speeches: but to brush the dust off a few of the prominent points, crowded together in his last effort. The bishop's denial of the genuineness of this Rhemish Testament, at this time, is exceedingly unfair; and still worse, from whatever motive it may proceed, it is wholly reckless of history and fact. I say it is unfair; because, when near the beginning of the debate, I showed him the Testament, and challenged him to object to it if he had anything against it, that it might be settled forthwith, he was silent. I went even farther-I asked him for another copy, or edition of it more correct, if he had one: he was still silent. And now, at the close, he has held up the Douay Bible, without these notes, published long since, not pretending to be the same work, either as to time, place, or circumstance, as proof that this edition of the New Testament is not authentic! But my audience, and the public, will appreciate all this. I do assert, then, and my assertion has as much logic in it as his, that the gentleman has misrepresented this affair-that this book is truly what its title page declares it; and that both the text and the notes are as truly Roman Catholic as the Douay Bible. Hear the title: "The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; translated ont of the Latin Vulgate, diligently compared with the original Greek, and first published by the English college of Rheims, Anno 1582: with the Original Preface, Arguments, and Tables, Marginal Notes and Annotations." Again: hear the recommendation of this work by "ministers of the gospel, and other learned persons of various denominations." They say, "This edition contains all the notes of the original edition as published at Rheims, A. D. 1582." Not a new and amended impression, suppressing the more offensive comments, but the original itself. This recommendation is signed by more than a hundred gentlemen of as much literary and religious reputation as can be found in the U. States. Once more: CERTIFICATE. We have compared this New York edition of the Rhemish Testament and Annotations with the first publication of that volume, which was issued at Rheims in 1582; and after examination, we do hereby certify, that the present re-print is an exact and faithful copy of the original work, without abridgment or addition, except that the Latin of a few phrases which were translated by the annotators, and some unimportant expletive words were undesignedly omitted. The orthography also has been modernized. names. JOHN BRECKINRIDGE. WILLIAM C: BROWNLEE, D. D. DUNCAN DUNBAR. ARCHIBALD MACLAY. WILLIAM PATTON. To all these certificates there are not less than one hundred and thirty But the gentleman's calling this authority in question, is in good keeping with his whole course. There is no authority against the church of Rome-neither Protestant nor Catholic to be believed, if they say any thing against her. But infidels, and such Protestants as flatter her in her assumptions, are canonical as holy writ! If the bishop is to be believed, all Protestant historians, theologians, authors, &c. opposed to the Roman assumptions, are liars. In proof and demonstration of the super-excellency of Protestant principles, and of the debasing, degrading, and enslaving principles of the papacy, I intended to have drawn a full comparison between the Protestant and Catholic parts of Ireland; the Protestant and Catholic countries of Switzerland-between Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Protestant England— between the United States and the South American States-between Protestant and Roman Catholic America. But I cannot now attempt it; and much do I regret it: for such a comparison fairly drawn, would amount to the most satisfactory demonstration of the political, literary, and moral tendencies of the two systems. Plain, as proof from holy writ, it would thus have appeared, that this superstition, like the touch of the torpedo, lays a benumbing, paralizing, and blighting hand on all within its grasp. The gentleman is yet on indulgences and purgatory, when he ought, in reply to my last speech, to have endeavored, if possible, to relieve his cause from imputations the most serious and the most revolting to American ears. I have not thought it important to descant upon the tariff of sins, or to give a tabular view of the prices at which certain sins were rated in gold and silver in the market of indulgences. Nor have I at all inquired why, in this tax-book, for killing a layman a less sum is asked than for simply striking a priest, without breaking the skin. These questions, though capable of solution from authentic documents, are the dreams of purgatory I deem so inferior, and so unblushingly barefaced impositions, that I prefer matters of more grave concern to this community for the time allotted us. That indulgences are bona fide licenses to commit sin, and not simple absolution for past sins, is as susceptible of proof as that Martin Luther began the Protestant reformation. The gentleman will not defend the popes, he says, in their attempts to exercise supreme political power; but asks, "Did the kings of the nations ever acquiesce in it?" That kings for centuries received and held their crowns at the sovereign pleasure of the popes, is just as obvious a historic fact, as that there were popes at all. Sometimes, indeed, the kings fought against these assumptions, and sometimes they acquiesced But the ready subordination of the state to the church evinced in the magistrates executing the anathemas of the church, in putting to death those denoted as heretics by the church, shows in what a state of subserviency and pliancy political princes were held by the popes. That is just the very terror of church and state-the very supremacy which we fear, and which is so antipodal to our institutions. It is putting heretics or reformers to death, and supporting a human priesthood by the state according to the dictation of the church, which makes that union, or subserviency, so wicked and odious in our estimation. And will