can such a combination of evil be reconciled with the constitutions of the American states; all of which are sustained solely by freedom, knowledge, and morality.—But as the proposition itself is denied, it is requisite to illustrate the practical operation of the Romish assumptions in civil society.

1. How is the papal tyranny exemplified in Protestant countries, and especially in this republic?

The doctrines which are inculcated by the Roman pontiff and the inferior orders of the papal hierarchy have already been detailed. It is impossible that either civil, or religious liberty can consist with a system which asserts supreme uncontrolled power over all nations; which claims for its priests, exemption from the operation of all municipal and criminal laws, when enforced by the national authorities; which interdicts the assessment or taxation of all persons, places and property over which it announces jurisdiction; and which condemns to unutterable tortures and death, all those who infringe upon its prohibitions, or disobey its commands.

Popery always and every where develops that its votaries are enslaved by the court of Rome. In America, equally as in other countries, it testifies both its craftiness and its indissoluble connexion with a foreign undisputed control. One remarkable example will suffice. In every part of the United States, Roman priests are known to be guilty of the most heinous offences against female purity and the connubial bond. In ordinary cases, through the wiles of those seducers, the affair is concealed, and the injured parties, who are either incurably vitiated, or fearfully intimidated, deem it preferable to submit to the defilement and disgrace, rather than risk the consequences of priestly vengeance. Occasionally, however, they find persons who will not submit to this degradation, and whose obstinacy and influence the priestly debauchees dread-what is the consequence? As the priests have no home, no family, and no tie in one place more than another; ere the complaint can be made to the civil authority, the ecclesiastic is ordered by the prelate or the vicar-general to abscond-not only to evade the operation of the national laws, but also expressly to prove, that a Roman priest is not amenable to any civil jurisdiction, if he can possibly elude it. Many popish priests have fled from Ireland, France, and Spain, to America, only to escape from the punishment due to their crimes.-Many of the priestly confessors in the United States, have suddenly disappeared for the same cause. Many such Roman ecclesiastics are now resident in various parts of this Union. And many profligate priests have either been removed by their superiors from one end of the continent to the other, or have migrated to Europe as the only alternative, to save the criminals from arrest and punishment, and their boasted "Holy Roman church" from appearing before American citizens, emblazoned in all her meretricious loathsomeness, as the "Mother of Harlots, and abominations of the earth."

This entire and constant subjection to the papal authority is ever in culcated by all the priests at confession. Unreserved obedience to his mandates, without scruple, is taught as the paramount duty of every Papist, and as the most meritorious and acceptable work in the sight of God, which a Roman can perform. Every sincere Papist believes that all the decrees of the Roman pontiff are obligatory; that every

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other claim must yield to the promotion of the interests of the Papacy; and that it is his noblest privilege, and his most sacred duty to oppose all governments and all people, who are not subject to the pope. consequently self-evident, that a man who contends for these principles, let him otherwise profess what he may, cannot correctly avow himself to be an American citizen. In this respect, the Roman priests are partly consistent; as they never do assume the character and responsibilities of citizens, unless their craft would be injured by their neglect to take their treacherous oaths. Hence it is manifest, that the Roman pontiff, and his subordinate priests direct the votes of all those who unhesitatingly submit to their sway. This is done through the medium of those secret proceedings, which are an essential attribute of "the mystery of iniquity." No Papist dares to vote differently from the appointment of his confessor, unless he chooses to falsify, or risk the appointed penance. The priest in the confessional makes inquiries upon all subjects; but there are none upon which he so severely scrutinizes the men, as their obedience to the laws of the church, as they are called; or rather, their compliance with his injunctions. Many instances could be cited, wherein all the superstitious Papists have voted exactly as the priest has prescribed and means have been devised to ascertain, whether the tickets transferred to the ballot box have been those which have been directed by him. This pertinacity and minuteness of inquiry account for the remarkable fact, that in all districts where there are Papist votes to be given; a very disproportionate number of the stated attendants around the polls are Romans; who are constituted by the priests watchmen upon each other, although they themselves are unconscious that they are all spies. At confession, or at the idolatrous altar, or in the sacristy, which the Papist believes to be equally authoritative, he is ordered to vote for a certain candidate; and he must do it, unless he chooses to sacrifice the absolution of the church, or bear on his conscience the burden of having wilfully deceived the priest, even when avowedly revealing all his heart. Hence, it follows, that the increase of popery and Jesuitism in the United States, is fraught with the utmost danger to our constitutional rights and liberties. It establishes the secret sway of a foreign power, of the most abhorrent character; and sanctions the crime of high treason, as of the most imperative obligation, from pretended Christian claims of the most sacred authority.

