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BISHOPS MURRAY AND BOSSUET UPON CHARITY;

OR MORE STRANGE PROOFS OF THE LITERATURE OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

Mr. URBAN,

THE amicable controversy between J. R. and myself, seems now to be reduced to this single position, whether more credence is to be given to Bossuet making his own defence, backed by one or two modern French wits, than to Archbishop Wake, whose writings so irrefragably prove the point at issue, seconded by almost numberless corroborating testimonies as to names, dates, places, and details, some of which I have already adduced, and to which many more might be added." As to J. R's. solemn and grave judgment upon Wake's youthful incapacity in not being able to penetrate the fastnesses of Bossuet's famed cunning, from being some one or two dozen of years younger, it is really so French, and so like Barbier's style of argumentation, that one is tempted to smile upon so grave an occasion! If the celebrated Chateaubriand or Guizot of France, were now to publish a work, could not my son, who is a very little boy, some twenty years hence ascertain from indisputable living witnesses, every particular? If not, away with all evidence! J. R. cannot be ignorant that Wake, only fourteen years after Bossuet's death, had a long correspondence with some of the ablest divines of France, about the Union of the Churches. Dupin, one of the most noted Gallican ecclesiastics, was of the number, and he, with many others whom Wake knew, were of course well conversant with Bossuet and all his literary manœuvres. The single-handed testimony of Bossuet himself, now seems to be the only real crux to be disposed of; but let us gratify J. R. by pronouncing the

complicated testimonies against Bossuet's tricky artifices in regard to his publication of the " Exposition," to be gross calumnies; and then J. R. cannot but allow the fairness of putting Bossuet's own testimony to the test of veracity and principle. This can no otherwise be done, than by investigating Bossuet's general character for literary and moral probity. We will not put into the scale against Bossuet, the fact, that it was natural for him to falsify his unsupported statement, in order to avert the tremendous obloquy the papal cause must universally have sustained, by his revealing all the untoward contradictory circumstances about the " Exposition." We will only treat Bossuet as we would any other self-interested witness. If such a witness be convicted of a treacherous lie, for the furtherance of the interests of his suit, what man of common sense would regard his asseverations, when, in addition to his lies, there was every reason to doubt wholly his veracity. We will undeniably prove this to be strictly applicable to Bossuet. I presume that J. R., who seems from his last to be well conversant with the laws of charity, would join Dr. Murray in his recommendations of the " Exposition as a true model of Christian charity. But, Sir, if from Bossuet's own lips, we prove him to be the veriest truest model for scathing the world with the inquisitorial flames of the papal Moloch and Aceldama, what then must be thought of Dr. Murray's and other brilliant recommendations of Bossuet, and what judgment also, in that case, is to be put upon Bossuet's own evidence for himself? I shall

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In addition to the references made in my former letters upon the subject of the "Exposition," it would be well to consult the following, as laying open its whole history, and substantiating the facts of the case. Pfaff's Historia Literaria Theologiæ, tom. ii. p. 102; Le Clerc's Bibliotheque Universelle et Historique, tom. xi. p. 438; Bibliotheque des Sciences, published at the Hague, vol. xviii. p. 20. And of Wake's Works, those which most bear upon the subject, are his Introduction to his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England, and his two Defences of that Exposition. These are sufficient in themselves, quite to shiver to atoms the perfidious jesuitism of Bossuet.

b This correspondence is to be found, though not with positive accuracy, in Riorningius' Dissertation De Consecrationibus Episcoporum Anglorum, Helmstadt, 1739. Most of the MS. letters are, I have understood, in the library of Christ Church, Oxford.

therefore only state facts without comment; the good sense of J. R. will easily do the rest. But before I proceed, I must just observe, without meaning any reference at all to J. R., that the strange and various notices which my Strictures on Bossuet have elicited from various quarters, induce me to say, that one might as well chase an invisible echo, or grasp at a bodiless shadow, as screw Romish controversialists down to any one avowed principle. Pope Alexander VI. has piquantly and truly said of his emissaries, "That he would rather wage war against a mighty potentate, than against one of the begging brethren.""

