Chapter XXIII: Letter II (3)

We ardently desire to see established the religion of Christ, as holy and saving, and this, we conceive, may exist without bishops or priests;--the invisible and universal Church, which includes believers in all parts of the world; of which Christ alone is high-priest and Head. And this invisible Church does not do away with a visible and material one, which is divided among all people and nations, and of which every one has a right to choose that form which appears to him the best. Many of these Churches have no bishops, as the German, the Scotch, the Helvetic, and the evangelical Churches of France and Italy. Who is the bishop of the Church of the Waldenses? No one. And yet it is full of zeal, has existed from the eleventh century, and after so many fierce persecutions and massacres still presents a body of twenty-four thousand believers.

It is possible, then, to be good Christians, and to form a visible national Church on such a model without the aid of bishops. At any rate, you cannot deny that a Church can change its bishop for a sufficient cause. Do you think it then absurd or contrary to the precepts of the gospel that the people of Rome, who may be termed the whole Romish Church, should repudiate you as an apostate-bishop, a traitor, a bombarder, and that they should elect another, faithful, true, and beneficent?

Those who were asleep have now awakened, and they no longer trust your words. When you went out from Rome, the Bible entered in; the Bible, persecuted by the popes! and the gospel of Christ and the holy writings of the Apostles, faithfully translated into the Italian language, are now in the hands of the people, who read them, and find there neither popery nor the pope.

Take care that it does not happen to yourself in Italy, as it happened to your predecessors out of it, who, desirous to obtain more, lost all. They who last February took from you the temporal power, intended by so doing to guarantee and ameliorate your spiritual authority. From the 30th April to the present period, you have rejected every friendly advance, and violated every law in presenting yourself before the walls of Rome, surrounded by bayonets and cannon; and you announced to this city your return and your solemn entry with bomb-shells and incendiary acts among the wounded and the dying. Is this the entry of a bishop? Is it in such a manner that the pretended Vicar of Jesus Christ returns to his people?...

Let us suppose, by way of argument, that you, environed by thousands of bayonets, should effect your return to a city overpowered by foreign violence, what would you find at Rome?--a people capable of loving you and serving you as formerly? No, indeed; you would find a desert. The city which has abhorred you as a prince, and through you has learned to despise the whole race from which the popes have descended, is no longer disposed to receive your laws, to pay you tribute. Over whom do you expect to reign? Over the few who followed you to Gaëta? or those who here and there have remained favourable to the old system? Even of these there are none that really love you; it is to the system, and not to yourself personally, that they are attached....

It is in vain you exaggerate the disorders of our government, and in disgraceful language descend to the lowest scurrilities, calling Rome "_a den of furious beasts_" and those who dwell there "_apostates, heretics, communists, and socialists--bent on disseminating their pestiferous doctrines, and corrupting every heart, and possessed with a daring and sacrilegious desire of seizing upon the property and revenues of the Church_." If this property and these revenues belong, as you say, to the Church, then we have done no other than restore them to their rightful owner, rescuing them from the hands of lawless spoilers. The people constitute the Church; the property of the Church then is the property of the people. And the priests and bishops, considered as servants to the Church, are to be maintained by the people. By divine command the tribe of Levi was supported by the other tribes. Christ also directs that the ministers of his Gospel are to be maintained by the faithful, when he says, "for the labourer is worthy of his hire." This was the practice in the early times of Christianity, and to them we must return. If our former ministers are content to return to the Church under this new arrangement, we are willing once more to receive them; otherwise, we must look out for servants who will be more zealous for heavenly riches, and less greedy after the wealth of this world.

Is it because these doctrines have been established for more than eighteen centuries, and are based on the Gospel and the writings of the Apostles, that you call those who profess them _apostates and heretics_?