2. How is the papal ignorance displayed? Not only is the proverbial adage true "Knowledge is power;" but it is not less correct, that the prevalence of sound knowledge is essential to the existence of our republican institutions. Now it is absolutely certain, that the popish system is an enemy of all useful instruction.

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Prior to the Reformation by Luther, Zuingle, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, &c., the utmost darkness and gloom overspread all the dominions of the beast and the false prophet." The Jesuits since that period have endeavoured to efface that indelible stigma; by establishing seminaries, and imposing themselves upon the world, as the most qualified and successful instructors of youth. But the inquiry recurs

what do they teach? The only correct answer is, that they teach all iniquity; and little else except corruption. But even admitting that erudite scholars are formed in the Jesuit monasteries, which

however, is not the fact: it is not a few literary men who constitute the governors of the American confederacy; the people emphatically rule; and the national character will be disclosed in the acts of its rulers. Correct intelligence is essential to the choice of wise and efficient public officers; and this must chiefly be attained by the capacity of the citizens to think, read, and imbibe knowledge. Popery is a mortal enemy to universal elementary instruction, and the freedom of the press. Wherever it has held unrestricted sway, it has been the deadly opponent of both; and so it continues to this day. Throughout Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland, South America, Canada, and every other district where the pontifical despotism controls, the people grope in mental darkness, and are debased by the most corrupt morals. Public instruction is altogether excluded, and those vehicles of information which to us are necessaries of life, are almost or entirely unknown. In the United States also, the disproportion between the children of the Papists who are nurtured in ignorance, and those Romans who can read the ordinary journals of intelligence, and the reformed youth who are carefully instructed, and Protestants who examine the newspapers, is far greater than any persons not acquainted with the subject would believe.

But not only is wide spread knowledge essential to the permanency of our constitution and laws, and liberties and prosperity; but that knowledge must be of the holiest and most influential character. Popery again develops its deleterious qualities in this respect; and proves, that it is irreconcilable with every thing dear to Americans; because it prohibits the perusal and circulation of the Holy Scriptures, to the sacred impulses of which, we are indebted, in divine providence, for every civil and religious privilege which we enjoy.

It is a fact attested by all anterior history, and corroborated by the present condition of the world, that the grand moral distinctions, and the superior mental elevation, and comfortable enjoyments of life, which this country realizes in addition to those inferior possessions only, which most other nations have yet attained, originate in our study of the sacred oracles, and our professed admission of their authority as the directory of conscience, and the rule of conduct. And it is equally undeniable, that the gradations of national intelligence, freedom, opulence, and advancement, are exactly proportioned to the influence which Christianity exercises over the people.

Hence no greater crime can possibly be committed against our social institutions, than the attempt to exclude the Holy Scriptures from general use. A most pernicious retrogression to debasement, and ignorance, and vice, and wretchedness, must be the inevitable consequence. Although it is not a transgression cognizable by the civil laws, and therefore may be perpetrated with impunity; yet against God and human welfare, no higher atrocity can be executed than that injunction of the papal authorities, and their practical conformity to the unholy requisition, which extinguishes the Bible, the light of Heaven; and removes those restraints of iniquity, provided by the sacred oracles.

This heinous offence the Roman ecclesiastics of all orders constantly and universally perform. Whether such a system which is accursed of the Supreme Arbiter, ought even to be tolerated in a coun

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try where the government of God, and the authority of divine revelation are acknowledged, is a question which involves very acute Christian casuistry. That the unholy machination is totally incompatible with the vital interests of our republic, is as demonstrable, as that the Cherokees have been elevated from heathenish darkness and degradation to the "highest style of man," through the sunshine and regenerating influence of that scripture, which has "made them wise unto salvation."

It should therefore be indelibly impressed upon the minds of every American citizen, that the progress of popery in the United States, will be attended by a diminution of that hallowed illumination which is shed by "the scripture of truth." Ignorance and a licentious disregard of all laws, human and divine, will unavoidably increase; until a government of brute force must necessarily be substituted for the control of moral principles, and a constabulary police be displaced for a permanent municipal army. No popish country ever was ruled; no large body of Papists ever can be governed without military coercion. This position is certified by the unvarying history of the popedom during the last 800 years, in every country of Europe and America, where the system has reigned; and it is equally true now in Ireland and France, as in Spain and Italy. Popery and Jesuitism must inevitably produce the most mischievous effects; and it is the incumbent duty of every American citizen, by all evangelical methods, to counteract their dissemination in this republic.

