II. The Reformation has delivered the church from a multitude of doctrinal and practical corruptions.
Instead of worshipping God through the pretended mediation of angels, or the Virgin Mary, and other mortals termed saints, as is done even at this day in the Romish church, and offering to them a species of worship, Protestants have restored to them the privilege of worshipping God and him alone, through the divine Saviour. Pope Pius IV. whose creed is
22 Protestant, Vol. i. pp. 256-258.
embraced in the standards of the whole Romish church, employs this revolting language expressive of the Catholic faith: "I also believe that the saints, who reign with Christ, are to be worshipped and prayed to."23 The multitude of these pretended saints is almost such, that no man can number them; their works of piety and their stupendous miracles are treasured up in fifty-four folio volumes for the education of the children of the holy mother church! Some of these saints, it is believed, never existed on earth except in the imagination of the biographers who fabricated the legends of them. Such are Saint Longinus, who is said to have been the Roman soldier that pierced the spear into the Saviour's side on the cross; the gigantic St. Christopher, who is reputed to have carried Christ across an arm of the sea;24 St. Amphibolus, who was the only cloak of Albans, the British protomartyr!!25 Some of these saints were murderers, and traitors,26 such as the murderers of the Henrys of France, of the Prince of Orange, and Garnet of the gunpower plot.27 Others are by the best historians ranked among the most unprincipled, and notoriously corrupt sinners of their age. Such, to specify but one other, was Saint Gregory VII. named Hildebrand, of the eleventh century, who in order to raise the church above all human authority, to separate the clergy from all those social ties by which they were united to the people, and to convent them into a kind of standing army, whose entire interest it would be to obey implicitly the papal mandate, forcibly introduced the oft-attempted, and commended celibacy of the clergy, thus impiously denouncing the matrimonial relation, and separating hundreds of husbands from their lawful wives, fathers from their children, whilst it is notorious that he himself was living in illicit armours with Matilda, a very opulent and powerful Italian princess.28 What worshipper of the true God can reflect without horror on the idea of paying religious veneration to such monsters of iniquity! As well might we return to the era of Pagan Rome, and unite in the worship of her Jupiter and Juno, her Venus, and her Mars! But blessed be God, the Reformation has restored to us the primitive and precious doctrines of the gospel, has taught us "that there is but one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ
23 Creed of Pius IV. Art. 20 Concil. Trident. Sess. 25. de Invocat. Catechism. Rom. Part III. Ch. 2.
24 Horne on Popery, p. 16
25 Protestant, vol. i, p. 343
26 Brownlee's Popery an Enemy, &c., 152-3
27 Of this desperate scheme of papal bigotry, Dr. Mosheim gives the following brief account:--"All the resources of inventive genius and refined policy, all the efforts of insinuating craft and audacious rebellion, were employed to bring back Great Britain and Ireland under the yoke of Rome. But all these attempts were without effect. About the beginning of this century (1605) a set of desperate and execrable wretches, in whose breast the suggestion of bigotry and hatred of the Protestant religion had suppressed the feelings of justice and humanity, were instigated by three Jesuits, of whom Garnet, the superior of the Society in England, was the chief, to form the most horrid plot that is known in the annals of history. The design of this conspiracy was nothing less that to destroy, at one blow, king James I., the prince of Wales, and both houses of Parliament, by the explosion of an immense quantity of gunpowder (thirty-six barrels!*) which they concealed for that purpose, in the vaults under the house of Lords. The sanguinary bigots concerned in it, imagined that, as soon as this horrible deed was performed, they would be at full liberty to restore popery to its former credit, and substitute it in place of the Protestant religion. This odious conspiracy, which was providentially discovered, when it was rife for execution, is commonly known in Britain under the denomination of the Gunpowder treason."--Vol. iii. p. 463-464.
*Russell's Modern Europe, vol. ii. p. 47.