We have "_despoiled the temples of their ornaments_!" That is, we have taken their superfluous silver to coin into money, to supply the place of that which you and yours have concealed or carried away. We have "_turned religious houses to profane uses_!" Yes; some of the haunts of the lazy and the worthless we have given as habitations for the industrious poor, who live as God has commanded them to do, by the sweat of their brow. In the eyes of those to whom idleness is sacred and labour profane, we have certainly committed a crime, but for us _heretics and apostates_, we imagine we have done a holy work.

We have ill treated "_the sacred virgins_!" The chronicle does not say so. They have never been more safe and more respected than by ourselves and our government. Who it was that ill treated the sacred virgins under your own government, is well known to you, without our taking the trouble to repeat it. Pay a little more regard to truth, and be silent on these matters, unless you wish us to reveal what for the sake of charity we do not mention.

We have "_most cruelly persecuted, imprisoned, and put to death the most worthy and excellent ecclesiastics and holy monks; venerable and esteemed bishops, even such as were elevated to the degree of Cardinal, we have barbarously driven from their flocks, and thrust into prison_!" You accuse us of what, for reasons of state, we ought to have done, but which, through too great consideration, we abstained from doing. All wicked and insidious traitors, spies and conspirators, whether priests, monks, bishops, or cardinals, who sought to bring ruin upon the people, we ought undoubtedly to have hanged, in reward for their infamy. That we did not do so was, perhaps, through an overweening regard for their persons. Pope Gregory, and his cardinal, Lambruschini, on the slightest suspicion of liberalism, tore from the bosom of their families citizens far more useful and respectable than these priests and monks, consigned them to horrible dungeons, or after a mock trial, handed them over to the public executioner. All the vengeance we took, was, on the commencement of our revolution, to pardon all those accursed wretches who did not die with Pope Gregory; and our government calmed the fury of the populace, who, on account of their crimes, were eager for their destruction. It was a grief to us when some of those who had received pardon at our hands again sought to irritate the people, who then knew themselves to be masters. Certain death would have been their fate had not our government shut them up in confinement.

Certainly, when any one was taken with arms in his hands, and firing upon our people, as the curate of Monte Mario, the priest Racchetti, and another or two were, the people conceived they had a perfect right to take the law into their own hands, and get rid of their enemies, without writing to you to ask leave to do so. You may thank Providence that our people are so mild and so obedient to their governors as they are, or you would have had some of your monasteries visited, and the ribald monks turned out to pay you a visit at Gäeta. In the provinces likewise, every here and there, a band of factious insurgents roamed about, headed by a priest or a monk, and protected by a bishop or a cardinal. Was it not an unheard-of act of mercy to spare the lives of such wretches? And is it on account of such acts that you complain of the Republican government?

We felt an extreme repugnance, which the government of the priests never felt, to shed the blood of the citizens, considering them not in the light of subjects, but as brethren. And we grieve that all do not share with us in these fraternal feelings.

As to the _exhausted treasury_, to whom was it owing, if not to yourselves? We, on the contrary, in a short space of time, restored the finances, and put the administration of them into the best possible order. Who paralysed the exertions of commerce, and with unjust laws and enormous duties forced all the capital of the provinces to the seat of government? Who, on the other hand, reformed the laws, reduced the duties, and gave encouragement to commerce, if not the Republic? Certainly, commerce greatly suffered, and still continues to do so, in consequence of the siege and bombardment, by your favourites, of Bologna, Ancona, and Rome.

What falsehoods you state with respect to "_heavy contributions imposed upon the nobility, property plundered from individuals_!" Many of the nobility never contributed a single farthing, whilst many, not noble, paid large sums into the treasury. Is it not yourselves who teach that the superfluity of the rich is the patrimony of the poor? But who was ever plundered by us? Can you bring a single example to justify your assertion? If not, we have a right to stigmatize you as a calumniator. Neither can you bring any proof of your other most injurious assertion, that we "_interfered with the personal liberty of all good people, destroying their peace, and even threatening their very lives with the dagger of the assassin_." The audacious nature of this falsehood is apparent. Have we not abundant testimony of the good character and conduct of our government, from persons of every nation, from the representatives of foreign powers, who are ready to certify that none of these excesses were ever perpetrated under the Roman Republic? How frequently they took place under the government of the popes, I need not relate; how many innocent individuals were torn from the bosom of their families, how many lives sacrificed, it were painful to disclose. The reign of the late Gregory furnished numberless examples, and your own reign, too, is not without its share in these enormities.

