country, explicitly agrees to deny his God, and forswear the religion
of his forefathers. He virtually consents that the party with which
he makes the agreement shall be privileged to curse and damn him, his
country, his religion, and his rights. This needs no proof. Look around
you, and see your citizens in Mexico denying their God by submitting
to Popish laws, which forbid their worship according to the dictates of
their conscience. Were your puritan forefathers to witness this, would
they not exclaim, "Shame upon our degenerate sons, who will barter their
religion and their birthright for the petty advantages of commerce!" No
wonder that Popish priests and Popish presses should call Americans
_cowards and the sons of cowards_. Who but a coward, and what but a
nation of cowards, would surrender that liberty of conscience which
their forefathers purchased at the price of blood? This Americans do by
assenting to a treaty with any country which does not guarantee to them
the right of worshipping God without hindrance. Americans will not
forget, though they cannot too often be reminded of the fact, that those
countries where their feelings are thus outraged are, _de facto,_
governed by the Pope and his vicegerents, whose actions for centuries
back have proved them to have been no other than conspirators against
the improvement and happiness of the human race. What were the means by
which they conducted their governments? The very same that they are now
in every Roman Catholic country, all over the globe; craft,
dissimulation, oppression, extortion, and above all, fire, faggot, and
the sword. There is not an article of their faith, nor a sacrament of
their church, which is not enforced by curses, as I shall show in the
sequel. These vicegerents of the humble Redeemer have the insolence to
ape the very thunders of heaven. History informs us, that their robes
have been crimsoned in blood. Their images of saints, some of which I
have seen in Mexico, made of solid gold, and many of them six feet high
and well-proportioned, were wrung from the poor.
Many of those countries, which they now possess, and where God and
nature have scattered plenty, have been made barren by Popish avarice
and the licentiousness of its priests. The fields, which laughed with
plenty, they have watered with hunger and distress. They found the world
gay with flowers, and with roses: they dyed it with blood. They and
their doctrines acted upon it like the blast of an east wind. Popery,
since the eighth century in particular, has been what a pestilence or
conflagration is to a city.
Come with me, in imagination, to Italy, and judge for yourselves. Pass
on with me, to Spain, Portugal, South America, and you will sec that I
am not exaggerating. You will find that I have only told truth, but not
the whole truth. No tongue can tell it. We have no language to express
it. I will give you a few instances of the fruits of Popery in the
neighboring island of Cuba. What I am about stating has come under my
own observation; and is, besides, a matter of record, and accessible to
many. The natives of Cuba pay fifteen millions per annum to her _most
Christian_ Majesty, the queen of Spain. They support an army of sixteen
thousand men, every one of whom is a native of old Spain, kept there for
the sole purpose of extorting this enormous annual tribute. The number
of priests there is immense. They, too, must be supported at the point
of the bayonet. These priests are known to be the most profligate
vagabonds in creation. And why, it will naturally be asked, should
such men be tolerated? Why supply them with money to gamble at the faro
table, at cock-fights and bull-fights? The reason is plain; they act
as spies for the Pope, who, in reality, manages the government of
old Spain, and contrives to draw, from that already impoverished and
distracted country, the last dollar of a people whom God has endowed
with every virtue, and a capacity of cultivating them, had not the curse
of Popery fallen upon them.
Such is the avarice of the Popish church and Popish tyrants, that, if
a farmer in Cuba kills even a beef for his own use, he must pay the
government ten per cent, upon its value. When I was in Cuba, the farmer
must pay ten and a half dollars duty upon every barrel of flour imported
into the island; when he might raise, in the field, before his own door,
the finest wheat in the world, if the government would let him. Such
are but a few of the blessings of Popish governments. Do Americans desire
this republic reduced to such a state of vassalage as this? or will
you profit by these lessons, which experience is daily teaching you?
Wherever you turn your eyes, and see Popery in the ascendant, you will
find it the Pandora's box, out of which every curse has issued, without
even leaving hope behind. It should, therefore, be suppressed on its
appearance in any country. It should be the duty of every good man to
extirpate it, and sweep it, if possible, from the face of the globe. It
is nothing better than a political machine, cunningly devised, for the
propagation of despotism. It is the masterpiece of satanic wickedness.
