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PREFACE 1 La doctrine de l’Eglise Catholique consiste en quatre points, dont l’enchainement est inviolable.

L’un: que L’Eglise est visible .

L’autre: qu’Elle est toujours .

Le troisieme: que La verite de l’Evangile y est toujours professee par toute la Societe .

Le quatrieme: qu’Il n’est pas permis de s’eloigner de sa doctrine ; ce qui vaut dire, en autres termes, qu’Elle est infaillible .

Le premier point est fonde sur un fait constant; c’est, que Le terme d’EGLISE signifie toujours, dans l’Ecriture, et en suite dans le langage commun des fideles , UN SOCIETE VISIBLE . — Le second point, que L’Eglise est toujours , n’est pas moins constant: puisqu’il est fonde sur les Romesses de Jesus-Christ, dont on convient dans tous les partis.

De la on infere tres-clairement le troisieme point; que La Verite est toujours professee par la Societe de l’Eglise car, l’Eglise n’etant visible que par la profession de la verite, il s’ensuit, que, si elle est toujours, et qu’elle soit toujours visible; il ne se peut, qu’elle n’enseigne et ne professe toujours la verite de l’Evangile.

D’ou suit aussi clairement le quatrieme point, qu’Il n’est pas permis de dire que L’Eglise soit dans l’erreur, ni de s’ecarter de sa doctrine .

Et tout cela est fonde sur la Romesse, qui est avouee dans tous les partis: puisqu’enfin la meme Romesse, qui fait que L’Eglise est toujours, fait qu’Elle est toujours dans l’etat qu’emporte le terme d’EGLISE : par consequent, toujours visible, et toujours enseignant la verite.

Il n’y a rien de plus simple, ni de plus clair, ni de plus suivi, que cette doctrine.

Cette doctrine est si clair, que les Protestans ne l’ont pu nier: elle emporte si clairement leur condamnation, qu’ils n’ont pu aussi la reconnoitre.

C’est pourquoi ils n’ont songe, qu’a l’embrouiller. Hist. des Variat. livr. 15:3, 4. 2 Matthew 28:19,20. In other parts of his Work, he specially adduces these two texts. Whence I conclude, that I am not mistaken in supposing them to be here tacitly referred to. 3 Bossuet, we may observe, like the rest of his fraternity, claims for the Church the prerogative of Infallibility: and, since he limits the Catholic Church to the Church of Rome and the subordinate Churches which acknowledge her as their mother and mistress, he of course claims the prerogative of Infallibility for what we may call the Romish Church as contradistinguished from the diocesan Roman Church.

May I be allowed to ask, on what authoritative decision of what Ecumenical Council do Bossuet and Trevern and other Popish Ecclesiastics claim for their Church this same prerogative of Infallibility?

If there be any such decision, it would run I suppose, in some such terms as the following. The Catholic Church is infallible. Therefore, if any one shall assert, that the Catholic Church either has erred or can err in defining the faith: let him be anathema .

Now where does any such canon of an Ecumenical Council exist ?

In the eleventh century, during which no Ecumenical Council was sitting, the famous Hildebrand, who played the part of Pope by the style and title of Gregory VII, decided, indeed, that the Roman Church has never erred and never will err: but this can only serve the turn of those, who hold the individual Infallibility of the Pope; nor will it serve even their turn, unless they can produce the infallible decision which infallibly assigns to the Pope the privilege of individual Infallibility.

Nothing can be more distinct and precise than the dictate of Pope Gregory himself.

Romana Ecclesia nunquam erravit: nec in perpetuum, testante Scriptura, errabit. Dictat. Pap. Gregor. VII. in Epist. lib. 2. epist. 55.

Labb. Concil. vol. 10. p. 110, 111.

But, still, does the constant Romish claim of Infallibility rest solely upon the individual dictate of Gregory? Or does it claim to repose upon some other authoritative document?

Romanists often object, to members of the Reformed Churches: that The faith of those, who reject the authority of the Latin Communion rests only upon moral evidence; while the better faith of themselves rests upon the sure foundation of absolute Infallibility .

Where does there exist the canon of an Ecumenical Council, in which the possession of Infallibility is decreed to the Church of Rome? 4 I do not object to the mode, in which Bossuet puts this point.

Nommer quelques docteurs, par-ci par-la, et temps en temps, que vous pretendiez avoir enseigne votre doctrine; quand le fait seroit avoue, ce ne seroit rien: car c’etoit un corps d’Eglise qu’il falloit montrer, un corps ou l’on prechat la verite, et ou l’on administrat les sacremens; par consequent un corps compose de pasteurs et de peuples; un corps a cet egard toujours visible. Voila ce qu’il faut montrer, et montrer par consequent dans ce corps visible une manifeste succession et de la doctrine et du ministere. — La difficulte restoit toujours de nous montrer une Eglise et une Societe de pasteurs et de peuple ou l’on trouvat la saine doctrine toujours conservee jusqu’au temps de Luther.

Hist. des Variat. livr. 15. Section 6, 11.

But the Bishop is not content with thus putting the point. He advances a step beyond it: and, with a considerable measure of triumph, propounds, to the French Protestants, a question which he evidently deems altogether unanswerable.

Mes freres, donnez gloire a Dieu. Quand on a commence votre Reforme, y avoit-il, je ne dis pas quelque Eglise (car il est deja bien certain qu’il n’y avoit aucune), mais du moins y avoit-il un seul homme, qui en se joignant a Luther, a Zuingle, a Calvin, a qui vous voudrez, lui ait dit en s’y joignant: J’ai toujours cru comme vous; je n’ai jamais cru ni a la messe, ni au Pape, ni aux dogmes que vous reprenez dans l’Eglise Romaine? Mes chers freres, pensez-y bien, vous a-t-on jamais nomme un seul homme qui se soit joint de cette sorte a votre Reforme? En trouverez-vous quelqu’un dans vos annales, ou l’on a ramasse autant qu’on a pu tout ce qui pouvoit vous justifier contre le reproche de la nouveaute, qui etoit le plus pressant et le plus sensible?

Donnez gloire a Dieu encore un coup: et, en avouant que jamais vous n’avez rien oui dire de semblable, confessez, que vous etes dans la meme cause que les Sociniens, et que tout ce qu’il y a jamais eu d’heretiques. Troisieme Avertiss. sur les Lettres de M. Jurieu. section 30.

An answer to this question is promptly afforded by the address of the Vallensic Clergy to the leading Reformers in the year 1530.

Sumus qualescunque doctores cujusdam plebis indignae et pusillae. — In omnibus tamen vosbiscum convenimus: et, a tempore Apostolorum, semper de fide, sicut vos, sentientes, concordavimus: in hoc solo differentes; quod, culpa nostra, ingeniique nostri pigritia, scriptores, tam recte quam vos, neutiquam intelligimus. Scultet. Annal. Evangel.

Renovat. in A.D. 1530. p. 161, 163. 5 Pastorini’s Gen. Hist. of the Christ. Church. p. 325, 326. This severe trial of the Church occurs, according to Pastorini, during the reign of the expected Antichrist.

The whole account of that terrific personage, agreeably to the received notions of the Romanists, as given at considerable length by Roger Hoveden, is extremely curious: and, in many points, purely by a following out of the declarations of prophecy, he is exhibited as bearing a most ominous resemblance to the Sovereign Pontiff in the plenitude of his power.

Antichrist, we are told, will be born from a father and mother, like other men: not, as some fancy, from a virgin. Yet the Devil will descend into the womb of his mother: so that the child, born from her by the joint cooperation of the man and the fiend, shall be altogether evil; whence he is fitly styled The Son of Perdition. When arrived at full age, he will send his nuncios and his preaching through the whole world: and his preaching and his power shall be eminently catholic, reaching from north to south and from east to west. Many wonderful miracles he will perform, so as, if possible, to seduce the very elect into error. Against real Christians, he will stir up an universal persecution: and he will labor to corrupt the faithful by the three modes of terror and bribery and miracles. Riches, in abundance, he will give to those who believe in him: and those, whom he cannot seduce either by bribery or by terror or by miracles, he will cruelly, in the sight of all, put to various deaths of marvelous torture. Then every faithful Christian, if he shall refuse to deny his God, will perish, either by the fire of the furnace, or by the sword, or by some other mode of torment. This dreadful persecution will continue, through the world, during the space of three years and a half. Antichrist, moreover, will sit in the temple of God, that is to say, in the Holy Church itself, inflicting martyrdom upon all sound Christians: and he will become very great; because in him shall be the Devil, the head of all evil. But, lest he should come without warning, and thus deceive and ruin the entire human race, two prophets, Enoch and Elijah, will be sent into the world, who, through the same term of three years and a half, will strengthen and prepare the faithful servants of God.

Nascetur ex patris et matris copulatione, sicut et alii homines; non, ut quidam dicunt, de sola virgine. Sed tamen in peccatis totus concipietur, in peccato generabitur, et in peccato nascetur. In ipso suae conceptionis initio, Diabolus simul introibit in uterum matris: et, ex virtute Diaboli, confovebitur et contuebitur in ventre matris: et virtus Diaboli erit semper cum illa. Et, sicut in matrem Domini nostri Spiritus Sanctus supervenit, et eam sua virtute obumbravit, et divinitate replevit; ut de Spiritu Sancto conciperet, et quod nasceretur divinum esset et sanctum: ita quoque Diabolus in matrem Anti-Christi descendet, totamque eam replebit, totam circumdabit, totam tenebit, totam interius et exterius possidebit; ut, Diabolo per hominem cooperante, concipiat, et quod natum fuerit totum sit nocivum, totum malum, totum perditum. Unde et ille homo Filius Perditionis appellatur: quia, in quantum poterit, genus humanum perdet, et ipse in novissimo perdetur. — Per universum mundum mittet nuncios et praedicatores suos. Praedicatio autem ejus et potestas tenebit a mari usque ad mare, ab oriente usque ad occidentem, ab aquilone usque ad septentrionem. Faciet ergo signa multa, miracula magna et inaudita: ita ut in errorem inducantur, si fieri potest, etiam electi. — Excitabit enim persecutionem sub omni coelo supra Christianos et omnes electos.