In Dr. Murray's address to the Protestants of the empire, he solemnly renounces the wonted intolerance of his Church; he denounces it as "bygone" and "antiquated," and professes absolute love to Protestants; he calls them his "Beloved Fellow-Christians," and for an unimpeachable authority in doing so, he quotes Bossuet; nay more, he pledges himself that any one who reads Bossuet, will be "sure of a defeat!" So much for Dr. Murray and Bossuet. Now for Mr. O'Connell, whom, we may not inaptly, with Pope Alexander, address as "One of the Begging Brethren!" Mr. O'Connell, like Dr. Murray, continually professes universal charity and liberty of conscience. In the debate on the "Foreign Enlistment Bill," he said, "Religion was never instituted to be fought for. It was mixing the Cup of Blood with the Chalice of Salvation." On the 26th March, 1834, he said in the House, "The most sincere of his communion were the most convinced of the right of every human being to worship his God according to the dictates of his own conscience. It is a violation of what, he thought, the pre

rogative of the Lord, and the rights of man, to interfere by force, fraud, or temptation, between man and his God." In his address to the Dissenters, shortly before " Emancipation," he says, "The Catholics of Ireland are devoted with equal warmth, and if possible, with more persevering zeal, to the cause of religious freedom. The Catholic prelates eagerly join the Catholic laity in the assertion of the principle of liberty of conscience." But let us contrast Mr. O'Connell's professions with a few of the late and present most oracular " prelates." In Pastorini's

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Prophecies," universally circulated by the Romish priests, some years ago, in Ireland, Protestants are called "Locusts," and "the Subjects of the Devil." The late Dr. Doyle declared, "If a rebellion were raging from Carrickfergus to Cape Clear, no sentence of excommunication would ever be fulminated by a Catholic prelate." Again, he threatened that Catholics would league with Beelzebub against Protestants;" that they "deem the Altar of the Protestant Church profane, and every "Parish Church" to be " a standing record of the right of conquest, or the triumph of law over equity!" The present Romish Archbishop of Tuam, Dr. McHale, in his Pastoral of 1831, says, that the people of Ireland looked, and ought to look, upon the Protestant Bishops as mere laymen; he calls for their immediate downfall, and adds, that the poor would rejoice on finding the funds, which the Bishops had so long wrung from them, restored to their proper owners! And when the interests of the Foreign Priest of the Vatican require it, the charitable professions of Mr. O'Connell himself, always embody themselves in the more tangible shape of "death's-head" threats, and other such substantial

"Malle se bellum cum magno principe gerere, quam cum uno ex fratrum mendi. cantium ordine."

Pastorini, chap. ix. In Gandolphy's Sermons (London, 1815), having the "Imprimatur" of the Vatican, is the following: "Does not common sense suggest, that one of the two (i. e. the Protestant Bishop of London and a Romish preacher) must necessarily be an emissary of the Spirit of Darkness, a disciple of the Father of Lies." Vol. i. p. 221.

⚫ Letter on "The Union of the Churches," p. 7.

In Gandolphy's Sermons, authorised, infallibly, as above, is the following: "Catholics pertinaciously refuse to recognize the spiritual character of the Ministers of the Established Church, and have uniformly viewed its Bishops and inferior Clergy in the light of laymen." Vol. iv. 68.

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war-whoops of rebellion and blood. Two or three years ago, when occasion served, upon haranguing an Irish mob, on a Sunday, of about fifty thousand of the peasantry, he pointed to them the relics of some Romish ruins, which were in view, and denounced the "Saxon Barbarian," who had demolished their beautiful temples! In the debate on "the Coercion Bill," Mr. O'Connell said, "If England were to go to war, but she dared not to do so, then Ireland (i. e. Romanists) would be her bitterest foe, and join her arms to those of the enemy." With what reason, by the way, should such men be fired at Lord Lyndhurst's designation of them, as "Aliens!" And to what does all this tend? Why, to warn us of that crisis, which the Papacy is secretly essaying to hasten, but which, when the mask is on, they would fondly disguise with tirades about charity, &c. And the "Ambitious Termagant" of Rome, as Dr. Geddes, one of her own Priests, called her, has more than once condescended to admit us to a peep at her cloven foot. Pius VII. in an Official" to the Irish Romish Bishops, in 1816, presumes that "Emancipation" will include the restoration of their Bishops to the House of Lords! Also one of the chief political organs of France, "the Gazette de France," of July 16, 1830, triumphantly re-echoes the aspirations of Pius. The Gazette prophesies that "Universal Suffrage, and that the Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome, shall be established in the three kingdoms, Great Britain, France, and Ireland!" But let us return to Dr. Murray's, Bossuet's, and Mr. O'Connell's views of charity and liberty of conscience. Mr. O'Connell, in one of his last productions, says, "The words Jesuit and Jesuitical are used for the purposes of vituperation; almost every philosophic mind recognizes the truth, that the Jesuits were,