Execrated and exploded be this infernal machine! and thanks forever be
to that God, who has shown me its intricacies, in time to save me
from becoming what, I know of my own knowledge, Roman Catholic priests
are--hypocrites, infidels, and licentious debauchees, under the mask
of sanctity and holiness. Their religion is supported by _curses_, as I
have before stated, and will now prove from the doctrines of their
own church. The reader has already been told, that the Popish church
maintains the doctrines that a belief in seven sacraments is necessary
to salvation. These sacraments are designated as follows: _Baptism,
Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders, and
Matrimony_. And she enforces this by _curses_. I have already enumerated
the curses with which she enforces her belief in baptism. The next
sacrament is Confirmation, enforced by the following eloquent curses,
pronounced by the infallible council of Trent:!!!!!
"1. Whoever shall say that the confirmation of baptized persons is a
needless ceremony, and not rather a true and proper sacrament: or that
anciently it was nothing else than a kind of catechizing, by-which the
youth expressed the reason of their faith before the church; let him be
accursed!
"2. Whoever shall say that they do despite to the Holy Spirit who
attributes any virtue to the holy chrism of confirmation; let him be
accursed!
"3. Whoever shall say, the ordinary minister of holy confirmation is not
the bishop alone, but any mere priest whatsoever; let him be accursed!"
The next sacrament is the Eucharist. The following is the doctrine of
the Romish church in relation to this:!!!!!
Decree of the Council of Florence for the Instruction of the Armenians,
"The third is the sacrament of the Eucharist, the matter of which
is wheaten bread, and wine from the vine; with which, before the
consecration, a very small quantity of water should be mixed. But water
is thus mixed, since it is believed that the Lord himself instituted
this sacrament in wine, mixed with water: besides, because this agrees
with the representation of our Lords passion: because it is recorded
that blood and water flowed forth from the side of Christ: and also
because this is proper to signify the effect of this sacrament, which
is the union of Christian people with Christ: for water signifies the
people, according to Rev. xvii. 15. _And he said to me, the waters,
which thou sawest, where the harlot sitteth, are peoples, and nations,
and tongues_.
"The form of this sacrament are the words of the Saviour, by which
this sacrament is performed: for the priest, speaking in the person of
Christ, performs this sacrament: for, by virtue of the words themselves,
the substance of the bread is converted into the body, and the substance
of the wine into the blood, of Christ; yet so that Christ is contained
entire under the form of bread, and entire under the form of wine:
Christ is entire also under every part of the consecrated host, and of
the consecrated wine, after a separation has been made. The effect of
this sacrament, which it produces in the soul of a worthy partaker, is
the union of the person to Christ," &c.
_Canons of the Council of Trent, concerning the Most Holy Sacrament of
the Eucharist._
"1. Whoever shall deny that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist
are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood,
together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
therefore the entire Christ, but shall say that he is in it only as in a
sign, or figure, or virtue, let him be accursed!
"2 Whoever shall say that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist,
the substance of bread and wine remains together with the body and blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall deny that wonderful and singular
conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the
whole substance of the wine into the blood, only the forms of bread and
wine remaining, which conversion indeed the Catholic church most aptly
calls tran-substantiation; let him be accursed!
"3 Whoever shall deny that in the adorable sacrament of the Eucharist,
the entire Christ is contained under each kind, and under the single
parts of each kind, when a separation is made; let him be accursed!
"4. Whoever shall say that the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ
are not present in the admirable Eucharist so soon as the consecration
is performed, but only in the use when it is received, and neither
before nor after, and that the true body of our Lord does not remain in
the hosts, or consecrated morsels, which are reserved or left after the
communion; let him be accursed!
"5. Whoever shall say either that remission of sins is the principal
fruit of the most holy Eucharist, or that no other effects proceed from
it; let him be accursed!
"6. Whoever shall affirm that in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist,
Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is not to be adored, even with the
external worship of latria, and therefore that the Eucharist is to be
honored neither with peculiar festive celebration, nor to be solemnly
carried about in processions according to the laudable and universal
rite and custom of the church, or that it is not to be held up publicly
before the people that it may be adored, and that its worshippers are
idolaters; let him be accursed!
