others that are so; and to dismiss and send away those who may have come from foreign countries; and not to suffer any of them to come in for the future; forbidding them to return, under the penalty of being juridically prosecuted for having disobeyed the decrees of the supreme go

vernment.

"X. WE confirm the prohibition expressed in our decrees of July 3d, 1779, addressed to the governor-general of White Russia, and of Jan. 31st, 1780, to all the governors-general not to permit the entrance within our frontiers of ecclesiastics of foreign appointment. And we direct, that, wherever any of them appear, they shall be sent back, and threatened with being delivered over to the tribunals of our departments, to be judged according to the laws: and finally, those, who contrary to this decree receive them, without the permission of the archbishop, shall be sent to the competent tribunal, to be there judged according to the laws.

"XI. WE command that all the religious orders of the Roman religion shall only be dependant on the archbishop of Mohilow, or his coadjutor, and on his consistory; without daring to submit to any other ecclesiastical power out of our empire, to send to such power any portion of their incomes, or to have any connexion with it ;under the penalty of being juridically prosecuted for disobeying the laws of the supreme government.

"XIII. We confirm our preceding decrees which prohibit the reception of any bull from the Pope, or any other writings sent in his name ; ordering that the same shall be sent to our senate, who, after having examined their contents, and particularly any thing that may be found contrary to the laws of the Russian empire, or to the rights of the ecclesiastical power which we have received from GOD, shell be obliged to communicate to us its opinion, and to wait our permission or prohibition in rendering public such bulls or writings."

REMARKS.

By this decisive measure, and masterpiece of policy, did the Empress Catherine, at one stroke, rid herself of that foreign interference in the spiritual concerns of her subjects, of which she well knew the pernicious influence.

1. By nominating, herself, the archbishop of Mohilow, metropolitan of the Romish church in Russia, with full jurisdiction over the regular, as well as the secular clergy, Art. I. II. and XI, appointing his coadjutor, and giving orders for his elevation to a bishopric, by Art. II. and III, she rejected the Pope's supremacy, in toto, his exclusive jurisdiction over the regulars, and his assistance in consecrating the Romish prelates of her dominions. It is true, that the Pope was permitted to send a pallium to the

new metropolitan by the hands of Cardinal Archetti. But such ceremonies had no intrinsic weight; whether clad in this vestment or in his own episcopal robes, the metropolitan of Mohilow owed his real elevation to the authority of his lawful sovereign. But lest the ceremony

should be misunderstood or abused, the empress took care to be present on the occasion. And now the metropolitan, by consecrating other bishops, can perpetuate the order, as in Protestant countries, without any interference of the Pope!

2. While she allowed Roman Catholics, she carefully excluded Papists, or partizans of the Pope, from her dominions, by banishing foreign ecclesiastics, and prohibiting ecclesiastics of foreign appointment from entering her territories, under severe penalties to the disobedient, by Art. VIII. and X.

3. To guard against any interference whatever of the Pope in her dominions, the metropolitan was prohibited from receiving any order from any person whatever, except the Empress and her senate, by Art. V; and from receiving any bulls from the Pope or other writings in his name, by Art. XIII. But as the Pope could not be prevented from sending such, it was wisely provided, by the same, that in case a bull or rescript should be sent, it should be transmitted to the senate, to make a report thereon to her majesty, whether it was fit for promulgation or not. The authority therefore of such, if they were permitted to be published, was derived, not from the court of Rome, but from the sovereign of the country.

4. That artful and designing Pontiff Pius VII. has broken through these regulations, by his late bull published August 7, 1814, for reviving the order of the Jesuits," in the Russian empire, the kingdom of the two Sicilies, and also in all other states." (See the Protestant Advocate, October, 1814, p. 16.) Therefore, the present magnanimous Emperor of Russia, Alexander, the worthy successor of Catherine, it is to be hoped, will speedily and effectually resist this open and audacious intringement of his rights, and of the established laws of the Russian empire. Such Jesuitical preceptors, authorised and "impowered," by the ball," to educate youth in the principles of the Catholic faith, and to direct colleges and seminaries," will not fail to indoctrinate the youth of Russia, and of all countries where they are harboured, in the pestilent principles of their order. They will form bands of traitorous malcontents among their pupils, every where; they wil foment disturbances, clamour for privileges, and struggle for ascendancy, until they either overthrow the parent state, or shall be again put down themselves.

An importation of Irish Jesuits, we learn from the seditious and inflammatory prints, is speedily to be landed in Ireland-" to plant their.

mischief there." May our executive government watch with a jealous eye, the proceedings of those craftiest of all the emissaries of the Pope, the most implicitly devoted to his interests, of all the orders in the church of Rome! Surely they are not less dangerous in Ireland, than in Canada; where the commendable vigilance of government, by their wise and judicious instructions to the governor of Lower Canada, dated Oct. 22, 1811," have suppressed and dissolved the order of the Jesuits, and all missionaries among the Indians, appointed, either by the Jesuits, or by any other authority of the Romish church." See a most interesting article on the Roman Catholic bishopric of Quebec, Prot. Adv. Sept. 1814, p. 560. These sage regulations and restrictions, in Russia and in Canada, are equally applicable to Great Britain and Ireland. The evils which they were designed to remedy, in those remote countries, more immediately affect ourselves.-Proximus ar det Ucaligon. Confiding, therefore, in the wisdom and virtue of the established guardians of that matchless, inestimable, and enviable CONSTITUTION, which has raised the BRITISH empire, to the highest pinnacle of glory and grandeur, and extorted the admiration and applauses of all the nations of the earth; we trust, that the IMPERIAL PARLIAMEMT of the realm, will no longer temporise, will no longer debate about half securities, or rather no securities; will no longer parly with inveterate and incorrigible ingrates and malcontents, but promptly and decisively "lay the axe to the root of the corrupt tree" of POPERY, and enact a decree, loudly demanded by the majority of the population of the United Kingdom, for the safety of the whole,

PAPATUS EST DELENDUS, NE QUID DETRIMENTI

САРІАТ.

