was permitted to follow his own opinions. Yet both parties gave out that the pope and congregation were in their own favour. However, had a sentence been pronounced, it is more than probable it would be one of those ambiguous decisions, for which the oracle of Rome is so famous.

The controversy broke out again, with new violence, in 1640, and formed a kind of schism in the Church of Rome, which involved it in great perplexity, and proved injurious to it in many respects. The occasion of it was the publication of a book, entitled Augustinus, written by Jansenius, bishop of Ypres, and published after his death. He differed but very little from Augustine; and mostly copied him. This book enraged the Jesuits. They not only employed their pens against it; but endeavoured to have it condemned at Rome. The inquisitors began the opposition by forbidding the perusal of it in the year 1641; and the year following Urban VIII. condemned it by his bull.

There were several places, however, where neither the decision of the inquisitors nor the pope was respected. The doctors of Louvain, and the followers of Augustine, who were numerous in the Netherlands, opposed violently the proceedings of the Jesuits, and the condemnation of Jansenius. There were many respectable persons in France also who were of the party of Jansenius, such as Arnaud, Nicole, Paschal, and Quesnel, and the other famous and learned men who are known under the denomination of the authors of Port Royal. This party was also increased by many persons, who looked upon the usual practice of piety in the Romish Church, which consists in the frequent use of the sacraments, the confession of sins, and the performance of external ceremonies, as much inferior to what the gospel of Christ requires.

It is both amusing and curious to take a view of the various arts employed by both parties in this endless controversy: the Jesuits in their methods of attack, and the Jansenists in their plans of defence. The Jesuits came armed with sophistical arguments, odious comparisons, papal bulls, royal edicts, the authority of nobles, with the secular arm and dragoons. The Jansenists employed sophistry against sophistry, and invective against invective; they evaded the force of papal bulls and royal mandates by nice distinctions and refinements; they had recourse to the interposition of omnipotence by miracles, to oppose human power. They declared war against the enemies of the Romish Church; formed new plans to ensnare the Protestants; took extraordinary pains in instructing the youth, &c. But the many miracles performed seemed to exceed every other means of defence. The cause of the Jesuits, however, was the cause of the papacy; and the grandeur, stability, and success of the Romish Church depended in a great measure upon the success and principles of their religious maxims. Accordingly, the doctrines of Jansenius, which were summed up in five propositions, were condemned in a papal bull by Innocent X., in

1653.*

In the controversy respecting predestination and grace, the Church of Rome has been very much agitated indeed. The excellent Paschal, a Roman Catholic, in his Provincial Letters, written in 1656, shortly after the condemnation of the book of Jansenius, exposes the princi* Mosheim's Ecc. Hist, vol. iii, 169, 520, cent. xvi, sec. 3; cent. xvii, sec. 2.

ples of the Jesuits, and in a very delicate, yet forcible manner, represents the agitations into which the public mind was thrown in consequence of this controversy. Speaking of efficacious and sufficient grace, he remarks: "Where are we now, exclaimed I, and which side am I to take here? If I deny sufficient grace, I am a Jansenist; if I admit it with the Jesuits, in such a sense that there is no necessity for effica cious grace, I am, say you, a heretic; and if I concur with you, I sin against common sense. I am a madman, say the Jesuits. What then am I to do in this inevitable necessity of being deemed a madman, a heretic, or a Jansenist ? And to what a situation are we reduced, if the Jansenists alone avoid confounding faith and reason, and thus save themselves at once from absurdity and error?"

"Christians inquire of divines, what is the real condition of human nature since the fall? St. Augustine and his disciples reply, that it does not possess sufficient grace, unless it pleases God to bestow it. The Jesuits come forward and assert that all do absolutely possess it. Consult the Dominicans on this contradictory representation, and what is the consequence? They coalesce with the Jesuits. By this artifice their numbers appear considerable. They divide from those who deny sufficient grace, and declare that all men have it; and who would imagine otherwise than that they sanction the Jesuits, when, lo! they proceed to intimate that this sufficient grace is useless, without the efficacious, which is not bestowed upon all men?

"Shall I present you with a picture of the church amidst these different sentiments? I consider it like a man, who, leaving his native country to travel, is met by a band of robbers, who wound him so severely that they leave him half dead. He sends for three physicians. resident in the neighbourhood. The first, after probing his wounds. pronounces them to be mortal, assuring him that God alone can restore him; the second, wishing to flatter him, declares he has sufficient strength to reach home, and insulting the first for opposing his opinion. threatens to be the ruin of him. The unfortunate patient, in this doubtful condition, as soon as he perceives the approach of the third, stretches out his hands to welcome him who is to decide the dispute. This physician, upon examining his wounds, and ascertaining the opinions already given, coincides with the second, and these coalesce against the first to turn him out with contempt, and they now form the strongest party."

