EXTRACTS FROM THE "PURSUITS OF LITERATURE." Svo: London. 1798.

For the Protestant Guardian.

PAGE 199, Note (e.) THE GREAT COLLEGE OF PRIESTS, AND HEAD QUARTERS OF THE CATHOLIC CAUSE in the Castle or King's House at Winchester, tenanted by Priests, emigrant and non-emigrant, publicly maintained at the expence of the State. Read the preceding note. I am not speaking to those, who are indifferent about all or any religion; but to those, who from their station, political or sacred, should understand the importance of the cause, the interests of Christianity and its purity, the evidence of history, the nature and the essential and unaltered spirit of the Romish priesthood, and their subtilty and peculiar arts by persuasion, or by terror over weak consciences. I am speaking to the Governors of Great Britain, to the Ministers of the Crown, who should guard, and who, I trust, will guard, against the Revival of the Romish Church now working in secret; as well as against the more open and more terrible democracy of some description of the Dissenters. What is said to us all, is said at this hour to Ministers and Rulers of States with a more important and more sacred emphasis, "WATCH, for ye know not THE HOUR when destruction cometh." (1796.)

NOTE (d.) Finally; I propose one plain and significant question to Mr. Pitt or to any great Minister of State. It is this:-"Is there a single instance in the records of any modern history of Europe, where the governing and directing power of the state ever authorised, patronised, and supported with the public money, under any circumstances whatsoever, a COLLEGE OF PRIESTS, in the heart of the Kingdom [at Maynooth, &c. for instance,] whose tenets and principles were not only different from the established religion of the country, but were in direct opposition and avowed hostility to it? And particularly, when it was the original and fundamental purpose and constitution of that Established Church, to discountenance and extinguish the superstitious doctrines, and the political ecclesiastical tenets of that College of Priests, so authorized, patronised, and supported by the publie money, AS A BODY? If this question must be answered, as I apprehend it must, in the negative, I maintain (and, if necessary, will maintain more solemnly, if possible, and more at large) that THE COLLEGE OF PRIESTS IN THE KING'S HOUSE AT WINCHESTER SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY DISPERSED,* and not suffered to stand in that offensive, conspicuous, and opprobrious light in the face of the whole country. I am really speaking in mercy to them, and to us all, if I am rightly understood. I would support and preserve them from every want, privately, and in detached situations, but I would not suffer the ministry of a Catholic Bishop to direct the expenditure of that public money so granted, for mere Catholic purposes, but with the most perfect toleration of all persuasions in religion, the governors of the state should defend and exclusivly SUPPORT their own. This is prudence, this is policy, this is to remember the beginning and progress of all great events. (May, 1796,) PAGE 262. Text. Hear Dr. Hussey, the titular Bishop of Waterford, in Ireland, in his late pastoral letter.§

⚫ This was effected in December, 1796.

Though the French priests were removed, by order of the Government, from the King's House at Winchester, at the close of the year 1796, yet I have strong and important reasons for leaving this whole passage, in poetry and prose, text and comment, unaltered upon record to posterity.

See "A pastoral letter to the Catholic clergy of Waterford and Lismore, in Ireland,

"THE CATHOLIC FAITH (i. e. the tenets, the doctrines, the superstitions, the absurdities, the follies, the cruelty, and the tyranny, of the Church of Rome, and whatever makes it to differ from any other erternal establishment of Christianity) "The Catholic Faith (says his titular Lordship) is suitable to all climes, and all forms of government, monarchies or republicks, aristocracies or democracies." (p. 9.) Does his Lordship speak intelligibly? That which is true of Christianity in itself and by itself alone, independent of any establishment whatsoever, that they assert of their own tyrannical superstition.

[For want of room we were able to insert but a small part of this letter in our last number. As the sense of that part was confused by an unfortunate transposition of the matter in the printing office, we have given the letter entire in the present number.]

PROVINCIAL LETTERS TO ROMAN CATHOLICS.

LETTER 3.

To the Reverend Mr. Sharples, Blackburn.

