Decree 15th. Describes many errors and heresies in the Syrian breviaries and book of Common Prayer, and orders some to be corrected; others to be expunged. Among these heresies is particularly noted, being printed in Italics, that "in the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, there is not the true body of Christ; 5 with a thousand more blasphemies about it."

5 In this the Syrians agreed with the Eutychians, as Geddes has stated in the following note. "The Christians who live scattered about Mesopotamia and Assyria, and whose Patriarch resides at the Monastery of St. Raban Hurnez, the Persian, in the Gordyæan mountains, forty miles above Nineveh, though Eutychians, and for that reason enemies to the Chaldæan Christians, do agree with them in denying Transubstantiation; as appears from the following prayer taken out of their missal, and communicated to me by my learned friend, Dr. Hide." "Angeli et homines laudabunt, &c." 'Angels and men praise Thee, O Christ, sacrificed for us, who, by the sacraments that are in thy Church, hast taught us, according to Thy magnificence, that as the bread and wine are in their nature distinct from Thee, in virtue and power they are the same as Thee. Thus also the body which is absent from us, is in substance distinct from the word; nevertheless it is united in magnificence and power unto him who receives it. So we believe, and are not afraid because of the difficulty of the subject; for we acknowledge that the Son is in one person, that is to say, one Hypostasis, and not in two persons, as the infamous, that is, the Nestorians, say: for in completing the sacrifice we do not break two bodies, but one, by faith, as Thou hast taught us in Thy Gospel. Praise be to Thee who hast instructed us how, through Thy sacraments, we may adore Thy name."

"Now I take this testimony against Transubstantiation to to be much the stronger for its being given by the Eutychians, to whose heresy Transubstantiation, had it been believed, would have given great countenance; as indeed I cannot but reckon those heretics having no where made use of that doctrine to support their heresy, to be a considerable argument of its not having been believed either by themselves, or by the orthodox; for had the latter believed it, though they had not done it themselves, they could not have failed to have used it as argumentum ad hominem, which is what they have no where done. It is true, this is only a negative argument, but it is as true, that it is so circumstantiated as to be of equal force

A. D.

1599.

CHAP.

I.

Decree 16th. All persons having Syriac books in their possession are commanded to deliver them up to be corrected or destroyed. No one in future is to translate any book into Syriac "without express license from the prelate" of the diocese. While the see continued in abeyance, Francisco Roz was to grant such license.

Decree 17th. None are henceforth to preach to the people until they shall have obtained a license from the same authorities, and subscribed to the doctrines of the council of Trent.

Decree 18th. Commands all priests publicly to recant, upon pain of excommunication, whatever errors and fabulous stories they may have preached.

Decree 19th. Renders null and void all oaths that the curates and others had taken not to yield obedience to the Church of Rome," and obliging themselves never to consent to any change, either in the government of the Bishopric or in matters of faith; nor to receive any Bishop" that did not come to them from the "Nestorian Patriarch of Babylon."

with one that is positive. So again, I do not see how we could have had a clearer proof of Transubstantiation not having been believed either by the Manichees, or the orthodox, than we have from the Manichees abstaining from the cup in the sacrament, for no other reason, but because they did not think it lawful to drink wine; and from the orthodox proving against them from that very institution, that it was lawful, and endeavouring to convince them by several arguments that it was their duty, to receive the cup in the sacrament; and all this without ever so much as once intimating, that the liquor in the cup, when it came to be received, was blood, and not wine." Ib. pp. 169, 170.

6 Geddes remarks, that we may see by this what kind of dependence is to be placed upon any oaths or promises that may be made to defend a church that is not popish, when it shall be in the power of Rome to abolish them. In the opinion

Decree 20th. The Synod condemns and rejects the errors of Nestorius. It is asserted that Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, presided at the Council of Ephesus" by order of the Bishop of Rome."" Decree 21st. Sets forth that, "this present Synod, with all the priests and faithful people of this diocese, doth embrace the last holy and sacred council of Trent,"8 and determines to be governed in all things by its decrees.

of papists, they may be set aside as easily as they were made, when it shall be thought convenient or safe to annul them. Would that this observation applied only to the darkness of the middle ages! How soon did the Romish bishops and priests of Ireland in the 19th century forget their sacred promises to do nothing to injure the Protestant Church in that country, when they had once obtained the immunities granted them by the unsuspecting generosity of England!

7 Cyril was Patriarch of Alexandria, and " presided in the Ephesian council in his own right, being the only Patriarch that was present at it." Geddes, p. 178. Instead of acknowledging the Roman Bishop's authority to command him, he would have rejected such an order with disdain.