28 Mosheim, Hist. 11th Cent.
Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all."29 Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.30 Blessed be God, we now know, that "if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father," who is, not the virgin Mary, nor an angel, nor a real, or pretended saint, but is "Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world."31 Instead of believing that "the good works of believers are truly and properly meritorious, and fully worthy of eternal life;"32 the Reformation, by restoring to us the good word of God, has taught us to despair of the filthy rags of our own righteousness, to believe that "by grace we are saved, through faith, and that not of ourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast."33
Instead of them mutilated and corrupted sacraments of the Romish church, the Reformation has restored to us the primitive, simple ordinances of the gospel. The papal priests refuse to give the cup to the laity, whilst the Saviour gave it to all, and as if foreseeing the corruptions of after ages, added the express injunction: "drink ye all of this cup:" for he appended no such injunction in reference to the bread. The Romish church believe that the bread and wine in the eucharist are no longer bread and wine, but are converted by the consecration of the priest into the real material body and blood of the Saviour, a doctrine contradicted by common sense, refuted by the concurrent testimony of all our senses of touch, of taste, of smell, and of sight. The Reformation has taught us to regard the ordinance not as a renewed sacrifice or mass; but as a mnemonic ordinance to commemorate the dying love of the Saviour, and to serve as a pledge of his spiritual presence and blessing on all worthy participants. The Romish church has also, since the days of Peter Lombard, in the twelfth century, added five other sacraments to the two instituted by our Lord, viz., Confirmation, (Protestants do not hold confirmation as a sacrament) Penance, Orders, Matrimony and Extreme Unction.
Instead of vainly seeking remission of sins from priests and papal indulgences, the Reformation has taught us that "no man can forgive sin but God only,"34 and that none but "the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sin."35 The Romish pope had not only attempted to wrest this prerogative from the God of heaven;36 but had actually converted his pretended power into an ordinary article of merchandise; had published to the papal world a tariff of human crimes, affixing to each the price for which it would certainly be pardoned, or rather, as it may be styled, the expense at which it might be committed!! This power of selling indulgences was not even claimed by the popes prior to the twelfth century, much less was it granted them by the
29 1Tim. 2:5,6
30 Acts 4: 12.
31 1 John 2: 1,2.
32 Con. Trid. Sess. 6 chap. 16 Can. 32.
33 Ephes. 2: 8,9.
34 Mark 2: 7.
35 Luke 5: 21.
36 The decree of the Council of Trent explicitly decides, that priests forgive sins judicially and not declaratively.
Saviour. It was doubtless and still is one of the most fearful, soul-destroying corruptions of Christianity ever perpetrated on earth. It made it the interest of pope and priest, that men should commit crimes frequently and continually. The more vicious and corrupt the people, the greater the profits of the priests. It is obvious that in the hands of a priesthood sufficiently ignorant of God's word, sufficiently licentious, and destitute of spirituality to practise such a system, it must have a powerful tendency to obliterate from the popular mind all just sense of the guilt of sin, all conviction of what rendered the psalmist's transgressions most painful to him, "against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight."
Let it be imagined that this soul-destroying practice belonged only to the dark ages. Even at this day as travellers inform us, advertisements are put up in different Catholic countries of Europe, directing the victim of priestly deception whither to bear his money in order to barter it for indulgences!! No longer than the 24th of May, 1824, did Pope Leo XII. himself issue a bull, pledging, "the most plenary, and complete indulgence, remission, and pardon of all their sins," to such as during the ensuing year of Jubilee, would visit the churches of Rome and perform the prescribed ceremonies there!!
Instead of a professed celibacy of the priests and nuns, accompanied by the most appalling scenes of licentiousness and moral pollution, the Reformation, through the Scriptures, has again taught the church, that marriage is an ordinance of God, "is honourable in all," both priests and nuns, and is favourable in its tendency to chastity and every moral virtue. When we hear the Apostle Paul inculcating that a bishop, or minister, should be blameless, the husband of one wife;37 when we remember too that the apostle Peter, whom the Romanists are prone to cite as the first pope, was a married man;38 it is amazing that a church professing to follow the instructions of Christ and his apostles, could so directly in the face of the Scriptures, denounce what God enjoined, and even enact laws of absolute prohibition against those of the priesthood, who wished to honour the institution which God appointed. But in reality the sacred volume had for ages before the Reformation been virtually suppressed, and the corrupt system of popery had gradually grown up whilst the Bible was really unknown to the priests and withheld from the people. Attempts were made in the earlier ages of Christianity, long before the existence of the papal hierarchy, to enjoin celibacy on the priesthood. The council of Nice, however, A.D. 335, through the influence of a celebrated Christian sufferer, the one-eyed Paphnutius,39 rejected the growing error. But that memorable century had not been closed when the bishop of Rome, Siricius (A. D. 385) and soon after several Western Synods, enjoined it with some success. The principal circumstance which introduced celibacy among the ministry at that time was, that it became customary to elect monks to the pastoral charge of churches, so that the monastic life began to be regarded as preparation for the ministry, and as monks had vowed celibacy, the matrimonial state was discouraged among the clergy, but could not be generally suppressed even in the Latin church, until the time of Gregory VII. in the 11th century.
