Chapter IX

EXTRAORDINARY THEOLOGICAL PRACTICES OF THE ROMISH CLERGY.

REMARKABLE as are the acknowledgments made by the Romish Clergy, their theological practices will be found not less worthy the attention of the honest and conscientious inquirer.

I. The general PRINCIPLE, on which these practices are constructed, is very clearly and distinctly laid down by the Professors of Douay.

_In managing the old catholic writers when in disputation opposed to us by our adversaries_, say they, _we endure very many errors_. _Sometimes_, _we extenuate them_: _sometimes_, _we excuse them_: _very frequently_, _having devised some plausible comment_, _we even roundly deny them altogether_, _affixing to them some convenient sense_. {63a}

II. Such is the avowed PRINCIPLE of these ingenious divines, through the medium of which when reduced to practice, a troublesome old author, whose claim to catholicity cannot be quite decently denied, by dint of judicious explaining and managing and correcting and garbling and interpolating, may be compelled, either apparently to uphold, or at least not to contradict, the peculiarities advocated by the Romish Clergy.

Let us now, descending to particulars, mark how the PRINCIPLE is reduced to PRACTICE.

1. The first specimen, which I shall give, is that, afforded by the Douay Doctors themselves, and afterward very greatly improved upon by the dexterous Bossuet Bishop of Meaux.

Bertram of Corby, always admitted to be an orthodox catholic divine, had written, in the ninth century, a book on the Eucharist; which, in its natural construction, is plainly fatal to the doctrine of Transubstantiation. {63b}

Whereupon, the Professors of Douay state; that Bertram’s book, when _emendated_, may be tolerated: observing with perfect truth, that, since they had kindly done the good office of _emendation_ for sundry other ancient catholic writers, no imaginable reason could be assigned, why Bertram, in all equity, should not deserve and receive _the same diligent recognition_. {64a}

Numerous copies of the Work, however, escaped the ambiguous benefit of the Douay _emendation_. Bossuet, therefore, as in such cases the Professors wisely direct, finally judged it best to affix to Bertram’s undeniable phraseology _some convenient sense_. Hence, in settling the merits of the eucharistic controversy between Paschase and Bertram, the Bishop of Meaux compendiously assures us: that these two champions, with their respective followers, were all alike staunch Transubstantialists, though they unluckily differed as to the best mode of expressing and propounding their common favourite doctrine. {64b}

2. Another specimen occurs in the remarkable case of Elfric’s Epistle to Wulfstane, written about the close of the tenth century.

The original Saxon, luckily preserved in the library of Exeter Cathedral, contains a passage flat against Transubstantiation.

_Nevertheless_, _this sacrifice is_, NOT _the same body of his wherein he suffered for us_, NOR _the same blood which he shed for us_: _but_, SPIRITUALLY, _it is made his body and blood_; AS _was that manna which rained from heaven_, _and_ AS _was that water which did flow out of the rock_. {64c}

Yet, in the Latin translation of the Epistle contained in the library of Worcester Cathedral, this passage, the decisive strength of which was evidently felt and tacitly acknowledged, has been carefully _erased_. {64d}

3. The treatment of the writings of Theodoret will afford us yet a third specimen.

This Father, who lived in the fifth century, had expressed himself so strongly against the doctrine now denominated _Transubstantiation_, that John Clement, perceiving the force of his testimony, and losing his own temper, tore out and burned the guilty leaf which contained the passage. {65a}

Now such a summary process might _emendate_ John Clement’s individual copy of Theodoret: but, unluckily, other copies were abroad in the world. What, then, was to be done? Why, truly, as the Douay Doctors advise in such cases, _a commodious sense_, by dint of _excogitating a comment_, must be affixed to the noxious passage.

Theodoret, avowedly opposing the phantasy of Transubstantiation, had written, concerning the eucharistic bread and wine _after_ consecration, that _they remain in their former_ SUBSTANCE _and shape and appearance_. {65b}

But three modern Romish Doctors, Mr. Berington, Bp. Trevern of Strasbourg, and Mr. Husenbeth, _excogitating a more commodious sense_ which never occurred to John Clement, make Theodoret say, in despite both of greek grammar and clear context, that _the_ consecrated bread and wine _remain in the shape and form of the former_ SUBSTANCE. {65c}

Now this translation, as every schoolboy who reads the original Greek will at once perceive, is _grammatically impossible_. But let that original be withheld from the gaze of the curious: and ten to one but _the commodious sense_ will pass muster among the Romish Laity, nay even among some of the Protestant Laity, without any further difficulty.