REVEREND SIR,

WE have seen what sort of charges are brought by Romanists against

the authorised version of our Church, and with what ease they may be refuted. To give you an opportunity of trying your skill as a vindicator, I now proceed to make a few animadversions on certain translations made for the especial use of the faithful. I shall produce specimens, both of the text and of the commentary annexed to it; and if you will venture to stand forward in their defence, and can maintain successfully the fidelity and accuracy of the one, and the erudition and christian spirit of the other, I will acknowledge you to be the boldest and most dexterous controvertist that ever put pen to paper.

by Dr. Hussey," London, reprinted by P. Coghlan, Duke-street, Grosvenor-square, 1797. His titular Lordship's idea of "a man of true liberality is this: that he lives in charity, in concord, in amity, with all others of every religious persuasion, with whom a difference in religious opinion makes no difference in social life, &c. &c," (p. 6.) Very liberal, indeed, this is the text. But his Lordship, in the natural confusion of ideas in his country, has prefixed the comment. See the preceding page. The words are these: "Remonstrate, (says his Lordship,) with any parent, who will be so criminal as to expose his offspring to those places of education (the Charter Schools, &c. &c. as I suppose) where his religious faith and morals are likely to be perverted, If he will not attend to your remonstrances, (he is speaking to the Roman Catholic clergy) refuse him the participation of Christ's body; if he should still continue obstinate, DENOUNCE HIM TO THE CHURCH, in order that according to Christ's commandment, he be considered as a heathen and a publican." p. 5. We know the sense of Christ; and we know the sense which the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH annexes to THESE WORDS. But this is LIBERALITY!! Hear his titular Lordship once more. Speaking of the total repeal of the Popery Laws in Ireland, he warns those who oppose it, in these terms, p. 10: "THE VAST ROCK is already detached from the mountain's brow, and whoever OPPOSES its descent and removal, MUST BE CRUSHED by his own rash endeavours." Is the common sense of England and Ireland drunk? Or if it has slept, will it now awake? Can any man say, that the political spirit of the Roman Catholic religion is extinct, that it is dead, that it is dying? This titular Bishop warns us plainly enough. He has rocks and mountains at command; and the powers of nature, in their gigantic admeasurements, appear at his great bid. ding. In Ireland, it might be of use to discuss this pastoral letter in toto. If I were an rishman, I would do so; but the business in England is yet different.

The first English Roman Catholic version which appeared after the Reformation was the Rhemish Testament, so called, from its being published at Rheims by the English seminarists. The translation was chiefly executed by Gregory Martin, under the auspices and superintendance of Cardinal Allen; the notes, as we have already observed, were principally furnished by Bristow. They who are acquainted with the writings and principles of those men, will readily conceive that little good was to be expected from them; and any competent person, who takes the trouble to examine the fruits of their industry, will allow, that in point of obscurity, and barbarity of style, this translation is one of the worst that was ever written; that the commentary attached to it is full of petty cavils, miserable and abortive attempts at criticism, and confident appeals to pretended ancient documents, which all learned and candid Romanists have long rejected as spurious; and also contains a larger portion of intolerance, bigotry, and treason, than was perhaps ever exhibited in an equal compass.+ Instances abound in almost every chapter of the work. I shall at present content myself with producing as many as will justify the above assertions.

In the second epistle of St. Peter, i. 15., we find the following luminous and perspicuous passage :—

"And I will doe my diligence, you to have often after my decease also, that you may keep a memorie of these things."

As this is much more obscure than the Greek original, and would hardly be intelligible to any body without a commentary, the editors have kindly favoured us with a long note, the drift of which is to prove, that St. Peter means "that his care over them should not cease by death, and that by his intercession before God after his departure, he would do the same thing for them that he did before in his life by teaching and preaching ;" consequently that the text plainly supports the Romish invocation of saints. Having thus helped us to find the invocation of saints, where otherwise we might not have succeeded in finding any thing, and quoted Ecumenius in proof of their assertion that "this is the sense that the Greek Scholies [scholia] speake of," they proceed to fortify their exposition with a long string of testimonies from the Fathers, some of which are spurious,§ some totally irrelevant, and not one of them either conclusive as to the practice of the primitive Church, or applying, directly or indirectly, to the text. Having made out the matter thus satisfactorily, they duly abuse the heretics for excluding this sense altogether by their false translations.

