10
that the said notes were worth just so much waste paper. The whole indeed of Rome's defence is that of the Jew, whose razors were not made to shave but to sell.
It is plainly to be perceived, that the present popular method with Romish apologists is, to approach as near as possible to heretical protestancy. They can put a good face upon their religion, either wholly, or in its parts, only by assuming this mask. Their generally rigid, but occasionally most elastic principles allow them in this hypocrisy, for a season, and for a purpose. To attain that purpose they will virtually renounce, perhaps verbally abjure, all that constitutes their existence as a church, — their supreme sovereignty; their intolerant exclusiveness; their duty of persecution; their transubstantiation; their paramount tradition; their splendid adolatries; the canonized heroes of their breviary; and, as Mr. G. here does, the richest treasures of this rich church, her Indulgences and Remissions, total, of all sins, full, fuller, and fullest, from guilt as well as from punishment,[1] made sure against accidents by being ready for use in the article of death, or as often as that danger occurs, — the whole secured on the inexhaustible fund of merits, human and divine, in the hands of the vicegerent of heaven on earth, whether Alexander VI. or Gregory XVI — they will thus, for justification, or advancement, renounce or abjure the absolute substance and vitality of their Popery. O! if this transformation which truth and conscience as well as policy extort — if this hypocrisy — were converted into sincerity and reality, idolaters and heretics would become Christians and our real brethren. But the father and mother of lies forbid the union: they cannot part with their children — at least as yet; and we must wait till "the spirit be poured out from on high," and all will be united to one another by being united in the abandonment of religious error, and the reception of divine truth.
Here then I close, regretting that I have been engaged in an occupation which may be considered as superfluous; and promising, as far as I can, that I shall not easily be led to repeat the apparent indiscretion. Mr. G. has not shaken one material position in my books; he has not, he cannot, and he knows it. I have anticipated his dialectic manœuvres, and have provided antecedently for the- ↑ In the palmy days of Rome they were not at all coy on this subject. In the 12th book of Gio. Villani's Cronica, the author mentions the founder of the Jubilee, Boniface VIII., as pardoning colpa e pena; and his brother Matteo, who continued his Chronicle, in book i. cap. Hi., writes, that Clement VI., in a time of pestilence gave grandi indulgenzie di colpa e di penadi tutti i peccati, &c.
