may give them repentance, to 
 the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may deliver 
 themselves from the snares of Satan who are led captive 
 by him at his will. Nor let any one suppose that I mean 
 any disrespect by this. The existence of a devil has 
 always been a fundamental doctrine of the Romish system ; 
 nor do they hesitate to declare that Protestantism is his 
 work. Hence Mr. Brownson represents the devil as 
 greatly enraged by the present onset of the Roman world 
 upon it and speaking great swelling words in its defence. 
 
 Now, as both systems agree most fully in teaching the 
 existence of a devil, and as they are logical opposites, 
 of one or the other the devil is the author, and the advo- 
 cates of one or the other are deluded. The Romanists 
 charge it on the Protestants, and the Protestants retort 
 the charge ; and thus they come to a logical issue. Just 
 so was it between the Jews and Christ. They charged 
 on him a league with the devil. He retorted on them the 
 charge that they were of their father the devil ; and so 
 they came to an issue. 
 
 I proceed to show that the logical presumption is that 
 the Romish hierarchy is a stupendous fraud of the devil. 
 
 What, then, is the nature and power of the presumptive 
 evidence which I propose to adduce? It is that which 
 arises from the action of the mind when it takes a rapid 
 and comprehensive view of the leading facts of a given 
 case and asks what hypothesis best explains them. 
 
 Here a general knowledge of God and of the laws and 
 principles of his system is supposed ; also of men and 
 human society ; also of the devil, and his character, laws, 
 and modes of proceeding. And the question is raised, 
 Which looks most likely that this system is of God as it 
 19*
 
 222 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 claims, or that it is a stupendous fraud of the devil ? This 
 is an effort of the mind to guard itself against limited, 
 onesided views, or against the delusive power of dialectic 
 sophistry, which it may not see how at once to analyze 
 and destroy. It is like ascending a mountain and taking 
 at a glance a general view of the prospect around. It 
 deserves great regard ; and it enables sound and compre- 
 hensive minds at once to see the general current or drift 
 of evidence on a given point. 
 
 Taking, then, in the first place a general view, I assert 
 that, when we consider the extraordinary and all-compre- 
 hending claims of this corporation, the prodigious powers 
 of despotism they would grasp in their hands, the manner in 
 which such claims ought to be proved, the kind and degree 
 of proof offered, and the general mode in which they have 
 in all ages conducted the argument, the whole procedure 
 has on its face the appearance of a stupendous fraud. 
 
 The points asserted and to be proved are, 1. That 
 Christ intended to have a permanent corporation of 
 bishops under one universal bishop, his representative 
 and vicar, as successors of the apostles, who should 
 have, as a corporation, inspiration, infallibility, and inde- 
 fectibility. 2. That such a body is a church in any proper 
 sense, and not a mere ecclesiastical hierarchy. 3. That 
 Peter was the first head of this body. 4. Not only that 
 Peter was at Rome, but that he had his see there, as uni- 
 versal bishop of the church on earth. 5. That his su- 
 premacy was to descend to his successors. 6. That God 
 speaks and acts exclusively through this corporation ; so 
 that all who reject them reject God, and cannot believe or 
 be saved. Such are the claims put forth with the highest 
 assurance in the centre of New England and before the 
 civilized world and God most high. 
 
 Now, in cases far less momentous there are principles
 
 PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OP THE FACT. 223 
 
 of proof by which the common sense of mankind is wont 
 to test any claims affecting life, reputation, or estate ; and 
 there are intrinsic marks of honesty in presenting and 
 sustaining such claims ; so that the mind, without going 
 into logical details, receives, by an instantaneous judg- 
 ment, a conviction of the truth or falsehood of the claims. 
 I shall show that it is utterly impossible fairly to state 
 these claims, and then put side by side the proof on which 
 they are based, without comment, and then consider the 
 mode in which the argument has always been conducted, 
 without producing an instantaneous conviction that the 
 whole system is a stupendous fraud practised on the 
 credulity of the human race. 
 
 I am aware that the Romanists repudiate this view as 
 absurd and incredible ; but there are no pledges of God 
 against the occurrence in the nominal church of such a 
 corruption as this would imply, beginning early, extending 
 wide, and changing the most powerful acting church to a 
 harlot. Against this the Romanists cry out, as a breach 
 of God's covenant to the church, as the Jews did when 
 Paul announced their rejection and ruin. " If this is so, 
 then the gates of hell have prevailed against the church," 
 say they. The whole force of this goes upon the assump- 
 tion that the gates of hell here spoken of are not the 
 gates of Rome, and that the oath of God does not bind 
 him to destroy her in order to defend his church against 
 the gates of hell. And truly nothing is adapted more 
 clearly to show the power of God than to defend and 
 preserve in this world a spiritual church, notwithstanding 
 the debaucheries, rage, and bloody persecutions of Rome. 
 All this looks vastly like defending the church against the 
 gates of hell and the armies of hell issuing from those 
 gates. 
 
 But, not to rely on a mere negative statement, we do
 
 224 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 know from the passage quoted that a stupendous fraud 
 was to take place under the presiding influence of Satan, 
 involving so much power, and leading to an opposition to 
 God so great, that its destruction should call for a special 
 interposition of Christ by the spirit of his mouth and the 
 brightness of his appearing. Indeed the letters of Christ 
 to the seven churches, the letters of Paul, and the Apoc- 
 alypse of John all speak one language on this subject. 
 They all portend a widespread and fatal apostasy in the 
 visible church ; that the real church should as it were lie 
 hid, and yet be miraculously defended by God against the 
 rage of Satan in the ruling church. 
 
 "We are also distinctly informed in the text that the 
 elements out of which it was to be formed were then in 
 existence and at work, repressed indeed by certain causes, 
 but sure to develop themselves when those causes should 
 be removed. Again : we know that the full development 
 of the pure and holy church of God, the marriage supper 
 of the Lamb, the conversion of the world, the binding of 
 Satan, and the reign of Christ were unfolded as events in 
 the far-distant future, to be preceded by a period of great 
 iniquity, in which the bottomless pit should be opened 
 and stupendous satanic systems be developed, the destruc- 
 tion of which should precede and introduce those glorious 
 events. 
 
 No points are more distinctly marked in the word of 
 God than these. (See Rev. xix. 20.) They are like lofty 
 mountain peaks ; nothing can hide or obscure them. They 
 are in pointed contradiction of the Romish hypothesis, 
 that the first thing after Christ was the full development 
 of the true church ; they fall in entirely with the Protes- 
 tant view, that the first great and organized system to be 
 developed was a stupendous fraud, imposed on the world 
 by Satan in the guise of a church of God.
 
 PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE FACT. 225 
 
 A second presumptive argument lies in the nature of the 
 system as it is now presented to us in its perfected state. 
 What is this system? Suppose all opposition to cease, 
 and let it have its way ; what would it become? A close 
 corporation, invested with the monopoly of the grace of 
 God, and of heaven and hell, to the whole human race, 
 centralized by a universal spiritual monarch, denying in 
 the name of God any responsibility to any human power 
 on earth. 
 
 Think now what man is that the experience of all 
 ages has taught us that the possession of irresponsible 
 power above all things corrupts its possessors ; think that 
 even Paul needed the counterpoise of constant afflictions 
 to keep him from pride ; and then ask, Are we to expect 
 that Romish popes and bishops, as a general fact, will be 
 such paragons of piety and humility that all this honor 
 and power will not corrupt and injure them ? I do not 
 ask what the facts have been ; that I shall consider when I 
 proceed to demonstrate that the system is of the devil. I 
 am looking merely at the general aspect of the system 
 now. God, we know, above all things abhors pride. Does 
 this system, now, look like an exquisite divine device to pro- 
 mote humility? Look at its bishops, archbishops, patri- 
 archs, metropolitans, cardinals, and at the summit of the 
 great pyramid, the absolute monarch of eight hundred mil- 
 lions of men, for such he claims to be by divine right, 
 and does it strike you as God's school of humility,? Think 
 what Christ said when the disciples disputed who should 
 be greatest ; how he mentioned the bad precedents of the 
 aspiring great men of this world only to condemn them 
 and to say, Among you it shall not be so ; and is it prob- 
 able that nevertheless he meant to found a spiritual aris- 
 tocracy, centralized by an absolute monarch, in comparison 
 with which all the ambitious dreams of Alexander, Caesar, 
 and Bonaparte are eclipsed and disappear ?
 
 226 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 . Again : think of him whose essence is pride who said, 
 " I will mount up ; I will be as God ; " is it likely that we 
 are to find his great antagonist in such a system as this? 
 Does it not rather seem to bear his very image and super- 
 scription ? Does it seem as if Satan, if he had desired a sys- 
 tem to call into his service the strongest depraved passions 
 of the human heart, pride, and the love of wealth, honor, 
 power, and sensual indulgence, could have devised a better 
 plan ? And is this, after all, the only church of the living 
 God, out of which there can be no holiness and no salva- 
 tion ? Is it not more likely that this is the man of sin 
 spoken of in the text, whom the Lord will consume by the 
 breath of his. mouth and destroy by the brightness of his 
 coming? 
 
 I am aware that a cover of piety may be thrown over all 
 this and much said of unity and orthodoxy ; and we may 
 be told that we must trust in God to take care that his bride, 
 his wife, does not abuse her power. We will trust in God 
 indeed. But prove to us, first, that this corporation is his 
 bride, his wife ; for, to speak the simple truth, she looks 
 far more like the harlot of Satan, attired in scarlet, than 
 like the bride, the Lamb's wife, attired in fine linen, clean 
 and white. 
 
 Another presumptive argument that the system is a stu- 
 pendous fraud is found in the extreme scantiness of the 
 scriptural proof by which it is sustained. 
 
 There is no specific, formal, and definite statement of the 
 system in the Bible such as a system of power like this 
 ought to have. Compare the statement of powers of 
 officers in the laws of Moses, and the constitution of the 
 United States, and in the case of Christ, with the state- 
 ments claimed for this corporation as its scriptural proofs. 
 Now, this corporation is, according to Romanists, more im- 
 portant than all God has done besides more so than the
 
 PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE FACT. 22 < 
 
 atonement or the Bible. They are absolutely of no use 
 without it. The system of God cannot go, it utterly fails, 
 without it. If so, do not reason and common sense say 
 it ought to be fully stated in the Bible ? If a mechanic, 
 designing to teach a nation how to make and use steam- 
 boats, should describe all other parts of the system, but 
 should omit all mention of steam, and of the boiler and its 
 attendant machinery, what should we think of it ? But if 
 this corporation, with their head, is the mainspring of the 
 system, why is it not fully described? When the disciples 
 were contending who should be greatest, it would have 
 been easy to say, Peter shall be universal bishop, and to 
 arrange the whole matter. When Peter was writing his 
 epistles, it would have been easy for him, if he was at 
 Rome, to say so, and, if he was head of the church, to 
 write in that style. It would have been easy for Paul, 
 when writing to Rome, to recognize the fact that Peter 
 was the bishop of that church, that his see was there, 
 and that his dominion and that of his successors was co- 
 extensive with the globe. And as the successors of the 
 apostles were to have only corporate inspiration and 
 infallibility, it would have been easy to state it and 
 how it was to be exercised a thing not even yet 
 decided. 
 
 Now, how easy would it have been to have started right 
 at the beginning if the claims of this corporation are true ! 
 But, alas 1 what an utter void is there where indisputable 
 proof ought to be found ! True, certain things are said to 
 the apostles, and it is implied that they were to have 
 successors of some sort, and that with them Christ would 
 be to the end of the world ; but not a step can be taken 
 without begging the question who these successors should 
 be. True, also, certain things are said to Peter ; but 
 here, too, not a step can be taken without begging the
 
 228 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 question and assuming their own interpretation as the 
 only correct one. But as to Rome, and a see there, &c., 
 there is an utter blank. 
 
 Indeed the celebrated Newman, the leader of the Trac- 
 tarians, now, like Mr. Brownson, in the bosom of Rome, in 
 his work on ecclesiastical development, designed to say 
 all in behalf of Rome that he can, is obliged to admit the 
 truth of all I say. He confesses that the passages of 
 Scripture claimed by the Papal see are " more or less ob- 
 Bcurc, and NEEDS A COMMENT." He admits that the Pa- 
 pacy was not developed or known during the first two cen- 
 turies, nor were ecumenical councils. He assigns, too, the 
 reason why the persecuting pagan Roman empire rendered 
 the development of such a system impossible. He resorts 
 to the idea of an intended divine development of it when 
 it appeared. There was a development, no doubt ; but 
 whether of God or of the devil is the question. To me 
 Newman's words look like an undesigned comment on 
 Paul's statement, in the passage quoted, of the temporary 
 repression of the mystery of iniquity, and its development 
 when the obstacle should be removed. 
 
 Hear him : " An international bond " [like the Papacy] 
 " and a common authority could not be consolidated, were 
 it ever so certainly provided, while persecutions lasted. 
 If the imperial power checked the development of coun- 
 cils, it availed also for keeping back the power of the 
 Papacy." But when persecution was removed, it was, ac- 
 cording to him, developed, and, when the imperial power 
 fell, still more so. Amen. So I understand Paul to assert 
 of the man of sin in the text. At all events, Mr. New- 
 man is compelled to concede my facts. He admits that 
 for two centuries " the regalia Petri * slept," as " a mys- 
 
 * Royal and supreme authority of Peter.
 
 PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE FACT. 229 
 
 terious privilege not understood as an unfulfilled proph- 
 ecy." 
 
 And is it likely that this is the way God would have 
 established a power on the reception of which heaven and 
 hell depend, without which the Bible cannot be under- 
 stood by a few obscure passages, so obscure that for two 
 centuries no one understood them, and the powers giv- 
 en slumbered like the meaning of an unfulfilled proph- 
 ecy ? And yet nothing more does even Mr. Newman dare 
 to claim. 
 
 No wonder that the Eomanists think that the Bible 
 needs the church for an interpreter ; for no other body in 
 heaven or on earth could get any support for their hier- 
 archy out of it. Plainly at first sight it is not there ; 
 and you may strain your eyes, and yet you cannot see it. 
 If all this is not strong presumptive evidence of a stupen- 
 dous fraud, I know not what is. 
 
 Another presumptive evidence of a stupendous fraud is 
 the manner in which the argument has been conducted 
 from age to age. 
 
 The claims of the hierarchy are not the same from age 
 to age ; they are now stupendous and all-comprehending. 
 Go back beyond Gregory VII. , and how are they dimin- 
 ished ! Go back to the days of Augustine, and how are 
 they still diminished ! Go back to the first century, and 
 they disappear. The system is like a pyramid standing 
 on its apex and with its base upward ; and Mr. Newman 
 is trying to prop it up by developments and Mr. Brown- 
 son by a priori arguments. But what does it most resem- 
 ble the honesty of God, or the fraud of a deceiving spirit, 
 augmenting his claims as best he can by any means, fair 
 or foul, from age to age? 
 
 Again : her universal reliance, when in the majority, on 
 force, and not on argument, betokens that she is the tern- 
 20
 
 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 pie of the father of lies, and not of God. When they 
 are in the minority her advocates disclaim the use of 
 force. But does the infallible hierarchy ? Let the coun- 
 cils of the Lateran ; let the dungeons, and racks, and stakes 
 of the Inquisition ; let the crusades against the Albigenses 
 and the massacre of St. Bartholomew ; let the oceans of 
 blood shed by her authority and order, reply. And does 
 this create a presumption that the presiding spirit of that 
 church is mild, and meek, and gentle, sustained by an 
 inward consciousness that God and all the truth in the 
 universe are on her side? Or is it like the conduct of a 
 ruling spirit who knows that the whole fabric is based on 
 lies, and that, so soon as true logic and true holiness shall 
 have free course and divine energy, he and his system will 
 be plunged together into a lake of logical and unquench- 
 able fire ? 
 
 Again : the same presumption that the whole system is 
 one of fraud is created by the unfeigned horror with 
 which it has regarded the translation and circulation of 
 the Bible in the living languages of men. Is not this a 
 clear presumption of fraud? Is the President of these 
 United States afraid of the constitution of these United 
 States? Does he deem it a dangerous document? Does 
 he wish to lock it up in Latin and keep it out of the hands 
 of the people? Why then the constant roaring of the 
 pope against Bible societies ? Is not the Bible the con- 
 stitution of the kingdom of Christ? And, if he meant to 
 have a pope in his church, is not his office clearly set forth 
 in the constitution of his church ? Alas ! Mr. Newman 
 tells us the passages claimed by the pope are " more or 
 less obscure, and need a comment." Even so they do need 
 a comment, and one that is able to subvert the obvious 
 sense of the whole Bible. Hence the indispensable ne- 
 cessity of keeping the Bible in their own hands if they
 
 PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE FACT. 281 
 
 can, and at least of obliging all men, on pain of eternal 
 damnation, implicitly to believe their interpretation of it. 
 Five bulls against Bible societies have been issued in the 
 last thirty years the last in 1844. It chills the blood to 
 hear in what manner they speak of the Bible and of the 
 " crafty device " of circulating the revealed word of God. 
 The devil, it would seem, in his rage against Rome, has 
 become the great patron of Bible societies. It is hard to 
 tell whether this is most blasphemous or ludicrous. And 
 what is the flimsy pretext of all this ? Do they talk of 
 inaccurate versions ? Surely they were admirable judges 
 who in the council of Trent declared the Vulgate the ul- 
 timate standard of appeal, with all its notorious errors. 
 And why? Because the infallible bishops of that council, 
 according to Sarpi, did not know enough of Hebrew and 
 Greek to read it in the original, and in Latin they could 
 read it. And so Mr. Brownson now appeals to the Latin 
 original instead of the Hebrew or Greek ! Is this the 
 church to be so fierce against inaccurate translations? 
 But the pretext is too flimsy. Beneath those ecclesiastical 
 robes and forms of piety in the midst of that church there 
 meets the eye a presiding spirit whose whole soul is filled 
 with dread and hatred of the word of God. To him 
 it is a consuming fire ; and hence in rage he would burn 
 it with fire. When the time comes I shall exhibit at large 
 the treatment it has received from the hierarchy. At this 
 time I present only that impression which a general view 
 of facts at once forces on an honest mind. Nothing is a 
 stronger presumptive argument against this church than 
 this constant dread of the word of God, and earnest de- 
 sire- to introduce apocryphal books and human traditions 
 as the basis of her arguments in order to sustain a sink- 
 ing cause. But no human tongue can tell one half of the 
 fearful truth on this point. I leave it to be fully disclosed
 
 232 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 by Him who, by the spirit of his mouth and the brightness 
 of his coming, shall, like devouring fire, forever consume 
 this stupendous system of organized fraud. 
 
 If any one desires to reply to this, let him, if he dares, 
 first give a complete and discriminating analysis of the 
 character, maxims, and spirit of God and of Satan in con- 
 trast and according to the word of God. Who will de- 
 ny that there is a broad, an infinite, distinction between 
 their characters, maxims, and spirit, as laid down in the 
 word of God ? What is it? Let the Romanists, then, do 
 what they never yet have done let them state the exact 
 difference between God and the devil, not in general 
 terms, but in a practical point of view and according to 
 his word, and then prove, if they can, that the facts in 
 the history of their church to which I have referred create 
 a logical presumption that God is its author, and not the 
 devil. But this they can never do. Nay, that is saying 
 but little. When such a contrast of the character of God 
 and the devil shall be made, it will become, according to 
 the law of cause and effect, as logically certain as the law 
 of gravitation that no being but the devil can be the au- 
 thor and presiding spirit of that church. But the full 
 proof on this point Lreserve to a future argument. It is 
 enough that I have clearly stated at present the presump- 
 tive proof that the whole system is a stupendous fraud of 
 Satan. 
 
 When God comes to destroy that system he will admit 
 of no neutrality. If it is not what it professes to be, there 
 is no blasphemy like it, nor will God display towards any 
 other system such fierceness of wrath. Let every man, 
 then, take care on which side he is found in this final .war. 
 
 Let us never forget that the enemy with whom we con- 
 tend is superhuman, the common enemy of the human race ; 
 and let us not hate those whom he deceives, but pity
 
 PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE FACT. 233 
 
 them, love them, and pray for them. God has saved 
 millions from that delusive system ; he can save millions 
 more. Pray, then, for the deluded millions of Italy, Por- 
 tugal, Spain, Austria, and France. Pray for the millions 
 of our own land and of all lands. There is power in 
 prayer. Feel for them ; they are deluded. Satan is their 
 enemy and ours. Pray that the vials of God's wrath may 
 fall on him, and that they may be delivered from their 
 miserable bondage to him, and be saved. The time for 
 the utter destruction of that system plainly draws near ; 
 the truth must be spoken, and spoken boldly ; but the 
 main work is to be done by the Holy Ghost and by 
 prayer. 
 
 20*
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY. 
 
 IT is certainly very unusual to be called on to make 
 the charge of a regular and extensive system of forgery 
 and fraud upon a powerful corporation professing to be 
 religious, and even to assert that the very existence of 
 that corporation is owing to such forgery and fraud. 
 
 In ordinary. cases I would not do it; but this is no 
 ordinary case. In common cases any corporation profess- 
 ing to be respectable has a right to the presumption that 
 it will not practise forgery and gross deception. The 
 reason is that they all avow the principle that these 
 things are always wrong. 
 
 But with the Romish corporation it is not so. They 
 avow the doctrine that to lie and deceive for ecclesiastical 
 utility is right. This being the case, it is obviously im- 
 possible to create a presumption that the system was not 
 formed by the use of forgery and fraud. On the other 
 hand, there must be a very strong presumption that it was. 
 
 I do not hesitate, therefore, to say that facts accord 
 with this presumption, and that there is the most unequiv- 
 ocal historical evidence that such was the origin of the 
 system. Nor is the evidence of this assertion sparing or 
 feeble. It can be demonstrated, by even a superfluity of 
 unequivocal and undeniable historical evidence, that the 
 principle of lying for ecclesiastical utility is the absolute 
 
 (234)
 
 ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY-. 235 
 
 creator of every .part and particle of the Romish corpora- 
 tion as it now exists. 
 
 Not a feature of its present constitution can be men- 
 tioned that cannot be traced back by the clearest histor- 
 ical evidence to a time when it did not exist, and the pro- 
 cess can be shown through which it was created by fraud 
 and *brgery. There is, in fact, nothing to be compared 
 with this system of forgery for its magnitude and results 
 in the history of the world. But at this we need not won- 
 der. If the principle of lying for ecclesiastical utility is 
 sound, why should it not be carried out on a great scale ? 
 
 But to descend to particulars. The pope is now a tem- 
 poral ruler of a territory about three times as large as the 
 State of Massachusetts. It stretches across Italy from the 
 Mediterranean to the Adriatic. It is an essential part of 
 .the present system. It makes him independent of any 
 temporal ruler. He is bound by no oath of allegiance to 
 any earthly sovereign. This is felt to be essential in 
 order to carry out his claims as a universal spiritual sov- 
 ereign. Was it always thus? I answer. No. He was 
 not always ruler of this or of any other territory. We can 
 trace back the history of this matter to the beginning ; 
 and we find that the original claim was founded on a 
 most notorious forgery, purporting to be a donation of 
 territory from the Emperor Constantine. 
 
 This was followed up by other similar forgeries, until 
 at last an actual beginning of temporal power, first de- 
 pendent, and finally independent, was made. After this it 
 was extended by war and treachery to its present extent. 
 
 The pope is now elected by a college of cardinals, who 
 are princes in the Papal state and next in honor to the 
 pope. From them alone can he be chosen. Was it al- 
 ways thus? I answer, No. We can trace back this part
 
 236 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 of the system until it entirely disappears, and can point 
 out its fraudulent and unauthorized origin. 
 
 The bishops of the Romish church are now bound to 
 the pope by a feudal oath, which plainly betrays itself as a 
 product of the middle ages. "We can trace this, too, back 
 till it disappears, and we come to a time when every 
 bishop in Europe, Asia, and Africa would have denounced 
 with indignation the demand of any such oath as an act 
 of impious and unparalleled usurpation of authority. 
 
 The pope has now supreme judicial authority. No 
 bishop, no synod, has ultimate jurisdiction. An appeal 
 may be taken from them all to Rome. We can trace this 
 part also of the system back to the time when the supreme 
 judicial authority of the pope wholly disappears, and each 
 local church with its rulers was entirely independent of 
 every other. The idea of an appeal from the decision of 
 particular churches to synods was at length introduced ; 
 but even after this the idea of a universal appeal to 
 the Bishop of Rome was repudiated with the utmost de- 
 cision. Indeed by the first general council, A. D. 325, it 
 was absolutely and definitely forbidden. The existing 
 judicial power of the pope was obtained by forgery. 
 
 At the present time, too, the pope has the power of 
 making laws and prescribing usages for the whole church. 
 He also is invested with supreme executive power. "We 
 can trace these parts of the system also back till they 
 disappear. We can discover, too, the very forgeries 
 by which the present state of things was brought into 
 existence. 
 
 The pope, moreover, now claims supremacy on the ground 
 of the assumed fact that Peter was appointed the prince 
 of the apostles and the head and ruler of the church. 
 We can trace this claim also back to a time in which
 
 ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY. 237 
 
 those who are now absurdly called the early Popes of 
 Rome were utterly ignorant of this doctrine and made no 
 such claim ; and we can show how after four or five 
 centuries the idea was introduced and how it was made 
 to triumph by falsehood and fraud. 
 
 The doctrine also as to the infallible authority of a 
 general council under the pope can be traced back till it 
 utterly disappears, together with the very idea of such a 
 council. 
 
 Moreover, when the idea of calling such a council was 
 originated, the Bishop of Rome neither called it, presided 
 in it, nor confirmed and gave authority to its decrees. His 
 right to do all these things has been since usurped by 
 falsehood and fraud. 
 
 The law of the celibacy of the clergy, which is one main 
 pillar of the Papacy, can also be thus traced back till it 
 disappears. The same is true of the doctrine of auricular 
 confession that great engine of Papal and priestly des- 
 potism. 
 
 So also the doctrines of transubstantiation, purgatory, 
 saint and image worship, and the whole system of sacra- 
 mental regeneration and sanctification can be traced back 
 till they vanish, and the last fragment of Romanism, either 
 in doctrine or in government, utterly disappears. 
 
 The creation of the peculiar doctrines of Romanism 
 was not so entirely effected by forgery as was the existing 
 Papal corporation and form of goverment ; and, as this is 
 the central power of the system, my main purpose calls 
 for a more particular exposure of this. 
 
 It is well for the community that this is a mere question 
 of historical fact. It is a question of unspeakable interest, 
 not only to our country, but to the world. If the Papal 
 corporation is a fraud, created by unprincipled forgery, 
 then it is a conspiracy against the welfare of the human
 
 238 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 race which deserves the highest possible detestation. God 
 only, the Infinite, the Almighty, can adequately express the 
 abhorrence that it deserves. 
 
 When we consider its arrogant claims, when we trace 
 its history, when we contemplate the oceans of blood that 
 it has shed simply for the alleged crime of denying and 
 repudiating its claims, the mind of man is appalled, and 
 fails at the magnitude of the guilt involved ; nor does it 
 find relief till it falls back on the idea of an almighty 
 Judge. He can arouse the mind of humanity to under- 
 take this mighty judgment, and he can uphold and 
 strengthen them in its execution. 
 
 ( Indeed his word contains a call to the friends of God 
 and man to engage in this work, and his providence coin- 
 cides in summoning the nations to the judgment. Our 
 country especially is called on to lead the way.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FORMATION OF THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 
 
 THERE is to be, as I have said, an historical day of 
 judgment. God has come on burning wheels ; fiery flames 
 precede him ; the thrones are set, the books are opened, 
 and the Romish corporation and their head are summoned 
 before his bar to answer for their arrogant pretences and 
 bloody deeds. 
 
 Let us, then, open the pages of the book of history be- 
 fore the bar of this almighty and impartial Judge, and 
 listen to their testimony against the corporation of Rome. 
 
 The time covered by the claim of the Romish corpora- 
 tion includes nearly nineteen centuries. They exhibit to 
 the world an unbroken line of popes, stretching across 
 this vast tract of time, and terminating, as they allege, 
 with Peter at Rome. 
 
 To unlearned Romanists, and to others who know what 
 the pope now is, it appears as if the Papal leaders taught 
 that a line of such popes extended back to that time. 
 Such, we do not doubt, is the impression which they mean 
 to convey. 
 
 If the history of this long period were familiarly known, 
 such a claim would appear little less than ridiculous insan 
 ity, if its impiety did not eclipse every other consideration. 
 But there is no popular knowledge of this period, and 
 therefore no ability to treat such a claim as it deserves. 
 
 (239)
 
 240 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Of course it is not possible within my limits to give so 
 extended a history in full ; but I can with ease make some 
 general statements which will dissipate the Papal delusion 
 to which I have adverted and place the great facts of the 
 case in a true light. 
 
 Bishop Kenrick, of Philadelphia, has given us a list of 
 two hundred and fifty persons, called popes, who are said 
 to have reigned during this time, ending with Gregory 
 XVI. Daunou, a French Catholic, has also given us a list 
 of two hundred and sixty-three, terminating with the same 
 pope. Bishop Kenrick says that " the number varies ac- 
 cording as certain individuals are considered intruders or 
 lawful popes." (Primacy, p. 488.) It appears, then, that 
 Romanists are not always agreed who are the true popes. 
 The bishop says, " It is a matter for critical inquiry." This 
 I think any one will concede who attempts to look into 
 the matter. To settle all questions involved in the Papal 
 schisms and the claims of anti-popes will require a very 
 critical inquiry, and at the best lead to very doubtful re- 
 sults, as is plain from the divisions of Romanists on the 
 subject. 
 
 But this long list of popes may be divided- into six 
 classes, according to the state of the civil governments of 
 the world. 
 
 The first class includes those who were under the Ro- 
 man empire for three centuries before the conversion of 
 Constantino to Christianity. Of these thirty-two are 
 given by Kenrick and Daunou, up to Sylvester, by whom, 
 as we are told by certain notorious Roman forgers, Con- 
 stantine was baptized, and to whom, the same forgers tell 
 us, he gave his palace, Rome, and the Empire of the West. 
 
 The second class includes those who were under the Ro- 
 man empire from the conversion of Constantino till its down- 
 fall in 476 a space of nearly two centuries. Of these
 
 FORMATION OP THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 241 
 
 there are given thirteen by Daunou and Kenrick, includ- 
 ing Leo L, soon after whom Rome fell. 
 
 Though Pope Leo I. died fifteen years before the fall 
 of Rome, yet I select him because he was the leading 
 spirit of that age, and the master builder who first made 
 Peter the basis of the Roman claim of supremacy of juris- 
 diction and spiritual power. 
 
 In these two periods lived the early Christian writers 
 commonly known as the fathers as, for example, Augus- 
 tine, Bishop of Hippo, Chrysostom, Bishop of Constanti- 
 nople, Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. Of these the see of 
 Rome furnished none except Leo just before the city fell. 
 
 The third class consists of those who were under the 
 government of the barbarian conquerors of Rome, or of 
 the Emperors of Constantinople when they reconquered 
 Rome, until the revival of the Empire of the "West by 
 Charlemagne in the year 800 a space of three centuries 
 and a quarter. Of these fifty-two are given by Kenrick 
 and fifty-one by Daunou, including Leo III., by whom 
 Charlemagne was crowned. 
 
 In this period there were a few writers in the first cen- 
 tury, of whom Pope Gregory, called the Great, is chief. 
 The last two centuries from 600 were the beginning of the 
 midnight of the dark ages. 
 
 The fourth class consists of those who lived between 
 Charlemagne, A. D. 800, and the celebrated Gregory VII., 
 A. D. 1073-85, called sometimes Hildebrand, and regarded 
 as the Napoleon of the Romish corporation. Of these 
 sixty-four are enumerated by Daunou and fifty-six by 
 Kenrick. 
 
 During this period no great writers meet us. "We are 
 
 still in the midnight of the dark ages, notwithstanding 
 
 a transient gleam of light around Charlemagne. These 
 
 last two periods are the ages of forgery and fraud. Soon 
 
 21
 
 242 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 after 1000, however, the period of the scholastic divines 
 opened. There we see Anselm, Lanfranck, Abelard. 
 
 The fifth class includes the popes from Gregory VII. to 
 the reformation under Leo X., A. D. 1514. This period 
 extends through about four centuries, and contains sixty 
 popes according to Kenrick, and sixty-six according to 
 Daunou. 
 
 This is by way of eminence the Papal period. In it the 
 existing corporation of Rome was first fully organized on 
 foundations and of materials previously forged. In it the 
 peculiar doctrines of Romanism which are the sinews of 
 its power and the sources of profit were fully developed 
 and established. This is the period of the crusades and of 
 scholastic divinity ; this, too, is the period of Papal art. 
 
 The sixth class extends from the reformation to the 
 present day, a period of about three centuries and a 
 half, and contains thirty-eight popes according to both 
 Kenrick and Daunou. In this period began the great 
 work of exposing the forgeries and frauds of Rome 1 , which 
 is yet to be completed. 
 
 It has been a period of intense intellectual activity ; 
 especially has it been remarkable as an age of historical 
 and critical development. The study of history was once 
 confined to the leading few ; it has during this period 
 descended more and more to the people. We, as a nation 
 of self-governing freemen, above all others need to be well 
 versed in history, and especially in the history of that 
 corporation whose origin and formation it is my purpose 
 now to illustrate in a survey of the divisions which have 
 been made. 
 
 To impress this division more strongly upon the mind, 
 and to aid the power of conception when I shall speak of 
 the history of the Papal corporation, I here present a sim- 
 ple chart of the period and of its divisions.
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF THE POPES FROM CHRIST 
 TO THIS DAY. 
 
 A.D. Augustus. 
 
 
 Christ. 
 
 100 
 200 
 
 M 
 
 to 
 
 o 
 
 
 300 Constantino. 
 
 1 
 
 Sylvester. 
 
 400 
 
 
 
 500 Rome falls. 
 
 . -. 
 
 Leo I. 
 
 600 
 
 
 
 700 
 
 /" 
 
 
 800 Charlemagne. 
 900 
 
 
 fcD 
 E 
 O 
 
 LeoIH. 
 
 1000 
 
 
 
 1100 Henry IY. 
 
 = 
 
 Gregory YII. 
 
 1200 
 
 E 
 
 o 
 
 Innocent m. 
 
 1300 
 1400 
 
 tc 
 fe 
 
 Boniface VIII, 
 
 1500 Charles Y. Luther. Leo X. 
 
 1600 f g j 
 1700 j | [- 
 1800 [fJ Pius IX. 
 
 (243)
 
 244 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 For the sake of symmetry and convenience, I place the 
 name of Constantino upon the year 300, though he began 
 to reign about a quarter of a century later ; so also I 
 place the fall of Home on 500, though it was on 476 ; and 
 Gregory VII. on 1100, though he reigned A. D. 1073-85 j 
 and Leo X. on 1500, though he reigned a little later. 
 I wish simply to impress the great outlines of the division. 
 I also place Sylvester with Constantino, Henry IV. of 
 Germany with Gregory VII., and Luther and Charles V. 
 with Leo X. for similar reasons. Into the fifth period I 
 introduce, on 1200 and 1300, Innocent III. and Boniface 
 VIII. for reasons soon to be stated. 
 
 THE DELUSION. 
 
 The delusion which the Romish corporation leaves upon 
 the minds of the ignorant masses of the Romanists is now 
 apparent. It is that the Romish corporation stretches 
 back through this vast tract of time just as it is till it 
 reaches the throne of Peter, the great prince of the 
 apostles. 
 
 "Words cannot express the magnitude and extent of the 
 falsehood involved in this impression and how utterly 
 unlike it is to the real course of events. 
 
 I will try briefly to flash out these ideas by a simple 
 and significant illustration. 
 
 If, when standing in St. Peter's or the Vatican, some 
 intelligent traveller should ask who erected these splen- 
 did structures, and be told the holy apostles Peter and 
 Paul ; they fixed on Rome as the centre of the empire 
 of Christ, and, knowing the importance of a central 
 church and a palace of suitable splendor, they laid out 
 the plans of the buildings, collected the masons, gathered
 
 FOEMATION OP THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 245 
 
 contributions from the whole Christian world, and thus 
 erected the church and the palace ; Peter fixed his seat 
 here, sat on his throne in this church ; and the throne 
 on which the pope now sits in state is the very one 
 on which the apostle Peter used to sit, and in this pal- 
 ace he once lived in royal splendor, he would not hes- 
 itate to call the whole story an audacious lie. Do I not 
 know, he would say, that the thing is, in the nature of the 
 case, absurd and impossible ? Was not Rome the very 
 centre of the resistless power of the Roman empire ? 
 Was not the palace of the CaBsars there ? Was it not the 
 centre of Roman polytheism ? Was it not the abode of 
 the Pontifex Maximus ? Were not all of these vast pow- 
 ers arrayed in deadly conflict with the religion of Christ ? 
 Was not that the age of persecution and martyrdom ? 
 Were not the first Christians, as a general fact, poor and 
 unlearned ? Was it not true, as Paul says, not many 
 wise, not many mighty, not many noble were called ? 
 And was not Paul carried a prisoner to Rome ? and did he 
 not at last die there as a martyr ? And did not Peter, 
 too, die a martyr's death on the cross ? And are these 
 the times and these the men to erect such a church and 
 such a palace, before the eyes of the emperor, in the very 
 centre of persecuting Rome ? Then, opening some authen- 
 tic book of history, he would find the time when in fact 
 these structures were commenced, the persons by whom 
 and the means by which they were continued and com- 
 pleted, and, by a statement of the truth, cover his false 
 informers with shame and infamy. 
 
 And yet frauds infinitely greater have been practised 
 
 or indorsed by that corporation of bishops centralized 
 
 by the pope, and they are not yet covered with shame 
 
 and infamy ; nay, they still claim, in the name of God, 
 
 21*
 
 246 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 supreme spiritual authority over the human race ; and to 
 them we are now referred as our only sure guides in the 
 discovery of truth, and as the only medium through which 
 we can reach heaven. 
 
 Nor is this all. They have shed the blood of millions 
 for denying these claims ; and this Mr. Brownson now 
 defends as only an exercise of legitimate authority. Nor 
 is this all. He claims a supremacy for the institutions of 
 this corporation over our national institutions on the 
 ground that what is of man must give way before what 
 is of God. 
 
 Let us, then, consider in the light of history the actual 
 process in the formation of the Romish corporation. 
 The fabric of this corporation, as it now stands, may be 
 compared to St. Peter's Church at Rome. As that in its 
 magnitude exceeds all other churches, so is this the great- 
 est fabric of ecclesiastical architecture ever known on 
 earth. The pope, the cardinals, the patriarchs, the me- 
 tropolitans, the bishops, the priests, the deacons are all 
 organized in a vast system, extending itself over the 
 globe and aiming at universal conquest. In it are the 
 various orders of monks, nuns, Jesuits, bound to it by 
 oaths and sworn to extend its sway. 
 
 When was the fabric erected ? By whom ? How ? 
 How did the pope gain his powers and become the centre 
 of such a system ? To these questions but two answers 
 can be given. The first, that of Rome God thus ordained 
 from the beginning. The other I have given it is a 
 stupendous fraud of the devil. Look, then, at the first 
 centuries days of persecution, weakness, martyrdom. 
 Is it not on the face of things as absurd to think it then 
 put up by the apostles as to think that Paul and Peter 
 built St. Peter's Church and the Vatican ?
 
 FORMATION OF THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 247 
 
 FIRST CLASS OF POPES. 
 
 Where, then, was the temporal power of the pope 
 when the palace of the Caesars was at Rome, when Paul 
 died there as a martyr, when persecution after persecution 
 filled the empire with the blood of the slain ? 
 
 Where, then, was the body of cardinal princes clothed 
 in scarlet ? Where the oath to obey the pope ? Where 
 his supreme judicial, legislative, and executive authority ? 
 Whore were the general councils ? Where the canon 
 law ? What single part of the present great fabric can 
 be found there ? Not one. Mr. Newman is forced to 
 confess that the existing system was not then erected ; 
 not a particle of it could be seen. And history, with 
 irresistible power, repudiates every claim of Rome. All 
 churches were then equal and independent ; neither they 
 nor their pastors claimed authority over each other. 
 There was then no corporation of any kind in existence. 
 It was nearly two centuries before they even began to act 
 together in synods. 
 
 All this is notorious, and is conceded by all church 
 historians of any candor. But it is of still greater mo- 
 ment that it can be proved to have been the view held at 
 Rome, where the Romanists assure us that Peter, the 
 prince of the apostles, the great head of the church, had 
 established his see and transferred his power to his suc- 
 cessors, who, if these assertions are true, must have had 
 some knowledge of the fact.
 
 248 THE PAPAL CONSPIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 CLEMENT'S LETTER. 
 
 After Peter, if we may trust tradition, came Linus, 
 and then Cletus, or Anacletus. Of these two little or 
 nothing is known or said. Then comes a real person 
 and a writer well known Clement, son of Faustinus, a 
 Roman. He was really the pastor of the church of Rome. 
 According to Origen, Eusebius, and all the ancients, says 
 Bower, he is the person whom Paul, in his Epistle to the 
 Philippians, names among those who had labored with 
 him in the gospel and whose names were in the book of 
 life. From him there has come down to us one true and 
 genuine epistle. 
 
 It is also a long epistle. Moreover it is an epistle on 
 a subject directly adapted to bring out the Papal prerog- 
 atives of Clement, if he had any. The epistle informs us 
 that the church of Corinth had deposed some of their 
 presbyters and were in a state of painful division. 
 Clement and the church at Rome deemed this deposition 
 groundless in view of the statements of the church at 
 Corinth which had been laid before them for advice. 
 Have we not here a test question ? If Clement, the fel- 
 low-laborer of Paul, the contemporary of Peter, had 
 known even the A B C of the present Papal system, 
 would he not at once have commanded the church at Cor- 
 inth, in the name of Almighty God and of the blessed 
 apostles Peter and Paul, and on peril of their wrath, to 
 restore these deposed presbyters ? 
 
 Did he do it ? Nay ; he did no such thing. On the oth- 
 er hand, he conceded that the Corinthian church had not 
 exceeded their legal power and that he had no power 
 over them ; but he tried to convince them that they had 
 exercised their power unjustly and to persuade them to
 
 FORMATION OP THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 249 
 
 restore the deposed bishops. He tells them that the de- 
 posed bishops had been properly chosen by the whole 
 church, and had long served the flock of Christ humbly, 
 quietly, liberally, without censure, and with a good repu- 
 tation among all. "These," says he, "we think cannot be 
 justly deposed from their office ; for it will be no small 
 sin to depose from their office as bishops those who have 
 performed their duties holily and without reproach." 
 
 Nor is this the whole strength of the case. Clement 
 does not even speak in his own name at all. He sinks 
 himself out of sight. He speaks simply as the mouth of 
 the church of Rome. 
 
 Let us compare the opening of the bull of Pius Y. in 
 which he announced the excommunication and damnation 
 of Elizabeth, Queen of England, with the opening of the 
 letter of Clement : 
 
 " Pius, bishop, servant of the servants of God : for a 
 perpetual memorial of the matter. He that reigneth on 
 high, to whom is given all power in heaven and in earth, 
 committed one holy Catholic church, out of which there 
 is no salvation, to one alone on earth namely, to Peter, 
 the prince of the apostles, and to Peter's successor, the 
 Bishop of Rome, to be governed in fulness of power," &c. 
 
 Clement begins his letter thus : 
 
 " The church of God dwelling at Rome to the church 
 of God dwelling at Corinth, called and sanctified by the 
 divine will through our Lord Jesus Christ : grace and 
 peace be multiplied to you by Almighty God, through 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 The writer then proceeds to praise the Corinthians for 
 their former good conduct and to exhort them to heal 
 their divisions and to restore their deposed bishops. His 
 motives are derived from the examples of other ages and 
 from the words of Scripture. The government of the
 
 250 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Corinthian church was plainly in the hands of the people, 
 and all that the Roman church did was to advise and 
 exhort. 
 
 So plain is this case that Waddington, an Episcopal his- 
 torian, says of the church in Corinth, " The Episcopal 
 form of government was clearly not yet here established." 
 It is no less plain that, if there was a bishop at Rome, he 
 was not a modern pope. He says nothing of Peter's see, 
 nothing of himself, nothing of the wrath of Almighty 
 God and the blessed apostles Paul and Peter on all in the 
 church of Corinth who will not obey his bull. Neither 
 he nor the church claim any other power or authority than 
 that of Christian advice, expostulation, and exhortation. 
 And yet the case was one of great moment and of great 
 urgency, as is evident from the very nature of the facts 
 stated and from the earnest entreaties of the letter. 
 
 I know not how a more pointed repudiation of all the 
 present claims of the Papacy could have been made. 
 
 How little this letter is adapted to meet the ideas of 
 the Romish corporation will soon become plain when we 
 shall come to consider certain letters afterwards forged 
 by them in the name of Clement in order to accomplish 
 their ambitious ends. They, in their forgeries, make 
 Clement speak to some purpose. The whole story as to 
 Peter is at his tongue's end. 
 
 The strength of this case cannot be over-estimated. 
 Bower well remarks, " Had he known himself to be the un- 
 erring judge of controversies, there had been no room for 
 persuasions : he ought to have exercised his power and put 
 an end to all disputes in the peremptory style of his succes- 
 sors." So much for Pope Clement.
 
 FORMATION OF THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 251 
 
 PIUS I. 
 
 Let us pass over Popes Evaristus, Alexander I., Six- 
 tus I., Telesphorus, and Hyginus, of whom very little 
 is known, and come to Pius L, A. D. 142-157. Under 
 him occurred another event which completely annihilates 
 all the pretensions of the Papal corporation. Marcion, of 
 Sinope, had been excommunicated from the church of his 
 father, a bishop of the Catholic communion, for certain 
 grave offences. He fled to Rome and prayed to be ad- 
 mitted to their communion. The church of Rome told 
 him, as Epiphanius testifies, " We cannot admit you with- 
 out leave from your holy father ; NOR CAN WE, AS WE 
 
 ARE ALL UNITED IN THE SAME FAITH AND THE SAME SEN- 
 TDIEXTS, UNDO WHAT OUR HOLY COLLEAGUE, YOUR HOLY 
 FATHER, HAS DONE." 
 
 Can any thing be more decisive than this fact ? Is not 
 this an absolute and direct disavowal of the supremacy 
 claimed by the Papists for the church of Rome ? Is it not 
 an avowal of the doctrine that all churches are equal and 
 independent, and that no one has a right to overrule or 
 reverse the decision of another ? This was in the middle 
 of the second century, and proves that up to that time 
 the primitive equality of the churches was fully acknowl- 
 edged and avowed even at Rome. The incursions of 
 clerical ambition had not then begun. 
 
 On this narrative Bower keenly remarks, " Had Bellar 
 mine lived in those days he had taught them another doc- 
 trine, a doctrine which, however necessary, the apostles 
 had forgot to deliver to their disciples, viz., that the see of 
 Rome was raised above all other sees ; that the appeals 
 of the whole Catholic church were to be brought to it ; 
 that no appeals were to be made from it ; that it was to
 
 252 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 judge of the whole church^ but be judged by none. Mar- 
 cion did not apply to Pius, or at least to him alone, but to 
 the elders, who disclaimed all power of reversing the 
 sentence of a particular bishop. And is not this an evi- 
 dent and incontestable proof that the power of receiving 
 appeals was not known or thought of in those days ? " 
 
 The next pope, Anicetus, and Polycarp, Bishop of Smyr- 
 na, differed as to the time of the celebration of Easter, and 
 could not convince each other ; but the pope did not com- 
 mand, nor Polycarp obey, but each followed "his own 
 opinions. Passing by Soter and Eleutherius, we come to 
 Victor, A. D. 192-201. 
 