the gentleman ask, what Roman Catholic state, nation, or prince, ever did such a thing?! In his counter displays of Roman Catholic doctrine, my friend has not given you the trans-Alpine doctrine. The Cis-Alpine, or Gallican doctors, are not of the old Roman Catholic school. They are almost semi-protestant on those very points on which he has introduced them. They are no evidence against the standard doctrines of that church on these questions. The French Catholics began to stand aloof from the high and haughty pretensions of their trans-montane brethren. They are the most liberal portion of the Roman church, and have, consequently, done more for the promotion of science than all the rest of the Catholic world put together. Bishop England gives their views. I asked for an authentic disclaimer of the attributes of the Roman church, and of those acts and deeds indicative of her tyrannical, oppressive and persecuting spirit which I have detailed. I ask this still; and while I do it in a tone indicative of that earnestness which the occasion requires, I do it in the same benevolence to my opponent and his party which I felt and expressed at the beginning of this discussion. The times and the occasion peremptorily demand it. We know what individual priests and bishops have said against popes and councils, and their proceedings, and against other parts of that system: but these are said for effect ad captandum vulgus, and will be unsaid by the same individuals, or by others, when occasion requires. I have brought very serious allegations against the Roman Catholic institution, and authorities for them-all of them authentic, and most of them never disputed by my opponent. He disclaims these principles, acts, and movements: but he disproves not one of them. Nor would the disclaiming of them by all the bishops in America, disprove one of them. The council of Trent has ordained and enjoined all these principles of implicit and blind obedience, intolerance, proscription, and persecution. No council has since met, and no power but a general council can define a single article of faith, or rule of manners, according to the declarations of my antagonist. Indeed, the doctrine of the council of Trent must remain immutable and infallible while time endures, according to him: for no other general council can possibly contravene it; and, therefore, while the Roman church exists, she must be, what I have shown she was, before and since the council of Trent. This council met in a boisterous time. They met to oppose and put down Protestantism. They knew the allegations of Protestants against their doctrine. If then, they could have abandoned those principles for the sake of either reclaiming or defeating the Lutherans, that was the time to do it. They sat long enough, and debated with zeal enough; and yet they dare not discuss the papal authority. The pope forbade them to debate his office, jurisdiction, or authority, and they did not attempt it. The pope signed their decrees, and all that was done there was done irrevocably and forever. The disavowal or the disclaiming of any priest or bishop in the Roman Catholic church, is not worth more, and has no more authority, than mine. It is, therefore, of no value for my learned opponent, or any American prelate to say that he does not approve this or that; or, agree to this or that. They must all submit to, and they will all inculcate on all suitable occasions, every decree of the council of Trent. Thus did the Jesuits in Abyssinia. They first explained away every thing: but finally explained it back again, and had almost saddled the pope and the council of Trent forever on those unfortunate Abyssinians. I could, had I the time now, from that very history of Ireland from which the gentleman read you an extract, a copy of which I too have lying on the table,-I say, I can from this book show that the ancient christian church of Ireland was subjugated to the church of Rome, by this very species of rhetoric, and that finally the whole island was enslaved to the pope by the same means: for in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, there were Christian churches, ages before the popes of Rome were born. But by this chamelion attribute of becoming all things to all men, for a while, she has made all men become what she pleases. Thus by degrees under this system, the human spirit is broken, degraded and debased, night ensues, and finally, gross darkness covers the people. Even in Canada since the papacy has gained the ascendency, laws have been passed in the provincial assemblies, giving to school commissioners and grand jurors the privilege of" making their mark, instead of writing their names!" Nothing can preserve our republican institutions but a system of intellectual and moral culture, accessible to every child born upon our soil or brought to our shores. Unless we thus benevolently co-operate in this great cause of humanity, this last and best hope of the oppressed of all nations will vanish from the earth, and a new and ghostly despotism shall arise and extend its iron sceptre over this our beloved land. Nothing but intelligence and virtue universally diffused, can save us from this dread catastrophe. In Protestant Prussia, with a Roman Catholic minority, they understand so well the importance and utility of education, and its power to dissipate the darkness of superstition, always tyrannical, that every child is by law compelled to be educated, and that morally as well as intellectually. There remains an important point or two yet to be noticed. The gentleman is exceedingly squeamish in his avowals of this oath, which forever binds the Roman priesthood to the court of Rome. He admits, however, that after due consultation or meditation had, he took the oath, clauses of which constrain him to "increase and advance the authority of the pope," and to "persecute and oppose heretics and schismatics." He says persequor means not to persecute. BISHOP PURCELL. It means to follow, and nothing more. MR. CAMPBELL. It is a generic