and I trust will long continue to be, amongst the greatest benefactors to literature and religion that the world ever produced." These Jesuits, in whose moral and literary prowess Mr. O'Connell reposes such implicit reliance, in their usual manner of showing their approbation, published a most splendid edition of all Bossuet's writings: for the Jesuits then, as they now do, almost worshipped Bossuet. Here then have we Dr. Murray, the whole College of Jesuits, and Mr. O'Connell, hobbling after them, holding up Bossuet as a heaven-born model of charity, and as such, able to "defeat surely" all Protestants, and to repel all their calumnious imputations about Romish intolerance, &c. Now every body knows that Bossuet's most triumphant masterpiece, in defence of his Church, is his "Histoire des Variations des Eglises Protestantes." Bossuet, in the above work, actually insists that the " Persecution of Heretics, is a point not to be called in question ;” that "the use of the sword, in matters of religion and conscience, is an undoubted right :" that "there is no illusion more dangerous than to consider toleration as a mark of the true Church;" and that "the Church of Rome is the most intolerant of all Christian sects. It is her holy and inflexible incompatibility, which renders her severe, unconciliating, and odious to all sects separated from her. They desire only to be tolerated by her; but her holy severity FORBIDS SUCH INDULGENCE." Hide your diminished heads, ye Rhemish and Dens' Theology exhibitions! Veil your faces, ye applauders and vindicators of Bossuet! Oh! that this one fact, with its whole array of circumstances, were well circulated through all Christendom! Now, we ask, did those speculative dogmas end in sound and fury, and nothing else? Nay, nay! Bossuet was a man of

8 The Rev. W. Phelan's "Evidence before the House of Commons," in 1825, p. 5. h Mr. O'Connell's Letters to Mr. Barrat, Letter III. Nov. 13, 1835.

The Jesuits' edition of Bossuet, was published at successive periods, between 1743-53. The splendour of this edition is sufficient to call forth the bibliographical praises of Dr. Dibdin.

Hist. des Variations, &c. liv. x. p 51. Par. 1740, 12mo. "L'exercise de la puissance du glaive, dans les matières de la Religion et de la Conscience; chose, qui ne peut être revoquée en doute-le droit est certain-il n'y a point d'illusion plus dangereuse que de donner la souffrance pour un charactère de vraye Eglise."

Hist. de Var. Sixième Advertisement.

deeds as well as words. He was one of those incarnate fiends, who contrived to set on foot the appalling massacres of the French Protestants, which once ravaged the fairest provinces of France with the firebrand of devastation, and blighted for ever her moral escutcheons. A highly talented author says upon this subject, "The persecution in France gave Protestants another lesson; it showed them the danger of trusting to those representations of the principles of the Romish Church, which her Ecclesiastics may deem it expedient to make to Protestants, for the purpose of gaining a special object. The atrocious perfidy and dreadful persecution advised by Bossuet himself, were a tremendous commentary on his new and conciliating Exposition of the Catholic Church."

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Nor is Bossuet alone in his views of charity and liberty of conscience. Long since his day, such views have had the infallible sanction of pontifical authority. Pius VII. in a "Circular" to the Cardinals, in 1808, declares that Toleration or Freedom of Conscience, is "contrary to the canons, and to the councils, and to the Catholic Religion." The present Gregory XVI. in his "Encyclical" for 1833, denounces by name "Liberty of Conscience" as "a most pestilential error," and which, adds the Pope, "the unblushing impudence of some has held forth as an advantage to Religion." Such ex cathedrá injunctions are, in the words of the noted Dr. Troy, "immutable Articles of Faith," and therefore upon pain of damnation, ought to be equally on the lips as in the hearts of Dr. Murray and Mr. O'Connell, and fellows.

I think, Sir, that Dr. Murray, in place of falsifying Bossuet and his whole Church, had much better been writing his Pastorals, as he once did in company with Doctors Doyle and Milner, in recommendation of

Hohenloe's miracle-mongering! And I think too, Sir, that Mr. O'Connell had also better been thus ridiculously employed as he likewise once was, in publicly avowing, upon oath, his credence in the same Hohenloe's harlequinry, than in praising Jesuits, and talking of charity! If the heroism of these chivalrous knights had rested satisfied with such Quixotic feats, and had not been plied to poison and rend the social fabric, 1, for one, would not have tried to disturb their dreams; I should have left the canvass and genius of another Hogarth, morally and amusingly, to depict their mummeries and

nonsense!

