This, it must be allowed, he has rendered somewhat difficult by an immense mass of irrelevant matter, which serves, in a great measure, to cover and conceal the real question at issue. Yet if any of my readers find it possible to muster up as much patience as to make the comparison between my evidences and his replies, I am very well assured they will find the charge established. To this subject I intend to address myself, at some future period; but I will not gratify Mr. Andrews so far as to deviate from my own plan to reply to him, farther than what he will find in this number.

Whatever may be the public avowed doctrine of the church of Rome, it is evident that Mr. Andrews himself holds, in substance, that of which I accused his church, namely, the lawfulness of breaking promises, and, by a little stretch of the principle, the lawfulness of violating oaths; for promises and oaths are only different degrees of the same thing. The promise of an honest man is as binding as his oath. He feels it so; and when he is lawfully called to confirm his word with an oath, he does it for the satisfaction of others, not for the purpose of binding himself more firmly.

NOW THE VINDICATOR actually pleads the lawfulness of breaking promises, that is, breaking faith, in at least five different cases, for which see his twelfth and thirteenth numbers, in which he justifies and defends the immoral principles of Bishop Lanigan, contained in his letter, quoted in my twenty-ninth number. The doctrine there laid down appears to him a thing so indisputable, that he presumes Protestants to hold the same. Now, though nobody denies, what he labours through many a long page to prove,e-that many wicked men, called Protestants, have broken their promises; yet I maintain, and I am sure every honest man will agree with me, that it is not lawful, in any case whatever, for a man to break a promise voluntarily made, if it does not bind him to commit sin. And, even in this case, he ought not to break it lightly or hastily; but on solemn consideration, and deep repentance before God, for having made such a promise, together with adequate compensation if any person came innocently to be injured by it. But Dr. Lanigan lays it down as a principle, or doctrine taught by great divines and saints of the church of Rome, with St. Thomas Aquinas at their head, that it is lawful to break promises in all the different cases which he has stated: particularly, that it is lawful to do so on a change of circumstances; no matter what loss may be sustained by the person to whom the promise is made; his interest is out of the question; the promiser is the sole judge with regard to the change of circumstances, and what is best for his own interest. If it be alleged, that it is understood that the promiser shall have the consent of the other party, I answer, it is no such thing; for that forms a case by itself, and is the third upon the bishop's list: but, in the fifth case, on a change of circumstances, the promiser acts for himself alone, and sets the other party at defiance, as Lanigan did in his own case, upon the authority of the rule laid down by St. Thomas and other

canonists.

* It seems the most redoubted and most orthodox Dr. Milner had a hand in this promise-breaking; and Mr. Andrews, no doubt, finds himself obliged to defend any thing in which his oracle and idol is concerned. "Dr. Lanigan had promised to sign for the concession of the veto; but, in consequence of Dr. Milner's influence and in

Now Mr. Andrews seriously defends this principle; and he maintains that THE PROTESTANT would act upon it too, if he found it for his interest. See Cath. Vind. col. 203. In short it seems to him incomprehensible that any man should act otherwise, which shows that he has no distinct ideas of common honesty. As if conscious of nothing but obliquity in his own mind, he has no conception of rectitude in the mind of another. He supposes a case of an agent sending a man such goods as he has not ordered; and he pleads this as a case in which the person who gave the order might lawfully break his promise, and refuse to accept his correspondent's bill; and, by thus shuffling from one thing to another, he attempts to evade the natural consequence of which I had convicted his principle, of breaking a promise, in relation to goods which a man had ordered. This is a disingenuous trick, quite worthy of a man who writes not to instruct but to deceive his readers; and I suppose the popish part of them are so blind as not to see through it. If they did, they would not identify themselves with him, as they do by applauding and circulating his work. It is painful to think that the Papists in this country, in general, hold the same standard of moral obligation that is held by their organ and advocate; and yet I see not how they can acquit themselves, but by publicly disavowing him and his work.

Again Bishop Lanigan teaches, on the same high authority, that the obligation arising from a promise ceases, "when a man promises a thing pernicious or useless to the person in whose favour the promise is made." Here, as in the other case, the promiser is the sole judge of what would be pernicious or useless. Suppose a Papist to have received a great sum of money in trust, under a promise to make it over to a certain young man on his coming of age; and finding that the possession of a large fortune would be pernicious to the young man, he might lawfully break his promise, and apply the money to build a monastery, or do whatever he pleased with it. Those who are acquainted with the practices of the Jesuits, will not consider this an extravagant supposition, or improbable case.

