usurpation by means of deliberate, extensive, and surprising forgeries of ancient documents, canons-ecclesiastical, decretals, and apostolic Epistles. The deep criminality of such a fraudulent course, pursued through succeeding generations, is well set forth in the scarce old tract before referred to :— "The sin of forgery is fitter to be ranked with adultery, theft, perjury, and murder, than to be committed by Priests and Prelates. If a beggar forge but a pass, or a petition, putting the hands and seals of two Justices of the Peace to it, he is whipped, or clapped into the pillory, or marked for a rogue, though he doth it only to satisfy his hunger. If a lease, or bond, or will, or a deed of gift, be rased or interlined by craft, it passeth for a cheat; but if the whole be counterfeited, the crime is the greater. If an instrument be forged in the King's name, or his seal counterfeited and put to any patent without his privity or consent, it is high treason. If records so counterfeited have reference to the Church, it is sacrilege. And if, finally, they that make the forgeries father them upon God, or upon the Holy Ghost, the sin of blasphemy is added to forgery; for it maketh God the Father of lies." * And all this accumulation of guilt the author charges on the Roman Church. And, fearful as the crime is, one single example suffices to establish it. There is extant a letter, supposed to be addressed by Pope Damasus to Aurelius, Archbishop of Carthage, which passed current for true many hundred years, but now is almost universally acknowledged to be a base forgery, in which the following language occurs :—“ Because the voluntary breakers of the canons" (many of which were also known to this writer as forgeries) "are heavily censured by the holy Fathers, and condemned by the Holy Ghost, by whose gift and inspiration they were dictated; because they do not unfitly seem to blaspheme the Holy Ghost;

....because, as was even now promised, it acteth against him, by whose grace and impulse the same holy canons were set forth..........The rule of holy canons, which are made by the Spirit of God."........Now, the writer of this letter could not but know that he was composing an impious forgery; he knew, also, that many of these canons, of which he speaks, were also forgeries: he knew, therefore, that he was attributing falsehoods to the Holy Ghost. How was it he did not tremble? that his hand did not wither, or fall off, for such atrocity? Because he had imbibed the "lying spirit" by which his Church is influenced; and therefore believed, like Saul of Tarsus, when he was murdering the innocent Christians, that he was doing God service, and committing no offence in inventing falsehoods by which the Church should profit; this doctrine being, as we shall see, the deliberate dogma of the Roman Church.

To enumerate the particular instances of fraudulent documents issued by the Roman Church as truth, would swell this discourse beyond any reasonable limit. I can but refer you to bookst where these facts are established beyond controversy. Thus, in an old work recently printed,-James, "On the Corruption of Scriptures, Councils, and Fathers," 1612, and 1688, and re-published in 1843, edited by Rev. J. E. Cox,-abundant and minute

* "Roman Forgeries," pp. 1-4.

+Other writers may be consulted as further illustrative of this boundless subject of Popish frauds; as, Sall's "Church of England."-Baxter's "Key for Catholics."-"A Guide from the Church of Rome, to the Church of Christ. By Rev. T. Godkin." Dublin.-"Mariolatry." Painter, Strand.-Bishop Gibson's "Preservative against Popery."-Blakeney's " Awful Disclosures: being Extracts from the Theology of Alphonsus Liguori." Foster, Dublin. &c., &c.

evidence to this effect is detailed. There is a whole chapter under this head,—“ Bastardy of the False Fathers;" where no less than one hundred and eighty-seven distinct treatises, attributed to ancient Fathers, are adduced; and clearly proved, by internal and external evidence, to be forgeries. And, what is much worse than this, it is shown that after these writings had been proved and had been admitted to be forgeries, they are continually quoted, by Priests and Jesuits, to establish Romish doctrines against the Protestants; nay, that in some instances the same writer has himself disowned them in some of his works, and afterwards quoted them in support of his heresies! Read and judge for yourselves, whether these things are so, my brethren: take nothing on my word, but examine and prove all these things. When the light of the Reformation burst in upon the Romish Church, and exposed, undeniably, the lies which she had propagated, and by which she herself had been in a measure deceived, an opportunity was afforded her of confession and amendment: she might have come out of the conflict with credit, had she then wiped her hands of falsehood; but she did not. She clung to her forgeries with guilty and infatuated pertinacity, and thereby sealed up her doom as the "mystery of iniquity," and the means whereby the "lying spirit" should deceive the nations and prevail. In the same work, fifty examples are given under another head,—"The Corruption of the True Fathers," extending over many pages; exhibiting, in a most forcible manner, the impossibility of placing implicit confidence in, or resting in any matter of importance upon, the evidence of the writings of the ancient Fathers. To the same effect are the evidences gathered by the author of the tract termed "Roman Forgeries:” the table of contents in the subjoined notes will show the nature of them.* Towards the close of his work, the writer has these perti