Eriget itaque se contra fideles tribus modis: id est, terrore, et muneribus, et miraculis. Dabit, in se credentibus, auri et argenti copias.

Quos enim muneribus corrumpere non poterit, terrore superabit: quos autem terrore non poterit, signis et miraculis seducere tentabit: quos nec signis nec miraculis, in conspectu omnium, mirabili morte cruciatos crudeliter necabit. — Tunc omnis, fidelis Christianus qui inventus fuerit, aut Deum negabit; aut, per ferrum, sive per ignem fornacis, seu per serpentes, sive per bestias, sive per aliud quodlibet tormenti genus interibit, si in fide permanserit. Haec autem tam terribilis et timenda tribulatio, tribus annis et dimidio, in toto mundo manebit. — Sed etiam in templo Dei sedebit Antichristus, id est, in sancta Ecclesia, omnes Christianos faciens martyres: et elevabitur, et magnificabitur; quia in ipso erit omnium malorum caput Diabolus, qui est rex super omnes filios superbiae. Sed, ne subito et improvise Antichristus veniat, et totum simul humanum genus suo errore decipiat et perdat, ante ejus ortum duo magni prophetae mittentur in mundum, Enoc et Elias, qui contra impetum Antichristi fideles Dei divinis armis praemunient, et instruent eos, et comfortabunt, et praeparabunt electos ad bellum, docentes et praedicantes tribus annis et dimidio. Roger. Hoveden.

Annal. par. poster, in A. D. 1190. fol. 389.

This is followed by a strange document purporting to be a direct communication from our Lord to St. John, and duly fabricated upon genuine popish principles. 6 Surgent quaedam gentes iniquae, quae dicuntur Gog et Magog ; et destruent Ecclesiam Dei; et subvertent gentem Christianam: et tunc erit dies judicii. Sed, in tempore hujus Antichristi, multi Christianorum in cavernis terrae et in solitudinibus petrarum morantes, Fidem Christianam in timore Domini servabunt, usque ad consummationem Antichristi. Et hoc est, quod dicit: Mulier fugit in solitudinem Aegypti, ubi habet locum paratum a Deo, ut ibi pascant earn diebus mille et ducentis et sexaginta , Joachim. Curacens. apud Roger. Hoveden. Annal. par. poster, in A. D. 1190. fol. 388.

It is remarkable, that Joachim undesignedly describes, as with the hand of a painter, both the very seats and the very location of the Vallenses.

Their seats were the wild rocky solitudes of the alpine wilderness: their location was in the desert bordering upon the spiritual Egypt.

In fact, they were almost irresistibly led to apply the prophecy to themselves. The Vaudois , says Henri Arnaud, are descended from those refugees from Italy, who, after St. Paul had there preached the Gospel, abandoned their beautiful country, and fled, like the woman mentioned in the Apocalypse, to these wild mountains, where they have to this day handed down the Gospel, from father to son, in the same purity and simplicity as it was preached by St. Paul . Preface to the Glorious Recovery, p. 14. 7 Dicunt, quod Romana Ecclesia non sit Ecclesia Jesu Christi, sed sit Ecclesia Malignantium : — et dicunt, quod Ipsi sint Ecclesia Christi; quia Christi doctrinam, Evangelii et Apostolorum verbis et exemplis, observent . — Tertius error est: quod Doctrinam evangelicam paene nullus servet in Ecclesia, praeter eos . — Quintus: quod Ipsi sint Ecclesia Jesu Christi . Sextus: quod Romana Ecclesia sit meretrix in Apocalypsi . Reiner. Opusc. de Haeret. c. 5. in Bibl. Patr. vol. 13. p. 300.

Valdensis haeretice, — per vocatos et multos , intelligis Catholicos: et, per paucos electos, intelligis complices tuos. Pilich. cont. Valdens. c. 14. in Bibl. Patr. vol. 13. p. 315.

Dicunt: Papam esse caput omnium haeresiarcharum . — Item, vocant nos Christianos vulgariter alienos, et se notos: quasi Deus non nos, sed tantum ipsos, noscat, quoad comprobationem. — Item dicunt: quod Illa secta sit vera et unica fides catholica, extra quam nullus possit salvari . Refut. Error. Valdens. ad calc. Pilich. cont. Valdens. in Bibl.

Patr. vol. 13. p. 340, 341. 8 Hist. des Variat. livr. 11. Section 7-10. 9 Hist des Variat. livr. 11. Section 2, 72, 73, 86. 10 Reiner. de Haeret. c. 6. in Bibl. Patr. vol. 13. p. 304. 11 Dr. M’Crie has fallen into the same error: and, as his Work on the Reformation in Italy relates to a comparatively modern period, most probably his mistake has originated from the same cause. In the twelfth century, says he, those Christians, known in History, under the SEVERAL names of Vaudois, Waldenses, and Albigenses, as the hereditary witnesses for the truth against the corruptions of Rome, penetrated through the Alps into Italy .

Hist. of the Reformat. in Italy, chap. 1. p. 4.

If I rightly understand Dr. M’Crie, this passage involves yet another mistake.

His language would imply; that the Vaudois OR Albigenses sprang up in France , and thence migrated into Italy . Accordingly, he adds, in immediate consecution; As early as the year 1180, they had established themselves in Lombardy and Puglia, where they received frequent visits from their brethren in other countries .

Whereas, in regard to the Albigenses (as they came finally to be denominated in France from the town of Albi), the course of their migration was precisely the reverse : and they had appeared in Italy at least as early as the very beginning of the eleventh century; for an emissary of theirs from Lombardy had made numerous and important converts at Orleans, both laic and clerical, in the year 1017. While, in regard to the entirely distinct Vaudois or Valdenses, the disciples of Peter the Valdo did indeed spring up in France and were themselves native Frenchmen: but the proper Vaudois or Valdenses , one of whom was the Lyonese Peter, were always, from the most remote antiquity, Italians of Piedmont; though some of them, from the circumstance of their dwelling also in the Valleys on the western side of the Cottian Alps, might be deemed inhabitants of France.

In consequence of this error (which, however, so far as the Vaudois are concerned, he afterward corrects, or apparently corrects, by stating that they had for centuries fixed their residence in Piedmont), he has fallen, I apprehend, into yet another error.

He ascribes the rapid spread of the Reformation of the sixteenth century throughout the Milanese, among other causes, to the circumstance of its bordering upon Piedmont, the ancient land of the Vaudois. Ibid. chap. in. p. 128, 129.

The real cause was: that the Milanese had been prepared for the doctrines of the Gospel by the numerous Churches of the Paterines or Albigenses, which in the middle ages had been planted through the whole of Lombardy, and which (to the amount of sixteen, as Reinerius testifies) formed a chain that extended from Bulgaria to the Atlantic.

I may add, that Dr. M’Crie similarly confounds the Valdenses and the Albigenses in his later Work oil the Reformation in Spain, chap. 1:p. 28.

BOOK CHAPTER - 1 Kai< galuyin, ejpi>gnonta aujtomwna pro>teron kalou>menon, ejpwno>mase Pe>tron. Kai< UiJommenon aujtomasi tw~n ajposto>lwn aujtou e]contev, kai< UiJogontev, nenoh>kamen o]nta kai< pro< pa>ntwn poihma>twn, ajpo< tou~ Patromei aujtou~ kai boulh~| proe>lqonta. Justin Martyr. Dial. Cum Tryph. A. D. 137. Oper. p. 255. 2 See my Apostolicity of Trinitarianism, book 2 append. 2. numb. 10. 3 Poetis fere omnibus id saepenumero usu venit, ut, vel occasione inducti, vel necessitate prope coacti, in eum locum incidant, in quo, multo cum ornatu et amplificatione, utpote in re gravi magnaque, describendi sunt Inferi, sive Vita Functorum Status: hoc est, id clare explicandum, quod quale sit, nemini mortalium concessum est omnino mente percipere aut conjectura consequi. — Quid vero vates Hebraei? — Nimirum idem hoc in loco fecisse videntur, quod in caeteris omnibus: nam, quae palam et in aperto essent, vulgoque constarent, de mortuis, hoc est, de mortuorum cadaveribus, ex iis generalem quandam imaginem confecerunt, quam, in describendo vita functorum statu, unice et constanter usurpant; quatoque, si modo fas sit, appellare possumus Hebraeorum Infernum Poeticum. Sheol ipsi vocant; Graeci, Haden ; Latini, lnferum sive etiam Sepulchrum : neque sane aliunde sumpta est Hebraeis tota haec imago, quam de more rituque sepulturae apud ipsos recepto; qui ejusmodi erat, ut materiam praeberet ornatui poetico satis accommodatam. Hebraeorum enim sepulchra, saltem honestiora, quaeque familiis principibus patria erant ac gentilitia, speluncae erant amplae, sub terrain, ex nativa rupe, arte manuque excavatae; laqueare testudinato; quaedam tam spatiosae, ut columnis suffulcirentur. Ad latera, circumquaque, excidebantur cellae recipiendis sarcophagis. Ii, sculptili opere, apte ornati erant: singulique, singulis cellis, condebantur. Nullam omnino lucem admittebat specus: quippe, angusto aditu, quique advoluto saxo obstruebatur. Malta hujusmodi conditoria etiamnum in Judaea visuntur: duo prae caeteris magnifica, quae regum habentur sepulchra; alterum in ipsis Hierosolymis, cellas habens viginti quatuor; alterum, bis totidem continens, in urbis pomoerio.

Quod si eos locos omnes excutimus, quibus sacri vates Inferos ornatu poetico describunt, liquido, nisi valde fallor, apparebit, eos mentem in hujusmodi sepulchrorum imagine per omnia intentam et defixam habuisse. — Cum viderent corpora vita functa in terram cadere, eoque modo, quo dictum est, sepulchro condi; percrebuit apud Hebraeos, ut apud caeteros, etiam, opinio quaedam popularis, agi sub terra vitam mortuorum deinceps consequentem: quam ut adsciscerent vates sacri etiam necesse erat, si modo de hac re omnino loqui et intelligi vellent.

Lowth. de Sacra Poesi Hebraeor. praelect, 7. p.86-90.