RES PUBLICA

CRITO.

MELANCTHON'S FOURTEENTH LETTER.

ON THE PRESENT STATE OF POPERY.

(See Letter 13, Vol. II. p. 466; and see the Index to the 2d Vol..) It is surprising what a tendency religious bigotry has to palsy the operations of reason, to extinguish that wisdom which is derived from experience, and to lead men into the grossest inconsistencies. It appears that an ordinance was lately published at Paris, by Louis XVIII. for a solemn thanksgiving in all the churches of the diocese of Paris, for the deliverance of the sovereign pontiff, Pius VII, and his happy return to his states; though that Pope, claiming and exercising the dispensing and

deposing powers, which his predecessors from the time of Gregory VII. had arrogated and practised,* placed the usurper Buonaparte on the throne of the Bourbons, and in the name of the immaculate Jesus, and with the invocation of the Holy Spirit, consecrated a sceptre, wrested from its legitimate successors, by a series of such atrocities, flowing from the French revolution, as never before stained the annals of human crimes, or drew down the curses of heaven on the human race.-Hear what the Rev. Doctor O'Conor says of it; and he is a liberal and enlightened Roman Catholic priest. "Notwithstanding the oath of allegiance by which Roman Catholics swear, that the Pope has no power over the temporalities of states, the Irish titular bishops assembled in synod, at Tullow, so lately as the 6th of June, 1809, extolled as just, holy, and legitimate, those bulls of Pope Pius VII. by which he absolved all Frenchmen from their oaths of allegiance to the Bourbons, expressly alienating, not only the crown of Fronce, but also the property of all French loyalists, secular and ecclesiastical, and driving from their sees a hundred French bishops, who were guilty of no other crime than that of a conscientious regard for their oaths, and their fidelity to their prince; and this, too, without even stipulating for any compensation, without giving them a trial, though they demanded it; without granting them that which was not denied to the Irish, even by Oliver Cromwell, any species of capitulation." The Doctor quotes Pope Pius VII.'s bulls, "Qui Christi Domini," published at Rome November 29, 1801, and "Ecclesia Christi," of August 15, 1801; against which the bishops thus hurled from their sees for their fidelity appealed. He tells us, that he had the honour of receiving that appeal from the hands of the late Bishop of St. Pol de Leon, who had it printed and published by Dulau, London, 1804.

The English Vicars Apostolic feared that the priests under them, shocked at this monstrous conduct of Pius VII. which is obviously schismatical, would revolt; they therefore, after the example of the Irish titular prelates, resolved to muzzle them; and Dr. O'Conor tells us, that for that purpose "they framed a test act, in favour of the Pope's infallibility, and approving of Pius VII.'s conduct; in which they determined not to grant faculties to any priests who would not sign the following propositions:-1st, That they hold communion with his holiness Pope Pius VII. 2d, That they do not believe the said Pope to have fallen into he

* See p. 47 of Vol. III. It strongly resembles the bull by which Pope Innocent III. dethroned John king of England, and that which Pius V. fulminated against Queen Eliabeth, called regnans in excelsis, in which he claims unlimited power over all states and sovereign princes.

resy or schism. 3d, That they do not consider him as being the author or approver of any heresy or schism."-The Doctor tells us that all this was communicated by the Rev. Doctor Milner to a French priest, in a letter dated the 6th of Sept. 1811, which letter he had in his possession. The reader will find all this in Doctor O'Conor's Historical Address, on the calamities occasioned by foreign influence, signed Columbanus, part ii. pages 5 and 36.

In page 27, Doctor O'Conor gives some extracts from these extraordinary balls, which contain the following paragraphs :-" We desire that the present letters, and all the provisions contained in them, shall not be disputed, on the ground that any persons whatsoever, either ecclesiastical or secular, have not consented to them, or have not been cited, or for any other reason whatsoever; and as they emanated from our own proper motives, and from the plenitude of our apostolical power, we desire that they may remain for ever, valid and immutable." The Doctor then truly observes, "I say again, that the darkest ages have not witnessed any bull so extraordinary as this." The English Vicars Apostolic, and the Irish .titular bishops, dreading that this monstrous conduct of Pius VII. evident y repugnant to the principles of natural and revealed religion, might make the same impression on some of their clergy that it did on the enlightened mind of Doctor O'Cogor, and induce them to embrace pure Christianity, imposed that curb on them which I have mentioned. Many of the votaries of the Romish church, ashamed of this blasphemous procedure, have said, in excuse for Pius VII. that he was impelled by fear to undertake it; but this is far from being the case. He possesses great firmness of mind: and the following incidents evince that he obeyed no domineering mandate, and that he could not plead any indications of force or menace in his justification. On the 29th of October 1804, some time previous to his setting out for Paris, he convened a consistory of the cardinals at Rome, and informed them, "that he cheerfully and gratefully complied with the desire of his beloved son in Christ (Napoleon), to be anointed with the holy unction by the hands of his Holiness; to be placed by the most solemn rites, performed by his Holiness, in the highest rank; to receive the imperial crown, by a solemn inauguration from his Haliness, impressing the ceremony with a character of religion, and calling down the benediction of heaven." In short, the Vicegerent of God and Vicar of Christ, covering over the crimes of this upstart tyrant with the broad mantle of religion, put him in quiet possession of a prize which he had been contending for, through slaughter and seas of blood; and he consecrated, as the zealous and pious protector of the holy see, the man who made a merit with the people of Egypt that he was the servant of