Let us now advert to that glorious confession of yours, of having sought from foreign powers an armed intervention to replace you on that throne from which you were removed more through your own weakness and folly than through any act of ours: and which you have had the simplicity to publish, in order, as it seems, that history may hand down to posterity this last ignominy of the papacy. Four foreign armies were invited to Rome to place the last of the popes upon a throne which is renowned for having the early pages in its history marked by fraud and usurpation; the succeeding ones by extortions, deceits, civil wars, the barbarities of the Croats, and the horrors of the Inquisition; and the last with the destruction of liberty, with parricide, and the bombardment of Rome, the great act on which you pride yourself. Do you, then, imagine it possible that you can return to fill a throne, so abhorred by Rome, and by all Italy? It is only possible through the support of foreign armies, bayonets, cannon, and all warlike means! It is only to be effected by the shedding of blood, and slaughter of thousands sacrificed to sacerdotal fury and ambition! Can you return to Rome to hear the cries of mothers, deprived by you of their dearest hopes, of widows whose husbands have been slain through your agency? And in the midst of such universal grief will you return smiling and joyful? How long, John Mastai, will you continue to insult our country, and how long is she to endure your presence? The presence of one who has allied himself with kings to betray the people, who united in friendship with the Bourbon of Naples, in order to devise the best means of oppressing every generous mind, of eradicating from the sons of Italy every noble sentiment! O insensate men that we were, to believe you, to trust in your deceitful promises, to the disappointment of your hopes, to the ruin of our happiness! Do you not believe that the Almighty is the judge of our cause; that he is powerful to abase the rich and the proud, and to exalt the poor and the oppressed? If you make an appeal to the canonical laws, we refer to those of the Gospel.

Christ has taught us to bless those who curse us, to do good to those who hate us, and to pray for those who despitefully use us and persecute us. But you begin to curse those who have always blessed you, to hate those who have done good to you, and to persecute those who have prayed for you. You who alone could have preserved the country, and have restored what was lost, joined yourself to our enemies to ruin and destroy us.

And you dare to call yourself the Vicar of Christ! Is Christ then divided? is there a Christ opposed to the gospel? If so, you doubtless are his Vicar, and we have nothing more in common with you; neither the country which you have betrayed, nor the faith which you have denied. Keep possession of your Church; it is no longer ours: and enjoy your kingdom, since we are no longer your subjects. Go where your wishes lead you; but dare not again to place foot in a city which accuses, judges, and condemns you. Who could endure to raise their eyes to encounter those of a traitor? Who could receive a benediction from a hand yet stained with blood? No one, indeed, could consent to enter the temple with a hypocrite, who at the very time he was planning by the basest means to wreak upon us his cruel vengeance with fire and slaughter, had the assurance to give breath to the following words, which, to undeceive the present and to warn the future generation, not without a sensation of extreme horror and disgust, we venture to repeat;--

"_Lastly, venerable brethren, resigning ourselves entirely to the inscrutable decrees of the wisdom of God, with which he operates his glory, while in the humility of our heart we render Him infinite thanks for having made us worthy of so great suffering for the name of Jesus, and for having rendered us, in a degree, similar to Himself in His passion, we are ready in faith, hope, patience, and in gentleness, to suffer the most severe pains and trials, and, for the sake of the Church, to give even our very life, if by the shedding of our blood her calamities could be remedied._"

Such impudence of declamation amid such atrocious deeds, for ever closes the page whereon, in characters of blood, is registered the perpetual downfall of the Roman Pontificate.

FINIS.

R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.