Our Lord’s promise, I believe, is very commonly understood to intimate, that Satan, with all the banded powers of hell, should not be able to prevail against the Church.

Certainly, this is a great and important and consolatory truth: but, in point of ideality, it is not precisely the truth here announced by Christ. The promise is, that the Church should never die and be buried, so as to become invisible: as the dead became invisible, when consigned to those gloomy sepulchral caverns which were deemed the images of Sheol or Hades . Accordingly, our Savior no doubt said, in his native tongue, that the gates of Sheol should never prevail against his Church: and, thence, St. Matthew has justly and accurately expressed the Hebrew Sheol by the Greek Hades . The same ideal language is employed in the Apocalypse respecting the two witnessing Churches. Their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city: — and they of the people — SHALL SEE, their dead bodies three days and a half; and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put into A SEPULCHRAE.

Revelation 11:8,9. That is to say: the two Churches may be corporately dissolved as Churches; but they shall not pass into a state of defunct invisibility, as a body passes when consigned to one of the sepulchral caverns of the East. 4 Even Bossuet himself makes the very important admission: that, The perpetuity of the Christian Religion depends not upon the preservation of any particular locality or of any particular race of mankind .

Dans la Religion Cretienne, il n’y aucun lieu ni aucune race qu’on soit oblige de conserver a peine de laisser perir la Religion et l’Alliance.

Avertiss. 5. sur les Lettres de M. Jurieu. 25.

Bossuet says this, to extricate himself from Jurieu’s theological vindication of the House of Orange. But he perceives not, that, while he is avoiding Charybdis, he is running foul of Scylla. For, if the fact be as he states: then, by a plain consequence, the preservation of Rome in her asserted character of The Mother and Mistress of all Churches and in her alleged function of The Centre of Ecclesiastical Unity , is quite unnecessary to the preservation of Christianity. Should the mere superfluous adjunct be destroyed, Christianity, according to the Bishop of Meaux, would still continue to flourish, in unabated strength, in immortal rigor, and in heaven-born vivaciousness.

With an expression of such sentiments it seems scarcely consistent to maintain, that the promises of Christ must needs be accomplished in the Roman Church and in no other: and the inconsistency is heightened, when the remarkable phraseology of Scripture itself is considered.

In the figured language of prophecy, a Church is symbolically represented by a Golden Candlestick, bearing an ignited candle, and thus communicating light throughout the whole extent of its action. See Revelation 1:12,20.

Now a Candlestick is not a fixture: on the contrary, both it and the light which it bears are capable of removal from one place to another place. Accordingly, in strict adherence to this ideality, the Savior actually threatens such a removal, in the event of flagrant and hardened unfaithfulness. Revelation 2:5.

Such being the case, unless Rome can show scriptural cause for pleading an exemption from the common possible lot of all other Churches, nothing can be more idle than for her to claim a special and indefeasible right to promises, which were made generally to the Church Catholic in some one or other of its branches, and not to any one branch as contradistinguished from all other branches.

I may here remark, by the way: that the argument, through which Bossuet would fain overwhelm all the sound Protestant Churches of the Reformation, most effectually and most tremendously tells against the arbitrary fantasy of Socinianism or (as its adherents delight to term it) Unitarianism.

If this utterly unsupported speculation be indeed the mind of the Gospel and the doctrine of the Apostles: then, agreeably to the tenor of Christ’s promises, it must have been faithfully held, during all the middle ages of corrupt apostasy to the dogma of the Trinity (as Dr.

Priestly speaks), by some one or more Visible Church or Churches; for, otherwise, the requisite ecclesiastically-doctrinal connection, between the asserted Socinianism of the Primitive Church and the real Socinianism of these latter days, can by no possibility be established.

But no such Visible Church or Churches can be shown, from history, to have existed, throughout the long period of the middle ages.

Therefore, if Socinianism be the true sense of Scripture: then Christ’s promises of the perpetual preservation of a doctrinally pure Visible Church must inevitably have failed. And, conversely, if Christ’s promises relative to the perpetual preservation of such a Church have not failed: then Socinianism cannot be the true sense of Scripture.

The dilemma, in short, is this.

We must either reject Socinianism: or we must confess, that Christ’s promises have not been accomplished. 5 Walmesley’s General History of the Christ. Church, under the name of Pastorini . p. 326. 6 I beg it to be here understood: that, in strict accordance with what the nature of my subject requires, I speak of Churches collectively , not of Church-members individually . Corruptions, which shut out the very idea of Christ’s approving spiritual presence with an apostatic Church collectively, and which (it is to be feared) operate as deadly poison upon the great bulk of the erring members of such a Church, may, nevertheless, through the mysterious agency of god’s grace, prove innocuous to particulars , who, in the midst of superstitions sincerely though mistakenly received, have been sanctified by the blessed spirit, and who thence are animated by a living principle of interior religion.

With these holy persons individually , Christ is spiritually present: though, from their Church collectively , his spiritual presence has been withdrawn.

If, in this view of the matter, I be inconsistent, as some may think:

I must even be content to symbolize with the inconsistency of our judicious hooker. See disc. of Justificat. Section 9-20.

The true rational of the remarkable fact before us (for I venture to style it a fact) I take to be this.

Christ declares, that he will build His Church upon the Rock of Peter’s confession. He declares, therefore, that he will build it upon the Doctrine of the united Divinity and Humanity of the Messiah.

Such being the case, a departure from evangelical truth in subordinate particulars constitutes nothing more than a corruption more or less intense: but a departure from the Rock of Peter’s confession is an absolute digging up of the very foundation of the Church . Hence, wherever the foundation is held, grievous as may be the apostatic declension of the collective Communion which holds it; still, in such Communion, God, through his own mighty working and in harmony with the very principle of a foundation, has never ceased to have a people individually . They are not all faithless , says the wisely discriminating hooker, that are weak in assenting to the truth or stiff in maintaining things opposite to the truth of Christian doctrine. But, as many as hold the FOUNDATION which is precious, though they hold it but weakly and as it were with slender thread, although they frame many base and unsuitable things upon it, things that cannot abide the trial of the fire: yet shall they pass the fiery trial and be saved, which indeed have builded themselves upon the ROCK which is the FOUNDATION of the Church . — If the name of FOUNDATION do note the principal thing which is believed, then is that the FOUNDATION of our faith, which St. Paul hath to Timothy ; God manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit: that of Nathanael ; thou art the Son of the living God, thou art the King of Israel: that of the inhabitants of Samaria ; this is Christ, the savior of the world. He, that directly denieth this, doth utterly raze THE VERY FOUNDATION OF OUR FAITH. — Forasmuch, therefore, as it may be said of the Church of Rome; she hath yet a little strength, she doth not directly deny the FOUNDATION of Christianity: I may, I trust, without offense, persuade myself; that thousands of our fathers in former times, living and dying within her walls, have found mercy at the hands of God . Disc. of Justificat. Section 14, 16, 17.

This view of the matter will, I apprehend, teach us the true principle and full import of the language, which St. John has employed respecting Antichrist and the Spirit of Antichrist.

The precise and accurately distinctive characteristic of Antichrist and the spirit of Antichrist is a DENIAL OF THE FOUNDATION: whether such denial be heightened, it may be, into absolute atheism; or whether it be variously modified, in different ages and societies, by a formal rejection, sometimes of the humanity, and sometimes of the Divinity, of Christ. This, then, is explicitly stated and defined to be the badge or characteristic of Antichrist.

Now the very name of Antichrist imports a direct and formal opposition to Christ: and, accordingly, the Apostle carefully limits that opposition to A DENIAL OF THE FOUNDATION. He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. — every spirit, that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have beard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world. — Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. In we know, that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true: and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This person (Gr. Ou=tov ) is the true God and eternal life . 1 John 2:22,23; 4:2, 3, 15; 5:20.

No Communion, therefore, which holds the FOUNDATION, can be legitimately deemed a branch of Antichrist, as the character of Antichrist is defined by St. John. And, thence, in a Communion which does hold the FOUNDATION, grossly corrupt in doctrine as such a Communion may be collectively , there is no moral impossibility, that god should have, individually , a holy and salvable people.

Here, we are encountered by no contradiction. But to say, that A member of the Foundation-denying Antichrist can also be, at the same time, a member of the Foundation-laying Christ , strikes upon my own apprehension, as something very like a contradiction in terms. 7 Hist. des Variat. livr. 15:3.

CHAPTER - 1 Chrysost. Serm. de Pentecost. Oper. vol. 6. p. 233. Hilar. de Trin. lib. 6.

Oper. p. 903. Athan. Unum esse Christ. Orat. Oper. vol. 1. p. 519, 520. Hieron. Comment. in Matthew 16:18. lib. 3. Oper. vol. 6. p. 33.

August. Expos. in Evan. Johan, Tract. 124. Oper. vol. 9. p. 206. 2 Cyprian. de Unit. Eccles. Oper. vol. 1. p. 106-108. Tertuil. de Pudic.

Oper. p. 767, 768. Chrysost. Homil. 69. in Petr. Apost. et Eliam Prophet. Oper. vol. 1. p. 856. 3 De tua nunc sententia, quaetro, unde hoc jus Ecclesiae usurpes? Si, quia dixerit Petro Dominus; Super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, tibi dedi claves regni coelestis ; vel Quecunque alligaveritis vel solveritis in terra, erunt alligata vel soluta in coelis : idcirco praesumis, et ad to derivasse solvendi et alligandi potestatem, id est, ad omnem Ecclesiam Petri propinquam: qualis es, evertens atque commutans manifestam Domini intentionem PERSONALITER hoc Petro conferentem? Super TE, inquit, aedificabo Ecclesiam meam . Tertull. de Pudic. Oper. p. 767, 768.

On this very important passage I may remark, that, to make out a decent case of identifying the Rock even personally with Peter , Tertullian, when he repeats his citation of the famous text, in Matthew 16:18, gives the words of our Lord inaccurately.

Christ NO WHERE says: Super TE aedificabo Ecclesiam mean .

The inserted TE may, indeed, express Tertullian’s view of the text: but he ought not to have introduced it with an inquit ; when, all the while Christ says no such thing.

