"women only, forcibly retained by the noble Dame of Marly, "mother of Bouchard, Lord of Montmorency, were saved "from the flames; and terror and consternation succeeding to "their enthusiastic fervour, they consented to be converted."

The following extract is illustrative of the crime of charity as taught in the Popish church:

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"Those who had committed so many crimes were not, for "the greater part, bad men. They came from that part of "Burgundy and northern France where crimes have always "been rare, where long contentions, hatred, and vengeance 66 are passions almost unknown, and where the unhappy are always sure to find compassion and aid. The crusaders "themselves were always ready to afford each other proofs "of generosity, of support, and compassion; but the heretics were, in their eyes, outcasts from the human race. Ac"customed to confide their consciences to their priests, to "hear the orders of Rome as a voice from heaven, never "to submit that which appertained to the faith to the judg"ment of Reason, they congratulated themselves on the "horror they felt for the sectaries. The more zealous they "were for the glory of God, the more ardently they laboured "for the destruction of heretics, the better Christians they 66 thought themselves. And if at any time they felt a move"ment of pity or terror whilst assisting at their punishment, they thought it a revolt of the flesh, which they confessed "at the tribunal of penitence; nor could they get quit of "their remorse till their priests had given them absolution ! "Wo to the men whose religion is completely perverted! "All their most virtuous sentiments lead them astray. Their "zeal is changed into ferocity. Their humility consigns "them to the direction of the impostors who conduct them. "Their very charity becomes sanguinary; they sacrifice "those from whom they fear contagion, and they demand a "baptism of blood, to save some elect to the Lord."

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The monk of Vaux-Cernay, who was the Popish chronicler

of these Crusades, thus tells us, with much self-satisfaction, the "joyous" results of the capture of Lavaur:

"Very soon they dragged out of the castle Aimery, "Lord of Montreal, and other knights, to the number of "eighty. The noble Count immediately ordered them to be "hanged upon the gallows; but as soon as Aimery, the ❝stoutest among them, was hanged, the gallows fell; for, in "their great haste, they had not well fixed it in the earth. "The Count, seeing that this would produce great delay, "ordered the rest to be massacred; and the pilgrims, receiv"ing the order with the greatest avidity, very soon massacred "them all upon the spot. The lady of the castle, who "was sister to Aimery, and an execrable heretic, was, by the "Count's order, thrown into a pit, which was filled up with "stones; afterwards, our pilgrims collected the innumerable "heretics that the castle contained, and burned them alive "with the utmost joy*."

Such were the means employed to stifle a reformation' of the abuses of the Church of Rome in the thirteenth century; and, judging by these, is it harsh to suppose that such would have been adopted by Pope Pius IV. himself—the pious Pope, whose name is attached to the book we are commenting upon-if he had possessed the power of exterminating the English reformers of the abuses practised in his church? He, who, in 1564, the sixth year of the reign. of Elizabeth, summoned the Council of Trent to complete its sittings, which our readers will perceive sanctions all the impious pretensions of the Romish see? As the Order of St. Dominic, or Inquisitors, had commenced in the thirteenth century, about the year 1550 the Inquisition was established, and in the first year after Elizabeth ascended the throne, (1559,) a general butchery of Protestants took place in France,

*History of the Crusades against the Albigenses, &c. &c., from the French of J. C. L. Sismondi, 1826.

Spain, &c., under the sanction of Pope Paul IV.; and Pius, who succeeded him, inherited also his hatred to the pure faith of Christianity-asserting the power of his Church over princes and their subjects. These facts are now also matters of history; but that our readers may feel convinced that the same spirit exists in the Romish Church at all times, where ́ it has power to exercise it, we refer them to the authentic records of the reign of Charles IX. of France, where, (in Paris,) under the influence of Pope Gregory XIII., in 1572, on St. Batholomew's Day, 30,000 Protestants were massacred in cold blood; and the Pope, by his legate, Cardinal Ursin, gave, as usual, a plenary absolution to all who had assisted in it; medals were struck in commemoration of it, and a jubilee proclaimed to the Papists generally. Antony Muretus spoke an oration at Rome, in which he styles Gregory "Blessed Father," as the chief instigator of the slaughter; Gregory thanked Charles for the service he had performed to the "true Church ;" and De Gondi, the French ambassador at the English court, as Camden tells us, declared this massacre to be a remedy" of the "true Church." We have exceeded our usual limit in making these authentic extracts, but, we trust, not ineffectually. Let us not again hear it said by the Romish Church, that no reformation was either necessary therein, or even heard of until 1500. Be it our task to show when she first avowed her numerous heretical doctrines in opposition to Christianity.