37 I Tim. 3:2; see also Titus 1:8.
38 Matt. 8: 14. Luke 4: 38.
39 Socratis Histor. Lib. i. chap. 8. This celebrated man had one of his eyes bored out in the persecutions, and so much was he esteemed and beloved by the emperor Constantine, that he is said often to have kissed the extinguished eye.
The natural consequence of this perversion of God's appointed laws, soon became manifest in the appalling scenes of corruption and licentiousness, in which, according to contemporaneous Catholic writers, monks and nuns, priests, bishops and popes were alike implicated!
40[At an early day after the introduction of celibacy it became customary for the priests to keep single females in their houses as professed religious sisters.41 To suppress the disorders thus introduced by these pretended friends of celibacy, it was found necessary to prohibit the priests from having any females in their houses, except their own mothers and sisters. But horrible to relate, from a decree of the Council. Moguntiae, A. D. 888, we learn that some of them had children by their own sisters!42 By a canon of the Concil. AEnhamense, A.D. 1009, it is expressly asserted, that some of them had not only one, but even two and more women living with them; that their voluptuous indulgences constituted their principal object of pursuit in life; and that they did not blush to be engaged with prostitutes, even more publicly, more ostentatiously, more lasciviously, and more perseveringly than the most unprincipled vagrants "among the laity."43 Hundreds of thousands of young females were enticed into their nunneries under pretence of spending their life in religious seclusion. These nunneries were almost invariably in the immediate vicinity of the institutions of the priests: and in different instances, where these establishments were town down, subterranean passages were discovered conducting from the one to the other!! Clemangis, a distinguished French Catholic, who studied at Paris under the learned Gerson, and lived about fifty years before the time of Luther, gives such a description of the nunneries as cannot be repeated at large before this audience. After enumerating various particulars, he adds, "What else are these nunneries than houses of prostitution? so that in our day for a female to take the veil, is the same as publicly to offer herself for prostitution."44
Geo. Cassander, a Catholic writer, born a few years before the Reformation, testifies "that scarcely one could be found in a hundred of the priests who was not guilty of illicit commerce with females."45 Many of the popes were among the most licentious and corrupt men to be found in the annuals of human debauchery,46 and Pope Paul III. even licensed brothels, for a regular sum of money.47]
Such according to the testimony of Romanish writers themselves, was the condition of the church prior to the Reformation! What gratitude is not due from every friend of virtue or
40 The paragraph included in [] was omitted in the delivery.
41 The Mulicres subintroductae. See Gieseler, vol. i, and Mosheim, vol.i.
42 Canon 10, Mansi xviii. p. 67. See Gieseler's Hist. vol. ii. p. 112.
43 Gieseler's History, Amer. ed., 1836. Vol. ii. p. 112. Omnes Dei ministros, &c. See also, pp. 114, 276.
44 M'Gavin's Protestant, Vol. ii. p. 718.
45 Protestant, Vol. ii. p. 718; also Murdock's Mosheim, Vol. ii. p. 71
46 Examples of such popes may be found in M'Gavin's Protestant, Vol. ii. pp. 27, 28.
47 "In the third year of his papacy, Paul III. granted a bull for publicly licensing brothels, and gave an
indulgence for the commission of lewdness, provided the man paid a certain fine to the holy see, and the woman a
yearly sum for her license, and entered her name into the public register. In the days of this pope, there are said to
have been 45,000 such women in Rome."--Protestant, vol. i. p. 141.
religion, that these corruptions have been banished from at least a large portion of the Christian world. What gratitude is due from every father and mother, that our eyes have been opened upon the corruption of these nunneries, that our daughters are no longer sent thither to be sacrificed to licentious priests! With what gratitude should we cherish the recollection of the glorious Reformation! and how faithfully should we labour by the dissemination of the word of God and of the spirit of piety among our fellow citizens of all descriptions to resist the progress of popery amongst us!