4. A fourth specimen is yet again afforded by the liberality of the same Bp. Trevern of Strasbourg.

Speaking of a _moral_, not of a _literal_ or _substantial_, change in the consecrated elements, as they themselves distinctly assure us in the way of explaining their own language, the old Fathers often say: that _the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ_.

But Bp. Trevern, by deliberately in more than a single instance _interpolating_ the decisive word SUBSTANCE, while from the eyes of his readers he carefully withholds the originals, makes them speak, not their own sentiments, but those of the Church and Clergy of Rome.

Thus, when Cyril of Jerusalem writes; _Whatsoever the Holy Spirit hath touched_, _that thing is sanctified and changed_: Bp. Trevern forces him to say; _All that_, _which has received the impression of the Holy Spirit_, _is sanctified and changed_ INTO ANOTHER SUBSTANCE. {66a}

And thus, when the old author of the Treatise on the Sacraments in the Works of Ambrose writes; _They are changed into other_: Bp. Trevern remorselessly compels him to say; _They pass into another_ SUBSTANCE. {66b}

5. For our fifth specimen we are indebted jointly to Bp. Trevern and Mr. Berington.

Cyprian speaks of men being _cleansed for sins through the suffering of long pain_ and of their being _long purged in fire_. {66c}

These expressions, as the whole context shews and as it was rightly observed by the honest romish commentator Rigaltius, relate simply to the allegorical fire of penitential austerities in _this_ world: a fire, in which, by the early discipline of the Church, it was required, that the lapsed should for an appointed season be exercised.

But Bp. Trevern and Mr. Berington, wholly _suppressing_ the context and _saying not a single syllable_ about their respectable fellow-religionist Rigaltius, gravely adduce the passage as proof positive: that _Cyprian_, _in the middle of the third century_, _held and taught the existence of a Purgatory after death in the next world_. {67}

6. Our sixth specimen is afforded by Mr. Husenbeth.

The famous text in the Gospel of St. Matthew, which exhibits our Lord as saying, _Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church_, is universally explained by the Romish Clergy, as being _a grant from Christ of a monarchal supremacy in the Catholic Church_, _both to Peter individually_, _and to Peter’s alleged heirs and successors the Bishops of Rome_.

Now, most unluckily for this current explanation, the primitive theologians knew nothing of it: for, while the early Fathers, Justin and Tertullian and Cyprian and Origen and Athanasius and Jerome and Augustine and Chrysostom and Hilary, differ as to the true meaning of the text (some supposing the rock to be Peter personally and exclusively; some, to be Christ himself; and some, to be Peter’s confession of Christ’s divinity); NOT ONE of them interprets it, as the Romish Clergy would now interpret it.

Yet, by way of putting to open shame every opponent of the Pope’s supremacy by divine right, Mr. Husenbeth deliberately assures his plain country readers: that, _by_ ALL _the holy Fathers and Doctors_, _by_ ALL _the Councils_, _and by the most learned and pious men in the world in_ EVERY _age down to the Reformation_, _the text in question has been_ UNIFORMLY _understood as it is now explained by the Romish Clergy_. {68a}

7. The copiousness of Mr. Husenbeth will afford us also yet a seventh specimen.

With every semblance of even scrupulous fidelity, giving distinct references to his authorities, this theologian, in a small Work written for circulation among _the unlearned_, declares; that _Papias_, _Ignatius_, _Irenèus_, _Dionysius of Corinth_, _Caius of Rome_, _Clement of Alexandria_, _Tertullian_, _Origen_, _and Cyprian_, _all with one voice explicitly assert St. Peter to have been the first diocesan Bishop of Rome_: and he adds, still for the information of _the unlearned_; that _Mr. White_, who had unceremoniously pronounced St. Peter’s Roman Episcopate to be an idle and ungrounded report, _did but attempt to impose upon such humble readers as have no means of examining history_, _by such worn out fallacies and vile fabrications_. {68b}

Yet I have myself examined all Mr. Husenbeth’s references to his above alleged witnesses from the three first centuries: and I can positively state, from the testimony of my own eye-sight, that NOT ONE _of those witnesses says a single syllable_, _as to St. Peter having been the first diocesan Bishop of Rome_, _or indeed as to his_ EVER _having been Bishop of that See_.