I beg to conclude, in the words of Burnet, "To hear Papists declare against persecutions, and Jesuits cry up liberty of conscience, are, we confess, unusual things; yet there are some degrees of shame, over which when men are once passed, all things become so familiar to them, that they can no more be put out of countenance."P

Yours, &c. WILLIAM BAILEY.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PARISH BOOKS OF ST. OLAVE, HART STREET, LONDON.

Feb. 5, 1642. For releife of poor Irish and English Children to be transported shillings, iiijs. iijd. into New England, foure pounds three

12 Feb. For ye use above mentioned, iiijs. iijd.

Collected ye 9 Sept. 1683, For and towards ye releif of ye French Protestants, ye some of fifty-foure pounds and fourteene shillings, 541. 148.

Collected ye xxx April, 1686, For and towards the releife of the French Protestants, the some of two hundred five pounds tenn shillings and nine pence, 2051. 10s. 9d.

Collected ye ij June, 1689, For the releife of ye Irish Protestants, ye some of eighty-six pounds fourteene shills and tenn pence, 867. 148. 10d.

1 Dr. Kenny's "Facts and Documents referring to Religion in France," &c. 1827. Consult vol. i. of "Collection of Documents relating to the Negociations between the French Government and Pius VII." London, 1812, 3 vols. Keating and Co. Booksellers to the English Vicars Apostolic.

• Protestant Journal, Feb. 1833, where the whole "Encyclical" is at length.

• Mr. O'Connell's Evidence before a "Committee of the House of Lords," in

1825.

▸ Bp. Burnet's Papers, p. 82.

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The Book of the New Moral World, containing the Rational System of Society, &c. By Robert Owen. (Dedicated to the King.)

THE New Moral World is founded on the following principles, data, and declarations, which we shall, without comment, lay before our readers; they must pardon our brevity, for they will see where we were, when we reviewed the work, and from the novelty of our situation excuse errors.

1. By scientific arrangements wealth will superabound beyond the wants and wishes of the human race.

2. Manufactured wealth will be worked up without any disagreeable or urgent labour, by improved mechanical arrangement.

3. No one will be so unwise as to desire to possess individual property. 4. People will no longer live in

crowded cities, as Shoe Lane and Saf

fron Hill; but in gardens, pleasure grounds, arbours, berceaus, boscages,

&c.

5. Money will not be required; its place will be supplied by good actions and kind feelings; all coin will be

rose-nobles.

6. All people will be classified; according to that classification their work for the public will be selected. The evenings they will have to themselves. Quære. What sort of persons will be selected for editors of reviews? it is a home question.

7. All human laws will be unnecessary.

8. Women will be very much improved by a natural system of training.' We beg leave to observe that the Gentleman's Magazine does not give its fiat to this position.

9. All established religion is to be rooted out, as it is the evil genius of the world, the devil of the Christians, the real and sole cause of all lies and hypocrisy.

10. Marriage is to be abolished (v. Sect. xii.), so "that one portion of organized matter may be permitted freely to seek some other portion of organized matter necessary to its best period of existence, thus obliging an instinct which leads the organized

being to unite with those objects which its own nature requires, to fill up a void or satisfy a want, which by its nature it was compelled for some wise end, or necessary purpose, to experience.

"It is in reality, therefore, the greatest crime against nature, to prevent organized beings from uniting with those objects, or other organized beings, with which nature has created in them a desire to unite.

"It is to secure the performance of this law, that nature rewards, with so much satisfaction and pleasure, the union of those organized beings who often, in despite of man's absurd and artificial arrangements to the contrary, contain between them the pure elements of union, by being the most perfectly formed to unite together, physically, intellectually, and morally. Man then, to be permanently virtuous and happy from birth to death, must implicitly obey the law of his, and of

universal nature !!"

11. Men must cease to believe in God (Sect. xiv.) The error respecting this law of human nature has led man to create a personal Deity, author of all good; and yet there is no proof that such personality exists. There is no practical advantage to be derived from the supposition that the power of the universe is an organized Being, or that it should be personified in any manner whatever. When such opinions are rectified, and other important truths generally promulgated, earth will be changed in consequence, into a terrestrial paradise!'

12. Belief in future punishments bable that this error is destined speedily will cease (Sect. xviii). It is proto be removed, and that these terms (of future punishment and reward) will no longer be applied as heretofore. That arrangements for punishing mankind, will soon appear too glaringly absurd and unjust, to be permitted to remain,' &c. &c.

13. The characters that are now called bad, would, under a rational system of society, become the most useful, and often the most delightful members of their circle. They often

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