term, and means to follow with the sword or faggot, or the hand or foot, only in the way of opposition, however. Sequor is to follow, but persequor is to follow with ven geance. I have learned this morning that it can be proved under oath that all the bishops in America have taken this oath; and that without equivocation or mental reservation; of which fact, however, I was before apprised but the gentleman himself has admitted it, and I pursue it no further. I am, however, disappointed, to observe, that he has been at no pains to reconcile his allegiance to two governments so singularly repugnant to each other in all their elements and tendencies. My friend fled from persecution in Ireland! From paying tithes, I suppose, according to the Levitical law! Well, this tithe system is a falling concern, and will soon pass away. But is not this his persecution an ingenious off-set to fifty millions of martyrs sacrificed by the papal power?! Some are whispering that this Roman persecuting spirit is dying away as the tithe system. Let those, however, who think so, in addition, to what I have already read from various sources, accept a few words from the "Plea for the West"From the 2d. ed. of M. Aignan of the French Academy in Paris, A D., 1818. Passing to the 10th article of the Concordat, in which it is said that his Most Christian Majesty shall employ, in concert with the Holy Father, all the means in his power to cause to cease, as soon as possible, all the disorders and obstacles which obstruct the welfare of religion and the execution of the laws of the church-were [the Protestants] to ask (although the profuse shedding of their blood might have informed theni,) What are the laws of the church? The acts of Pius VII. himself, and the writings on which the church rests her authority would answer, THE EXTERMINATION OF HERETICS, THE CONFISCATION OF THEIR GOODS, AND THEIR PRIVATION OF EVERY CIVIL PRIVILEGE.' To this the author subjoins a note: "Certain portions of real estate which had belonged to ecclesiastics, had passed into the hands of Protestant princes. Pius VII. in 1805, complained of it to his nuncio residing at Vienna; and reminded him that, according to the laws of the church, not only could not heretics possess ecclesiastical property, but that also they could not possess any property whatever, since the crime of heresy ought to be punished by the confiscation of goods. He added that the subjects of a prince, who is a heretic, should be released from every duty to him, freed from all obligation and all homage. In truth,' said he, 'we have fallen on times so calamitous, and so humiliating to the spouse of Jesus Christ, that it is not possible for her to practise, nor expedient to recall so holy maxims; and she is forced to interrupt the course of her just severities against the enemies of the faith. But if she cannot exercise her right to depose the partizans of heresy from their principalities, and declare that they have forfeited all their goods; can she ever permit that, to enrich themselves, they should despoil her of her own proper dominions? What a subject of derision-would she not present to these very heretics and unbelievers, who, while they insulted her grief, would say they had discovered the method of rendering her tolerant? "The same pontiff in his instructions to his agents in Poland, given in 1808, professes this doctrine, that the laws of the church do not recognize any civil privileges as belonging to persons not Catholic; that their marriages are not valid; that they can live only in concubinage; that their children, being bastards, are incapacitated to inherit; that the Catholics themselves are not validly married, except they are united according to the rules prescribed by the court of Rome; and that, when they are married according to these rules, their marriage is valid, had they in other respects infringed all the laws of their country.". Quarterly Register, vol. 3. p. 89. Remember then, that according to the acts of Pius VII. the laws of the church still command the extermination of heretics—the confiscation of their goods, and their deprivation of every privilege-that Protestants have no privileges; and that the present calm is owing, not to a change of spirit, but of times: for says the pope: "the times are so calamitous that the church is forced to interrupt the course of her JUST SEVERITIES against THE ENEMIES OF THE FAITH!" These are truly calamitous times!! Alas for prosperous days! I am indeed sorry that our debate has been so much out of logical order. An issue has never been fairly and fully formed on one of my propositions. My friend occupied the ground which he chose. He was respondent. How he has responded, it remains for others to judge. He has been positive and declamatory enough, and very scrupulous about "mint, anise and cummin :" but how have the great topics been met? I rejoice, however, that it will go to the public, as it was spoken, and that the public will read and judge. I have heard a hint that the gentleman is about to disprove the fact of the anathema or bishop's curse by introducing Sterne, turning into ridicule the curses pronounced centuries before he was born. The humor of Sterne found the reality of the curse, or he would not have laughed at it. The gentleman has now to close the debate. The usages of discussion forbid the introduction of new matter in the last speech. He will probably again tell you of Catholic devotion to American liberty, and of his brother soldiers, that fought in the Revolutionary war. For, by such arguments he has generally met the decrees of councils, the bulls of popes, the records of history, and the precepts of the apostles. But before the devotion of a few Roman Catholic soldiers to the cause of the Revolution can be accepted as proof of Roman Catholic love of either civil or religious liberty, it must be ascertained, whether the hatred of Protestant England, rather than the love of rational liberty, instigated those soldiers that served during that war. For my part, I |