But may we not in charity doubt the justice of the inference from the character of the Romish institutions and priesthood of former ages, to those of the present day? Has not the Romish church itself been reformed by the streams of light thrown around her by the Reformation? With sincere delight and with gratitude to God would we adopt this opinion in al its latitude, if truth permitted us. Some effect the Reformation has doubtless exerted on the Roman Catholic church. In Protestant countries and especially in our own land, the native Catholic laymen are in general as moral as the mass of the community around them, and their priests generally observe external propriety of deportment. But that their monasteries and nunneries in Catholic countries are still nearly as corrupt as ever, and that the celibacy of the monks and priests leads to the same licentiousness of practice; is evident from undeniable authority, from the testimony of Romanists themselves!! Scipio de Ricci, a bigoted Roman bishop, but a good man, being employed by the Duke of Tuscany to reform the nunneries in that territory, visited these institutions, and presented to the pope the most revolting picture of these sinks of corruption.48 The character of these establishments in South America and the Spanish
48 "The vicar of Prato, Lorenzo Pally, being interrogated (by Ricci) answered that the nuns believed neither the sacraments of the church, nor the eternity of another life; that they denied certain criminal actions to be sins, and especially those of the flesh."--"The disorders discovered at Prato, were only the sequel of those which the government had rooted out of the convents of Pistoria. In two letters of Flavia Peraccini, Prioress of Catherine of Pistoria, to comparini, rector of the episcopal seminary in the same city, the nun relates what passed before her eyes in her own convent, what had passed there before she wrote, and what still continued to take place in other convents, particularly at Prato."
"It would require both time and memory, (she says) to recollect what has occurred during the twenty-four years that I have had to do with monks, and all that I have heard tell of them. Of those who are gone to the other world, I shall say nothing; of those who are still alive, and have a little decency of conduct, there are very many."-- "With the exception of three or four, all that I ever knew, alive or dead, are of the same character; they have all the same maxims and the same conduct. They are on more intimate terms with the nuns than if they were married to them."
"It is the custom now, that, when they come to visit any sick sister, they sup with the nuns, they sing, dance, play and sleep in the convent. It is a maxim of theirs, that God has forbidden hatred but not love; and that the man is made for the woman, and the woman for the man. They teach us to amuse ourselves, saying, that Paul said the same, who wrought with his own hands. They deceive the innocent, and even those that are most circumspect; and it would need a miracle to converse with them and not fall. The priests are the husbands of the nuns, and the lay brothers of the lay sisters. In the chamber of one of those I have mentioned, a man was one day found; he fled; but very soon after they gave him to us as confessor extraordinary!"--"The monks have never done any thing to me personally to make me dislike them; but I will say that so iniquitous a race as the monks nowhere exists. Bad as the seculars are, they do not at all come up to them; and the art of the monks with the world and their superiors baffles description."--
"When they gave us the holy water every year, they threw every thing, even the beds, into disorder. What a racket they used to make! One time they washed father Manni's face and dressed him like a nun. In short, it was a perpetual scene of amusements, comedies and conversation forever. Every monk who passed by on his way to the
West Indies is equally notorious:49 and God in his inscrutable providence has within late years granted us by the testimony of other witnesses besides Maria Monk, the most appalling
chapter, they found some means of showing into the convent, and entreated a sick sister to confess herself. Everlasting scandal about husbands--of those who had stolen the mistress of such a one; how others had avenged themselves in the chapter; and how they would not have forgiven even in death."--"Do not suppose, (she says) that this is the case in our convent alone. It is just the same in Lucia, at Prato, at Pisa, at Perugia; and I have heard things that would astonish you. Every where it is the same, every where the same disorders, every where the same abuses prevail." Let the reader remember, that this is the testimony given by inmates of the nunneries, given to the Romish bishop, and sent by him to the pope with the prayer for reform! No Protestant had any hand in it. But instead of effecting reform, De Ricci was persecuted and disgraced for publishing the truth to the world!!! See The Secrets of Nunneries Disclosed, compiled from the autograph manuscripts of Scipio de Ricci, Roman Catholic bishop of Pistoria and Prato, by Mr. De. Potter. Edited by Thomas Roscoe, Abridged, pp. 91--94. Published by D. Appleton & Co. No. 200 Broadway, New York, 1834.