My quotation, however, from this ancient Father, is amply sufficient for the purpose, on account of which it has been made. It distinctly shows: both that The Primitive Church knew nothing of the modern Romish interpretation of the text ; and also that, As soon as ever that interpretation was started by an ambitious Prelate of Rome, it was promptly rejected as a groundless and unheard of and unscriptural novelty.

With the primitive exposition before him, the reader will perhaps be amused to see the exordium of an Epistle, written in the year 1178 by Pope Alexander III., To the celebrated individual of the middle ages familiarly denominated Prester John : such Epistle, with the delicate charge of discovering the local habitation of the said Christian monarch of India, being entrusted to the Pope’s own friend and physician Prudent Master Philip ; who had heard, that John wished to have a Church and altar at Jerusalem for the better apostolical institution of his subjects who might piously resort thither.

Alexander Episcopus, servus servorum Dei, charissimo in Christo filio, illustri et magnifico Indorum regi, sacerdotum sanctissimo, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Apostolica Sedes, cui licet immeriti praesidemus, omnium in Christo credentium caput est et magistra:

Domino attestante, qui ait beato Petro, cui licet indigni successimus, Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam . Hanc siquidem petram Christus esse voluit in Ecclesiae fundamentum, quam praeconat nullis ventorum turbinibus nullisque tempestatibus quatiendam. Et ideo non immerito beatus Petrus, super quem fundavit Ecclesiam, ligandi atque solvendi specialiter et praecipue inter Apostolos alios meruit accipere potestatem. Cui dictum est a Domino: Tibi dabo claves regni coelorum, et portae inferi non pravalebunt adversus eam; et Quodcunque ligaveris super terram, erit ligatum et in coelis; et, quodcunque solveris super terram, erit solutum et in coelis .

Audiveramus utique jampridem, referentibus multis, et in fama communi, quomodo, cum sis Christianum nomen professus, piis vel operibus indesinenter intendere, et circa ea tuum animum geras quae Deo grata sunt et aceepta. Epist. Alex. Papae ad Johannem Regem Indor. in Roger. Hoveden. Annal. par. post. in A. D. 1178. fol. 331, 332.

Whether Master Philip succeeded in discovering Prester John and in duly executing his commission, does not appear. 4 Hist. des Variat. livr. 15:3. The whole of Bossuet’s inviolable chain depends upon that Petitio Principii , in which the Romanists have always specially rejoiced. 5 See my Difficult. of Roman. 2d edit. 6 On this point let us hear the sound decision of the apostolic Ireneus in the second century.

Ubi Ecclesia, ibi et Spiritus: et, ubi Spiritus Dei, illic Ecclesia et omnis gratia. Spiritus autem veritas. Iren. adv. haer. lib. 3. c. 40. p. 226.

Ireneus, we see, in strict accordance with the purport of our Lord’s second promise, lays it down, as a ruled case, that the presence of God’s Spirit, or the spiritual presence of Christ, is essential to the character of the true Church, and thence, of course, essential to that legitimate ecclesiastical perpetuity which is expressed in the words, Lo! I am with you always, even unto the end of the world . The conclusion is inevitable. What sane person can believe, that Christ never ceased to be spiritually and approvingly present with a Church, of which he spoke by his Spirit, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues , and which he described by the voice of his angel, as the habitation of demons and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird ?

It is not unimportant to remark, that the language of Ireneus is that of a strict correlativeness. He not only says, Where the Church is, there is the Spirit : but he also says, Where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace . He acts, therefore, as a guide to us, under a twofold aspect. We learn from him, both where we are not to seek the true Catholic Church, and where we are to seek it. 7 See Bossuet’s Hist. des Variat. livr. 11. Section 1-148.

BOOK CHAPTER - 1 Boss. Hist. des Variat. livr. 11:7-70. Mosh. Eceles. Hist. cent. 9: par. 2. chap. 5. 6. Of the Manicheism of the Albigenses Bossuet is so sure, that he defies all the Protestants in the world to produce a sect in Europe, anterior to Peter Valdo, which were not a branch of the old Manicheans. Hist. des Var. livr. 11:91. 2 Fuit, imperante Constantino (seu Constante) Heraclii nepote, non procul a Samosatis, Armeniae indigena quidam, Constantinus nomine, vicum incolens Mananalim, quem ad hunc usque diem habitant Manichaei.

Hic diaconum quendam captivum, qui e Syria in patriam revertebatur et Mananalim forte praeteribat, tecto excepit, aluitque dies aliquot domi suae. Diaconus ergo, ut hanc quasi gratiam hospiti suo rependeret, codices duos, quos e Syria secum tulerat, Evangelium scilicet, Paulique Epistolas, dono dedit Constantino. Petri Siculi Hist. de vana et stolid. Manichaeor. haer. in Biblioth. Patr. vol. 9. par. post. p. 36. 3 At ille, qui jam pridem nefariam atque impuram haeresim suam propter impia dicta foedaque flagitia, quae Manichaeorum scriptis continentur, omnibus odio atque horrori esse animadverterat, uti pietatem, magnopere pestem illam renovare iterum ac latius diffundere, in animum induxit; daemone, ut par est, instigante, librum deinceps, praeter Evangelii et Apostoli codices, nullum attingere: hoc spectans nimirum, ut mali labem universam, eorum ope, obtegeret; quemadmodum, qui noxia pocula propinant, eadem melle obliniunt atque obducunt. Et quidem ille, cum Manichaeorum libris omnes jam cujusque impietatis artes percepisset, tantum mox Satanae ope assecutus est, ut, Evangelii Apostolique sensus perperam interpretando, facile omnes in rem suam, quo vellet et pro libidine, detorqueret. — Sylvanum se illum jactabat, cujus mentio in Pauli Epistolis, quique, tanquam fidus discipulus, a Paulo missus est in Macedoniam: ostendensque discipulis suis Apostoli codicem quem a diacono accepterat: Vos, aiebat, Macedones estis; ego, Sylvanus, ad vos a Paulo missus. Atque id ille, post sexcentos annos quam a Paulo haec scripta sunt, dicere non dubitabat. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 36.

Ut a nobis in prolixlore opere commemoratum, cum de Paulo et Joanne Samosatenis, Callinices filiis, ageremus: de illo, inquam, Paulo, a quo Paulliani pro Manichais, mutato nomine, appellari coeperunt. Ibid. p. 37.

This Paul was an ancient Manichean of Samosata, long prior to Constantine-Sylvanus: and, as the proselytes of Constantine rejected for a purer faith the Manicheism of their forefathers; so, consistently, they declared, that Constantine, not Paul the Manichean, was the teacher from whom they derived their doctrinal system.

Ou=toi, meta< cro>nouv polloulou, e[teron e]scon dida>skalon Kwnstanti~non kalou>menon, tonta Silouanon. Tou~ton e]cousin ajrchgo Compend. vol. 1. p. 341. Venet. 1729.

Since they disowned this Paul as their teacher, and since they formally renounced (as even their enemy Peter Siculus confesses) the Manichean scheme, they could not have called themselves Paulicians from him, but must have assumed the name from that Apostle whose writings they peculiarly esteemed and whose disciples they eminently professed themselves to be. Their adversaries, however, regardless of the palpable inconsistency, and bent upon pronouncing them to be Manicheans, asserted, that they were called Paulicians from the Manichean Paul the son of Callinice, whom yet, as Cedrenus assures us, they disowned as their theological instructor. Peter Siculus goes still further: for he states, that they not only disowned, but even directly condemned, the very Paul, from whom he nevertheless asserts them to have borrowed their appellation. A curious effect is produced, by placing in immediate juxtaposition the two singularly incongruous statements of Peter Siculus.

Promptissime etiam damnant Paulum Samosatenum. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 31.

Cum de Paulo et Joanne Somasatenis, Callinices filiis, ageremus: de illo, inquam, Paulo, a quo Paulliani pro Manichais, mutato nomine, appellari coeperunt. Ibid. p. 37.

They derived their name, it seems, from a person whom they condemned and whose Manicheism they abjured! Certainly calumniators ought to have good memories.

I suppose I need scarcely say, that this Paul of Samosata was an entirely different person from the more famous Paul of Samosata, who was Bishop of Antioch in the third century, and who speculated heretically on the doctrine of the Trinity. 4 As a somewhat curious specimen of the style in which Peter Siculus delights to expatiate, I subjoin his own precise words.

Sergius, ille diaboli maximus propugnator: Sergius, qui multos ex ovibus lupos fecit, et per eos Christi ovilia dissipavit: Sergius, acer ipsc sub ovina pelle lupus, virtutum fraudulentus simulator, quippe hac arte multis fucum faciebat: Sergius, inimicus crueis Christi; os impietatis; in Christi Matrem Sanctosque contumeliosus: Sergius, Christi Apostolorum adversarius, qui et Prophetas odio habuit, et, a divinis literis versus, ad fabulas et mendacia se convertit: Sergius, Christi osor, Ecclesiae perdueills, qui Dei Filium conculcavit, et sanguinem Testamenti pollutum duxit, et Spiritui gratiae contumeliam fecit. Petr. Sicul. Hist. p. 38.

The Sergius, thus energetically vilipended, was a most laborious successor of Constantine and a diligent teacher of the doctrine which was derived from the confessedly unadulterated New Testament itself.

Iisdem, quibus apud nos sunt, verbis, is the acknowledgment of Peter himself respecting the several books of the New Testament used by the Paulicians. Ibid. p. 33. 5 Omnia quippe omnes Evangelii et Apostoli testimonia praedicant: sed illi soli capiunt et intelligunt fraudem haereticorum, qui din multumque in sacrae literaturae disciplina sunt versati. Illi enim impuri, quando primum cum aliquo in disputationis certamen descendunt, quandam prae se ferentes morum sanctimoniam, omnia Catholicorum dogmata per astum comprobant pronunciantque. Et aiunt, se sanctissimam Trinitatem Deum profiteri: cum impie prorsus imperiteque omnia, per allegorias, apud se taciti interpretentur; quando, sancram Trinitatem inficiantes, etiam detestantur. Incarnationem Domini Dei nostri in Virgine, quanquam alio et impio sensu,, fatentur; sequiusque sentientes damnant: omnia tamen Incarnationis mysteria, aliter ore, aliter corde, Manetem et asseclas illius imitati, exponunt. Promptissime etiam damnant Paulum Samosatenum. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 31.