3. How is the papal deception unfolded? In no aspect does the perfidious character of that "working of Satan," which includes " lying wonders, strong delusions, and all deceivableness of unrighteousness," develope its odious nature more manifestly, than in the gross impositions, frauds, and perjuries, which it not only sanctions, but which, though it may seem incredible to those not informed in the matter, it does in many cases absolutely enjoin!

This ungodliness is comprised in three general principles. The paramount allegiance which they owe to the Roman pontiff and their obligations, at all times, to do every thing for the good of their church -and the prerogatives which belong to the pope and his priests, who to every genuine Papist are instead of God, whenever they please to nullify any contract, and to enforce any act, however contrary to religion, justice, and truth.

The doctrines of the Jesuits, which constitute the prevalent code of immorality among the American Papists, are replete with the most abhorrent dissimulation and falsehoods. The vilest crime, if perpetrated from a design to benefit the church, or to injure heretics, according to their casuistry, is metamorphosed into a most laudable virtue. That faith is not to be kept with heretics is the mainspring of all the Roman machinery in reference to Protestants; and in the amplitude of its application, it sanctions every species of fraud, treachery, and falsehood, which can be perpetrated with impunity. The following casuistical decisions from approved authors will illustrate the principles and acts of Jesuitism:

1. Sanchez, Op. Moral. lib. 1. cap. 10. No. 12, 13, page 49. “An oath obliges not beyond the intention of him who takes it: because he VOL. II.-89

who hath no intention to swear, cannot be obliged in conscience to any thing at all."

2. Escobar, Theolog. Moral. tom. 1. lib. 7. cap. 200. No. 281. "By means of a bull, a person may change the vow which he hath made not to sin." Cap. 21. No. 298. "Votum non fornicandi aut abstinendi a certo actu venereo, potest ex bullæ indulto commutari."

3. Escobar, in proemio, Ex. 2. cap. 6. No. 24. page 9. "A person makes a vow not to commit fornication, upon pain of some pilgrimage, and afterwards not remembering his vow, he goes on in this sin, is he obliged to accomplish his vow?" Sanchez, Sum. tom. 1. lib. 4. cap. 22. No. 18., answers, "He is not obliged, because this blameless forgetfulness is equivalent to ignorance."

4. Escobar, Tract. 7. Exam. 4. No. 118. page 818. "A person addresseth himself to a confessor, to make general confession of sin to him. But he is not obliged to declare all the mortal sins that he hath committed, for although he lie, it is of small concern to the judgment the confessor is to make of him."

5. Sanchez, Op. Moral. lib. 3. cap. 6. No. 32. page 29. "A person who hath promised marriage to another, whether it were made sincerely, or only in appearance, is discharged by any reason from holding his promise. Being called before a judge, he may swear that he hath not made this promise, meaning he hath not so made it as to be obliged to observe it. Because he may persuade himself in conscience that he is not obliged."

6. Sanchez, Op. Moral. lib. 3. cap. 6. No. 42. page 30. "Saint Francis lawfully used the equivocation which is attributed unto him, when being interrogated by the officers of justice, if a malefactor whom they sought after went that way, he answered, putting his hands in the sleeves of his gown, he is not come this way; meaning where he had his hands. He might also have answered, he is not passed this way, intending the particular place where his foot or his hand was."

7. Sanchez, Op. Moral. lib. 3. cap. 6. No. 45. page 30. So often as it is lawful in our own defence to use equivocations, they may be used; though he who examines us do press us to answer him without making use of this very equivocation."

8. Sanchez, Op. Moral. lib. 3. cap. 6. No. 45. page 31. "A man may swear, understanding secretly that he doth it as far as he is obliged to speak clearly, and to expound himself; or by forming some other thoughts which may make his answer true. Because he is not obliged to answer to the intention and the thoughts which he hath who examines him, but to that which he ought to have; his answer is true, following this intention, and this thought which he ought to have."

9. Filiutius, Mor. Ques. tom. 2. tract. 25. cap. 10. No. 316. "There is no mortal sin when one forsweareth himself without perceiving it at all, and by a natural inadvertence. Though he who doth it, hath his will effectually addicted to sin by an evil habit."

10. Layman, lib. 1. tract. 2. cap. 3. No. 6. page 20. "He who, by inveterate custom, a sort of imperious necessity, is transported to do evil, as to speak perjury, sins not at all, because a man cannot sin without rational knowledge and deliberation."

11. Bauny, Sum. cap. 6. conc. 4. page 73. "He who maintains an heretical proposition without believing it, or who is a communicant