"7. Whoever shall say that it is not lawful that the holy Eucharist be
reserved in the sacristy, but that it must necessarily be distributed to
those who are present immediately after the consecration; that it is
not proper that it be carried in procession to the sick; let him be
accursed!
"8. Whoever shall say that Christ, as exhibited in the Eucharist, is
eaten only spiritually, and not also sacramentally and really; let him
be accursed.
"9. Whoever shall deny that each and every one of Christ's faithful, of
both sexes, when they have attained to years of discretion, are obliged,
least once every year, at Easter, to commune according to the precept of
holy mother church; let him be accursed!
"10. Whoever shall say that it is not lawful in the officiating priest
to administer the communion to himself; let him be accursed!
"11. Whoever shall affirm that faith alone is sufficient preparation for
taking the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist; let him be accursed And
lest so great a sacrament be taken unworthily and therefore to death
and condemnation, the sacred holy synod doth decree and declare, that
sacrimental confession must necessarily precede in the case of those whom
conscience accuses of mortal sin, if a confessor is at hand, however
contrite they may suppose themselves to be. But if any one shall presume
to teach, preach, or pertinacious assert, or in publicly disputing, to
defend the contrary, let him by this very act be excommunicated."
Canons of the same Council concerning the Communion of Children, and in
both Kinds.
"1. Whoever shall say that each and every of of Christ's faithful ought
to take both kinds of the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, by the
command of God, or because necessary to salvation let him be accursed!
"2. Whoever shall say that the holy Catholic church has not been
induced, by just causes and reasons, to administer the communion to the
laity, and also to the clergy not officiating, only under the form of
bread; or that she has erred in this; Let him be accursed!
"3. Whoever shall deny that the whole and entire Christ, the fountain
and author of all graces, is received under the one form of bread,
because, as some falsely assert, he is not received under both kinds,
according to the institution of Christ; let him be accursed!
"4 Whoever shall say that the communion of the Eucharist is necessary
for little children before they have attained to years of discretion;
let him be accursed!" &c.
The next in order is Extreme Unction,
Canons of the Council of Trent concerning Extreme Unction.
"1. Whoever shall say that extreme unction is not truly and properly a
sacrament instituted by Christ our Lord, and promulgated by the blessed
apostle James, but only a rite received from, the fathers, or human
invention; let turn be accursed!
"2. Whoever shall say that the sacred anointing of the sick does not
confer grace, nor remit sins, nor raise up the sick, but that it has now
ceased, as if the gift of healing existed only in past ages; let him be
accursed!
"3. Whoever shall say that the ceremony of extreme unction in the
practice which the holy Roman church observes, are repugnant to the
meaning of the blessed apostle James, and that, therefore, they are to
be changed; let him be accursed!"
The sixth sacrament is that of Orders.
Canons of the Council of Trent concerning Orders
"1. Whoever shall say that in the New Testament, there is not a visible
and external priesthood: or that there is not any power of consecrating
and offering the true body and blood of the Lord, and of remitting and
retaining sins: but only the office and naked ministry of preaching the
gospel; or that they who do not preach are surely not priests; Let him
be accursed!
"2. Whoever shall say that besides the priesthood there are not other
orders in the Catholic church, both greater and inferior, by which as by
certain steps, the priesthood may be attained; let him be accursed!
"3. Whoever shall say that orders, or sacred ordination, is not truly
and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ the Lord; or that it is
a certain human invention, devised by men ignorant of ecclesiastical
things, or that it is only a certain ceremony of choosing the ministers
of the word of God and of the sacraments; let him be accursed!
"4. Whoever shall say that by sacred ordination the Holy Spirit is not
given, and that therefore the bishops say in vain, Receive the Holy
Ghost: or that by it character is not impressed: or that he who has once
been a priest may again become a layman; let him be accursed!
"5. Whoever shall say that the sacred unction which the church uses
in holy ordination is not only not required, but is contemptible and
pernicious; likewise also the other ceremonies of orders; let him be
accursed!