Manichaeorum itaque scripta idciro protinus abjecit: et, hanc etiam maxime ob causam, quod multos videbat eo nomine gladio caedi. Ibid. p. 36.

Egregius autem Manetis discipulus Constantinus, quo facilius auditores suos in fraudem ac periculum induceret, et probabiliora redderet quae docebat, Valentini primum blasphemias ac portentosa de triginta aeonibus diisque dogmata, totam item Curbicii fabulam de pluvia quam ex formosi adolescentis virginem insectantis sudoribus manare affirmabat, et alia id genus non pauca, tanquam absurda nimis atque incredibilia, rejicienda sibi atque explodenda putavit: minime id quidem, ut tantam impietatem profligaret, sed quo plures ad se doctrinamque suam pertraheret. Ibid. p. 36.

It seems rather odd, that the most effectual mode of gaining the Manicheans of the old school should be an open rejection of their creed as absurd and incredible. We may pardon the historian, however, both for his gross inconsistencies, and for his uncharitably gratuitous ascription of motives, since he has recorded the vital facts: that Constantine disowned, both the books of the Manicheans, and the system of Manicheism itself; and that the Paulicians, his followers, held the doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ’s incarnation and godhead. 6 Iidem vero sunt, nec quiequam divertunt a Manichaeis Pauliciani, qui hasce recens a se procusas haereses prioribus adsuerunt, et ex sempiterno exitii barathro effoderunt. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 31.

Adeo ut, quotquot nunc sunt Manichaei, technam istam et artificium ignorantes, Scythianum ac Buddam et Manetem ipsum, qui totius sectae principes fuerunt, promptis animis respuant et detestentur:

Constantinum vero hunc, qui Sylvani quo-que nomen assumpsit, aliosque qui post eum exorti, in Christi Apostolorum numero habeant, et Paulo pares in honore ducant. Ibid. p. 36.

Simeon autem, ne quid regii mandati praeteriret, Constantini discipulos, quo ad saniorem mentem revocarentur, Ecclesiis commendat. Sed illi haud quaquam conversi sunt: malueruntque in errore suo impie mori, quam Deum sibi poenitentia placare salutetoque consequi sempiternam. Ibid. p. 37.

Itaque, extructo ad acervum ingenti rogo, incensi et cremati omnes fuerunt. Ibid. p. 37. 7 Basilidis vero infanda flagitia et impuritates, caeterorumque omnium tetrum ac graveolens coenum, amplectens, novus repente perniciosae pestis ductor exiliit. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 36.

Hic igitur (Sergius), cum juvenis adhuc esset, in foeminam quandam casu incidit, moribus infamem, secta Manichaeam. Ila vero Diaboli sectatrix, ut callida erat ac subdola, sic juvenem est allocuta. Audio, domine Sergi, te literarum scientia et eruditione praestantem esse, ac bonum praeterea virum usquequaque. Dic ergo mihi: cur non legis sacra evangelia? Quibus ille verbis allectus, nec occultum potius intuens nequitiae venenum quod latebat, ita respondit. Nobis profanis ista legere non licet, sed sacerdotibus duntaxat. At illa, non ita est, inquit, ut putas: nec enim personarum acceptio est apud Deum; omnes siquidem homines vult salvos fieri Dominus, et ad agnitionem veritatis venire. At sacerdotes vestri, quoniam Dei verbum adulterant et mysteria occulunt quae in Evangeliis eontinentur, idcirco vobis audientibus omnia non legunt quae scripta sunt; sed quaedam legunt, quaedam omittunt: ne possitis pervenire ad aginitionem veritatis. — Eodemque filo singula percurrens Evangelii verba, et cujusque vocis sensum, prout capere illum videbat, mirifice depravans, brevi aptum reddidit diaboli instrumentum. Ibid. p. 38.

The person, thus converted to unacknowledged Manicheism by reading the New Testament, became afterward one of the most eminent successors of Constantine. His books were held in high veneration by the Paulicians. Ibid. p. 33, 39. 8 Qui tametsi a Manichaeorum impuritatibus se alienos dictitant, sunt tamen dogmatum ipsorum vigilantissimi custodes et propugnatores.

Petr. Sic. Hist. P. 31.

Quandam prae se ferentes morum sanctimoniam. Ibid. p. 31.

Hic vero, rejectis omnibus illorum flagitiis ac libidinibus (de Sergio Manichaeisque pristinis loquitur), blasphemias, veluti salubria dogmata, complexus, virtutes nonnullas callide simulabat. Ibid. p. 38. 9 Ego Tibricae novem menses versatus, ea, quae supra nobis commemorata sunt, accurate perscrutatus, jussisque sanctissimis piorum et orthodoxorum principum, quamvis indignus et ultimus, multa cum cura obsecutus, omnibus palam facere enixe contendi. Petr. Sic. Hist. P. 40. 10 Pietatis specie, velut ovina pelle, lupum tegens, pietatis autem abnegans virtutem, iis, qui ipsum norant, certissimus salutis ductor videbetur.

Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 38. 11 Hoc siquidem, ad caetera sua egregia facinora, divini atque orthodoxi Imperatores addiderunt, ut Manichaeos Montanosque capitali puniri sententia juberent; eorumque libros, quocumque in loco inventi essent, flammis tradi: quod, si quis uspiam eosdem occultasse deprehenderetur, hunc eundem mortis poenae addici, ejusque bona in fiscum inferri. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 36. 12 Cum eo loci annos septem et viginti versatus esset (Constantinus Sylvanus) multosque ex incolis in errorem impulisset, dignum magisterio et doctrina sua vitae finem sortitus est. Nam Imperator, postquam de hominis insolentia, nescio qua ratione, certior factus est, palatinum quendam Simeonem protinus ablegavit cum mandatis, quibus ipsum, ut improbitatis artificem, lapidare jubebatur, ejus vero discipulos, quos nempe induxerat ignorantia, per Dei Ecclesiam erudiendos convertendosque dispergere, quanquam illi corrigi prorsus noluerunt. Nec mora jussis intercessit. Advolans enim Simeon, simul ac destinatum locum attigit, comprehendi omnes, et in australem Coloniensis Castri pattem duci, jussit. Quo loco, miserum illum ejusque discipulos ex adverso destituens, signum dat illico, ut unum omnes lapidibus incessant. Verum hi, magistro suo, ut qui a Deo ad ipsos missus esset, parcentes, lapidibus arreptis, manus quidem ad balteos suos per speciem adducebant, clam autem lapides in terga vibrabant. Adoptarat ante plures annos Sylvanus Justum quendam, eumque Manichaei haeresi cum primis imbuerat; tunc vero, educationis doctrinaeque suae congruentem, ab illo mercedem tulit: palatini enim jussis obsequens, sumpto in manu saxo, Sylvanum, quasi alterum Goliath, vi magna percussit et occidit. In quem apte cecidit vox illa Davidica: Lacum aperuit, et effodit eum; et incidit in foveam, quam fecit. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 36, 37. 13 Quos quidem dum temere nimis excutit et auscultat Simeon, ut qui divinae institutionis expers erat ac plane rudis atque (ut verius dicam) levis ac praeceps animo, pestiferam haeresim hausit, et cum ea rediit Constantinopolim ad Imperatorem. Triennio deinde domi suae privatim acto, cum plene jam irretitus possideretur a diabolo, relictis omnibus, clam excessit, Cibossam petens. Ubi, convocatis collectisque hinc inde Constantini discipulis, ejusdem impietatis successor effectus est: et ut nomini suo famam, eadem qua predecessores arte conciliaret, Titum se appellavit. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 37. 14 Gliscente igitur inter Justum et Simeonem contentione, proficiscitur Justus ad Episcopum Coloniae: atque, ut de Apostoli sensu quod cupiebat audiret, omnia mox de se sociisque, et quam inter se disciplinam tenerent, liquido exposuit. Re comperta, Episcopus, nihil in his sibi cunctandum ratus, de singulis e vestigio refert ad Justinianum Augustum, qui post Heraclium Imperii sceptra gubernavit.

Qui quidem ut audiit, omnes statim in unum cogi Manichaeos seorsimque interrogari jussit, atque flammis tradi quotquot essent in errore pertinaces. Itaque, extructo ad acervum ingenti rogo, incensi et cremati omnes fuerunt. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 37. 15 Incensi et cremati omnes fuerunt, praeter Paulum quendam, genere Arabem, cui duo filii erant, Genesius et Theodorus, quibuscum fuga se proripuit pater, et Epispalim abiit jam dudum. — Producit ergo alter hic Paulus, ad impietatis scholam, filium Genesium, cui Timothei nomen imposuit. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 37. 16 Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 37, 38. 17 The violent declamation of Peter Siculus against this individual, as well as the account of his conversion through the agency of a woman whom the rabid historian pronounces to have been a morally infamous Manichean, have been given in the preceding notes. That he was a proselyte from among the Catholics, I gather from his expressed notion, so well combated by his female instructor, that the Gospel was too sacred a book to be read by profane Laics, and that it was reserved for the exclusive perusal of the Clergy. Pert. Sic. Hist. p. 38. 18 Edoctus ergo ab exitiosa foemina, diaboli propugnator Sergius, cum haeresim altius imbibisset, crederetque omnes homines, qui sinceram et illibatam Christianorum fidem nostram ac pietatem colunt, in pernicie versari: zelo satanico insurgit, et novus praeco fit erroris; cognomentumque assumens Tychici, cujus nomen est celebre in Epistolis Pauli, Pauli discipulum se vulgo jactavit, et ab eo missum ad praedicandum, non Dei verbum, sed haeresim perniciosam. Itaque civitates singulas regionesque, in quibus Apostolus veritatis verbum ante octingentos annos promulgarat, impigre circumcursans, multos ab orthodoxa fide avertit, et diabolo adjunxit. Quod ipsemet, in quadem epistola, gloriatur, his verbis: Ab Oriente, inquit, usque ad Occasum, a Borea ad Austrum, cucurri, nuncians Evangelium Christi, et genibus meis laborans. Triginta enim et quatuor annorum spatio, ab Irenae Augustae imperio usque ad Theophilum Imperatorem persistens, conflavit illam, quae etiamnum obtinet, defectionem, quam Paulus Apostolus Thessalonicensibus praedixerat, quaque iste magnam Ecclesiae partem graviter afflixit. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 39.