Let us now see how excellently all this is confirmed by their brother

Allen's abilities would have entitled him to respect, if he had not prostituted them to such atrocious purposes. Our wonder is, that any respectable Romanist of the present day should venture to palliate the conduct of the man who entered, heart and soul, into the Spanish projects of invasion, who wept at the destruction of the Invincible Armada, who was a fomenter of domestic treasons and conspiracies, both by his personal influence and his writings, and who, together with his coadjutor Father Personз, was the chief cause of the severest penal enactments of Queen Elizabeth's reign against the British Roman Catholics.

Yet four doctors of the French College at Rheims assures us that there is nothing in it contrary to civil authority and tranquility, and seven years after this, three doctors of the university of Douay, one of whom is Estius, also vouch for its fidelity, and authorize the reprinting of it! The best part of the story is that not one of those seven doctors understood English; but all of them relied on the testimony of the authors of the version, and of the British seminarists!! Such is the value of the approbations of Roman Catholic universities!

For instance, the decretal epistle of St. Clement to James, and Athanasius's Sermon on the Virgin Mother of God, both of which are notorious forgeries. Most of the passages merely prove the belief of the authors that the saints in heaven pray for their brethren on earth, which is very different from believing that Christians on earth ought to pray to the saints in heaven.

expositor Estius. After observing that the Apostle's meaning is, "I will use my care and endeavours, that, after my decease, ye may at all times revive in yourselves the remembrance of those things concerning which I now write to you," ," which he did by leaving them his epistles as a monument or memorial; the professor adds-"Some Catholic authors fancy that the intercession of the saints for the living may be proved from these words of Peter, taking them in this sense-"I will exert myself to be mindful of you after my death, namely, by praying to God for you, that you may keep those things in remembrance which I write to you." They were thus taken by Chrysostom in his Sermon on Peter and Paul, if indeed the whole of it be his :"+ for towards the conclusion it varies strangely nor does it cite Peter's words as they are read in his Epistle, but in this manner-"I will strive to keep you in remembrance after my departure." Ecumenius also mentions this interpretation, but he prefers the other as more simple. Certainly it was not suitable for the Apostle to say, "I will use my endeavours, I will be careful, when the saints perform this (intercession) without any care or anxiety; and indeed, what is the use of trying to establish a most certain doctrine by an uncertain argument, when there is no want of others which are quite certain ?§

Is it not a pity, Sir, that Estius approved the Rhemish Testament without reading it; and a still greater that the infallible guidance of the church does not prevent those who follow it from flatly contradicting each other? The judicious reader will not fail to appreciate the perverse industry of those Rhemish Doctors in making the passage totally unintelligible their skill in getting light from smoke, and sagaciously extracting from it the invocation of saints; their fidelity in alleging cumenius; their honesty in cramming Clement's Epistle to James and Athanasius's Sermon on the Virgin Mary down our throats as genuine documents, and their modesty and liberality in abusing our Protestant translators because they did not distort a plain text, but thought proper to render it as it has been rendered by every good interpreter, ancient or modern.t

Again. In 1 Peter, iii. 2. we find the following choice passage:"As infants even now borne, reasonable, milke without guile desire ye, that in it you may grow unto salvation."

An uninitiated reader would be apt to suspect that the writer of this jargon had either lost his wits, or that he was deliberately burlesquing the Holy Scriptures. But, in the preface, the editors complacently inform us :-" We doe so place reasonable, of purpose, that it may be

This interpretation agrees in substance with the Geneva English and King James's translation, with Erasmus, Beza, and Diodati, with Martini's Italian and Scio's Spanish, both of which are translated from the Vulgate, and I believe, with every ancient and modern version of any reputation.

+ The professor's if, though prudently introduced, might have been spared; for all the best critics are now agreed that the sermon in question is certainly spurious, and unworthy of Chrysostom both as to matter and style. . Vide Dupin. Biblioth. Eccles. Cent. 5, article Chrysostom.

