5. The clergy may defend themselves against the civil powers with the weapons of the Church.

This is declared in Can. Dilecto, de sententia excommunicationis in 6, where permission is given to any ecclesiastic, threatened or oppressed by laymen or by the civil power, to turn against his oppressors the ecclesiastical sword of the interdict. Several Roman Catholic congregations in various parts of the United States have experienced the present inconvenience of the power of excommunication which is given to their priesthood. It is clear that the attempt which was so persistently made some years ago, (and will be revived in some shape or other ere long,) by the Romish priesthood, to have all Roman Catholic Church property deeded to their bishops, and to take its management out of the hands of the representatives of the congregations, and place it exclusively in the hands of the priesthood, would, if successful, place the congregations entirely in the power of the priests, and enable them to crush out, by their "ecclesiastical weapons," any spirit of free opposition which may show itself.

6. The civil authority must not oppose the Inquisition.

It was easily supposable that attempts would be made by many civil governments, under whose jurisdiction and by whose sanction this ecclesiastical court was established, to restrict its powers, and to protect the subjects of such powers against its severities. To prevent any such interference for purposes of humanity, we find various laws enacted by Rome. To save room here we take one as a sample of the rest. Can. Ut inquisitionis de hæreticis in 6, it is written that to further the labors of the Holy Inquisition in exterminating the crime of heresy, all temporal or civil powers are required to aid in the search, seizure, imprisonment, etc., of" those pestilential characters," the heretics. "And should any temporal power undertake to withdraw heretics from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, to place them at the bar of a civil court, with the purpose of opposing the Inquisition, they shall be pierced by the dagger of excommunication." We find no enactments abrogating or restricting any of these laws, and have therefore to thank, not the moderation of Rome, but the goodness of God, and an enlightened public opinion, for the fact that the Inquisition, that most formidable weapon of the greatest tyranny the earth ever saw, is not found in force at the present day in any country except in Rome itself. Even in priest-ridden Spain, although the efforts of Pius VII. were backed by his most promising pupil, King Ferdinand VIII., it could be maintained but for a short time after its re-establishment.

7. Force of arms may be used to exterminate heretics.

Waging war upon heretics (as she calls all Christians who differ from her in opinion,) was an early, as it has remained a favorite measure with the Church of Rome. We find this measure prescribed in Can. Sicut excellentiam, Caus xxiii, qu. 4. There is no law abrogating this command. On the contrary, in a document giving instructions from the pope to the papal nuncio at Vienna, in 1814, concerning the actions of that government in regard to the secularization of Church property in Germany, the pope confirms the law absolutos xvi. De hæreticis, according to which it is lawful to "deprive heretical princes of their domains," or governments. In the same instrument the pope complains bitterly that "on account of the present unfortunate times," (in tempi cosi calamitosi,) and the present humiliation of "the Bride of Christ," he is unable to enforce these "most holy principles," (sanctissime, massime.) From these we can only infer that if for these "unfortunate times," could only be substituted the happy days of the Middle Ages, the pope and the Romish Church would be but too happy to enforce the "most holy principle" of waging war of extermination upon heretics.

8. An ecclesiastic who takes an oath of fidelity to certain persons, may, to further the interests of his Church, act contrary to his oath. This piece of duplicity is distinctly taught in Can. petitio x. De jure jurando, in which it is related that in 1222 certain of the ecclesiastics of Antioch, having been obliged by the ruler of that country to take an oath, obliging themselves not in any way to act against him, questioned Pope Honorius III. whether their oaths must be kept. They received for answer that "in circumstances when their own advantage or that of the Church was concerned, they were privileged to break them."

9. An oath which is contrary to the canon law, and injurious to the liberties of the Church, is invalid.

The preceding law applies only to ecclesiastics, and, although shamefully immoral in its tendencies, evidently did not grant latitude enough to this species of immorality. It is therefore explicitly written, Can. Si diligent x. de fori competi: “An oath must not be kept when its purport is contrary to the canonical decrees." Gregory XIII. speaks yet plainer, in Can. Inter apostolicas, de juramentis in 7. He there forbids not only bishops and other ecclesiastics, but civil functionaries of all kinds, under pains of excommunication, to take any oath which shall bind such person to the performance of anything not permitted, or impossible, or standing in opposition to the liberties of the Church, or the resolves or decrees of the Council of Trent, and makes such oaths when taken null and void.

10. It is allowed or permitted to all to appeal to the pope, or refer to his judgment.

By this law the right is given to every individual Roman Catholic to refer matters in dispute to the decision of the "Holy Father." We find this stated in Can. Quicunque, Caus. xi, qu 1, c. omnes, c. volumnus, ibid., where it is written: "Whosoever may have a suit at law, let him be either plaintiff (petitor) or defendant, may avail himself at any time, either during the continuance of the suit in the civil courts, or at its termination there, of the decision of the pope; and all such cases, even should the opposing party be unwilling to refer the dispute in this manner, are to be at once taken under the jurisdiction of the bishop." It was in part for the purpose of pronouncing judgment in such cases, when final reference was made to the decisions of the the pope, that papal nuncios formerly resided constantly at all the principal European courts; and though this is no longer the case, the popes fail not to dispatch special envoys, nuncios, or legates to settle disputes in different portions of the world, which may be referred to him; as witness the journey of the papal nuncio Bedini through the United States in 1853, under authority of this very law, and avowedly for the purpose of settling disputes between various congregations and their pastors relative to the disposal of Church property. Had he been successful in his attempt to force these rebellious congregations to acknowledge his supreme authority in the premises, as a delegate of the pope, he would have taken this dispute at once out of the civil courts, where it was afterward decided, in one case at least, in favor of the congregation, and against Bedini.

