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.