the

termining the rights of the Priesthood and those of the empire, such errors are professed, that, instead of an orthodox teaching, youth draw from them lessons altogether poisoned. The author, in fact, as well in his wicked propositions as in the commentaries by which he accompanies them, has not blushed to maintain before his auditors and to put in print, after having attempted to give them a new turn, all the old errors so many times condemned by the Roman Pontiffs, Our predecessors-above all, by John XXII., Benedict XIV., Pius VI., and Gregory XVI., and by the Canons of so many Councils, principally by those of the IVth Lateran, of Florence, and of Trent. For the books published by him say formally and directly, That the Church has no coactive power, nor any temporal power, whether direct or indirect; that the schism which divided the Church into Eastern and Western had for its cause the excesses of power of the Roman Pontiffs; that, beside the power inherent in the Episcopate, it has another, a temporal power, in virtue of the concessions, express or tacit, of the State, and consequently, revocable at the will of the latter; that the State, even when it is governed by an Infidel, enjoys an indirect and negative power in sacred things; that if it is wronged by the Church it may by itself defend its interests by means of its indirect and negative power in sacred things; that not only the right known under the name of exequatur enters into its competence, but even the appeal against abuses; that, in the conflicts between the two powers, the state has the preponderance; that nothing hinders, but that by decree of a general council, or by the will of all nations, the Sovereign Pontificate may be transferred from the Bishop and city of Rome to another Bishop and another city; that a definition emanating from a general council is not subject to rectification, and that the civil administration may reduce the thing to these terms: that the doctrine of those who compared the Roman Pontiff to a monarch, whose power extends over the universal Church, is a doctrine which had had its rise in the middle ages, and the effects of which still remain; that the compatibility of the temporal power and the spiritual power is a question controverted among the children of the Catholic and Christian Church.'

"There are, moreover, maintained several errors touching marriage :'That it cannot be demonstrated by any reason that JESUS CHRIST elevated marriage to the dignity of a Sacrament; that the Sacrament of Marriage is a pure accessory to the contract, from which it is consequently separable; and that the Sacrament itself consists in the nuptial benediction only; that the matrimorial bond is not indissoluble by natural law; that the Church has not the right to introduce impedimenta dirimentia, but that this right appertains to the state, which can of itself remove the existing impediments; that causes relating to matrimony and espousals depend in their own nature on the civil jurisdiction; that the Church, in the course of ages, has begun to introduce impedimenta dirimentia, not using a right which properly belonged to it, but in virtue of a prerogative of the state; that the Canons of the Council of Trent (Sess. xxiv., de Matrim. c. 24,) which fulminate an anathema against those who dare to deny to the Church the right of introducing impedimenta dirimentia, are either not dogmatic, or ought to be understood to apply to this right derived from the state.' Much more, he adds:- That the form defined M 3

VOL. II.

by the Council of Trent does not oblige, under pain of nullity, when the state prescribes another, and wills that the marriage contracted in this new form shall be valid; that Boniface VIII. was the first who advanced the proposition that the vow of chastity made in ordination annulled marriage.' We find, moreover, in these books on the Episcopal power, on the punishment of heretics and schismatics, on the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, on the Councils, several audacious and temerarious propositions, which is repugnant to us to quote, and mark out one by one amidst such a great accumulation of errors.

"It is then established that, by such a doctrine and by such maxims the author tends to destroy the constitution and government of the Church, and utterly to ruin the Catholic Faith, since he deprives the Church of its exterior jurisdiction and coercive power, which has been given to it to bring back into the ways of justice those who stray out of them; that he admits and professes false principles on the nature and the bond of marriage; that he refuses to the Church the right of determining on impedimenta dirimentia, and accords it, on the contrary, to the civil power; lastly since, by a supreme error, he makes the Church so subordinate to the same civil power, that he attributes to the latter, directly or indirectly, all that which, in the government of the Church, in what regards sacred persons and things in Ecclesiastical jurisdiction, is of Divine institution, or sanctioned by the Canonical Laws, thus renewing the impious system of Protestantism, which reduces the society of the Faithful to be nothing but the slave of the civil authority. (!) There is no one who does not comprehend all the danger and all the perversity of a system which proclaims all the errors long since anathematised by the Church however, in order that the simple and the ignorant may not be deceived, it belongs to the duty of Our Apostolate to guard the Faithful against the dangers of these false doctrines; it is necessary, in fact, that the defence of the Faith should proceed from the place where the Faith is indefectible.'-(St. Bernard, Ep. 190.) Being, in virtue of Our Apostolical Ministry, the guardian of the unity aud integrity of the Catholic Faith, charged to mark out to the Faithful the perverse doctrines of the author, and vigilantly to take care that they remain firmly attached to the Faith which the Fathers have transmitted to this Apostolical See, the column and basis of the truth, We have, first of all, submitted to an attentive examination the books wherein are contained and defended the deplorable opinions We have mentioned above; and, in the next place, We have resolved to strike them with the sword of Apostolical censure, and to condemn them.

