(Vol. iv., p. 45.)
The defence of Cardinal Bellarmin set up by your correspondent J. W. CT.
is not new, and is exceedingly plausible at first sight. Allow me,
however, to direct the attention of your readers to the following reply
to a similar defence, which I take from the _Sequel to Letters to M.
Gondon_, by Dr. Wordsworth, Canon of Westminster, pp. 10. 11.:
"I would first beg leave to observe that my three reviewers, in
their zeal to speak for Cardinal Bellarmine, have not allowed him
to speak for himself. They seem not to have remembered that this
very passage was severely censured in his life-time, and that in
the _Review_ which _he_ wrote _of his own works_, by way of
explanation, he endeavoured to set up a defence for it, which is
_wholly at variance with their apologies_ for him. He says, 'When
I affirmed that, if the Pope commanded a vice or forbad a virtue,
the church would be bound to believe virtue to be evil and vice
good, I was speaking concerning _doubtful_ acts of virtue or vice;
for if he ordered a _manifest_ vice, or forbad a _manifest_
virtue, it would be necessary to say with St. Peter, We must obey
God rather than man.' Recognitio Librorum omnium Roberti
Bellarmini ab ipso edita, Ingolstad, 1608, p. 19. 'Ubi diximus
quod si Papa praeciperet vitium aut prohiberet virtutem, Ecclesia
teneretur credere virtutem esse malam et vitium esse bonum, locuti
sumus de actibus _dubiis_ virtutum aut vitiorum; nam si praeciperet
_manifestum_ vitium aut prohiberet _manifestam_ virtutem, dicendum
esset cum Petro _obedire oportet magis Deo quam hominibus_.'
"This is his own defence; let it be received for what it is worth;
it differs entirely from that which the reviewers make for him."
It would occupy too much of your valuable space to insert the whole of
Dr. Wordsworth's observations, which, however, every one who is desirous
of thoroughly investigating the subject, _ought_ to read and consider.