of books is entrusted, as that which ascribes any kind of authority to magistrates independent of the Pope; no doctrine so divine, as that which exalts the ecclesiastical authority above the civil, not only in spiritual matters but in secular. Nay, the tenet on this subject in highest vogue with the canonists, is that which stands in direct opposition to the apostle Paul's. The very pinnacle of orthodoxy with those gentlemen is, that the lawful commands of the civil magistrate do not bind the conscience; that our only motive to obedience here is prudence, from fear of the temporal punishment denounced by him; and that, if we have the address to elude his vigilance, and escape the punishment, our disobedience is no sin in the sight of God. It is impossible for any thing to be more flatly contradictory to the doctrine of all antiquity, particularly that of the great apostle who commands us to be subject to those powers, not only for fear of their wrath, but for conscience sake. It was lucky for Paul, the apostle I mean, not the Pope, that he had published his sentiments, on this subject, about 1500 years before that terrible expedient of the Index was devised. He had by this means obtained an authority in the Christian world, which Rome herself, though she may, where her influence is greatest, for a time elude it, cannot totally destroy; otherwise that missionary of Christ must have long ago had a place in the Index Expurgatorius.

But to return: Rome has obstructed the progress of knowledge, not only by suppressing altogether books not calculated to favour her views, but by reprinting works, which had too great a currency for them to suppress, mutilated and grossly adulterated. Those editions, when they came abroad, being for the most part neatly, many of them elegantly printed, and well executed, were ignorantly copied by the printers of other countries, who knew not their defects. In this way those corruptions have been propagated. Besides, Rome wants not her instruments in most countries, protestant as well as popish, such as priests and confessors, who are always ready to lend their assistance in forwarding her views. Hence it is often rendered extremely difficult to distinguish the genuine editions from the spurious. For let it be observed, that their visitors of books do not think it enough to cancel whatever displeases them in the authors they examine; they even

venture to foist in what they judge proper, in the room of what they have expunged. In the year 1607 the Index Expurgatorius, published at Rome, specified and condemned all the obnoxious places in certain authors which were judged worthy to be blotted out. This, to those who possess that Index, shows plainly what were the things which, in several authors of reputation, were either altered or erased. But such indexes, which in the hands of a critic would prove extremely useful for restoring old books to their primitive purity and integrity, are now to be found only in the libraries of a very few in the southern parts of Europe. Whether there be any of them in this island I cannot say. But the consequence of the freedom above related, which has been taken by the court of Rome with Christian writers of the early ages, (for it luckily did not answer their purpose to meddle with the works of pagans), has rendered it, at this day, almost impossible to know the real sentiments of many old authors of great name, both ecclesiastics and historians; there being of several of them scarcely any edition extant at present, except those which have been so miserably garbled by the court of Rome, or, which amounts to the same thing, editions copied from those which they had vitiated by their interpolations and corrections.

But what would appear the most incredible of all, if the act were not still in being, Pope Clement VIII., in the year 1595, in his catalogue of forbidden books, published a decree, that all the books of catholic authors written since the year 1515 should be corrected, not only by retrenching what is not conformable to the doctrine of Rome, but also by adding what may be judged proper by the correctors. That ye may see I do not wrong him, (for that in corruptions of this kind they should be so barefaced is indeed beyond belief), it is necessary to subjoin his own words: In libris catholicorum recentiorum, qui post annum Christianæ salutis 1515 conscripti sint, si id quod corrigendum occurrit, paucis demptis aut additis emendari posse videatur, id correctores faciendum curent; sin minus, omnino deleatur. The reason why the year 1515 is particularly specified as that after which the writings, even of Roman Catholics, were to undergo a more strict examination and scrutiny than any published by such before, is plainly