 ROMAN ARROGANCE DEVELOPED. 
 
 Here we meet the first manifestation of episcopal arro- 
 gance in the Bishop of Rome ; and now a course of events 
 opens upon us of this kind. Claims are made by the 
 Romish bishops and repudiated by the churches at large, 
 but persevered in by their successors and referred back to 
 as precedents. Hallam remarks as to such claims, " In the 
 history of all usurping governments time changes anomaly 
 into system and injury into right ; examples beget custon^ 
 and custom r-ipens into law ; and the doubtful precedent 
 of one generation becomes the fundamental maxim of 
 another." 
 
 In the case of Victor, we see the first effort of the 
 Bishop of Rome to exert a power of making law for the 
 churches. Not following the example of Anicetus in the 
 case of Polycarp, he undertook to impose the Roman view 
 of Easter on Polycrates and the Bishops of Asia Minor, 
 and excommunicated them for refusing to conform. But 
 the other churches of the Christian world repudiated this
 
 FORMATION OP THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 253 
 
 arrogant proceeding and rendefed it null and void. Thus 
 it is not until the end of the second century that the 
 Bishop of Rome put forth claims to jurisdiction over other 
 churches, and then they were universally repudiated. 
 Passing by Zephyrinus, Callistus, Urbanus, Pontianus, 
 A.nterus, Fabianus, Cornelius, and Lucius, we come to 
 Stephen, who made an effort like that of Victor to ex- 
 communicate Cyprian and a council of African bishops 
 for refusing to adopt his views of the baptism of heretics. 
 This also was repudiated and rendered powerless by the 
 other churches of the age. 
 
 Passing over Sixtus II., Dionysius, Felix, Eutychianus, 
 Caius, Marcellinus, Marcellus, Eusebius, and Melchiades, 
 we come to Sylvester, by whom Constantino was said by 
 the Roman forgers to have been baptized. 
 
 Thus it appears that in the first century, and up to the 
 middle of the second, the Papal system not only did not 
 exist at Rome, but was distinctly repudiated and de- 
 nounced. Nor up to the time of Constantine can any evi- 
 dence be found of any admitted authority of the church 
 or Pope of Rome over the other churches. All that we 
 discover is an effort of a few popes to assert such "author- 
 ity, which was at once and indignantly repudiated. 
 
 It appears that though the bishops of the churches ad- 
 vised with and consulted each other and met in synods 
 during the third century, yet they were all regarded as 
 equal and independent. 
 
 This view of the case is very strongly confirmed by a 
 forgery which was made towards the close of the third 
 century, designed to give authority and system to the gov- 
 ernment, rites, and usages of the churches at that time. 
 It is called the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons ; and 
 it aimed, by the high authority of the apostles, to establish 
 and augment the power of each bishop in his own church 
 
 00
 
 254: THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 and to regulate all church usages by definite rules. It was 
 made in the names of all the apostles, and is the first great 
 systematic and regular forgery of this kind. It is divided 
 into eight books, and professes fully to describe the pow- 
 ers of bishops, and of all the clergy, and the whole order 
 of the church. But it is a most significant fact that in it 
 there is found no place for the supremacy of the pope or 
 of the church of Rome. 
 
 It introduces all the apostles by name in the eighth 
 book, and, without hinting at the supremacy of Peter, 
 represents them as individually ordaining constitutions. 
 Moreover it is careful to represent them as independent 
 and equal. There is over them no primate or prince. It is 
 a book of two hundred and fifty-seven octavo pages ; and 
 yet it may be searched through from beginning to end with- 
 out finding any thing that in the least degree countenances 
 the existing claims of the Papal corporation. On the 
 other hand, we find in it the same views of the independ- 
 ent authority and equality of all bishops, and of the 
 mode in which they ought to concur in church unity, which 
 are found in the works of Cyprian. 
 
 I have thus finished the first and earliest class of the so 
 called popes. Two things are now undeniable : the first, 
 that the testimony of this class is the most important ; the 
 second, that the testimony of the earliest popes is decisive 
 against all the claims of Rome. 
 
 It now remains that I show how these claims were in- 
 troduced and that the whole system is based on forgery 
 and fraud. 
 
 In order, however, to understand the course of event?, 
 it is necessary to glance at the state of the Roman em- 
 pire during the period in which the second and third 
 classes of popes lived. 
 
 Any history will inform us that Constantine founded
 
 FORMATION OF THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 
 
 another seat of empire at Byzantium, greatly enlarging 
 and adorning the original city, and calling it the city of 
 Constantine, or Constantinople. 
 
 Afterwards the empire was divided into the Western 
 Empire, of which Rome was the capital ; and the Eastern 
 Empire, of which Constantinople was the capital. 
 
 In the year 476 the Western Empire fell, being con- 
 quered by Odoacer, King of the Heruli. After this, till 
 the year 800, Rome was sometimes under the sway of the 
 barbarians, and at other times it was reconquered from 
 them and ruled by the Emperor of Constantinople. 
 
 Now, with regard to the Bishops of Rome during both 
 of these periods, two great facts are prominent : 1. They 
 were not temporal rulers of Rome or of any other territo- 
 ry, either as independent or as dependent sovereigns ; they 
 were subject to whatever civil power ruled Rome, whether 
 barbarian or Greek. 2. Their chief contest was with the 
 Bishop of Constantinople for a certain kind of spiritual 
 supremacy. 
 
 In order to see how this came to pass, let us look at the 
 condition of the second class of the popes i. e., the Bish- 
 ops of Rome. 
 
 After the conversion of Constantino a new state of things 
 was introduced among the bishops at large. Christianity 
 having become the religion of the empire, the churches 
 were favored and endowed and the bishops honored and 
 exalted in power. In addition to this, they were regu- 
 larly organized into hierarchal combinations according 
 to the divisions of the empire. As in every province there 
 was a chief city or metropolis, and as the bishop of this 
 city had already been appointed metropolitan bishop to 
 preside over the others even in the third century, so this 
 system was confirmed by Constantine. 
 
 Again : certain provinces were united around the largest
 
 256 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 cities of the empire into patriarcliat.es, and the bishops 
 of these cities were appointed patriarchs, and the metro- 
 politans and other bishops were subordinated to them. 
 Thus, around Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, 
 and Jerusalem, after some changes, were patriarchates 
 finally formed, and their bishops became rival patriarchs. 
 
 Of these bishops, the dignity was according to that of 
 the city in which their see was located. Of course the 
 patriarch of old Rome stood highest ; the patriarch of 
 Constantinople next ; and after them the patriarchs of Al- 
 exandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. 
 
 During this period also the practice of calling general 
 councils to represent the whole Christian world was in- 
 troduced. 
 
 Concerning this period three things deserve special no- 
 tice : 1. That during it the civil authority of the emperors 
 over the bishops was supreme ; and it was the emperors, 
 and not any of the bishops, who called the general coun- 
 cils. 2. In these general councils canons were made di- 
 rectly at war with the present pretensions of the Bishop 
 of Rome. 3. At the close of this period the Bishop of 
 Rome was in imminent danger of losing the basis of his 
 superior honor and influence by the downfall of Rome, and 
 was obliged to invent a new basis on which to rest his 
 claims, and also higher claims of jurisdiction. The im- 
 portance of these statements will become more clear in 
 view of the following narrative of facts. 
 
 The first general council was that of Nice, A. D. 325. 
 This was called, not by the Bishop of Rome, but by the 
 Emperor Constantine. Nor did the pope or his legate 
 preside in it. Thus are all his present claims to call coun- 
 cils and preside in them negatived. 
 
 Again : the fifth canon of this council commanded all 
 ecclesiastical causes to be finally decided in each province
 
 FORMATION OP THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 257 
 
 by a provincial synod thus cutting up by the roots the 
 present claims of the Pope of Rome to supreme jurisdic- 
 tion and to receive appeals in all cases and from all quar- 
 ters. Against this even Binius makes no reply. It is 
 true that after this, under Pope Julius, a small provincial 
 council convened in Sardica, the metropolis of Dacia, in 
 Illyricum, introduced and authorized the practice of ap- 
 pealing to the Pope of Rome. But a provincial council 
 cannot lawfully repeal the canons of a general council, 
 the Romish corporation being judge. Moreover, under 
 Damasus, a council convened by the Emperor Theodosius 
 at Constantinople expressed their disapprobation of the 
 doings of the council of Sardica by renewing and con- 
 firming the decision of the council of Nice. 
 
 The Bishops of Rome, in fact, confessed the insufficiency 
 of the decree of the council of Sardica by trying to palm 
 it off as a decree of a general council. It was Pope Celes- 
 tine (A. D. 422-32) who undertook this work of fraud. 
 He attempted to impose upon a council of African bish- 
 ops the canons of Sardica as being canons of Nice, in or- 
 der to obtain the authority of that general council for his 
 claim to the right of receiving appeals. How early did 
 Rome begin her great work of fraud ! The African bish- 
 ops, however, at last detected the imposition, and severally 
 rebuked the successor of Celestine for the unprincipled 
 conduct of his predecessor. 
 
 Nor is this all. In the second general council of Con- 
 stantinople it was decided that the Bishop of Constan- 
 tinople had equal rank with the Bishop of Rome. 
 
 In the fourth general council, at Chalcedon, it waa 
 expressly declared that the peculiar dignity and authority 
 of the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople were de- 
 rived from the political importance of the capital cities of 
 the empire. 
 
 22*
 
 258 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Here, then, we see the first three general councils all 
 fundamentally at war with the present pretensions of 
 Rome. What can be more decisive ? Notice in particu- 
 lar that the doctrine of the council of Chalcedon is DI- 
 KE CTLY AT WAR WITH THE ROMISH CLAIM OF SUPREMACY 
 ON THE GROUND OF THE SUPREMACY OF PETER. 
 
 It became plain also that, if Rome should fall and Con- 
 stantinople stand, the Bishop of Rome must also fall and 
 the Bishop of Constantinople remain supreme. 
 
 It was plain also that the downfall of Rome was at 
 hand. Hence it became imperatively necessary to invent 
 and establish a new basis for the claims of the Roman 
 bishop which would survive that downfall. It was the 
 province of Leo L, the Great, to perform this work by 
 substituting the authority of Peter for the dignity of 
 Rome. Of this change I shall elsewhere speak more at 
 large. It is the first great point in the history of the 
 Papacy. 
 
 So much for the second class of popes. Let us pass to 
 the third. During the three centuries that followed the 
 downfall of Rome, the ideas of Leo as to Peter's suprem- 
 acy and the claims of the pope founded thereon were 
 germinating and preparing the way for a universal spirit- 
 ual empire among the ignorant and credulous barbarians. 
 Meantime three of the Eastern patriarchs were humbled 
 by the onset of the hosts of Mahomet those of Alexan- 
 dria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. These cities fell before the 
 invaders. Constantinople only remained. Meantime new 
 national churches in Western Europe were rising in the 
 young and vigorous kingdoms founded by the German 
 conquerors of Rome. Here then, as soon was evident, 
 was to be the field of the spiritual monarchy ; for Con- 
 stantinople was declining, and destined at last to fall. 
 During the greater part of this period Rome was subject
 
 FORMATION OP THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 259 
 
 to the Emperor of Constantinople, but was so far distant, 
 and was so exposed to the inroads of the barbarians, that 
 it threw great responsibilities on the bishop, and sug- 
 gested to him the idea of a temporal as well as a spiritual 
 monarchy. 
 
 "We now come to the fourth class of popes. After the vi- 
 cissitudes of the last period and the weakening of the East 
 by the Mahometan powers a new centre of power arises in 
 the West. The old Roman empire of the West, that for 
 centuries had been dead, is revived once more ; and Charle- 
 magne is at its head, crowned by Pope Leo III. Charles 
 Augustus, Emperor of the holy Roman empire. 
 
 We have now come to the point where the principle of 
 forgery is to disclose itself in all its magnitude in these 
 ages of the deepest ignorance until the two great concep- 
 tions of a spiritual and temporal monarchy were realized. 
 Leo I. had developed, as the foundation of the spiritual 
 monarchy, the rock Peter ; and now the basis of the 
 temporal monarchy was laid by a forged donation of Con- 
 stantine. Moreover the plan of the spiritual monarchy 
 was drawn, and its materials provided, and an effort made 
 to erect it. By the fifth class of popes the fabric was 
 erected and finished, and stood in great power till the 
 time of the reformation. Under the sixth and last class 
 of popes it has been assailed by the Protestants for three 
 hundred years. In this assault we are now summoned 
 anew to engage. Nor will it cease till the whole fabric 
 is utterly burned with the avenging fires of God Al- 
 mighty. 
 
 Let us now approach and take a more particular view 
 of the structure of the fabric. 
 
 At the time of Nicholas I., A. D. 858-867, we discover 
 the model of this new building prepared and the materials 
 for it wrought out. Moreover the first efforts to erect 
 it were made by him.
 
 260 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 It is true that this exercise of power and claim of 
 prerogatives was followed by a period of great Papal 
 weakness and corruption one of the most disgrace- 
 ful in the history of the Papacy. The power of the 
 vigorous German emperors was needed and was inter- 
 posed to correct most scandalous abuses and immoralities 
 and to regulate the head of the church ; and for a time 
 the imperial power was greatly in the ascendant. Still, 
 however, the principles and claims advanced by Nicholas, 
 after the uniform policy of the popes, were never with- 
 drawn. They were precedents, to be used as soon as cir- 
 cumstances favored. They were seed sown, to come up 
 and bear fruit at the destined time. Accordingly under 
 Gregory VII. they came up in full vigor. Accordingly, 
 if we pass on and survey the time from Gregory VII. to 
 Innocent III., we find the building up and completed 
 even as it was at the reformation and as it stands at 
 this day. 
 
 And now is it asked, "Who planned this building ? I 
 answer, The Romish hierarchy, just as truly as they 
 planned St. Peter's Church in the interval from Julius I. 
 to Leo X. What is its great idea ? A corporation of 
 bishops centralized around the pope, and bound to him 
 by feudal oaths in accordance with the ideas of feudal 
 times. The pope is the great feudal monarch of the 
 church, and also an independent temporal ruler. He also 
 claims to be the feudal lord of kings and emperors. Who 
 erected this building ? I answer, The pope, the bishops, 
 and their workmen. On what is it founded ? and what 
 are its materials? On forgeries entirely; and these are 
 its materials in all its parts. Of these forgeries, what are 
 the chief? The forged decretals of Isidore and the dona- 
 tion of Constantine. Such is an outline of the course of 
 events which resulted in the present Romish corporation.
 
 FORMATION OF THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 261 
 
 If we examine carefully the whole of this extended 
 scheme, we shall find that its execution presupposed and 
 demanded the four following great steps : 
 
 1. By a false idea of holiness, and a false sacramental 
 system, to put the people into the hands of the clergy for 
 salvation. 
 
 2. To establish the principles early developed, of mo- 
 narchical power in the bishops of the churches in numer- 
 ous small spheres, by an early and primitive set of forge- 
 ries in the name of all the apostles, and thus to hew out the 
 component parts of the last great fabric by themselves, 
 but not to raise the building or put together its parts. 
 
 3. After these parts had been once centralized around 
 different and coordinate centres in the Roman empire, to 
 devise the plan for a new organization of them around a 
 common centre in the feudal ages that should follow the 
 downfall of Rome. To effect this, it was necessary to 
 provide a model for the new building, and also the scaf- 
 folding, coupling irons, girders, braces, pins, and bolts 
 that were necessary to put the parts together and fix 
 them in their places. 
 
 The last step obviously was, 
 
 4. To raise the building, put it together, cover and 
 paint it, and finish it inside and out. 
 
 The first step of this process was accomplished in the 
 early ages of the church. Even in the days of Paul the 
 principles were at work. 
 
 The second part was completed by the forgery of the 
 Apostolical Constitutions, designed to establish by divine 
 authority the augmented power, dignity, and honor of 
 the bishops, but not to centralize them around the Pope of 
 Rome. Thus the elementary parts of the great fabric 
 were prepared ; but they were not so combined as to make 
 a universal despotism.
 
 262 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 The third part of the process was accomplished by first 
 organizing these parts into coordinate hierarchies under 
 the Roman government, and by then preparing the means 
 for the consolidation of them into one by the forged de- 
 cretals in the feudal times after old Rome fell, and to give 
 this a basis on a temporal monarchy by the forged dona- 
 tion of Constantine and other similar forgeries. 
 
 The fourth part of the process was effected by such men 
 as Nicholas I., Gregory VII., Innocent III., who labored 
 assiduously from century to century till the fabric was 
 completed. 
 
 From this brief survey, it is evident that the period from 
 Gregory VII. to the reformation, a period of four centuries, 
 is eminently THE PAPAL PERIOD. Parts of the system were 
 developed in early ages ; but such a combination of them 
 as distinguished this period, and the various inventions de- 
 signed and essential to carry out and perfect the system, 
 were not even dreamed of in the early ages. It is no less 
 evident that fraud and forgery are the basis of the whole 
 system, and that, to go to the bottom of the whole matter, 
 we ought to take a radical view of the origin and nature 
 of the pious frauds of the early ages and the forged 
 literature of the middle ages. This I propose in its place 
 to do ; but at present I can only give a brief account of 
 the greatest of all forgeries ever known on earth, and on 
 which, more than on all else, the present Romish corpora- 
 tion is based. 
 
 It appears that the principles needed were such as were 
 suited to centralize the bishops around the pope, to give 
 him supreme legislative and judicial power, and to make 
 him an independent temporal monarch. 
 
 But whence can they be derived ? From the Bible ? It 
 is not pretended. From the authentic works of the fathers ? 
 No ; they are not there. From previous forgeries ? No ;
 
 FORMATION OF THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 263 
 
 these have had their day ; they are not sufficient. From de- 
 cisions of general councils ? No ; these are all against the 
 plan. How then? They must be forged newly, wholly 
 forged. 
 
 But in whose name ? The decretals are to be forged in 
 the name of Clement, spoken of by Paul, and of those 
 claimed as his successors in the early centuries in the chair 
 of Peter, as the Pope of Rome. They are to be decrees 
 issued by them to the churches, and they are to contain 
 just what the popes or Satan needed at that time to carry 
 out their plans of a centralized monarchy. The points at 
 which they aim are, 
 
 1. To make plain the establishment of Peter's see at 
 Rome, and the transmission of his power to the popes, and 
 what that power was. 
 
 2. To establish, and defend, and increase the power of 
 the bishops against the laity, and to shield them from all 
 attacks. 
 
 3. Above all, to make the pope the great centre of the 
 whole system investing him with a plenitude of power, 
 legislative and judicial. 
 
 4. To give him independence of all temporal powers 
 by the use of an earlier forgery in the name of Constantino. 
 
 Accordingly the forgeries were made ; and in the names 
 of those men and a forged council under Sylvester all 
 these things were done, and the decretals were put forth 
 as the decisions of God through the early popes, to be re- 
 ceived and obeyed on penalty of eternal damnation. 
 
 And now, perhaps, you will call for my proof of all this. 
 It is found in the first volume of an 'edition of the councils. 
 Here are the forged decretals themselves ; here is the do- 
 nation of Constantino ; here is the forged council of 
 which I spoke ; and they contain all that I have alleged. 
 
 But whose edition is it ? Is it authentic ? or is it a
 
 264 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Protestant edition ? It is the first volume of Councils, by 
 Severinus Binius, published at Cologne 1618, authenti- 
 cated by a special bull of Pope Paul V., sanctioned and 
 patronized by the Emperor of Germany, doubly approved 
 and licensed by the Romish censors of the press. 
 
 Its titlepage exhibits its character. On the top the three 
 Persons of the Trinity are represented ; on one side of 
 them is Peter, with his keys and coat of arms ; on the 
 other, a representation of the temporal power wielded by 
 the pope through the sword. On the right side the church, 
 holding a cross, the pope's triple crown, and keys ; on the 
 left side religion, with a crucifix ; and over each the Holy 
 Ghost as a dove. At the bottom, the pope, at the head of 
 the corporation of bishops, treading on a prostrate band 
 of so called heretics ; and over them, in Latin, the inscrip- 
 tion : " They are dead that sought the church's life." 
 
 No one need doubt that this is a genuine Roman Cath- 
 olic book. Besides, Binius, in his address to the magis- 
 trates of Cologne, speaks of its contents as the basis of 
 the Roman canon law, and calls on the pope to defend it 
 against the assaults of innovators and heretics ; and the 
 pope responds to his appeal, sanctions it by a bull, and 
 says the book has given him great consolation, and that 
 he believes that the audacity and the petulance of the ad- 
 versaries of truth will be powerfully crushed by it, and 
 their impostures and lies against the sound and orthodox 
 doctrine of the holy fathers will be admirably detected. 
 
 Let us now read and see. The heretics say that there 
 is no proof that Peter ever was at Rome or had his see 
 there, or a chair or llhrone there, or that he transmitted 
 his authority, and no proof that he had any to transmit. 
 
 Now, see how very easy it is for this book to crush tbre 
 audacity and petulance of such adversaries of the truth. 
 
 Here we find a long letter from Clement, Pope of Rome,
 
 GENERAL 
 
 ANT) I'il'iVlXCJAL, 
 
 G K K K K A X D L A T 1 N' , 
 
 SO FAK AS KXOV.'X. 
 
 ALSO, 
 
 DECRETAL EPISTLES 
 
 AXD LIVES OF ROMAN PONTIFFS. 
 
 ALL BY THE STUDY AXD LABOR OK 
 
 , D.D.. 
 PRESBYTER OF THE METROPOLITAN 
 
 cnrRcii OF COLOGXE. 
 
 REVISED, ENLARGED, AXD AGAIN 
 
 ILLUSTRATE!) WITH NOTES, 
 AND ARRANGED IX AX HISTORICAL 
 
 METHOD. 
 TO *'. D. X. PAUL. I'OPK I'. 
 
 COLOGXE. 
 BY JOHN GYMNICl'S, 
 
 i ei 8. 
 wrrn THE F.I ruK.ixn 1'RiriLKut: ot 
 
 HIS HOYAL JfAJEffY.
 
 FORMATION OF THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 2()5 
 
 to James the apostle at Jerusalem, establishing beyond 
 dispute the genuine Romish doctrine on all these points. 
 This great gap in history is thus completely filled. 
 
 Clement opens the letter by pronouncing a eulogy on 
 Peter, as an introduction to a statement of the mournful 
 fact of his death. He then proceeds to say, " When he 
 saw that his death was near, having assembled the breth- 
 ren, he suddenly arose, and, taking me by the hand, spoke 
 these words in the hearing of the whole church : ' Hear 
 me, my brethren and fellow-servants. Inasmuch as the day 
 of my death is at hand, even as I have been told by my 
 Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, who sent me, I ordain this 
 Clement as your bishop, and to him alone I assign the 
 chair of my preaching and doctrine. He has been with 
 me in all things from the beginning as an attendant, and 
 thus has thoroughly known the truths which I preach. 
 In all my trials he has been my constant and faithful com- 
 panion. I have found him to be eminently distinguished 
 for his love to God and to man, chaste, devoted to study, 
 sober, kind, just, patient, and able to bear injuries even 
 from those who profess to be students of the word of 
 God. Therefore I give, him the power of binding and 
 loosing which was given to me by my Lord ; so that what- 
 soever he shall decree on earth shall be decreed in heav- 
 en. He shall bind what ought to be bound and loose what 
 ought to be loosed, as one who perfectly understands the 
 laws of the church. Hear ye him, therefore, knowing 
 that whosoever shall grieve a teacher of the truth sins 
 against Christ, and offends God, the Father of all, and 
 shall therefore perish. But he who rules others ought to 
 act the part of a physician, and not to be actuated by the 
 fury of a wild beast.' ;; He then proceeds to state his 
 own modest reluctance to assume so great a burden, and 
 the urgency and decision of Peter in refusing to allow 
 23
 
 266 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 him to decline the office. After this he records at length 
 the charge of Peter to him, to the other officers of the 
 church, and to the brethren, extending through six large 
 folio pages. At the close he demands belief and obedi- 
 ence of all, on penalty of the wrath of God and endless 
 Buffering in penal fire. 
 
 Thus we have an account of this important transaction 
 in detail, to the confusion of all heretics and to the honor 
 and comfort of all genuine Romanists. In the same way 
 these decretals set forth the power of the bishops. Of 
 course they fully unfold the magnitude of the pope's pow- 
 er, and set forth the doctrine that he is the summit of 
 judgment in ecclesiastical cases, and that all who think 
 themselves injured may and ought to appeal to him. 
 
 Thus Anacletus, the third pope, after setting forth the 
 regular order of appeals to metropolitans and patriarchs, 
 expressly says, " If difficult questions arise, let them, on 
 appeal, be referred to the apostolic seat ; for the apostles 
 decided this by the command of the Savior, that the great 
 and more difficult questions shall always be referred to 
 the apostolic chair, upon which Christ built the whole 
 church when he said to the blessed Peter, the prince of 
 the apostles, ' Thou art a rock, 7 " &c. 
 
 Sixtus, the seventh pope, says, " If any one has been 
 overthrown in judgment by any calamity, let him not hes- 
 itate to appeal to this sacred and apostolic seat ; but let 
 him take refuge in it as the head of the church, lest he 
 should be condemned without cause or his church suffer 
 wrong." 
 
 Here, now, we have the highest authority ; for Anacle- 
 tus, as appears from the Papal lists, was pope before Clem- 
 ent, even in .the very times of the apostles, and Sixtus ia 
 only the thirji after Clement. What more, then, could 
 the most incredulous wish ? Moreover, as the pope need-
 
 FORMATION OF THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 267 
 
 ed to be independent of all civil law and jurisdiction, 
 here is the donation of Constantine, the original basis of 
 his claims to temporal power. 
 
 In this, Constantine, after referring to his baptism by 
 Sylvester, gives to him and his see all glory, all dignity, 
 all imperial power ; also the palace of the Lateran, all 
 imperial vestments, and the imperial dignity. He then 
 adds, " That the Papal supremacy may not be degraded, 
 but may excel in honor and power all earthly authority, 
 we give and grant, not only our palace as before said, but 
 the city Rome, and all the provinces, places, and cities 
 of Italy and of the "Western regions, to the aforesaid 
 blessed Pope Sylvester, universal bishop, and to his suc- 
 cessors in the Papal authority and power. * * * For 
 this reason we have thought it fit to transfer our authority 
 and power into the Oriental regions, and in the best loca- 
 tion in the Byzantine province to build a city in our name 
 and there to establish our empire ; since where the head 
 of the priests and of the Christian religion, ordained by 
 the King of heaven, bears sway, there it is not right that 
 an earthly emperor should have any power." 
 
 But, lest the pope should seem to rest his jurisdiction 
 on the decision of the imperial power, the authority of a 
 council is needed ; and therefore, to make assurance 
 doubly sure, here is the Roman council, under Sylvester, 
 giving religious and political supremacy of judgment to 
 the pope. 
 
 Of this the twentieth canon is as follows : " Let no one 
 judge the chief bishop ; since all prelates desire that jus- 
 tice should be dispensed by the chief bishop. Let not this 
 judge be judged, neither by the emperor, nor by the whole 
 clergy, nor by kings, nor by the people." 
 
 Is not this enough to crush the petulance and audacity 
 of the enemies of the truth ?
 
 268 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 And then, think of the terrific sanction annexed to a 
 disregard of the decretals the wrath of Almighty God 
 and eternal fire on all who will not believe and obey ! 
 
 And now it may be asked, Were these things ever put 
 forth to be believed ? I answer, Yes, and to be acted on ; 
 and for eight long centuries they were believed and acted 
 on. They furnished the very principles that the pope and 
 his agents needed to put up the present structure of this 
 corporation. They used them and put it up, and they be- 
 came the very basis of the present Romish canon law. 
 
 There was, as I have said, an earlier set of apostolic 
 canons and constitutions forged and fitted to use for a 
 time. But these, though useful in their day, did not contain 
 the powers needed for the present exigency ; but, as they 
 still had authority in some things, they and the Isidorian 
 canons were wrought together by Gratian and an effort 
 made to reconcile the contradictions. (Concordantia Dis- 
 cordantium Canonum, 1. iii. 1151.) At last all of the old 
 canon law that was inconsistent with the new was dropped, 
 and the Isidorian principles in Gratian prevailed, and are 
 now the very lifeblood of the Romish canon law, only it 
 has been pushed to still greater extremes. And now, when 
 I repeat that these are all forgeries, unmingled forgeries, 
 without even a particle of truth to build on, I leave you 
 to judge by what name such a deed should be called. 
 Not a superficial forgery, but a forgery of a real terrific 
 government, to the exclusion of the Bible a fundamental 
 forgery of the very system which they now attempt to im- 
 pose on us, as ordained of God and essential to salvation. 
 But it may be asked, Is there clear proof that all these- 
 things are forgeries ? I answer, There is proof so clear 
 that even the ablest writers of the Romish church do not 
 pretend to deny it. 
 
 To be sure, this infallible corporation has never made an
 
 FORMATION OF THE EOMISH CORPORATION. 269 
 
 honorable confession ; nor have they yielded to the truth 
 from the love of it, but because they were forced to do it 
 by evidence so strong that they knew that it would be ruin- 
 ous to their cause to make issue on this point. First Lyra 
 and Calvin, and then the Magdeburg centuriators, assailed 
 them ; and if any one desires to see a perfect logical, criti- 
 cal, and historical annihilation of their claims, let him read 
 the analysis of them in the second and third centuries of 
 the Magdeburg centuriators and in Calvin. Their works 
 are in the Boston Athenaeum and in the Harvard Library. 
 Yet still Turrianus, a Jesuit, wrote five books in their de- 
 fence ; and this book of Binius joins with Turrianus to 
 defend them. The work of David Blondell, at Geneva, 
 in 1628, ten years after this, settled the question. Baronius 
 the cardinal, who wrote expressly to answer the Magde- 
 burg centuriators, abandons the defence of them. Bellar- 
 mine the Jesuit, a cardinal, and the great champion of the 
 Romish cause, abandons the defence of them. Fleury, the 
 great French historian, confessor to Louis XV., not only 
 abandons the defence of them, but powerfully exposes their 
 falsehood and pernicious consequences. I need not say 
 that all Protestant historians do the same, and those who 
 are neither Catholic nor Protestant do the same. Indeed 
 these stupendous forgeries are as much an established and 
 conceded fact in history as the English, American, and 
 French revolutions. 
 
 What, then, is the nature of the evidence that, against 
 interests so prodigious and motives so violent, compelled 
 the Romanists (not the popes, their decisions still stand) to 
 abandon the defence of these foundations of their system? 
 They were, in general, the utter absurdity on internal 
 evidence of supposing them to have been written in the 
 age in which they professed to have been written, and the 
 absurdities and contradictions with which they are filled. 
 23* 

 
 270 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 The professed authors lived in ages of persecution and 
 weakness and befcTre the hierarchy was developed. They 
 omit all that is proper to that age. Their writings are not 
 adapted to console or strengthen those suffering, persecuted 
 Christians to whom they write. Nay, they are intent on 
 nothing but the great work of regulating a hierarchy that 
 did not exist, increasing the power of the pope and his 
 patriarchs and bishops and organizing them into a compact 
 system of despotism. They profess to be the letters of 
 successive popes during the first two centuries. They are 
 all in the style of one man. They profess to have been 
 written long before the peculiar Latin words and style of 
 the middle ages were formed or known ; yet they are full 
 of such words, and all in the style of those ages. It is as 
 if, in a professed letter of Lord Bacon, we should find 
 him talking of daguerreotypes, and steamboats, and rail- 
 roads in the style and idiom of this day. They profess 
 to have been written long before certain writers lived and 
 certain laws were made ; and yet they freely quote 
 those writers and those laws. This is as if a professed 
 letter of Franklin should quote the laws of this state 
 passed this year or the last proclamation of Governor 
 Briggs. They profess to have been written when in fact 
 certain doctrines and rites were unknown ; and yet they 
 are full of those doctrines and rites. They profess to have 
 been written before the occurrence of certain controver- 
 sies respecting some of the very points decided by them ; 
 and yet, though their authority would have been decisive, 
 no one in those controversies ever appealed to them. 
 Again : they profess to be written by men who must at 
 least have known enough to date their own letters cor- 
 rectly ; yet they are full of false dates ; so that, according 
 to the dates, some were written before the authors were 
 popes, and others after they were dead.
 
 FORMATION OF THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 271 
 
 But the most notorious blunder of all is in trying to 
 link the pontifical chain to Peter at Rome. Great pains 
 is taken to do this thoroughly ; and yet, in his efforts to 
 make assurance doubly sure, the forger makes Clement 
 tell us that Peter, before his death, enjoined it on him to 
 write to James, brother of our Lord, at Jerusalem, and 
 inform him of all the facts. And yet it is a notorious 
 fact that James died seven years before Peter ; and yet 
 Peter, it seems, did not know of this fact, but supposed him 
 still living at Jerusalem. He must have been a poor 
 pope indeed. Our popes commonly find it out before 
 seven years when a bishop dies. But Peter, it seems, did 
 not yet know, when he ordained Clement Pope of Rome, 
 that James, one of his brother apostles, was dead, though 
 he had been dead seven years. 
 
 The force of this is so great that it staggered Binius. 
 He says, either this epistle was not written by Clement, or 
 else the name James crept into the title instead of Simeon ; 
 which last he seems to rest on. A miserable subterfuge 
 truly. Not only is the name James in the title, but in 
 the body of the letter ; and not in one letter, but in two. 
 Truly this is a splendid way, as the pope says, to crush 
 the audacity and the petulance of the heretics. 
 1. And now, who is responsible for all this? It may 
 be said, not the popes and bishops, but Isidore and other 
 forgers. Is it so ? I ask, Whose ends did these forgeries 
 promote? whose power were they designed to increase? 
 "Was it not that of the bishops and popes ? Again : Who 
 used them ? Did not the bishops and popes ? Again : 
 Who sanctioned them ? Did not the successive popes ? 
 and did not the bishops consent? This, as Peter Dens 
 tells us, binds the whole church. Again : Who gave these 
 decretals such authority in the new canon law of Rome ? 
 And have these things ever been retracted or undone ?
 
 2t2 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 2. What - defence is made? Are the facts denied? 
 They cannot be. The defence is, that the pope and bish- 
 ops did not gain AS MUCH by them as is alleged. Then 
 the guilt of a forgery is to be estimated by the amount 
 gained : and, so far as you diminish the amount, you dimin- 
 ish the guilt. Is this Romish morality ? So it seems. 
 But one thing is sure it is not the morality of God. He 
 that is unfaithful in little is unfaithful in much. But is it 
 little for such a system to have had undisputed power for 
 eight hundred years, with an authority greater than that 
 of the Bible ? Let the candid judge. 
 
 3. Was no protest made in that long age ? There was ; 
 but Papal power, and the terrors of excommunication, 
 and the stake silenced it. 
 
 4. This point, then, renders my argument complete. 
 Even if an infallible corporation was promised, this is not 
 the one. Mr. Brownson's a posteriori scriptural argument 
 only professes to reach this point that Christ promised to 
 establish an infallible corporation. His a priori argument 
 only professes to prove that one is essential to faith. 
 Neither argument is valid. But if they were, I still say, 
 a forging and swindling corporation is not God's inter- 
 preter or guide to heaven, but the object of his fiercest 
 wrath. 
 
 5. I have selected this as a case clear and momentous 
 and of which the proof is undeniable ; but it stands not 
 by itself. It is the part of a widely-extended system, as 
 I shall show in its place. Satan did indeed come through 
 this corporation with power, and signs, and lying won- 
 ders, and all deceivableness of unrighteousness. They 
 spoke lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences seared 
 as with a hot iron. 
 
 6. And now, can a corporation of which such are the 
 actions be a teacher of honesty ? Do not actions speak
 
 FORMATION OP THE ROMISH CORPORATION. 273 
 
 louder than words ? I hesitate not to say that the Romish 
 corporation, by these and similar forgeries and frauds, 
 founded her whole system on notorious falsehoods. What 
 wonder, then, that, as I have shown, she became the great 
 school of lying for the whole world ? Nor can a moral 
 soundness on earth as to the truth be produced except 
 by the formation of a sentiment of righteous abhorrence 
 that shall consume her as burning fire. She is .simply - a 
 political, religious, and commercial confederation, or cor- 
 poration, banded against God and the truth ; and either 
 God and the truth must give way, or she must be de- 
 stroyed. Which do you think will be the result? 
 
 7. Finally, to do this work God asks no brutal force, 
 no persecution, no material fire. He needs only that 
 brute force shall not be allowed to murder those who 
 speak the truth ; and then he will kindle no fire but the 
 fire of holiness and truth. But none does he need besides. 
 This will consume the wb.de system to ashes and burn it 
 to the lowest hell.
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 NICHOLAS I. AND THE FORGERIES AND FRAUDS OF THE 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 WE are prone to be incredulous when we see a phe- 
 nomenon far beyond the range of our experience. We, as 
 Protestants, have never sounded the depths of the sys- 
 tem of pious frauds. We need, then, to pause and to look 
 more deeply into the matter. No one can easily conceive 
 how deeply it has affected the destinies of Europe and of 
 the world. 
 
 We propose, then, to aim at two points at once to 
 sketch the character of the pope who first appealed to 
 the forged decretals, that we may have a specimen of 
 their use ; and then to give a view of the principles from 
 which they originated, and a more full description of the 
 decretals themselves and of their influence on the world, 
 as well as of the influence of the theory of pious fraud on 
 which they are based. It will be seen that this was the 
 key that opened the bottomless pit and let out the locust 
 priesthood of Rome to ravage and devour the Christian 
 world. 
 
 
 
 In speaking of the forgeries of the middle ages, we 
 take the Papacy of Nicholas I. as the point of vision 
 A. D. 858-867 ; in the first place because he first ap- 
 pealed to the forged decretals, the most wonderful in- 
 stance of forgery ever known in the history of the church, 
 
 (274)
 
 THE FORGERIES OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 275 
 
 and then because he is a fine exemplification of that spir- 
 it of matchless impudence with which the leaders of the 
 corporation of Rome have imposed their forgeries and 
 frauds on the world in all ages. 
 
 After Leo the Great, A. D. 440-461, and Gregory the 
 Great, A. D. 590-604, and before Gregory VII., A. D. 
 1073-1085, this same Nicholas is, beyond all doubt, 
 the most remarkable of the pontiffs. And although his 
 name has not the same bad eminence in the popular mind 
 with that of the notorious Hildebrand, yet so great was 
 the influence exerted by him on the course of events that 
 Guizot does not hesitate to assert that the sovereignty of 
 the pope really takes date from his reign. 
 
 When he ascended the throne, the Popes of Rome, in 
 their progress towards supremacy, were exposed to the 
 resistance of four powers the patriarch of Constanti- 
 nople, their most dangerous spiritual rival and antago- 
 nist ; the national churches of Europe, which had arisen 
 since the invasion of the barbarians, especially those of 
 Italy, France, Spain, and England ; the metropolitans, an 
 ecclesiastical nobility who ruled the bishops of particular 
 provinces ; and the civil power, whether imperial or royal. 
 
 Three of these powers were represented by two men 
 quite as remarkable as Nicholas himself. The chair of 
 the see of Constantinople was filled by Photius a man of 
 vast native powers, of unrivalled scholarship and learn- 
 ing, of exhaustless energy and infinite ambition. Before 
 he was raised to the patriarchal throne he had passed 
 through almost all grades of civil office and promotion. 
 
 Without entering into the details of the warfare, it is 
 enough to say that these ambitious rulers of the Eastern 
 and Western churches met in fierce encounter. Nicholas 
 excommunicated Photius, and Photius Nicholas ; and the 
 great and incurable Greek schism was the ultimate result.
 
 276 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 The national churches were represented in the person 
 of the celebrated Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims and 
 Primate of France, the great churchman of the age. and 
 the most learned canonist of the church. 
 
 In his relations to his own bishops he also represented 
 the ecclesiastical nobility, whom the pope needed to sub- 
 due, in order to centralize all the bishops directly in 
 himself. 
 
 By the canons of the council of Sardica, A. D. 34T, 
 (which yet was not ecumenical,) the Papal power was 
 extended, as we have said, beyond all precedent, and con- 
 trary to all right, in merely allowing appeals at all from 
 metropolitan councils to the Roman pontiff, and for cen- 
 turies after this council the African bishops forbade such 
 appeals. And yet, even by these canons, the pope could 
 only order a new trial in the province, aided by his 
 legates, and, if need be, by delegates from neighboring 
 provinces. (Bower, i. 57, 58.) Nor did the East or Af- 
 rica ever receive this council ; nor did the council of 
 Chalcedon sanction its decrees. 
 
 This council, then, did not furnish the materials needed 
 to establish and consolidate the Papal power. Such 
 materials, in fact, did not -exist. It was necessary to 
 forge them, and thus to set up claims which should give 
 to the pope the right of removing all such cases to Rome, 
 to be tried before his own tribunal. And this point, too, 
 was to be carried, and was carried, against such a man as 
 Hincmar of Rheims. 
 
 The regal power was also to be subdued, and was sub- 
 dued, in the person of the feeble Lotharius. Had the 
 regal authority been represented by a sovereign like 
 Charlemagne, swaying with strong grasp the power of a 
 united empire, the aggressions of Nicholas would have met 
 with less success had he dared to engage in a warfare so 
 unequal.
 
 THE FORGERIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 277 
 
 But the vast dominions of Charlemagne had been divid- 
 ed among his feeble descendants, and they had turned their 
 arms against each other. Two grandsons and three great- 
 grandsons of Charlemagne then sat on feeble thrones. 
 The grandsons were Louis in Germany and Charles the 
 Bald in France; the great-grandsons, Louis in Italy and 
 Rhoetia, Lotharius .in Burgundy, Alsatia, and Lorraine, 
 and Charles in Provence. The rest of these could in a 
 moment be stirred up to invade the dominions of any of 
 the five whom the pope should excommunicate. Hence 
 each was powerless in single combat with the pope. A 
 single Papal anathema would become the signal for the 
 invasion and subjugation of his territories by the others. 
 
 Of course Nicholas felt that he was their master, and 
 declared himself such. He singled out Lotharius as the 
 object of an attack designed to demonstrate and estab- 
 lish his power. Lotharius having married one wife, 
 Theutberga, desired, like Henry VIII. in after days, to 
 divorce her, and to take another, Waldrada. So in fact 
 he did, and that with the countenance of his own bishops, 
 led on by the Archbishops Gunthier and Teutgaud, a 
 brother and uncle of "Waldrada. Notice, now, the influ- 
 ence of weakness in a king on the conscience of a pope. 
 Charlemagne twice did the same thing. He also left 
 illegitimate children behind him, as the fruit of his licen- 
 tious excesses. But he was strong ; therefore the Papal 
 conscience was undisturbed, and he was sainted. But 
 Lotharius, his luckless- descendant, was weak. This 
 aroused the tender conscience of the pope ; and with 
 apostolic zeal he declared war upon him for his manifest 
 crime. 
 
 Even so the conscience of Gregory VII. was very 
 sensitive in the case of Henry ' IV., who was enfee- 
 bled by a revolt in his empire, but was quite tor- 
 24
 
 278 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 pid in the case of "William the Conqueror, for he was un- 
 conquerably strong. Yet William had sinned as griev- 
 ously as Henry. At- the synod of Winchester, A. D. 
 1076, Gregory's law, enjoining the celibacy of the clergy, 
 was very materially modified. The bishops whom Greg- 
 ory had summoned to Rome were forbidden by William 
 to obey the summons, to the very great annoyance and 
 chagrin of Gregory. The king, too, continued to exer- 
 cise the right of investiture, which in the case of Henry 
 was so impious. Other presumptuous demands of Greg- 
 ory were repelled with cold indifference. Yet no thun- 
 derbolts of divine wrath were hurled from the pontifical 
 throne against the royal sinner. Gregory prudently 
 declined the encounter with so vigorous an antagonist, 
 fearful of provoking him to terrific retaliation. Hence 
 the spirit of the Papal policy in all ages is truly described 
 in the old saying, in which we are told that the chief 
 end of man is to keep what he has got and to get what 
 he can. The aggrandizement of their power has been 
 their constant end in all ages. In pursuit of this, they 
 have, as circumstances favored, steadily augmented their 
 claims, regarding merely the principles of selfish policy, 
 and never those of benevolence, honor, or truth. 
 
 So Nicholas acted in the case of Lotharius. Theut- 
 berga solicited his aid. He undertook her cause, and, 
 under pretext of defending her, put forth and established 
 the most arrogant claims of Papal supremacy. He encoun- 
 tered and defeated both king, archbishops, and bishops. 
 
 Though the council of bishops at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 
 accordance with the wishes of the king, had divorced her, 
 this was nothing to Nicholas. He sent legates into Lor- 
 raine, and, at a second council at Metz, caused the case 
 to be reexamined by his legates. Lotharius bribed the 
 legates, and the second council confirmed the doings of
 
 THE FORGERIES OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 279 
 
 the first. Nicholas was enraged, but not dismayed. By 
 an extravagant assumption of power, by his own authority, 
 he declared the decision null and void, and deposed at a 
 blow the king's archbishops, Gunthier and Teutgaud, and 
 he was victorious. Though they struggled long and des- 
 perately against him, they could not retain their office, 
 but fell before his power. He also excommunicated 
 Waldrada, and compelled Lotharius to take back Theut- 
 berga. Thus did he effectually subdue the regal power. 
 
 Twice also, in an ecclesiastical conflict, he defeated 
 Hincmar ; and here he invested himself in the panoply of 
 the forged decretals. Of these we may safely say that, 
 of all the forgeries that ever disgraced the nominal fol- 
 lowers of Christianity, they are the most gigantic in con- 
 ception, successful in execution, and terrific in power. 
 They changed the whole face of the Christian world, and 
 are the spirit of the canon law and the basis of the Papal 
 corporation to this day. 
 
 THE FORGED DECRETALS. 
 
 Gieseler fixes their composition between A. D. 829 and 
 845 in France, and ascribes them to Benedict Levita, of 
 Mentz. Guizot coincides. As to the direct agency of 
 the popes in their composition, opinions vary. But 
 Mosheim does not hesitate to regard the popes as their 
 knowing and deliberate authors. He regards it as im- 
 possible that such a forgery should have come into exist- 
 ence and use, touching as it does all the springs of their 
 influence and authority, without their knowledge and 
 cooperation. At all events, Nicholas I. has the unenvi- 
 able notoriety of having first appealed to them as au- 
 thentic documents.
 
 280 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 From him, till the reformation detected the cheat, 
 that is, for about seven centuries, they were appealed 
 to without suspicion in the public affairs of the church 
 and used by the popes to gain their ends without any 
 material opposition. That we do not falsely charge 
 Nicholas, facts show. None of his predecessors have 
 referred to them. 
 
 Leo IV., A. D. 850, does not include them among the 
 standards of judgment. Nor does even Nicholas L, in 
 863 ; but in 865, in his letters to all the French bishops, 
 he defends their authority. Gieseler, ii. 65-69. 
 
