Komanism has alone stood out in the Christian Church supplying an interpretation of the Scrip- tures which I'rotcstantisui has as steadfastly discard- ed. Popes and Church councils have rejieatedly de- clared the extermination of heretics a duty, and pro- nounced execrable and diininable all opinions to the contrary ; so much so that there is no doctrine what- ever more absolutely asserted by the Church officially than this; and the moderate nominal Romanist who allows himself to dissent from it might just as well set his individual judgment against that of the Church upon anj' other article of its creed. The liberal Prot- estant must be told that the very central and funda- mental conception of the Roman Catholic sj'stem must produce, as its natural and inevitable consequence, wherever it is dominant, those three great objects of sacerdotal ambition in the jMiddle Ages — persecution of recusants at home, propagation of the faith by force abroad, and the supremacy of the religious over the civil power. If these objects are but partially attain- able in our modern world, it is because the principle itself has lost its power over the minds of men ; half the world is anti-Catholic, and multitudes, who are Roman Catholics by birth and education, and who, in their indifference, are satisfied with tiie forms of the religion they have inherited, have never reallj"^ im- bibed its spirit. The doctrine of the Papacy is this : God has intrusted the salvation of mankind to the Church — that is, to the clerical order. Tiiis salvation is essen- tiallv effected by the administration of the sacraments. The spiritual doniinion exercised by the Church ex- tends by right over the whole world ; every human creature belongs to it as much as he belongs to the civil society of which he is born a member, without any choice of his own, both the one and the other be- ing established of God. Lastlj', the great mission of the Church is to make this right a fact, by bringing the entire race to obedience to their spiritual advisers, and to the habitual use of the sacraments, and bj' obtaining from all local civil governments entire freedom of ac- tion for the universal spiritual government. A bad logician may admit this theory, and denv its conse- quences; but no num can embrace it from the heart, and prize it as the great divine appointment for the everlasting weal of mankind, without approving its consequences, and desiring practically to follow them out. Why scruple at converting barbarians by the sword.' The metiiod has been successful ; whole pop- ulations have tiius l)een brought within reach of sacra- mental grace ; and if the hearts of a first treneration are too obdurate to ])r(ifit bj' it, their descendants will. "Why shudder at the fearful punishment of heretics? They are rebels, rebels against the highest and holiest authority : we must cut ofl' the diseased member for the good of the whole body : we must punish those that would poison souls. Why l)e astonished at the assumpticin of a jjriest's superiority over the kings of the earth? Is he not a nearer representative of God, the possessor of a higher order of authority, addressing itself to the deepest powers and susceptibilities of our nature? The king, as well as the jieasant, in all his conduct comes under the cognizance of the authorized interpreter of the divine will. "The king of Eng- land," WTote Innocent III to Philip Augustus, "thy brother in the faith, complains that thou hast sinned
against him : he has given thee warning ; he has taken as witnesses great lords, in order to re-establish peace ; and when that failed, he has accused thee to the Church. The Church has sought to emjjloy paternal love, and not the severity of a judge. She has entreated thee to conclude a peace, or, at least, a truce ; and if thou wilt not hear the Church, must thou not be to us as a pagan and a publican ?" It is impossible to adopt the conception of the Church and its agency supposed in the pope's reasoning, and not admit that his conclusion is just and scriptural. An expression constantly recur- ring in Innocent's letters is that of "the liberty of the Church :'■ in its use he was not alwaj's wrong ; for the pretensions of the spiritual power produced reprisals and usurpations on the part of the temporal ; but the phrase generallj' meant that the civil power was to walk out of the Church's way whenever they came into con- flict. And so it ought to do, if it were true that the Creator of heaven and earth had founded the sacerdo- tal bod}', and given it the mission to take men and save them, as children are caiTied out of a burning house, with a merely passive co-operation of their own. The priest does not want to be king; but he claims the right to reign over the king, which is the surest way of reigning ; and, fiom his point of view, the great busi- ness of the secular arm — the reason for which it exists — is the repression of heresy. It is an arm, and no more. Here are two systems in presence of each other. On the one, man belongs to himself, that he may give him- self to God ; the Church is the society formed hy those who have freeh' given themselves to God; individual piety thus logically, even when not chronologically, preceding collective life ; the knowledge of God in Je- sus Christ being the introduction to the Church, and the ordinances of the latter being means of grace, the blessing of which depends upon the recipient's moral state and personal relation to God. On the other sj-s- tem, man belongs to the sacerdotal order, and the ser- vices of the Church are the only introduction to Jesus Christ : she is the nursing mother of his members, re- ceiving them into her bosom before the}' are conscious of it, and feeding them Avith ordinances, the blessing of which is independent of the recipient's moral expe- riences. It is evident that conceptions so utterl}' at variance must make their opposition felt throughout the whole scries of ecclesiastical relations, in the char- acter of their proselj'tism, in their manner of dealing with the impenitent, in their attitude toward the here- tic or the heathen. As has already been said, religious indifference may make the mereh' nominal Catholic tolerant, but the real Romanist must persecute wher- ever he has the power ; he must interpret after the let- ter that favorite text of the Dominicans, "Compel them to come in." That is no misrepresentation which makes him sa}' to his adversaries, " When j'ou are the strong- er, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tid- erate truth. But when I am the stronger, I shall per- secute you ; for it is my duty to persecute error." What are Rome's doings in Spain and Italy at the present moment? Let the Romish hierarchy become dominant in some distant island at the antipodes, away from all foreign influences and all excuse of political interest, and it will immediately exhibit its inevitable tendencies. In 18-10 the inhabitants of the largest cf the Marquesas, at the instigation of their priests, ex- pelled from the island the minority that had become Protestant. An infallible Church can ])ersecute with a good conscience ; for the infallil)ility of an authority implies its resistless evidence, so that it cannot be re- sisted without guilt, nor can it ever be mistaken in its blows. This is so true that it is avowed by the most consistent ultramontane organs of England and tlie Continent, l)y the Tablet, and more unreservedlj- still by the Unicerse. Nay, the zeal of the Anglo- Catholic might sliame many a lukewarm Romanist; for one of the sj-mptoms of a thorough appropriation of the sacramental svstem among recreant Protestants