8. Our eighth specimen is furnished by the joint industry and rival intrepidity of Bp. Trevern and Mr. Husenbeth.

For the purpose of persuading the unwary, that _the highest divine adoration of the consecrated bread and wine had been the practice of the Church from the earliest ages_, Bp. Trevern adduces a direction or rubric from the ancient Clementine Liturgy: and, after him, Mr. Husenbeth eagerly catches up, for the same purpose, the same ancient rubric or direction. {69a}

Meanwhile the direction itself, in its _genuine_ state says not a syllable respecting _any_ adoration of the consecrated bread and wine. Bp. Trevern first _interpolates_ it, to make it serve his purpose: and then Mr. Husenbeth brings forward, _as evidence_, the precise words of the gallican prelates _interpolation_ wedged into an utterly false construction of the original passage. {69b}

9. Our ninth and last specimen is of a somewhat wholesale nature: whence it will the more completely exemplify the PRINCIPLE, laid down, for the better furtherance of truth, by the painful Professors of Douay.

The King of Spain (I avail myself of the diligent researches of our own excellent Bishop Jeremy Taylor) gave a commission to the Inquisitors, to _purge_ all catholic authors: but with this special clause; that _they should keep private among themselves the expurgatory index_, _neither communicating it to others_, _nor giving a copy of it to any one_.

It happened, however, by the Divine Providence so ordering it, that, about thirteen years after, a copy of it was procured and published by Johannes Pappus and Franciscus Junius. This circumstance compelled the Inquisitors to acknowledge their expurgatory index: and they have since printed it themselves.

(1.) Let us now observe some few of the exploits of _emendation_, achieved by these honest and laborious correctors of erring Antiquity.

In Chrysostom’s Works printed at Basil, the words, _There is no merit_, _but what is given us by Christ_, are commanded to be expunged. Yet these very words occur in his first Homily upon the text of St. John, _Ye are my friends_.

A similar erasure is enjoined of the clause, _The Church is built_, _not upon the man_, _but upon the faith_. Yet this clause occurs in his Sermonon Pentecost.

The same _expurgatory process_ has been undergone by Chrysostom in many other places: and Ambrose and Augustine and the rest of the old Fathers have been subjected to the like necessary _emendations_.

In short the _curtailments_ of the ancient writers were carried to so great an extent, that Ludovicus Saurius, the corrector of the press at Lyons, shewed and complained of them to Junius: lamenting, that he was forced to cancel and erase many sayings of Ambrose in that edition of his Works which was printed at Lyons in the year 1559.

(2.) Not content with thus _emendating_ the Fathers, our pains-taking Inquisitors, in order that their editions might throughout be perfectly harmonious and consistent, fell doggedly to work upon the very tables or indexes, which contained any references to the expunged passages: for, of course, it were unseemly, that a reference should appear, indicating the occurrence of a place which _itself_ could no where be found in an improved or expurgated edition.

Thus, out of one of Froben’s indexes, they have directed the erasure of the following references: _The use of images forbidden_; _The Eucharist no sacrifice_, _but the commemoration of a sacrifice_; _Works_, _although they do not justify_, _yet are necessary to salvation_; _Marriage is granted to all that will not contain_; _Venial sins damn_; _The dead Saints_, _after this life_, _cannot help us_.

And thus, out of the index of Augustine’s Works by Claudius Chevallonius at Paris in the year 1531, they have commanded a still more extraordinary erasure of a reference: _Dele_, _Solus Deus adorandus_; that is, _Blot out the words_, _God alone is to be adored_. {71a}

(3.) On such disgraceful practices, Bp. Taylor well remarks: _These instances may serve_, _instead of multitudes which might be brought_, _of their corrupting the witnesses and razing the records of antiquity_, _that the errors and novelties of the Church of Rome might not be so easily reproved_. _Now_, _if the Fathers were not against them_, _what need these arts_? _Why should they use them thus_? _Their own expurgatory indices me infinite testimony against them_, _both that they do so_, _and that they need it_. {71b}

III. It were easy to have multiplied specimens of the same description: but these, I apprehend, may well suffice.

Respecting such a topic, any observations of my own are quite superfluous. By some marvellous perversion of the moral sense, Sixtus Senensis, indeed, has even _lauded_ Pope Pius V, because he had taken diligent care, that the writings of all catholic authors, and more especially the writings of the ancient Fathers, should be _expurgated and emaculated_: but the plain good sense of every upright and honourable man will deem such praise no very flattering compliment. {71c}

Yet, though I shall not weary the prudent inquirer with any needless remarks of my own, either on the Douay Principle itself, or on the reduction of that principle to systematic practice: I may, at parting, be permitted, in all good will, to offer him a word of not altogether useless advice.

Whenever a Romish Doctor makes a large or extraordinary or startling assertion, there clearly can be _no harm_ in A CAUTIOUS SUSPENSION OF BELIEF, until either the enquirer himself or some competent and trust-worthy friend shall have had an opportunity of ACTUAL AND PERSONAL VERIFICATION OF ALLEGED AUTHORITIES.