49 According to St. Ligori, who was the author of the most modern system of theology published by the papists, and was canonized by Pope Pius VII. in 1816, the council of Trent made regular and standing provision for mulcting those priests who keep concubines!! "A bishop, (he says) however poor he may be, cannot appropriate to himself pecuniary fines without the license of the apostolic see. But he ought to apply them to pious uses. Much less can he apply those fines to any thing else but pious uses, which the council of Trent has laid upon non-resident clergymen, or upon those clergymen who keep concubines." Ligori, Ep. Doc, Mor. p. 444, as translated by Mr. Smith, late a popish priest, in his Synopsis of Moral Theology, taken from Ligori, published in New York, in 1836.
"How shameful a thing, (says Mr. Smith) that the apostolic see, as they call it, that is, the Pope of Rome, should enrich his coffers by the fines which he receives from profligacy of his clergy! If they keep concubines, they must pay a fine for it, but it they marry, they must be excommunicated! This accounts at once for the custom in Spain, and other countries, and especially on the island of Cuba, and in South America; where almost every priest has concubines, who are known by the name of nieces.--The 'Narrative of Rosamond,' who was once herself one of these concubines, in the island of Cuba, portrays the general licentiousness of the Popish clergy in colours so shocking, that the picture cannot be looked at without a blush. Here we see the doctrine fully exemplified by practice. This keeping of concubines is a thing so common in the Popish West India Islands, and in South America, that it is rarely noticed." See Smith's Synopsis of Ligori, p. 296, 297.
St. Ligori himself asserts a fact which, as Mr. Smith justly observes, strongly corroborates the Revelations of Maria Monk; namely, that refactory, incorrigible nuns are punished by imprisonment for life. "A nun (says he) who is guilty of a grievous or pernicious crime, and who appears to be notoriously incorrigible is to be confined in perpetual imprisonment." But they are not expelled as some monks are. The reason is obvious. Nuns, if expelled, would reveal the licentious and brutal treatment they have received from the priests, whilst the latter would be careful not to inform on themselves. Smith's Synopsis of Ligori's Moral Theology, p. 231, 232. Now let it be remembered, that the writings of Ligori were approved by Pope Pius VII. and by the Sacred Congregation of Rites so late as 1816: and that, as Dr. Varela, the priest of New York asserted three years ago, are in the hands of almost every priest, and therefore also of those at Montreal; and there will be nothing incredible in the following narrative of Maria Monk. St. Ligori himself testifies, that nuns are thus imprisoned for life. Maria Monk, p. 138--142, 2d edit. says,
"I continued to visit the cellar frequently, to carry up coal for the fires, without any thing more than a general impression that there were two nuns somewhere imprisoned in it. One day while there on my usual errand, I saw a nun standing on the right of the cellar, in front of one of the cell doors I had before observed; she was apparently engaged with something within. This attracted my attention. The door appeared to close in a small recess, and was fastened with a stout iron bolt on the outside, the end of which was secured by being let into a hole in the stone-work, which rose and formed an arch over head. Above the bolt was a small window supplied with a fine grating, which swung open, a small bolt having been removed from it, on the outside. The nun I observed seemed to be whispering with some person within, through the little window: but I hastened to get my coal, and left the cellar, presuming that was the prison. When I visited the place again, being alone, I ventured to the spot, determined to learn the truth, presuming the imprisoned nuns of whom the Superior had told me on my admission, were
disclosures of midnight scenes of debauchery, of deception, of cruelty, which are transacted in a nunnery on the borders of our own country, as if to warn the citizens of this republic in time to
confined there. I spoke at the window where I had seen the nun standing, and heard a voice reply in a whisper. The aperture was so small, and the place so dark, that I could see nobody; but I learnt that a poor wretch was confined there a prisoner. I feared that I might be discovered, and after a few words, which I thought could do no harm, I withdrew.