this: It was in the year immediately following that Luther began to declaim against indulgences, which proved the first dawn of the Reformation. His preaching and publications produced a very hot controversy. Now many of those who defended what was called the catholic cause, and strenuously maintained the perfect purity of the church's doctrine, did not hesitate to acknowledge corruptions in her discipline, and particularly in the conduct of Rome, which needed to be reformed. They affected to distinguish between the court and the church of Rome, a distinction no way palatable to the former. Now it would have been exceedingly imprudent to suppress those controversial pieces altogether, especially at that time, when they were universally considered as being, and in fact were, the best defence of the Romish cause against the encroachments of protestantism and the Reformation. On the other hand, the concessions made in them, in regard to discipline and the court of Rome, and the distinctions they contained, bore an aspect very unfavourable to Roman despotism. Hence the determination of correcting them, not only by expunging what was not relished at court, but by altering and inserting whatever was judged proper to alter or insert by the ruling powers in the church. Authors had been often falsified before, and made to say what they never meant, nay, the reverse of what they actually said; but of a falsification so imprudently conducted, this of Pope Clement was the first example. Their interpolations, however, of the works even of Roman Catholics, though not so avowedly made, have by no means been confined to those who have written since the year 1515. Platina, a writer of the fifteenth, and therefore of the former century, who gave the world a history of the Popes, though far from being unfavourable to the pretensions of Rome, has not escaped unhurt their jealous vigilance. For though he had said very little, as Bower well observes, that could be suspected of being any way offensive, that very little has been thought too much. Accordingly, he has been taught, in all the editions of his work since the middle of the sixteenth century, to speak with more reserve, and to suppress, or disguise, some truths which he had formerly told.

Hence it happens, that in regard to all the books which

have passed through the hands of Roman licensers or inquisitors, we can conclude nothing from what we find in them in regard to the sentiments of their authors, but solely in regard to the sentiments of Rome, to an exact conformity to which, it was judged necessary that, by all possible methods of squeezing and wrenching, maiming and interpolating, they should be brought. Nor has the revisal been confined to books written on religious subjects, but extended to all subjects-politics, history, works of science, and of amusement. Nay, what is more, the Pope came at last to claim it as an exclusive privilege, to prohibit and to license, not for Rome only and the ecclesiastical state, but for all Christendom, at least for all the countries wherein his authority is acknowledged, insisting, that what he prohibits, no prince whatever, even in his own dominions, dares license, and what he licenses, none dares prohibit. The first of these has been generally conceded to him, though not perhaps punctually obeyed.

The second occasioned a violent struggle, in the beginning of the last century, between the Pope and the king of Spain, on occasion of a book written by Cardinal Baronius containing many things in derogation of that monarch's government and title, and traducing with much asperity many of his ancestors, the kings of Arragon. The book was licensed at Rome, but prohibited in the Spanish dominions. The monarch stood firm in his purpose, and the Pope thought fit to drop the controversy, but not to renounce the claim. This Rome never does, actuated by a political maxim formerly suggested, of which she has often availed herself when a proper opportunity appeared. A more particular account of this contest ye have in Father Paul's discourse on the constitution and rules of the Inquisition at Venice. How great would be the consequence of this papal privilege, if universally acquiesced in, any person of reflection will easily conceive. Who knows not the power of first impressions on any question, the influence of education, and the force of habit, in rivetting opinions formed in consequence of being uniformly accustomed to attend to one side only of the question? All these advantages the pontiff would have clearly in his favour, could he but secure to himself that high prerogative, and become in effect our supreme or only teacher.

LECTURE XXV.

HAVING discussed, in the two preceding lectures, what relates to the concealment of scripture, and of all the public offices of religion, by the use of an unknown tongue, and to the check given to the advancement of knowledge by the Index Expurgatorius, I intend, in this discourse, to consider the third grand expedient adopted by Rome for securing the implicit obedience of her votaries, namely, persecution.

Nothing is clearer, from the New Testament, than that this method of promoting the faith is totally unwarranted, as well by the great Author as by the first propagators of our religion. His disciples were sent out as sheep amidst wolves, exposed to the most dreadful persecutions, but incapable of ever giving to their enemies a return in kind, in a consistency with this signature of Christ's servants; for in no change of circumstances will it suit the nature of the sheep to persecute the wolf. As it was not an earthly kingdom which our Lord came to establish, so it was not by carnal weapons that his spiritual warfare was to be conducted. The means must be adapted to the end. My kingdom, said he, is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight. Worldly weapons are suited to the conquest of worldly kingdoms: But nothing can be worse adapted to inform the understanding and conquer the heart than such coarse implements. Lactantius says, with reason, Defendenda est religio non occidendo sed moriendo, non sævitia sed patientia. To convince and to persuade, both by teaching and by example, was the express commission given to the apostles. The only weapons which they were to employ, or which could be employed, for this purpose, were arguments and motives from reason and scripture: their only armour, faith and patience, prudence and innocence, the comforts arising from the consciousness of doing their duty, and the unshaken hope of the promised reward. By means of this panoply, however lightly it may be accounted of by those who cannot look beyond the present scene, they were, in the