occur with regard to others; to wit: "that by a perverse interpretation, the Gospel of Christ be turned into a human Gospel, or, what is still worse, into the Gospel of the Devil!" To avert this plague, our predecessors published many ordinances; and, in his latter days, Pius VII. of blessed memory, sent two briefs-one to Ignatius,' &c., as noticed above, and this may serve to expose the temerity or dishonesty of those who have doubted their authenticity. But the pope proceeds'We also, Venerable Brethren, in conformity with our apostolic duty, exhort you to turn away your flock, by all means, from these poisonous pastures. Reprove, beseech, be instant in season and out of season, in all patience and doctrine, that the faithful intrusted to you (adhering strictly to the rules of our Congregation of the Index) be persuaded, that if the Sacred Scriptures be every where indiscriminately published, more evil than advantage will arise thence, on account of the rashness of men.'

Behold then, Venerable Brethren, the tendency of this Society, which moreover, to attain its ends, leaves nothing untried; for not only does it print its translations, but also, wandering through the towns and cities, it delights in distributing them amongst the crowd. Nay, to allure the minds of the simple, at one time it sells them, at another, with an insidious liberality, it bestows them.' Again, therefore, we exhort you, that your courage fail not. The power of temporal princes will, we trust in the Lord, come to your assistance, whose interest, as reason

* S. Hier. in Cap. i. Ep. ad Gal.

and experience show, is concerned when the authority of the Church is questioned;' &c. A very intelligible intimation, and, in favourable times, fitted to produce a Crusade.

Dated Rome, May 3, 1824.

I subjoin the original of some of the foregoing passages. Quanta vero, et quam sæva nostris hisce temporibus surrexere, et ferme quotidie surgunt adversus Catholicam Religionem certamina! Quis ea recolendo, ac meditando lacrymas teneat?

Secta quædam, Vobis certe non ignota, Philosophiæ nomen immerito sibi usurpans, &c. Hæc siquidem blandam pietatis et liberalitatis speciem præ se ferens Tollerantismum (sic enim aiunt) seu Indifferentiam profitetur, &c. Non vos latet, VV. FF. Societatem quandam dictam vulgo Biblicam, per totum orbem audacter vagari, &c. Ad quam pestem avertendam, &c. Nos quoque pro Apostolico Nostro munere hortamur vos, VV. FF., ut gregem vestrum a lethiferis hisce pascuis amovere omnimode satagatis. &c. En, VV. FF., quo hæc spectat Societas, quæ insuper ut impii voti fiat compos nil intentatum relinquit. Non enim tantummodo versiones suas, &c.

Iterum ergo hortamur Vos, ut animo non concidatis. Aderit vobis, certe in Domino confidimus, Sæcularium Principum potestas, &c.

The Pastoral Instructions by the R. C.' (Roman Catholic) Archbishops and Bishops,' are a worthy echo of the Instructions of their Head. And that is saying quite enough. For, in truth, it is hardly possible to conceive anything more awful and revolting, than the union and

antithesis of the solemn and the ludicrous, of arrogance and humility, of truth and falsehood, of extravagant professions and almost unavoidable consciousness of hypocrisy, observable in this, as well as in almost every other papal document,- all tending to, and centering in, one point, the preservation and aggrandizement of, what falsely assumes to be, the Holy and Only Catholic Church; which, indeed, has done her best that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her, by taking them into her alliance; and Satan, she may trust, will not cast out Satan. Her destruction-for her reformation has been so long and obstinately resisted that it has become hopeless-will come from another quarter; and the most charitable counsel we can give her members is, to come out from the midst of her in time.

The reader should be apprized of the discussion on the same subject as occupies this volume by Bp. TAYLOR, in the Second Part of his Dissuasive from Popery, Book I., Section VI., entitled, Of the Expurgatory Indices of the Roman Church;' or, in the complete collection and edition of his Works by the late lamented Bishop of Calcutta, vol. x. pp. 495-507. The acquaintance of that acute and laborious writer with the Roman Indexes was indeed contracted, and, in a great measure, secondary. His arguments, however, are conclusive, and eminently important; particularly those, by which he establishes the charge of altering, or expurgating, the Text itself of the Fathers. I must indeed express my doubt relative to the passage, which has been adduced by others, of SIXTUS SENENSIS, in the Dedication of his Bibliotheca Sancta to Pius V.; where the pontiff is com

plimented for expurgating and emaculating the writings of the fathers, contaminated and poisoned by the heretics; and I had myself declined using it in an appropriate place, because it occurred, that the serpentine dexterity, which we have to encounter, might explain the expression, of a purification from the additions of heretics, in Prefaces, Notes, Indexes, &c. The other proofs of the Bishop are incapable of such evasion, and will stand for reference, whenever the advocates of Rome have the assurance to call the facts supported by them in question.

As a subject closely connected with that of the preceding pages, and of great importance in itself, being that of the sacred scriptures, I beg to direct the notice of the reader to a certain edition of the New Testament in French, printed at Bourdeaux in 1686. For the first distinct intelligence respecting this version we are indebted to an elaborate and most satisfactory Tract of Bp. KIDDER in 1690, entitled Reflections on a French Testament, printed at Bourdeaux. An. Dom. MDCLXXXVI. &c. And the present age is nearly as much indebted to the Rev. Dr. H. COTTON, for a republication of it with a prefixed Memoir in 1827, Lond. Cochran. The editor states the extreme rarity of the volume in question; but informs us of the existence of Five Copies in the British Empire, England and Ireland, and fortunately in places from which they are not likely to wander or be abstracted. It will be recollected, that at the end of 1685, the Edict of Nantes was revoked; and the immediately subsequent period was diligently employed in various methods for the reunion of the pretended reformed. And among these, with no neglect of the rest, a much esteemed one was a duly

་

prepared version of the New Testament. Mr. Butler, by way of contradicting the charge against his church as averse to the dissemination of the Scriptures, in his Book of the Roman Catholic Church, pp. 183, 4, reminds his readers, on the authority of Bausset, in his Life of Bossuet, that, at the revocation of the edict of Nantes, fifty thousand copies of a French translation of the New Testament were, at the recommendation of BoSSUET, distributed among the converted Protestants, by order of Louis XIV. They were, his original informs us, the translation of Père Amelotte, with which were associated as many copies of the translated Missal. Now, among a multitude of important peculiarities displayed by Kidder in the Bourdeaux edition, there are three eminent above the rest for discovering the express mention of the Mass, of PURGATORY, and of the ROMAN FAITH, in the New Testament.

Acts xiii. 2. What we render as they ministered to the Lord,' this version renders OR COMME ILS AFFROYENT AU SEIGNEUR LE SACRIFICE DE LA MESSE―or, they sacrificed unto the Lord the sacrifice of the Mass. 1 Cor. iii. 15. Where the Apostle writes of them who shall be saved as by fire,' this version has, Par le feu de PurGATOIRE by the fire of Purgatory. 1 Tim. iv. 1. In the latter times,' says St. Paul, some shall depart from the faith,' DE LA FOY ROMAINE-from the Roman faith, say the authors of this translation. It matters nothing whether the present translator was the inventor of such versions, or whether he adopted them from Veron, or other predecessors-the religious dishonesty is the same. Papism, however, knows how to retaliate; and perhaps