"My curiosity now was alive, to learn every thing I could about so mysterious a subject. I made a few inquiries of Saint Xavier, who only informed me that they were punished for refusing to obey the Superior, Bishop, and Priests. I afterwards found that the other nuns were acquainted with the fact I had just discovered. All I could learn, however, was, that the prisoner in the cell whom I had spoken with, and another in the cell just beyond, had been confined there several years without having been taken out; but their names, connections, offences, and every thing else relating to them, I could never learn, and am still as ignorant as ever. Some conjectured that they had refused to comply with some of the rules of the convent, or requisitions of the Superior: others, that they were heiresses whose property was desired for the convent, and who would not consent to sign deeds of it. Some of the nuns informed me, that the severest of their sufferings arose from fear of supernatural beings.
"I often spoke with one of them in passing near their cells, when on errands in the cellar, but never ventured to stop long, or to press my inquiries very far. Besides, I found her reserved, and little disposed to converse freely, a thing I could not wonder at when I considered her situation, and the characters of persons around her. She spoke like a woman in feeble health, and of broken spirits. I occasionally saw other nuns speaking to them, particularly at meal-times, when they were regularly furnished with food, which was such as we ourselves ate.
"Their cells were occasionally cleaned, and then the doors were opened. I never looked into them, but was informed that the ground was their only floor. I presumed that they were furnished with straw to lie upon, as I always saw a quantity of old straw scattered about that part of the cellar, after the cells had been cleansed. I once inquired of one of them, whether they could converse together, and she replied that they could, through a small opening between their cells, which I could not see.
"I once inquired of the one I spoke with in passing, whether she wanted any thing, and she replied, 'Tell Jane Ray I want to see her a moment if she can slip away.' When I went up I took an opportunity to deliver my message to Jane, who concerted with me a signal to be used in future, in case a similar request should be made through me. This was a sly wink at her with one eye, accompanied with a slight toss of my head. She then sought an opportunity to visit the cellar, and was soon able to hold an interview with the poor prisoners, without being noticed by any one but myself. I afterward learnt that mad Jan Ray was not so mad, but she could feel for those miserable beings, and carry thorough measures for their comfort. She would often visit them with sympathizing words, and, when necessary, conceal part of her food while at the table, and secretly convey it into their dungeons. Sometimes we would combine for such an object; and I have repeatedly aided her in thus obtaining a larger supply of food than they had been able to obtain from others.
"I frequently thought of the two nuns confined in the cells, and occasionally heard something said about them, but very little. Whenever I visited the cellar, and thought it safe, I went up to the first of them, and spoke a word or two, and usually got some brief reply, without ascertaining that any particular change took place with either of them. The one with whom alone I ever conversed, spoke English perfectly well, and French I thought as well. I supposed she must have been well educated, for I could not tell which was her native language. I remember that she frequently used these words when I wished to say more to her, and with which alone showed that she was constantly afraid of punishment: 'Oh, there's somebody coming--do go away!' I have been told that the other prisoner also spoke English.
"It was impossible for me to form any certain opinion about the size or appearance of those two miserable creatures, for their cells were perfectly dark, and I never caught the slightest glimpse even of their faces. It is probable they were women not above the middle size, and my reason for this presumption is the following: I was sometimes appointed to lay out the clean clothes for all the nuns in the Convent on Saturday evening, and was always directed to lay by two suits for the prisoners. Particular orders were given to select the largest sized garments for several tall nuns; but nothing of the kind was ever said in relation to the clothes of those in the cells."
guard against the inroads of the destroyer. Indeed, incredible as it might seem, from the questions which females are required to answer according to their own published directory, it is evident that even in these United States, the intercourse of the priests and females at the confessional is such as no virtuous father or husband ought to permit, such as no wife or daughter ought to hear without feeling insulted.50 They are too obscene to be publicly repeated before a promiscuous
50 The ensuing "examination of conscience," as it is termed, is extracted from the Catholic's Manual, a volume issued by John Power, the popish vicar general of New York, pp. 289, 290, 291. Persons going to confession, are required to state whether they have committed the following sins, viz.--"Sins against ourselves by impurity. 1. In thoughts: in wilfully dwelling upon or taking pleasure in unchaste thoughts. It must be mentioned how long, whether with desires of committing evil; whether they caused irregular motions, and in a holy place--and whether the objects of sinful desires were single or married persons, or persons consecrated to God, (that is, the priest himself!) 2. In words. Speaking obsecenly, listening with pleasure to such vile language, singing unchaste songs, giving toasts and sentiments contrary to modesty. 3. In looks. Viewing immodest objects; reading bad books; keeping indecent pictures; frequenting plays, and tempting others to sin by dissolute glances, gestures, and immodesty in dress or behaviour. 4. In actions. Defiling the sanctity of marriage by shameful liberties contrary to nature; in touching ourselves or others immodestly, or permitting such base liberties. Certain sins of a lonely and abominable nature. What were the consequences of these sinful impurities? explain every thing--the number of these bad actions, the length of time continued in the habit, and with whom we sinned."--Protestant, Vol. ii. p. 726, Hartford ed. of 1833.'