"6. Whoever shall say that in the Catholic church there is not a
hierarchy instituted by divine appointment, which consists of bishops,
priests, and ministers; let him be accursed!
"7. Whoever shall say that bishops are not superior to priests, or that
they have not the power of confirming and ordaining; or that which they
have is common to them with the priests; or that orders conferred by
them without the consent or call of the people or the secular power, are
null and void; or that they who have been neither duly ordained nor sent
by ecclesiastical and canonical power, but come from some other source,
are lawful ministers of the word and sacraments; let him be accursed!
"8. Whoever shall say that the bishops, who are appointed by the
authority of the Roman pontiff, are not lawful and true bishops, but a
human invention; let him be accursed!"
Canons of the Council of Trent concerning Marriage.
1. Whoever shall say that marriage is not truly and properly one of the
seven sacraments of the evangelical laws instituted by Christ the Lord,
but that it is invented by men in the church and does not confer grace;
let him be accursed!
"2. Whoever shall say that it is lawful for Christians to Have several
wives at once, and that this is forbidden by no divine law; let him be
accursed!
"3. Whoever shall say that only those degrees of relationship and
affinity, which are expressed in Leviticus, can hinder marriage from
being contracted, and annul the contract; and that the church cannot
dispense in any of them, or appoint that more may hinder and annul; let
him be accursed!
"4. Whoever shall say that the Church could not constitute impediments
annulling marriage, or that in constituting them, she has erred; let him
be accursed!
"5. Whoever shall say that the bond of marriage may be dissolved on
account of heresy, or mutual dislike, or voluntary absence from the
husband or wife; let him be accursed!
"6. Whoever shall say that a marriage solemnized, but not consummated,
is not annulled by the solemn profession of a religious order by one of
the parties; let him be accursed!
"7. Whoever shall say that the church errs, when she has taught and
teaches that according to the evangelical and apostolical doctrine, the
bond of marriage cannot be dissolved on account of the adultery of one
or the other of the parties, and that neither of them, not even the
innocent party who has given no cause for the adultery, may contract
another marriage, whilst the party is living, and that he commits
adultery, who marries another after putting away his adulterous wife, or
she, who marries another, after putting away her adulterous husband; let
him be accursed!
"8. Whoever shall say that the church is in error when, for many
reasons, she decrees that a separation may be made between married
persons, as to the bed, or as to intercourse, either for a certain, or
an uncertain time; let him be accursed.
"9. Whoever shall say that the clergy, constituted in sacred order, or
regulars, who have solemnly professed chastity, may contract marriage,
and that the contract is valid, notwithstanding ecclesiastical law, or
vow, and that to maintain the opposite, is nothing else than to condemn
marriage; and that all may contract marriage, who do not think that they
have the gift of chastity, even though they have vowed it; let him be
accursed: as God does not deny this to those who seek it aright, nor
does he suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear.
"10. Whoever shall say that the married state is to be preferred to
a state of virginity, or celibacy, and that it is not better and more
blessed to remain in virginity, or celibacy, than to be joined in
marriage; let him be accursed!
"11. Whoever shall affirm that the prohibition of the solemnization of
marriage, at certain times of the year, is a tyrannical superstition,
borrowed from the superstitions of the Pagans, or shall condemn the
benedictions, and other ceremonies, which the church uses at those
times; let him be accursed! u 12. Whoever shall affirm that matrimonial
causes do not belong to the ecclesiastical judges; let him be accursed!"
The atrocity of the above doctrines, is evident to every reflecting
mind. Protestants can now see for themselves, whether they can safely
hold any communion with them, or have any confidence in Roman Catholics.
There is not a Protestant Christian in the United States, nor in the
world, who is not publicly and solemnly denounced, as an accursed being,
by the Roman Catholic church, and by each and every one of its members;
but in addition to those curses, which I have enumerated, there is
another more solemn; one which is annually pronounced against them, by
the Pope of Rome, and by every bishop and priest in this country. It
is known by the title of _Bulla in cena Domini_. The curse contained
in this bull, is pronounced annually at Rome, by the Pope, on Thursday
before Good Friday. It includes every living being who is not a Roman
Catholic. All our president, congress, governors, magistrates,
municipal authorities, officers of our navy and army, all our Protestant
clergymen, whether Unitarians, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists,
or Methodists; and upon all these, without distinction, the Pope of
Rome, dressed in his royal robes, invokes the curse of Heaven, once at
least every year. Every priest in the Roman church is bound to do the
same. It was a part of my own duty, and one which I never failed to
discharge, until I protested against the doctrines of the Romish church.