It was, no doubt, on some such principle that the Rev. Peter Gandolphy satisfied his conscience. He promised publicly, and in print, that if any society would furnish him and his brethren with copies of the Bible in their own English version, with or without notes, they would receive and distribute them. The said priest, however, broke his promise almost as publicly as he had made it; finding, perhaps, upon reflection, as he actually maintained in argument, that the distribution of the Bible without notes, that is, the keeping of his promise, would be pernicious to those on whose behalf it was made.

These principles, publicly taught from the Episcopal chair in Ireland, and defended by the organ of English Papists in London, have done more to show me the danger of admitting Papists to places of power and trust, than all that I ever read against what is called Catholic emancipation. I request my readers not to take their opinion of these principles from my commentary, but from the very words of

structions, he retracted, and published his celebrated apology, in which he gave five reasons why a promise might be broken: and that, at all events, the promise he made, though a serious, was not a solemn one; and, therefore, according to his maxims, not binding." History of the Jesuits, &c. 1816, vol. i. p. 138.

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Bishop Lanigan himself, and of Mr. Andrews, their defender; let them take the words as they stand,-let them study their import,-let them reflect that, in four of the five cases, the man who has made a promise is the sole judge of the propriety of breaking it; and let them say whether the principles thus distinctly avowed and defended are not subversive of all the laws of moral obligation.

Suppose a few Papists were returned members of parliament, a thing that would soon happen, if emancipation were granted to them. They would have to swear, indeed, to support and defend our Protestant constitution; but when they had got possession of their seats, they would find the "circumstances" completely "changed;" they would find themselves now a part of the constitution; they would find it lawful to break their oaths, for breaking oaths and breaking promises are only different degrees of the same thing; and they would find themselves bound, by every possible means, to promote the interest of their church, whatever might become of our Protestant constitution. These ideas are confirmed by the weekly and monthly publications No Westminster demagogue can of THE CATHOLIC VINDICATOR. write with more asperity against the measures of government, or declaim with greater volubility about the miserable and enslaved state of our country. It is no part of my business, in a controversy about religion, either to approve or to condemn political measures; and it would be no part of his business, if he would confine himself to the question of religion: but he cannot forbear abusing our Protestant government. He speaks of the Stuarts, particularly Charles I., as if they were the most amiable and tolerant princes that ever reigned. He speaks with the greatest abhorrence of those who opposed the arbitrary measures of that infatuated family. He does not, in plain words, condemn the revolution of 1688, and the Hanoverian succession; but he condemns the principles on which they are founded; and, in the Orthodox Journal, he labours, at great length, to show that the kingdom was much more free and happy before that event, than it has been since. Nay, he tells us pretty plainly, that matters will not be right until all that was done at the revolution be undone, together with all that has been done since. In his Journal for October last, page 376, he quotes from a declaration of the Birmingham Hampden club, which "loudly demands a return to the ancient practice of the constitution," that is, "in Catholic times," as Mr. Andrews is pleased to inform us. From this it is evident that if such men as he were in parliament, they would labour to restore the ancient state of things. Then farewell to our Protestant constitution, and the Hanoverian succession. No matter though these men had sworn to support and defend the constitution as it is. They are taught by the casuistry of St. Thomas Aquinas, and Bishop Lanigan, with the approbation of Mr. Andrews himself, that it is lawful to break a promise, and, by a little extension of the same principle, an oath, when circumstances are changed, and when the keeping of the promise or oath would be pernicious or useless; and what can be so pernicious in the eye of a Papist, as to support a government that is opposed to the establishment of the "Catholic faith?"

My readers know that I have meddled very little with the political question of what is called Catholic emancipation; and I would not

likely have touched upon it now, in this general reference to the writings of my opponent, were not he incessantly obtruding it upon his readers, and railing against our government for withholding from Papists a place in that constitution, which, he says, was framed by their ancestors; insinuating pretty plainly, that the kingdom is theirs in point of right, and that they will not be satisfied till they have it in possession. Something of this appears here and there in THE VINDICATOR, but not nearly so much as the same writer exhibits in his Orthodox Journal, in which, with singular effrontery, he abuses our government under its own eye, in the very pages in which he is endeavouring to prove that popery is more favourable to liberty than the religion of Protestants.

