ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page 28.

ON THE EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF PROFESSED CELIBACY.

The passage of Cyprian, referred to in a note, is too shocking to be inserted, even in Latin. We subjoin one of Jerom, (which shall be left on purpose without a translation,) though that strange saint made it part of a letter to a young lady.

Triste sed verum est. Unde in Ecclesias Agapetarum pestis introiit? Unde sine nuptiis aliud nomen Uxorum? Immo unde novum Concubinarum genus? Plus inferam: unde Meretrices univira? Eadem domo, uno cubiculo, sæpe uno tenentur et lectulo; et suspiciosos nos vocant, si aliquid existimamus. Frater sororem virginem deserit. Cœlibem spernit Virgo germanum. Fratrem quærit extraneum, et quum in

eodem proposito esse se simulent, quærunt alienorum spiritale solatium, ut domi habeant carnale commercium. Ep. ad Eustoch. Tom. I. p. 139. D. ap. Barbeyrac, Traité de la Morale des Peres. p. 278.

It is given to understand in these Travels, that some Roman Catholics who would not take holy orders as long as they continued sincere believers, offered themselves for ordination, and became priests as soon as they secretly embraced infidelity. Jerom attests a fact quite analogous to this.

Sunt alii (de mei ordinis hominibus loquor) qui ideo Presbyterium et Diaconatum ambiunt, ut mulieres licentius videant. Ibid. ap. eund.

Page 72.

Uncertainty of the Romish Principle of Certainty.

The first manuscript contains that single argument, on which every one who embraces the Protestant principle without popish limitations, will readily venture the decision of our controversy with the Roman Catholic Church. But it will probably be satisfactory to some readers of these volumes to observe, how effectually all the charges which the Traveller collected against Protestants, taken as an abstract unit, may be flung back upon the Church, whose members have so repeatedly brought them

against those who reject the claims of the Roman party. We shall insert, for this purpose, the translation of a passage from Basnage, in his answer to the celebrated work of Bossuet, Les Variations des Eglises Protestantes. It is at the beginning of the fourth, and concluding part of Basnage's work; a division entirely devoted to the history of the peculiar doctrines of Rome, shewing their gradual rise, as a proof of the variations of that Church. It is, however, inserted here as a very able and condensed statement of the numerous flaws which invalidate the pretended certainty of the Romanist Rule of Faith.

"But there still remains another view, not less convincing than those hitherto laid open; for M. de Meaux will be obliged to cancel his own history, and grant that we are right, when, in consequence of what we are about to state, it shall be proved that the Church of Rome has had variations on the principal heads of its doctrines. To shew this is our

present task.

"He objects to us (the Protestants in general,) that we have changed, and hence he infers that our religion is false. We shall, on our part, disclose the variations of his Church, touching only on the more important, (for they are innumerable,) and he will see that, according to his own principle, the Romanist religion must be false. He makes it a reproach

to us, that our synods and our divines found themselves in difficulties when attempting to re-establish certain tenets. We shall lay before him similar embarrassments of his councils, especially that of Trent. He has stated at full length the faults of our Reformers: we might fill whole volumes with the profligate lives of his Popes, and the corruptions of his Church. But we will content ourselves with making him perceive that, if we were inclined to bring forward accusations of that kind, they would be better founded than his charges against us. Lastly, he accuses us of having temporised with the Lutherans.* We shall prove that his Church has tampered much more with error, whenever her interest required it. But that we may give our history a weight which that of M. de Meaux can never have, we shall shew the recent date of the doctrines of the Roman Church, their origin, their progress, and lastly, their opposition with those of the ancient Church. Such is the plan of this fourth part. I will not swell it by useless declamation, nor by a great number of arguments; for, since history depends on facts, I shall only bring forward some from which the inferences against the Church of Rome are so natural, that the reader will draw them withassistance.

out my

* M. Basnage was a French Calvinist.-Editor.

"There are in the Church of Rome five sources of faith; but not one of them is properly established. The Holy Scriptures, which is the first, becomes insufficient by its being declared imperfect and obscure, submitting to be tortured and forced. * Tradition is in the same rank as the Scriptures; but it must be explained by the Church: its truth and its true meaning must be warranted by the Church; else tradition has no value. The Pope, with his supreme and infallible authority, is the third source of faith; for we can believe nothing unless we believe as a point of divine faith, that the Pope is the successor of Saint Peter. † The Pope's infallibility is another article of faith.

Yet the Church of Rome

is so divided on this source of faith, that no one can depend upon it. It, therefore, becomes necessary to go to the Councils. But there are Councils which have decided that the infallibility attributed to the Pope is imaginary; a declaration which the partisans of the Pope do not deny. It is, therefore, unsafe to rely upon this source of faith. There is, however, in the fifth place, a party who maintain that the Universal Church is infallible. This assertion is, indeed, the most reasonable and true of all;

* The original words are also in Italics. They probably are the words used by Bossuet.-Editor.

† Ludov. Capsensis, de fide disp. 2. §. 6.