The Popish priests never deemed it prudent to pronounce this curse
publicly?-in the United States, but while I was among them, we never
omitted to do so privately, on the morning of Thursday before Good
Friday. It commences with the following words on the part of the
Pope:!!!!!
"We, therefore, following the ancient custom of our predecessors,
of holy memory, do firstly--excommunicate and curse, in the name of
Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and by the authority of St.
Peter and St. Paul, and by our own authority, all Heretics, Hussites,
Wiekliffites, Lutherans. Calvinists, Huguenots, Anabaptists,
Trinitarians, and all apostates from the faith, and all who read their
books," &c, &c. This curse includes every soul in the United States, who
is not a Roman Catholic. Will you, Americans give these men and their
doctrines footing among you? Will they longer dare to curse you and your
children with impunity?
In the 6th section of the above bull, the Pope and his priests curse all
civil powers, who impose taxes without the consent of the Roman court.
In the 12th section, they curse all who maltreat cardinals, bishops, or
priests. You are, therefore, to take heed and not quarrel with priests,
though they insult your wives, or debauch your families. In the 15th
section, all are cursed, who take away jurisdiction from the court of
Rome, and prefer leaving pauses of difference between them and priests,
to our civil tribunals.
In the 17th section, all are cursed, who in any case appeal to civil
tribunals, when the difficulty is between Romish priests and citizens.
In the 18th section, the Pope curses all who take away church property.
In the 19th section, the Pope curses all who, without express license
from him, impose taxes on priests, monasteries, nunneries, or churches.
Our legislature is sitting while I write. Take heed, gentlemen, lest you
tax the Roman Catholic bishop Fenwick, or any of his priests. Be sure
you do not tax his real estate, his nunneries, or other property. If you
do, you are doubly damned.
In the 20th section, the church curses all judges, and magistrates, who
shall sit in judgment on a bishop or priest, without license from the
holy see.
In the 22d section, this _bull_ is declared to be binding forever, and
it is brought to a conclusion by a solemn assurance that if any priest
shall violate it, he shall incur the wrath of Almighty God, and of St.
Peter and Paul.
I would again ask Americans whether Roman Catholic priests, or bishop,
or the two millions of followers which they have in this country, are
any longer to be trusted. I tell Americans, and I proclaim it to the
world, that they are spies upon our republic; they are the sworn foes of
our laws, of our principles, and of our government; and they are united
by the most fearful oath never to rest while our religious liberty
lasts, and to use every means which ingenuity can devise, and treachery
and perjury accomplish, to effect its overthrow, and substitute in its
place, the religion of the Pope; a religion, if such a name can be given
to a most infamous system of policy, which for sixteen hundred years has
deluged Europe in blood.
I make these assertions, not at random, not upon hearsay, not upon
the authority of Protestant writers, but upon that of Roman Catholic
theologians, and upon my own personal knowledge. I solemnly declare
it to be my deliberate opinion, that it is the duty of all civil
governments on the face of the earth, to unite in excluding, from their
territories, all Roman Catholic priests and bishops, as their deadly
enemies, and the sworn transgressors of all national law; and for us in
this country to countenance them, while they have any connection with
the Pope of Rome, or profess to owe him any allegiance, is nothing short
of a species of insanity. The _bull_ of which I have spoken, is taught
in every Roman Catholic college in the United States. The students in
those institutions are educated in the belief that their church, which
is infallible, requires of them to be unfaithful to this heretical
government, and not only that, but to betray it, whenever the interest
of the church demands it.
Every Irish Roman Catholic priest, who comes to this country, is
instructed by his bishop, to pull down, if possible, the standard of
heresy, which he is told he will find waving over the United States, and
erect in its place that of the Pope, which he swears to defend.