16. The controversy that existed respecting morals destroys the pretended unity of the Church of Rome. The Jesuits have inculcated doctrines respecting the motives that determine the moral conduct of men, the rule that guides, and the end in view, as to sap entirely the very foundation of morality. It would lead us into too great prolixity to give a full view of their morals. Indeed this would be showing, that although they recommend the pious to abstain from sin, yet if any one is not disposed to forsake his sins, he is not left without expedients and a casuistic reason, to continue in every kind of flagrant wickedness and yet get to heaven. It is true, some of the principles of the Jesuits have been condemned by the popes: still, however, the corruption of their morals has deeply infected the whole church.

1828.

Let

Paschal's Provincial Letters, letter i, pp. 39, 40. Eng. translation, New-York,

any one read with ordinary care Paschal's Provincial Letters, and he will there find proved by a Catholic, from the most authentic sources, all that is here asserted respecting the doctrine of the Jesuits in regard to morals. The Jansenists and other pious doctors of the Church of Rome have controverted the principles of the Jesuists, so as to lead to their condemnation and the suppression of their order. But the principles of this society were not suppressed with them. They still lived in the bosom of the Church of Rome. And that church gives but too good proofs of its corruption in reviving that corrupt association of men, who will not fail to follow the steps of their forefathers in immorality and corrupt principles.*

17. The administration of the sacraments, especially those of penance and the eucharist, is a subject of controversy in the Church of Rome. The Jesuits and others are of the opinion that the effects of the sacraments are produced by their intrinsic virtue and immediate operation upon the mind at the time they are administered, and that consequently no great preparation or inward purity is requisite for receiving them to edification and comfort. And hence, according to this doctrine, the priests are empowered to give immediate absolution to all who confess their sins, and afterward admit them to the eucharist. But such sentiments are indignantly, and indeed with justice, rejected by all who have the progress of vital and practical religion at heart. These think that the clergy should examine carefully the tempers and actions of those who come to the sacraments, since their real benefits can only be extended to those who come with proper dispositions. Hence arose that famous dispute in the Church of Rome concerning frequent communion, which was carried on with such warmth in the fifteenth century between the Jesuits and the Jansenists, with Arnaud at the head of the latter, and was renewed again by the Jesuit Pichan, who thereby incurred the indignation of the greater part of the French bishops.t

18. The proper method of instructing Christians in the truths and precepts of religion forms another subject of controversy. One part of the Romish doctors think that youth ought to be instructed accurately in the doctrines and duties of religion. Others recommend a devout ignorance, and think a Christian is sufficiently instructed when he is taught to yield a blind and unlimited obedience to the orders of the church. The former teach that nothing is so instructive to Christians as the Scriptures, and that they should therefore be translated into the vulgar tongue for the use of all. The latter exclude the common use of the Scriptures in the vernacular tongue, as dangerous and pernicious.

19. A variety of other controversies have disturbed the repose of the Church of Rome. We will mention a few, out of the many which might be named.

The debate concerning the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary agitated the Church of Rome to an alarming extent. In the year 1140 the canons of Lyons celebrated the festival of the conception, which was violently opposed by St. Bernard. The controversy at first was *See Mosheim, cent. xvi, sec. iii, No. 7. Cent. xvii, sec. ii, No. 35, vol. iii, pp. 169, 513; and Paschal's Provincial Letters. Idem, No. 37, vol. iii, p. 172.

+ Idem, cent. xvi, sec. iii, No. 36, vol. iii, p. 171.

carried on with moderation, but in after times it became violent. The Dominicans declared for Bernard, while the Franciscans maintained the new festival, and the doctrine on which it was founded. This controversy gave great trouble and perplexity to the popes, especially to Paul V., Gregory XV., and Alexander VII. The kingdom of Spain was thrown into complete disorder by this controversy about the beginning of the seventeenth century, so that solemn embassies were sent to Rome both by Philip and his successor, with a view to engage the pope to determine the controversy, or to terminate it by a public bull. But the pope uttered nothing except ambiguous words, and avoided a positive decision. For though he was awed on the one hand by the warm remonstrances of the Spanish court, which favoured the sentiments of the Franciscans, he was restrained on the other by the credit and influence of the Dominicans. So that all that could be obtained from the pontiff by the court of Spain was a declaration that the opinion of the Franciscans had a high degree of probability on its side, and that the Dominicans ought not to oppose it publicly. This declaration was accompanied by another, by which the Franciscans were prohibited in their turn from treating as erroneous the doctrine of the Dominicans. Thus the pope gave slender proofs of his infallibility, when, instead of answering their doubts, he evades giving an opinion.*