 Nicholas was a fit leader in the enterprise of intro- 
 ducing so vast a scheme of fraud for the purposes of 
 hierarchical aggrandizement. He is an exact image of 
 Gregory VII. or Innocent III. He was a man "of un 
 common intellectual power, of great attainments for 
 his age, and of gigantic energy of will. He 'was also 
 ambitious to the highest degree, and strained his claims 
 of supreme authority, infallibility, and irresponsibility to 
 man to the highest pitch of extravagance and arrogance ; 
 and having fought and gained a great battle with the 
 civil power, in the person of King Lothaire II., on the 
 points already specified, he also determined to gain a 
 victory over the ecclesiastical nobility that came between 
 the pope and the common order of bishops, and over 
 national churches, in the person of Hincmar, Archbishop 
 of Rheims, head of the French church. Hincmar had, 
 without sufficient reason, suspended Rothade, Bishop of 
 Soissons. He appealed to the pope. Hincmar disre- 
 garded his appeal, and deposed him at the synod of 
 Soissons. Rothade appealed again ; and Nicholas called 
 up the affair at Rome, and by his own authority annulled 
 the decision of the council and restored Rothade. Hinc- 
 mar resisted, but was obliged to submit.
 
 THE FORGEKIES OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 281 
 
 To defend himself in this highhanded measure, Nich- 
 olas appealed to the authority of the forged decretals, 
 thus introducing the use of that vast system of fraud ; 
 for this is the first example, as before stated, of an 
 appeal to this forgery. 
 
 On this occasion, also, he asserted the pseudo-Isidorian 
 principles in full that obedience was due to all Papal 
 decrees as such, and demanded from all metropolitans, at 
 their investiture with the pallium, an oath to this effect. 
 Hincmar was the most learned canonist of the age : but so 
 low was the general standard of scholarship and of criti- 
 cism at that time that he could not expose the forgery. 
 He did not deny the genuineness of the decretals as he 
 ought, but resisted their authority. Nicholas, of course, 
 prevailed. 
 
 But we should misunderstand Nicholas and the men 
 of that age if we supposed that they suddenly, and by 
 one gigantic stride, so enormously overleaped the eternal 
 barriers of truth, and, unaided and uninfluenced by pre- 
 ceding generations, at once completed, like Satan and 
 his workmen in hell, the vast fabric of falsehood, so that 
 at once " the ascending pile stood fixed in stately height." 
 Neither communities nor individuals become suddenly 
 thus corrupt. The conscience of the church had been 
 seared as with a hot iron, and she had spoken lies in 
 hypocrisy, long before Nicholas. These portentous re- 
 sults were but the mature fruit of seed early sown and 
 plants assiduously cultivated -from almost the earliest 
 ages of the church. One who comes fresh from the pure 
 morality of the New Testament, consigning all liars to 
 the lake of fire, finds it impossible to utter the feelings 
 of shame and disappointment which agitate the mind 
 when the history of the opinions and practices of the 
 early ages on the subject of pious frauds is first unfolded. 
 24*
 
 282 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 When, however, the power of these first emotions has 
 somewhat subsided, and he attempts to take a philosoph- 
 ical view of the facts, he finds in depraved human nature 
 a deep foundation for such frauds, and soon discovers 
 that a propensity to them is not limited to the Romish 
 church, but that even in the Protestant world there is a 
 constant temptation to fall into them. For a more full 
 illustration of this dangerous tendency, we refer to an 
 able essay of Archbishop Whately on Pious Frauds in 
 his work entitled the Errors of Romanism traced to 
 their Origin in Human Nature. 
 
 "We shall, therefore, proceed to speak of the general 
 nature of pious fraud ; the early introduction of it into 
 the Christian church ; of its pernicious effects in the 
 earlier ages upon the literature and history of the Chris- 
 tian body ; its most perfect development in the forged 
 decretals, in the frauds of Baronius, Bellarmine, and 
 others ; the subsequent power and state of the system 
 among the Romanists, and finally among the Puseyites. 
 In a field so extensive, only a general sketch can be ex- 
 pected in a brief essay. 
 
 PIOUS FRAUDS. 
 
 Pious frauds, as defined by Whately, are " those which 
 any one employs and justifies to himself, as conducing, 
 according to his view, to the defence or promotion of 
 true religion." " There is in such conduct," he remarks, 
 " a union of sincerity and insincerity of conscientious- 
 ness in respect to the end, and unscrupulous dishonesty 
 as to the means ; for without one of these there could be 
 no fraud, and without the other it could in no sense be 
 termed a pious fraud."
 
 THE FORGEEIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 283 
 
 It is, therefore, only a specific case under the general 
 diabolical maxim, that the end sanctifies the means a 
 doctrine which God has emphatically condemned, by de- 
 claring that the damnation is just of all who teach, Let 
 us do evil that good may come. 
 
 Yet is it not still an oft-disputed question among us, 
 whether a lie is in any case justifiable? E.g.: Is it right 
 to lie to a highwayman in order to save our money or our 
 life? So, too, the question may be raised, "Was it not 
 right for Rahab to save the spies by a lie, and for Jael 
 to deceive Barak, the enemy of the Jews, in order to 
 destroy him ? It may be asked, Did not Samuel deceive 
 when he said, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord, when 
 yet his real and main end was to anoint David as king ? 
 Yet God directed him so to do. 
 
 "We refer to these things to show that, if the early 
 Christians were tempted to use pious frauds, there were 
 materials enough of easy self-deception at hand. And if 
 any one will look at the temptation in advocating a great 
 and good cause, even at this day, to select and state only 
 facts adapted to excite the public mind, and produce lib- 
 erality, and to slur over unfavorable facts, he will see 
 how easy it is to be led to overstate or falsely to color 
 facts, or. to suppress what truly belongs to a full presen- 
 tation of the subject considered. 
 
 In addition to the case of temptation which we have 
 stated, Whately supposes eight cases more, in which, 
 even among .Protestants, there might be a temptation to 
 employ pious fraud. And even these he specifies, not as 
 exhausting the cases, but as illustrating the extent and 
 power of the temptation. He refers also to the heathen 
 legislators and philosophers who encouraged or connived 
 at a system of mythology which they disbelieved, in 
 order that they might, through fear of the wrath of the
 
 284 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 gods and of Tartarus and the hope of Elysium, keep the 
 populace in order. Their statesmen deluded and over- 
 awed the populace with oracles and prodigies, just as the 
 priests of the Romish and Greek churches have with 
 false miracles and revelations. The present use of fraud 
 and forgeries to gain important political ends or to save 
 the country we need but advert to as of the same general 
 kind. And many even now attempt to use similar influ- 
 ences in governing children. 
 
 Also he remarks, that when the process has once com- 
 menced, and some falsehood has been wrought into a sys- 
 tem regarded as in the main sound, there is a temptation 
 to tolerate it, through fear of greater evil in destroying 
 reverence for the whole system or of losing influence in 
 assailing it. We thought it necessary to take this gen- 
 eral view before coming to exhibit the development of 
 these principles in the primitive church. 
 
 The mass on whom Christianity operated had been al- 
 ready degraded by such maxims and practices in the 
 pagan world ; and they were not thoroughly and in a 
 moment purged of their pollutions when they became 
 Christians. Moreover a higher power of fraud prepared 
 through them the way for results of which they little 
 dreamed when they began their work of promoting truth 
 by the use of fraud. Let us now consider the early in- 
 troduction into the church of the system of pious frauds. 
 
 Mosheim states (Cent. II., vol*. i. p. 130) that the Pla- 
 tonists and Pythagoreans deemed it not only lawful, but 
 commendable, to deceive and to lie for the sake of truth 
 and piety. The Jews in Egypt learned from them this 
 sentiment even before the days of Christ. From both 
 this vice early spread among Christians. Books were 
 forged under the names of eminent men ; also the Sibyl- 
 line verses were fabricated by some Christian, in order
 
 THE FORGERIES OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 285 
 
 to bring idolaters to "believe in Christianity. The pa- 
 gans were indignant at this forgery, which they ascribed 
 to Christians. (See Origen contra Celsum.) He also 
 tells us (Cent. III., pp. 183, 184) that a similar mode of ar- 
 gument was used by Origen and others. From such 
 principles came the forged Apostolic Canons and Con- 
 stitutions, the Recognitions of Clement, and the works 
 of Dionysius the Areopagite in the fourth and fifth cen- 
 turies. The system of pious frauds was adopted even 
 by Ambrose, Hilary, Augustine, Gregory Nazianzen, Jer- 
 ome, and Sulpitius Severus, in the Life of St. Martin. 
 Thus was the way prepared by Satan for the deepest 
 delusions of the middle ages. 
 
 Gieseler (vol. i. p. 298) gives passages from Jerome and 
 John Cassian in which the principles of the system are 
 unfolded. The same fathers who thus wrote and prac- 
 tised ascribed accommodation to Jesus and the apostles. 
 Cassian argues its lawfulness from the case of Rahab and 
 of Delilah. Though they used lies, they were aiming at 
 great and good ends. Gieseler tells us, (vol. i. p. 298,) 
 speaking of spurious writings up to A. D. 200, that their 
 purpose was to encourage the persecuted, to convince the 
 unbelieving, and to give the sanction of antiquity to cer- 
 tain opinions. 
 
 For such ends old spurious writings of the Jews were 
 interpolated e. g., the Book of Enoch and the Fourth 
 Book of Ezra. Others were forged e. g., the Testament 
 of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Ascension of Isaiah, the 
 Shepherd of Hermas, the Books of Hystaspes, the Acts 
 of Pilate, the Sibylline Prophecies, <fec. All these are 
 designed to promote millenarian views. 
 
 "Waddington (pp. 54, 55) traces many of the forgeries in 
 the names of apostles and fathers to an imitation of 
 pagan philosophers, who, without attempting delusion, in-
 
 286 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 troduced ancient worthies as uttering their own opinions. 
 Christianity, too, he tells ns, was then in the hands of 
 Greeks and Africans, to whom our maxims of moralit 
 were not known. " We shall never," says he, " do justic 
 to the history of our religion unless we continually be 
 in mind the low condition of society and morals existing 
 among the people to whom it was first delivered." 
 
 Some of the passages adduced by Gieseler we will 
 translate. Jerome (Epist. xxx. al. 1., to Pammachins) 
 thus defends the propriety of lying in certain cases : " It 
 is one thing to write controversially, another didactically, 
 or dogmatically, (yv/ju/aa-nxws, ^o/jxa-ixwg.) In the former 
 the controversy is not restricted by fixed principles, and 
 he who is replying to an antagonist may state now one 
 thing, now another ; may argue as he pleases ; may de- 
 clare one thing, but act on the opposite supposition ; may 
 pretend to show bread (as the saying is) when he has in 
 his hands nothing but a stone. But in the second kind 
 of writing, openhearted frankness, and, if I may so say, 
 candor and ingenuousness, are necessary." 
 
 For evidence that they were disposed to allow far too 
 great a latitude of accommodation, (oixovofwa.) attributing 
 it in the same extent to Jesus and the apostles, see 
 Suicer, s. v. <fuyxa<ra8a.fts. T. ii. p. 1067. 
 
 In this way Jerome wished to explain the passage, 
 (Gal. ii. 11, seq.,) but was opposed by Augustine, whose 
 principles were more strict. (See his writings On Lying 
 and Against Lying. See correspondence on this point 
 between them, Epist. Hieron., Ep. Ixv. Ixvii.-lxxiii. Ixxvi.) 
 Chrysostom On the Priesthood, vol. i. 5, lays down very 
 questionable principles ; concerning the lawfulness of de- 
 ception in certain cases. He was followed in this by his 
 pupil, John Cassian, Coll. xvii. 8, seq. ; e. g., cap. xvii. : 
 " Therefore we ought to regard and use falsehood as if it
 
 THE FORGERIES OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 287 
 
 were of the nature of hellebore, which, if taken when 
 threatened by a deadly disease, is salutary, but if without 
 
 e necessity caused by such danger, results in immediate 
 eath. For God not merely investigates and judges our 
 words and actions, but also regards our purpose and 
 intention. But if he sees that any thing has been done 
 or promised by any one for the sake of eternal salvation 
 and with that perception of results which proceeds from 
 divine contemplation, although it appears to men shame- 
 less and unjust, yet he, regarding the interior piety of the 
 heart, will consider in his decision, not the sound of the 
 words, but the purpose of the will ; for the end of an 
 undertaking and the disposition of the agent are to be con- 
 sidered. In this way some, as has been remarked before, 
 have been able to secure justification by lying, (e. g., Ra- 
 hab, Josh. ii. ;) and others, by telling the truth, have in- 
 curred the penalty of eternal death, (e. g., Delilah, Judg. 
 xvi.") 
 
 Yet at this time they tithed mint, anise, and cumin. 
 The neglect of ecclesiastical forms was a great crime. 
 All oaths, the taking of interest, self-defence, capital pun- 
 ishments, and second marriages were reckoned as crimes. 
 In comparison with the violation of mere ceremonial laws, 
 a disregard of the weightier matters of truth and justice 
 was deemed a venial offence, or even a virtue, if meant 
 for good ends. Hence we can see how men could come 
 to such a state of mental delusion as to perpetrate for 
 good ends the abominable imposition of the invention of 
 the cross. Hence we can see how even Ambrose could 
 conspire with a butcher to hide bones and blood under 
 the pavement of his church, and then pretend to be in- 
 formed by a special revelation that the relics of the mar- 
 tyrs Protasius and Gervasius, of whom no one had ever 
 heard before, were hid there, and that he should dig
 
 288 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 them up, and prepare for them a shrine, and transfer their 
 remains to it with the solemn mockery of prayer and 
 preaching, and that miracles of healing should be 
 wrought by these remains, and that the bones and blooc 
 should be sold for a great price. "Was not the end a 
 good one ? Was it not important that the church of 
 Milan should have influence and wealth ? Are not these 
 means of doing good? But, alas! she had no martyrs. 
 Hence there could be no shrine, no saint worship, no 
 miracles of healing, no casting out of devils, and, above 
 all, no precious gifts. Why, then, should there not be an 
 invention of martyrs as well as an invention of the 
 cross ? To be sure, if it were to be found out, it might 
 seem a shameless fraud to man ; but God would judge 
 in view, not of the words, but of the purpose of the heart. 
 
 Hence, too, the working of false miracles for a good 
 end admitted of an easy justification, and no less the 
 forging of saints and the ascription to real saints of mir- 
 acles which they never wrought. Hence the deluge of 
 saints' lives and miracles with which the world was 
 flooded and the Romish world still is flooded ; for in 
 Alban Butler these forged saints keep their place even 
 to this day. Hence, too, we find in leading men, both in 
 the Latin and Greek churches, shameless lying for any 
 ends that interested men could convince themselves were 
 good ends. 
 
 The celebrated Photius, no doubt, regarded it as of 
 great importance that he should be patriarch of Constan- 
 tinople for the glory of God and the good of the church. 
 Hence he did not hesitate to give to the emperor a letter 
 in the name of Ignatius severely censuring the emperor, 
 and another in the name of the pope in favor of Photius, 
 which Eustralius, arriving at Constantinople in the habit 
 of a monk, had delivered to him. And yet there is no
 
 THE FORGERIES OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 289 
 
 reason to doubt that he had caused these letters to be 
 forged in order to get Ignatius, whom the pope declared 
 to be the true patriarch, out of the way. Lotharius (or 
 Bishop Adventinus of Mentz for him) did not hesitate to 
 forge the tale that he was married to "Waldrada, when 
 young, by the command of the Emperor Lotharius, his 
 father, and was afterwards forced by Count Herbert to 
 marry his sister ; and Bishop Adventinus related it as a 
 fact in the council of Aix-la-Chapelle. He also wrote for 
 him a lying letter to the pope, and finally lied to excuse 
 himself to the pope. 
 
 When we meet with such things in the leading charac- 
 ters of the nominal church, when we find in Gregory VII. 
 a system of deliberate lying, adapted and designed to re- 
 duce the world to one vast feudal monarchy, of which he 
 should be the head and the kings of the earth his vassals, 
 instead of feeling that we are in the kingdom of God, 
 we seem to be involved in the deepest gloom of hell it- 
 self, and are, for a moment, overwhelmed with horror and 
 amazement. But, when we trace the system to its origin, 
 we see that a single key is enough to open the bottomless 
 pit ; and, as we read the corrupt maxims of some of the 
 leading doctors of the church, we seem to see a star fall 
 from heaven to earth, and take the key of the bottomless 
 pit and open it, and to behold the smoke as of a great 
 furnace arising from the pit, till the sun and the air are 
 darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. Never was 
 there such a lesson, as it regards the danger of tampering 
 with the truth even in the least degree, as may be read 
 in the history of the church. Let us look at the perni- 
 cious effects of the system of pious frauds on the litera- 
 ture and moral condition of earlier and of subsequent 
 ages. Waddington, speaking of the literary forgeries that 
 corrupted and disgraced the ante-Nicene church, says, 
 25
 
 290 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 " Their immediate effect was exceedingly injurious." We 
 will hint at some of their effects. 
 
 1. They tended to degrade the moral character of the 
 age by the circulation of degrading materials of thought. 
 The truths of God's word are pure, simple, elevating. 
 The devil might well exult to see the people of God neg- 
 lecting such heavenly food and turning away to feed on 
 false gospels, Sibylline oracles, spurious saints' lives, and 
 degraded and degrading acts and decisions of the apostles. 
 
 2. They have immeasurably injured the interests of all 
 subsequent ages. The welfare of all ages is involved in 
 the correctness of the historical and literary documents 
 of the early ages. Nowhere is historical truth more im- 
 portant ; and yet, through the influence of the system of 
 pious frauds, nowhere is it harder to be discerned. The 
 decision of whole controversies is prevented by the doubt- 
 ful state of early documents. To illustrate this, it is suf- 
 ficent to refer to the interminable controversies as to 
 what Ignatius actually said concerning bishops. We know 
 that his letters have been more or less interpolated for 
 purposes of pious fraud ; but who can tell how much ? 
 By this uncertainty whole controversies are kept alive 
 that otherwise would easily be settled. Let any one read 
 Binius, Baronius, and Bellarmine, and then try to strike 
 out all that is spurious and forged in their writings, and 
 he will find himself in a labyrinth at once. 
 
 3. The earlier forgeries furnished principles and prece- 
 dents for worse deeds ; and very soon the lowest depths 
 were reached by men speaking lies in hypocrisy and hav- 
 ing their consciences seared as with a hot iron. Bad as 
 are the forged decretals, they are no worse, except in ex- 
 tent, than many preceding forgeries. Nothing can be 
 worse than the attempts by Popes Zosimus and Celestine 
 to palm off the canons of Sardica as those of Nice be-
 
 THE FORGERIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 291 
 
 cause the council of Nice was an ecumenical council 
 and that of Sardica was not. 
 
 4. They provoke God to abandon the church, and thus 
 to send strong delusion to believe a lie. Whately well 
 says, that how far any one who propagates a lie may be 
 himself deceived or may be guilty of pious fraud, and 
 how far a fraud is a pious fraud, God only knows. Prob- 
 ably most have begun in wilful deceit and advanced to- 
 wards superstitious belief. Those who report a lie often 
 believe it. The curse on those who do not love the truth 
 is strong delusion to believe a lie. Thus a man intent on 
 an end may first deceive himself into a belief that it is 
 a good end, and then that it is right to lie to gain it, and 
 finally that the lie is a truth. Many are conscientious in 
 the sense that they have led their conscience to approve 
 the purposes of the will, and not that their conscience 
 has led their will to form its purposes. They persevere 
 in wrong till they convince themselves that it is right. 
 
 THE FORGED DECRETALS. 
 
 Let us now consider the most perfect development of 
 this system in the forged decretals. 
 
 We have already taken a brief view of these. Let us 
 more fully develop the great mystery of iniquity. 
 
 The ultimate result of them was twofold to concen- 
 trate the bishops round the pope and subject them to his 
 authority ; and to raise the ecclesiastical above the civil 
 power. 
 
 To accomplish this, they seemed to propose to defend 
 the bishops against the tyranny of their own metropoli- 
 tans and of their civil rulers. Before the Papal despot- 
 ism was established bishops were tried and judged by the
 
 292 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 bishops of a metropolitan province under their metropol- 
 itan, and without appeal to the pope. Of course they 
 were liable to injustice ; and if the metropolitan were 
 imperious and haughty, as was often the case, they were 
 to expect often to experience it. Hence very likely the 
 origin of the canons of the council of Sardica. But as 
 these only authorized the pope to command a new trial in 
 the province, the main and ultimate power was, after all, 
 not in the pope, but in the metropolitan. But to remove 
 the case to the court of Rome, and to put the power of a 
 final decision into the hands of the pope, would effectu- 
 ally break down the power of the metropolitans. And 
 if at any time they were guilty of abusing that power, it 
 would create in the bishops a wish to see it done. In 
 like manner bishops might wish a defence of their spirit- 
 ual power against their kings. 
 
 Things were tending in this direction when the forged 
 decretals made their appearance. They purport to be 
 decretal letters written by the early popes, from Clement 
 downwards to Gregory the Great. They were published 
 in a collection with other canons. This collection of can- 
 ons and decretals, in the name of St. Isidore, consisted of 
 three parts. 
 
 1. Fifty-nine pseudo-Isidorian decretals, besides two 
 from Clement to James, already in existence, going down 
 to Melchiades. 
 
 2. Canons of councils, chiefly genuine Isidorian. 
 
 3. Thirty-five pseudo-Isidorian, mixed with genuine, 
 epistles from Sylvester to Gregory the Great. 
 
 The bishops universally received them. They were like 
 the horse which was so intent on conquering the stag that 
 he took the bridle into his mouth from the man, and the 
 saddle upon his back, and allowed him to mount, and was 
 from that time a slave. The pope conquered the metro-
 
 THE FORGERIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 293 
 
 politans through the bishops ; and as soon as he had done 
 this the bishops were ipso facto enslaved. These decretals 
 seemed to favor the patriarchs, and yet subjected them to 
 the pope's authority to act in his name. All that was 
 taken from the metropolitans fell finally to the Papal see. 
 
 To complete the picture, we will briefly restate some con- 
 nected facts. The donation of Constantino was promul- 
 gated in the time of Adrian L, and was based on, and con- 
 nected with, a fabulous narrative of the baptism and cure of 
 Constantine of the leprosy at Rome by Pope Sylvester. In 
 token of gratitude Constantine withdrew from Rome and 
 founded Constantinople, and gave to the pope Rome, Italy, 
 and the provinces of the West. 
 
 The history and decrees of a council that never met 
 were also forged. It was said to have been held at Rome 
 in the days of Sylvester : the aim and result of it were to 
 exalt the power of the pope. 
 
 We have given portions of these precious documents 
 from the history of councils by Binius, published under 
 the sanction of the pope, and defended by Binius even 
 after Calvin and others had exposed the forgeries of the 
 decretals. Indeed the Papacy held on to them till they 
 were irresistibly wrung from its unwilling grasp. 
 
 The influence and effects of these decretals are thus set 
 forth by the learned civilian Daunou, a Roman Catholic : 
 " So early as the end of the eighth century the decretals 
 of Isidore had planted the germs of pontifical omnipo- 
 tence. Gratian gathered the fruit of these germs and 
 made them still more fruitful ; the court of Rome being 
 represented as the source of all irrefragable decision, as 
 the universal tribunal which decided all differences, dissi- 
 pated all doubts, cleared up all difficulties. She was con- 
 sulted from all quarters by metropolitans, by bishops, by 
 chapters, by abbeys, by monks, by lords, by princes even, 
 25*
 
 294 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 and by the untitled faithful. There was no limit to the 
 pontifical correspondence but such as was imposed by the 
 tardiness of the means of communication. The affluence 
 of questions multiplied bulls, briefs, epistles ; and from 
 those fictitious decretals ascribed to the popes of the first 
 ages there sprang up and multiplied, from the time of Eu- 
 gene III., thousands of responses and decrees which were 
 but too authentic. All affairs religious, civil, judiciary, 
 domestic then were more or less embarrassed by pre- 
 tended connections with the spiritual power. General in- 
 terests, local controversies, individual quarrels all went 
 in the last resort, and sometimes in the first instance, to 
 the pope ; and the court of Rome acquired this influence 
 over the details of human life, (if we may so speak.) which 
 is of all others the most formidable, precisely because each 
 of its effects, isolated from the others, appeared to be of 
 no great consequence. Isidore and Gratian transformed 
 the pope into a universal administrator." 
 
 The agency of Gratian in this matter, to which Daunou 
 here refers, was in brief this : In 1152 he compiled a col- 
 lection, of canons, commonly designated as the " Decree 
 of Gratian." It was called by him the concord of dis- 
 cordant canons, (concordantia discordantium canonum.) The 
 study of the civil law had just been revived in Italy by the 
 discovery of the Pandects of Justinian. But, as the eccle- 
 siastical power was fast gaining the ascendency over the 
 civil power, a similar storehouse of the principles of eccle- 
 siastical law was needed. Such the Decree of Gratian 
 became. It is divided into three parts : one devoted to 
 principles and ecclesiastical persons ; the second to judg- 
 ments ; the third to things. 
 
 Of its character as a code Daunou thus speaks : " Rep- 
 etitions, impertinences, disorder, errors in proper names, 
 mistakes in quotations are the least faults of the compiler.
 
 THE FORGERIES OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 295 
 
 Mutilated passages, chimerical canons, false decretals, all 
 sorts of lies abound in .this monstrous production. Its 
 success was only the more rapid on that account. It was 
 explained in the schools, cited in the tribunals, and in- 
 voked in treaties. It had almost become the public law 
 of Europe, when the return of light dissipated by slow 
 degrees the gross imposture. By it the clergy were held 
 not to be amenable to answer in the secular tribunals ; the 
 civil powers were subjected to ecclesiastical supremacy ; 
 the state of persons or the acts which determine it were 
 regulated, validated, or annulled absolutely by the canons 
 and the clergy ; the Papal power was enfranchised from 
 all restrictions ; the sanction of all laws of the church was 
 ascribed to the holy see that see itself being independent 
 of the laws published and confirmed by itself." 
 
 By whom Gratian was employed to perform this work 
 the facts just stated sufficiently show. He was but a tool 
 of the Papacy. Through him the man of sin erected his 
 throne by reducing the forged decretals to a legal system. 
 A translation of a few passages from Gratian will give a 
 clear idea of the prevailing spirit of the work. He is 
 teaching the doctrine that the pope is not of necessity 
 subject even to his own laws, and that if he submits to 
 them it is only by a voluntary humiliation by way of ex- 
 ample to others. 
 
 "As Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath and of the law, 
 submitted himself to the law of the Sabbath, so the pon- 
 tiffs in the seat of supremacy manifest reverence for the 
 canons established either by themselves or by others 
 authorized by them ; and, by humbling themselves to obey 
 them, they augment their authority, so that they may 
 present them to others as their supreme law." Again : 
 " Sometimes, either by new enactments, or definitions, or 
 by contravening the canons, they proclaim themselves 
 lords and creators of the laws." Again : " Upon others
 
 296 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 is imposed the necessity of obedience to the canons ; but 
 it has been made manifest that in the chief pontiffs there 
 is an authority to obey at their pleasure, so that, by ob- 
 serving their own decrees, they may show to others that 
 they are not to be contemned. This they do after the ex- 
 ample of Christ, who himself observed as an example, and 
 that he might thus sanctify them, those sacraments, the 
 observance of which he enjoined upon his church." 
 
 Here we see the roots of those highest claims of Papal 
 omnipotence, and of dispensing above right, and contrary 
 to right, which subsequent canonists carried to a still 
 more blasphemous extreme exalting the pope not only 
 to an equality with God, but above all that is called. God 
 or is worshipped. 
 
 All these principles, first drawn from the fountain of 
 the forged decretals, still slumber in the canon law, like 
 a sword returned for a time to its sheath, or like the re- 
 tracted and hidden claws of a tiger. But let the state of 
 the nation be so changed, and circumstances so favor that 
 it can be done, and the sword will be again unsheathed, 
 and the pontifical tiger will again rend the subjugated 
 nations with his claws. 
 
 To translate long passages from these forged decretals 
 would be tiresome alike to the translator and to the 
 reader. To form a conception of their matter and style, 
 we need only to suppose an ecclesiastic, capable of writing 
 in the Latin style of the middle ages, first raising the in- 
 quiry, What is needed to exalt the ecclesiastical entirely 
 above the civil power? and finally to concentrate all 
 power in the pope, and then writing all that he could con- 
 ceive of to his heart's content in the name of the ancient 
 popes. A few specimens must suffice. Hear how, in the 
 first epistle of Pius, A. D. 147, the bishops are defended 
 against lay influence : " Let not the sheep censure their
 
 THE FORGERIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 297 
 
 shepherd, nor the laity accuse a bishop, nor the populace 
 reprehend him ; since the disciple is not above his lord, 
 nor the servant above his master. But the bishops are 
 to be judged by God, who has chosen them as his eyes. 
 * * * Of this the Master has given an example, when 
 he drove from the temple the buying and selling priests, 
 by himself, and not by another." The judgment of God 
 on bishops is of course to be exercised through the pope. 
 Hence the forger tells us, through Zephyrinus, A. D. 208, 
 Ep. i., " Let not the patriarchs or primates who try an 
 accused bishop pass a definite sentence till it has been 
 sanctioned by apostolic (i. e., Papal) authority." He then 
 proceeds to give rules as to accusers, witnesses, and the 
 trial, and then concludes : " Let the ultimate determination 
 of his case be brought to the apostolic seat, that there it 
 may be issued. Nor let it be finally determined before it 
 is sanctioned by the authority of the pontiff, as was or- 
 dained by the apostles or their successors." We notice 
 here, as through all of these forgeries, a constant repetition 
 and superabundant fulness, as if the writer were deter- 
 mined to make assurance doubly sure in all things re- 
 lating to the Papal authority. 
 
 To concentrate all power at Rome, we find passages 
 like this : " The Roman church, through the merits of 
 Peter, consecrated by the word of the Lord and sustained 
 by the authority of the holy fathers, holds the primacy 
 among all the other churches. To her the highest con- 
 cerns, trials, and complaints of bishops, and also the im- 
 portant interests of all churches are to be referred as to 
 the head." Vigilius, Ep. ad Profuturum. 
 
 Again : Zephyrinus, Ep. i., says, " All, and especially 
 the oppressed, must have recourse to the Roman church, 
 and appeal to her as to a mother, that they may be nour- 
 ished by her breasts, and defended by her authority, and
 
 298 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 delivered from their oppressions ; for the mother neither 
 can nor ought to forget her child." 
 
 One great object of these forgeries is to give authority 
 to Papal decrees as such, investing them with the power 
 of laws, thus making the pope an independent legislator 
 and an absolute despot. Hence the forger in the name of 
 Damasus, Ep. iv., says, " All the decretals and the statutes 
 of all our predecessors which have been promulgated con- 
 cerning the ecclesiastical orders, and the discipline of the 
 canons, it is our pleasure and decree that you and all 
 bishops and priests shall observe ; so that, if any one shall 
 infringe them, let him know that it is an unpardonable 
 offence." 
 
 The direct result of all this was to exalt the canons of 
 the pope to an equality with the canons of general councils. 
 Hence in the canon law both kinds are mixed up indiscrim- 
 inately, and, as Daunou well remarks, the forged decretals 
 became the source and model of innumerable and genuine 
 Papal decretals in subsequent ages. Indeed these lying 
 forgeries have been so thoroughly digested and absorbed 
 into the system of the canon law that to this day they 
 constitute its vital principles, its very life's blood. 
 
 At the hazard of being tedious we will give a few 
 more extracts from these forgeries, showing in what man- 
 ner, by impudent and reiterated assertions, the power of 
 the Papacy was established. The forger in the name of 
 Damasus, Ep. vi., says, " It is lawful for the metropoli- 
 tans, with their provincial bishops, to investigate the 
 causes of the bishops and other weighty ecclesiastical 
 matters, provided the bishops are all present and agree ; 
 but to define and decide definitely on such points, or to 
 condemn bishops without the authority of this seat, is not 
 lawful ; for all, if it be necessary, ought to appeal to 
 it and be sustained by its authority ; for, as you know,
 
 THE FORGERIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 299 
 
 it -is not Catholic to convene a synod without its sanc- 
 tion." 
 
 The conduct of Hincmar in deposing Rothade, to which 
 we have before adverted, shows plainly that he, though a 
 learned canonist, had admitted no such principles as 
 these. But when Nicholas encountered him, nullified his 
 proceedings, and restored Rothade, he fell back upon 
 these and similar passages of the forged decretals for his 
 defence ; and certainly nothing could be better fitted to 
 accomplish his purposes. It seems as if this passage had 
 been forged with satanic foresight for the very case in 
 hand. Nor is it to be wondered at that Nicholas exerted 
 himself to the uttermost to give authority to a system by 
 which he was invested with such absolute power. 
 
 In the decretum of Gratian the forged materials were 
 mixed up with the old and genuine canon law for the 
 sake of hiding the cheat. In his endeavors to reconcile 
 the discordances thus produced, Gratian of course de- 
 cided in favor of the new Papal law ; and as, during the 
 subsequent study of the canon law, new contradictions 
 came to light, the popes gave new decisions, deciding of 
 course in accordance with the principles of the forged 
 decretals. As these new decretals multiplied, it became 
 necessary to reduce them to system. Hence in 1234 
 Gregory IX. employed the Dominican Raimund da Pen- 
 nafort to compile a new collection of decretals in five 
 books, almost entirely composed of later decretals, and 
 in accordance with the spirit of the forged decretals. 
 To this Boniface VIII. added a sixth book in five parts. 
 To these, five books of Clementine Constitutions, by 
 Clement V., were added, and also certain Extravagantes 
 of John XXII. and five books of Extravagantes Com- 
 munes. Such was the spirit, such the origin, and such 
 the progress and completion of the canon law. The
 
 300 THE PAPAL COXSPIRACT EXPOSED. 
 
 leaven of the old canon law, retained in the decretum of 
 Gratian, so far as it was inconsistent with the new law, 
 was purged out, and the Papacy was placed on the basis 
 on which it has since stood even to this day. 
 
 It is, indeed, a specimen of lying and forgery on a 
 sublime scale ; and when we see all Christendom trem- 
 bling before the frown of the pope, and the intellect of 
 all Europe engaged in studying and commenting on this 
 law, then we see completed the highest and most as- 
 tounding result of the forged literature of the middle 
 ages. The little fountain head of pious fraud which 
 broke out in the early ages has given rise to a mighty 
 river, emptying itself into a boundless ocean of unfathom- 
 able delusion and fraud. 
 
 How great the influence of these forgeries has been 
 may be learned from the confessions even of candid 
 Roman Catholics. The testimony of Daunou has been 
 given. Fleury, though not so severe, is no less explicit 
 in testifying to their pernicious influence on the church. 
 "With him coincides Bossuet ; and the celebrated Charles 
 Butler, in a brief account of the Roman and the canon 
 law, in an. appendix to his Life of the Chancellor 
 D'Aguesseau, does not hesitate to say, " To the com- 
 pilations of Isidore and Gratian, one of the greatest mis- 
 fortunes of the church, the claim of the popes to temporal 
 power by divine right, may in some measure be attrib- 
 uted. That a claim so unfounded and so impious, so 
 detrimental to religion, and so hostile to the peace of 
 the world should have been made is strange ; stranger 
 yet is the success it met with." 
 
 It is no less strange that so intelligent a man could 
 not discover that all the remaining claims of the pope 
 are alike unfounded and impious, detrimental to religion, 
 and hostile to the peace of the world.
 
 THE FORGERIES OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 301 
 
 In view of such facts it is that Gibbon severely, but 
 justly, remarks that the Vatican and Lateran were an 
 arsenal and manufactory, which, according to the occa- 
 sion, have produced or concealed a various collection of 
 false, or genuine, or corrupt, or suspicious acts, as they 
 tended to promote the interests of the Romish church. 
 Before the end of the eighth century, some apostolical 
 scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the decre- 
 tals and the donation of Gonstantine the two magic 
 pillars of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the 
 popes. (Vol. iii. 339.) "This humble title, 'peccator,' was 
 ignorantly, but aptly, turned into ' mercator ' his merchan- 
 dise was indeed profitable : a few sheets of paper were 
 sold for much wealth and power. The edifice has subsisted 
 after the foundations have been undermined." P. 340. 
 
 To form any adequate idea of these abominable and 
 blasphemous forgeries, they must be read. They are writ- 
 ten in an assumed style of conscientious sanctity. Their 
 authors pretend to be watchmen for souls, accountable to 
 God for their fidelity ; and the penalty of disobedience is 
 eternal damnation. Yet the impious forgery betrays itself 
 on every page. Of the events and wants of their own age 
 they say and seem to know nothing. "With the hierarchi- 
 cal claims of the distant future centuries they are perfectly 
 familiar. They do not know the times of their own lives, 
 or pontificates, or deaths. Some date their letters before 
 they were popes some after they were dead. They 
 quote the Latin Vulgate long before it was made. They 
 quote writers who in their day had not written, laws 
 that had not been made, councils that had not been held, 
 and use words and a style of language not then in exist- 
 ence. Nor were they ever quoted before the ninth centu- 
 ry amid controversies on which they would have been 
 decisive. Such are the documents which Nicholas I. pro- 
 26
 
 302 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 mnlgated in the name of God, and which for centuries 
 ruled the world. , 
 
 Let us, in conclusion, consider the subsequent state and 
 power of the system. The church of Rome has indeed 
 retreated from certain positions, from which she has been 
 irresistibly driven. But never has she abandoned the 
 practice of the system ; and, if any have seemed in her 
 name to condemn it in principle, this condemnation is 
 but a new specimen of pious fraud. She cannot condemn 
 it. It is wrought into her whole history. Moreover it is 
 a case of necessity to that church to lie. Her existence 
 depends on it. All true history is against her. Hence we 
 see a constant tendency to rely on and defend forged 
 documents in Baronius, and to forge lies in Bellarinine, 
 as in his infamous narrative of the death of Calvin ; also 
 in Audin's Life of Calvin the same course is pursued. In 
 the same spirit, a stupendous enterprise was once under- 
 taken to alter and expurgate all the fathers on the great 
 scale. 
 
 Hence Platina's History of the Lives of the Popes has 
 been altered and corrupted by Papal scribes ; so that only 
 the Venice edition, 1479, and the editions published in 
 Holland, 1640, 1645, 1664, are worthy of confidence. 
 Hence we may account for the omission in some editions 
 of the statements concerning Gregory VII. which De 
 Cormenin quotes. Hence, too, the systematic writing of 
 false histories for the use of Jesuit schools ; and the falsi- 
 fication of Ranke's History of the Popes, of which he 
 complains, and the circulation and use of such falsified 
 copies in Jesuit schools as genuine. Pagi says, " Much has 
 been said of the popes by other historians, but very little 
 by their own." 
 
 Bower adds " that the very little has been thought 
 too much ; whence some of them, Platina in particular,
 
 THE FORGERIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 303 
 
 have been made in all their editions since the middle of 
 the sixteenth century, to speak with more reserve, and to 
 suppress or disguise some truths they had formerly told." 
 Yol i. p. 15. 
 
 When to the influence of principles so corrupt is added 
 the bias of party rage, as in the long strifes of the Guelphs 
 and Ghibelines, or in the great schism, one can easily im- 
 agine the extent to which lying would be carried, and how 
 much the difficulty of coming at the truth in many cases is 
 augmented. As these parties fought with the sword, so, 
 says Bower, did historians with more rage fight with their 
 pens ; and the same persons, especially the popes and em- 
 perors, are by opposing writers painted in very different 
 colors. 
 
 Indeed so thoroughly has this leprosy of pious lying 
 struck through the Romish church that all who are approx- 
 imating to her seem naturally to fall into it. Of this we find 
 a striking example in the English Puseyites, who are re- 
 viving the doctrine of economy, or accommodation viz., 
 lying so far as is necessary to keep their hearers from re- 
 volting from their sentiments till they can lead them along 
 step t)y step to Rome. Hence Newman's fierce assaults 
 on Rome, as he begun his Puseyite movement, were all a 
 pious fraud, according to the principles of the economical 
 system, to be recanted when they had enabled him to 
 corrupt all whom he could. On the same principles, Je- 
 suits in secret may join any church and profess any thing 
 in order to work in the dark for Rome. 
 
 No maxim has ever been so constantly carried out in all 
 ages as that to lie for the Romish church is not only no 
 sin, but a virtue of the highest kind. On this principle 
 pious frauds are at this day knowingly carried on in Mex- 
 ico, as described by Waddy Thompson, in Rome, and in 
 other parts of the Romish world. Such a system under
 
 304 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 the government of God cannot last forever ; but it lias a 
 great temporary power. 
 
 For a hierarchy of priests, many of them men of educa- 
 tion and great intellectual power and learning, and trained 
 to lie on system, to sustain their own corporate power and 
 wealth, can keep the masses subjected to their sway in 
 Romish countries in utter ignorance of the facts of history, 
 as is universally the case, and by bold assertions can 
 paralyze to a certain extent the power of history in 
 Protestant countries. 
 
 The bold inpudence of Pope Zosimus staggered all the 
 assembled bishops of Africa. He declared certain canons 
 of the provincial council of Sardica to be canons of the 
 council of Nice, though it was held twenty years before 
 that of Sardica. 
 
 The canons of Sardica were in none of the African 
 copies of the council of Nice. The African bishops pro- 
 posed to send for copies to Constantinople, Alexandria, 
 and Antioch. 
 
 " It matters not," replied the conscious legate, " whether 
 or not those canons are to be found in your copies, or in- 
 deed in any other. You must know that the canons and 
 ordinances of Nice, which have been handed down to us 
 BY TRADITION and established by custom, are no less bind- 
 ing than those that have been conveyed to us by writing." 
 A fine specimen of matchless impudence ! But so has Rome 
 made tradition in all ages her grand storehouse of lies. 
 
 The African bishops would not be so deluded. They 
 sent for the copies as proposed, exposed the fraud, and 
 held up the pope as a barefaced impostor. 
 
 Bower well calls it one of the most impudent and bare- 
 faced impostures recorded in history ; yet Bishop Kenrick 
 has not a word of censure for the pope, and tries, like Ba- 
 ronius and Bellarmine, to gloss it over as a mistake.
 
 THE FORGEKIES OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 305 
 
 The truth is, on the principles of that church there was 
 no sin in the lie, but merely in attempting it in so bungling 
 a way as to be found out and exposed. So did Purcell. 
 of Cincinnati, twice lie, and was publicly exposed. 
 
 But multitudes of other impostures, equally gross and 
 impudent, were not found out, and made the Papal power 
 what it is ; and the same impudent system of lying will 
 still be pursued, for nothing else can preserve it from ruin. 
 This general view should not, however, lead to despair of 
 a final victory of truth nor to historical scepticism. Let 
 a man look at one of our counterfeit detectors containing 
 scores of pages of counterfeits. He might at first say, It 
 is of no avail to try to distinguish between forged and 
 true bills. But with care and practice it can be done. 
 So is it in history. Many forgeries have been so exposed 
 that none dare now advocate them ; and, notwithstanding 
 the delusions and lies of the hierarchy, God has foretold, 
 under the symbol of the false prophet, his doom. He 
 shall be taken by the Son of man and cast alive into the 
 lake of fire burning with brimstone. 
 
 Clearly then all Protestants are simpletons who do not 
 judge Romanist ecclesiastics in view of their principles 
 and their past history. He that is simple believeth every 
 word of such men ; but the prudent looketh well to his 
 going. 
 
 In conclusion, I would say that the good of our nation 
 requires a more full exposure of this subject than we can 
 now make, with the facts of history classified and ar- 
 ranged. We are contending with a matchless system of 
 compacted fraud, and need to have a perfect understand- 
 ing of it and its principles and deeds. 
 26*
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE ROCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 
 
 WE have seen that in the forged decretals the rock 
 Peter was made the foundation of the immense fabric of 
 fraud and forgery. We have seen, also, by what course 
 of corruption the Romish ecclesiastics had been prepared 
 for such a forgery. 
 
 But the success of that great forgery implies that an- 
 other work had been previously performed ; it implies 
 that the public mind had been prepared to receive the 
 forgery by a preceding course of claims and precedents 
 on the part of the popes which the forgers could imbody 
 and establish by the pretended decretals of the earlier 
 popes. 
 
 We have also said that Leo the Great, who closes the 
 second division of the popes, was the main agent in de- 
 veloping and establishing such claims and pretensions. 
 We intimated, moreover, our purpose to consider more 
 fully his agency in thus laying the deepest foundation of 
 the great Papal fabric. 
 
 We will make him, as we already have Nicholas I., a 
 sort of mountain top from which to survey the widely- 
 extended field of the Papal campaigns. 
 
 Nicholas, who developed and first used the forged de- 
 cretals, lived, as we have seen, in the deep midnight of 
 the dark ages. The whole fabric of the western Roman 
 
 (306)
 
 THE ROCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 807 
 
 empire had been long broken up, the empire of Charle- 
 magne had arisen, its power had waned, and the interests 
 of Europe were then in the hands of his feeble successors 
 and of the Pope of Rome. 
 
 Let us now go back to the time just before the great 
 breaking up of the Western Empire and see how Leo pre- 
 pared the pretended bark of Peter to launch into the 
 great deluge of the northern nations that immersed Eu- 
 rope in a second flood, out of which has arisen the new 
 world of modern Europe. 
 
 LEO THE GREAT. 
 
 History is made up of two elements facts which 
 transpire in this world and the relations of those facts 
 to the universal system. That there was such a man as 
 Leo the Great ; that he lived in the fifth century ; that he 
 was a leading spirit of his age ; that he was engaged in 
 divers controversies and aimed at certain definite ends, 
 these and similar things are facts easily ascertainable 
 and capable of a definite and precise statement ; nor with 
 regard to the leading facts of his life is there any con- 
 troversy. 
 
 But when we pass to the consideration of the relations 
 of these facts to the universal system we enter at once a 
 new world. Whilst generations of men die, higher and 
 permanent orders of spiritual beings meet our eyes. Each 
 generation of men- has its principles, ends, and aims ; but 
 no common intelligible human plan runs through the his- 
 tory of all ages. To discover such a plan we must pass 
 into the invisible world and study the designs of Him of 
 whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things, 
 and who worketh all things after the counsel of his 
 own will.
 
 308 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 To give the relations of the facts of history from this 
 point of vision is by no means so easy as to state the 
 facts. It leads us at once upon controverted ground. 
 The moment we raise this question as it regards Leo we 
 meet the great controversy of the age. To the partisans 
 of Rome he is Leo the Great to their opponents he is 
 but a prominent founder of a terrific and malignant anti- 
 Christian system which was matured and perfectly devel- 
 oped by Nicholas L, Gregory VII., and Innocent III. 
 
 God only can write a perfect history of the world from 
 this point of vision, and at the day of the revelation of his 
 just judgment he will do it. Meantime there is to be even 
 on earth, under the guidance of his Spirit, an historical 
 day of judgment. On no subject has more illusion and 
 fraud been practised, especially since the days of Christ, 
 than on the history of this world. But the day cometh 
 that shall burn as an oven. God is yet to reign ; and he 
 will reign by the truth, and not by delusion and fraud. 
 No one, therefore, is more concerned in promulgating and 
 establishing correct views of the history of this world than 
 he. In all our inquiries, then, let us entreat him to dissi- 
 pate all delusions, to open our eyes, to purify our hearts, 
 and to touch our lips as with a coal from his own altar. 
 
 In the historical sketch which we have undertaken to 
 present we have chosen an individual to stand as the cen- 
 tral figure of the picture ; and yet our mainf design is, 
 through him, to evolve the principles and spirit of the 
 Romish corporation in his age. 
 
