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and incurable hostility which those principles must ever encounter from that sacerdotal spirit which lies hid in all sects, but which forms the very creed and essence of Romanism. The power wielded over the minds and consciences of men by the clergy of all denominations is of a nature, more than any other species of power, to tempt to abuse and to thirst for self aggrandisement; it is a species of power more than any other to be watched, dreaded, and repelled, because its approaches are more insidious, unwearied, and systematic. They resemble rather the proceedings of a household traitor than the assaults of an external foe. The spirit is subdued by spiritual terrors; the mind is made the instrument of its own enslavement; a man's foes are those not of his own household, but of his own nature. This priestly domination will be sought and used wherever the priesthood is a body with distinct functions and a separate status from the laity; but of the Romish Church it forms the distinctive element-the pervading characteristic-the subtle poison. There the priests are, by fundamental assumption, by the very nature of their functions, by the peculiar law of their isolated lives, a body claiming an indefeasible and unquestionable authority over the thoughts, opinions, and actions of all the members of their Church ;-the idea of personal liberty, or liberty of mind on the part of their flocks, is foreign to the very basis of their religion: they regard it as an evil, preach against it as a peril, resent it as indicative of a rebellious spirit.

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To show that we have not exaggerated the innate and ineradicable hostility of Catholicism to everything that bears the name or the livery of personal freedom, we here present our readers with a few passages from the last number of "The Rambler," a Romanist publication of considerable merit, general moderation, and, comparatively speaking, habitual fairness. It speaks out in a manner by no means common with the sect, except in its moments of ascendancy; and its tone and language altogether are those of a party who feel themselves strong enough, or near enough to victory, to be able to throw off the mask:

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"We are the children of a church which has ever avowed the deepest hostility to the principle of religious liberty,' and which has never given the shadow of a sanction to the theory that civil liberty,' as such, is necessarily a blessing at all. How intolerable is it to see this miserable device for deceiving the Protestant world still so widely popular among us! We say, for deceiving the Protestant world;' though we are far enough from implying there is not many a Catholic who really imagines himself to be a votary of 'religious liberty,' and is confident that, if the tables were turned, and the Catholics were uppermost in the land, he would in all circumstances grant others the same unlimited toleration he now demands for himself. Still, let our Catholic tolerationist be ever so sincere, he is only sincere because he does not take the trouble to look very closely into his own convictions. His great object is to silence Protestants, or to persuade them to let him alone; and as he certainly feels no personal malice against them, and laughs at their creed quite as cordially as he hates it, he persuades himself that he is telling the exact truth when he professes to be an advocate of religious liberty, and declares that no man ought to be coerced on account of his conscientious convictions. The practical result is, that now and then, but very seldom, Protestants are blinded, and are ready to clasp their unexpected ally in a fraternal embrace.

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They are deceived, we repeat, nevertheless. Believe us not, Protestants of England and Ireland, for an instant, when you hear us pouring forth our liberalisms. When you hear a Catholic orator at some public assemblage declaring solemnly that this is the most humiliating day of his life, when he is called upon to defend once

more the glorious principle of religious freedom,'-be not too simple in your credulity. These are brave words, but they mean nothing; no, nothing more than the promises of a Parliamentary candidate to his constituents on the hustings. He is not talking Catholicism, but Protestantism and nonsense; and he will no more act on these notions in different circumstances than you now act upon them yourselves in your treatment of him. You ask, if he were lord in the land, and you were in a minority, if not in numbers, yet in power, what would he do to you? That, we say, would depend entirely upon circumstances. If it would benefit the cause of Catholicism, he would tolerate you; if expedient, he would imprison you, banish you, fine you; possibly, even, he might hang you. But be assured of one thing; he would never tolerate you for the sake of the glorious principles of civil and religious liberty.""