11. The civil power is not allowed to investigate the offenses or private concerns of bishops.

It is the aim of Rome throughout the entire canon law to establish the principle that her ecclesiastics are exempt from the control or authority of any civil power, and amenable to the pope only. This principle is maintained in Can. Si episcoporum, Caus xxii, qu. 1, where bishops and other ecclesiastics are forbidden to lay their disputes before the civil tribunal; and those who do so, in place of referring them to the pope, are pronounced "accursed." It is on this law that a prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, in Prussia, in 1852, grounded his refusal to submit himself to the judgment of the civil law, to which his acts had made him amenable. Does justice demand of us to grant to the Roman Catholic priesthood the liberty to live up to this law?

The foregoing are some of the principal of the laws of the Roman Catholic Church, which conflict with the rights of civil authorities.

They are not by any means all that do so, but we have not room here for more. All tend to establish the doctrine that the authority of the pope is superior to that of the civil government; that the canon law is superior to the civil law. That the doctrines inculcated and maintained in these canon laws are pernicious in the extreme, and that the laws themselves, if enforced, would be subversive of all recognized principles of civil government, and productive of naught but confusion and anarchy, no impartial mind can deny. It is clear that no man whose conscience is bound by them can be a safe citizen or trustworthy officer of this republic. His oaths of office or of fealty to the state only bind him so long as they do not interfere with his Church. His duty to the state is secondary to his duty to the pope, or his representative, the bishop. In all that he promises to perform for his country there is a mental reservation; and however worthy the man may appear, in times and places when the state most requires faithful servants there is no dependence at all to be placed upon him.

We come now, in conclusion, to a few laws of the Church of Rome affecting the personal liberties of citizens:

1. Heretics are to be exterminated by the labors of the Holy Inquisition.

By the term "Holy Inquisition," is understood an ecclesiastical court, established and retained by the popes of Rome for the extermination of heresies and heretics. The foundation for such an institution was laid in 1209, by Innocent III. by his command to the sovereigns of Europe to proceed, arms in hand, to expel the Albigenses from their dominions. Clement IV. confirmed the inquisitorial powers granted to a certain body of priests by Innocent IV. According to this charter none of the individual members were to be held responsible or amenable to the law for their conduct, without the consent of their colleagues. They were to receive, over and above their regular salaries, one-third part of the goods and moneys confiscated as the property of heretics and their abettors. They were authorized to demand the aid of the inhabitants of any locality in apprehending heretics and searching their houses. Banishment was made the punishment for offering any hinderance to the labors of the inquisitors. Houses to which the inquisitors were refused admittance were razed to the ground. The property found in such houses was to be treated as though the property of heretics. The civil authorities were bound to torture individuals apprehended as heretics by the Inquisitions in the same manner as robbers and murderers, "without however maiming or killing them," ("citra membri diminutionem, et morti periculum,") to make them confess their errors, and FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XII.-8

reveal their companions in iniquity. All houses in which heretics were found were to be leveled with the ground, never to be rebuilt. Whosoever gave aid or advice to a heretic was rendered infamous from that hour, and ineligible to any public office, or to bearing witness in any court of justice, or to making testamentary provision for his heirs. The children and grandchildren of heretics were also declared ineligible to any public office. This is a synopsis of the powers granted to the first body of inquisitors by the bull of Clement IV. When, at a later period, the doctrines of the Reformation spread and found adherents in all parts of Europe, Paul III., by his bull, Licet ab initio, dated July 21, 1542, established a General Court of the Inquisition, constituting its members a permanent body. What monstrous cruelties, what wholesale murders and tortures were committed by this body, under the cloak of religion, and upon Christians whose only crime was that they differed in opinion on religious subjects from their persecutors, history tells us in part; and even the most zealous papists cannot gainsay this history. It is maintained, that as the Inquisition does not now exist in this country, nor anywhere in fact except at Rome, these laws should be regarded as virtually repealed. But whose fault is it that the Inquisition no longer flourishes? In what country has the pope voluntarily abolished it, canceled its powers, or even mitigated its severities? In Spain and Rome, its great strongholds, it was driven out by the victorious French, under the reign of Napoleon; and no sooner had the heretics of England succeeded in expelling the French armies, and re-establishing the legitimate sovereigns upon the thrones of these countries, than the attempt was made to re-establish the Inquisition in all its glories. It needs only a perusal of the General Edict of the Grand Inquisitor Acarnani, dated 14th May, 1829, (only thirty years ago,) to satisfy any one that the horribly cruel inquisitorial law code is neither abolished nor mitigated. For in that writing all the different tortures and other punishments devised for heretics, and to be found upon the "Holy Canons, Decrees, Constitutions, and Bulls of the popes" were declared of full force and authority; and it was made the duty of Romish ecclesiastics diligently to study this part of the law code of the Church. And, to bring the matter yet closer down to our days, it was only in 1837-not more than twenty-two years ago that the Tyrolese, at the instigation of the priests, enforced the bull of Innocent III., the originator of the Inquisition, by forcibly expelling the Protestant portion of their fellow-citizens from their country. Have we not, in one of our western states, a colony of refugees from the Island of Madeira, whose only crime to merit expulsion from the home of their fathers was, that they were Pro