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AN ACCOUNT,

&c.

CHAPTER I.

Definition of Prohibitory and Expurgatory Indexes-Francus and James on the subject-Defence of the practice by Gretser, with the qualification necessary to render it just-Sources of the Censures.

AMONG the various principles and customs, more especially those of religion, which modern, and professedly Christian, Rome has adopted and perpetuated from the antient and idolatrous possessors of the great city and its empire, there is none in which the resemblance, or virtual identity, is more conspicuous, than in that policy, by which she has acquired, and by which she retains, her dominion over a great part of the civilized world. No instrument for these purposes, whether of fraud, of flattery, of terror, or of force, was ever refused or overlooked by her. Her code of government embraced all objects, and comprehended the most distant extremes, with all which occupied the intermediate space. The most selftormenting ascetic and the most voluptuous profligate were almost equal objects of her attention; and while to the tractable, submissive, and at

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tached she presented every indulgence which was, or was believed to be, in her power, she had tortures and deaths of all horrors to gain, retain, or recover, those who either might be rebellious, or meditate rebellion. In short, to no power but modern Rome is equally applicable the encomium of the poet on the antient :

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
Hæ tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.

Aen. vi. 852.

Here is a gigantic, mysterious and long-established power, yet in existence; having indeed suffered much, and therefore the more intent upon retrieving her loss; having so far, most unexpectedly retrieved it, as, from a state of abject and imploring submission, to be put in a capacity, which she has not failed to improve, of re-erecting the two main pillars of her former domination; and, therefore, looking back, not with diminished hope, nor with inactive zeal for the future, to the bright vision of past ages, when, as the centre, or, according to her own arrogant assumption, the sun, of a mighty system, she exercised her sway over vast portions of human spirits; sending forth her energies to every and the most distant points of her dominion, and subduing to her will the entire substance and every particle of the compact, organized, and obedient mass. Such

are the prospects which she cherishes, such are her aims, such her present acquisitions, and such the progressive course which she is encouraged by the late attainment of better power than that of argument to pursue; neither deficient in skill to improve her opportunities, nor negligent of any of the instruments which may forward her views. And among these, as far at least as concerns the retention of the empire, which she does, or may possess, there are few more suitable, and more effectually adapted to attain that object than the literary ones about to be examined in the present work.

The books generally bearing the title of PROHIBITORY and EXPURGATORY INDEXES are catalogues of authors and works, either condemned in toto, or censured and corrected, chiefly by expunction; issuing from the church of modern Rome, and published by authority of her ruling members or societies, so empowered.

It is of some importance to distinguish the titles above given, which signify things essentially different, but which are frequently confounded, both by papal and early writers, who ought to understand the subject best, and by modern ones very generally.

The Prohibitory Index specifies and prohibits entire authors, or works, whether of known or of

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