CHAP. II.-OF SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION.

What is your belief concerning the Scriptures?

That it is to be received by all Christians as the infallible word of God.

Do you look upon the Scripture to be clear and plain in all points necessary; that is, in all such points wherein our salvation is so far concerned, that the misunderstanding and misinterpreting of it may endanger our eternal welfare?

No: because St. Peter assures us, 2 Pet. iii. 16, that in St. Paul's

epistles "there are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable, wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."

How then is this danger to be avoided?

By taking the meaning and interpretation of the Scripture from the same hand from which we received the book itself, that is, from the Church?

Why may not every particular Christian have liberty to interpret the Scripture according to his own private judgment, without regard to the interpretation of the Church?

1st. Because" no prophecy of the scripture is of private interpretation," 2 Pet. i. 20. 2dly. Because as men's judgments are as different as their faces, such liberty as this must needs produce as many religions almost as men. 3dly. Because Christ has left his church and her pastors and teachers to be our guides, in all controversies relating to religion, and consequently in the understanding of holy writ. Ephes. iv. 11, 12, &c. "He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. That we may henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ." Hence St. John, in his first epistle, chap. iv. 6, gives us this rule for the trying of spirits: "He that knoweth God, heareth us," (the pastors of the church)," he that is not of God, heareth not us: by this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of

error."

Why does the church, in her profession of faith, oblige her children never to take or interpret the scripture otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the holy Fathers ?

To arm them against danger of novelty and error. Prov. xxii. 28: "Remove not the ancient land-mark which thy fathers have set."

Were it not that the tenets of Popery teach men to reconcile the most palpable contradictions, it would seem strange that whilst the Scriptures are acknowledged to be the "infallible word of God," they should be withheld from general perusal by those who so profess to believe them, and who call themselves God's Vicegerents upon earth.-We are next told that these Scriptures are not clear in the points necessary to

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salvation; and St. Peter is quoted to prove, that those "who are unstable, wrest them to their own destruction," and again, to show that "no prophecy of the Scriptures is of private interpretation;" a long passage follows from Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, a brief extract from St. John, concluding with a line from Proverbs.

In the first place, as the Pope has not shown us any command of CHRIST, or his Apostles, that the Scriptures are not to be read—and as common sense would naturally imagine that they were bequeathed to mankind for that purpose—we will prove to Papists, that it is not only lawful but obligatory to read them. The chapter from which the extract from Peter is made, is an epistle on the certainty of CHRIST's coming to judgment; and of which, he says, Paul, in all his epistles, had apprised those to whom he addressed himself. But he does not tell them that they should not read the writings of Paul (which, in the very verse referred to he classes among the other Scriptures); and who but Papists will suppose he did not intend they should read the epistles he wrote himself? That the Scriptures are hard to be understood, as Popery has perverted them, we admit; nor can there be a clearer proof of the way in which they may be "wrested" to particular purposes than as they appear before us in these passages selected by Pius IV., and of which the very next quotation is a positive proof.-When Peter says, "that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation," is there one Popish priest so ignorant as not to know that it has no allusion to reading the gospel? Did not the Pope know that it alluded to the gift of prophecy coming from God; without which (gift) no man could interpret, or foretel, His great designs? If the Pope did not so understand it, nor Dr. Challoner, they should have read the succeeding verse, which would have explained it to them: v. 21, "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." What