The bull Unigenitus produced much controversy. It was issued in 1713, and contained a condemnation of Quesnel's New Testament. The dissensions excited thereby in France were violent in the highest degree. The bull put an end to all attempts to reconcile Protestants and Catholics, and represented the doctrines of the Church of Rome in the same shocking light in which they had been viewed by the first reformers. This shows that all the attempts the Romish doctors have made, from time to time, to give an air of plausibility to their tenets, were so many snares insidiously laid to draw the Protestants into their communion that the specious conditions proposed as terms of reconciliation were perfidious stratagems; and consequently there is no dependance to be laid on the promises and declarations of such a disingenuous set of men. The archbishop of Paris made a noble defence against the despotic proceedings of the court of Rome. He and his brother appellants, who rejected the authority of the bull, were persecuted by the popes, the French monarch, and the Jesuits, from whom they received an uninterrupted series of injuries and affronts.

:

20. But it were endless to enumerate the controversies which divide the Church of Rome, as her principles are necessarily dividing principles. Their rule of faith is the very essence of schism in itself. The canonical Scriptures are not safe in the hands of the people, unless interpreted by the church; and yet their church has never acted the part of interpreter, properly so called. Then the doubtfulness of the Apocrypha added to the word of God; and then written and unwritten traditions, and decrees of councils and decisions of popes, and the frequently contradictory writings of the ancient fathers, claiming a unanimous consent-all these tend to uncertainty, and then to controversy, and lastly

to schism.

*

Mosheim, cent. xii, part ii, see. xix, vol. ii, p. 302. Cent. xvii, part ii, sec. xlviit, vol. iii, p. 540.

† Idem, cent. xviii, sec. viii, x, xi.

But the doctrines of the Church of Rome, such as the supremacy of the pope, adoration of saints and images, transubstantiation, &c., &c., tend directly to division. And this statement is confirmed by facts.

The Church of Rome, by excommunicating unjustly or unnecessarily the Greek and other churches, became the leading author of schism. In later days, previous to, and at, and since the Reformation, the unscriptural terms of communion imposed by Rome, prove her to be highly schismatical. And even now, and during these last two hundred years, she has persecuted Protestants, refused to reform herself according to Scripture, retains her absurd creed, and disregards gospel discipline to such a degree, that her former allies, who refused to see the light of the Protestant reform, have sunk into infidelity. France has almost forsaken her; Spain and Portugal are tottering; South America is in a very unstable state. Thus Rome, by her divisive doctrines, and uncertain rule of faith, and unchristian conduct, has divided the Christian world, and may be justly styled chief schismatic of the whole Christian world.

It is true, there have appeared in the Church of Rome many eminent men who have called for a reformation, but in vain. Yet in the estimation of the great body of their clergy, a moral corruption of head and members, and a system which secured this corruption, were, if we believe them, no subject of triumph to the enemy of God and man. long as the authority of Rome was safe, the gates of hell had still the worst of the contest. Let the pope possess the heads of Christians,

As

and Satan was welcome to their hearts. The absurd notion that the unity of the church of Christ depended on unity with the bishop of Rome, tied the hands of all Christians who, before the Reformation, wanted either the knowledge or the courage to examine the airy basis of that system. The sword and the fagot, too, stood in the way of approach to that delicate point; else the invectives so carefully restricted to morals would not always have left the doctrines untouched. Submit your understanding to Rome; confess that you cannot hope for salvation out of the pope's communion; acknowledge that immorality and wickedness do not detract from his supernatural privileges; and on these conditions you are at liberty to oppose the corruptions of the church.

Invariableness in doctrine they place as the criterion of their unity; but surely any set of men, who agreed on a system similar to that on which Roman unity depends, might equally boast of invariableness and unity. There cannot be much difference of opinion in a society which excludes every member who does not submit his own views to those of an individual placed at its head. The unity of the Spirit is preserved by walking worthy of the Christian calling, by lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearance, love, and an endeavour to preserve unity by cultivating peace with all men. Eph. iv, 1-3. Such are the means of unity prescribed by the Holy Scriptures; but overlooked, rejected, or denounced by the Church of Rome.

ants.

It is now time to say something of the unity existing among ProtestIn reference to this point we present the following:21. That exact unanimity in all opinions that respect religion should prevail among all men, is not necessary for salvation to individuals, to the peace and harmony of the church, or the conversion of the world.