 Leo was chosen Bishop of Rome A. D. 440, and died 
 A. D. 461, after an eventful reign of twenty-one years. 
 From 423 to 455 Valentinian III. was Emperor of the 
 West. Maximus, Avitus, and Majorianus ruled during the 
 remaining six years of his life. From 408 to 450 Theo- 
 dosius II. was Emperor of the East ; Marcian from 450 to
 
 THE ROCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 309 
 
 457 ; Leo, also called the Great, from 457 to 474. Such 
 were his contemporary civil rulers. 
 
 As to his parentage and early education little is known. 
 He was a Roman by birth. His father's name was Quinc- 
 tianus. His first appearance in history is just before his 
 choice as Bishop of Rome. He was sent by Pope Sixtus 
 III. to effect a reconciliation between Aetius and Albinus 
 in Gaul, of which we shall soon speak. During his ab- 
 sence Sixtus died, and Leo was chosen in his place. 
 
 The main characteristic of the age of Leo was the ap- 
 proaching destruction of those institutions of Roman civil 
 society which paganism had formed. Concerning these 
 Guizot remarks, " The civil society of the Roman world, 
 to all outward appearances, seemed Christian equally 
 with the religious society. The great majority of the Eu- 
 ropean nations and kings had embraced Christianity ; but 
 at the bottom the civil society was pagan. Its institutions, 
 its laws, its manners were all essentially pagan. It was 
 entirely a society formed by paganism, not at all a soci- 
 ety formed by Christianity. Christian civil society did 
 not develop itself till a later period, till after the invasion 
 of the barbarians. It belongs in point of time to modern 
 history. In the fifth century, whatever outward appear- 
 ances may say to the contrary, there existed between civil 
 society and religious society incoherence, contradiction, 
 contest ; for they were essentially different both in their 
 origin and in their nature." 
 
 " I would pray you never to lose sight of this diversity ; 
 it is a diversity which alone enables us to comprehend the 
 real condition of the Roman world at this period." 
 
 This political society was enervated, and rapidly ap- 
 proaching dissolution and death : slavery and the deep 
 degradation of the masses of the people were the main
 
 310 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 causes of this state of things. The barbarians were God's 
 instruments for breaking in pieces that old fabric which 
 was tottering to its fall and ready soon to vanish away. 
 
 Hence the names of Alaric, Attila, and Genseric begin 
 to figure on the page of history ; and the Vandals, Franks, 
 Goths, Visigoths, and Burgundians, under the guidance 
 of such leaders, issue from the North to execute the pur- 
 poses of God. 
 
 A period of political dissolution and chaos is to ensue, 
 during which a new religious society is to exercise a 
 centralizing and organizing power. Of this society Leo 
 claimed to be the divinely ordained head ; and his whole 
 energies were put forth to develop and establish the prin- 
 ciples of the Papal monarchy. Never was there a point 
 in which a great mind, swayed by ambition, and not con- 
 trolled by a regard to truth, had a finer opportunity to 
 exercise a creative and organizing power. 
 
 In various ways the Bishop of Rome had already ob- 
 tained great influence. But he was by no means monarch 
 of the Christian world. Indeed never had there been a 
 time when he had rivals so powerful as were now the pa- 
 triarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and especially 
 of Constantinople. 
 
 The power of these bishops originated from two sources 
 one political, the other spiritual. The former was 
 in fact the only source of the extraordinary and despotic 
 powers they were intent on establishing. Of this we 
 have a full illustration in the history of the see of Con- 
 stantinople. The Bishop of Byzantium was at first but a 
 suffragan to the Bishop of Heraclea, exarch of the dio- 
 cese of Thrace. 
 
 But Constantine made Byzantium a new Rome ; and lo, 
 the Bishop of Byzantium soon becomes the leading patri- 
 arch in all the East ; for it was not fit that the emperor's
 
 THE BOCK PETEB AND LEO THE GREAT. 311 
 
 bishop should be inferior in rank or power to any of the 
 bishops of the East. His central political position, too, 
 gave him the same means of augmenting his power which 
 the Bishop of Rome enjoyed at the West ; and diligently 
 and skilfully did he use them, and rapidly did he gain on 
 the Bishops of Home in the race. 
 
 And if the political basis of the bishop's power were to 
 continue the main one, it was plain that if Old Rome fell, 
 and New Rome stood, the patriarch of Constantinople 
 might finally win in the race. 
 
 It was certainly a critical period. Some master spirit 
 was needed fully to develop and establish the doctrine 
 that the |ower of the Bishop of Rome had a higher ori- 
 gin than that of the Bishop of Constantinople ; so that, 
 even if Old Rome fell, his spiritual kingdom might not 
 only remain unshaken, but take her place and rise upon 
 her ruins. 
 
 Such a master spirit was needed. In Leo he was found. 
 A Roman by birth, of powerful intellect, indomitable will, 
 dauntless courage, vivid imagination, great power of emo- 
 tion, a finished education, extensive learning, a majestic 
 person, and fervid eloquence, he was beyond all doubt 
 immeasurably superior, in most of those elements which 
 give power over mind, to all the men of his age. He is 
 worthy to be placed side by side with Nicholas I., Greg- 
 ory VII., and Innocent III. 
 
 But, considering the claims of the see of Rome to be the 
 great preserver of the faith on earth, it is not a little re- 
 markable that Leo is the first theological writer of any 
 ability which the see of Rome produced, the first who 
 has left any important work for the benefit of posterity, 
 if we omit the apostle Peter and the evangelical and 
 primitive Clement. 
 
 Before Leo, the leading champions of the faith did not
 
 312 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 come from the see of Rome. So far from it was the fact, 
 that the faith would have been betrayed had it been left 
 solely to the Bishop of Rome. Athanasius, Bishop of Al- 
 exandria, was the great pillar of the doctrine of the Trin- 
 ity ; whilst Pope Liberius signed an Arian creed. Augus- 
 tine, Bishop of Hippo, was the great champion of the 
 doctrine of human depravity and the sovereign grace of 
 God ; whilst Pope Zosimus became the champion of Pe- 
 lagianism till compelled by the power and perseverance 
 of Augustine to recant. Popes Julius and Felix, long be- 
 fore Eutyches, had promulgated the Eutychian doctrine, 
 which the whole energy of Leo and after ages labored in 
 vain utterly to overthrow and eradicate. . 
 
 The great writers of the East and the West, Augustine 
 and Basil, Athanasius and Ambrose, the Gregories and 
 Chrysostom, had adorned their respective sees ; whilst 
 Rome remained in a state of comparative intellectual and 
 theological barrenness till Leo arose. 
 
 But the moment he appeared on the stage the centre of 
 both ecclesiastical and intellectual power was no doubt at 
 Rome. With a strong hand and a determined will he 
 grasped all the great questions of the age, and made an 
 impress on the world that is felt to this day. He gave a 
 decided turn to theology and to the current of events in 
 favor of the see of Rome ; nor, judging by their standards, 
 have the partisans of that see erred in calling him LEO 
 THE GREAT. 
 
 The acts of his life may be arranged in five classes : 
 
 1. Those which related to the existing interests of the 
 Roman empire as endangered by the barbarians. 
 
 2. Those which relate to the powers of the see of Rome. 
 
 3. Those which relate to the vindication and establish- 
 ment of the orthodox system of faith. 
 
 4. Those which relate to the use of force in the sup- 
 pression of heresy.
 
 THE ROCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 313 
 
 5. Those which relate to the discipline of the church. 
 
 It will be seen at a glance that all his acts except those 
 of the first class related to principles destined to exert a 
 vast influence on all future generations. Whatever may 
 be thought of the character of the Romish church, no one 
 can deny that it was for ages the centre of intellectual and 
 ecclesiastical power for Christendom. No point of vision 
 gives so comprehensive an insight into the religious and 
 political condition of the Christian world for ages. An 
 emotion of sublimity, therefore, fills the mind as we stand 
 at the fountain head of this great river of destiny and 
 watch the elements that are from time to time mingled 
 with it by the presiding spirit at Rome. 
 
 1. "We have excepted Leo's acts of the first class from 
 the list of such as involve principles destined to affect 
 future ages. They were indeed in his own day more 
 thought of ; they occupy a more prominent place in the 
 histories of the age ; but they affected simply the question 
 of the earlier or later downfall of Rome. That mistress 
 of the world was thoroughly corrupt. Her measure of 
 iniquity was nearly full. All that Leo could do for her was 
 for a little time to delay her fall. When, A. D. 440, under 
 the weak rule of Yalentinian, the safety of Rome was en- 
 dangered by the alienation of Aetius, the greatest Roman 
 general of the age, and Albinus, a Gallic lord of great 
 power, and this at the very time when the empire was 
 overrun by the Goths, Burgundians, Franks, and Huns, 
 Leo was chosen, as qualified above all others by eloquence, 
 sagacity, and tact, to reconcile them. To effect this, he was 
 sent on an embassy to Gaul. He fulfilled his mission with 
 such success that he stood conspicuous in the eyes of his 
 own generation as a great peace.maker and the savior of 
 the empire from impending ruin. 
 
 Again : A. D. 452, when Attila and his Huns, having been 
 27
 
 314 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 driven by Aetius out of Gaul, had invaded Italy, and, hav- 
 ing captured Aquileia, Pavia, and even Milan, the imperial 
 residence, were preparing to lay siege to Rome, Leo was 
 sent at the head of an embassy to him, that he might exert 
 the power of his effective eloquence and address upon the 
 mind of the terrible leader of the barbarians. Without 
 the aid of a vivid imagination, it is easy to invest this 
 transaction with a peculiar and impressive dramatic in- 
 terest. All hearts were dismayed ; even Aetius trembled 
 before the barbarian hosts ; when lo, the gates of Rome 
 open, and her bishop, in sacerdotal robes and with majes- 
 tic aspect, goes forth to try the force of intellectual and 
 spiritual arms against the victorious leader of barbarian 
 hosts. To the natural and inherent interest of the scene 
 religious fiction has sought to superadd a new intensity 
 by introducing a miraculous appearance of Peter and 
 Paul to second the eloquence of Leo. It is enough, how- 
 ever, for us to know that the embassy was successful. 
 Attila retired, and Rome for a time was saved. It is 
 added by others that a pestilence in the camp of Attila, 
 the invasion of his own country by Marcian, the prospect 
 of speedy and powerful reinforcements for the Romans, 
 and the stipulation of an annual tribute of two thousand 
 pounds of gold were the real influences that gave power 
 to the eloquence of Leo. Be this as it may, the glory that 
 he has derived from the success of this mission has been 
 great. Yet, after all, it accomplished little for Rome, and 
 still less for the world. It affected, as we have safd, no 
 great principle, and it caused but a brief delay of the 
 downfall of Rome. Even the same Leo at a later date in 
 vain exerted his eloquence to deter Genseric from the sack 
 of Rome. Summoned by Eudoxia, the widow of Valentin- 
 ian, to avenge her on Maximus, who had slain her husband, 
 assumed his throne, and compelled her to marry him, he
 
 THE ROCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 315 
 
 plundered Rome, and carried away, not only vast treasures, 
 but also many Romans as slaves. At the request of Leo, 
 he only consented to save the city from the flames. 
 
 2. Let us now come to those acts of Leo that related to 
 principles destined to increase in power till they should 
 ingulf all other power in their tremendous vortex. We 
 have already remarked that the power of the Bishop of 
 Rome was originally based upon the political supremacy 
 of Rome. Even Newman, in an argument designed to 
 conduct his disciples into the bosom of Rome, is obliged 
 to admit that the doctrine of the " regalia Petri" was unde- 
 veloped in the early ages. He intimates, indeed, that it 
 slumbered in the record, ready to be developed when needed ; 
 but it is a very suspicious fact that the new basis of the 
 claims of the pretended succession of Peter was not dis- 
 covered till the political basis seemed to be in danger of 
 being subverted by the superior political power of the 
 Bishop of Constantinople. Then the hidden sense of 
 " Thou art Peter " began to open rapidly on the mind of 
 Leo ; and with imperious energy he thus sets it forth in his 
 letter to the Bishops of Gaul: "It was the will of our 
 Lord that all nations should hear the truth through the 
 apostolic trumpet. Yet it was also his pleasure that the 
 blessed Peter should preside over the other apostles in the 
 discharge of this duty ; so that all divine gifts should flow 
 to the body from him as the head, so that none could 
 partake of the blessings of the kingdom of God who 
 should-dare to depart from the rock Peter. This office 
 of Peter Christ proclaimed when he said, ' Thou art Peter' 
 <fcc. Thus the structure of the eternal temple, by the 
 wonderful grace of God, was made to rest on the rock 
 Peter." In all this there is NOW no originality ; but in the 
 days of Leo there was need of his master mind to give 
 currency to this doctrine. With reference to him Gieseler
 
 316 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 says, " By exalting the authority of the apostle Peter, and 
 by tracing all his rights to this source, as well as by his 
 personal qualities and good fortune, he did more than any 
 of his predecessors in extending and confirming the power 
 of the Romish see." 
 
 Gieseler also, in section ninety-two, says that " this view 
 was first fully developed by Leo." Bower, however, 
 has shown, from a letter of Innocent I. (A. D. 401-417) to 
 Alexander, Bishop of Antioch, that the merit or de- 
 merit of first developing this idea belongs to Innocent. 
 In that letter he derives the prerogatives, privileges, and 
 jurisdiction of the Roman see from St. Peter. In view 
 of this Bower remarks, " Innocent may be justly said to 
 have pointed out the ground on which the unwieldy fabric 
 of the Papal power was afterwards built." Still it is 
 true, as Gieseler asserts, that Leo first FULLY developed 
 this view. THUS, THEN, INNOCENT I. ORIGINATED IT AND 
 
 ACCUSTOMED THE EARS OF MEN TO HEAR IT. LEO FULLY 
 DEVELOPED AND TO HIS UTMOST POWER ENFORCED IT. 
 
 NICHOLAS I., BY THE GREAT FORGERY, ADDED TO ITS POWER. 
 GREGORY VII. ERECTED THE FABRIC, AND INNOCENT III. 
 
 REIGNED IN THE MERIDIAN SPLENDOR, OF PAPAL GLORY. 
 
 Nor was Leo at all deficient in that unprincipled bold- 
 ness and energy which were essential in order to enforce 
 such claims of authority. This was especially seen in his 
 encounter with that distinguished Romish saint, Hilary, 
 Bishop of Aries and Exarch of the seven provinces of 
 Narbonne. A council of bishops in which Hilary pre- 
 sided had deposed Celidonius, Bishop of Besanon. He 
 appealed to Leo. Hilary denied the right of Leo to re- 
 ceive the appeal and review their proceedings ; Leo main- 
 tained it. The fifth canon of the council of Nice con- 
 demned the usurpation of Leo. Hilary went to Rome to 
 protest against it. Leo arrested and confined him there,
 
 THE ROCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 317 
 
 and appointed a day for reviewing the case. Hilary es- 
 caped from confinement and fled to Aries. Leo, enraged 
 at his contumacy, reexamined the case, and, against noto- 
 rious facts, declared Celidonius innocent, and restored 
 him to his office as bishop. Nor did he stop here : he 
 excommunicated Hilary, deprived him of all jurisdiction, 
 suspended his episcopal functions, and abolished the 
 dignity of exarch, formerly conferred on the see of Aries. 
 Even this did not suffice : he wrote to the Gallic bishops 
 a slanderous letter designed to blast the character and 
 destroy the influence of Hilary. It was in this letter that 
 the doctrine of the divine supremacy of Peter and his 
 successors was first fully developed. His next step was to 
 enlist the imperial power on his side. The weak Valen- 
 tinian was by him deluded, misinformed, and thus led to 
 confirm by an imperial edict all of his arrogant claims, 
 and to state, in notorious contravention of facts, that the 
 Bishop of Rome had always exercised the powers claimed 
 by Leo. This edict occurs in Leo's works, and no doubt 
 came from his pen. There is nothing in the forged de- 
 cretals of a later age more thoroughly unprincipled than 
 this conduct of Leo. Hilary never yielded to him, but 
 died under his ban ; yet he continued to exercise all the 
 functions of his office as before, respected by all who 
 knew him as one of the most eminent Christians of the 
 age. The Romish church, too, has refuted the slanders 
 of Leo by canonizing him ; and even Leo, after the death 
 of Hilary, was inconsistent enough to call him " Hilary 
 of holy memory." Such was Leo the great ; such was 
 the manner in which he toiled to lay the broad founda- 
 tions of the Papal power. Since the Romish church has 
 canonized Hilary, the Romanists are greatly perplexed to 
 know what to say of the conduct of Leo. One author of 
 the Life of Hilary omits his excommunication. Certainly, 
 27*
 
 318 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 if Hilary was a saint, Leo was not ; yet both have been 
 canonized. Hilary, perhaps, deserved the honor. On the 
 other hand, the conduct of Leo was too profitable to 
 Rome to pass without reward. It aided to lay the 
 broad basis of all her powers. Therefore she has canon- 
 ized him also. So, then, both Leo, who excommunicated 
 Hilary, and Hilary, who died under his anathema, were 
 both eminent saints. Consistent Rome ! 
 
 The same traits of character were displayed by Leo in 
 his obstinate resistance of the twenty-eighth canon of the 
 council of Chalcedon. In this, as we have already stated, 
 was distinctly advanced the doctrine, that the power of 
 the Bishop of Rome as well as of Constantinople was 
 solely of political origin. Of the dangerous tendency of 
 this doctrine Leo was too well aware, and resisted it with 
 implacable hostility ; yet it was impossible with any 
 show of historical truth to resist the canon. Leo there- 
 fore supplied his lack of argument by imperious obstinacy 
 and falsehood. But the canon of the council remains to 
 this day, an unanswerable proof of the real origin of that 
 great central despotism which at last claimed by divine 
 right the supremacy of the whole Christian world. That 
 large ecumenical council of six hundred bishops expressly 
 say, " Since the fathers, properly conceded eminent pre- 
 rogatives to the episcopal throne of old Rome, because of 
 the political supremacy of that city, (<5t TO paodeieiv mv n6hy 
 ^<-/'V',) the divinely beloved fathers of the council of 
 Constantinople, acting on the same principle, assigned 
 equal prerogatives to the episcopal throne of New Rome ; 
 thinking it suitable that a city honored by imperial au- 
 thority and a senate, and enjoying equal political preroga- 
 tives with Old-Rome, should possess an equal preeminence 
 with her in ecclesiastical authority." The only differ- 
 ence admitted by the council between the two sees was
 
 THE ROCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 319 
 
 not one of authority, but of honorary precedence, which 
 was naturally assigned to the see of the oldest of the two 
 cities. This, it is plain, is a doctrine totally subversive 
 of the theory of Leo, that the supremacy of the Bishop of 
 Rome is derived from the divine appointment of Peter to 
 be the head of the church universal. But this is not all. 
 The see of Constantinople was, by the council of Chal- 
 cedon, invested with the right of receiving appeals from 
 all other ecclesiastical tribunals whatever. This power, 
 at least in words, was granted without any limitation. 
 And even if, with Bower, we think that it had in reality 
 reference to the Eastern church alone, yet it is plain be- 
 yond a doubt that the council decided that the Bishop of 
 Constantinople was entirely independent of the see of 
 Rome. Still further : the universality of their language 
 gave to the Bishop of Constantinople better ground to as- 
 sume the title of universal bishop, and head of all the 
 churches, and primate of the Christian world than the 
 Bishop of Rome ever had. And when the Western Empire 
 fell he did in fact put forth such claims, greatly to the ter- 
 ror of Gregory the Great, who felt that his own throne was 
 tottering to its fall. When, now, we consider the notorious 
 fact that all churches were at first independent and equal, 
 we shall see how immense was the chasm to be bridged over 
 before the church of Rome could arrive at universal mon- 
 archy by divine right over all the churches of the earth. 
 We also see that intrepid forgery and lying were the only 
 materials out of which the necessary bridge could be con- 
 structed. The greatness, then, which is involved in found- 
 ing the Romish power is of necessity based upon such ele- 
 ments ; and for such greatness Leo, Nicholas L, Gregory 
 VII., and Innocent III. were eminently distinguished. 
 
 Leo could not resist the twenty-eighth canon of the 
 council of Chalcedon except by forgery ; and accordingly
 
 320 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 he forged, or caused to be forged, an addition to the canons 
 of the council of Nice. The legates of Leo produced in 
 the council of Chalcedon a Latin translation of the sixth 
 canon, in which the see of Rome was said always to have 
 enjoyed the primacy. But the whole council regarded 
 the addition as a forged interpolation ; and plainly they 
 were right. It is inconsistent with the context, and has 
 been since omitted in the best Latin translations of the 
 canons. That Leo could retain any character or influence 
 after such an infamous fraud, throws a striking light on 
 the morality of the age. The leprosy of religious lying 
 had so corrupted the nominally Christian community that 
 to be exposed in it seemed to injure no man's character, 
 standing, or influence. Well has inspiration given as one 
 tra'it of the great apostasy, " Speaking lies in hypocrisy." 
 Leo, after the council of Chalcedon, did not hesitate to 
 profess a sacred regard to the council of Nice, and to 
 oppose the obnoxious Chalcedonian decree by an appeal to 
 his own forged addition to the decrees of Nice. And yet 
 such was his personal influence and power that he was 
 feared alike by the Eastern and Western emperors and 
 by all the civilians and ecclesiastics of the age. 
 
 In thus professing a supreme regard to the canons of 
 Nice he was guilty of a gross inconsistency ; for the fifth 
 of these canons ordered all appeals to be finally decided 
 by the bishops of each province. Yet he excommunicated 
 Hilary for adhering to this very canon and claiming final 
 authority in the case of Celidonius against the imperious 
 claims of the usurping Bishop of Rome. Again we say, 
 What can be conceived of more unprincipled than the 
 conduct of Leo ? Yet for this very conduct Rome has 
 ever regarded him as Leo the Great. And well may she, 
 so long as she retains her arrogant claims ; for they aro 
 founded on nothing: else.
 
 THE ROCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 321 
 
 In the transactions which have passed under review we 
 see the germs of some of the greatest developments of 
 subsequent ages. In Leo I. we see the model of Nich- 
 olas I., Hildebrand, and Innocent III. ; in his contest 
 with Hilary, a preparation for the great controversy as to 
 the Gallic liberties which nearly lost France to the Rom- 
 ish church ; in his warfare with the see of Constantinople, 
 the forerunner of the great Greek schism. Any one could 
 easily have foreseen that Constantinople, the great rival 
 of Old Rome, would sooner consent to lie under her 
 anathema than tamely submit to her power. 
 
 3. From acts so discreditable to Leo we gladly turn to 
 consider his influence on the doctrines of the church ; for 
 here we can find, results of his intellectual powers in 
 which orthodox divines, both Romish and Protestant, 
 concur to this day. We refer to his discussion of the 
 great doctrine of THE UNION OP THE TWO NATURES OP 
 CHRIST IN ONE PERSON. After what has been said of his 
 unprincipled policy in extending the power of the see of 
 Rome, it is perhaps little to the credit of the orthodox 
 doctrine of the person of Christ that he should be found 
 to be its great champion, and to have done more than any 
 one person of antiquity in giving it the form in which it 
 is now held. But truth does not cease to be truth even 
 if advocated by an unworthy defender. 
 
 The chief work of Leo upon this momentous theme is 
 his letter to Flavianus, Bishop of Constantinople. The 
 circumstances that called it forth were these : Eutyches, 
 reacting from the reputed error of Nestorius, had main- 
 tained that the divine and human natures after their 
 union in Christ became OXE NATURE. For this he was 
 condemned and deposed by a provincial council at Con- 
 stantinople under Flavianus, bishop of that see. Eutyches 
 appealed from the decision to an ecumenical council.
 
 322 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 He addressed his appeal in particular to the Bishops of 
 Rome, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Thessalonica. It was 
 in answer to this appeal and in prospect of this council that 
 Leo wrote his celebrated letter to Flavianus in opposition 
 to Eutyches, in which he developed the true doctrine. 
 This letter was afterwards received as canonical by the 
 council of Chalcedon and by all the orthodox bishops. 
 It was, says Bower, in the "Western churches read during 
 the advent with the Gospels. The council of Rome 
 anathematized all who should reject even a word of it. 
 Gregory the Great made it the standard of orthodoxy on 
 that point. The council of Apamea styled it " the true 
 column of the orthodox faith ; " and some even caused it 
 to be read to them at the point of death, in proof that 
 they died in the true faith of the church. Such have been 
 the fame and the power of this letter ; yet it was not at 
 first received without opposition so violent as to require 
 all the influence and energy of Leo to defend it. 
 
 4. Our attention is next naturally called to the influence 
 exerted by Leo on the great question of the use of force 
 and the infliction of civil pains and penalties in the sup- 
 pression of error. If any who were called at the origin 
 of this question to investigate it, and to give form to the 
 doctrine of the church on the subject, could have had a 
 prophetic vision of such scenes as the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew, celebrated by the Te Deums at Rome, or of 
 the dungeons, stakes, and autos dafe of the Inquisition, 
 had they at all weighed the import of that fearful symbol, 
 a harlot drunk with blood, with what fearful solicitude 
 would they have entered upon the investigation ! But it 
 was destined that early generations should sow the seeds 
 of the system of religious persecution, and future ages 
 reap the harvest of blood. To Leo the bad preeminence 
 does not belong of having originated the system of per-
 
 THE ROCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 323 
 
 sccution for opinion's sake. But it must be said of him 
 that he strengthened it when it was relatively weak and 
 sanctioned it by his great influence, when, if he had re- 
 sisted it with all his power, he might have destroyed it 
 forever. 
 
 The idea of inflicting civil pains and penalties for opin- 
 ions sprang naturally out of the alliance between church 
 and state. In the early ages of Christianity it was ut- 
 terly repudiated. One form of subsequent intolerance 
 was so plausible that it caused little apprehension ; it 
 was the suppression of paganism by law, the destruction 
 of heathen temples and implements of idolatry, the con- 
 fiscation of property consecrated to such uses, and fines 
 on the use of frankincense and libations. These things 
 were done in the reigns of Gratian and Theodosius. 
 Constantine and his immediate successors were tolerant 
 towards the pagans. The edict of Milan indicates 'the 
 original views of Constantine. It was a charter of re- 
 ligious liberty to all. The spirit of persecution arose 
 under the influence of THE HIERARCHY. Penal laws 
 against heresy among Christians preceded the persecu- 
 tions of pagans. Constantine issued two such laws, The- 
 odosius fifteen, Arcadius twelve, Honorius eighteen. The 
 Arians, Donatists, Pelagians, Manicheans, Priscillianists, 
 and Paulicians were among the more prominent perse- 
 cuted heretical sects. The Arians in their turn, when in 
 the ascendant, retaliated on the orthodox. But the Ro- 
 man laws did not punish heresy by death. Banishment, 
 fine, confiscation of goods, infamy, disqualification to buy 
 or sell, exclusion from civil and military honor were the 
 common penalties. According to Mosheim, however, 
 some of the Donatists were put to death A. D. 316, 
 the indignation of Constantine being aroused by their 
 disregard of his decision against them, pronounced after
 
 324 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 a personal investigation their case having been previ- 
 ously investigated by two councils summoned by his au- 
 thority, and they having been twice before condemned. 
 Of this infliction, however, other historians say nothing ; 
 and Gieseler expressly says that the first instance of the 
 judicial execution of a heretic was in the case of Priscil- 
 lian, A. D. 385, who was, with others of his followers, 
 tried and executed by the usurper Maximus, at the insti- 
 gation of the Bishops Idacius and Ithacius. Hagenbach 
 also says that the Priscillianists were the first heretics 
 persecuted by the sword. 
 
 It is worthy of note that this proceeding at that time 
 met with general reprobation. In particular, Martin of 
 Tours and Ambrose of Milan loudly condemned it ; and 
 the instigators of the deed were finally expelled from 
 their bishoprics. 
 
 Such was the state of the Christian world on the sub- 
 ject of persecution when Leo was called to meet the ques- 
 tion, by the flight of large numbers of the Manichees to 
 Rome from Carthage and the provinces which the Van- 
 dals under Genseric had Overrun. A letter from Turri- 
 bius, Bishop of Astorga, called his attention to the revi- 
 val and spread of the heresy of Priscillian in Spain. 
 Leo had now a glorious opportunity to set forth the true 
 principles of religious liberty and to rectify the errors 
 of preceding years. There was, it is plain, deep feeling 
 in the church against punishing heretics by death, and 
 the guilt and folly of all civil pains and penalties for er- 
 roneous opinions could have been clearly shown. The 
 authority of the earlier fathers could have been easily 
 adduced against them. Tertullian had said, " Religion 
 does not compel religion ; " Origen, " Christians should 
 not use the sword ; " Lactantius, " Coercion and injury 
 are unnecessary ; for religion cannot be forced. Barbar-
 
 THE ROCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 325 
 
 ity and piety greatly differ from each other : nor can 
 truth be conjoined with violence, or justice with cruelty. 
 Religion is to be defended, not by killing, but by dying ; 
 not by inhumanity, but by patience." Cyprian had as- 
 cribed to Christ alone the right to punish for opinions. 
 Had Leo fallen back upon such authorities, and employed 
 his great abilities in defence of religious liberty, how glo- 
 rious had been his reward ! He could have turned back 
 the Christian world to the true and lofty ground on 
 which they once stood and averted the infamy of future 
 ages. But how could a prelate, whose great object was 
 to exalt the authority of his own see above that of all 
 others, appreciate the dignity and glory of such an enter- 
 prise? Power, centralization, rule were his great ideas ; 
 to subjugate the human mind to ecclesiastical authority, 
 not to give it liberty, was his great aim. His conduct 
 may be inferred from these principles. It may be also 
 inferred from the fact that in later times Maimbourg ap- 
 peals to the writings of Leo to prove that heresy is a 
 capital crime and may be justly punished with death. 
 Leo, then, is one of the main fountain heads from which 
 has issued that river of blood which in after ages deluged 
 the world. How little could he comprehend the influence 
 on after ages of a few words written by him in defence of 
 the system of religious persecution ! 
 
 It is true that in the case of the Manichees he did not 
 resort to capital punishment ; nay, he says that it was 
 repugnant to the spirit of the church, and to that lenity 
 in which she places her chief glory, abhorring to shed the 
 blood even of the most detestable heretics. But the 
 church of Rome has in all ages made the same profession. 
 She has never shed the blood of heretics not she ! The 
 true test is this : Has she ev.er justified the civil magistrate 
 in shedding it ? Has she ever enjoined it upon him so to 
 os
 
 326 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 do ? So, in this case, the true test to be applied to Leo 
 is this : How did he regard the execution of Priscillian 
 and others by Maximus ? Did he justify and defend it ? 
 Or did he, like Martin of Tours, reprobate and abhor it? 
 To answer these questions, we only need to read his letter 
 to Turribius, who had implored his assistance against the 
 Priscillianists. In this he condemns their doctrines as im- 
 pious and detestable ; declares that all who tolerate here- 
 sies are no less guilty than those who embrace them ; and 
 justifies the execution of Priscillian and some of his dis- 
 ciples by Maximus. This is the letter to which Maim- 
 bourg appeals to prove that heresy may justly be punished 
 by death. 
 
 But, even where Leo did not resort to the penalty of 
 death, he used every other form of persecution with the 
 utmost severity. He stirred up Valentinian to pass a 
 law confirming all the persecuting edicts of his predeces- 
 sors against the Manichees. Banishment, confiscation, 
 exclusion from civil and military employments and hon- 
 ors, incapacity to give or receive by will, to sue at law or 
 make a contract, and compelling the whole community to 
 act as irresponsible informers against them, these were 
 the penalties attached to these laws ; and these Leo did not 
 deem inconsistent with that lenity of the church in which 
 she places her chief glory. 
 
 Some have, indeed, attempted to defend the execution of 
 Priscillian on the ground of the immoralities of which he 
 was guilty and to which his system tended ; but, when 
 we call to mind that the Romish party defend the mur- 
 der of the Albigenses and Waldenses on the same ground, 
 we ought to be suspicious of such a defence. The opin- 
 ions of Priscillian were, indeed, grossly erroneous as they 
 are now set forth. Neander says of them, that, " so far as 
 we can gain any knowledge of them from the meagre
 
 THE EOCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 327 
 
 accounts of their adversaries, Dualism and the emanation 
 theory were combined together in them elements relat- 
 ed to Gnosticism and Manicheism. Their moral system, 
 as their doctrine required, was rigidly ascetic. It enjoined 
 austerities of all sorts, and in particular celibacy. The 
 charges laid against them of dissolute conduct are, to say 
 the least, not sufficiently well authenticated." Maximus, 
 indeed, alleged that Priscillian confessed his crimes ; but 
 Neander distrusts the confession if made, as probably in- 
 voluntary and extorted by the rack. It should also be 
 borne in mind that, after heretics have been executed, 
 there is a uniform tendency in their persecutors to defend 
 tftemselves by bearing false witness against their victims. 
 Indeed it is always easy to change heretical contumacy 
 into the crime of rebellion against the civil powers. 
 
 It is, however, but fair to Leo to say that his is not the 
 only great name of that age to whom the advocates of 
 persecution may appeal for support. On a name far greater 
 than his own the same opprobrium rests even that of Au- 
 gustine, Bishop .of Hippo. He was originally tolerant in 
 his views ; but becoming, as it would seem, impatient in con- 
 sequence of the perversity of the Manichees and Donatists, 
 he was led to advocate and defend the use of force. " It 
 was by Augustine," says Neander, " that the theory was 
 proposed and founded which contained the germs of that 
 whole system of spiritual despotism, of intolerance, and 
 persecution which ended in the tribunals of the Inqui- 
 sition." By this it cannot be meant that the practice of 
 persecution had not begun before Augustine, but that he 
 first devised those sophistical arguments which in after 
 ages were used in its defence. He did not defend it on 
 the ground that force in itself tends to produce direct con- 
 vie. ion of truth, but that by suffering the mind may be so 
 affected that it shall at last seek to know the truth. This
 
 328 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 he illustrated by a reference to the discipline of the prov- 
 idence of God and of a father ia his family. He seemed 
 not to notice that such discipline is not for error, but for 
 sin, and that it involves no sense of violated rights ; whereas 
 all efforts to convince by force do involve a sense of in- 
 justice and tend to reaction. But wretched as this sophis- 
 try is, falling in as it did with the tendencies of the age, 
 it passed for argument. But sophistry much less subtle 
 was resorted to by Leo in defence of the system of perse- 
 cution to which he stood committed. In his letter to Tur- 
 ribius he says, with reference to the execution of Priscillian, 
 " Such a use of the sword has been advantageous to the 
 exercise of the lenity of the church, who, although content 
 to give ecclesiastical decisions and averse .to shed blood, 
 is nevertheless aided by the severe laws of Christian 
 princes ; since those who fear bodily punishment will be 
 more readily disposed to seek spiritual salvation." One 
 might almost suppose that these were the words of some 
 gentle inquisitor of modern days whose tender heart re- 
 volts from shedding blood, but is intent on saving the souls 
 of his victims by the terrors of dungeons, the rack, the 
 scaffold, and the fires of an auto dafe. 
 
 5. We now come to consider the fifth and last class of 
 the acts of Leo namely, those relating to the sacraments 
 and discipline of the church. 
 
 These topics, it must be conceded, much occupied his 
 thoughts, and occur very frequently in his letters. And 
 yet he accomplished little in these particulars that left a 
 bold and definite impress on future ages. Indeed some 
 of his decisions have since been reversed and branded as 
 heretical by the church of Rome. This is particularly 
 true of his decision on the effects of the baptism of here- 
 tics. The present doctrine of the Romish church is, that 
 such baptism is not devoid of saving power, but remits sin,
 
 THE ROCK PETER AND LEO THE GREAT. 329 
 
 confers grace, and sanctifies as really as the baptism of the 
 church. But Leo decided that those baptized by heretics 
 received nothing but the external form of baptism, and 
 still need an imposition of hands, and an invocation of 
 the Holy Ghost by the church, in order to receive the in- 
 ward power and sanctification of baptism. 
 
 The celibacy of the clergy, one great pillar of the Papal 
 edifice, Leo found already enjoined by a decree of his 
 predecessor, Siricius, A. D. 385. He merely extended the 
 prohibition to subdeacons, who had before been exempt 
 from the law. Here, too, Leo failed to exert his power 
 to check the progress of the Gnostic and ascetic apostasy. 
 This pernicious interdiction of marriage to the clergy 
 was totally unknown in the first three centurie^s. In the 
 fourth, Jerome tells us that the married clergy were pre- 
 ferred to the unmarried by the majority of the community. 
 In the celebrated council of Nice, A. D. 325, it was pro- 
 posed to enjoin continence on the clergy who were already 
 married ; but Paphnutius, one of the most eminent prelates 
 of the time, himself unmarried, vindicated the purity of 
 the marriage state, and protested against imposing on the 
 clergy burdens that they could not bear. The council, 
 influenced by him, refused to enact the canon proposed. 
 Still Paphnutius was in favor of celibacy in the clergy 
 not already married. Sixty years after this, the decree 
 of Siricius was promulgated, enjoining celibacy on the 
 clergy, and soon after it was enjoined by councils in Af- 
 rica, Gaul, Spain, and Germany. This resulted so directly 
 from the spirit of the great Gnostic apostasy then coming 
 to its crisis that Leo might have utterly failed if he had 
 opposed it. But it would have been glorious even to fail 
 in such an attempt. But nothing of the kind could be 
 rationally expected from him ; nothing of the kind was 
 attempted by him. He sanctioned a practice which has 
 28*
 
 330 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 in all ages made the Romish church, literally as well as 
 spiritually, " the mother of harlots and of abominations 
 of the earth." The evils of the system did indeed at 
 length lead to a reaction towards the marriage of the cler- 
 gy, as we have stated. But Gregory VII. resisted this, 
 and confirmed the present pernicious system.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PERIOD OF GREGORY VII., THE PATRON SAINT OF THE 
 ROMISH BISHOPS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 "WE have called the period from the eleventh to the 
 sixteenth century the Papal period. It is eminently 
 such. It discloses the theory and practice of Popery 
 in their perfection. 
 
 It may with no less propriety be called the period of 
 Gregory VIL, for he was the great master builder who 
 combined the forgeries and frauds of all preceding ages, 
 augmented by so'me of his own, into the model of that 
 gigantic ecclesiastical despotism that during four centu- 
 ries reigned sole monarch of Christendom. 
 
 It becomes us, as Americans, to feel a peculiar interest 
 in this period. The bishops of the Romish church who 
 reside in these United States have seen fit to introduce 
 into this free land the festival of that pontiff by whom 
 this system of centralized despotism was founded and by 
 whose principles it was established. He is therefore, in 
 a peculiar sense, their patron saint. 
 
 It is well that they have taken this ground. They are 
 parts of the great central corporation. Each of them is 
 bound to the pope by a feudal oath of which Gregory was 
 the author. These men know its import and to what 
 principles it commits them. They also know that his 
 canonization implies a full sanction of these principles. 
 
 (331)
 
 332 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Is it not well, then, for Americans to understand what 
 they are ? 
 
 We have seen what materials Leo I. and Nicholas I., 
 with their fellow-laborers in the same cause, had pre- 
 pared. At the accession of Gregory VII. the time to use 
 them had fully come. 
 
 Two things were to be effected. The bishops were to 
 be detached from all earthly sovereigns, and as subjugated 
 vassals to be bound to the pope as their supreme lord by 
 feudal oaths. The bishops also, and especially the pope, 
 their head, were to be emancipated from subjection to the 
 Emperor of Germany and other civil rulers, and made an 
 independent spiritual power. Nor was this all. The 
 kings of Europe were to be subjected to him as his sub- 
 jects and vassals. To carry out the last part of this great 
 scheme Gregory needed forgeries of his own for which, 
 as we shall see, he was never at a loss. Let us now con- 
 sider the execution of his plan. 
 
 GREGORY ASSAILS HENRY IV. 
 
 The imperial power had passed from the Frankish to 
 the German emperors. The popes had risen from the 
 degradation into which they fell for a time after the Pa- 
 pacy of Nicholas I. The sceptre of the German empire 
 was not swayed by an emperor of undisputed and resist- 
 less authority like Otho the Great. On the other hand, 
 Henry IV., a youth, was enfeebled by a rebellion among 
 his Saxon subjects. There was also, to a considerable 
 extent, a disposition among the barons of the empire to 
 take sides with the pope against Henry, at least until they 
 had reduced the power and prerogatives of the emperor. 
 There is no reason to doubt that there were ju?t causes of
 
 PERIOD OF GREGORY VII. 333 
 
 complaint against Henry ; but it was not a regard to 
 them, but a purpose to emancipate the Romish church 
 from the imperial power and to establish a theocracy 
 over kings, that impelled Gregory in his usurping career. 
 
 It was a right of the emperor to invest the Romish 
 bishops in the empire with the insignia of spiritual and 
 temporal authority, receiving from them at the same time 
 an acknowledgment of his sovereignty and promises of 
 allegiance. Gregory determined to wrest the whole of 
 this authority from the emperor and to vest it in himself. 
 He attacked him almost immediately after he had ascended 
 the imperial throne and when weakened by the revolt of 
 the Saxons. Alleging that the power of the emperors had 
 been abused by the sale of bishoprics and otherwise, he 
 commanded Henry to relinquish his prerogatives to the 
 pope. Henry of course refused to comply with the inso- 
 lent demand. Hereupon the pope summoned Henry to 
 appear before him to answer to charges to be preferred 
 against him. Henry, enraged at such usurping insolence, 
 summoned a council at Worms and deposed Gregory and 
 appointed a successor. Gregory then, in a council at 
 Rome, deposed the emperor, and by authority received as 
 he alleged from Peter, released his subjects from their al- 
 legiance and forbade them to obey him. Thus was opened 
 a new era in the history of the Papacy and of the world. 
 
 In this act of deposition no reference at all was made 
 to any complaints of the subjects of Henry against him. 
 The only crime for which he was deposed was rebellion 
 against St. Peter in the person of Gregory. 
 
 This was the first act in a campaign of centuries. It 
 inaugurated a new theocracy on earth. It disclosed a 
 plan to make all kings but the humble vassals of the holy 
 see of Rome. 
 
 Had there been no civil war and no hostility to Henry
 
 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 the deposition would have been powerless. As it was, it 
 raised against him a powerful party, who determined to 
 regard him as deposed and to appoint a successor unless 
 Henry would submit to the pope and obtain absolution. 
 And now the imperial majesty was degraded indeed. 
 Urged by the danger of losing his crown, in midwinter, 
 and at the expense of much toil and suffering, Henry 
 crossed the Alps into Italy, and at the fortress of Canossa 
 humbled himself before the pope and sought absolution. 
 Gregory determined to use his power to degrade him to 
 the uttermost. Three days he refused to see him, and 
 kept him standing in the cold air imprisoned between the 
 outer and inner walls of the castle, barefooted and in the 
 garb of a penitent. Nor would he at last give the uncon- 
 ditional absolution that Henry Demanded. He restored 
 him to communion, but forbade him to reign until he had 
 been tried before himself in a German council that was at 
 hand. 
 
 A large party of the Italian subjects of Henry, indig- 
 nant at the insolence and usurpation of the pope, rallied 
 around him ; and, thus encouraged, he refused to go to the 
 council, and again defied the pope. Hereupon a succes- 
 sor, Rodolph, Duke of Swabia, was appointed in Germany, 
 to whom Gregory gave the crown, and from whom he re- 
 ceived a feudal oath, as his vassal. 
 
 Henry, however, defeated and slew Rodolph, and at 
 last banished Gregory from Rome, established another 
 pope as his successor, and from him received the im- 
 perial crown. 
 
 GREGORY'S PRINCIPLES TRIUMPH. 
 
 Gregory died in exile at Salerno ; but his successors 
 inherited his spirit and principles and carried 011 the war
 
 PERIOD OP GREGORY VII. 335 
 
 which he had begun, and at the end of a century had 
 gained the victory. In the days of Innocent III., to use 
 the words of Hallam, " The maxims of Gregory VII. had 
 been matured by more than a hundred years, and the right 
 of trampling upon the necks of kings had been received, 
 at least among churchmen, as an inherent attribute of the 
 Papacy. ' As the sun and the moon are placed in the 
 firmament,' (such is the language of Innocent,) ' the greater 
 as the light of the day and the lesser of the night : thus 
 are there two powers in the church the pontifical, which, 
 as having the charge of souls, is the greater ; and the royal, 
 which is the less, and to which the bodies of men only are 
 intrusted.' Intoxicated with these conceptions, (if we may 
 apply such a word to successful ambition,) he thought no 
 quarrel of princes beyond the sphere of his jurisdiction." 
 In another place he says, " The noonday of Papal dominion 
 extends from the pontificate of Innocent III. inclusively 
 to that of Boniface VIII. ; or, in other words, through the 
 thirteenth century. Rome inspired during all this age 
 the terrors of her ancient name. She was once more the 
 distress of the world, and kings were her vassals." 
 
 THE CANON LAW. 
 
 Then was fully developed the canon law, based on the 
 forged decretals, but rising even above them in extrava- 
 gance of claims. The decretals of Gregory and of other 
 pontiffs after him, especially of Innocent III., form a large 
 portion of its substance. To exalt the Papacy above all 
 earthly power is its great aim. It expressly declares that 
 " the pope does not fill the place of a mere man, but of 
 the true God on earth." It declares his divine right to de- 
 pose monarchs and to absolve subjects from their oaths of
 
 ^336 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 allegiance. In short, it ascribes to him all the rights and 
 prerogatives of God, and some which he does not claim. 
 God never claimed superiority to the laws of right or the 
 power to dispense with them. It was reserved for the 
 Pope of Rome to make this claim. Thus has he exalted 
 himself above all that is called God or worshipped ; thus 
 has he, as God, sat in the temple of God, showing himself 
 that he is God. 
 
 THE BISHOP'S OATH. 
 
 Of the Papal supremacy over kings enough has been 
 said. The subjugation and centralization of the bishops 
 were no less complete. By the law of celibacy they were 
 detached from all local interests and ties ; and, to complete 
 the work, the regulation, that no bishop should exercise his 
 functions until confirmed by the pope, resulted in binding 
 them all to him by a feudal oath as his conquered vassals. 
 Of this regulation Hallam says, "It was one of vast impor- 
 tance, through which, beyond, perhaps, any other means. 
 Rome has sustained, and still sustains, her temporal influ- 
 ence as well as her ecclesiastical supremacy." Such is the 
 origin and such the influence of the odious, humiliating, 
 and disgraceful bishop's oath. No rightminded man can 
 regard without pity the degeneracy of the miserable men 
 who take it. 
 