Habent porro Sergii magistri sui, invisas superis, omnisque superbiae et impietatis plenas, epistolas. Ibid. p. 33. 19 Justo tandem Dei judicio, securi dissectus, ut qui Ecclesiam Dei dissecuerat, in ignem missus est sempiternum. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 40. 20 Petr. Sic. Hist. p.40. 21 Sacra quatuor evangelia, et Sancti Pauli Apostoli denas quaternas Epistolas, recipiunt: Jacobi item Catholicam, ternas Joannis, Catholicam Judae, cum Actis Apostolorum, iisdem, quibus apud nos, verbis. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 33.

Cedrenus, the copyist of Peter Siculus at a considerably later period, similarly admits, that the New Testament of the Paulicians, which they probably at that time had completed by the addition of the apocalypse and the two epistles of St. Peter, was precisely the same as the New Testament of the entire Catholic Church: but he states, that they interpreted it perversely. ‘Wv gaphtai, th~| grafh~| kai< toi~v lo>goiv, ou[twv ejisillakta, tamata diastre>fousi .

Cedren. Hist. Compend. vol. 1. p. 343.

In the days of Cedrenus who flourished during the twelfth century, any interpretation of the New Testament, which ran counter to the prevailing superstition, would be deemed a perversion. His testimony is important: inasmuch as it thence appears, that, in the course of the three hundred years which elapsed between Peter Siculus and himself, no corruption of the New Testament, to serve the purposes of the Manichean heresy, bad ever been attempted by the Paulicians. Yet, to extract Manicheism out of the genuine and unadulterated New Testament, is, I conceive, a moral impossibility. 22 Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 33. 23 In the midst of much violent declamation and of assumptions alike uncharitable and gratuitous, every one of the subsequently specified particulars will be found in the History of the Paulicians written by Peter Siculus. 24 I have not had an opportunity of reading the work of Photius against the Manicheans: but, as I learn from Mosheim, he also, like Peter Siculus, admits, that the Paulicians expressed the utmost abhorrence both of manes and of his doctrine. Phot. cont. Manich. lib. 1. p. 17, 56, 65. See Mosheim’s Eccles. Hist. cent. 9. par. 2 chap. 5 Section 5 vol. 2 p. 367.

The historical work of Peter Siculus, who in the year 870 spent nine months among the Paulicians to the great jeopardy of his orthodox Catholicism, seems to be the original fountain, whence our knowledge of them is derived. Photius died sixteen years after the visit of Peter Siculus. 25 See Tertull. adv. Marcion. lib. 4. Oper. p. 222-225. Marcion substantially held the same doctrines as the Manicheans. Hence, in order to make it serve his purpose, he found it necessary so to corrupt and mangle and mutilate and interpolate the genuine Gospel as to produce a code which might well be termed a new Gospel. 26 I subjoin the six articles, under which Peter Siculus arranges the pretended Manicheism of the Paulicians. The prudent reader of course will exercise his own discretion in judging how far they truly set forth the doctrine of the acknowledged rejecters of Manes and his whole system.

Primum illorum axioma est: duo rerum esse principia; Deum malum, et Deum bonum: aliumque hujus mundi conditorem ac principem; et alium, futuri aevi.

Secundum: quod Deiparam semperque Virginem, atque infinitis laudibus concelebrandam, per odium abjiciant, nulloque inter bonorum hominum coetum numero vel loco dignentur; neque Christum ex illa natum, ut qui corpus e coelo secum detulerit; Josephumque ex illa, post Domini partum, plures liberos suscepisse dicant.

Tertium: quod, e sacris mysteriis, divinam ac tremendam corporis et sanguinis Domini nostri Jesu Christi conversionem negent, aliaque de hoc mysterio doceant; a Domino nempe non panem et vinum in coena discipulis propinatum, sed figurate symbola tantum et verba, tanquam panem et vinum, data.

Quartum: quod formam atque vim venerandae et vivificae crucis non solum non agnoscant, sed infinitis etiam contumeliis onerent.

Quintum: quod Veteris Instrumenti tabulas non admittant, prophetasque planos et latrones appellent: aut sola duntaxat sacra quatuor Evangelia, et S. Pauli Apostoli denas quaternas Epistolas, recipiant, Jacobi item Catholicam, ternas Joannis, Catholicam Judae, cum Actis Apostolorum, iisdem, quibus apud nos, verbis.

Sextum: quod arceant ab Ecclesiae administratione presbyteros et seniores: aiunt enim, quod seniores adversus Dominum congregati sint.

Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 33.

In the third of these articles, their doctrine of the Eucharist has evidently been perverted and misrepresented: whence we may judge of the bigoted historian’s accuracy in other matters. According to Peter Siculus, they maintained: that Our Lord did not, in the institution of the Holy Supper, set before his disciples bread and wine; but that symbols only and words, as if they were bread and wine, were ,figuratively given. This palpable perversion, he, that runs, may read.

What they really taught, as in truth appears from the very necessity of the entire third article itself, was this: that, The eucharistic bread and wine are not literally transmuted into the body and blood of Christ; but that, in the words of consecration, they are given, figuratively as symbols or representations of the thing signified. The vein, indeed, of determined misrepresentation, which runs through the whole document, is so manifest, that it can scarcely escape even the most careless observation. 27 Monachos complures, et moniales quae virginitatem suam Christo devoverant, per discipulos suos corrupit: et, a monastica vita revocans, a Deo simul alienavit. Multos denique sacerdotes et levitas ab orthodoxa religione avellens, et ex ovibus lupos faciens, hominivoros esse docuit. Petr. Sic. Hist. p. 39.

Like their theological descendants in Europe, they deemed, I suppose, monastic vows absurd and unscriptural and tending only to concealed impurity.

The most singular humor of Peter Siculus, in his dealing with the luckless Sergius (the special object of his vituperation in the preceding passage), is: that he not only heaps upon his devoted head a profusion of the most palpable and ridiculous calumnies, but that he actually charges him with all the consequences of his apostleship, in the shape of persecutions and troubles and captivity and the like; strangely describing him as being the person, who sold his disciples into bondage, and who put them to death. It seems, that the suffering Paulicians sometimes retaliated upon their persecutors. Of this, also, Sergius was destined to bear the blame, though he had expressed his decided disapprobation of such proceedings, and had admonished his followers to practice forbearance. If he could not restrain his suffering flock from occasional retaliation; if he could not always make them obey his exhortations to meekness and submission: he ought not, argues the candid historian, to have erected himself into their teacher.

By that single action, he makes himself responsible for all the misdemeanors of his people. Ibid. p. 39.

CHAPTER - 1 Tibricae igitur, legationis obeundae caussa, apud Paullicianos diu moratus, saepe disputando cum illis sum congressus, illorumque arcana omnia per Catholicos etiam ibi degentes curiose investigavi: atque ab ipsismet impiis et delirantibus cognovi; quod, e suo conciliabulo, missuri essent, qui in Bulgaria quoscunque possent a Catholica Religione ad suam exsecratam et nefariam sectam averterent. A sacris enim literis facto praeonii sui initio, praesidentes opinantur facile se posse purae sinceraeque sementi infelix lolium haereseos permiscere.

Amant enim hoc impii saepenumero factitare, ut omnem moveant funem, nullumque recusent periculum, quo damnatarum opinationum suarum pestem quibuscumque possint, infundant. Petr. Hist.

Archepisc. Bulgar. nuncupat, p. 31.

The reader will not fail to observe, in this passage, two important admissions on the part of Peter Siculus: the one, that he picked up some of his tales respecting the Paulicians from the neighboring Catholics, as prejudiced bigots, no doubt, as himself; the other, that these hated religionists made the Sacred Scriptures the basis of all their attempts at proselytism.

It will be recollected, that the Sacred Scriptures, thus systematically made the basis of their zealous preaching, are those very Scriptures, which Peter Siculus himself, as well as Cedrenus three centuries later, admitted them to have possessed and used uncorrupted and unmutilated, so as precisely to correspond with the accredited copies used by the great Body of Christians in the Church at large.

Thus perpetually does falsehood defeat its own ends by its own inconsistency: and thus wisely is it ordered by the righteous moral Governor of the Universe, that, to fabricate a lie, which shall so compactly hang together in all its parts as to laugh at detection, is perhaps nothing less than an impossibility. 2 The progress of the Paulicians westward is very well given by usher: but, without any sufficient grounds, so far as I can judge, he adopts the familiar calumny, that they and their successors in Europe were Manicheans. See Usser. de Eccles. Success. c. 8 Section 17-22. Those successors I have, throughout this work, styled Albigenses: a name, sufficiently definite, and certainly of all others the most familiar to modern ears. As to the time when it was first imposed, different opinions have been entertained. The Benedictine, who wrote the General History of Languedoc, contends, that it is not older than the year 1208, having been given to the religionists of Southern France at the commencement of the crusade against them. He supposes, that they were thus denominated from the circumstance of their having been condemned as heretics in the Council held in the year 1176 at Lombers in the diocese of Albi. Hist. Gener. de Langued. livr. 19:4. vol. 3. p. 4. It is a point of no great moment, save to the antiquary. I may add, that Ricchini, the editor of Moneta, has given a very good summary of the diffusion of the Paulicians through well nigh the whole of western and middle Europe. Ricchin. Dissert. de Cathar. c. 1, 2. Like the rest of his fraternity, relying on the somewhat insecure authority of Bossuet, he rapidly decides, that the Albigenses were incontrovertibly Manicheans. Ibid. c. 1 Section 1. c. 2:5. 3 In partibus Tolosae damnanda haeresis dudum emersit, quae paulatim more cancri ad vicina loca se diffundens, per Guasconiam et alias provincias, quamplurimos jam infecit. Concil. Turon. can. 4. Labb.