"This candid writer then proceeds to declare, that in his opinion the right to civil liberty is a mere delusion; that the only civil liberty which can be defended or allowed, is the permission to do such and such things as the law may specify. The idea of the inherent right to do whatever does not interfere with or impair the equal right of every other fellow-citizen, is one which he either repudiates or to which he cannot rise. The right of action, with him, as the right of thought, is simply permissive and under license. He then proceeds to inform us that

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Religious liberty, in the sense of a liberty possessed by every man to choose his own religion, is one of the most wicked delusions ever foisted upon this age by the father of all deceit. The very name of liberty-except in the sense of a permission to do certain definite acts-ought to be banished from the domain of religion. * * * It is neither more nor less than a falsehood. No man has a right to choose his religion. None but an Atheist can uphold the principles of religious liberty. * Shall I, therefore, fall in with this abominable delusion! Shall I foster that damnable doctrine, that Socinianism and Calvinism, and Anglicanism and Judaism, are not every one of them mortal sins, like murder and adultery? Shall I hold out hopes to my erring Protestant brother, that I will not meddle with his creed, if he will not meddle with mine? Shall I tempt him to forget that he has no more right to his religious views than he has to my purse, or my house, or my life-blood? No! Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself, for it is the truth itself. We might as rationally maintain that a sane man has a right to believe that two and two do not make four, as this theory of religious liberty. Its impiety is only equalled by its absurdity."

"The writer is quite correct: Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds. Its intolerance is not an accidental feature, but it is obviously its essence. It is not an excresence upon it: it is the thing itself. It is not the characteristic it assumes in a narrow-minded and barbarous age to bring itself into sympathy with the age: nor is it a tone it takes naturally and unconsciously from the evil influences of an evil time; it is that pervading spirit without which it would not be itself, or be true to its own nature. It is not the phase which it presents to the twelfth century or the sixteenth, but its permanent, unmistakable, unchanging aspect. Catholicism looks upon heresy, of whatever form, not as a dangerous and deplorable error out of which men are to be persuaded or forced; but as a sin to be put down, as an insult to the Divine Majesty which calls for punishment, as a crime against the best interests of society, which it is the duty of the State (the mere servant of the Church) to repress and prevent as it most effectively can. It is bound to look upon matters in this light. It would be untrue to itself, and self-contradictory if it did not.

"With this clear knowledge, then, of the principles and nature of Catholicism,-drawn from an analysis of its character, ratified by the avowal of its adherents, confirmed by the history of its proceedings in all countries and at all times,—we can be at no loss in future to under stand how Catholics would act, would think it their duty, and might find it their interest to act, in the event of their again obtaining the ascendancy. On this head, therefore, there can henceforth be no mistake, and ought to be no self-delusion. A sect in whom it would be sin-a clear dereliction of duty-a manifest neglect and abuse of the obligations and advantages of its position-not to suppress all other sects, if it had the power to do so;-a sect which openly proclaims that man has no right to choose his own creed and worship-that to suppose he has such a right is monstrous-that to allow him to exercise such a right would be criminal-can be regarded by a nation of freemen in no other light than as a public and dangerous enemy. We-holding a more rational, a more tolerant, and, as we humbly believe, a more Christian doctrinetolerate their worship, and extend to them all civil rights; but as we are warned to look for no reciprocity, should our relative positions be reversed, we are bound to be especially careful to guard against the possibility of such a reversal. It would be affectation to pretend that we have the least apprehension of any such sudden or speedy change; but we are not the less called upon to be watchful against the gradual approaches to such change. With Catholicism as a system of doctrine, we have nothing to do; with Catholicism as an organized and permanent conspiracy against the freedom of the human mind, and ultimately against political and civil liberty, we are painfully and pressingly concerned. As a creed, and a fellow-candidate with our own for universal acceptance, we can meet it only in the field of fair controversy; and we have little fear for the ultimate issue of the encounter. But it is of the last importance to us all as citizens to take heed that the votaries of a Church so avowedly, conscientiously, and intrinsically hostile to liberty shall be allowed no sinister advantages, and should be permitted, as far as possible, to fight with no underhand weapons: that-while extending to the laity of that Church the full rights of citizenship, so long as they perform the duties, observe the bounds, and feel the loyalty of citizenship-we should remind them, that, if they are and profess themselves to be Romanists more than Britons, they are not entitled to complain if we regard and treat them rather as suspicious and dangerous aliens, than as devoted and liege subjects to a British Queen; and that their priests, with all their private virtues, all their cultivated minds, all their signal piety, constitute, simply and saliently, a firm, united, dangerous, association, pledged to the destruction-when the day of opportunity shall arrive-of all those liberties which we, as Englishmen, hold most sacred and most dear. It is not as worshippers of the Virgin, nor as believers in transubstantiation, that we object to the Roman Catholics : on these points, whatever be our individual opinions, we have no quarrel with them. It is as a submissive laity in the hands of an intolerant priesthood; it is as an organised sect, the principles of whose existence, the condition of whose success, is mental prostration and civil subjugation-that we dread, deprecate, and warn our countrymen against them.”