"Wherefore, after having taken the advice of the Doctors in Theology and in Canon Law, after having collected the suffrages of Our Venerable Brothers, the Cardinals of the Congregation of the Supreme and Universal Inquisition, of Our own proper movement, with certain knowledge, after ripe deliberation on Our part, in the plenitude of Our Apostolical authority, We reprobate and condemn the above-mentioned books as containing propositions and doctrines respectively false, temerarious, scanda lous, erroneous, injurious to the IIoly See, holding its rights in contempt, subversive of the government of the Church, and of its Divine constitu

tion; schismatical, heretical, favouring Protestantism and the propagation. of its errors; leading to heresy and to the system long since condemned as heretical in Luther, Baius, Marsilius of Padna, Janduno, Marc-Antony de Dominus, Richer, Laborde, the doctors of Pistoia, and others equally condemned by the Church; We condemn them, in fine, as contrary to the Canons of the Council of Trent, and We will, and We order that they be held by all as reprobated and condemned: We consequently order that none of the Faithful, of what rank and condition soever-even those whose condition or rank might require a special mention-shall possess or read the books and theses mentioned above, under pain of interdict for Clerks, and of the greater excommunication for laics, which interdict and excommunication shall be incurred ipso facto, reserving to Ourselves and to the Roman Pontiffs, Our successors, the right to soften them, or to absolve from them, unless in the case of excommunication he that has incurred it is in articulo mortis. We order printers and booksellers, all and every one of them, whatever may be their rank or functions, to send to their Ordinaries these books and these theses, whenever they shall fall into their hands, under pain of incurring, as We have said above, for Clerks, the interdict, and for laics, the greater excommunication. And not only do We condemn and reprobate, under the penalties which have just been set forth, the above-mentioned books and theses, and forbid absolutely any one to read, to print, or to possess them, but We extend this condemnation, and those prohibitions to all the books and theses, whether manuscript, or printed, or to be printed, in which the same deplorable doctrine shall be reproduced in whole or in part.

"Finally, We exhort in the Lord, and We supplicate the Venerable Brothers who are united to Us in Pastoral zeal and Sacerdotal firmness, to consider that the office of Doctor, with which they are invested, imposes on them the duty of watching with all solicitude over the defence of the flock of Christ; and and to keep away his sheep from pastures so poisonous, to wit, from the reading of these works; and because, when the truth is not defended it is oppressed' (St. Felix, iii., dist. 83,) that they be a wall of adamant and a column of iron, to sustain the House of God against those declaimers and seducers, who, confounding things human and things Divine, not rendering either to Cæsar that which is Cæsar's, or to God that which is God's, set each against the other, the Priesthood and the empire, and strive to precipitate them into conflicts deadly to both of them.

"And to the end that the present Letters may be known by all, and that no one may be able to make a pretext of ignorance, We will and order that they be published, according to usage, by one of Our Cursors at the gates of the Basilica of the Prince of the Apostles, of the Apostolic Chancery, of the Superior Tribunal on Monte Citorio, and on the Square of Campo Fiore; that, moreover, they be affixed thereon, and that, in consequence of this publication, they produce their full effect against all concerned, as if they had been personally notified and intimated. We, likewise, will that every copy of these letters, even printed, signed by a public notary, and furnished with the

seal of a person constituted in Ecclesiastical dignity, shall have in courts of justice and everywhere else the same authority as the original itself.

"Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, under the Ring of the Fisherman, on the 22nd day of August, in the year MDCCCLI., in the sixth year of our Pontificate.

"A. CARD. LAMBRUSCHINI."

Every free intellect and every heroic conscience, ought to combine in one determined league of brotherhood, a confederation of reason, honesty, and common manhood, to extinguish from the earth this baleful and malignant antagonist of human rights and of God's truth.

III.

SCEPTICS' RELIGION.

Under this department, sceptical objections, and systems or principles advocated as hostile to Christianity, are dispassionately considered.

G. J. HOLY OAKE'S ATHEISTIC SECULARISM.

To the Editor of The Bible and the People.

DEAR SIR,

I have taken in your valuable periodical from the commencement, and think it is calculated to do good service to the cause of truth, especially in these times when error on the most important of all subjects is so wide spread and rampant. As I mingle very much with the working classes, for whose benefit, I apprehend, especially THE BIBLE AND THE PEOPLE was introduced, I take every opportunity of recommending it to them as a publication, well worthy of their candid perusal. I would that its circulation were more largely extended, as, in my humble opinion, it grapples with all it undertakes to deal with in a masterly masculine spirit.

The spirit of enquiry with many, there is reason to fear, is too onesided to induce them dispassionately to consider what is truth, with respect to the great and momentous concerns of eternity. An apparent discrepancy seems to be to some minds a sufficient reason why they should reject altogether the divinity of the book in which it is found.

There is evidently a great effort making now to undermine the Divine authority of the Scriptures, and to a great extent Infidel writers and lecturers have succeeded, especially amongst the unreflecting and superficial, and these are a numerous class: if they can, with any shew of reason, give the negative to what is advanced it suffices, and they settle down in the midst of uncertainty with as much composure, as though the race was run, the battle ended, and the victory gained.

Secularism is now doing its best to impugn religion, and subvert the common faith: societies are organising in different parts of the country, and meetings are held to which Christian ministers are invited with the privilege of replying to any statements not in accordance with their views. Mr. Holyoake, the apostle of infidelity, has recently been twice to this town; the lectures were well attended, and much interest has been excited. The platform was occupied by some of the leading Dissenting ministers, and the discussions were conducted with that ability, calm