There are few things which I abhor so much as accusing persons of sedition and treason, on account of their religion. This was the practice of the enemies of Christ and his apostles. It was the practice of heathen Rome; and it has been the practice of papal Rome, from the time of the Waldenses down to the days of Eusebius Andrews, who deals out, with an unsparing hand, accusations of treason and sedition against men of whom the world was not worthy,—who were really the best friends of their king and of their country, to whom we are indebted for both our civil and religious liberty, and to whom THE VINDICATOR himself is indebted for the liberty of railing against the government of his country. This, he will say, is mere assertion. Be it so it is at least as good as his assertion to the contrary; and it will be proved, without difficulty, when I enter seriously upon the subject.

No man can justly accuse him of sedition or treason, on account of religion; for it does not appear that he possesses any thing worthy of the name. His declamations are almost entirely of a political character. What he demands for the adherents of the pope, is not freedom of religious worship, but political power; and while, in doing so, he explicitly avows principles that are subversive of those laws of moral obligation which bind society together; while he abuses our established government, and the principles on which it is founded; and while he acts as the organ of thousands of discontented and intriguing Papists in Britian and Ireland, I do him no injustice when I point out the tendency of his writings; and when I warn my countrymen of what they may expect, if persons holding such principles shall come to have power and authority in this Protestant country.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

SERIOUS CHARGE AGAINST THE CATHOLIC VINDICATOR AND HIS SUPPORTERS. IDOLATRY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. DIVINE WORSHIP PAID TO THE VIRGIN MARY. POPISH LEGEND CONCERNING HER BODY. EXTRACTS FROM THE FATHERS. REVOLTING IMPIETY. POPISH RHAPSODY CONCERNING ANN, THE GRANDMOTHER OF GOD. ANECDOTE OF AN ENGLISH OFFICER AND A ROMAN PRIEST.

SATURDAY, April 10th, 1819. IN discussing the subject of the church of Rome withholding the Bible from the people, I find I made a mistake which I hasten to rec

tify. I proceeded upon the idea that it was a principle admitted on both sides, that the Bible was the word of God. This fundamental principle I took for granted, not aware that it would be denied by modern Papists. I find, however, it is in effect denied by their organ, THE CATHOLIC VINDICATOR; and I have no reason to think that he does not speak the sentiments of the general body. In his fifteenth number, which I did not see till after my last was in the printers' hands, he speaks as if he were surprised that I should unhesitatingly assure my readers "that the scriptures contain the word of God, which is addressed to every human creature under heaven; that they contain a complete revelation of his will, for the salvation of our fallen race; that, in short, the Bible is the word of God addressed to his own creatures." I acknowledge that I did say all this; and THE VINDICATOR lays it down to be controverted, though he has not yet said much in the way of refutation, further than challenging me to say how I came to the knowledge of the above truth. Towards the conclusion of the same number, he repeats part of the above, together with a further declaration of THE PROTESTANT, that that part of the Bible which is called the gospel, is a proclamation of grace and pardon to the very chief of sinners; which declaration surprises him so much, that he exclaims, "What nonsense!"

I am glad that I have driven my opponent off the sacred ground of divine revelation, and compelled him to avow his infidelity. I would have rejoiced much more if I had succeeded in bringing him to submit to the word and the righteousness of God for his own salvation; but since he does reject, and declare to be nonsense, the gospel of Christ as a proclamation of grace and pardon to the very chief of sinners, he acts more like an honest man by rejecting the Bible, than by professing to believe it. Now, therefore, I consider him, and those who adhere to him and admire his writings, in the light of mere heathens and idolaters. I shall proceed to discuss the subject of their idolatry, and to show its conformity with ancient heathenism, from which it was undoubtedly derived.

It is a first principle of Christianity, that there is one only living and true God; and that HE alone is the proper object of religious worship. The language of Jehovah, the God of Israel, to his people is, "I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt worship only me." Divine worship, therefore, offered to any other, is direct rebellion against him. It is marked by the prophet Jeremiah, as one of the grossest instances of the idolatry of the children of Israel, in imitation of their heathen neighbours, that they worshipped an idol whom they called the queen of heaven, (Jer. vii. 18; xliv. 17-19.) Now this is actually a title which is given by the church of Rome to one of her principal idols, namely, the Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There can be no doubt that the mother of our Lord, according to the flesh, was blessed among women. From all that is recorded of her, however, it is evident that her blessedness arose not only or chiefly from the mere circumstance of her being the mother of Jesus, but from her being a partaker of that grace which is extended to all Christians alike. Mary makes no great figure in the evangelical history; and when she is brought into view, it seems intended rather to repress than to cherish any idea of her being preferred before other followers