Estius in 2 Epist. Petri, p. 1209. I wish Estius had told us what those certain arguments are, or where they are to he found. I have read many Romish treatises on the subject, and could never meet with any thing approaching to the shadow of a proof, that the great body of those whom the Church of Rome commands us to venerate, are really saints, or that they have any means of knowing the petitions which are offered to them.

+ Even their own successors have had the barbarity to leave this truly ingenious and orthodox interpretation to its fate, and to creep quietly over to the side of the heretics. Dr. Challoner, in his revision of the English Roman Catholic Testament, reads the verse as follows:---" And I will do my endeavour, that you may also often have, after my decease, whereby you may keep a memory of these things."

indifferent both to infants going before, as in our* Latin text: or to milke that foloweth after, as in other Latin copies and in the Greeke." Notwithstanding this profound remark, their successors of the eighteenth century seem to have thought that there was no wisdom in making that obscure and ambiguous, which was perfectly plain in the original, and that it was better to preserve the native English idiom, than to copy the broken jargon of a newly-imported Dutchman or German. They therefore let the uncouth interpretation and absurd criticism of their elder brethren shift for themselves, and gave us the following instead :"As new-borne babes, desire the rational milk without guile, that thereby you may grow unto salvation."

Once more-In 1 Tim. vi. 20, the Rhemists translate as follows:"O Timothee, keep the depositum, avoiding the profane novelties of voices, and oppositions of falsely called knowledge."

I shall not trouble you with any remarks on the learned reasons alleged for this rendering in the preface and notes, except that the editors have carefully kept out of sight the true one-a desire to make the passage as unintelligible as possible. Now mark how their successors leave them enveloped in their own smoke, and follow the authorised Protestant version as closely as the Vulgate will allow them.

"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties of words, and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called." It would be equally tedious and unprofitable to follow those Rhemish caricaturists over the thousands of texts which they have disfigured by mean and barbarous phraseology-by a motley admixture of foreign terms, and by an absurd and pertinacious adherence to the same collocation of words as they found in the Vulgate, to the utter subversion of the idiom and propriety of the English language. Yet all this, forsooth, is done on fixed principles; they assume no small merit to themselves for translating as no man ever translated either before or since; and what is in every point of view, a reproach to them and to those of their communion, they affect to consider as a lasting monument to their glory! Nevertheless, when the faithful had enjoyed the benefit of it for about a hundred and fifty years, the more enlightened Romanists had the grace to be ashamed of it; and accordingly, in the reign of George II, out came twot new Catholic versions of the New Testament, from which both the Rhemish text and notes were discarded in toto. And if you, Sir, will take the trouble to examine these with a little attention, you will find that, in innumerable passages, they closely copy § our

• This shews that they followed those copies which have rationabiles, in the plural; a reading which Estius notices, for the sake of stigmatizing it as corrupt. It is indeed so palpably absurd, that a schoolboy could discover it to be a mere blunder of some ignorant or careless transcriber. We could produce many equally choice instances of the acumen and critical skill of the editors; for to make a bad translation still worse, they have generally followed the most corrupt readings of the faultiest copies of the Vulgate.

The first of these, by Dr. Witham, was published in 1730; the second, by Dr. Challoner, which professes to be a revision of the Rhemish text, but is in reality, a new translation, was, if I mistake not, first published in 1750. The copy which I have used, and from which the above-quoted improved renderings have been taken, bears the date of 1752. It is worthy of notice that in several later editions, as for instance in the folio bible of 1813, the editors have reinstated a number of uncouth and barbarous interpretations, which had been turned adrift both by Dr. Witham and Dr. Challoner. Indeed, with all their boasted unity, the English Romanists have absolutely no such thing as a standard vernacular edition of the Scriptures; and it is difficult to find two editions agreeing with each other, either in the text or the notes!

Mr. Maguire, indeed, in his discussion with Mr. Pope, denied very stoutly that the modern Anglo-Romish translations have at all approximated to our authorised version but Mr. Maguire, as Fontenelle says of Ariosto, has a laudable faculty of saying whatever he pleases. Any one who will take the pains to compare Dr. Witham's and Dr. Challoner's Testament with the Rhemish and with King James's, will find that in