 When we consider how gross the forgeries on which the 
 Papal supremacy of jurisdiction is based, how directly and 
 expressly it is in violation of the laws of Christ, and at 
 war with the just liberty, equality, and independence en- 
 joyed by the pastors of churches in the early ages, it will 
 at once become apparent how utterly degraded is the 
 position of all Romish bishops and how infamous the oath 
 by which they are bound. That oath is as follows :
 
 PERIOD OP GREGORY VII. 337 
 
 " I, N., elect of the Church of N., from henceforward 
 be faithful and obedient to St. Peter the apostle, and 
 to the holy Roman church, and to our lord the Lord N., 
 Pope N., and to his successors canonically coining in. I 
 will neither advise, consent, or do any thing that may 
 lose life or member, or that their persons may be seized 
 or hands any wise laid upon them, or any injuries offered to 
 them under any pretence whatsoever. The counsel which 
 they shall intrust me withal, by themselves, their messen- 
 gers, or letters, I will not knowingly reveal to any to their 
 prejudice. I will help them to defend and keep the Roman 
 Papacy and the royalties of St. Peter, saving my order, 
 against all men. The legate of the apostolic see, going 
 and coming, I will honorably treat and help in his necessi- 
 ties. The rights, honors, privileges, and authority of the 
 holy Roman church, of our lord the pope, and his foresaid 
 successors, I will endeavor to preserve, defend, increase, 
 and advance. I will not be in any counsel, action, or 
 treaty in which shall be plotted against our said lord and 
 the said Roman church any thing to the hurt or prejudice 
 of their persons, right, honor, state, or power ; and, if I 
 shall know any such thing to be treated or agitated by any 
 whatsoever, I will hinder it to my power, and as soon as 
 I can will signify it to our said lord, or to some other by 
 whom it may come to his knowledge. The rules of the 
 holy fathers, the apostolic decrees, ordinances, or disposals, 
 reservations, provisions, and mandates I will observe with 
 all my might and cause to be observed by others. Here- 
 tics, schismatics, and rebels to our said lord or his fore- 
 said successors I will to my utmost power persecute and 
 wage war with. I will come to a council when I am 
 called unless I be hindered by a canonical impediment. 
 I will by myself, in person, visit the threshold of the 
 apostles every three years, and give an account to our 
 lord and his foresaid successors of all my pastoral office, 
 and of all things any wise belonging to the state of my 
 church, to the discipline of my clergy and people, and 
 lastly to the salvation of souls committed to my trust, 
 and will in like manner humbly receive and diligently 
 execute the apostolic commands. And, if I be detained by 
 a lawful impediment, I will perform all the things afore- 
 29
 
 838 TEE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSES. 
 
 said by a certain messenger hereto specially empowered, 
 a member of my chapter, or some other in ecclesiastical 
 dignity or else having a parsonage ; or, in default of these, 
 by a priest of the diocese ; or, in default of one of the 
 clergy (of the diocese,) by some other secular or regular 
 priest of approved integrity and religion, fully instructed 
 in all things above mentioned. And such impediment I 
 will make out by lawful proofs to be transmitted by the 
 foresaid messenger to the cardinal proponent of the holy 
 Roman church in the congregation of the Sacred Council. 
 The possessions belonging to my table I will neither sell, 
 nor give away, nor mortgage, nor grant anew in fee, nor 
 any wise alienate, no, not even with the consent of the 
 chapter of my church, without consulting the Roman 
 pontiff. And, if I shall make any alienation, I will there- 
 by incur the penalties contained in a certain constitution put 
 forth about this matter. So help me God and those holy 
 Gospels of God." 
 
 The real nature and origin of this oath cannot be hid- 
 den for a moment. It regards the pope as a feudal mon- 
 arch, and makes every bishop his sworn vassal obliged 
 to come at his call, keep his secrets, defend his interests, 
 assail, and if possible destroy, his enemies the heretics, 
 and in all things be an obedient slave to his will. 
 
 Let the origin of this oath, then, never be forgotten. Let 
 the principles and practice of the age of Gregory VII., In- 
 nocent III., and Boniface VIII. be recalled and reviewed as 
 set forth in the first part of this work. Let the import of 
 " the royalties of St. Peter," and " the rights, honors, priv- 
 ileges, and authority of the holy Roman church of our 
 lord the pope and his foresaid successors" be interpreted 
 in the light of the principles and practice of the age in 
 which the oath originated. All these the Romish bishops 
 who reside in America are sworn to " preserve, defend, in- 
 crease, and advance." Consider what is implied in " the 
 APOSTOLIC DECREES, ordinances, or disposals, reservations,
 
 PERIOD OP GREGORY VII. 339 
 
 provisions, or mandates." Does not this include the canon 
 law, in which the temporal supremacy of the pope is car- 
 ried to the highest point ? Does it not include the depos- 
 ing power, the absolution from oaths, perfidy to heretics, 
 the persecution of heretics, and other similar doctrines of 
 the canon law ? But why ask this question as to the per- 
 secution of heretics ? Does not the oath expressly demand 
 the promise " to persecute and wage war with heretics, 
 schismatics, and rebels to our said lord the pope to their 
 utmost power " ? It is in vain to try to evade the import 
 of this part of the oath, as does Bishop Kenrick, by say- 
 ing that it denotes merely moral warfare by the truth. 
 This is an evasion worthy only of a Jesuit. Was the 
 duty of bishops towards heretics so understood in the age 
 of Gregory, when the oath first originated ? Is it so un- 
 derstood in the canon law which the bishop has sworn to 
 observe ? 
 
 Let it be noticed that this oath binds by its own force to 
 obey the pope's decrees independently of a general council. 
 It is an oath that in reality represents the views of THE 
 ITALIAN PARTY ; that is, of the highest advocates of the 
 Papal power. It is an oath framed by the head of the 
 Roman court. Call to mind, now, the 'expressions of hatred, 
 abhorrence, and utter detestation with which the popes even 
 at this very time speak of the principles of religious liberty 
 on which this nation is founded, and their steadfast purpose 
 to oppose to their progress an iron will, and the conclusion 
 is plain : either the bishops who take the oath are perjured, 
 or else they do and will, to their utmost energy, cooperate 
 with the pope to subvert our civil and religious liberty, 
 and in place of them to establish the intolerant, persecut- 
 ing, and bloody despotism of the pope. But perjury to 
 himself the pope never allows. In his own behalf he 
 sanctions and enjoins it ; but against himself it is an unpar- 
 donable sin.
 
 340 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Such, then, are the institutions of the canonized Gregory, 
 whom our American bishops honor as a saint. We com- 
 mend them to the careful consideration of American free- 
 men. 
 
 It was by the same Gregory also, although before his 
 Papacy, that the present mode of electing the popes by 
 cardinals was introduced. This was another important 
 step in the work of securing the independency of the 
 Papacy of all secular power, and it has contributed greatly 
 to the strength and perpetuity of the whole Papal system. 
 
 GREGORY'S IMPOSTURES. 
 
 We have said that Gregory resorted to forgery and 
 fraud in carrying out his purpose of making the monarchs 
 of Europe his vassals. Of this we find a striking case in 
 a pretended quotation of his from what he asserts to be a 
 statute of the Emperor Charlemagne, declaring that France, 
 as a feudatory of the holy see, was bound to pay an annual 
 tribute called Peter's pence. He declared that this tribute 
 was, by order of Charlemagne, collected yearly at Puy, in 
 Velai, at Aix-la-Chapelle, and at St. Giles. This statute 
 was lodged, as he says, in the archives of St. Peter's Church. 
 This absurd pretence was in substance a second and 
 revised edition of the old forgery of the donation of Con- 
 stantine. Yet he insisted upon the tribute upon this 
 ground. 
 
 So he set up a claim that Spain originally belonged to 
 Peter, and on this ground authorized Count Euvulus to 
 conquer those parts of it occupied by the Moors in his 
 name, and to hold them as a feudatory and tributary of 
 St. Peter. He demanded tribute also of all the Christian 
 kings of Spain on the same ground.
 
 PERIOD OP GREGORY VII. 341 
 
 He claimed Hungary from King Solomon as a gift to 
 Peter from Stephen, the first Christian king. Solomon re- 
 sisted the demand on the ground of allegiance to the em- 
 peror, but was driven from the throne by his cousin Geisa ; 
 and on him Gregory conferred the kingdom on condition 
 that he would be his vassal, and not that of the emperor. 
 In like manner he laid claim to Corsica, Sardinia, Dalma- 
 tia, Russia, Denmark, Poland, Saxony, and England, as fiefs 
 of the apostle Peter. In Italy the Normans, masters 
 of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, the Dukes of Benevento, 
 Capua, and Aversa, and other princes, swore allegiance 
 to Gregory, lest if they did not he should stir up other 
 monarchs to invade them. A more barefaced system of 
 imposition, fraud, and villany was never practised ; and 
 yet it is only a consistent extension of the principles of 
 the forged decretals. All of these proceedings were car- 
 ried on by Gregory in a style of eminent Papal sanctity 
 and authority. The details may be found in his letters and 
 in Bower's Lives of the Popes. On these proceedings 
 Hallam remarks, " It was convenient to treat this apostle 
 as a great feudal suzerain; and the legal principles of that 
 age were dexterously applied to rivet more forcibly the 
 fetters of superstition." 
 
 Such is the morality of St. Gregory VII., the patron 
 saint of the Bishops of Rome who sojourn in these United 
 States. But in all this he has but followed sainted popes 
 of other ages. All the great architects of the Romish 
 Babylon have been men of a kindred character. Bold, 
 energetic, aspiring, intelligent, in ages of darkness they 
 have, on principle and without scruple, resorted to the 
 use of forgery and fraud to establish their usurped author- 
 ity over a subjugated world. 
 29*
 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DISPENSATION OF GREGORY VIL 
 
 WE have traced the formation of the Romish corpora- 
 tion to the time of its maturity and full development. 
 
 ' Let us now consider some of the characteristics of the 
 age when it developed itself without impediment. 
 
 First of all it follows from the necessity of the case 
 that it must have been eminently a period of credulity. 
 It was, of necessity, entirely devoid of the critical and 
 historic spirit. To a great extent all men lived in an 
 unnatural, mythical, dreamy world ; this was the inevita- 
 ble result of that training to which the barbarous nations 
 had been long subjected by means of that widespread sys- 
 tem of pious fraud which has been described and the false 
 system in which it resulted. The whole energy of the ec- 
 clesiastics of "Western Europe was put forth to develop 
 and cultivate habits of credulity as the basis of hierarchal 
 power. The whole European mind was thus immersed 
 into a lake of credulity, until it was thereby steeped and 
 impregnated in all its faculties, and, even in its very es- 
 sence, with credulity. Such were the ages sometimes mis- 
 called the ages of faith. 
 
 The consequence of this was, that the system introduced 
 and established operated with immense, with inconceivable, 
 power. Bungling as were the forged decretals, the dona- 
 tion of Constantine, and other similar forgeries, yet, being 
 
 (312)
 
 DISPENSATION OF GREGORY TIL 843 
 
 fully believed, they exercised an equal power with the 
 word of God. 
 
 Nor is the existence of the scholastic divinity inconsist- 
 ent with this statement. That was, no doubt, a powerful 
 development of systematizing and of logic ; but the prem- 
 ises were furnished by the hierarchy, and were to be 
 received without dispute, on peril of anathemas and ex- 
 communications. History and intelligent criticism had 
 no place in their studies. Hence they did not detect or 
 expose the forged decretals nor any of the frauds of other 
 ages. They ground in the great mill of the Papacy like 
 blinded Samson in the mill of the Philistines. Nay, more : 
 they forged new shackles for humanity by developing and 
 defending the peculiar doctrines of the Papacy, such as 
 transubstantiation, purgatory, and the seven sacraments. 
 
 It is a natural result from the preceding statements 
 that this was an age of profound superstition. The world 
 was darkened by false views of God and the unreal terrors 
 of the Papacy. The excess of terror produced in the 
 boldest minds by excommunication is to us inconceivable, 
 and an interdict was the climax of horrors. An interdict 
 was the suspension of all the ordinary offices of religion 
 throughout a whole province, or kingdom, commonly for 
 the sin of some ruler. It was designed by the pope to 
 subdue the refractory spirit of such ruler by the terrors 
 of his subjects. In the ages of the deepest credulity it 
 was as if the sun was turned into darkness and the moon 
 into blood as if the stars were falling from heaven and 
 all the powers of heaven were shaken. By it God was 
 eclipsed, heaven shut up, and hell opened. " The churches," 
 says Hallam, " were closed, the bells silent, the dead un- 
 buried, no rite but those of baptism and extreme unction 
 performed. The penalty fell upon those who had neither 
 partaken nor could have prevented the offence ; and the
 
 344 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 offence was often but a private dispute, in which the pride 
 of a pope or bishop had been wounded. They were issued 
 not unfrequently against kingdoms ; but in particular 
 districts they continually occurred." With regard to the 
 policy of Rome in issuing such interdicts Hallam justly 
 remarks, " No stretch of her tyranny was, perhaps, so out- 
 rageous as this." 
 
 The terrors of excommunication, though commonly not 
 so widespread, were equally vivid and overpowering. 
 The church not only excluded from communion, but with 
 all her power poured odium upon her victims. In the 
 words of Hallam, " They were to be shunned like men in- 
 fected with leprosy by their servants, their friends, and 
 their families. Two attendants only (if we may trust a 
 current history) remained with Robert, King of France, 
 who, on account of an irregular marriage, was put to this 
 ban by Gregory Y. ; and these threw all the meats that 
 had passed his table into the fire. Indeed the mere inter- 
 course with a proscribed person incurred what was called 
 the lesser excommunication, or privation of the sacraments, 
 and required penitence and absolution. In some places a 
 bier was set before the door of an excommunicated indi- 
 vidual and stones thrown at his windows a singular 
 method of compelling his submission ! Every where the 
 excommunicated were debarred of a regular sepulture, 
 which, though obviously a matter of police, has, through 
 the superstition of consecrating burial grounds, been 
 treated as belonging to ecclesiastical control." 
 
 In this age also there was an entire subversion of all 
 moral principle in the constant effort of the pope and his 
 corporation to exaggerate the guilt of heresy, that is, of 
 resistance to their decisions and their authority, and to 
 extirpate it by fire and sword. If any, repelled by the 
 gross immorality of the clergy, had recourse to the Bible
 
 DISPENSATION OF GREGORY TIL 345 
 
 for a purer religion, it mattered not if they manifested 
 every element of the Christian character. It was in vain 
 that they were chaste, temperate, industrious, benevolent, 
 compassionate, intelligent, and in all respects pure in 
 heart and life : the one sin of heresy that is, resistance to 
 the pope outweighed it all. On the other hand, fraud, 
 perjury, lust, uncleanness, murder, violence, plunder were 
 all transmuted into virtues by the popes, and rewarded 
 with the pardon of sin and the promise of heaven if they 
 were but employed for the church in the extermination of 
 heretics. The whole history of the crusades against the 
 Albigenses, of which Innocent III. was the life and soul, 
 is full of illustrations of the truth of these remarks. Nor 
 was it enough to torture and murder the pure and the in- 
 nocent. Slander was added ; and those crimes of impurity 
 which rendered the Romish clergy justly infamous were 
 falsely imputed to their pure and innocent victims. 
 
 So utterly had the church thus perverted the moral sense 
 of the masses that they entered with rapturous joy on the 
 work of massacre if heretics were to be the objects of 
 assault. In these works of blood the popes were ever 
 the mainspring, and ecclesiastics their mcrst infuriated in- 
 struments. Moreover the whole bloody work was done 
 under the forms of religion, and massacres the most atro- 
 cious were celebrated by Te Deums. 
 
 During the Papacy of Innocent III. the Romish system 
 was at its highest point of development. He is the most 
 perfect imbodiment of the system. And yet it was he 
 who first fully and on a great scale incorporated into the 
 fundamental law and practice of the church the principles 
 of fraud, perjury, robbery, and murder in the extirpation 
 of heretics. 
 
 His crusades against the Albigenses cannot be thought 
 of to this day without a thrill of horror. Take but one
 
 346 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. . 
 
 act out of that great drama of horrors. The army of 
 brutal and fanatical crusaders whom Innocent had stirred 
 up by indulgences and promises of heaven to the work of 
 blood poured like a torrent into the province of Langue- 
 doc, on the Gulf of Lyons. Here and in the adjacent 
 province of Provence were the chief abodes of the Albi- 
 genses. The crusaders assailed Beziers, a city containing 
 about fifteen thousand inhabitants ; but as from the castles 
 and villages around men, women, and children had fled to 
 it, from forty to sixty thousand people were concentrated 
 there. As soon as the crusaders took the place their vic- 
 tims- crowded to the churches ; and, by way of supplication 
 for mercy, the bells were tolled. In vain the churches 
 were deluged with blood. In one alone seven thousand 
 corpses were counted. All were slaughtered to the last 
 living creature, the houses were plundered, and the city 
 burned. Not a building remained not a human being 
 was left alive. All this and other similar scenes of hor- 
 ror Innocent stirred up the crusaders, by bulls, and briefs, 
 and promises of reward, to undertake and execute ; and he 
 sanctioned and applauded them when done. The com- 
 munity of the Albigenses was the most civilized, intelli- 
 gent, moral, religious, and refined in Europe. For this 
 reason they saw the abominations of the Papacy and re- 
 volted, adopting the true doctrines of the word of God. 
 For this very reason, too, Innocent determined on their 
 utter extermination ; and, as the slow processes of trial 
 were too tardy in their operation, he determined to effect 
 a summary extermination without trial ; and, as in the 
 case of the Gunpowder Plot, the death of a few "Papists 
 was not to be thought of when compared with ecclesias- 
 tical utility. By such measures this first reformation was 
 totally extinguished. So prodigious was the slaughter, 
 BO freezing the terror, that the church, says Shoberl,
 
 DISPENSATION OF GREGORY Til. 347 
 
 seemed completely to have gained her end. The worship 
 of the reformed Albigenses ceased, their teachers were 
 slain, and only a few scattered exiles remained. But 
 even this did not satisfy Innocent. These, too, must be 
 tracked and hunted out. For this purpose he established 
 a body of inquisitors ; and, after some modifications, this 
 arrangement resulted in the infamous and permanent tri- 
 bunal of the Inquisition. 
 
 The principles of perjury, treachery, robbery, and mur- 
 der thus inaugurated by Innocent and sanctioned by the 
 church, both by theory and example, descended as a lega- 
 cy to the popes of other ages. They stimulated the hie- 
 rarchy to the persecution of the Lollards, the disciples of 
 Wickliffe in England, for about a century and a half; 
 to the persecution and death of Jerom of Prague, John 
 Huss, and their followers in Bohemia ; to the long-contin- 
 ued and intensely cruel persecutions of the "Waldenses in 
 northern Italy ; and finally to the extended leagues framed 
 to slaughter and exterminate the Protestants of Europe 
 after the reformation of Luther. Well does inspiration 
 depict this abandoned and profligate body as a harlot 
 drunk with the blood of the saints. Nor need we won- 
 der that the highest indignation of God is manifested to- 
 wards this unparalleled series of crimes. In view of the 
 blood of saints found in her, the holy inhabitants of heav- 
 en are called on to praise God for his avenging judg- 
 ments on her ; and in view of such ineffable crimes they 
 say hallelujah, whilst her smoke goes up forever and ever. 
 
 PAPAL HATRED OF TEE BIBLE. 
 
 Another striking characteristic of this age is found in 
 the fact that the hostility of the Romish corporation to
 
 348 THE PAPAL CONSPIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 the Bible was first fully developed and that prohibitions 
 were issued against its use in the vernacular tongues of 
 Europe. 
 
 The feelings of hostility to the popular reading of the 
 Bible manifested by the Romish church at this day are 
 well known. Can any thing be more striking than the 
 fact that the great Romish saint, Gregory VII., took the 
 lead in the enterprise of depriving the people of the Bi- 
 ble ? In January, 1080, Yratislaus, Duke of Bohemia, 
 desiring leave to have divine service performed in the com- 
 mon tongue of the people, that is, the Sclavonian, 
 Gregory gave him the following reply : " As you desire us 
 to allow divine service to be performed among you in the 
 Sclavonian tongue, know that I can by no means grant 
 you your request, it being manifest to all who will but re- 
 flect that it has pleased the Almighty that the Scripture 
 should be withheld from some, and not understood by all, 
 lest it should fall into contempt or lead the unlearned into 
 error. And it must not be alleged that all were allowed 
 in the primitive times to read the Scriptures, it being well 
 known that in those early times the church connived at 
 many things which the holy fathers disapproved and cor- 
 rected when the Christian religion was firmly established. 
 We therefore cannot grant, but absolutely forbid, by the 
 authority of Almighty God and his blessed apostle Peter, 
 what you ask, and command you to oppose to the utmost 
 of your power all who require it.'' 7 
 
 Thus did this pretended vicar of Christ repeal the com- 
 mand of the great Head of the church, " Search the Scrip- 
 tures," forbidding them even to be read in public divine 
 worship in the vernacular tongue. 
 
 And yet during this period the Albigenses and Wai- 
 denses, as well as Wickliffe and the Lollards in England, 
 did obtain and study the Bible in their own tongues. The
 
 DISPENSATION OP GREGORY VII. 349 
 
 vigilance of Rome, however, early sought to guard against 
 this source of danger. In 1229 the council of Toulouse 
 passed a decree against the Waldenses and Albigenses. 
 forbidding them to have the Bible translated into the vul- 
 gar tongue. Similar prohibitions were issued in England. 
 
 The aim of such prohibitions is twofold to defend 
 the hierarchy from exposure ; and also to keep an absolute 
 monopoly of scriptural truth in their own hands, so as to 
 subject the people perfectly to their power. 
 
 Against such prohibitions Wickliffe said to the pope, 
 " A prohibition of reading the sacred Scriptures, and a 
 vanity of secular dominion, would seem to partake too 
 much of a disposition towards the BLASPHEMOUS ADVANCE- 
 MENT OP ANTICHRIST." He then condemns the hatred of 
 the Romish corporation to the gospel, their claims of in- 
 fallibility, their crowding to Rome to obtain dispensations 
 and to " PURCHASE A CONDEMNATION OF THE SACRED 
 SCRIPTURES AS HERETICAL." 
 
 In England the penalty for daring to read the Bible in 
 the vernacular tongue was TO BE BURNED ALIVE. The in- 
 quisitors and ecclesiastics carried on a persecution against 
 the disciples of Wickliffe, for a century and a half on this 
 ground, and many were burned alive. In 1519 seven per- 
 sons were burned at Coventry, having been convicted of 
 the crime of having the Scriptures in their possession, or 
 portions of the same. Such scenes were extensively re- 
 peated. All of the Bibles also were burned that could be 
 obtained an example which Romish priests in this land 
 are intent to follow. 
 
 Thus was the first full development of the Papacy in the 
 period of Gregory, the patron saint of American bishops, 
 signalized by a systematic proscription of the word of 
 God. In the ancient church such a course was unknown. 
 All were exhorted to read and study the word of God.
 
 350 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 But, when the Romish corporation had completed their 
 structure of forgery and fraud, it was fit and reasonable 
 that they should regard the word of God in the hands 
 of the people as their irreconcilable and unconquerable 
 enemy, even as they do to this day. 
 
 PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF POPERY. 
 
 This introduces another remarkable characteristic of 
 this period. It was the period in which the most power- 
 ful and unscriptural peculiarities of Popery were fully 
 developed, established by supreme authority, and consoli- 
 dated into a system. It has been often stated that there 
 were such peculiarities ; but the time of their incorporation 
 as authorized parts of the system has not been distinctly 
 considered. Is it not, then, a striking fact that these great 
 peculiarities are not venerable for antiquity, but are the 
 comparatively late products of the fifth class of popes ? It 
 is also noteworthy that these last-established doctrines 
 are the main sinews of the power and the sources of the 
 profit of the Romish corporation. These peculiarities are 
 the highest forms of the Papal supremacy the servitude of 
 the bishops, the celibacy of the clergy, auricular confession, 
 penances, purgatory, the seven sacraments, and especially 
 transubstantiation and masses. 
 
 It is not denied of course that the celibacy of the clergy 
 existed before this age. But it was fast going into dis- 
 use when Gregory arose ; and he and his successors en- 
 forced it as never before. 
 
 Of the Papal supremacy and the subjugation of the 
 bishops enough has been said. Nor is it necessary to add 
 any thing on the subject of the confessional, whicli is a 
 product of this period.
 
 DISPENSATION OP GREGORY VII. 351 
 
 The immense utility of the doctrine concerning purga- 
 tory as a source of income to the priests has also been set 
 forth. This doctrine also was established during this 
 period. 
 
 The doctrine of seven sacraments was also first fully 
 developed and established in this age. The doctrine of 
 transubstantiation and of masses which has ever since 
 been a prime source of priestly power and an inexhausti- 
 ble mine of wealth, deserves particular notice under this 
 head. 
 
 The profound learning and the unquestionable candor 
 of Ranke will give great weight to the following tes- 
 timony on these points from his History of the Refor- 
 mation : 
 
 " The question, at what periods and under what circum- 
 stances the distinguishing doctrines and practices of the 
 Romish church were settled and acquired an ascendency, 
 merits a minute and elaborate dissertation. 
 
 " It is sufficient here to recall to the mind of the reader 
 that this took place at a comparatively late period and pre- 
 cisely in the century of the great hierarchical struggles. 
 
 "It is well known that the institutions of the seven 
 sacraments, whose circle embraces all the important events 
 of the life of man and brings them into contact with the 
 church, is ascribed to Peter Lombard, who lived in the 
 twelfth century. It appears upon inquiry that the notions 
 regarding the most important of them, the sacrament of 
 the altar, were by no means very distinct in the church 
 itself in the time of that great theologian. It is true that 
 one of those synods which, under Gregory VII., had con- 
 tributed so much to the establishment of the hierarchy, 
 had added great weight to the doctrine of the real pres- 
 ence by the condemnation of Berengar ; but Peter Lom- 
 bard as yet did not venture to decide in its favor. The 
 word transubstantiation first became current in his time ; 
 nor was it until the beginning of the thirteenth century 
 that the idea and the word received the sanction of the
 
 352 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 church. This, as is well known, was first given by the 
 Lateran confession of faith in the year 1215 ; and it was 
 hot till later that the objections which till then had been 
 constantly suggested by a deeper view of religion gradu- 
 ally disappeared. 
 
 " It is obvious, however, of what infinite importance 
 this doctrine became to the service of the church, which 
 has crystallized (if I may use the expression) around the 
 mystery it involves. The ideas of the mystical and sen- 
 sible presence of Christ in the church were thus imbodied 
 in a living image ; the adoration of the host was intro- 
 duced ; festivals in honor of this greatest of all miracles, 
 incessantly repeated, were solemnized. Intimately con- 
 nected with this is the great importance attached to the 
 worship of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ, in the 
 latter part of the middle ages. 
 
 " The prerogatives of the priesthood are also essen- 
 tially connected with this article of faith. The theory 
 and doctrine of the priestly character were developed ; 
 that is, of the power communicated to the priest by ordi- 
 nation ' to make the body of Christ ' (as they did not 
 scruple to say) ' to act in the person of Christ.' It is a 
 product of the thirteenth century ; and it is to be traced 
 principally to Alexander of Hales and Thomas Aquinas. 
 This doctrine first gave to the separation of the priest- 
 hood from the laity, which had indeed other and deeper 
 causes, its full significancy. People began to see in the 
 priest the mediator between God and man. 
 
 " This separation, regarded as a positive institution, is 
 also, as is well known, an offspring of the same epoch. 
 In the thirteenth century, spite of all opposition, the 
 celibacy of the priesthood became an inviolable law. At 
 the same time the cup began to be withheld from the 
 laity. It was not denied that the efficacy of the eucha- 
 rist in both kinds was more complete ; but it was said 
 that the more worthy should be reserved for the more 
 worthy for those by whose instrumentality alone it was 
 produced. ' It is not in the participation of the faithful/ 
 says St. Thomas, ' that the perfection of the sacrament 
 lies, but solely in the consecration of the elements. 7 And 
 in fact the church appeared far less designed for instruc-
 
 DISPENSATION OF GBEGOEY VII. 353 
 
 tion or for the preaching of the gospel than for the show- 
 ing forth of the great mystery ; and the priesthood is, 
 through the sacrament, the sole depositary of the power 
 to do this. It is through the priest that sanctification is 
 imparted to the multitude. 
 
 " This very separation of the priesthood from the laity 
 gave its members boundless influence over all other classes 
 of the community. 
 
 " It is a necessary part of the theory of the sacerdotal 
 character above alluded to that the priest has the exclu- 
 sive power of removing the obstacles which stand in the 
 way of a participation in the mysterious grace of God : 
 in this not even a saint had power to supersede him. 
 But the absolution which he is authorized to grant is 
 charged with certain conditions, the most imperative of 
 which is confession. In the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century it was peremptorily enjoined on every believer 
 as a duty to confess all his sins, at least once in a year, 
 to some particular priest. 
 
 "It requires no elaborate argument to prove what 
 an all-pervading influence auricular confession and the 
 official supervision and guidance of consciences must give 
 to the clergy. With this was connected a complete, or- 
 ganized system of penances. 
 
 " Above all, a character and position almost divine 
 was thus conferred on the high priest, the Pope of Rome ; 
 of whom it was assumed that he occupied the place of 
 Christ in the mystical body of the church, which em- 
 braced heaven and earth, the dead and the living. This 
 conception of the functions and attributes of the pope 
 was first filled out and perfected in the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century. Then, too, was the doctrine of the 
 treasures of the church, on which the system of indul- 
 gences rests, first promulgated. Innocent III. did not 
 scruple to declare that what he did God did through 
 him. Glossators added that the pope possessed the un- 
 controlled will of God ; that his sentence superseded all 
 reasons. With perverse and extravagant dialectics, they 
 propounded the question, whether it were possible to ap- 
 peal from the pope to God, and answered it in the nega- 
 tive ; seeing that God had the same tribunal as the 
 30*
 
 354 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACT EXPOSED. 
 
 pope, and that it was impossible to appeal from any 
 being to himself. 
 
 " It is clear that the Papacy must have already gained 
 the victory over the empire that it could no longer 
 have any thing to fear either from master or rival' 
 before opinions and doctrines of this kind could be en- 
 tertained or avowed. In the age of struggles and con- 
 quests, the theory of the hierarchy gained ground step 
 by step with the fact of material power. Never were 
 theory and practice more intimately connected. 
 
 "Nor was it to be believed that any interruption or 
 pause in this course of things took place in the fifteenth 
 century. The denial of the right of the clergy to with- 
 hold the cup was first declared to be heresy at the coun- 
 cil of Constance. Eugenius IV. first formally accepted 
 the doctrine of the seven sacraments. The extraordinary 
 school interpretation of the miraculous conception was^ 
 first approved by the councils, favored by the popes, and 
 accepted by the universities in this age. 
 
 " It might appear that the worldly dispositions of the 
 popes of those times, whose main object it was to enjoy 
 life, to promote their dependants, and to enlarge their 
 secular dominions, would have prejudiced their spiritual 
 pretensions.. But, on the contrary, these were as vast 
 and arrogant as ever. The only effect of the respect in- 
 spired by the councils was, that the popes forbade any 
 one to appeal to a council under pain of damnation. 
 With what ardor do the curialist writers labor to demon- 
 strate the infallibility of the pope ! John of Torquema- 
 da is unwearied in heaping together analogies from Scrip- 
 ture, maxims of the fathers, and passages out of the false 
 decretals for this end. He goes so far as to maintain that, 
 were there not a head of the church who could decide all 
 controversies and remove all doubts, it might be possible 
 to doubt of the Holy Scriptures themselves, which de- 
 rived their authority only from the church ; which, again, 
 could not be conceived as existing without the pope. In 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century, the well-known 
 Dominican, Thomas of Gaeta, did not hesitate to declare 
 the church a born slave, who could have no other remedy 
 against a bad pope than to pray for him without ceasing."
 
 DISPENSATION OF GREGORY VII. 355 
 
 PECUNIARY EXTORTIONS. 
 
 In this age also -was developed a system of pecuniary 
 extortions that it is hard either to imagine or believe 
 until we study the most authentic records of the age. 
 
 To understand its extent, we must divide these exac- 
 tions into two classes those needed to sustain the ex- 
 travagance of the Roman court and to execute their vast 
 plans for governing the world ; and those that were de- 
 signed to support and enrich the secular clergy and the 
 various monastic orders in each particular nation. 
 
 Gregory's demand of tribute in the form of Peter's 
 pence comes into the first class ; and in this way im- 
 mense sums were raised. The pope also managed to de- 
 rive an immense income from a trade in bishoprics and 
 livings. A small degree of this traffic aroused the tender 
 conscience of Gregory to depose Henry ; but by the popes 
 it was practised without modesty or limitation. They 
 contrived also to obtain immense profits for their favor- 
 ites and tools at Rome by setting up claims to the right 
 to interfere, not only in the election of bishops, but also 
 in the conferment of benefices in the various dioceses of 
 all Europe. The power of the patronage of the Presi- 
 dent of the United States can give but a faint idea of the 
 power of patronage thus wielded by the pope. Take 
 one single example from the history of England, our 
 motherland. In the thirteenth century, Gregory IX., 
 the great systematizer of the canon law, filled all the 
 best benefices in England with his Italian priests. It 
 was alleged, as Hallam states, in a remonstrance in the 
 name of the whole nation, that they drew from England, 
 in the middle of the thirteenth century, sixty or seventy 
 thousand marks a year a sum far exceeding the royal
 
 356 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 revenues. A similar state of things existed. in France 
 and Germany. These Italian favorites were allowed to 
 employ curates, and, as non-residents, to live in luxury 
 and ease. Some of them were thus enabled to hold from 
 the pope fifty or sixty preferments. 
 
 The popes also at length imposed a tax on the national 
 clergy ; and then the rapacity of Papal exactions was with- 
 out bounds. Hallam states that " the usurers of Cahora 
 and Lombardy residing in London took up the trade of 
 agency for the pope ; and in a few years he is said through 
 them, partly by levies of money, partly by the revenues 
 of benefices, to have plundered the kingdom of nine hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand marks a sum equivalent to not 
 less than fifteen millions sterling at present." 
 
 Immense amounts were also extorted from all newly- 
 appointed bishops for the conferment of the pallium, or 
 bishop's cloak. The cost of a pallium for Mainz in Ger- 
 many was twenty thousand gulden, assessed on the sev- 
 eral parts of the see. Three hundred thousand gulden, 
 it was calculated, were thus yearly absorbed from Ger- 
 many by Rome. 
 
 In view of such exactions of all kinds, Edward III. ad- 
 dressed a strong remonstrance to Clement VI., declaring 
 that they were intolerable and must be remedied. But it 
 was of no avail. Shoberl states that in 1376 the commons 
 in Parliament presented to the king an urgent remon- 
 strance, affirming, what seems almost incredible, that " the 
 taxes paid to the pope yearly amounted to five times as 
 much as the taxes paid to the king." 
 
 On this point F. Shoberl says, 
 
 " The rapacity of the 'popes, who, as we have seen, 
 claimed the right of nominating to all benefices and 
 made the exercise of it a source of prodigious wealth, 
 had for many years excited violent murmurs, not in Eng- 
 land only, but throughout all Christendom. By such
 
 DISPENSATION OF GREGORY VII. 357 
 
 means Pope John XXII. was enabled to leave at his 
 death twenty-two millions of florins in his coffers. ' This 
 prodigious treasure/ says Fleury, 'was amassed by the 
 industry of his holiness, who reserved for himself the 
 reversion of the benefices of all the collegiate churches 
 in Christendom, alleging that he did so to prevent 
 simony. Moreover by virtue of this reservation he never 
 directly confirmed the election of any prelate, but pro- 
 moted a bishop to an archbishopric, and put an inferior 
 bishop in his place : hence it frequently happened that 
 the vacancy of an archbishopric or a patriarchate occa- 
 sioned six promotions or more, producing large sums of 
 money to the apostolic chamber.' 
 
 " When Innocent VI. sent Philip de Cabassole to Ger- 
 many to levy the tenth of all the ecclesiastical revenues, 
 the prelates of that country loudly complained of this new 
 exaction. ' The Romans,' said one of them, exhorting his 
 brethren to oppose it, ' have always looked upon Germany 
 as a gold mine, and invented divers means of exhausting 
 it. What doth the pope give to this kingdom but letters 
 and words ? Let him dispose of all benefices as far as 
 the collation goes ; but let him leave the revenues to 
 those who perform the duties. We send money enough to 
 Italy for divers merchandises, and to Avignon, [where the 
 Papal court was then residing,] for our sons who are 
 studying there or soliciting, we will not say buying, bene- 
 fices. All of you well know that large sums of money are 
 every year carried from Germany to the court of the pope 
 for the confirmation of prelates, for the grant of benefices, 
 for the prosecution of suits and appeals to tJie holy see, for 
 dispensations, absolutions, indulgences, privileges, and other fa- 
 vors. In all times the archbishops confirmed the elec- 
 tions of the bishops, their suffragans. It was Pope John 
 XXII. who in our time wrested this right from them' by 
 violence. And now the pope is again demanding from 
 the clergy a new and unheard-of subsidy, threatening with 
 censures such as will not give it or as shall oppose it. 
 Stop the beginning of the evil, and suffer not this dis- 
 graceful servitude to be established.' " 
 
 It appears from this statement that Papal ingenuity
 
 358 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 exhausted itself in devising various modes of obtaining 
 money. Who does not understand the immense trade 
 in indulgences carried on by them and their agents in 
 all Europe ? 
 
 So, too, dispensations from impediments to marriage 
 were a constant source of revenue. To this must be 
 added pilgrimages, jubilees, and other ingenious modes 
 of deluding the people and filling the pope's coffers with 
 their hard-earned wages. 
 
 Besides all this, immense sums were obtained by the 
 mendicant friars that all-pervading Papal army. From 
 Germany, for example, shortly before the reformation, 
 they collected, according to Kanke, a yearly revenue of 
 one million gulden. 
 
 It must be borne in mind also that the secular clergy 
 as well as the monasteries drew largely on the resources 
 of the people. The monasteries and regular clergy held 
 about one half of the land of Europe, and besides, by the 
 various kinds of spiritual traffic already described, ab- 
 sorbed the earnings of the people. 
 
 I do not affirm that by the locusts who, under their 
 leader Apollyon, issued from the smoke of the bottomless 
 pit to prey upon men and to torment them God meant to 
 describe the Romish corporation, and monks, and clergy, 
 under their leader the pope. But, however this may be, 
 one thing is plain no symbol can better describe them 
 and their deeds. One long, loud, universal cry went up 
 throughout Europe, alike from kings, nobles, and people, 
 of the rapacious and plundering spirit of Rome and her 
 myrmidons. None but those who experienced it can ever 
 conceive how great was the plague. The language of the 
 times labors in vain to express it. Even imagination 
 fails and is powerless. 
 
 Such is one of the most remarkable aspects of this
 
 DISPENSATION OF GREGORY VII. i 859 
 
 period a period well deserving the study of Americans. 
 It was the period created by the principles of Gregory 
 VII., the very pontiff whom the Romish bishops of this 
 country have chosen as the patron saint of America. 
 
 PAPAL MORALITY. 
 
 As the main claim of the Papal corporation is, that it 
 is the only true and holy church, and the only author of 
 holiness, we ought to find in this age of its supremacy 
 abundant evidence of the truth of such claims. It is 
 needless to say that we shall seek for them in vain. On 
 the other hand, in this age a degree of moral corruption 
 was developed in the Roman court and in the community 
 the depths of which it is almost impossible to fathom and 
 the atrocity of which is beyond description. 
 
 The celibacy of the clergy, as has been shown, in this pe- 
 riod had thoroughly debauched the whole European world. 
 The selfish, treacherous, and rapacious policy of the Papal 
 court at length utterly corrupted the policy of kings. 
 Machiavelli, in his Prince, did but apply to the state the 
 Papal principles as to ecclesiastical expediency. Kings, 
 following Papal maxims, justified and employed perjury, 
 perfidy, poisoning, and secret murder for state ends. Of 
 all these things the court of Rome had furnished abundant 
 examples. It seemed to be God's purpose to develop the 
 true tendency of the maxims of the Papal court in the 
 atrocious life and death of Alexander YI. Sismondi de- 
 clares that by reason of such extreme corruption " the six- 
 teenth century was marked by an entire abandonment of 
 all morals, honor, and virtue." Steinmetz, in his history 
 of the Jesuits, says, " In Italy, amidst its splendor of arts 
 and scieu.ce and its talk of religion, morals are so cor-
 
 360 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 rupted that public shame is utterly lost ; the vices of 
 individuals even the most remarkable for their riches, 
 rank, and position exhibit a front of brass in the boastful 
 impudence of guilt. Nothing is concealed nothing dis- 
 graces." " It seems as if men look on crime as their 
 meals with an appetite or not, as the case may be ; but 
 all is natural ; children grow up like their parents born 
 in the midst of wickedness, how can they be otherwise ? " 
 Of the religion producing such results he says, " It was 
 not Christianity, but a timeserving, political, sensual, las- 
 civious, avaricious system formed by the passions and in- 
 tellect of men." 
 
 In a review of the life and works of Machiavelli, Ma- 
 caulay thus speaks of his most famous work : 
 
 " It is indeed scarcely possible for any person not well 
 acquainted with the history and literature of Italy to read 
 without horror and amazement the celebrated treatise 
 which has brought so much obloquy on the name of 
 Machiavelli. Such a display of wickedness, naked, yet 
 not ashamed, such cool, judicious, scientific atrocity, 
 seem rather to belong to a fiend than to the most de- 
 praved of men. Principles which the most hardened ruf- 
 fian would scarcely hint to his most trusted accomplice, or 
 avow, without the disguise of some palliating sophism, even 
 to his own mind, are professed without the slightest cir- 
 cumlocution, and assumed as the fundamental axioms of 
 all political science." 
 
 After trying and rejecting various modes of accounting 
 for such a moral phenomenon, he comes to the conclusion 
 that Machiavelli was a kind, well-meaning man, but that 
 the morals of Italy had been so debased by the Papacy that 
 neither he nor any one around him had any idea that 
 there was any thing wrong or immoral in his book. He 
 says,
 
 DISPENSATION OP GREGOPvY VII. 361 
 
 " There is no reason whatever to think that those 
 amongst whom he lived saw any thing shocking or in- 
 congruous in his writings. Abundant proofs remain of 
 the high estimation in which both his works and his per- 
 son were held by the most respectable among his contem- 
 poraries. Clement VII. patronized the publication of 
 those very books which the council of Trent in the fol- 
 lowing generation pronounced unfit for the perusal of 
 Christians. Some members of the democratical party 
 censured the secretary for dedicating the Prince to a pa- 
 tron who bore the unpopular name of Medici ; but to those 
 immoral doctrines which have since called forth such se- 
 vere reprehensions no exception appears to have been 
 taken. The cry against them was first raised beyond the 
 Alps, and seems to have been heard with amazement in 
 Italy. The earliest assailant, as far as we are aware, was 
 a countryman of our own, Cardinal Pole. The author of 
 the Anti-Machiavelli was a French Protestant." 
 
 This is what the mother of harlots and of abominations 
 effected for Italy and Rome. Let us now see what she 
 did for France and Avignon during the seventy years' res- 
 idence of the Papacy there after Boniface VIII. Wick- 
 liffe was sent on a mission to the Papal court to secure the 
 correction of abuses in England. The mission was vain ; 
 but not so his opportunities of observation. It affected 
 him as Rome at a later day did Luther. Shoberl says, 
 
 " If no immediate result was obtained by this mission, 
 still the opportunities which it afforded Wickliffe for ob- 
 servation convinced him that the system of the Papal 
 court and its doctrines were equally corrupt. These con- 
 victions he did not fail to express on his return in the 
 boldest manner. He insisted that the Scriptures contain 
 all truths necessary to salvation, and that in them only is 
 to be found the perfect rule of Christian practice ; he de- 
 nied the authority of the pope in temporal matters ; pro- 
 claimed that he was the man of sin, the son of perdition, 
 described by St. Paul, ' Sitting as God in the temple of 
 31
 
 862 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 God, showing himself that he is God,' and denounced him 
 as Antichrist. These doctrines Wickliffe openly taught 
 and maintained ; and well he might, for at this period the 
 popes themselves, their court, and the clergy in general, 
 pampered by the wealth which their rapacious arts were 
 incessantly supplying, exhibited a corruption of morals, a 
 depravity, a licentiousness scarcely to be conceived, much 
 less described. In assuming the sacerdotal office they 
 seemed to have vowed utterly to discard all that man- 
 kind had been accustomed to call virtue. It is impossi- 
 ble to read without profound horror the description given 
 by Petrarch, himself a churchman, of the dissoluteness of 
 the Papal court in the fourteenth century while resident 
 at Avignon ; and all contemporary accounts prove that he 
 is not chargeable with having recurred in his picture to 
 the poet's license. ' You imagine/ he writes in a letter 
 to a friend, ' that the city of Avignon is the same now that 
 it was when you resided in it. No ; it is very different. 
 It was then, it is true, the worst and vilest place on earth ; 
 now it is become a terrestrial hell, an abode of fiends and 
 devils, a receptacle of all that is most wicked and abom- 
 inable. What I tell you is not from hearsay, but from my 
 own knowledge and experience. In this city there is no 
 piety, no reverence or fear of God, no faith or charity ; 
 nothing that is holy, just, equitable, or humane. Why 
 should I speak of truth, where not only the houses, palaces, 
 courts, churches, and the thrones of popes and cardinals, 
 but the very earth and air seem to teem with lies ? A fu- 
 ture state, heaven, hell, and judgment are openly turned 
 into ridicule as childish fables. Good men have of late 
 been treated with so much scorn and contempt that there 
 is not one left among them to be an object of laughter.' 
 In the same letter he declares that the more profligate a 
 man was, the more certain he was of preferment in the 
 church. 
 
 " It is no wonder that, amidst so deep a corruption of 
 manners in those whose lives should be patterns to the 
 other classes of society, the vices of the clergy were 
 standing subjects of satire in every country of Europe, 
 and especially England, in the fourteenth century. The 
 poems of Chaucer abound in passages of this kind ; and
 
 DISPENSATION OP GREGORY VII. 363 
 
 the Ploughman's Tale is one continued satire upon the 
 clergy for their gross ignorance, cruelty, covetousuess, 
 simony, vanity, pride, ambition, drunkenness, gluttony, 
 lechery, and other vices. This profligacy gave rise to an 
 opinion, which universally prevailed, that the coming of 
 Antichrist was at hand. We are told indeed that, in 1364, 
 Dr. Nicholas Orem, a celebrated preacher, in a sermon be- 
 fore the pope and cardinals, undertook to demonstrate this 
 proposition from the enormous corruption and the intol- 
 erable abuses of the church. Even Petrarch, though not 
 scrupulous in regard to doctrines and ceremonies, was so 
 shocked at the gross depravity of the Papal court that he 
 applied that passage in the book of Revelation concern- 
 ing Babylon, the mother of harlots and of all abomina- 
 tions, to the city of Avignon, where, as it has been 
 observed, the pope then resided." 
 
 It is not until we understand such a state of shameless 
 moral debasement that we can regard as credible what is 
 nevertheless a fact, that, at the close of the council of Ly- 
 ons, Cardinal Hugo dared to utter to the citizens, as a 
 brazen joke, the following address, descriptive of a fact : 
 " My friends, we have conferred on this place a great ben- 
 efit. When we came here there was a number of houses 
 of ill fame ; but now there is but one ; but that one ex- 
 tends from the eastern to the western gate of the city." 
 
 The infidelity that reigned at Avignon no less devel- 
 oped itself at Rome. On this subject Macaulay says, 
 
 " During the generation which preceded the reforma- 
 tion that court had been a scandal to the Christian name. 
 Its annals are black with treason, murder, and incest. 
 Even its more respectable members were utterly unfit to 
 be ministers of religion. They were men like Leo ' X. ; 
 men who, with the Latinity of the Augustan age, had ac- 
 quired its atheistical and scoffing spirit. They regarded 
 these Christian mysteries of- which they were stewards 
 just as the Augur Cicero and the Pontifex Maximus Cae- 
 sar regarded the Sibylline books and the pecking of the
 
 364 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 sacred chicken?. Among themselves they spoke of the 
 incarnation, the eucharist, and the Trinity in the same 
 tone in which Cotta and Yelleius talked of the oracle 
 of Delphi or of the voice of Faunus in the mountains. 
 Their years glided by in a soft dream of sensual and intel- 
 lectual voluptuousness. Choice cookery, delicious wines, 
 lovely women, hounds, falcons, horses, newly-discovered 
 manuscripts of the classics, sonnets and burlesque ro- 
 mances in the sweetest Tuscan, just as licentious as a 
 fine sense of the graceful would permit ; plates from the 
 hand of a Benvenuto ; designs for palaces by Michael An- 
 gelo ; frescoes by Raphael ; busts, mosaics, and gems just 
 dug up from among the ruins of ancient temples and vil- 
 las, these things were the delight and even the serious 
 business of their lives." 
 