Concil. vol. 10. p. 1419. sive in Gul. Neubrig. Rer. Anglican. lib. 2. c. 15.

Inter quos, in provincia vestra, quosdam, qui Valdenses, Cathari, et Paterini, dicuntur, et alios quoslibet quibuscunque nominibus appellatos, in tantum jam accepimus pullulasse, ut innumeros populos sui erroris laqueis irretierint, et fermento corruperint falsitatis. Innoc.

III. Epist. Decretal. lib. 1. p. 56, 57.

Cum enim in partibus istis pestis haeretica, antiquitus seminata, nostris partibus usque adeo succrevisset, quod cultus divinus ibidem haberetur omnino in opprobrium et derisum: — factum est, ut, — in parte maxima destructis adversitatibus et erroribus universis, terra, dudum a cultoribus horum dogmatum conculcata, demum divino cultui assuescat. Archiepis. Narbon. Epist. in Labb. Concil. vol. 11. par. 1. p. 86.

Quia haeretici longo tempore virus suum in vestris partibus effuderunt Ecclesiam matrem nostram multipliciter maculantes; ad ipsorum extirpationem statuimus, quod haeretici, qui a fide catholica deviant, quocunque nomine censeantur, postquam fuerint de haeresi per episcopum loci, vel per aliam ecclesiasticam personam quae potestatem habeat, condemnati, indilate animadversione debita puniantur. Ludov. IX. Epist. in Labb. Concil. vol. 11. par. 1. p. 423. 4 Sunt autem sedecim omnes Ecclesiae Catharorum. — In toto mundo non sunt Cathari utriusque sexus quatuor millia, sed Credentes innumeri.

Reiner. Opusc. de haeret, c. 6 in Biblioth. Patr. vol. 13. p. 304.

The actual Cathari were probably the physical descendants of the Paulician Emigrants, while the Believers were the native proselytes whom they made in Europe. I may observe, that, in this citation, I have given the work of Reinerius its real title as prefixed by himself.

He calls it generally and accurately Opusculum de Hereticis. The Jesuit Gretser, by way of implicating the Valdenses in the charge of Manicheism brought against the Cathari, has thought fit to style it Liber contra Valdenses Haereticos. 5 Tales dicuntur Catharri, id est, diffluentes per vitia; a Catha, quod est fluxus: vel Cathari, quasi Casti; quia se justos et castos faciunt: vel Catari dicuntur a Cato; quia osculantur posteriora cati, in cujus specie, ut dicunt, appareret eis Lucifer. Alan. cont. haeret. lib. 1. c. 63. apud Usser. de Eccles. Succ. c. 8 Section 16.

This Alanus, in the fashion of the day, was styled Magnus and Doctor Universalis. He is one of Bossuet’s witnesses, upon whose credit we are invited to believe, that the Albigenses were abandoned Manicheans.

Another of his witnesses hereafter to be produced, is Lucas of Tuy.

This remarkable Prelate, for he was in truth a Bishop, introduces the cat under a totally different aspect from that of an avatar of Lucifer. In his plastic hands, the creature appears in the extraordinary and somewhat unexpected capacity, of a strenuous advocate for the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and of a stout assailant of an Albigensic heretic who presumptuously denied the truth of that doctrine. See Luc. Tudens. adv. Albig. lib. 3. c. 14. in Biblioth. Patr. vol. 13. p. 283.

The same veracious author assures us, in verbo Episcopi, that, in the province of Burgundy, the body of a burned heretic was preternaturally transmuted into a huge toad of the species Crapaldus.

Ibid. lib. 3. c. 15. p. 283.

These were the arguments, wherewithal the Romish Clergy did battle against the hated Albigenses: cats and calumnies, crapauds and cremations.

It is really sickening to see such miserable specimens, either of rank dishonesty or of besotted credulity, gravely brought forward as good and sufficient evidence to convict the Albigenses of Manicheism. 6 Nam nefanda et obscoena dicuntur agere in secreto, siquidem et vulpium posteriora foetent. Bernard. super Cant. serm. 65. Oper. p. 760.

In operimentum turpitudinis, continentiae se insigniere voto. Ibid. serm. 66. p. 762.

Cum foemina semper esse, et non cognoscere foeminam, nonne plus est quam mortuum suscitare? Quod minus est, non potes: et, quod majus est, vis credam tibi? Quotidie latus tuum, ad latus juvenculae, est in mensa; lectus tuus, ad lectum ejus in camera; oculi tui, ad illius oculos in colloquio; manus tuae, ad manus ipsius in opere: et continens vis putari? Esto, ut sis: sed ego suspicione non careo. Ibid. serm. 65. p. 760. 7 Ex sanguine infantis et farina conficiunt panem; qui infans, si moritur, martyr habetur; si vivit, sanctus dicitur. Adamitae, ab Adam, nudi conveniunt ad orandum, viri et foeminae. Reiner. de haeret, c. 6. in Bibl. Patr. vol. 13. p. 307. 8 Multi Credentes, tam viri quam mulieres, non timent magis ad sororem suam, et filium sive filiam, fratrem, neptem, consanguineam et cognatam, accedere, quam ad uxorem et virum proprium. Reiner. de haeret. c. 6. p. 303. 9 Communis opinio omnium Catharorum est, quod matrimonium carnale semper fuerit mortale peccatum, et quod non puniatur aliquis gravius in futuro propter adulterium et incestum quam propter legitimum conjugium. Reiner. de haeret, c. 6. p. 302. 10 Probatur etiam manifeste, quod non dolent de peccatis suis, quae ante professionem suae haeresis commiserunt, pro eo, quod nulli restituunt usuram, furtum, vel rapinam: imo reservant ea, vel potius relinquunt filiis et nepotibus in saeculo remanentibus; quia dicunt, usuram nullum esse peccatum. Reiner. de haeret, c. 6. 303. 11 Haeretici cognoseuntur per mores et verba. Sunt enim in moribus compositi et modesti. Superbiam in vestibus non habent: quia, nec preciosis, nec multum abjectis, utuntur. Negotiationes non habent, propter mendacia et juramenta et fraudes vitandas: sed tantum vivunt de labore, ut opifices. Doctores etiam ipsorum sunt sutores. Divitias non multiplicant, sed necessariis sunt contenti. Casti etiam sunt: maxime, Leonistae. Temperati etiam sunt in cibo et potu. Ad tabernas non eunt, nec ad choreas, nec ad alias vanitates. Ab ira se cohibent.

Semper operantur, discunt, vel docent: et ideo parum orant. Item ad ecclesiam ficte vadunt: offerunt, et confitentur, et communicant, et intersunt praedicationibus, sed ut praedicantem capiant in sermone.

Cognoscuntur etiam in verbis praecisis et modestis. Cavent etiam a scurrilitate, et detractione, et verborum levitate, et mendacio, et juramento. Reiner. de haeret. c. 7. p. 307. 12 Vile nempe hoc genus, et rusticanum, ac sine literis, et prorsus imbelle.

Bernard. super Cantic. serm. 65. Oper. p. 762. 13 Lat. Infernum. I have translated the word into Hell: but Reinerius may perhaps mean only Purgatory, described as a Lower Region. 14 Reiner. de haeret, c. 8. p. 307, 308. 15 Si fidem interroges, nihil christianius: si conversationem, nihil irreprehensibilius; et, quae loquitur, factis probat. — Jam, quod ad vitam moresque spectat, neminem concutit, neminem circumvenit, neminem supergreditur. Pallent insuper ore jejuniis: panem non comedit otiosus; operatur manibus, unde vitam sustentat. Ubi jam vulpes? — Mulieres relictis viris, et item viri dimissis uxoribus, ad istos se conferunt. Clerici et sacerdotes, populis ecclesiisque relictis, intonsi et barbati; apud eos, inter textores et textrices, plerumque inventi sunt. Bernard. super Cantic. serm. 65. Oper. p. 761.

Bernard, blinded by prejudice, and led away by the idle cock-on-a-bell stories of the age, never seems to have considered the utter improbability, that numerous priests, who possessed whatever knowledge was then possessed, should forsake their all to join a body of absurdly unscriptural and despised and proscribed Manicheans: for such, if we may credit Bossuet’s extraordinary band of witnesses, were the old Cathari or Albigenses.

I have used the expressive proverbial phrase cock-on-a-bell, familiarly corrupted into cock-and-a-bull, in its true and genuine application to the fabulous narratives of popery. There is some measure of antiquarian curiosity attendant upon it, which may rival the singular metamorphosis of the Pix and Ousel into the familiar sign of the Pig and Whistle. During the middle ages, as we learn incidentally from Reinerius, Gallus-supercampanam was the ecclesiastical hieroglyphic of a Romish Priest: and, as the gentlemen of that fraternity dealt somewhat copiously in legends rather marvelous than absolutely true, the contempt of our English Protestantism soon learned proverbially to distinguish any idle figment, such, for instance as the tales respecting Albigensic Manicheism, by the burlesque name of a cockon- a-bell-story, or, as we now say, a cock-and-a-bull-story. 16 Minucius Felix, in his Octavius, gives a very full account of the calumnies, which, by the Pagans, were excogitated and propounded against the Primitive Christians: promiscuous incest in the darkness of their private assemblies; an indecent worship paid to the presiding priest; an adoration of the head of an ass; and the murder of a young child, for the purpose of drinking his blood and devouring his mangled flesh. See Minuc. Fel. Octav. p. 70-90.

These senseless slanders have been duly plagiarized by the popish priests: and, with some trifling variations, as if the servile herd of imitators were, in their profitable trade of mendaciousness, unwilling to relinquish all claim to originality of invention, have, for the benefit and edification of the credulous, been transferred to the Paulician Albigenses. The reader will perhaps be amused with a few specimens of such romish figments: for which he still is indebted to the several workshops, of Conrad von Magdenberg; of an Inquisitor, who seems to have had grace sufficient to conceal his name; and of Lucas of Tuy, who has recorded the two surprising cases, of a catus, or male-cat, which at the point of his claws zealously advocated the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and of the metamorphosis of a dead Albigensic heretic into the toad denominated Crapaldus. Doubtless he will be prepared to receive, with all due implicitness of confidence, the testimony of such credible witnesses.