* An abridgment of the chapters.-"CAP. 1. Of the nature, degrees, and kinds of Forgery. CAP. 2. Of the primitive order and government of the Church. The first Popish Encroachment upon it, backed with Forgery. The detection of the Fraud in the Sixth Council of Carthage.-CAP. 3. A multitude of Forgeries secretly mingled with the Records of the Church, and put forth under the name of Isidore, Bishop of Hispalis; which book is owned, defended, and followed by the Papists.CAP. 4. James Merlin's edition of the Councils, who lately published Isidore Hispalensis for a good record, which is now detected, and proved to be a Forgery.— CAP. 5. Divers Forgeries contained in Isidore's counterfeit collection, mentioned in particular. CAP. 6. A further account of Merlin's design. How some would have Isidore to be a Bishop, others a Merchant, others a Sinner; no man knowing well what to make of him.-CAP. 7. Of Francis Turrian, the famous Jesuit, with what art and boldness he defendeth the Forgeries.-CAP. 8. Of Peter Crabbe, his tomes of the Councils. Wherein he agrees with, and wherein he differs from, Isidore and Merlin. CAP. 9. Of Carranza, his Epitome. He owneth and useth the Forgeries for good records.-CAP. 10. Of Surius, his four Tomes, and how the Forgeries are by him confirmed. He hath the rescripts of Atticus and Cyril, by which Pope Zozemas was convicted of Forgery, in the Sixth Council of Carthage.-CAP. 11. Of Nicolinus his tomes, and their contents, for the first 420 years. How full of Forgeries. His testimony concerning the Sixth Council of Carthage; with his way of defending the Pope's Forgery therein.-CAP. 12. Nicolinus, his Epistle to Pope Sixtus V. His contempt of the Fathers. He beginneth to confess the Epistle of Melchiades to be nought. He overthroweth the legend about Constantine's Donation.-CAP. 13. The Epistle of Pope Damasus to Aurelius, Archbishop of Carthage, commanding the Decretals of the Roman Bishops to be preached and published, and fathering those Forgeries on the Holy Ghost.-CAP. 14. Counterfeit Canons made in the Apostles' name, defended by Binius. A glimpse of his pretences, sophistries, and contradictions. A forged Council of the Apostles concerning Images, defended by Binius and Turrian.-CAP. 15. A book called the Pontifical, falsely fathered on Damasus, an ancient Bishop of Rome. How the most learned of the Bishop Col

nent remarks on the way in which modern Papists meet these charges:

"Some Papists use these counterfeits, by virtue of which their predecessors acquired and established their empire, as usurpers do traitors, by whose villanous help they are seated in the throne. But they can never work off the guilt they have contracted; nor make the act or the crime (committed once) to be again undone. After seven hundred years' enjoyment of the benefit, they begin to slight the means of acquiring it; but it is because they cannot help it. The cheat is detected, and they would fain persuade the world that they are innocent of it. All of them either hold these things to be no forgeries, or, if forgeries, to be none of theirs! These subterfuges can, however, avail them little. These "thieves and robbers" have scaled the walls and entered "the sheepfold," and devoured the flock; and now they disown and cast away the ladder by which they gained admission.

One thing should, however, be thankfully observed, as exhibiting the watchful providence of God, in preserving his truth amidst such volumes of falsehood and imposition. Had the Romish Church based her supremacy on the word of God, or chiefly trusted to that testimony for her influence in the church, means might have been taken for the corruption or destruction or fraudulent multiplication of the sacred manuscripts. I know that, to a certain extent, this was attempted in the primitive church; and that after the development of the Roman apostasy and tyranny, certain Latin versions of the Scriptures, differing from each other, and from the original word of God, were put forth by Roman influence; but that fallen Church