But

8" Justinianus, a noble Venetian, in the 15th book of his History of Venice, gives the following account of the holiness of the Trent council: Religionis causa in Tridentino concilio,' &c." The cause of religion met with very little success in the council of Trent, in consequence of the minds that were opposed to it, and the secret ambition of the prelates. But Cardinal Lothoringius alone, a man very studious of piety and an excellent orator, proposed several things that were for the honour of God, and the true reformation of the church. he was opposed by most of the Fathers in the council, who were much more careful about human affairs than divine. And the holy Synod disagreeing upon various subjects, nothing could be decreed that was correct, holy, and pious; all things were filled with confusion and blindness; and such ambition had taken hold of the prelates, that they would pay no regard to faith and religion, for the true reformation of the church." Ib. p. 178.

The authority of the council of Trent is as binding in the Church of Rome now as it ever was. She has never superseded one of its decrees. These decrees of the Synod of Diamper are formed upon those of Trent, and are, therefore, to

A.D.

1599.

CHAP.

I.

Decree 22nd. The Synod engages,

"with

great submission and reverence, to submit itself to the holy, upright, just, and necessary court of the holy office of the Inquisition."9

be received as an accurate description of the Roman Church in the 19th century. It is not enough for individual Romish prelates or others to deny this. They must prove the authority of their church for regarding any single doctrine here set forth as obsolete, before they will be suffered to reject them.

9" This agrees with what Paul III. said of the Inquisition upon his death bed, that it was the pillar of the Church of Rome: if he had been in his chair he could not have delivered

a greater truth. A Heathen Roman Synod would never have been guilty of calling that an upright and just court, which neither suffers its prisoners to know the particular crime whereof they are accused, nor the persons that accuse them, nor the witnesses that depose against them, Acts xxv. 16. I refer those that have a mind to be satisfied with the justice of this court, to the history of the Inquisition of Goa, which was the Inquisition this Synod put the Church of Malabar under, published by a French papist, who was himself a prisoner in it; though I must tell them, that as bad as his treatment was therein, that it was but play to what it would have been, had he professed himself a Protestant, or not to have been of the Roman communion, though he had once been of it." For an account of this Inquisition drawn up chiefly from the work here mentioned, see Book II. c. IV. of this History.

"Bulenger, though otherwise a fierce papist, gives the following account of this holy office. Inter hæc actum,' &c. "It was determined by the Pope and the King of Spain, that the Spanish Inquisition should be introduced into Mediolanum, because the Insubres suffered so severely that they began to entertain counsels of disaffection. That question was raised in Spain, when the Mauri were apprehended, in whose cause and name, persons that were innocent, and free from all blame, are frequently committed to prison; overthrown by force; and, beset by false accusations, deprived of life and reputation. If perchance a report is received from the informers, the accused are immediately demanded of the king; and crimes already tried against men of the lowest order, are presently brought forward against princes. They generally lie three years in the filth and mire of the prison, before they are called to answer, whether to a libel or a certain offence. Others are punished, though at their trial convicted of no crime. Some

Decree 23rd. All persons who "shall happen to know of any Christians doing, speaking or writing any thing that is contrary to the holy catholic faith, or of any that shall give assistance or countenance thereunto," are strictly commanded to give immediate and secret information against them," "that such a course may be forthwith taken, as the necessity of the matter shall require."

SESSION VII.

We now return to the regular order of the Synod. This Session was held on the morning of the seventh day, and it treated of holy orders and matrimony, which the Roman Church regards as sacraments.

Of Holy Orders.

A. D. 1599.

It is assumed that our Lord's appointment of Holy Orthe Apostles to their sacred office constitutes ders and

pine away unknown in the filth of the dungeon. Secret informers, who are dealers in corn, proceed in a crafty manner. Intent on making money, they fly at the heads of the rich, and seek, not so much crimes for judgment, as causes to be produced for litigation. They will bring forward some discourse that has been held among familiar friends, not only as a serious affair, but as a capital crime. And Mazeray, also a papist, in the life of Henry II., calls the Inquisition a Dreadful Monster." Geddes, p. 180.

1 Geddes here remarks, "what a confusion must this practice needs make in a place that is newly and forcibly converted to the Roman Church." Such a system is characteristic of tyranny in its most oppressive form. By this expedient, Menezes, instead of labouring to bind men together by the bond of Christian love, endeavoured to make them all suspicious of one another; that he might thereby shelter from inquiry that cause, which he well knew could not endure the breath of liberty and the light of truth. Was this worthy of a Christian Archbishop?

matrimony.