Quia vero illorum deus venter est, qui Veneris ingloriem speciali quadam celebritate colere nituntur: itaque nonnulli ex eis, commessationibus, ebrietatibus, et hujusmodi carnis illecebris, inhiantes, in libidines spumant, ut cum reverentia loquar, spurcissimas; adeo etiam ut, contra naturam, exercitia pessima committere crebris ausibus sint reperti. Conrad. de Mont. Puellar. cont. Beghard. in Biblioth. Patr. vol. 13. p. 343.

Tenent quosdam diabolicos articulos: quorum paucos subscribam.

Primo, adorant Luciferum: et credunt eum esse Dei fratrem, injurios de coelo detrusum, et se cum eo regnaturos. Pueros eorum ei immolant: ipsumque pro divitiis rogant. — Ad loca subterranea conveniunt: promiscuas concupiscentias et abominabiles luxurias exercent. Ind.

Error. in Bibl. Patr. vol. 13. p. 341.

Dicunt eis haeretici: Omnia, quae in hoc mundo visibilia sunt, a diabolo facta sunt. Unde non refert, in lucro pecuniarum, utrum bene acquirentur vel male: quia nec bona adquisitio illarum salvat, nec mala damnat. Nihil prodest alicui bona facere, nec obest agere mala: quia omnis homo pari poena damnatur, si extra nostrum ordinem moritur.

Haec dicentibus haereticis, vani homines tribuunt miserabiliter fidem: et se, fraudibus, homicidiis, latrociniis, et usuris, committunt.

Efferuntur effraenes per varia desideria carnis: et nulla est nociva delectatio, quam non pertranseat eorum luxuria. Abutitur filius matrem: frater, fratrem: et pater in filia turpitudinem operatur. — Tales, per ministros suos haereticos, diabolus edocet: quos, in praesenti, diversis immundicitiis et foetore infamiae polluit; et, in futuro, aeternae damnationis flammis comburit. Haec ab illis accepimus, qui fuerunt quondam coeno faecis haereticae obvoluti; et per gratiam Dei ad gremium sanctae matris Ecclesiae redierunt. Luc. Tudens. adv. Albig. lib. 3. c. 5. in Bibl. Petr. vol. 13. p. 279.

It were easy to multiply specimens of similar fabrications, all relentlessly pilfered from the original manufactory of paganism: but these, at least for the present, may suffice. 17 Taceo, quae negarent. Bernard. super Cantic. serm. 65. Oper. p. 760.

Plerumque fideles, injectis manibus, aliquos ex eis ad medium traxerunt.

Quaesiti fidem, cum, de quibus suspecti videbantur, omnia prorsus suo more negarent, examinati judicio aquae, mendaces inventi sunt. Cumque jam negare non possent, quippe deprehensi, aqua eos non recipiente, arrepto, ut dicitur, freno dentibus, tam misere quam libere, impietatem non confessi, sed professi, sunt, palam pietatem astruentes, et pro ea mortem subire parati, nec minus parati inferre qui astabant. Ibid. serm. 66. p. 766.

From the very mode in which Bernard tells his story, I think it evident, that, what they rather professed than confessed, was not the truth of the allegations brought against them in regard to faith and practice, but the system which he indeed called impiety, but which they knew to be the Gospel. 18 Saint Bernard fait voir, que leur piete n’etoit que dissimulation. Boss.

Hist. des. Variat. livr. 11:35.

Saint Bernard leur fait voir, que leur vertu n’etoit qu’une vaine ostentation. — Ne croyez jamais rien de bon de ceux qui outrent la vertu. Ibid. Section 60.

C’est d’eux, que Saint Bernard a dit: Leurs moeurs sont irreproachables; ils n’oppriment personne; ils ne font de tort d personne; leurs visages sont mortifies et abattus par le jeune; ils ne mangent point leur pain comme des paresseux; et ils travaillent pour gagner leur vie. Qu’y a-t-il de plus specieux que ces heretiques de Saint Bernard? Mais, apres tout, c’etoit des Manicheans, et leur piete n’etoit que feinte. Regardez le fond: c’est l’orgueil; c’est la haine contre le clergy; c’est l’aigreur contre l’Eglise; c’est par-la qu’ils ont avale tout le venin d’une abominable heresie. Ibid. Section 143. 19 Avouant et jurant tout ce qu’on vouloit, pour se sauver du supplice.

Boss. Hist. des Variat. livr. 11 Section 41. 20 I subjoin the originals, that full justice may be done to this curious and perhaps unique specimen of Latin ratiocination.

S’ il (le diable) avoit bien pu porter Judas a se donner la mort a luimeme, il pouvoit bien porter ces heretiques ‘a la souffrir de la main des autres. Boss. Hist. des Variat. livr. 11 Section 147.

Mirabantur aliqui, quod, non modo patienter, sed et laeti, ut videbatur, ducerentur ad mortem: sed qui minus advertunt, quanta sit potestas diaboli, non modo in corpora hominum, sed etiam in corda, quae semel permissus possederit. Nonne plus est sibimet hominem injicere manus, quam id libenter ab alio sustinere? Hoc autem in multis potuisse diabolum, frequenter experti sumus, qui seipsos aut submerserunt aut suspenderunt. Denique Judas suspendit seipsum, diabolo sine dubio immittente. Ego tamen magis existimo, magisque admiror, quod potuit immisisse in cor ejus ut traderet Dominum, quam ut semetipsum suspenderet. Nihil ergo simile habent, constantia martyrum, et pertinacia horum: quia mortis contemptum in illis pietas, in istis cordis duritia, operatur. Bernard. sup. Cantic. serm. 66. Oper. p. 766, 767.

Quorundam haereticorum mentes in tantum invasit diabolus, ut, dum, propter haeresim capti ducuntur ad mortem, nullatenus tristari, sed gaudere potius, videantur. — Qui autem non patitur pro justitia sed pro haeresi, in hoc, quod dicit se corporis non sentire dolorem, ostendit se ad Christi corpus minime pertinere, qui pro nobis cum dolore sustinuit passionem. — Est ergo a diabolo ejus insensibilitas, cum coecus mente dat se praecipitem morti: quod, in pluribus impiis, non solum legimus, verum etiam vidimus, praecessisse. — Saul et armiger ejus gladiis ceciderunt: et Achitophel suspensus occubuit, quia nutu Dei dissipatum est consilium ejus. Judas etiam Iscariotes laqueo se suspendit: et multi alii, seducti a diabolo, sponte se mortis praecipitio tradiderunt. De hac autem materia pulchrius beatus Bernardus fideles instruit. Luc. Tudens. adv. Albig. lib. 3. c. 21. in Bibl. Patr. vol. 13. pp. 285, 286.

Much in the same manner argued the Pagans respecting the martyrdoms of the primitive Christians. They were actuated by no philosophical love of truth, like the noble-minded stoics: but they were driven along to death by the mere vain glory of an ostentatious madness. That he of the cat and the crapaud should eagerly catch up the wisdom of St. Bernard, retailing it with some judicious improvements of his own, is small wonder. Verily, Lucas of Tuy would have forfeited his charter, had he acted otherwise. 21 Humanum corpus factum a diabolo mentiuntur. Luc. Tudens. Praefat. adv. Albig. in Bibl. Patr. vol. 13. p. 324.

Alia plura, ut oppugnent veritatem, proferunt haeretici, qui philosophorum seu naturalium nomine gloriantur. Quorum finis est Manichaeorum inducere sectam, et duos fateri Deos: quorum malignus, ut procaciter mentiuntur, creavit omnia visibilia. Ibid. lib. 3. c. 1. p. 277.

Dicunt eis haeretici: Omnia, quae in hoc mundo visibilia sunt, a diabolo facta sunt. Unde non refert, in lucro pecuniarum, utrum bene adquirantur vel male. Ibid. lib. 3. c. 5. p. 279.

Asserentes, Praelatos Ecclesiae, Christi animabus mortuorum fidelium, remissionum indulgentiis, non posse ullatenus subvenire; nullius sancti animam, ante diem judicii, coelum ascendere; atque nusquam pati poenas animas, nisi tantummodo in inferno; neque habere notitiam etiam eorum, quos, dum viverent, in saeculo dilexerunt. Praefat. in Ibid. p. 234. 22 Tales sunt hodie haeretici Manichaei, qui sua haeresi patriam Agennensem maculaverunt: qui mentiuntur se vitam tenere Apostolorum; dicentes, se non mentiri, nec omnino jurare; sub praetextu abstinentiae et continentiae, escas carnium et nuptias damnantes. Dicunt, enim, tantum flagitium esse accedere ad uxorem, quantum ad matrem vel filiam. Damnant etiam Vetus Testamentum: de Novo, vero, quaedam accipiunt, quaydam non. Et, quod gravius est, duos praedicant rerum auctores: Deum invisibilium, Diabolum visibilium, auctorem credentes. Unde et occulte adorant Diabolum, quem sui corporis credunt creatorem. Sacramentum vero altaris purum panem esse dicunt. Baptismum negant. Neminem posse salvari, nisi per suas manus, praedicant. Resurrectionem etiam corporum negant.

Radulph. Ard. Serm. in Dominic. post Trinit. 8. apud Usser. de Eccles.

Success. c. 8 Section 22. 23 E vestigio exorti sunt per Aquitaniam Manichaei, seducentes promiscuum populum a veritate ad errorem. Suadebant negare Baptismum, signum Sanctae Crucis, Ecclesiam, et ipsum Redemptorem saeculi, honorem Sanctorum Dei, conjugia legitima, esum carnium: unde et multos simplices averterunt a fide. Fragment. Hist. Aquit. in Baron.

Annal. vol. 11. A. D. 1017. col. 63. 24 Haeresis illorum, quos Publicanos vel Catharos vel Paterinos vocant, quae Christi abnegat sacramenta, clam quidem pluribus in 1ocis irrepserat, sed palam in Guasconia maxime populos occuparat. Illic, namque, a catholica communione praecisi, castra habent quam plurima adversus Catholicos communita: catholico ritu posthabito, suis adinventionibus inservienites; earumque virulentia, quos