lectors use it as the text on which they comment in their voluminous books, yet confess it to be a forgery, full of lies and contradictions.-CAP. 16. Of the Decretal Epistles, forged in the names of Holy Martyrs and Bishops of Rome, for many hundred years together. The first was sent from S. Clement, by S. Peter's order, to S. James (as they pretend) Bishop of Jerusalem, seven years at least, and, by the truest accounts, more than seven-and-twenty years, after he was in his grave. S. Clement's recognitions, a confessed Forgery; which detected the first Epistle of S. Clement to be a real fraud.-CAP. 17. Of Higinus and Pius. A notable Forgery in the name of Hermes; where you have the testimony of an angel concerning the celebration of Easter; never cited while the matter was in controversy.-CAP. 18. A Letter fathered on Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, concerning the removal of the Apostles' Bones, about the year 254. It gives evidence to the antiquity of many Popish Doctrines, but is itself a Forgery.-CAP. 19. The ridiculous Forgery of the Council of the Sinuessa put into the Roman Martyrologies. How the city, and the name of it, was consumed (no man can tell when) by an earthquake, &c.—CAp. 20. Divers things premised in order, first, to the establishment, and then to the refutation, of Constantine's Donation; the first, by Binius,-the latter, by the Author. The Forgeries of Marcellus, Pope Eusebius, and Binius, together, opened.-CAP. 21. The counterfeit Edict of our Lord Constantine, the Emperor: wherein the Western Empire was given to the Bishop of Rome.-CAP. 22. The donation of Constantine proved to be a forgery by Binius himself. He confesseth the acts of Pope Sylvester (which he before had cited for good) to be forged.-CAP. 23. Pope Melchiades, his Epistle counterfeited. Isidore Mercator, the great seducer of all the Roman collectors, confessed to be a forger. The Council of Laodicea corrupted by the fraud of the Papists.-CAP. 24. Three-score Canons put into the Nicene Council after Finis by the care and learning of Alphonsus Pisanus. Epistles counterfeited in the name of Sylvester and that Council. A Roman Council under Pope Sylvester, wholly counterfeited. Spurious letters fathered on Pope Mark, Athanasius, and the Bishops of Egypt, to defend the forgeries that were lately added to the Nicene Council. Appendix, Cardinal Baronius, his grave censure and reproof of the forgeries. His fear that they will prove destructive and pernicious to the See of Rome.

has always mainly rested her title to supreme authority, either upon unwritten tradition and vague antiquity, or upon the supposed authority of ancient writings ;—these, therefore, have, to suit her purpose, been extensively forged, or corrupted, defaced, and suppressed, while the word of God -thanks to his almighty protection-has been preserved in the original Eastern languages and dialects, comparatively unscathed and uncorrupt, to bear its silent, but powerful and overwhelming, testimony to the falsehoods and frauds of the Roman antichrist.

The authentication of false miracles, knowing them to be false, and the forgeries or corruption of ancient documents, (in all cases tending to the support of Romish supremacy, and therefore bearing the internal evidence of the corrupt source from which they sprung,) will not, however, appear surprising, when we have examined the third charge I allege against the Church of Rome, in proof that a "lying spirit" is in her; namely, that she dogmatically, and with all her authority, teaches that prevarication, falsehood, yea, wilful and corrupt perjury, are, in certain notorious cases, and always for the good of the Church, lawful, nay, commendable; dispensations being always ready to remove any scruples of conscience that may remain in the mind of the utterer of that perjury. No charge is more capable of direct substantiation than this most grievous and most fearful one. But, again, I can do little more than refer you to authorities. There is a work entitled, "The Variations of Popery," by Edgar, 1838, in which this subject is discussed unanswerably. His seventh chapter, on the "Invalidation of Oaths," is conclusive. (Page 244.) There the various accredited writers and Councils of the Church are named; who, in their treatises, and by their decrees, establish this fearful doctrine,-that the Church has plenary power to absolve from the obligation of an oath! The works in which this doctrine is fully set forth and vindicated, and specimens of which I am about to adduce, were authoritatively introduced in Ireland, in the College of Maynooth, in 1808; while in 1825 and 1826, various Popish Bishops and Divines swore before a Committee of the British Legislature that they did not hold such doctrines, and that such books were not used in Maynooth! A black list is produced in this work of subjects and kingdoms, who have been absolved from their oaths of fealty to their lawful Sovereigns by successive Popes and Councils, "the Roman Pontiffs teaching this abominable doctrine not only by precept, but by example.” That these principles do not slumber, nor are even now dead letters, the following instances shall prove: partly taken from the works themselves, and partly from the evidence extracted on oath from reluctant witnesses :

Thus, (Tractatus de Pœnitentia, pp. 292, 293,) "If a Priest were examined by a Magistrate or Judge relative to any thing with which he became acquainted at confession, he is bound to answer that he is ignorant of it, nay, more, to swear so, without any danger of incurring the guilt of falsehood. The reason is, according to Estius, that he neither falsifies nor equivocates who answers to the intention of the examiner, and tells nothing but truth; and a Priest acts thus in the above-mentioned case, for the Judge does not inquire of him what he learns by confession, since in the confessional he performs the part of God, but