 Such was the ineffable malignity of the influence of the 
 Roman corporation, falsely called a church, when in its 
 full development and in its highest glory. How, then, 
 must it have appeared in the sight of a pure and holy 
 God 1 We know how ; for prophecy has informed us 
 what he will declare concerning it when the hour of his 
 judgment is fully come. Then will he set it forth as being 
 a habitation of devils, the hold of every foul spirit, and a 
 cage of every unclean and hateful bird ; a great sorceress 
 and harlot, making all nations drunk with the wine of the 
 wrath of her fornication, and herself drunk with the blood 
 of the saints.
 
 PAET IY. 
 
 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD AND THE BUBNING 
 OF BABYLON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BABYLON ON FIRE. 
 
 ON the morning of the 10th day of December, 1520, 
 the inhabitants of Wittemberg, in Germany, were aroused 
 and filled with amazement by the breaking out of a great 
 conflagration at the east gate of the city. The intelli- 
 gence of this conflagration at once spread as on the wings 
 of the wind, and wherever it came it no less aroused and 
 amazed the world. It was but the emblem of a greater 
 conflagration which had then broken out, and which has 
 continued to burn to this day, and which is destined still 
 to burn with fiercer flames until Babylon the great is ut- 
 terly burned with fire by the avenging judgment of her 
 almighty Judge. From that day to this intense efforts 
 have been made to extinguish the mighty conflagration. 
 The great fire company of the Jesuits was formed for this 
 especial end, and have labored manfully, but in vain. It 
 31 * (365)
 
 366 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 still burns, and will burn till the avenging judgment of 
 God is completed. 
 
 Not least of all does the conflagration rage in this land. 
 The very fundamental principles of our civil and religious 
 institutions are devouring fire to the great Babylon ; for 
 which reason earnest efforts are now made to quench their 
 fiery energy. But all shall be in vain. 
 
 But let us draw near and consider the burning in Wit- 
 temberg. Of it we find the following authentic account : 
 "This 10th day of December, in the year 1520, at the 
 ninth hour of the day, were burned at Wittemberg, at 
 the east gate, near the Holy Cross, ALL THE POPE'S BOOKS, 
 the Decree, the Decretgls, the Extravagante of Clement VI., 
 Leo X.'s last bull, the JJngelic Sum, Eck's Chrysoprasus, 
 and some other works of Eck's and Emser's. Is not this 
 new?" 
 
 What was this last bull of Leo X. ? It was the bull of 
 excommunication of one Martin Luther. What had he 
 done ? He had in the year 1517 seriously interfered with 
 the trading operations of the great corporation in the sale 
 of indulgences for the professed purpose of building St. 
 Peter's Church at Rome. When called to account, he had 
 refused to retract what he had said. When called on to 
 dispute, he had refused to be beaten in an argument. 
 When the authority of the pope was quoted against him, 
 he had dared to call in question that authority, as of mod- 
 ern origin. When the forged decretals were quoted against 
 him, though at first silenced, not knowing them to be forged) 
 he at last discovered the imposture, and dared to denounce 
 the pope and his forgeries. When pressed by the authority 
 of councils, he dared to declare that councils were not 
 infallible, and had erred, and that the Bible alone was in- 
 fallible. He had dared, moreover, to appeal to the Ger- 
 man princes to arouse themselves and resist the usurpa-
 
 BABYLON OX FIRE. 367 
 
 tions and aggressions of the pope. He had dared to assail 
 the celibacy of the clergy, and the pope's temporal as well 
 as his spiritual monarchy, and to demand that all things 
 should be reduced to order according to the word of God 
 and the testimony of history. 
 
 This, in brief, was what Martin Luther had done ; and 
 in truth it would seem to have been enough, if there were 
 any virtue in bulls, to call for one of the most roaring 
 kind and the most terrific energy. Accordingly it came ; 
 and we have seen its reception by Luther, and its doom. 
 
 But the burning of the bull was not the most significant 
 part of the proceedings. "With it were burned the forged 
 decretals and the canon law. Astonishing audacity ! So, 
 then, the very foundations of Babylon the great are utterly 
 burned with fire. 
 
 "Who, then, had the courage, at that age and in those 
 circumstances, to do that deed ? I answer, It was not by 
 the courage of man that it was done, but by the courage 
 of God. Nor did it express human passion. It was but 
 an outward manifestation of the righteous judgment of 
 the invisible yet present and avenging God. 
 
 "When Luther began, he had not the remotest conception 
 of the issue to which he should come. He believed in his 
 heart that the pope had, by the will of God, supreme au- 
 thority in the church. He trembled, step by step, as he 
 encountered those deeprooted prejudices which had en- 
 slaved him as well as the rest of Europe. But God would 
 not let him rest. His word was in him like a fire in his 
 bones as truth after truth was revealed to him ; and he 
 was weary with forbearing and could not stay. God, 
 too, who fits his instruments for his work, had fitted him 
 to encounter the men and the system with whom he had 
 to deal. They were impudent, and stiffnecked, and hard- 
 hearted, and rebellious ; but God made his face strong
 
 368 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 against their faces and his forehead strong against their 
 foreheads. As an adamant, harder than a flint, he made 
 his forehead against their impudence and audacity. 
 
 "When our souls have been filled with indignation, in 
 view of the inconceivable abominations and atrocious 
 slaughters of the Papacy, it is a joy to find that God has 
 at length given to one man energy and courage, by words 
 and by acts, to express the indignation of God. A brief 
 account of the conflagration at Wittemberg has been 
 given in the words of Luther himself. Let us now draw 
 near and take a more full view of the scene as depicted 
 by D'Aubigne: 
 
 " On the 10th of December a placard was posted on 
 the walls of the University of Wittemberg, inviting the 
 professors and students to be present at nine o'clock in the 
 morning at the eastern gate, near the Holy Cross. A 
 great number of doctors and students assembled ; and Lu- 
 ther, walking at their head, conducted the procession to 
 the appointed place. How many burning piles has Rome 
 erected during the course of ages ! Luther resolves to 
 make a better application of the great Roman principle. 
 It is only a few old papers that are about to be destroyed ; 
 and fire, thinks he, is intended for that purpose. A scaf- 
 fold had been prepared. One of the oldest masters of 
 arts set fire to it. As the flames rose high into the air 
 the formidable Augustine, wearing his frock, approached 
 the pile, carrying the Canon Law, the Decretals, the Clem- 
 entines, the Papal Extravagants, some writings by Eck 
 and Emser, and the pope's bull. The decretals having 
 been first consumed, Luther held up the bull and said, 
 ' Since thou hast vexed the Holy One of the Lord, may 
 everlasting fire vex and consume thee ! ' He then flung 
 it into the flames. Never had war been declared with 
 greater energy and resolution. After this Luther calmly 
 returned to the city ; and the crowd of doctors, professors, 
 and students, testifying their approval by loud cheers, 
 reentered "Wittemberg with him. ' The decretals,' said 
 Luther, ' resemble a body whose face is meek as a young
 
 BABTLOX ON FIRE. 369 
 
 maiden's, whose limbs are full of violence like those of a 
 lion, and whose tail is filled with wiles like a serpent. 
 Among all the laws of the popes, there is not one word 
 that teaches us who is Jesus Christ.' ' My enemies,' said 
 he on another occasion, ' have been able, by burning my 
 books, to injure the cause of truth in the minds of the 
 common people, and destroy their souls ; for this reason I 
 consumed their-books in return. A serious struggle has 
 just begun. Hitherto I have been only playing with the 
 pope. I began this work in God's name ; it will be ended 
 without me and by his might. If they dare burn my 
 books, in which more of the gospel is to be found (I speak 
 without boasting) than in all the books of the pope, I can 
 with much greater reason burn theirs, in which no good 
 can be discovered.' 
 
 " Luther had reentered Wittemberg. On the morrow 
 the lecture room was more crowded than usual. All minds 
 were in a state of excitement ; a solemn feeling pervaded 
 the assembly ; they waited, expecting an address from the 
 doctor. He lectured on the Psalms a course that he 
 had commenced in the month of March in the preceding 
 year. Having finished his explanations he remained silent 
 a few minutes, and then continued, energetically, 'Be on 
 your guard against the laws and statutes of the pope. I 
 have burned his decretals ; but this is merely child's play. 
 It is time, and more than time, that the pope were burned ; 
 that is, (explaining himself immediately,) the see of Rome, 
 with all its doctrines and abominations.' Then, assuming 
 a more solemn tone, he added, ' If you do not contend with 
 your whole heart against the impious government of the 
 pope, you cannot be saved. Whoever takes delight in the 
 religion and worship of Popery will be eternally lost in 
 the world to come.' 
 
 " ' If you reject it,' continued he, ' you must expect to 
 incur every kind of danger, and even to lose your lives. 
 But it is far better to be exposed to such perils in this 
 world than to keep silence. So long as I live I will de- 
 nounce to my brethren the sore and the plague of Baby- 
 lon, for fear that many who are with us should fall back 
 like the rest into the bottomless pit.' 
 
 " We can scarcely imagine the eft'ect produced on the 
 assembly by this discourse, the energy of which surprises
 
 370 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 us. ' Not one among us,' adds the candid student who has 
 handed it down, ' unless he be a senseless log of wood, 
 (as all the Papists are, he says parenthetically,) doubts 
 that this is truth pure and undefiled. It is evident to all 
 believers that Dr. Luther is an angel of the living God, 
 called to feed Christ's wandering sheep with the word 
 of God.'" 
 
 Here we have beyond all doubt the judgment of God, 
 uttered by one of his servants whom he had raised up 
 and qualified to engage in the great work upon which the 
 interests of the church and the world and the glory of 
 God were suspended. 
 
 He had prepared the way for the work by the removal 
 of the seat of the Papacy to Avignon, in France, after the 
 death of Boniface VIII., and by the great and terrible 
 schism that followed soon after it was removed again to 
 Rome. For fifty years there were two rival lines of 
 popes, each anathematizing the other and denouncing each 
 other's crimes with about equal truth. Europe was nearly 
 equally divided between them ; and, as Bonnechose says, 
 " The nations that were subject to the pope, and bent the 
 knee before this new divinity, knew not where to find 
 their idol." Though the council of Constance healed the 
 schism, it did not obliterate from the mind of Europe the 
 questionings to which it gave rise. And as the arrogance, 
 and rapacity, and immorality of the court of Rome in- 
 creased, kings and people were so alienated, that, when 
 Luther burned the pope's bull, the pope could not induce 
 the secular powers to burn him ; and soon one half of Eu- 
 rope was in open revolt against the Papal corporation. 
 
 From that day to this the conflagration has gone on in 
 different parts of the great city. In some parts it has 
 been for a time extinguished by torrents of blood. But 
 it is a fire kindled by God, the Omnipresent, the Almighty. 
 Before it can be quenched, God must be* dethroned.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FIRE OF GOD 
 
 WHAT, then, are those great elements of truth through 
 which God develops his fiery energy and by which he 
 will at last utterly consume Babylon the great ? 
 
 It is greatly for our interest to understand these truths. 
 Our civil institutions as well as our religious are based 
 upon them ; and between them and the Papal corporation 
 there is a necessary, an inevitable, a mortal conflict. 
 One or the other must die. 
 
 The vital principle of the Romish corporation, as we have 
 seen, is, that it is God's avowed purpose in communicating 
 his grace to mankind to act through a corporate body ; and 
 that they are that body, under the pope, their head. 
 
 In direct antagonism to this is the great truth that, in 
 communicating his grace to man, it is not God's purpose 
 to limit himself to act through any one corporation what- 
 ever, much less through the corporation of Rome. On 
 the other hand, it is his purpose, and ever has been, to 
 act at his pleasure through individuals, and to array them 
 against any and all corporations whenever necessary to 
 rebuke their negligence of duty or disobedience to God. 
 
 It will not be denied, not even by a Romanist with 
 any reverence for God, that God is able, if he pleases, to 
 manifest himself to individuals in all ages, independently 
 of any corporation ; to illuminate them, to sanctify them, 
 
 (371)
 
 372 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 to avert mental disease, to give them wisdom, courage, dis- 
 cretion, zeal, energy, and in all things to qualify them to 
 do his will. None but an atheist can deny that God has 
 the power to do this. 
 
 The question is simply one of fact. It is this : Is it 
 God's will to do this ? To this the Papists reply, No ; 
 the Protestants, Yes. 
 
 Here, then, is the issue ; and there neither is nor can 
 be a greater issue than this. It is an issue that divides 
 the world, and the decision of which will agitate the 
 world as with an earthquake. 
 
 The claim of any corporation, on any ground, of a 
 monopoly of the grace of God, is the great source of spirit- 
 ual despotism and of religious and civil bondage. It is 
 the source of all ecclesiastical arrogance and ambition. 
 It is an impious invasion of the rights of individual 
 minds in God and of the rights of God in individual 
 minds. It assails the principles on which God has organ- 
 ized society, not only in this, but in all worlds. It is a 
 direct warfare with the purposes and with the omnipo- 
 tence of God. 
 
 And yet it is upon this claim that the corporation of 
 Rome is based. This corporation arrogates the right to 
 come between God and all individuals whatever. No 
 one can come to God but through them ; nor will God 
 come to any one but through them. Outside of them- 
 selves there is no God, no radiance of heaven ; all is 
 empty of divine grace and dark as the bottomless pit. 
 
 This is the great, the impious, the malignant, the all- 
 comprehending, the heaven-daring, the God-defying lie of 
 Romanism. It is a lie on earth ; it is a lie in all worlds ; 
 it is at war with the very nature and structure of all 
 created minds. 
 
 Never will the human mind be properly developed,
 
 THE FIEE OF GOD. 373 
 
 never will man have true freedom, never will society be 
 truly organized till this is properly understood. 
 
 Let us, then, look into this matter. If we once thor- 
 oughly understand it, we shall need to consider little else 
 in order to see the impious and damnable nature of the 
 claims of Rome. As Americans, and as lovers of our 
 country and of the world, we are specially called on to 
 go to the very roots of this question. We are bound to 
 dig deep, till we are sure that all of our principles and 
 institutions are based on the solid rock of eternal truth. 
 
 It is a question of deep interest, What is God's design 
 in raising up this nation ? What is the destiny of our in- 
 stitutions, and what their dangers ? The usual answer 
 among us has been, To aid in the work of destroying the 
 despotisms of the old world ; and their chief danger is 
 from the Papacy and its connected civil systems. A new 
 answer has lately been given : Our chief danger lies in 
 our revolt from the Papacy. Nothing but the Papacy 
 can save us. 
 
 One thing is plain nothing but God can save us ; and 
 he will not save us unless we acknowledge and defend his 
 rights in the human soul and the rights of the human 
 soul in him. I propose to develop them ; to show their 
 relations to all organizations, civil or ecclesiastical ; and 
 to demonstrate that the claims of the Popish hierarchy 
 are at war with them all. 
 
 GOD'S RIGHTS IN THE SOUL AND OF THE SOUL IN GO! 
 
 God's rights in the soul will be disclosed by studying, 
 
 both in the soul and in his word, his design in making it, 
 
 its relations to God, and the principles of his law. From 
 
 both sources we learn that God did not design to make 
 
 32
 
 374 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 the soul capable of independent perfection that is, per- 
 fection in the separate and independent use of its own 
 powers. On the other hand, the soul was either design- 
 edly, or more probably of necessity, made and left imper- 
 fect in itself, and unable to gain its true destiny without 
 a concurrent action of God in and through it. Thus no 
 plant has in itself the power of perfect development and 
 growth out of its proper relations to the soil, air, light, 
 heat, and water, that are designed to nourish and develop 
 it. Now, as these elements are to the development of a 
 plant, so is God to the development and perfection of the 
 mind. All created minds have a natural and an eternal 
 need of God in order to retain moral and intellectual 
 health and to secure a beautiful and perfect development. 
 
 This necessity is so founded in the nature of things that 
 it cannot be suspended. The idea that any mind can be 
 to itself as a god, knowing good and evil, and that it is 
 or can be perfect in itself without a constant concurrent 
 influence of God, is the root of pride and all falsehood ; 
 it is an essential revolt from God and all truth. It was 
 the primal sin and ruin of Satan ; it is the radical ele- 
 ment of his most fatal temptations in this age of pride 
 and of the worship of human reason. 
 
 Let us, then, look at the correlation of God and of the 
 human mind. As God is infinite in intellect, in love, in 
 sympathy, in power ; and as he fills all time and all space 
 by his existence, attributes, and kingdom ; and as of the 
 increase of his kingdom there is to be no end ; and as the 
 mind was made to know him and be blessed in his love, 
 it was made with power to conceive of infinitude in intel- 
 lect, emotion, sympathy, time, space, numbers, and power, 
 but not to fill its own conceptions. It was made to be 
 filled with all the fulness of God, and with nothing be- 
 sides. He is the natural complement of the soul ; and in 
 him it lives and is perfected.
 
 THE FIRE OP GOD. 375 
 
 Hence the primary law of the mind is direct conscious 
 unity with God in thought, love, and will. " He that 
 dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. Ye 
 shall know that ye are in me and I in you. Because I 
 live, ye shall live also. I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth 
 in me. Thou art the Fountain of life. In thy light shall 
 we see light." Hence God's rights in the soul involve the 
 right to insist that no created being or corporation shall 
 attempt to interfere with or to prevent this direct union 
 of the soul to God, this conscious personal contact of the 
 soul with God. 
 
 The rights of the soul in God correspond. The soul 
 has a right to claim at all times this personal access to 
 God, this conscious personal union to him and life and 
 perfection in and by him. Ko man or body of men have 
 a right to attempt to monopolize it any more than to mo- 
 nopolize the right to breathe the air or to see the sun. 
 These are the fundamental rights of God and of every 
 created being in his universe. No personal rights, no 
 laws of organization, can rise above them. They are the 
 very basis of the universe irrepealable, eternal. 
 
 Let us study the relations of these principles to faith. 
 The mind of man was made to rest in a certain knowledge 
 of spiritual truth. But the centre of all truth is God ; 
 for he is the greatest of objects to be known, and the Cre- 
 ator of all existences besides himself, and rules through- 
 out the universe, and works all things after the counsel 
 of his own will. Of him, through him, and to him are 
 all things. Hence he is the Author of all truth ; he sees it 
 in all its relations and harmonies ; and he is .the Sun who, 
 by his illuminating power, makes the system in its symme- 
 try visible to other minds. 
 
 It is therefore the glorious prerogative of God, and of 
 God alone, to give to any mind that highest certainty of
 
 376 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 spiritual truth which is necessary to give rest to the soul. 
 The mind, being imperfect in itself, cannot, by any process 
 of reasoning and power of its own, put itself in that 
 state of clear and certain perception of the system in 
 which it is, except by that concurrent action of God and 
 the soul for which it was made. To a soul in this state 
 God is a constant, unsetting Sun, in whose light all truth 
 is seen in its true colors and proportions. It is not a 
 state of mysticism or enthusiasm, (using these terms in 
 the common bad sense,) but a state of calm intellectual 
 and moral health and life, in which God guides and aids 
 in the study of all truth, whether disclosed in the struc- 
 ture and laws of the mind itself, or of the body, or of the 
 material world, or by providence, or by the revealed 
 Scriptures, and gives a point of vision from which to see 
 all truth. 
 
 This concurrent action of the divine and human mind 
 is the highest element of the faith by which God keeps 
 the soul holy unto salvation. There is a natural faith, in- 
 volving all that the mind can do to produce belief by a 
 logical exercise of its own powers. But it does not sat- 
 isfy the wants of the mind ; it does not give rest to all 
 its powers ; it does not give that certainty and repose 
 for which it longs. The concurrent action of God with 
 the mind introduces a supernatural element, and thus per- 
 fects faith, meets all the demands of the mind, and gives 
 it rest in God. In his light it sees light and is certain. 
 (See 1 John. ii. 26, 27.) 
 
 This leads to no neglect of evidence or means of knowl- 
 edge. It impels to the study of the mind as made in the 
 image of God, and therefore the key to unlock his mind 
 to the soul, to the study of his works, and providence, 
 and word, as parts of one harmonious disclosure of God 
 and his plans in divers ways. It uses all parts of the sys- 
 tem of truth, and neglects none.
 
 THE FIRE OF GOD. 377 
 
 Hence it is a right of God that all souls shall come di- 
 rectly to him for faith ; and it is the right of all souls 
 thus to come. Indeed it is absurd to think of gaining it 
 in any other way, and an invasion of the rights of God 
 and of man to affirm that any man or body of men can 
 stand between God and the soul as essential to faith. 
 
 This state of faith, I have said, is supernatural ; not 
 because it does not correspond with the natural and origi- 
 nal state of the mind, but because all men are fallen, and 
 depraved, and separated from God by sin. Hence the need 
 of atonement, pardon, and regeneration by the Holy Spir- 
 it in order to bring the mind into this state of faith. 
 Hence all efforts to reach God except through Christ 
 fail of producing faith, because they do not convince of 
 sin, purify and forgive, and truly reunite to God. All 
 such efforts land in infidelity, pantheism, or atheism. 
 
 MODES OF DIVINE ACTION IN SOCIETY. 
 
 Thus have we considered God's direct action on the 
 soul and the rights growing out of it. Besides this, God 
 resorts to two indirect modes of action on the soul 
 one through individuals, another through organizations. 
 But these are always subordinated to his rights as it re- 
 gards the first great law. God, then, is pleased to sancti- 
 fy individual minds and act and speak through them, pro- 
 ducing by the influence of creatures on creatures a new 
 series of effects. To do this is God's great delight. He 
 can train and form individual minds exactly to his will, 
 and then utter all his heart by them. This is not true of 
 corporations ; there is in them no unity of character. 
 All great revolutions God has produced by the power of 
 individual minds, urging others towards God, holding up 
 32*
 
 378 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 elevated principles, and yet leaving men free. Yea, it is 
 the instinctive tendency of all such minds to throw men 
 off from themselves upon God. If any fall down to wor- 
 ship, they say with the angel, " See thou do it not. I am 
 thy fellow-servant. "Worship God." 
 
 Lastly. God acts indirectly through organization, 
 through the family, schools, churches, and civil govern- 
 ments. But the first duty of all such organizations is, not 
 to rise above God's first law and rights, but to regard 
 and defend them against all invasion. Of civil govern- 
 ments, the ends are, to prescribe the established modes of 
 organic action and to regulate and defend rights. Their 
 great effort should be to remove the disposition to do 
 wrong, to increase individual knowledge and the power 
 of self-government, and to throw as much responsibility 
 on individuals, families, and towns as they can, and thus 
 reduce the work of the higher class of rulers to the 
 smallest possible extent. Thus, as the individuals, fami- 
 lies, and towns become a law unto themselves, will the 
 general government be more and more simple and less 
 and less expensive. Reject, too, the idea that any organi- 
 zation has been established for the honor, glory, or emol- 
 ument of those who use it, or that God has any interest 
 in having it so. The highest honor that God can receive 
 is to give constant force to the first great direct law of 
 concurrent action between him and the soul ; for it is 
 the true glory of God, by a direct and omnipresent yet 
 invisible influence on all men, to reduce the world to such 
 order that all human governments will become so simple 
 that men will scarcely feel their existence, and only use 
 them as necessary guides and rules of organic action. 
 Hence the idea that the glory of God can be promoted 
 by exalting the glory of a given external organization is 
 false and absurd.
 
 THE FIRE OF GOD. 379 
 
 The glory of God consists in the universal instruction, 
 sanctification, and exaltation of the individuals of the hu- 
 man race to the highest degree, and in the government of 
 them by his invisible but sweet and blessed power, and 
 then arranging them in those simple and free organiza- 
 tions into which men would naturally fall who are thus 
 filled with the fulness of God. 
 
 THE GLORY OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 This is the true view of the principles of organization ; 
 and it is the grand peculiarity of ours, first of all on 
 earth, that they are based on the principle of defending 
 to the utmost the rights of God in the human soul and 
 of the human soul in God. And, if properly used, they 
 can secure the perfect results of which I have spoken. 
 
 De Tocqueville noticed with admiration the extent to 
 which in our institutions the responsibilities of govern- 
 ment were thrown upon the townships, families, and indi- 
 viduals, and thus withdrawn from the care of the state 
 and national governments. Increase this tendency; defend 
 the rights of God in individuals and the rights of indi- 
 viduals in God ; give new power to the direct relationship 
 between God and the soul; and, as the power of the invis- 
 ible government of God increases, the cares and respon- 
 sibilities of the state and national governments will be- 
 come less. Every thing in our organizations will be sim- 
 plified ; men will be free as the air that they breathe ; and, 
 over all, and in all, and through all, the invisible but om- 
 nipresent God will be for a glory and for a defence. 
 
 This is not the infidel or transcendental millennium ; it 
 is the true Protestant, scriptural view. It is based on the 
 great original law of immediate personal union between
 
 380 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 individual souls and God, and a reliance on the power and 
 willingness of God to regenerate the individual members 
 of the community by the truth, and thus restore fallen and 
 depraved man to that law, and a system of universal 
 education designed to qualify every individual for self- 
 government under the influence of a divine faith in God, 
 which satisfies the highest affections of the mind in him, 
 keeps the intellect and moral powers in health and in de- 
 lightful harmony with all truth, removes all doubt by a 
 delightful certainty, and makes all organizations the 
 servants, and not the masters, of the soul. This is the 
 glorious result foreseen by Isaiah when he says, " Thy sun 
 shall no more go down nor thy moon withdraw itself ; for 
 the Lord shall be thine everlasting light and thy God thy 
 glory." 
 
 JUDGMENT OF POPERY BY THIS STANDARD. 
 
 And now we have before us a standard of judgment. 
 This is the state towards which all true views of God and 
 man tend. By it let us proceed to test the Papal corpora- 
 tion. What are its principles ? To what does it tend ? 
 I answer, in a word, To expel from the world all rights of 
 open, free, direct, individual intercourse with God ; to 
 repeal and tread under foot the fundamental law of the 
 universe of created minds ; to expel God from the world 
 as its present Ruler and Governor ; to put the Papal corpo- 
 ration in his place, and to make the work of glorifying and 
 exalting this corporation more important than holiness 
 itself and the great duty of man, so that in effect it shall 
 be the only ruling god of this world ; to arrest entirely 
 the healing, illuminating, and regenerating influence of the 
 divine mind ; to destroy the power of intelligent self- 
 government ; to corrupt all of the organizations of society;
 
 THE FIRE OP GOD. 381 
 
 and to sink the whole world into the deep abyss of a polluted, 
 extorting, extravagant, centralized, spiritual despotism. It 
 is the most perfect device the devil ever contrived for 
 utterly destroying the appropriate influences of Christianity 
 on the human mind and human society. To do this, it first 
 invents the truly diabolical dogma of a mysterious, invisi- 
 ble, unintelligible something which it calls grace, and 
 which is transmitted to the soul, not by instruction, nor by 
 any truth perceived and felt, nor by any intelligent action 
 of the intellect and emotions, but by external, material 
 means called sacraments. This above all other things is 
 an exquisite device of the devil to destroy the importance 
 of instruction, and intelligent, personal communion with 
 God ; it is the master key to the dungeon of spiritual 
 despotism ; for, the moment you make external, material 
 sacraments the channel of what is called grace instead of 
 instruction and a clear perception of the truth, and then 
 give to the Romish corporation the sole right to administer 
 these sacraments, you have darkened and enslaved the 
 world. The importance of study, preaching, thought is 
 destroyed. A dead language is as good as any other as a 
 medium of worship. A cloud is drawn over God and the 
 glories of his throne ; all direct access to him for life is 
 cut off ; and men lie trembling at the feet of those who, by 
 refusing the sacraments, can exclude them from heaven 
 and consign them to hell. The power over the sacraments, 
 on this view, is the possession of the keys of heaven and 
 hell ; and it involves the virtual destruction of all need of 
 preaching or of thought. 
 
 2. This corporation has corrupted all ideas of saving 
 faith by designedly shaking confidence in the Bible as a 
 revelation intelligible to the common mind and sufficient for 
 salvation through faith in Christ. It has even taken part 
 with infidels in their assaults on the written Scriptures, to
 
 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 create the necessity of aid from an infallible corporation, 
 with the design of making saving faith to mean, in fact, an 
 implicit belief in just what they say, instead of a penitent 
 reliance on the atonement of Christ for salvation, by which 
 the soul is reunited directly to God and the affections and 
 will harmonized with those of God. The design is to cut 
 man off from God and from the Bible and to destroy all 
 standards of appeal above and beyond themselves, making 
 the Bible merely their creature and tool, and its meaning 
 just what suits them best. They tell us the Bible is a dead 
 book and needs a living interpreter. Do not all human 
 lawgivers say they establish judges to interpret human 
 laws ? But the cases are unlike. Men make human laws 
 and can unmake them, and their penalties are limited to 
 this world. Men also can remove judges if they interpret 
 wrongfully. God makes a revelation ; and, when made, 
 not all the earth can alter it ; and its penalties are beyond 
 this world and eternal. He, therefore, who has the exclu- 
 sive divine power to interpret a divine, immutable revela- 
 tion, has in full all of the powers of the Deity centred in 
 him ; nor can the whole world judge or remove him. He 
 is the acting god of this world. His word is law : the 
 Bible is nothing. The system is in theory and practice an 
 annihilation of God and of the Bible, and an enthronement 
 of the pope or the Papal corporation in place of God ; 
 and all that the pope has ever claimed, all that his highest 
 flatterers ever gave him, to reign as the only god on 
 earth, is the legitimate result of the system either for him 
 or for his corporation. Thus does this corporation repeal 
 the first great law of God, destroy the rights of God in 
 the human soul and the rights of the human soul in God, 
 and concentrate in itself all of the prerogatives of God. 
 
 3. The Papal corporation exalts the importance of a 
 mere organization above the importance of holiness. It
 
 THE FIRE OF GOD. 383 
 
 makes an alleged means of more importance to God than 
 the great end of all means ; that is, personal union to God 
 in holiness and truth. It has acted on and established the 
 principle that the Papal corporation is so important that 
 no amount of sin in its head, or members, or servants can 
 vacate its charter. If the pope is the veriest moral 
 monster ever seen on earth ; if the bishops are a gang of 
 debauchees and swindlers ; if the priests are all fornicators, 
 adulterers, and seducers, it is no sufficient reason for 
 abandoning the system. IF THE RIGHTS OF THE CORPORATION 
 ARE GIVEN UP OR DESTROYED, then the gates of hell pre- 
 vail against the church. But if every vestige of hpliness 
 ceases in the popes for centuries, if bishops and priests are 
 for centuries sunk in the slough of sensuality and pollution, 
 and become the chief corrupters of the human race, still, 
 
 IF THE CORPORATION ONLY KEEPS ITS POWER, then the gates 
 
 of hell do not prevail ; then the church is safe. What 
 higher blasphemy of God, what higher contempt of holi- 
 ness, is possible than is involved in these principles ? And 
 yet they are the real and only practical principles of the 
 Romish corporation ; and they have acted them out for 
 ages. 
 
 If any amount of the vilest sins that the mind of man 
 can conceive, in popes, bishops, and priests, could vacate the 
 claims of a corporation, long since those of Rome had 
 been vacated. The records of the world may be searched 
 in vain for such depths of moral pollution and degradation 
 as are found in the history of this corporation, not as rare 
 exceptions for long centuries, but as the general law. 
 The hierarchy and the priesthood of Rome have, as a 
 general fact, been the great central channel of the pollu- 
 tions of the Romish world, an insult to God, a scandal to 
 humanity. Nor need we wonder. The system is skilfully 
 framed, according to all the laws of the human mind, to
 
 384 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 produce these results. It is by its structure the hotbed 
 of ambition, pride, the love of money and of power. The 
 great law of the compulsory celibacy of the clergy, together 
 with the established practice of appointing unmarried ec- 
 clesiastics to examine females in the confessional on all 
 points on which a polluted mind can form a conception, is 
 as perfect a system for debauching the clergy as Satan 
 could devise ; and, when not checked by Protestantism, it 
 has been terribly, inconceivably effectual. The sober facts 
 of history are too shameful to state. They are so enor- 
 mous as to defy belief till the philosophy of the system is 
 studied from which they spring. And yet the system is 
 skilfully constructed to sustain and survive all this. That 
 satanic idea of grace, "where there is neither Christian 
 instruction nor Christian example, grace through material 
 sacraments, and in spite of a polluted corporation, removes 
 the whole difficulty. It gives to Satan his highest result. 
 It enables him to establish on earth, in the name of God, 
 a corporate body, with an irrevocable charter, which no 
 amount of sin can forfeit. 
 
 Let the pope be or do what he may. He may be (and 
 I am now referring to actual facts) an atheist ; he may be 
 perjured before God and man ; he may be a poisoner and 
 an assassin ; he may be a drunkard ; he may be an infidel, 
 a blasphemer, an adulterer ; he may sacrifice to Venus 
 and to the devil ; he may commit incest with his own ille- 
 gitimate daughter ; he may debauch by violence all the 
 females who come to Rome on whom he can lay his 
 hands ; the majority of the popes for long, dark ages 
 may give no evidence of piety, and clear proof that they 
 are the firstborn of Satan. It makes no odds. Home is 
 still the centre of unity for the whole Christian world. 
 The pope in his bulls, speaking ex cathedra, is still the 
 father of all Romanists and the voice of God to them.
 
 THE FIRE OF GOD. 385 
 
 The system still stands. Apostolic grace still descends 
 through the great filthy central channel. 
 
 So, too, the bishops assembled in council may be igno- 
 rant, polluted, and sunk in the slough of all filth. They 
 i^ay so debauch the place in which they meet as to make 
 it one vast house of ill fame, as Matthew Paris, a contem- 
 porary historian, states that Cardinal Hugo in his closing 
 speech after the council of Lyons declared to be a fact 
 as regarded that place ; they may discuss doctrines in the 
 midst of throngs of prostitutes gathered for their recep- 
 tion, as was the case in the co'uncil of Constance, accord- 
 ing to Dachery, Bruys, and the Vienna manuscript ; 
 their character may be like that of the council of Con- 
 stance drawn by Baptiza, one of its own members, " actu- 
 ated only by malice, iniquity, pride, vanity, ignorance, 
 lasciviousness, avarice, pomp, simony, and dissimulation." 
 Still such men are authorized to call themselves a holy 
 council, assembled in the Holy Ghost to interpret infal- 
 libly the word of God and to commit all contumacious 
 rebels against their authority to the flames. God, it 
 seems, has given an irrevocable charter to such councils 
 to preserve in its purity the Christian faith. And so 
 firm is this charter that no conceivable amount of sin 
 can vacate it. 
 
 So, too, the whole clergy may be, in the language of St. 
 Bernard, " pastors in name, but in reality plunderers ; 
 who, unsatisfied with the fleece, thirst for the blood of the 
 flock, and merit the appellation of traitors ; who do not 
 feed, but slay and devour, the sheep ; who melt in the fur- 
 nace of covetousness, and dare for gain to barter assas- 
 sination, adultery, incest, fornication, sacrilege, and per- 
 jury." And yet it makes no odds. The system has a 
 charter from God. No amount of sin can repeal it. 
 
 The time from the tenth to the sixteenth century is the 
 33
 
 386 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 time of the most full and perfect development of the sys- 
 tem of the Papal corporation ; and during this time, accord- 
 ing to their own historians, the Papal world, clergy and 
 laity, were, as a general fact, sunk 'in the lowest depth of 
 moral pollution. 
 
 Sabellicus, Stella, Baronius, Giannone, Dupin, William 
 of Paris, Spondanus, Morlaix, Honorius, St. Bernard, John 
 of Salisbury, Alliaco, Petrarch, Dante, Marianna, ^Egid- 
 ius, Mirandula, Fordun, Gerson, Madruccio, Cervino, 
 Pole, Monte, Sarpi, and others may be summoned to estab- 
 lish these assertions by an amount of testimony and in 
 a fervor and eloquence of language in comparison with 
 which all I have said or can say would be weak and pow- 
 erless. 
 
 They deemed these results, indeed, abuses of the true 
 system, and called aloud for reform. But they were no 
 abuses; they were its genuine legitimate results. The 
 system is exquisitely adapted by satanic skill utterly 
 to corrupt those whose example and influence must 
 have chief power, and by them to debauch and ruin the 
 world. Hence, the nearer you come to the centre of the 
 system, the deeper in all ages has been the moral degra- 
 dation. 
 
 Now, suppose in the days of Christ it had been said to 
 Satan, God's great law of influencing men by a holy ex- 
 ample is now developed in full power in Christ and. in 
 Paul and the apostles ; there are free churches, and God 
 is open to all ; you are in imminent danger of ruin ; what 
 will you do ? and suppose he had said, I will by forgeries 
 concentrate all these free churches under one head ; I will 
 cut off all men from the right of direct access to God with- 
 out him and his corporation ; I will make him, when 
 fully developed, the image of the devil, and debase the 
 corporation to the lowest depths of pollution ; and yet I
 
 THE FIRE OF GOD. 387 
 
 will give them an irrepealable charter from God to be 
 the only channels of life to the world, would it not have 
 seemed incredible even to hell itself that such a work 
 could be done ? Yet it has been done ; and Mr. Brownson 
 has the audacity to present this system to us as the only 
 road to heaven and the only defence of our free institu- 
 tions from ruin. 
 
 4. Let us, then, finally look at the influence of this sys- 
 tem on civil organizations. Let such a power, then, exist 
 and develop itself, and gain full control over the people, 
 and it will surely overrule, and subdue, and corrupt all 
 the civil authorities of our country nay, of the world. 
 The central theocracy will control the people by the fears 
 of hell and the hope of heaven, and in a conflict with 
 rulers will undermine them, if they dare to resist, by turn- 
 ing the people against them, as they did in the middle 
 ages. Again : the central theocracy will divide the civil 
 powers and subdue them one by one, rallying the obedi- 
 ent against the refractory, as it did in the case of John 
 of England. If he had not submitted, his kingdom would 
 have been given to the King of France. And so long as 
 the sphere of every civil power is. local, while the theoc- 
 racy is universal and holds the people by the hopes and 
 fears of eternity, any civil power can be overruled and 
 crushed. 
 
 I need not say that the system has no tendency to 
 sanctify and educate the masses, and make individuals 
 independent thinkers, and to throw them upon God for 
 life, light, and government : this course would be inev- 
 itable death to the system. Its managers well know it, 
 and hate and fear such a course as they do the plague. 
 What they desire is, not a people so holy, so elevated as 
 individuals, so intelligent, so given to reading, thought, 
 and prayer, and so fixed in truth by direct faith in God
 
 388 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 and life in him that he, and he only, is their real and con- 
 stant rule, but implicit, unquestioning faith in themselves 
 and unthinking obedience to their decrees. Never did 
 they make deliberate efforts to give an elevating educa- 
 tion to the mass of the people never will they. It is 
 death to the system to do it. 
 
 Nor does the system tend in its ultimate results to 
 simplify organization and reduce the expenses of govern- 
 ment. By its own spirit and example it fosters the love 
 of worldly pomp and authority and of extravagant cen- 
 tralized aristocratic systems. It will be, as it always has 
 been, the great corrupter of all earthly governments, by 
 sanctioning in the name of God all the sins and abuses 
 to which they are most prone. Think what a centraliza- 
 tion of government would be effected if all the religious 
 interests of a hierarchy, governing Europe, Asia, Africa, 
 North and South America, and the islands of the sea, were 
 centralized at Rome ! What trains of legates, what a 
 complicated machinery of ecclesiastical rulers, for the 
 whole globe I What imagination can penetrate the infi- 
 nite details, the boundless extravagance and extortion, of 
 such a system? And with such examples before their 
 eyes, will secular rulers, in their civil relations, learn to 
 be simple, humble, and unassuming? And will society 
 ever be regulated simply by the spiritual presence of an 
 invisible God, as an unsetting sun ? Never ; no, never. 
 
 Finally. It is not possible for the human mind to 
 conceive of a more perfect antagonist to God and to his 
 system and to our institutions than exists in the system 
 of the Papal corporation. It meets and conflicts with 
 them at every point with deadly hatred. In one system 
 is developed the full soul of Satan, in the other of God ; 
 and it is the final collision of these systems and their 
 advocates that is near at hand. So sure as* there is a
 
 THE FIEE OF GOD. 389 
 
 God, the result cannot be doubtful. The Papal corpora- 
 tion and its allies shall be cast alive into the lake of fire. 
 
 We are to judge of the real end of a system by regard- 
 ing, not what it professes, but what it is adapted to do 
 and what in fact it has done. 
 
 If a set of men were among us from Russia, building 
 massive stone buildings, forging chains, putting in grated 
 windows, fitting up dark cells, and surrounding them with 
 walls, and should all the time profess to be merely erect- 
 ing colleges ; then putting up strong stone edifices on 
 commanding points, with portholes, and trenches, and 
 covered ways, calling them barns for cattle, and then fill- 
 ing other buildings with muskets, and powder, and shot, 
 and calling them hunting establishments ; and if, in the 
 whole empire of Russia, there was talk of colonies to 
 America, of officers and students for the colleges, and of 
 farmers to take care of these barns, and of hunters to use 
 these guns, do you think that this thin veil of words would 
 hide the real nature of the system that was in preparation ? 
 Would not the sagacious say, These are fine words indeed; 
 but this looks far more like war, and subjugation, and 
 prisons, than like colleges, and barns, and hunting? 
 
 Even so it is with this system. It calls itself, boastfully, 
 the only holy church. Its avowed ends are to produce 
 faith, and thus to save souls ; to restore men to God, to 
 disclose his relations, to lead them to keep his laws. But, 
 judged by its structure, its real and only end is to aggran- 
 dize a set of ecclesiastics at the expense of God and the 
 human race. 
 
 It is precisely adapted to enable a set of the most un- 
 principled men whom the world ever saw to make use 
 of the name of God and of the eternal sanctions of his 
 government as the basis of a system the great end of 
 which is to subjugate the human race to themselves, and 
 33*
 
 390 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 to make them the abject instruments for the promotion of 
 their own honor, power, and wealth at the expense of all 
 holiness and truth. 
 
 Strip off the hypocritical garb of religious names, re- 
 move the disgusting cant about the holiness of this cor- 
 poration, which the history of all ages contradicts, and 
 the system is simply what God in his own terrific language 
 has declared it to be the habitation of devils, the hold of 
 every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful 
 bird. 
 
 And the single question is, Shall God rule the world 
 by a holy church ? or the devil, through this mother of har- 
 lots and of abominations ? Of this question who can doubt 
 the issue? The systems are fast coming into their last 
 collision ; and, when the time comes, one final, sudden blow 
 from God shall smite the brain of the system, and its con- 
 vulsive dying agonies shall be felt in every land as a voice 
 from the throne shall proclaim, It is done ! This work be- 
 longs to God alone ; it is his last and greatest work be- 
 fore he reigns on earth. To him, then, let the eyes of the 
 church be directed in earnest, fervent prayer till he comes.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PROTESTANTISM DEFENDED. 
 
 IP Eomanism is in its very essence, as has been proved, 
 a fraudulent, perfidious, and treacherous conspiracy 
 against all of the rights of humanity ; if its tendencies 
 and results prove it to be the immitigable enemy of man- 
 kind in all their interests, pecuniary, social, civil, and 
 religious ; if its lofty, arrogant, and impious claims are 
 based upon mere imposture ; if it was originated and 
 perfected only through a series of the most stupendous 
 frauds and forgeries, in comparison with which the forge- 
 ries of Mormonism are completely thrown into the shade ; 
 if it has always rendered its clergy, as a body, debauched, 
 licentious, and profligate, so that the open though corrupt 
 polygamy of Mormonism is no worse, or rather is much 
 better, than their atrocious and widespread seductions 
 only a very small part of which has ever come to light, 
 though even that small part is enough to fill the world 
 with their infamy ; if, when in power, they have remorse- 
 lessly butchered whole Christian communities, whose only 
 crime was that they preferred the truth and purity of 
 God to the impositions and to the pollutions of Rome ; 
 if it is an essential part of the system (avowed, estab- 
 lished, and practised by councils, popes, and Jesuits) to lie, 
 to swear falsely, and to practise perjury for the destruc- 
 tion of all heretics ; if the system is the most perfect 
 
 (391)
 
 392 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 incarnation of all villany, diabolism, and profligacy ever 
 known on earth ; if the conscientious treachery and 
 stranglings of the Thugs of India, in the service of their 
 malign divinity, are altogether eclipsed by the conscien- 
 tious treachery and butcheries, burnings and tortures, of 
 Eomish popes, bishops, priests, and inquisitors ; if all this 
 and more is true, (and that it is true has been shown, not 
 by declamation, but by a simple statement of only a part 
 of the multitudinous facts of history facts open, noto- 
 rious, uncontrovertible facts that blaze from the pages 
 of history like the sun at noonday,) then no more need 
 be said to justify the existence of Protestantism and to 
 vindicate its godlike character and divine origin. It is 
 enough to say that it is the protest of God, through the 
 Bible and through humanity, against a system of such 
 atrocity and blasphemy. 
 
 To decide this whole great controversy, nothing is 
 needed but a simple historical statement of what Popery 
 is and has done. Moreover, if the European and Ameri- 
 can world do not mean to have this infernal system 
 astride their necks forever, like the old man of the moun- 
 tains upon the neck of Sinbad the sailor ; if, in the elo- 
 quent words of Conelly, they do not mean to have Rome 
 weigh down upon their dearest hopes and most sacred 
 interests " like an eternal nightmare ; " if they do not 
 wish to have the integrity and morals of the globe para- 
 lyzed and palsied by those satanic conspirators, male and 
 female, whom Rome trains up and sends forth under the 
 name of Jesuits to corrupt the nations, then the system, 
 the whole system, must be radically and eternally de- 
 stroyed. It has kept no terms with humanity ; humanity 
 should keep no terms with it. It has kept no terms with 
 God ; and God will assuredly keep no terms with it. It 
 has impiously usurped his place on earth. All common
 
 PROTESTANTISM DEPENDED. 393 
 
 blasphemy disappears and is forgotten in comparison 
 with the blasphemy of the popes and their insensate 
 worshippers. They have not only claimed power as God, 
 but above God and against God ; and let the nations be 
 assured that he will not hold them guiltless forever. 
 The day of his judgment hastens ; it is at hand. 
 
 Yes, humanity shall at length be released from this 
 widespread and long-enduring curse. Yes, it shall come 
 to pass that the Lord shall give the nations rest from 
 their sorrow, and from their fear, and from their hard 
 bondage wherein they have been made to serve. Then 
 shall they take up this proverb against the King of Baby- 
 lon and say, How hath the oppressor ceased, the golden 
 city ceased ! The Lord hath broken the staff of the 
 wicked, the sceptre of the rulers. He who smote the 
 people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the 
 nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth. The 
 whole earth is at rest and is quiet ; they break forth into 
 singing. Hell from beneath is moved to receive her 
 own once more and lament over his fall. Then shall it 
 be said alike in heaven and on earth, How art thou fallen 
 from heaven, Lucifer, son of the morning ! How art 
 thou cut down to the ground that didst weaken the na- 
 tions ! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend 
 into heaven ; I will exalt my throne above the stars of 
 God ; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds ; I 
 will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought 
 down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee 
 shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee, saying, 
 Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did 
 shake kingdoms ? For I will rise up against him, saith 
 the Lord, and will cut off from Babylon name and rem- 
 nant, and son and nephew ; and I will sweep it with the 
 besom of destruction, saith the Lord. The Lord of
 
 394 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 hosts hatli sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought so 
 shall it come to pass ; and as I have purposed, so shall it 
 stand. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed; and who 
 shall disannul it ? And his hand is stretched out ; and 
 who shall turn it back ? 
 
