PAPAL SOVEREIGNTY.] This is politically supported by a pretended infallibility; auricular confession, founded upon the priest's power to forgive sins; indulgences; pretended relics; penance; strings of beads for Ave-Marys and pater-nosters; celibacy; merits and works of supererogations; restrictions; monkish austerities; religious vows and orders; palms; candles; decorated images; holy water; christening of bells; hallowed flowers and branches; agnus dei; oblations; consecrations, &c., &c.
LUDICROUS FORMS AND CEREMONIES.] At the feast of Christmas, the Roman catholics have exhibited in their churches a cradle, with an image of an infant in it, which is rocked with great seeming devotion; and on Good-Friday they have the figure of our Saviour on the cross, and then they perform the service which they call the Tenebres; having abundance of lighted candles, all of which they extinguish one by one, after which the body is taken down from the cross and put into a sepulchre, and men stand to watch it.
CRUEL MAXIMS.] Papists hold that heretics may not be termed children and kindred; that no faith is to be kept with heretics; and that it is lawful to torture or kill them for the good of their souls.
SKETCH OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789, AS CONNECTED WITH THE HISTORY OF PERSECUTION.
The design of those who were the primary agents in originating the causes of the French Revolution, was the utter subversion of the christian religion. Voltaire, the leader in this crusade against religion, boasted that "with one hand he would pull down, what took twelve Apostles to build up." The motto on the seal of his letters was, "Crush the wretch," having reference to Jesus Christ, and the system of religion, which he promulgated. To effect his object he wrote and published a great variety of infidel tracts, containing the most licentious sentiments and the most blasphemous attacks upon the religion of the Bible. Innumerable copies of these tracts were printed, and gratuitously circulated in France and other countries. As they were adapted to the capacity of all classes of persons, they were eagerly sought after, and read with avidity. The doctrines inculcated in them were subversive of every principle of morality and religion. The everlasting distinctions between virtue and vice, were completely broken down. Marriage was ridiculed--obedience to parents treated as the most abject slavery--subordination to civil government, the most odious despotism--and the acknowledgement of a God, the height of folly and absurdity. Deeply tinged with such sentiments, the revolution of 1789, found the popular mind in France prepared for all the atrocities which followed. The public conscience had become so perverted, that scenes of treachery, cruelty and blood were regarded with indifference, and sometimes excited the most unbounded applause in the spectators. Such a change had been effected in the French character, by the propagation of Infidel and Atheistical opinions, "that from being one of the most light hearted and kind tempered of nations," says Scott, "the French seemed upon the revolution to have been animated, not merely with the courage, but with the rabid fury of wild beasts." When the Bastile was stormed "Fouton and Berthier, two individuals whom they considered as enemies of the people, were put to death, with circumstances of cruelty and insult fitting only at the death stake of an Indian encampment; and in imitation of literal cannibals, there were men, or rather monsters found, not only to tear asunder, the limbs of their victims, but to eat their hearts, and drink their blood."
Croly, in his new interpretation of the Apocalypse, holds the following language.
The primary cause of the French revolution was the exile of Protestantism.
Its decency of manners had largely restrained the licentious tendencies of the higher orders; its learning had compelled the Romish Ecclesiastics to similar labours; and while christianity could appeal to such a church in France, the progress of the infidel writers was checked by the living evidence of the purity, peacefulness and wisdom of the Gospel. It is not even without sanction of scripture and history to conceive that, the presence of such a body of the servants of God was a divine protection to their country.