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THE KEYS OF HEAVEN AND HELL.

THE claims of the Romanists attracting more than usual attention at present, it seems not inapposite to offer a suggestion in counteraction of their extravagant pretensions. On the authority of Matt. xvi. 19, they affirm that to Peter, as the first bishop of Rome, the Lord gave "the keys of the kingdom of heaven," saying, "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven;" and that Peter transferred "the keys" to the succeeding bishop of Rome, who handed them to his successor down to the present bishop or Pope. Now it appears that subsequently, before his crucifixion, and also after his resurrection, the Lord gave "the keys" to all the disciples equally, by saying the same words (as recorded in Matt. xviii. 19, and John xx. 23.) which he had said to Peter, explanatory of what he means by "the keys." It appears only reasonable, then, that the Romanists should prove not only Peter's last will and testament conveying and confining this power to his alleged successor, but also prove that the other disciples made their wills to the same effect, since they had the same right to make a bequest of their "keys" to their successors, at will, as Peter had. Now, since Peter evidently had no exclusive right to "the keys," it follows, that if he left sole power to the bishop of Rome to use them, he must have been guilty of a fraud, just as a man would who, knowing that twelve copies of a valuable ancient book were in existence, of which he possessed one copy, should dispose of his copy falsely, affirming that it was the only one. Now, if a spiritual power, similar to that claimed by the Pope as being inherited from Peter, was possessed personally by all the disciples alike, and the Pope admits that eleven of them did not bequeath their power to him, it seems to follow that the bequest of one only must be invalid on the implied testimony of the rest, that as they had no right to make such a bequest, Peter could have none. But in Rev. i. 18, and iii. 7, the Lord Jesus declares that He himself possesses the mystical "keys," the power of opening and closing heaven and hell. Now since His power must be all-sufficient for the good of those who "ask and receive" it, what can any one be benefited by the Pope's keys? Jesus says, "Ask and ye shall receive;" but the Pope sells for filthy lucre his absolutions by the hands of thousands and thousands of mercenary and greedy agents, his priests. How long will the Romanists be induced to purchase the counterfeit of the Pope and Company, while they can always obtain the reality from Jesus Christ "without money and without price," simply by asking for it? LIBERTAS.

N. S. No. 148.-VOL. XIII.

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WOMAN'S TRUE POSITION.

WOMAN'S position in the scale of society is a subject which has lately occupied some share of attention. Our Transatlantic friends have come to certain resolutions at a public meeting, by which they wish to claim what they call " Enfranchisement" for woman; they express themselves convinced that hitherto she has not enjoyed that fair allotment of justice she deserves; that her energies have had no field for exertion; that she has been kept back without any valid reason; but that give her free scope, a wider education, different laws, in short, she will then assume her rightful place, and be equal in all respects to her fellow

man.

A Review of well known talent and influence, has in this country taken a similar view of the question, and advocates this enfranchisement of the female, this emancipation from what the writer deems mental slavery.

He argues, that at present woman draws man down to her inferior level, and that association with minds so beneath his own, as those of the females of his family, gradually and insensibly deteriorates his intellectual power, and places him in danger of losing that high relish for, and perception of truth, which should be his distinguishing characteristics. Further, the Essayist says that woman should be educated for herself alone, not for man, and goes the length of advocating her adoption of a profession, her attendance on public occasions, and all the liberty of citizenship. Other writers of the day, both in America and England, hold a different opinion, suggesting that woman's true position is one of social and domestic, not public and extensive duties; that her home is her world, where she may reign supreme, but in all gentle virtues, in passive submission, and in quiet, trusting subjection to authority. This class of writers agree that woman should be educated highly, but in the lighter branches of literature, and be so cultivated, only to render her fitted for intelligent communication with the male mind, to which, however, she will ever remain inferior. We have read these opposing sentiments within the last three months, and as we went along, could not but regret that so much argumentative force, and brilliant wording, should be expended on an "uncertain issue." We wished that some member of the New Church would take up the unsettled question and state,-what perhaps only an enlightened member of that church could state,--the true and real nature of the female mind: that it differs from, more than is inferior to the male;-why it

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