 We should take our views upon this subject from the 
 word of God. The destiny of the Romish corporation, 
 as there foretold, is not reformation, but destruction. It 
 is to be utterly burned with fire ; because God, the aven- 
 ging Judge, is almighty. How sublime is yet another 
 symbol, by which inspiration foretells this her final 
 doom : " A mighty angel took up a stone, like a great 
 millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with vio- 
 lence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and 
 shall be found no more at all " ! How fearfully signifi- 
 cant the reasons assigned for this doom : " By her sor- 
 ceries were all nations deceived ; with her the kings of the 
 earth have committed fornication ; and the inhabitants 
 of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her 
 fornication. She has been drunken with the blood of the 
 saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus ; and in 
 her is found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of 
 all that were slain on the earth " ! 
 
 Hence we need not wonder that in heaven the spirits 
 of martyred saints are called on to exult over her doom. 
 Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and 
 prophets ; for God hath avenged you on her. We need not 
 wonder that with loud acclaim they respond to this appeal, 
 saying, "Alleluia : salvation, and glory, and hono^and pow- 
 er unto the Lord our God ; for true and righteous are his 
 judgments ; for he hath judged the great whore which did 
 corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the 
 blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said, 
 Alleluia ; and her smoke rose up forever and ever."
 
 PROTESTANTISM DEPENDED. 395 
 
 From God's point of vision we can now see what Prot- 
 estantism is. It is the beginning of that great work that 
 shall issue in this glorious redemption of the human race 
 from the bondage of hell, and that shall inaugurate the 
 final reign of God in righteousness and truth. The pro- 
 cess is simple. The same divine energy that shall so in- 
 vigorate the church that she can abhor the worldliness 
 and the pollutions of Babylon shall make her so heavenly 
 minded and pure that she shall be free from all fanaticism, 
 all malignity, all revenge, all diseased emotions, and there- 
 fore in the highest possible degree capable of a divine 
 boldness and unmitigated hatred of sin, such as the de- 
 struction of a system of wickedness so gigantic demands. 
 In that system is concentrated the highest energy, the 
 whole energy, of Satan. " He gave to it his power, and 
 his seat, and great authority." When it is destroyed, his 
 fate is decided. The conflict with that system is the 
 "Waterloo conflict of the globe. 
 
 Immediately after its decision Satan shall be bound and 
 shut up, not in Elba, nor in St. Helena, but in the bottom- 
 less pit. 
 
 It is the custom of Romanists to scoff at Protestantism 
 because, as yet, it has not completed its work, and has re- 
 vealed many imperfections and defects. This is only an- 
 other illustration of the unparalleled impudence of that 
 system. It had so corrupted society that it has required 
 centuries to purge out its corruptions. It had so in- 
 wrought the belief of the necessity of some visible head 
 to the church on earth into the nations as if God were 
 entirely incompetent to take care of his church that 
 when the churches of Europe revolted from the pope they 
 made kings and emperors their heads. And how could 
 the church become pure enough to contend with a concen- 
 trated system of worldliness and iniquity, so long as she
 
 396 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 was not a free church, depending upon her true and only 
 head for her ministry and for her support ? 
 
 So, too, the dogmatic despotism that has sometimes dis- 
 graced and enfeebled Protestantism was but a lesson 
 learned in her school, and not yet unlearned. 
 
 The extent to which she debased the conceptions of 
 Christendom concerning God, heaven, and hell, and all 
 the doctrines of theology, is not even yet fully understood. 
 She retained these doctrines in form, but changed God into 
 an infinite and almighty demon, delighting in treachery 
 and carnage. Her conceptions of heaven, and especially 
 of hell, were sensual, material, brutal. A large portion 
 of Christendom has not yet recovered from the supersti- 
 tious terrors with which she has frozen their minds by her 
 profane threats of the wrath of the almighty fiend of 
 whom she conceived in the place of a pure and holy God 
 of love. 
 
 Nevertheless, the church of Protestantism has century 
 by century worked her way out of the infinite slough of 
 pollution into which all things had been cast by the Ro- 
 mish harlot ; and the time is near at hand when it shall .be 
 given unto her to put on fine linen, clean and white even 
 the righteousness of the saints. Then, at length, shall the 
 marriage supper of the Lamb come, even on earth. Then 
 shall the nations know the difference between the harlot 
 of Rome, in her meretricious purple and scarlet attire, and 
 the bride, the Lamb's wife, in her fine linen, clean and 
 white, in which she shall be publicly owned and acknowl- 
 edged by her royal and divine Head. 
 
 Nor have the results of Protestantism even thus far been 
 small. It has affected the public sentiment of Christen- 
 dom, and even of Rome herself. Rome is not as atheistic 
 and profligate as she was before the reformation : she is 
 bad enough ; but she is at least outwardly a little more
 
 PROTESTANTISM DEFENDED. 397 
 
 decent than she once was ; and in all Protestant coun- 
 tries some of her clergy are in fact better, and all regard 
 appearances a little more than they once did. Let no one, 
 however, be simple enough to think that Rome, or her 
 clergy, or her monasteries, or nunneries are yet pure. Be- 
 yond all doubt, as Gavazzi declares, the abomination of 
 desolations still reigns within. 
 
 But the pope's most audacious temporal aggressions have 
 been checked and terminated. Kings are not, as once, his 
 vassals ; they do not hold his stirrups ; he does not put 
 his foot upon their necks. 
 
 The pecuniary traffic of the great corporation, too, has 
 to a vast extent been destroyed. True it is that she still 
 deludes and swindles hundreds of millions, but not to the 
 extent that she once did. 
 
 Protestantism, also, has produced communities in which 
 families are safe from the profane intrusion of licentious 
 priests into all the secrets of social life by the confessional 
 communities intelligent, and educated, and with a mo- 
 rality so elevated that the pollutions of Popery seem in- 
 conceivable and incredible. 
 
 Protestantism has opened the Bible, and made God, 
 through it, the Sun of the moral world, instead of his en- 
 emy the pope. It has established systems of popular ed- 
 ucation, which Rome fears in this land more than any 
 thing except the Bible. It has produced industry, intelli- 
 gence, enterprise, thrift, and a striking development of na- 
 tional resources wherever it has been permitted thorough- 
 ly to unfetter the human mind. 
 
 And last of all, Protestantism, through the Bible, has 
 made this great nation, in which, for the first time, the 
 great principles of civil and religious liberty have been 
 developed on a scale adequate to the wants of humanity. 
 The power of these principles, too, is felt and feared even 
 34
 
 398 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 now in Papal lands ; and therefore Bishop Hughes, of New 
 York, saw fit to scoff at them as they were imbodied in the 
 proceedings of the great meeting in behalf of the Madiai, 
 and to slander the victims of the persecution of Borne, and 
 all who sympathized with them, in his infamous letter, the 
 atrocious principles and falsehoods of which have been so 
 ably exposed by Dr. Baird and other Americans, who are 
 not ignorant of the abominations of Romish doctrines and 
 morals. Among the replies of such, I am glad to be able 
 to make honorable mention of the speech of General Casa 
 in the Senate of the United States.
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 THE TRUE POSITION OF THE ROMISH BISHOPS RESIDENT 
 IN AMERICA. 
 
 IT will be observed that I have not unfrequently used 
 an uncommon form of speech in speaking of the bishops 
 of the Romish church in this country. I do not speak of 
 them as American citizens, or as American bishops, but as 
 bishops of Rome sojourning here. 
 
 This language is not without intended significance. I 
 do not regard them as in any sense American citizens in 
 heart, whatever they may be in profession. 
 
 My reason is this : They are part and parcel of a great 
 conspiracy which now exists to subvert the most important 
 and fundamental principles of the constitution of these 
 United States and of every particular state in this Union. 
 I do not make this charge heedlessly, but wittingly, ahd 
 with a full understanding of its import. Nor shall I leave 
 it unsustained by ample proof ; for, if there is one prin- 
 ciple of our national and state constitutions more funda- 
 mental than another, it is the great principle of religious 
 liberty. 
 
 Now, of this principle the pope has in every variety of 
 form declared himself the implacable enemy. When the 
 Christian Alliance was formed to extend the principles of 
 religious liberty into all lands, Pope Gregory XVL, in an 
 encyclical letter to all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, 
 
 (399)
 
 400 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED.- 
 
 and bishops, issued May 8, 1844, denounced and slandeied 
 with the utmost virulence the whole doctrine of religious 
 liberty, as hostile to the very fundamental elements of the 
 Papacy, as well as of civil despotisms in general. He 
 slandered it under the name of " indifference in religion." 
 The same pope also, in 1832, declared "that liberty of 
 conscience is a most pestilential error," and " that unbridled 
 liberty of opinion is THAT PEST OP ALL OTHERS MOST TO BE 
 DREADED IN THE STATE." He also denounced " that worst 
 and never to be sufficiently EXECRATED AND DETESTED LIB- 
 ERTY OF THE PRESS." 
 
 But why should any one be simple enough to wonder at 
 all this ? Does any man like to see his own house set on 
 fire ? Why, then, should the pope like any better to see 
 Babylon the great reduced to ashes, and himself in it? 
 The fact is, that the fundamental, constitutional principle of 
 this nation is a rejection of the claims of Rome; and this has 
 been in all ages regarded and treated as TREASON at Rome. 
 The past history and present claims of that corporation 
 cannot for a moment be sustained or defended on any 
 other ground. On no other ground can they justify their 
 inquisitions, and crusades, and massacres. 
 
 The only wonder is that any man can be simple and 
 thoughtless enough not to see that there is in fact, and 
 from the necessity of the case, a death grapple between 
 the two systems. There is no neutrality, no middle 
 ground, between them. If one prevails, the other is ex- 
 terminated. 
 
 And are the Romish bishops in America at war with 
 the pope ? Do they love what he hates and hate what he 
 loves? Are they engaged with all their might in build- 
 ing up what he is laboring with all his might to throw 
 down ? Do they heartily love that which he declares to 
 be the worst of all evils an evil never to be sufficient-
 
 POSITION OF ROMISH BISHOPS IN AMERICA. - 401 
 
 ly execrated and detested even the liberty of the 
 press ? 
 
 Let it now be remembered that their code of morals, 
 though it justifies perjury towards heretics, will not tol- 
 erate perjury towards the pope. What, then, have they 
 sworn to do in their peculiar and anti-republican feudal 
 oath ? To say nothing of the oath to persecute and wage 
 war with heretics, about which they make contemptible 
 and Jesuitical quibbles to cover up its obvious meaning, 
 have they not sworn to obey the pope's mandates and de- 
 crees ? And what is this but an oath to obey the most 
 infamous persecuting enactments of the canon law ? 
 
 According to their own principles, then, are they not 
 guilty of treason to the constitution of these United 
 States treason not in any declamatory sense, but in 
 strict and legal verity ? 
 
 For if the claim of liberty of conscience was in the 
 case of John Huss treason, as at war with the constitu- 
 tion of Rome, if they burned him for it at the stake, and 
 if they have slaughtered millions before and since for the 
 same crime, then why is it not treason for the Romish 
 bishops in America to conspire with the pope and foreign 
 potentates to overthrow the fundamental principle of our 
 national constitution ? 
 
 Let us consider a few facts on this point. In the year 
 1828, F. Schlegel, a Romanist, delivered in Vienna a 
 course of lectures against Protestantism, and in favor of 
 Popery, as adapted to sustain the existing civil despotisms 
 of Europe. In those lectures he thus speaks of this coun- 
 try : " The true nursery of all these destructive princi- 
 ples, the revolutionary school for France and the rest 
 of Europe, has been Xorth America. Thence the evil has 
 spread over many other lands, either by natural contagion 
 or by arbitrary communication." Hereupon the St. Leo- 
 34*
 
 402 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 pold foundation was set on foot, for the purpose of sup- 
 porting, in their own words, " the greater activity of Catho- 
 lic missions in the United States" This Schlegel was one 
 of the Austrian cabinet, the confidential counsellor of 
 Prince Metternich. This society was received under roy- 
 al protection and sanctioned by the pope. It prepares in 
 the seminary of Vienna, and supports a body of Jesuits 
 who are pervading this country. The pope issued a bull 
 promising full indulgence and remission of all their sins 
 to those who should contribute to the society. This bull 
 was made perpetual and sanctioned by the emperor. The 
 tenth article provides that masses shall be said for the 
 souls of all contributors after their death. 
 
 Seven days after this bull, Prince Metternich wrote to 
 the Bishop of Cincinnati, who when in Austria had pub- 
 lished a pamphlet on the state of the western country, 
 which was one of the influences leading to the formation 
 of the society, stating the joy with which the emperor 
 cooperated in the plan of the society. 
 
 What have we here, then ? Is this any thing but a for- 
 mal and avowed plot to subvert our institutions, in which 
 the Romish Bishop of Cincinnati conspires with the pope 
 and the Emperor of Austria ? 
 
 Consider another fact. The society at Lyons, in France, 
 from whose address to its patrons I have given an extract 
 on page 17, insults the Protestant settlers of this coun- 
 try, laments that Protestantism had gained the ascen- 
 dency here, and declares that " the Catholic church could 
 never abandon the invaded territory" and encourages the 
 hope of its speedy recovery. For twenty-two years this 
 society has been sending money to all the bishops of this 
 nation. From their own reports, it appears that in the 
 four years from 1839 to 1843 it sent the enormous sum of 
 six hundred and twelve thousand six hundred and fifty-
 
 POSITION OF EOMISH BISHOPS IN AMERICA. 403 
 
 six dollars. This society, though a general missionary 
 society, was formed with special reference to us, and has 
 sent to us more money than to any other great division 
 of the globe. 
 
 Once more : the English Romanists formed an emigra- 
 tion society designed to establish colonies of Romanists 
 under their priests in the great North-Western States. 
 Of this a full account is given by H. Norton in his Signs 
 of Danger and of Promise, and in his Startling Facts, 
 pp. 28-37. It is simply a consistent part of one great 
 plan. On it Norton remarks, 
 
 " It may suffice to say that the policy of the society 
 is to imbody the Papal population together in the west, 
 remote from Protestant influence. It aims at throwing a 
 majority into the great valley, and thus to control the des- 
 tiny of the United States. 
 
 " They are very confident of success, as appears by this 
 document. The energy of hope is apparent on every 
 page. Yes, they hope ; they confidently anticipate the day 
 when the religion and the government of the United 
 States will be Roman Catholic. 
 
 " Hear this, ye Protestants who never dream of danger, 
 who imagine that such a thought could have danced only 
 in the brain of a lunatic ! Read attentively a few quota- 
 tions from this pamphlet, written by a Roman Catholic 
 gentleman : 
 
 " ' Judge Haliburton asserts that all America will be a 
 Catholic country.' ' The Roman Catholic church bids 
 fair to rise to importance in America.' 
 
 " ' They gain constantly ; they gain more by emigration, 
 more by natural increase in proportion to their numbers, 
 more by intermarriages, adoption, and conversion, than 
 Protestants. With their exclusive views of salvation 
 and peculiar tenets, as soon as they have the majority 
 this becomes a Catholic country, with a Catholic govern- 
 ment, with the Catholic religion established by law. Is 
 this a great change ? A greater change has taken place
 
 404 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 among the British, the Medes and Persians of Europe, the 
 nolumus leges mutari people.' 
 
 " Towards the close of this document is the following 
 sentence in capitals : 
 
 " ' The cooperation of other European nations in pro- 
 moting the objects of the society is most desirable, par- 
 ticularly of those possessing a redundant population 
 that is, Roman Catholic, &c. } 
 
 " This observation is especially applicable to Belgium, 
 France, and a large portion of Germany. They speak of 
 those nations as follows : 
 
 " ' The western districts may be said to have a particu- 
 lar claim to the patronage of France, as it was under 
 their former sovereignty that their vast resources and fa- 
 cility of connection between the northern lakes and the 
 first navigable tributaries of the Mississippi were discov- 
 ered by those enterprising and amiable French Jesuit 
 missionaries, Henepin and La Salle. As to Belgium and 
 Germany, it is almost needless to call on them for greater 
 support than is already furnished by the mass of Catholic 
 population daily flowing from these kingdoms into the 
 fertile west. 
 
 ' ' In proof of this, St. Louis, risen up as it were but 
 yesterday in the heart of this country, now boasts of 
 more than thirty thousand inhabitants, twelve thousand 
 of which are German, Belgian, French, and Irish Catho- 
 lics, mainly attracted by the system of education afforded 
 by the Belgian Jesuits, who have not only been the means 
 of establishing a magnificent cathedral in this city, and 
 also a college now classed so high in affording instruction, 
 that, beyond the commendations universally bestowed on 
 its internal arrangements, its rules may be almost said to 
 hold out the best model for diffusing general knowledge 
 through the west.' 71 
 
 Again : the Duke of Richmond, formerly governor of 
 the Canadas, said in a speQch at Montreal, " The govern- 
 ment of the United States ought not to stand, and it will 
 not stand ; but it will be destroyed by subversion, and not 
 by conquest. The plan is this to send over the surplus

 
 POSITION OF ROMISH BISHOPS IN AMERICA. 405 
 
 population of Europe. They will go over with foreign 
 views and feelings, and will form a heterogeneous mass, 
 and in the course of time will be prepared to rise and 
 subvert the government." He then adds, " The church 
 of Rome has a design upon that country. Popery will in 
 time be the established religion, and will aid in the de- 
 struction of that republic. I have conversed with many 
 of the sovereigns and princes of Europe ; and they have 
 unanimously expressed their opinions relative to the gov- 
 ernment of the United States, and their determination to 
 subvert it." (See Norton's Signs of Danger, p. 16.) 
 
 In connection with these proceedings of foreign organ- 
 izations in cooperation with the Romish bishops in this 
 country, note also the fact that the Catholic Telegraph, 
 of Cincinnati, under the supervision and censorship of the 
 bishop, openly published a condemnation of our American 
 institutions, as " not of a nature to invite the reflecting 
 part of the world." This was said in view of a single 
 fact in a trial in Boston after the burning of the Charles- 
 town nunnery. Concerning this he says, " This one fact is 
 a condemnation of the system of American institutions, con- 
 firmed lately by numerous other proofs" 
 
 Bishop England, a Jesuit, on his return from Europe 
 said, in an address to his diocese, " In Paris and at Lyons 
 I have conversed with those excellent men who manage 
 the affairs of the Association for propagating the Faith. 
 I have also had opportunities of communication with some 
 of the council which administers the Austrian Association. 
 The Propaganda in Rome has this year contributed to our 
 extraordinary expenditure, as has the holy father himself." 
 
 A few years since the Association for propagating the 
 Faith stated their conviction that within thirty years the 
 Romanists would have the ascendency in this country. 
 
 What would be the state of things in that contingency,
 
 406 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 learn from the Shepherd of the Valley, the organ of the 
 Bishop of St. Louis : " The church is of necessity intol- 
 erant. Heresy she endures when and where she must ; but 
 she hates it, and directs all her energies to its destruction. 
 If Catholics ever gain an immense numerical majority, re- 
 ligious freedom in this country is at an end. So our en- 
 emies say ; so we believe." November 23, 1851. (See 
 supra, p. 107.) 
 
 The propriety of this course is thus defended by Mr. 
 Brownson : " The liberty of heresy and unbelief is not a 
 natural right. * * * All the rights the sects have, or 
 can have, are derived from the state, and rest on expedi- 
 ency. As they have in their character of sects, hostile to 
 the true religion, (Popery,) no rights under the law of Na- 
 ture or the law of God, they are neither wronged nor 
 deprived of liberty if the state refuses to grant them any 
 rights at all." Brownson's Review, October, 1852, p. 456. 
 
 Mr. Brownson says he writes nothing without the sanc- 
 tion of his bishop ; and the Romish hierarchy in this coun- 
 try indorse his work. Of course, as soon as the Romanists 
 gain the majority, the rights of all Protestants will be at 
 an end. 
 
 Such is the conduct of these bishops towards what they 
 treacherously call their country. Is this their idea of true 
 allegiance ? Do they swear no other allegiance than this 
 to the pope ? Mark well the words of their oath : " I will 
 not be in any counsel, action, or treaty in which shall be 
 plotted against our said lord and the said Romish church 
 any thing to the hurt or prejudice of their persons, right, 
 honor, state, or power ; and, if I shall know any such thing 
 to be treated or agitated by any whatsoever, I will hinder 
 it to my power, and as soon as I can will signify it to our 
 said lord, or to some other by whom it may come to his 
 knowledge." The interests of the malignant enemy of our
 
 POSITION OP ROMISH BISHOPS IN AMERICA. 407 
 
 institutions they swear to regard as thus sacred. Against 
 him they swear not to plot : him they swear to warn of 
 danger. 
 
 But, when he with foreign despots leagues against us, 
 they take sweet counsel together with them, receive their 
 funds, and carry out their purposes. Nor is this all : they 
 are sworn to go or to send a trusty messenger every third 
 year to the centre of this great conspiracy, and to give a 
 strict account of their fidelity in all their proceedings to 
 their lord the pope. 
 
 And now, if all this is not treason, what is ? But it may 
 be asked, What will the Komish bishops say to this charge? 
 That depends altogether upon their locality and audience. 
 At Rome, Lyons, or Vienna, and before their fellow-con- 
 spirators they will say, " It is true ; and we glory in it." 
 Moreover they will sneer, and not without reason, at the 
 simplicity of any among us who ever have been hood- 
 winked by their old tricks of Romish perjury, in swearing 
 mock oaths of allegiance to a government which is re- 
 garded at Rome as guilty of treason and deserving of 
 damnation, because Protestant and founded on the prin- 
 ciples of religious liberty. Let no one say this is not 
 charitable. True charity does not consist in stultifying 
 ourselves and forswearing common sense. The very re- 
 ligion of these men enjoins and canonizes fraud and per- 
 jury towards heretics, and robbery and murder also, when 
 they have the power : all history proves this. Will they, 
 then, be better than their religion ? 
 
 When, rny countrymen, will you thoroughly under- 
 stand and firmly believe that the Romish bishops among 
 us mean to be faithful to their oath to the pope, and that 
 fidelity to the pope and church of Rome is, of necessity, 
 enmity and treachery to the highest interests of this 
 nation ?
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 APPEAL TO THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 
 
 I HAVE already appealed to every truehearted Amer- 
 ican for a righteous judgment in the great case before us. 
 It is with joy that I now turn to the judgment seat of 
 God. I turn with joy, because he is not burdened, wearied, 
 or depressed even by a cause so vast as this. When be- 
 neath its magnitude my mind faints and fails, I turn with 
 joy to him, the unfain ting, the unfailing, the all-comprehend- 
 ing, the omnipresent God, the Lord of all power and might, 
 glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. 
 Before his judgment seat I bow ; to him I present my 
 cause for judgment. 
 
 To him and to his holy angels I appeal that I have not 
 sought or provoked this warfare with the Romish corpo- 
 ration. To him I appeal that it has been with deep sor- 
 row, and not with joy, that I have made the severe charges 
 against them which stand upon my pages awaiting his 
 judgment. Before him I confess that I am sacredly bound 
 by the highest obligations of truth and justice in dealing 
 with their characters, reputation, and interests. 
 
 But I found them grossly assailing all that is most 
 dear to myself, my friends, my country, and my God. 
 What truehearted American does not love and revere the 
 Pilgrim Fathers and all the other noble Protestant found- 
 ers of this nation, to whose piety, toil, and blood we owe 
 
 (408)
 
 APPEAL TO THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 409 
 
 all our present blessings ? Yet I found this corporation 
 defaming these men as violent, restless heretics ; as the 
 mere scum of sects and as the invaders of their terri- 
 tory. What patriotic American does not love the insti- 
 tutions of this country, based on religious freedom and 
 consecrated to the glory of God and the welfare of man ? 
 Yet I found them leagued with foreign despots for the 
 subversion and destruction of these sacred institutions. 
 
 Who does not love those pure and holy spirits who, for 
 their love to God and to his word, have endured tortures 
 lingering and unutterable in the dungeons of this corpo- 
 ration, or have been suddenly and ruthlessly slain by their 
 fierce crusaders, or burned in their funeral piles? God 
 loves them, with whom they now are ; he has treasured up 
 their tears ; he will make inquisition for their blood. Yet 
 I found this corporation still defaming their character by 
 atrocious slanders, justifying their murder, and exalting 
 with honor the bloodstained authors of their death. 
 
 Who does not regard with deep and tender interest the 
 welfare of his children, and of their children, and of all 
 the coming generations of this great country? Yet I 
 found that bloody corporation straining every nerve to 
 destroy those great and blood-bought principles that now 
 defend us in the free and intelligent worship of God, and 
 to prepare the way for endless proscriptions and slaugh- 
 ters such as have covered their career in the old world 
 with deep and endless infamy. 
 
 Who does not love the free schools of this nation, con- 
 secrated to God and to liberty, in which prayer daily as- 
 cends and the word of God is read ? Yet I found this 
 slanderous corporation assailing these as infidel and god- 
 less schools, and rallying all their myrmidons for their 
 destruction. 
 
 Who does not love and revere the intelligent, benev- 
 35
 
 410 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 olent, energetic, pure Protestant Christians of this land, 
 expending time, labor, and wealth in sustaining the in- 
 stitutions of religion and education, relieving human suffer- 
 ing and want, elevating society, and sending forth the 
 heralds of salvation to all climes ? Yet I found this fero- 
 cious and bloody corporation reviling them as pagans, 
 and thus pouring scorn and contempt upon God himself 
 by scoffing at and slandering some of the most glorious 
 results of his regenerating grace. 
 
 And, as if this were not enough, I found the same un- 
 holy and licentious corporation arrogating to itself all the 
 holiness of earth and an entire and irrevocable monopoly 
 of the grace of God. 
 
 Still more : I found this arrogant corporation stigma- 
 tizing as persecution all attempts to repel such a murder- 
 ous onset on all that man holds dear, and claiming, under 
 the shield of our principles of religious liberty, the right 
 to conspire and combine with the despots of the old world 
 to destroy the very principles that gave them shelter and 
 defence ; declaring that the children of the founders of 
 these institutions, as heretics, have no rights, but that this 
 same immaculate corporation has the entire monopoly of 
 rights in this world, as well as of holiness and the grace 
 of God. They claim that God has given to them the ab- 
 solute and exclusive right to persecute, and that to restrain 
 them from the free exercise of this right is persecution 
 and an invasion of their inalienable^ rights. Moreover to 
 write or to say any thing against them is impious slander, 
 deserving the torments of the Inquisition and the stake ; 
 for they, and they only, are infallible ; they fill the place 
 of God on earth. 
 
 "Who, then, is the assailant ? Who is the invader ? Let 
 God judge. No doubt he will judge. He knows that 
 they have brought on the conflict and provoked the war. 
 
 And now I well know that I am no match for the in-
 
 APPEAL TO THE JUDGMENT OP GOD. 411 . 
 
 tensity of the wickedness of this widespread corporation. 
 No human power is adequate for such a crisis. God alone 
 is almighty ; he alone can meet it ; and to him I turn with 
 exulting confidence and hope. 
 
 Before him and his holy angels and the hosts of the 
 redeemed, as well as before men, I present those charges 
 against this corporation, for which I am ready to give an 
 account before the bar of my final Judge. I have not made 
 these charges in the language of passion or exaggeration, 
 but of sober conviction. 
 
 I have declared, and do declare, that without the slight- 
 est authority or pretext it has impiously arrogated to 
 itself the place of God, and given the sanction of his 
 holy name to deeds and principles which he abhors ; that 
 its whole energy has been put forth to corrupt the prin- 
 ciples and debauch the morals of mankind ; that it has 
 been the great teacher of fraud, perfidy, perjury, and 
 murder ; that it has deluged the nations with the blood 
 of the saints ; that by its great engines of despotism, 
 the confessional and the celibacy of the clergy, it has 
 debauched the whole body of its ecclesiastics and rad- 
 ically corrupted and enslaved human society ; that it is at 
 war with all the interests of humanity ; that forgery and 
 frauds of the most atrocious kind are the basis of its pow- 
 er ; that therefore it cannot live except by the destruction 
 of history and the Bible, and therefore it remorselessly 
 wars upon both of them ; that those of the corporation 
 who reside among us are engaged in a traitorous con- 
 spiracy to resist the cause of God by the subversion of re- 
 ligious liberty in this nation, and throughout the world, 
 in order again to deluge the nations with blood. 
 
 Before God I thus charge them ; and I put upon them 
 the guilt of the blood of his martyred saints, and invoke 
 him to hear their prayers for judgment and to destroy 
 those who have so long destroyed the earth.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHAT SHALL BE DONE? 
 
 THE very nature of this work reveals the fact that it 
 was not written for purposes of theory, but for a practi- 
 cal end. In every crisis the great question is, What shall 
 be done? 
 
 To answer this question, I would say to my fellow-cit- 
 izens, Consider first who you are, where you are, and what 
 God expects of you. You are God's jurors, in behalf of 
 your country and of humanity, in the great question now 
 before the bar of God. You are in the age of light, and 
 not in the dark ages of forgery and fraud ; not indeed, 
 as yet, in the age of perfect light, but destined soon to 
 become so. It is to be the age of true and impartial his- 
 tory ; it is to be an historical day of judgment for the globe. 
 God expects of you, therefore, a true judgment in view of 
 the law and of the facts in the case. 
 
 The law is obvious, alike by nature and by revelation. 
 It is the great law of universal and reciprocal benevolence 
 to God and to man. It is the law of truth, of honor, of 
 justice, of love. It gives to God his rights in all men, and 
 to all men their rights in God. 
 
 Is it not plain, then, that the first great work to be done 
 is to understand the facts of the case to know certain- 
 ly what this Papal corporation is to know its origin, 
 its principles, its laws, its history, its deeds to strip off 
 
 (412)
 
 WHAT SHALL BE DONE? 413 
 
 all its disguises, all its manifold robes of concealment, all 
 its false pretences and religious cant, and to compel it to 
 stand naked in the light of God's own truth before his 
 judgment bar? 
 
 The next thing to be done is to demolish Popish de- 
 fences derived from the doctrine of rights of conscience. 
 The Romish bill of rights is, that their corporation has a 
 divine right to follow a conscience that impels them to 
 persecute and murder all who will not give up intellect, 
 conscience, property, wives, and daughters to their godless 
 ambition and lust. This theory is to be exposed to the 
 abhorrence it deserves, as an arrogant and diabolical in- 
 vasion of all the rights of God and man. 
 
 We are also to expose those defenders of the Romish 
 church who raise the cry of persecution against those who 
 boldly reveal her crimes. Her bill of rights on this point 
 is, that she has from God the exclusive right to persecute 
 all over the globe all who refuse to obey her imperious 
 mandates ; and, if any man dares to peep or mutter against 
 her for her butcheries, that she is unjustly persecuted for 
 righteousness' sake. Mr. Brownson is fast assuming this 
 ground, and is very piously consoling the gentle popes that, 
 like Christ, they are persecuted for righteousness' sake. 
 
 On the other hand, the true and only way of destroying 
 persecution from the globe is utterly to destroy that cor- 
 poration which, as claiming infallibility, has enjoined per- 
 secution against all heretics by unchangeable law ; which 
 has repeatedly deluged in blood the nations of Europe by 
 massacres the most atrocious and by the torments and fires 
 of the Inquisition ; which still justifies these massacres, and 
 declares her purpose to prepare the way for the repetition 
 of them in this land upon our children, and children's 
 children, and all coming generations. Whatever perse- 
 cution is, it is not persecution to aim at the utter destruc- 
 35*
 
 -414 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 tion of a corporation like this ; not, indeed, on the ac- 
 cursed principles of that corporation by perjury and vio- 
 lence, but by a public sentiment formed by God and the 
 truth, so pure and powerful that it shall reduce it to ashes 
 beneath the soles of our feet. 
 
 If then these, the true principles of the case, were 
 thoroughly understood, and if all American freemen were 
 thoroughly acquainted with the real facts of the case, all 
 else would follow of course. 
 
 I say this because eighteen millions of free American 
 Protestants can with perfect ease, if enlightened and full 
 of moral energy, form a public sentiment, with the aid of 
 God, that shall not only do the needed work for our coun- 
 try, but also impart new energy to the friends of freedom 
 in the old world. Romanism, as ought to be known to 
 all, is plotting, not only our downfall, but also that of 
 Great Britain, and is confidently expecting both. But, if 
 united, intelligent, bold, and energetic, we can with per- 
 fect ease defend ourselves, aid our brethren in the old 
 world in their struggles, and turn the tide of war to the 
 gates of Rome. 
 
 These views involve no hostility to the masses of the 
 Romanists in this country or in the old world ; nay, they 
 involve love and sympathy for them, and an earnest desire 
 to destroy that corporation which is their worst enemy, and 
 which is intent only on deluding, enslaving, and plunder- 
 ing them. Mr. Brownson testifies that he found multi- 
 tudes of Romanists in this country disposed to adopt and 
 defend the true principles of religious liberty, and is now, 
 with the pope, straining every nerve to prevent such a re- 
 sult. We ought not, indeed, to confide political trusts even 
 to liberal Romanists till they have renounced all allegiance 
 to the persecuting despotism of Rome a despotism which 
 even now is ready to persecute them just as it persecutes
 
 WHAT SHALL BE DONE? 415 
 
 Meagher for his love of true liberty. But we can treat 
 all such with the utmost kindness, and do all in our power 
 to hasten their emancipation. What the world needs is, 
 that God should smite the Romish corporation itself on 
 the brain with an omnipotent energy that shall at once 
 destroy its life. "When he shall at last do this, when the 
 struggles of the monster shall be over and it shall be 
 stretched out dead upon the plains, then will it be easy to 
 break the chains of its captives and bid them go free ; 
 then will shouts of triumph go up from an emancipated 
 world. 
 
 Whilst I thus place my main dependence upon the pow- 
 er of God, acting through an enlightened and energetic 
 public sentiment, I would not exclude the proper use of 
 legislation. In particular, we ought to have such legisla- 
 tion as shall render it impossible for the pope and his 
 agents to accumulate real estate in this country, to the in- 
 jury of the nation and the detriment of liberty. All na- 
 tions, even the most Papal, have been compelled by the 
 steady and persevering rapacity of the pope and his agents 
 to defend themselves against him by law. The English 
 statutes of mortmain were designed for this end. 
 
 On this point Blackstone says, " Another engine set on 
 foot, or at least greatly improved, by the court of Rome, 
 was a masterpiece of Papal policy. Not content with the 
 ample provision of tithes which the law of the land had 
 given to the parochial clergy, they endeavored to grasp 
 at all the lands and inheritances of the kingdom, and, 
 had not the legislature withstood them, would by this time 
 have probably been masters of every foot of ground in the 
 kingdom.'' He then details their ingenious and systematic 
 contrivances to effect it and to evade the laws. All his 
 discussion of this point deserves careful consideration at 
 this time. And now, is it not time to ask, What right has
 
 416 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 the pope to claim, through his pecuniary emissaries called 
 bishops, the right to hold directly or indirectly all the 
 church property of the Romish denomination in this coun- 
 try. This is not merely a question for the corporation of 
 the St. Louis church in Buffalo to consider ; it is a ques- 
 tion for the nation. Is it nothing to us that three millions 
 of Americans are thus enslaved to the pope by his abso- 
 lute possession and control of all their church property ? 
 Do we desire to give him. the utmost possible power orer 
 them, and to remove them as far as possible from conform- 
 ity to our institutions and susceptibility to their influence ? 
 Shall we allow the worst enemy of this nation to exert 
 against us a power so vast? 
 
 Sooner than to allow this, and if it cannot be other- 
 wise prevented, every title held by the pope, or any bishop, 
 Jesuit, or priest of his, should be annulled by law, and the 
 property confiscated, unless the church to which it belongs 
 wift hold it for themselves by a board of lay trustees like 
 those of the St. Louis church. 
 
 In all this there is no intolerance ; it is simple common 
 sense. Why should we play into the hands of the great 
 conspiracy against our institutions, of which the pope, the 
 Emperor of Austria, and Metternich are the mainsprings ? 
 Moreover, it is time that the amount and condition of all 
 the property of every kind owned or controlled by the 
 pope, through his agents, in this country were thoroughly 
 understood. 
 
 Once more : it is the duty of American citizens to re- 
 move from all editors of newspapers and all politicians all 
 temptation to play into the hands of the pope or his bish- 
 ops. If we are faithful to ourselves, we may be sure that 
 they will be faithful to us. They will not pay court to 
 the rulers of three millions of Romanists, if, by so doing, 
 they are sure to lose the favor of eighteen millions of
 
 WHAT SHALL BE DONE? 417 
 
 Protestants. We owe it to ourselves, to our country, and 
 to the world to strengthen, embolden, and sustain them in 
 the discharge of their duties as Protestants. As soon as 
 all American citizens shall view with proper indignation 
 the Romish emissaries, called bishops,who reside in America, 
 their lordly titles, and gaudy robes, and pious cant will avail 
 them little in their efforts to enslave Protestant politicians 
 and the Protestant press. The entire emancipation of the 
 press, then, and of politics, from Romish influence and in- 
 trigue, is an object the importance of which no mind can 
 estimate. This emancipation the people can effect simply 
 by acting as Protestants ; and they must take the work 
 into their own hands. When this work shall have been 
 effected, when we shall have an all-pervading, free, bold, 
 independent, intelligent Protestant press, then the Romish 
 bishops among us may retire as soon as they please into 
 the obscure shades of private life. But if Protestants will 
 not be faithful to their own principles, if for inferior party 
 ends they will sacrifice religious liberty, free schools, and 
 the property and lives of all coming generations, then let 
 them not make editors and politicians the scapegoat on 
 which to place the sin of the ruin of this nation. I do 
 not hold editors or politicians guiltless if they yield to 
 temptation ; God and his country ought to be to every 
 Protestant dearer than life. Neither, on the other hand, 
 do I excuse the people, if, having the power to invigorate 
 and embolden editors and politicians in the path of duty, 
 they fail to put it forth. 
 
 Our enemies glory in our divisions ; by them they de- 
 clare boastingly that they shall prevail over us. Let us 
 show them that freemen can be united by noble principles, 
 by the love of God, of our country, of freedom, of human- 
 ity, more closely than the vassals of superstition by terror 
 and chains.
 
 418 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Look well into the question of monasteries and nunne- 
 ries ; there is no doubt that they are a curse to the nation. 
 Nunneries are prisons of deluded and hopeless victims. 
 Romish public sentiment and force imprison them. Unmar- 
 ried men have the charge of unmarried women, and hear 
 them confess in these secret abodes. Need more be said ? 
 Even Catholic Spain was compelled to break up the whole 
 system because of its abominable profligacy. The united 
 testimony of all ages is against it, as I have already shown 
 by abundant proof. Shall this root of abominations, then, 
 be allowed to spread far and wide, and by its pestilential 
 influences blast society on every side ? 
 
 I ask your particular attention to the pernicious influ- 
 ence of Romanism on the morals of the community in this 
 respect, that you may learn to what a depth of immorality 
 and vice this country would be plunged if Popery should 
 prevail. By the returns laid before Parliament, it appears 
 that in London the proportion of illegitimate births is four 
 per cent. ; in Paris it is thirty-three ; in Brussels thirty-six; 
 in Munich twenty-five ; in Vienna fifty-one per cent. The 
 amount of immorality thus manifested is a hundred fold 
 greater in some Romish parts of Europe than in any part 
 of Protestant England. In Rome, the city of popes, car- 
 dinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, monks, and nuns, they 
 dare not make returns. But one fact speaks for itself : 
 The number of births in Rome, by Dr. Bowring's returns, 
 is four thousand three hundred and odd per annum ; and, 
 by the returns of Mittermeyer, the number of foundlings 
 in the diiferent foundling institutions in Rome, during a 
 period of ten years, gives a return of three thousand one 
 hundred and sixty per annum. Hobart Seymour, from 
 whom I take these statistics, says, "All this certainly 
 speaks very strongly of the immorality of Rome, or de- 
 clares that, if the mothers be married mothers, they are
 
 WHAT SHALL BE DONE? 419 
 
 the most unnatural mothers in the world." An examina- 
 tion by Mr. Seymour of the official and governmental re- 
 turns of every Roman Catholic country in Europe, in fif- 
 teen or twenty folio volumes, enabled him to say that 
 Popery is universally the mother of vice and crime. Thus 
 in England the ratio of murders, during ten years, was 
 four to a million ; during the same time in Ireland it was 
 forty-five to a million per annum, and in the most favora- 
 ble years never less than nineteen to a million. In Bel- 
 gium, one of the best Romish countries, the murders are 
 eighteen to a million ; in France thirty-one to a million ; 
 in Austria, the great pillar of Popery, thirty-six to a mil- 
 lion ; in Bavaria, a Romish state, including homicides, 
 sixty-eight persons to a million excluding homicides, 
 thirty to a million ; in Italy, in the Venetian and Milan- 
 ese provinces, forty-five to a million ; in Tuscany forty-two 
 to a million ; in the States of the Pope one hundred to a 
 million ; in Sicily ninety to a million ; in Naples, doubly 
 cursed by Popery and the most immitigable Popish civil 
 despotism, two hundred to a million. The average of all 
 these Papal nations is seventy-five to a million. "In 
 Italy," says Seymour, " the land of popes, cardinals, bish- 
 ops, priests, monks, and nuns, there is perpetrated such 
 an amount of murder that the number of persons killed 
 every year in cold blood is greater than the number of 
 men that have fallen in some of the most terrific struggles 
 on the modern battle fields of Europe." In one of the 
 doctrines of Popery there is a direct tendency to this re- 
 sult. The Protestant believes in no change after death ; 
 the Romanist believes that masses, whether purchased by 
 friends or by the murderer, can deliver a soul from pur- 
 gatory, and these masses can be purchased at a very cheap 
 rate. Mr. Seymour delivered a soul from purgatory, as 
 he was assured by the authorized priest at Rome, who sold
 
 420 TUB PAPAL COXSPIKACY EXPOSED. 
 
 him a mass at the cheap rate of two francs. He was 
 asked to enter the name of the soul to be delivered in the 
 altar book, which he did, and was assured that the soul 
 in question was actually delivered from purgatory. This 
 was certified by a receipt from the priest, which he pub- 
 licly exhibits. The only slip in the case was that Mr. 
 Seymour entered his own name in the book, thinking, as 
 he said, that, as they had pledged to take him out of pur- 
 gatory that day, they would have done better to have been 
 sure that they had got him in first. 
 
 Resist with united and irresistible indignation all Ro- 
 mish attacks upon the Bible, upon history, upon our public 
 schools. 
 
 There are also other important principles to be stated 
 concerning the rights of self-defence, conferred by God 
 on Protestant communities, against the plots and threats 
 of Romanism ; but the full consideration of these we shall 
 leave to the coming exigencies of the times and to the 
 future developments of the providence of God. 
 
 Finally : confide above all things in the sanctifying 
 power of the Spirit of God ; avoid fanaticism and all dis- 
 eased and malignant emotions ; be in sympathy with God, 
 in whom love is almighty. He gives us the honor of aid- 
 ing in his great judgment ; let, then, his Spirit animate us 
 and his principles be our guide. Then will his glory il- 
 lumine our prospects, and his victory shall be ours.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 LETTER TO THE HON. JOSEPH R. CHANDLER. 
 
 DEAR SIR : 
 
 SINCE the preceding investigation and argument were completed 
 and issued, I have read with deep interest and close attention 
 your speech delivered in the House of Representatives of the 
 United States of America on January 10, 1855, in which you promul- 
 gate your views of the relations of the Papal power to our national 
 and state governments. 
 
 Your acknowledged abilities as a jurist and a civilian, your ele- 
 vated position as a member of our national government, the eulo- 
 gies passed upon your speech even by some Protestants, and the 
 measures adopted to give it universal circulation throughout this 
 nation, invest your statements with peculiar interest and impor- 
 tance. 
 
 You deny the power of the pope to depose kings and other rulers, 
 and to release their subjects from their oaths of allegiance by divine 
 right ; you declare that, although the popes have exercised this 
 power, as you freely admit, yet they have never claimed to exercise 
 it by divine right, but have rested their claims solely upon the con- 
 cessions, agreements, and constitutions of rulers, and nations ; and 
 finally you assert that the pope has unequivocally disclaimed the 
 right to exercise the power in question. 
 
 To sustain your positions, you present the testimony of American 
 bishops, of foreign universities, and finally of Pope Pius VI., the 
 essence of which may be found on pp. 36 41, and 126 of this work. 
 
 I regret that I am forbidden to concede the validity of your evi- 
 dence or the truth of your positions by the positive testimony of 
 Pius VI., to whom you appeal, and of other popes, including the 
 present reigning pontiff. Their testimony is in direct conflict with
 
 422 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 that of yourself, of the American bishops, of the foreign universi- 
 ties, and even of Pius VI. himself ; so that I cannot avoid the fol- 
 lowing painful conclusions : . 
 
 First, that the alleged disclaimer of Pius VI., which you quote, is 
 worthy of no confidence whatever, but is demonstrably a specimen 
 of that pious fraud to which, in all important emergencies, the 
 popes have so often resorted. 
 
 Second, that the popes have claimed, and do still claim, the 
 power of deposing kings and rulers, and of releasing subjects from 
 oaths of allegiance by divine right, and not on the ground of con- 
 cession by rulers and nations. 
 
 Third, that these claims of the pope are sustained by the most 
 weighty authorities of the Papal church, including popes, councils, 
 and standard divines, and that your disclaimers, and those alleged 
 by you, have no legitimate weight or authority in the decision of 
 this question. 
 
 Allow me, before proceeding to the proof of the first of these po- 
 sitions, to present a brief illustration of the nature of the pious 
 fraud alleged, as adapted greatly to facilitate the present investiga- 
 tion, and to invest it with augmented interest. 
 
 Let it be supposed, then, that after the delivery of your disclaim- 
 ers and protestations, and those of your bishops, in our national 
 councils, and after they had produced the effect designed in favor 
 of your church, it should be discovered that you and they had sub- 
 sequently prepared and signed, in Italy, a solemn document, in 
 which you had repudiated, reprobated, and condemned the very 
 positions you had advocated before this nation, declaring them to 
 be false, rash, scandalous, and extremely injurious to the holy see, 
 and that you had justified your deception and treachery on the 
 ground that they were best adapted to promote the interests of your 
 church, and therefore laudable and right let this be supposed, 
 and you will have a clear idea of what I mean by a pious fraud. 
 Upon you, sir, I charge no such fraud. I do not believe that you 
 have so far neutralized the salutary influences of your early educa- 
 tion as not to regard it with just abhorrence. But upon the pope I 
 do charge such a fraud in the documents which you have presented 
 in his behalf in our national councils. I am willing to assume 
 that you presented them in innocence, believing them to contain 
 the real opinions of the pope, and that you did not mean to
 
 TO THE HON. JOSEPH R. CHAXDLER. 423 
 
 delude this nation by ignoring other fundamental documents in 
 the case, the presentation of which, by exposing the fraud, would 
 have dissipated the delusion created by your speech. 
 