FOOTNOTES:

[125] Jer. xxiii.

[126] Unhappily, this prediction has not been verified.

New Edition, in fcap. 8vo. cloth, price 6_s._

LECTURES FOR THE TIMES:
OR,
ILLUSTRATIONS AND REFUTATIONS
OF
THE ERRORS OF ROMANISM AND TRACTARIANISM.
BY THE
REV. JOHN CUMMING, D.D.

CONTENTS.

1. THE TEACHING OF CARDINAL WISEMAN.

2. CARDINAL WISEMAN: "HIS OATH AND ITS OBLIGATIONS." Two Lectures delivered in the Hanover Square Rooms, in November 1850.

3. WHAT IS POPERY?

4. IS TRACTARIANISM POPERY?

5. ROMISH PLAUSIBLE PRETENSIONS.

6. APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION.

7. THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.

8. THE FATHERS.

9. THE NICENE CREED.

10. THE BIBLE, NOT TRADITION.

11. THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS.

12. TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

13. THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.

14. PURGATORY.

NOTICES OF THE WORK.

"In these Lectures Dr. Cumming gives the fullest scope to all his high powers. Careful research, acute argument, brilliant illustration, graphic description, eloquent appeal, all unite in enriching and embellishing his pages, alluring the most indifferent to read, and compelling the most prejudiced against his views to pause and consider."--_Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Review._

"Dr. Cumming exhibits an extensive knowledge of the subject, great powers of reasoning, and a wish to proceed to a right conclusion. The volume is both interesting and instructive, and it unquestionably deals with matters of the highest importance, in which all mankind are deeply and permanently interested."--_Newcastle Courant._

"These Lectures embrace the most prominent errors of Romanism; and we need not add that the subjects are discussed with ability, and the victory over Popish misrepresentation complete."--_Edinburgh Advertiser._

"Happy specimens of eloquence. It meets most of the difficulties suggested by Romanists and sceptics, and may be regarded as a suitable work to be placed in the hands of those who are wavering on the brink of error, and will be hailed as such by all lovers of Protestant truth."--_Kitto's Journal._

ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE & CO. 25, PATERNOSTER ROW.

* * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently corrected.

Two instances of unpaired double quotation marks could not be corrected.

Corrections:

The first line indicates the original, the second the correction.

p. 17:

to maintain such a sytsem,
to maintain such a system,

p. 55:

no compassion fom the servants of God
no compassion from the servants of God

p. 61:

with a little more secresy
with a little more secrecy

p. 64:

to ask of her her name,
to ask of her name,

p. 71:

in saving my honour and my consience
in saving my honour and my conscience

p. 85:

owed its origin to Guiseppe Calassanzio.
owed its origin to Giuseppe Calassanzio.

p. 94:

what part her enemy asailed her.
what part her enemy assailed her.

p. 130:

from the bishop, the _Prelator Governatore_,
from the bishop, the _Prelato Governatore_,

p. 131:

The Cardinal Camberini, to whom
The Cardinal Gamberini, to whom

p. 140:

and the most perfect familarity
and the most perfect familiarity

p. 185:

the popish sanhedrim
the popish sanhedrin

p. 190:

"No, my friend," repled Parchetti
"No, my friend," replied Parchetti

p. 234:

that you will acknowlege
that you will acknowledge

alone to the the see of the Ionian Islands
alone to the see of the Ionian Islands

p. 280:

are not subject to ths pains
are not subject to the pains

p. 366:

But are you not aware that it it is
But are you not aware that it is

p. 387:

what do we see around us? Infifidelity
what do we see around us? Infidelity

p. 394:

public buring of fifty thousand Moors
public burning of fifty thousand Moors

p. 400:

every hour they recal to your mind
every hour they recall to your mind

p. 421:

the perpetual downfal of the Roman Pontificate.
the perpetual downfall of the Roman Pontificate.

p. 422:

and compelling the most prejudiced againt his views
and compelling the most prejudiced against his views