 But I do affirm that Pope Pius VI., after allowing the docu- 
 ments which you have quoted to pass as an expression of his opin- 
 ions, and to produce their full effect in favor of his church throughout 
 the British empire, did in Italy, in a most solemn and authentic 
 document, under his own name, repudiate and condemn, as false, 
 rash, and scandalous, and extremely injurious to the holy see, the 
 doctrine of those very documents, and claim a divine right to depose 
 kings and rulers, and to release subjects from their oaths of alle- 
 giance. I affirm, moreover, that his successor, Pius VII., not only 
 confirmed this document, but distinctly and formally claimed the 
 divine right in question, and that it is at this very day claimed by 
 Pius IX. in a formal brief issued in the year 1851. 
 
 The proof of these statements is simple and direct. It is this : 
 By the bull " auctorem fidei," they utterly condemn the doctrine of the 
 Gallican declaration of 1682. Of the nature and importance of this 
 declaration you are well aware. In it the clergy of France, under 
 the lead of the eminent prelate Bossuet, assumed the very ground 
 which you now occupy that the pope has not a divine right to 
 depose kings and rulers, and to release their subjects from their 
 oaths of allegiance. Upon this declaration of the French clergy it 
 was that Charles Butler and the Romanists of England planted 
 themselves. No declaration was ever more conspicuous in the his- 
 tory of that church. Charles Butler repeatedly assured the people 
 of Great Britain, at the time of the great contest, as you now assure 
 us. that the whole Roman Catholic world had at last come over to 
 that ground. On this basis the universities whose opinions you 
 quote, planted themselves. It was by assuming this position, as 
 you concede, that they quieted the fears of the peopla of England, 
 and gained the political power which they now enjoy. All this 
 was well known to Pius VI., and he aided in producing the preva- 
 lent conviction by allowing his cardinals to issue, as in his name, 
 and with his approval, the document which you have quoted : and 
 yet you will observe that he does not speak in it in person, nor does 
 he sign it with the fisherman's ring, nor in any other way does he 
 authenticate it as a bull ; nor does he in any formal and official 
 way authenticate the oath which you quote. He simply allows his 
 cardinals to say that he approves these documents.
 
 424 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Not so is it when, in Italy, he condemns the declaration of the 
 French clergy and its advocates and defenders. This he does in 
 his own name, in a formal bull, officially authenticated. 
 
 I need not say to you that the four articles of this declaration 
 were expressly designed to resist the Papal claims of omnipotence 
 in church and state. By them he was denied to be infallible in his 
 decisions, and superior to general councils and the established 
 canons of the church. 
 
 But with special prominence and fulness was his temporal power 
 over kings and rulers denied in the first article, which I will present 
 in full, in order that the pope's condemnation of it may be seen as 
 in the light of the noonday sun. 
 
 " We declare that power over spiritual things, and such as pertain 
 to eternal salvation, but NOT over civil and temporal things, was 
 conferred by God on the blessed Peter and his successors, in ac- 
 cordance with the divine declaration, ' My kingdom is not of this 
 world.' John xviii. 36. And again, ' Render, therefore, to Ccesar the 
 things that are Casar's and to God the things that are God's.' Upon 
 this basis is founded the apostolic declaration, ' Let every soul be 
 subject to the higher powers ; for there is no power but of God ; the 
 powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resistetk 
 the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.' Therefore kings and 
 rulers in temporal things are not subjected by the ordinance of God 
 to any ecclesiastical power; nor can they, by the authority of the 
 keys of the church, be deposed either by direct or indirect power ; 
 nor can their subjects be exempted from the duty of fidelity and 
 obedience, nor be released from their oath of allegiance. We de- 
 clare that this doctrine, which is essential to the public tranquillity, 
 and equally advantageous both to church and state, ought by all 
 means to be maintained, as in accordance with the word of God, 
 the traditions of the fathers, and the example of the saints." 
 
 Such is the famous declaration of the French clergy in 1682. Is 
 not this the precise ground assumed by you in your speech ? Was 
 it not the professed ground of the English Roman Catholics, led 
 on by Charles Butler? Are not these the very disclaimers which 
 you ascribe to Pope Pius VI. ? Yet this is the very declaration 
 which that pope condemned and repudiated as scandalous and ex- 
 tremely injurious to the holy see. 
 
 Yet this condemnation was not made openly in England, but
 
 TO THE HON. JOSEPH B. CHANDLER. 425 
 
 covertly in Italy, so as not to arouse the public mind. It was 
 effected on the following occasion. In a council held in Pistoia in 
 1786, by the celebrated prelate Scipio Ricci, the reformer of the 
 notorious and scandalous immoralities of monks and nuns, to cor- 
 rect various abuses, the prelates adopted and eulogized the declara- 
 tion of 1682, in order to sustain the Duke of Tuscany, their patron 
 and defender, against the pope, who manifested a deadly hostility 
 against these reforms. For eight years Pius VI. repressed his feel- 
 ings against this declaration. Indeed, in the year 1791, he allowed 
 it to be said in England that he approved its doctrines, as we have 
 seen. Three years after, however, he adopted the following mode 
 of condemning them. He issued a long dogmatic bull, in which 
 he condemned eighty-five propositions of the council of Pistoia, 
 This bull is known as the bull " auctorem fidei." In the rnidst of 
 this immense Latin dogmatic swamp, which he supposed few Eng- 
 lishmen would ever undertake to penetrate, he saw fit to locate his 
 condemnation of the declaration of the French clergy. The emi- 
 nent French Roman Catholic civilian Daunou has, nevertheless; 
 brought it forth to the light, and I now submit it to you for your 
 careful consideration. Thus speaks Pius VI. : 
 
 " We must not pass in silence the famous and fraudulent rash- 
 ness of the synod of Pistoia, which has dared not only to speak 
 with eulogy of the declaration of the French clergy in 1682, loig 
 since censured by the holy see, but also undertaken to invest it with 
 greater authority by introducing it into a decree concerning the 
 faith, openly adopting the articles it contains, and sealing, by a 
 public and solemn profession of these articles, the principles scat- 
 tered through this same decree ; whence it follows, first, that we 
 have grounds to form against the said synod complaints much more 
 serious than those of our predecessors against the assembly of 1682 ; 
 and we may add that this synod outrages also the church of France 
 when it deems it worthy of being invoked as the patrcn of the 
 errors with which this decree is infected. 
 
 " In consequence, our venerable predecessors, Innocent XL, by 
 his brief of llth of April, 1682, and after him, more formally still, 
 Alexander VIII., by the bull 'inter multiplices,' dated the 4th of Au- 
 gust, 1690, having, in fulfilment of their apostolic duties, disowned, 
 abrogated, and declared null and without effect the said acts of the 
 assembly of the clergy of France, the pastoral solicitude exacts of 
 36*
 
 426 THE PAPAL CONSPIEACY EXPOSED. 
 
 us, with much stronger reasons, that the adoption which has been 
 recently made of these acts in the council of Pistoia be by us con- 
 demned and reprobated as rash, as scandalous, and, after the de- 
 crees which have emanated from our predecessors, as extremely 
 injurious to the holy see ; and accordingly we reprobate and con- 
 demn it by our present decree, and we ordain it to be held as rep- 
 robate and condemned." 
 
 Here, then, is disclosed, in all its stupendous magnitude, the 
 alleged Papal fraud. In England, where the Romish church was 
 weak and had an end to gain, Pius VI., with the assumed indigna- 
 tion of injured innocence, has the audacity to declare that the see 
 of Rome never claimed the power to depose kings and rulers, and 
 to release subjects from their oaths, and that those who affirm it are 
 heretical slanderers. Universities say amen, and bishops seal the 
 protestation by an oath. 
 
 Yet the same Pius VI., in Italy, in 1794, by a solemn bull, repro- 
 bates and condemns THE DENIAL that the pope has these very 
 powers, as false, scandalous, and extremely injurious to the holy 
 see. 
 
 And let it never be forgotten that this bull of Pius VI. does but 
 confirm the decrees of his predecessors, and has been sanctioned 
 by all his successors, and is now the supreme law of the see of 
 Rome. So, then, not only you, but all the bishops of this country, 
 if you may be trusted, are involved in the condemnation of this bull. 
 It may, I am aware, be alleged in behalf of the bishops that they 
 have also sanctioned the opposite doctrine, the true Papal doctrine, 
 as promulgated by Mr. Brownson in his Review, with the special 
 approval of Pius IX. There is the more reason for this allegation 
 since that gentleman assures us that he publishes nothing without 
 the sanction of his bishop, and since the leading bishops in this 
 nation, if not all of them, have indorsed and recommended his 
 work. This magnanimous course will, I presume, satisfy Pius IX 
 that at heart they are faithful to him, and he will allow them, as 
 well as yourself, to continue to defend, in his name and in that of 
 Pius VI., those doctrines which both he and his illustrious prede- 
 cessor abhor and have utterly condemned and reprobated. Why 
 should not the pope pursue the same course to delude the simple- 
 hearted and credulous Americans which his predecessors pursued 
 with such success in deluding the English ? for the same course of
 
 TO THE HOX. JOSEPH R. CHANDLER. 427 
 
 fraud was assiduously pursued by Pius VII., and especially after 
 the concordat by which the Romish church was reestablished in 
 France under the auspices of Napoleon, subsequent to its destruc- 
 tion in the revolution. This treacherous pontiff allowed in England 
 the use made of the fraudulent document of Pius VI., on which 
 you rely ; he left uncensured the protestations of Charles Butler, 
 that the whole Romish world stood on the ground of the decla- 
 ration of the French clergy in 1682 ; he allowed his bishops to 
 take the oath quoted by you, framed in accordance with those 
 doctrines, whilst at the same time he was using all his influence 
 and energies for the destruction of that same hated Gallican decla- 
 ration. 
 
 That eminent Roman Catholic civilian and historian Daunou 
 says of him, that " he particularly solicited [from the French gov- 
 ernment] the retraction of the maxims proclaimed by the clergy of 
 France in 1682. In order to obtain this point he was provided with 
 the letter written by Louis XIV. in 1693 to Innocent XII., [in which, 
 in his old age, and under the terrors of the pope and of his con- 
 fessors, he abandoned the defence of the hated declaration of his 
 clergy,] and he seemed not to doubt at all of success. He hoped 
 that in reentering Rome he could proclaim himself the legislator of 
 the Gallican church, the only and infallible oracle of the church 
 universal, the superior of councils, and the sovereign of kings ; foi 
 such were the titles which the declaration of 1682 denied him." 
 Not succeeding with the French government, he consoled himself 
 with a new condemnation of the obnoxious declaration. This, how 
 ever, he did not do in an open and manly way, but by introducing 
 into a speech delivered in Rome on June 26, 1805, a eulogy on a 
 bishop who had adopted and indorsed the condemnation of each of 
 the eighty-five propositions of the council of Pistoia, contained in 
 the dogmatic bull " auctorem jidei ?) of Pius VI., already men- 
 tioned. 
 
 In commenting on this dastardly proceeding, the Roman Catholic 
 Daunou remarks, '' Now, it is known that one of the condemnations 
 contained in the bull ' auctorem fidei ' is levelled at the approba- 
 tion given by the council of Pistoia to the four articles of the French 
 clergy. It was thus that, confirming in all its terror a decree of 
 Pius VI., without an explication of its details, Pius VII. proscribed 
 at his ease the maxims of this Gallican church, in the bosom of
 
 428 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 which he had just experienced so honorable a reception. We may 
 here remark a specimen of the artifices familiar to the court of 
 Rome. ' Ab uno disce omnes.' >J * 
 
 Nor did Pius VII. cease here. In his instructions to his nuncio 
 resident at Vienna, first made public from the Papal archives by 
 M. Daunou, he claimed as a divine right the power to depose Icings 
 and dissolve oaths of allegiance, after the example of Gregory VII., 
 Innocent III., and others. You will find those instructions in the 
 address to American citizens prefixed to this work, p. 7. In those 
 instructions he declares that the merest tyro in history cannot but 
 know that sentences of deposition against heretical princes have 
 been pronounced by pontiffs and by councils, and that the subjects 
 of an heretical prince are enfranchised from every duty towards 
 him, and dispensed from all fealty and homage. He calls these 
 the most sacred maxims of just rigor of the church, and declares that 
 she still has THE RIGHT of deposing heretics from their principal- 
 ities, and of declaring their goods forfeited, although the present 
 calamitous circumstances render it inexpedient and impossible to 
 reduce these principles to practice. 
 
 Leo XII., Pius VIII., and Gregory XVI. intervene between Pius 
 VII. and the present pontiff, Pius IX. Pius VIII. was the special 
 friend and confidant of Pius VII. Of course we understand his 
 views. Leo XII. and Gregory XVI. distinguished themselves by 
 their denunciations against those declarations of rights of conscience, 
 and those principles of religious liberty and liberty of the press, 
 which lie at the foundation of our national and state constitutions, a 
 specimen of which you will find on p. 400 of this work, which 
 I recommend to your careful consideration. 
 
 And now, under Pius IX., we meet once more a formal condem- 
 nation of the doctrines of your speech in a fresh condemnation of 
 the doctrines of the Gallican declaration of 1682. It happened on 
 this wise : Francis G. Vigil, Roman Catholic Bishop of Lima, South 
 America, published certain dissertations, concerning which he thus 
 speaks : " The grand object of my dissertations is to refute the 
 doctrines of those who have confidently assured the faithful that 
 the spiritual and material swords are in the hands of the church at 
 the bidding of St. Peter and his successors; that kings and pontiffs, 
 
 * From one learn the policy of all.
 
 TO THE HON. JOSEPH E. CHANDLER. 429 
 
 clergy and laity, do not compose two republics, but one only, which 
 is the church ; that, as in every body, the members must be united 
 and dependent ; and as spiritual things cannot depend on temporal, 
 the latter must depend on the former, and be made subservient to 
 them." In his second dissertation, among other lofty Papal as- 
 sumptions, he exposes the maxim that " he who governs in things 
 spiritual governs also in things temporal." Such are the dogmas 
 refuted by Bishop Vigil. Thus nobly does he plant himself with 
 you on the Gallican declaration of 1682. But what says Pope Pius 
 IX. to all this ? Of course, according to you, he says, " Well done, 
 good and faithful servant." Nay, rather, by a special brief, bearing 
 date June 10, 1851, he anathematizes, condemns, and suppresses 
 the book, " as reviving many of the errors of the synod of Pistoia, 
 which have been already condemned by the bull of our predecessor, 
 Pius VI., of grateful memory." Here, then, from the reigning 
 pope, Pius IX., we have a new indorsement of the bull " auctorem 
 fidei " of Pius VI., and a new condemnation of the Gallican doc- 
 trines of 1682, on which you stand. But this is in South America, 
 where Romanism bears sway. Here, as in England, so long as it 
 is weak, you and the bishops are allowed to teach, the Gallican 
 doctrine, and to confirm it in the name of the pope. 
 
 And now are any words needed to prove that the popes do claim 
 the deposing and absolving power by divine right ? Read again 
 the Gallican declaration. What is the main point of that docu- 
 ment ? Is it not a denial of a DIVINE RIGHT to the power in ques- 
 tion? And when the popes anathematize and condemn this denial, 
 do they not thereby claim the divine right denied ? 
 
 In reply to your assertion that Gregory VII. appealed to the con- 
 stitution and laws of the empire for his authority, and not to divine 
 right, I reply that you are not only at war with the established doc- 
 trine of the whole line of your own popes, but with all the docu- 
 ments of Gregory himself, and that you have quoted no document 
 from him to sustain your position. Why did you not quote even 
 one ? But your caution is judicious ; there is no document which 
 would bear a moment's scrutiny. Your learned prelate and histo- 
 rian Bossuet could find none, and affirms that there is none. 
 Moreover, he expressly declares that kings and people have never 
 recognized the deposing power as lawful. I ask your attention to 
 his declaration to this effect on p. 97 of this work. Moreover,
 
 4:30 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 he drew up the declaration of 1682 against the divine right of the 
 popes to the deposing power, because he knew that the popes 
 rested their claims on that basis, and on no other. Moreover, your 
 champion, Mr. Brownson, whose historical learning I presume you 
 will not call in question, is no less at war with you. He declares 
 that " ALL HISTORY FAILS to show an instance in which the pope, 
 in deposing a temporal sovereign, professes to do it by the authority 
 vested in him by the pious belief of the faithful, generally received 
 maxims, the opinion of the age, the concesssion of sovereigns, or 
 the civil constitution and laws of Catholic states. On the contrary, 
 he ALWAYS claims to do it by the authority committed to him as 
 the successor of the prince of the apostles, by the authority of Al- 
 mighty God, of Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords, whose 
 minister, though unworthy, he asserts that he is, or some such 
 formula, which solemnly and expressly sets forth that his authority 
 is held by divine right, by virtue of his ministry, and exercised 
 SOLELY in his character of vicar of Jesus Christ on earth. To this 
 we believe there is NOT A SINGLE EXCEPTION." Such is the testi- 
 mony of Mr. Brownson. Till you disprove it by quoting some 
 authentic document against it, I shall believe that he is right on 
 this point, and that you are in a fundamental error. Allow me also 
 to call your attention to his views of the inexpediency, not to say 
 folly, of your present position and course on pp. 100, 101 of this 
 volume. He there declares that you will not succeed in making 
 your disclaimers credible, and that it is the wisest course openly to 
 avow the truth. 
 
 Why, then, if he repudiates your declarations, should we be so 
 simple as to believe them, and not those of your supreme authori- 
 ties? Or would you have us still be deluded by the pious fraud 
 of Pius VI., and by the responses of the universities, which were 
 in fact condemned by the bull " auctorem jidei," and have been re- 
 peatedly condemned by successive popes even to this day ? Shall 
 we not be taught by the course 'of events in England ? There 
 Charles Butler once took your ground ; but now Dr. Wiseman, the 
 main agent of the pope, declares that the canon law is established 
 in England, which contains all these atrocious claims of the popes 
 in their highest form. He also declares that the morals of Liguori, 
 which are the profligate morals of the Jesuits in their perfected 
 form, are now sanctioned by the pope, and are of supreme author-
 
 TO THE HON. JOSEPH B. CHANDLER. 431 
 
 ity. The doctrines of persecution also are openly advocated in 
 leading Romish periodicals, (see p. 106 of this work.) and in histo- 
 ries prepared for their schools, that a generation may be trained up 
 indoctrinated for future deeds of blood. 
 
 Nor can you be ignorant that recently the same doctrines were 
 boldly avowed among us, as you may see on the same page, 
 although, since the result is proving that the development was pre- 
 mature, it seems to be for a time suspended. But in France, Bel- 
 gium, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere, the Papal court is exerting 
 all its energy to eradicate the Gallican doctrines, and to establish 
 the supreme civil as well as spiritual authority of the see of Rome. 
 In this movement the leading Romish periodicals, the majority of 
 the bishops, the Jesuits, and all the other religious orders rally 
 around the pope. At one time the threat was hinted in England 
 that the time might come of uniting Ireland and France in an 
 armed assault upon the Protestant power of Great Britain. 
 
 What, then, if Charles Butler was sincere ? What if you and 
 others are ? Generations die ; but the Papacy, with its immense 
 patronage and power of seduction and corruption, still lives, and 
 pursues a steady course of policy, the nature of which I have ex- 
 posed, and the ultimate aims of which are fast disclosing them- 
 selves in England. Even in France the Papacy has at last brought 
 the majority of the clergy to repudiate the glorious old Gallican 
 declaration, and to rally on the ground of the court of Rome, for 
 which the popes have so long and so pertinaciously contended. In. 
 South America, too, as we have seen, the Gallican doctrines are 
 fiercely anathematized by Pope Pius IX. And can it be possible 
 that even you, in view of all these facts, can longer remain simple 
 enough to be deluded by the infamous fraud of Pius VI., and by 
 the ambiguous responses of the American bishops, who virtually 
 sanction the doctrine of Mr. Brownson, whilst you are quoting them 
 against it ? Will you, too, be a party to the stupendous pious fraud 
 which I have exposed ? I will hot believe it without further evi- 
 dence. No ; I shall rather assume that your numerous ecclesias- 
 tical guides, whom, as you tell us, you have anxiously consulted, 
 including pope, cardinals, bishops, and priests, have successfully 
 conspired to keep you in ignorance of the true state of the sim- 
 plest and most notorious facts, and that, when you put forward your 
 theory as that of the whole church, you were not aware that the
 
 432 THE PAPAL CONSPIRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 leading Papal organs of Europe abominate it, and that Mr. Brown- 
 son, in his review of Gosselin, had in this country repudiated it as 
 dishonorable to the Papal power, (as you may see on pp. 99, 101 of 
 this work,) proving that " the principal Catholic authorities are cer- 
 tainly in favor of the divine right," and of course against you. I 
 shall assume that you were thus led ignorantly to make statements 
 which, had you been well informed, you could not have made 
 without forfeiting your character as a man of honor and integrity. 
 
 Moreover, I shall assume in closing, as in beginning this letter, that 
 you will not knowingly prostitute your eminent powers in advocating 
 a known and undeniable fraud. Let me, then, hope that, in view of the 
 unequivocal evidence laid before you, you will abandon your inde- 
 fensible position, and join your Protestant fellow-citizen in repu- 
 diating a system the supreme head of which is a sworn defender 
 of principles which you renounce and abhor, and a patron of fraud 
 BO dishonorable that a noble and ingenuous mind cannot but recoil 
 from it with indignant abhorrence. 
 
 I am yours, with sincere affection, 
 
 E. BEECHER. 
 BOSTON, FEB. 17, 1855.
 
 M. W. DODD 
 
 PUBLISHES, 
 
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 Books Published and/or Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 THE BIBLE ITS OWN INTERPRETER: 
 
 A Complete Concordince to the Holy Scriptures ; or, a 
 Dictionary and Alphabetical Index to the Bible. By 
 ALEXANDER CKUDEN, M. A., by which, 
 
 I. ANT TKIISK in the Bible may be readily found by 
 looking for any material word in the verse. To which is 
 added, 
 
 II. The significations of the principal -words, by which 
 their true meaning in the Scriptures is shown. 
 
 III. An account of Jewish customs and ceremonies, il- 
 lustrative of many portions of the Sacred Record. 
 
 IV. A Concordance to the Proper Names of the Bible, 
 and their meaning in the original. 
 
 V. A Concordance to the Books called Apocrypha. 
 
 To which is added : An original Life of the Author. 1 
 vol. royal 8vo, $3 50. 
 
 In its Complete form this work has stood the test of 
 more than one hundred and twenty-five years, outliving 
 every attempted substitute, such as abridgments of this, or 
 other works of similar character made out of it, Bible Anal- 
 yses, Manuals, Commentaries, &c. As a help t8 the study 
 of the Scriptures, it stands unrivaled among all who are fa- 
 miliar with works designed for that purpose. It has been 
 justly styled, "The Bible its own Interpreter." 
 
 TESTIMONIALS. 
 
 From the Rev. Professor Goodrich, D.D., of Tale College, New Ila- 
 Ten. I have made use of Cruden's Concordance for many years, and 
 have always regarded it as a monument of industry, and an indispen- 
 sable assistance, in its complete form, to the study of the Word of God. 
 
 From the Rev. M. W. Jacobus, D.D., of the Theological Seminary, 
 Pittsburg, Pa. No topical arrangement of passages, however complete 
 and useful in its way, can answer (lie same purpose. It is, indeed, a 
 Belf-interpreting Bible. Such a verbaT Concordance as Crudc-n has pro- 
 duced, is more needful to the liible student than the dictionary to a 
 common reader. 
 
 From the Rev. William B. Sprague, D.D., (Presbyterian,) Albany. 
 It has been the companion of my whole life, both as. a theological stu- 
 dent and a minister; ami it is the last book, with th;e exception of the 
 Bible itself, that I would consent to have pass out of my hands. 
 
 From the Rev. Thomas Do Witt, D.D.. (Dutch Reformed. 1 ! New York 
 City. It is invaluable to the biblical student, and the abridgment* 
 which have been made of it furnish no idea ofths thoroughnesn and 
 fMuess of th original ami complete work Other works, such a* 
 " Gaston's Collection,' 1 " Scripture "Manual/' "Analysis of the Bible," 
 &c., cau never supply the place of the original Crudea's Concordance.
 
 * 
 
 Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS! 
 
 From the Christian Chronicle (Philadelphia). 
 "This edition of tho Concordance is a most superior thins; and, In 
 fact, the only one that should bear the name of the distinguished 
 author. Every pastor, every student of the Bible, and every family, 
 should have this Concordance." 
 
 From the Albany Argw>. 
 
 "Though this work is now considerably more than a century old, 
 and has ha 1 competitors in one form or another, it retains an un- 
 questionable supremacy in this department of literature to the present 
 hour. It has been repeatedly abridged; but no abridgment has ever 
 approached the original." 
 
 From the Christian Secretary (Hartford). 
 
 "Every Bible-student, Sabbath-school, and Bible-class teacher, will 
 find it to his advantage to purchase this complete edition in preference 
 to any of the abridged ones. Beyond all question it is the best index 
 to the Bible ever published." 
 
 From the Evening Post. 
 
 "It has pretty much superseded every other similar work with 
 which it has been brought into compel! iio'n." 
 
 From the Religious Herald (Hartford). 
 
 "A partial imperfect Concordance is little better than none. There 
 is but one complete Concordance of ihe Bible, and that is CllL'DEN'S, 
 the work which is the subject of this notice." 
 
 From the New York Organ. 
 
 " It is a great mistake to suppose that only the clergy need its aid. 
 It i< i'!u;>h:, k'ally a book for the people, and no family should be with- 
 out it. It is proper to mention that this edition is not a condensed 
 one, but complete, as the author left it." 
 
 From the Christian Mirror (Portland.) 
 
 " In every family it should have a place beside the Bible. It is In- 
 dispensable to the thorough study of the Seiiptures. The Christian 
 father needs it The Sunday-school teacher needs it. The preacher 
 needs it. No work of the kind ever excelled this." 
 
 From the Advocate and Herald. 
 
 "Cruden's complete Concordance has stood the test of Biblical 
 study, and will never be displaced by any mere af/i-tdtfement. A good 
 Concordance is the best help for ihe study of the Bible ; and Cruden's 
 unabridged is incomparably the best English Concordance ever 
 compiled." 
 
 From the New York Observer. 
 
 " It is incomparably superior to all others. It should be In every 
 family, and not alone" in the. minister's library. lie could better dis- 
 pense with all bis commentaries than with this.' 1
 
 Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 From the Rev. Bishop Janes, D.D., (Methodist Episcopal Church,) 
 New York City. No book has aided tne more in the study of God's 
 Word enabling me to compare Scripture with Scripture, and interpret 
 Scripture by Scripture. I believe Its usefulness both to laymen and 
 ministers can hardly be overrated. 
 
 From the Rev. .T. B. Condit, D.D., of Lane Theological Seminary, 
 Cincinnati, Ohio. I have used it more than twenty years, with a grow- 
 ing estimate of its value. In its complete form, as published by Mr. 
 Dodd, I would earnestly commend it as the book that should find a 
 place in every family by the side of the Bible. 
 
 From the Rev. I. S. Spencer, D.D., (Presbyterian,) Brooklyn, N. T. 
 Crnden's Concordance is, in my opinion, altogether superior to any 
 other work of the kind. I do not believe that any Compendium, Ar- 
 rangement, or Analysis of the Sacred Scriptures "that has ever been 
 published, is so well calculated as this to be of assistance to students of 
 the WoidofGod. 
 
 From the Rt. Rev. Bishop Mcllvaine, D.D., ("Episcopal,) Ohio. No 
 English Concordance can take its place or do without it It is equally 
 precious to the minister of the Word and the earnest reader of the 
 Scriptures, or any sort or condition of men. 
 
 From the Rev. Albert Barnes, (Presbyterian,) Philadelphia. I have 
 long been in the habit of consulting the work to which you refer, and 
 deem it of Inestimable value, and do not believe that it Is superseded, 
 or Is likely to be, by any other similar work. 
 
 From the Rev. H. Humphrey, D.D., late President of Amhert Col- 
 lege, Mass. I have found it an'invaluable help in "comparing Scrip- 
 ture with Scripture." 
 
 From the Rev. Samuel H. Cox, D.D., (Presbyterian,) late of Brooklyn, 
 N. T. The value of Ouden'a Concordance, unabridged and entire, I 
 consider as Incomparable and indispensable. 
 
 From the Rev. Francis Wayland, LL.D., (Baptist.) President of Brown 
 University. I am happy to hear that yon are publishing Cruden's Con- 
 cordance "in Its original state. To the student of the Scriptures I con- 
 elder it (I write deliberately) above all price. 
 
 From the Rev. Gardiner Spiincr, LL.D., (Presbyterian,) New York 
 City. I can only say, that if I possessed but two books in the world, 
 they should be God'"s Bible and Cruden's Concordance. 
 
 From the Rev. Joel Parker, D.D., (Presbyterian,) New York Cltv. 
 It is a work worth more than all other books of reference combined" for 
 aiding in the study of the Sacred Scriptures. . . . Every Sunday- 
 school teacher, every family, and every young person who has not easy 
 access to it in the family of which he is a part, ought to have Crnden 
 standing beside the Bible on his table. 
 
 From the Rev. David S. Doggett, D.D., (Methodist,) Editor of the 
 Southern Methodist Quarterly Review. I regard Cruden's Complete 
 Concordance to the "Holy Scriptures" as Incomparably superior to 
 
 every work of the kind that has ever appeared Besides 
 
 furnishing the very best interpretation of the Sacred Writings, It is also 
 Dictionary of the Bible, of the highest utility to every student of the 
 Word of God.
 
 Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 A PASTOR'S SKETCHES: 
 
 Or, Conversations with Anxious Inquirers respecting the 
 Way of Salvation. By ICHABOD S. SPENCER, D.D., Pastor 
 of Second Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. 2 vols. 
 12 mo. 
 
 This work has had an almost unequaled sale, for one of 
 its kind. For individuality and graphic delineation of 
 character, and for absorbing interest to the reader, it is 
 hardly surpassed by any thing in the language. 
 A few opinions of the press are here subjoined: 
 
 This is a book of remarkable interest. It is one of pastoral experi- 
 ence; and the thrilling interest that gathers about many of the scene* 
 and incidents which it; describes, justifies the comparison which baa 
 been made of it in this respect to the well-known " Diary of a Physi- 
 cian." Indepen den t. 
 
 It is a work of intense interest, and is destined to a wide circulation 
 and great usefulness. Albany Argus. 
 
 We leave this book with reluctance. It has all the interest of War- 
 ren's sketches, entitled "Diary of a Physician," and it is an interest of 
 a much higher order. It is a book, too, of a pointed and solemn in- 
 struction, on the gravest of all themes. Nothing like it exists. Amer- 
 ican Bible Repository. 
 
 This is a remarkable book. The work is written in a bold, clear, 
 straightforward style, that carries the idea direct to the heart. N. Y. 
 Recorder. 
 
 We have rarely read a book of a religiously didactic character that 
 has abounded with so much strong practical good sense, or so much 
 interest to us, as this volume. We warmly commend it to Christian 
 pastors of every denomination. After reading it they will, we are sure, 
 recommend it with equal fervor to those in their congregations who 
 need its counsels. Com. Advertiser. 
 
 We can convey no idea of the exceedingly happy and triumphant 
 logic often displayed in this volume. As an intellectual work, it is of 
 surpassing interest. But in a spiritual point of view, the earnest, ab- 
 sorbing desire to open plainly the way to Christ, and the tender religioua 
 feeling pervading all these discussions, give the work an interest and 
 value which we feel in no danger of exaggerating. N. Y. Evangelist. 
 
 The pictures are true to life, and are sketched with such graphic 
 skill as to forbid the possibility of their having been the product of 
 mere fancy. We earnestly hope that the work will have a very wide 
 circulation. 2T. T. Observer. 
 
 Those sketches that we have as yet been able to read, are intensely 
 Interesting, especially that of the "Dying Univevsalist." To those who 
 are fond of lending good books, we would vehemently commend this 
 as one that will be very sure to be read. PuHtin Recorder. 
 
 The book is in the dramatic form, and so vividly drawn that the 
 reader becomes not merely a spectator, or a listener, but an actor In 
 all that is described. Few will be able to leave it until they have read 
 I is last page. Literary Messenger.
 
 Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 SERMONS OF THE REV. I. S. SPENCER, D.D. 
 
 Author of " A Pastor's Sketches." 
 
 With a Sketch of his Life. By Rev. J. M. Sherwood. 
 2 vols. 12mo. With fine portrait. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THl PEESS I 
 
 Prom, the Puritan Recorder. 
 
 "The Trifle circulation which his two volumes of Sketches have 
 gained will render these two posthumous volumes of discourses the 
 more universally welcome; and we can assure those who have read 
 the former, no matter with how much delight, that they will be in no 
 danger of disappointment in reading the latter." 
 
 From the New York Independent. 
 
 " As a whole they are fine specimens of the clear, simple, earnest, 
 faithful preaching of the Gospel. They are good sermons for the 
 family. The memoir is an interesting sketch of a life of industry, 
 diligence and devotion." 
 
 from the Daily Courant (Hartford). 
 
 "They are rich in thought, clear, discriminating, and sound in doc- 
 trine, and withal remarkable for sim; licity of style and directness of 
 address. The sketch of Dr. Spencer's Life as drawn by Mr. Sherwood 
 is Just, and presents him as an admirable example of pastoral fidelity 
 and great success in ' his work.' " 
 
 From the Journal of Commerce. 
 
 " A more valuable collection it would be difficult to find. The mere 
 titles are impressive, embracing all the great fundamental truths of the 
 Gospel. Most cordially do we commend these sermons to the atten- 
 tion of the Christian public." 
 
 From the New York Observer. 
 
 "They are fall of the strong, good sense, the powerful logic, and the 
 pointed appeal, which made his preaching so effective." 
 
 From the New York Evangelist. 
 
 "They are very striking, original, clear and impressive efforts. 
 There is not an ordinary sermon in the volumes ; while some of them 
 evince consummate ability. They are instinct with life and power. 
 The memoir prefixed by Mr. Sherwood strikes us as admirable." 
 
 From the Christian Chronicle (Philadelphia). 
 "The sketch of his life and character, and the discourses that are 
 added, give a clear view of this good and useful minister of Christ, and 
 can not be too highly valued. They are a valuable contribution to 
 sacred literature." 
 
 From the Christian Observer (Philadelphia). 
 "These handsome volumes contain a truly valuable addition to the 
 religious literature of our country. They are the works of an able, 
 devoted and eminently useful minister of Christ."
 
 Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 THE WORKS OF 
 
 GARDINER SPRING, DJX, LLD, 
 
 In Eleven Vols. 12mo. Uniform binding. 
 
 COMPRISING 
 
 THE ATTRACTION OF THE CROSS; 
 
 Designed to Illustrate the Leading Truths, Obligations 
 and Hopes of Christianity. 
 
 THE MERCY SEAT; 
 Thoughts suggested by the Lord's Prayer. 
 
 FIRST THINGS; 
 
 A Series of Lectures on the Great Facts and Moral Les- 
 sons first revealed to Mankind. In 2 vols. 
 
 THE GLORY OF CHRIST; 
 
 Illustrated in his Character and History, including the 
 Last Things of his Mediatorial Government. In 2 vols. 
 
 THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE WORLD TO THE BIBLE; 
 
 A Series of Lectures to Young Men. 
 
 THE POWER OF THE PULPIT; 
 
 Or, Thoughts addressed to Christian Ministers, and those 
 who hear them. 
 
 SHORT SERMONS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Twenty-six Discourses of a highly popular and practical 
 character. 
 
 Heady for Publication, 
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN GOOD AND BAD MEN; 
 
 Illustrated by the Biography and Truths of the Bible. 
 
 In 2 vols.
 
 Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 PROF. BOYD'S WORK ON THE WESTMINSTER 
 SHORTER CATECHISM; 
 
 Being the Shorter Catechism : with Analysis, Scriptural 
 Proofs, Explanatory and Practical Inferences, and Illus- 
 trative Anecdotes. 
 
 RECOMMENDATIONS FROM ECCLESIASTICAL BODIES, THE PUBLIC PRES8 
 4C. AC. 
 
 Prom the Presbytery of Geneva. 
 
 Resolved "That we recommend to onr churches the forming of 
 classes for the study of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and the 
 use of the recent work prepared by the Rev. J. K. Boyd, explanatory 
 and illustrative of that admirable compend of divine truth. 
 
 " Passed at session of Geneva Presbytery at Waterloo, Feb. 7th, 
 1855." 
 
 from the Richmond Watchman and Observer. 
 " Believing, as we do, that the Shorter Catechism is one of the most 
 complete products of uninspired intellect, we hail with pleasure every 
 aid to its right comprehension. The one before us we regard aa the 
 
 very best we have seen. It presents first an analysis, Ac 
 
 There is thus furnished to the parent or teacher a complete apparatus 
 for explaining this wonderful condensation of Scriptural truth." 
 
 From the Princeton Review. 
 
 After quoting the title-page, the notice proceeds : 
 
 "This descriptive title gives a just idea of the author's somewhat 
 novel plan, which appears to have been carried into execution with 
 commendable diligence and good success." 
 
 From the Puritan Recorder. 
 
 " This was a happy conception. While it relieves the Catechism of 
 Its exclusively didactic character, thus rendering it more attractive to 
 the young, its felicitous illustrations are well fitted to impress the truth 
 more deeply upon persons of every age and character." 
 
 From the New York Evangelist. 
 
 "Prof. Boyd, whoso editions of the Poets have become well known, 
 has published an edition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, with 
 elucidatory notes. The author has given first an analysis of the Cate- 
 chism, &c The light thrown by these various exercises 
 
 upon the text is very great We do not know of any work so full of 
 suggestion, in reference to the venerable Catechism, as this; and as a 
 book for Bible-classes and the family, recalling that inimitable old 
 symbol, we wish we could commend it with power enough to bring 
 it into universal use." 
 
 From the Independent. 
 
 "We like the plan of this Commentary on the Catechism. On the 
 whole we think it the best help to the parent, the teacher and the 
 pastor, In the use of this venerable formulary." 
 
 From the Philadelphia Christian Observer. 
 " A valuable and interesting manual for the Bible-class and family."
 
 Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 from the Presbyterian Magazine. 
 
 " Mr. Boyd's work on the Shorter Catechism seems well adapted to 
 take with the young. So far as we have examined it, the strictures 
 and inferences are evangelical and judicious; and we hope that Pres- 
 byterians will appreciate this effort to promote the study of their 
 standards." 
 
 From the New York Baptist Register. 
 
 "The book forms a brief but suggestive system of theology, valua- 
 ble both to the ministry and laity," and in the family circle." 
 
 From the Newark Daily Advertiser. 
 
 " This little book of Mr. Boyd's is admirably adapted to interest the 
 young in the study of the Catechism, to convey its lessons clearly to 
 their minds, and enforce them on their hearts. We consider it a valua- 
 ble aid to teachers of Sabbath-schools and Bible classes, and to par- 
 ents in conducting family instruction." 
 
 From the Christian Mirror. 
 
 "Mr. Boyd's Commentary is exceedingly well planned and exe- 
 cuted ; and we think it will prove widely acceptable." 
 
 From the New York Observer. 
 
 " "We hope that this volume, evidently prepared with much care, 
 and giving an analytical view of that monumental compend of di- 
 vinity, 'The Shorter Catechism,' mav be an encouragement to its more 
 diligent study. It is designed for Bible-classes and family instruction, 
 and is very largely provided with proof upon the various doctrines 
 exhibited, and with illustrative extracts, which will make the study 
 more interesting to the young." 
 
 From the Boston Traveller. 
 
 "This is a most valuable little book, filled with the most important 
 Instruction, and enlivened by numerous pertinent anecdotes, illus- 
 trative of t,he doctrines taught." 
 
 From the Philadelphia Christian Chronicle. 
 "The admirers of the "Westminster Catechism will be gratified to 
 meet with this edition." 
 
 From the Boston Evening Telegraph. 
 
 "The plan is original, and just adapted to the wants of the age. 
 The aged, too, will love the Catechism more by familiarity with this 
 volume. The plan of the work has been submitted to some of 
 our most distinguished divines, and they give it their unqualified 
 approval.'' 
 
 From the Literary Scrap Book. 
 
 "We hail with pleasure the appearance of the "Westminster Shorter 
 Catechism in its present form No better summary of re- 
 ligions Bible truth can be found or conceived of, than that contained 
 in this Shorter Catechism." 
 
 Many other notices have been received of a similar scope and 
 character.
 
 Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 ORIENTAL AND SACRED SCENES; 
 
 From Notes of Travel in Greece, Turkey and Palestine, 
 By Fisher Howe. 1 vol. 12mo. Beautifully illus- 
 trated with maps and colored engravings, in the highest 
 style of art 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS: 
 
 From the New York Independent. 
 
 "Few travelers have made so intelligible a report of the East, free 
 from redundancy, accurate and distinct"." 
 
 From the Journal of Commerce. 
 
 "Mr. Howe's Sketches, by their brevity and popular interest, will 
 attract the mass of biblical readers more even than the elaborate re- 
 searches of .Robinson and Smith." 
 
 From, the Congregationalist (Boston), 
 " It ought to get within t'ue reach of all parish libraries." 
 
 from Vie Presbyterian Magazine, 
 
 " This is a work of rich instruction and uncommon merit. It is pub- 
 lished in an elegant style, and deserves a wide circulation." 
 
 Irom the New York Evangelist 
 
 " He travels with the Bible in his hand, and his descriptions often 
 throw striking light upon many difficult passages." 
 
 From the Journal and Messenger. 
 " We welcome the book as a valuable accession to sacred literature." 
 
 from the 2f. IT. Palladium. 
 "A very elegant, entertaining and instructive book." 
 
 From Norton's Literary Gazette. 
 
 "His style is animated, and his descriptions so graphic and life-like, 
 that the reader seems to be transported to the place which he is de 
 scribing." 
 
 From the Western Literary Magazine. 
 
 "This book possesses more than one attraction. The letter-press is 
 superb, the illustrations are numerous and beautiful, and the subject- 
 matter is both agreeable and instructive." 
 
 From the N. Y. Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 "The volume is full of graphic description and valuable inform- 
 ation." 
 
 From the Merchants Magazine. 
 
 " It contains much in relation to scenes, manners and customs of 
 the parts visited by the author, that will interest not only the biblical 
 student but the general reader."
 
 Books Published and for Sale by M. fy . Dodd. 
 
 A BOOK FOR EVERY ONE. 
 
 THE WORLD'S LACONICS? 
 
 Or, The Best Thoughts of the Best Authors, Ancient and 
 Modern, in Prose and Poetry, Alphabetically and Top 
 ically arranged. By EVERAKD BERKKLET. With an In 
 troduction, by WM. B. SPRAGUF. D. D. 1 vol. l*2mo. 
 
 " So far as we know, this i? decidedly the best book of the kind in 
 the whole of Knglish, and, we beMeve it may safely be added, of th* 
 world's literature." Hartford Daily Times. 
 
 'This volume contains a mine of valuable sayings and sentiments 
 from the g'-eat masters of lan2U:igc. A C.ilifrni-i of Golden Thoughts, 
 ou subjects alphabetically arranged.'' Christian Advocate. 
 
 "This is by far the best book of laconics ever published. It is a 
 perfect storehouse of thought and truth, sparkling, from beginning to 
 end, with the richest gems, gathered from ihe pages of the best authors 
 of ancient and modem times." JVeu; London Daily Star. 
 
 "It contains a rich collection of great thoughts thoughts which 
 cannot die, for they have the principle of life in them." Christian 
 Observer. 
 
 " It is a glorious ocean of thought and sentiment, moral and spirit- 
 ual." Spectator. 
 
 "Here is a book, "The World's Laconic."," that has not n single 
 parngraph in it that would not suffice to leaven a pretty big lump of 
 modern reading.'' Express Messenger. 
 
 "The labor and research nec-'ssiry to make up such a rolume as 
 this, must have been very creat; but they are not greater than the 
 good judgment and taste displayed in the manner of its execution." 
 Gamming** Evening Bulletin. 
 
 " It is a book where are enshrined the richest pearls, fished from 
 the great ocean of thought." Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 " fiere, on every page, sparkle the purest gems of those who have 
 lived to enlighten, instruct and benefit the world, b their imperish- 
 able writings." Daily State Register. 
 
 "This work seems to be carefully and skilfnlly compiled, and gives 
 us a great accumulation of the wisest things that have been produced 
 by the wisest men." Puritan Recorder. 
 
 " We regard it as an admirable addition to our literature, and it 
 must be invaluable to all writers." .Morning Ezprets. 
 
 " Almost every subject within the range of human thought, is here 
 presented in a brilliant and compact form." C.4. Secretary. 
 
 " We have here a great range, embracing almost every leading 
 subject, illuminated and warmed by some bright conception, a inn 
 exquisite sentiment, some pithy and striking Buying of a noble mind 
 lu its best mood." Hangar Whig.
 
 Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 POETIC READINGS 
 
 For Schools and Families. With an INTRODUCTION. By 
 J. L. COMSTOCK, M. D., author of " System of Natural 
 Philosophy," <fec. <fec. 
 
 "This is a selection from some of the choicest poets, in which the 
 best feelings of youth lire reflected. It will kindle the interest and fix 
 the attention of the young, and give to the mind a healthful tone." 
 The. Book Trade. 
 
 "The selection before us is in all respects one of the most valuable, 
 if not the very best, that we have ever met with. It displays flue 
 judgment, admirable taste, and a keen appreciation of the beautiful ; 
 while in its moral tone, it is perfectly unexceptionable." The 
 Family Friend. 
 
 "We cordially recommend to all young renders this charming col- 
 lection. It is executed with soundness of judgment, delicacy of taste, 
 and great range of research ; and no school ought to be without it." 
 Home Journal. 
 
 "The poetry is of the highest moral stamp, of the very character 
 fitted to cultivate intellect and heart." Spectator. 
 
 "The collection is from the best pens, the Howitts, Taylors. Bernard 
 Barton, Cowper, and other*, "household words." and is made in ex- 
 cellent tusto and keeping ; and it is a book, out of its very simplicity, 
 in which :ige cnn find as much delight and heart nutriment as youth a 
 welcome little volume." Literary World.. 
 
 "A very handsome collection of choice poems from the first au- 
 thors. Among them we notice that touching ballad, ''The Children 
 in the Wood," John Gilpin, Cassabianca, and a hundred others of 
 equal interest to the young." Daily Mercury. 
 
 " Parents and Sabb-tth School touchers will find this a book from 
 which their children can commit most excellent pieces to memory." 
 Watchman and Reflector. 
 
 "These selections of poetry for the young present an admirable 
 mirror, in which they may see their own best feelings reflected, and 
 wherein whatsoever is excellent is set before them in the most attrac 
 live form." Hunt's Merchant's Magazine. 
 
 SOVEREIGNS OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 By ELIZA R. STEELE, Author of " Heroines of Sacred 
 History," Ac. With illuminated title and numerous fine 
 illustrations. 12mo. 
 
 "We have here the scattered facts in the lives of the Kings of 
 Israel and Judah, skilfully arranired into continuous narratives, which 
 are at once highly instructive and deeply monitory." Albany Argus. 
 
 "It will give order and distinctness to all previous acquaintance 
 with Jewish history." Spectator. 
 
 " It will be a useful and interesting work for the Sunday School and 
 home libraries." Newark Daily. 
 
 "The book deserves high commendation, and will be extensively 
 read." Jfont Journal, 

 
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