Of similar obscene character, though not quite so much in detail, are the questions published in Philadelphia, under the sanction of Mr. Kenrick, the Roman prelate of that city, in the Key of Paradise, p. 115. Those in the "Pious Guide to Prayer," &c., used in Maryland, and published at Georgetown, 1825, fourth edition, p. 145 to 148, embrace all the above questions, with additional intervening reflections.
Equally if not more indecent are the questions contained in a German work, republished in Baltimore, in 1830, and used at least by some German Catholics, to the writer's certain knowledge, in this country. It has the sanction of several Romish dignitaries in Europe, and on the title-page the impress "mit Erlaubnisz de Obern," (sanctioned by the higher authorities.) This work, entitled, "Elsasisches Missionsbuchlein," by a priest of the society of Jesuits, &c. &c., contains a mirror for the confessional (Beichtspiegel,) and among many other questions similar to those of the New York directory, has the following:
"If you are married, you must state, in open-hearted confession, everything (touching this commandment, adultery, &c.) which you committed in single life; then also what sins you committed after your marriage, either with others or with your companion, inasmuch as not all things are allowed even to married persons. Do not forget to mention what may have taken place between the time of your engagement and your actual marriage; inasmuch as any thing impure committed at that time is yet a moral sin."
"I have indulged in a criminal attachment.--Add how long."
"I have been with persons of the other sex during the night--How often," &c.
"I gave occasion to unchaste dreams--How often," &c.
"I have committed sins of impurity on my own person--How often," &c.
"I gave unchaste kisses, or willingly received them--How often," &c.
"I touched others unchastely, or permitted them to take such liberties with me--How often," &c.
"I have sinned with persons of the other sex, by unchaste acts--How often," &c.
"I have sinned against beasts, by licentious glances, or in other way--How often, &c.
Such are the awfully obscene questions which are circulated by Romish priests among the people of every rank and age; and about which, according to their own system, they must habitually converse with females, of every age, above twelve years!! Can any man doubt the debasing and demoralizing tendency of making such questions familiar to the minds of all sexes and ages, and of requiring females, on pain of perdition, statedly to talk with their
assembly. What an invaluable service have not the blessed reformers rendered to the cause of religion, of moral purity, of conjugal security, of social happiness, by banishing these corrupting doctrines and institutions, by removing the obscene and filthy practice of auricular confession to the priest,51 and by restoring to us and our families the pure and elevating doctrines of the gospel
priests about them? The writer has had serious doubts of the propriety of presenting these questions to his Protestant readers even in a note; and nothing could induce him to do it, but the extreme reluctance of the Protestant community to believe any mere abstract statements of the licentious character and tendency of the Romish religion. Surely, when the proofs are taken from their own manuals of worship, published by themselves, in our own country, by their own bishops, and used in our own neighbourhood, in their worship, it cannot any longer be said, that these charges are slanderous, or are applicable only to former ages or other countries.
But even these questions are not all. Will it be believed, that five times as many more, on this same filthy subject, many of them far more particular and obscene than these, are given as instruction to priests, in the Theology of Peter Dens, one of the latest systems of Papal theology, republished at Dublin, in 1832, with the sanction of the present Archbishop Murray? It is now the text-book at the Theol. Seminary at Maynooth, and has probably been studied by all the Irish priests, who have come amongst us. If any man should dispute the fact, we can show him the work!
51 We subjoin the following melancholy and humiliating statements from an authentic and highly interesting work, written by a converted French priest, now in this country, translated by Mr. S. F. B. Morse, Professor in the New York University, entitled, Confessions of a French Catholic Priest, p. 103, &c.
"Three great principles and tenets are the essence of confession. The first is, that the confessor is as God himself, whose place he holds; the second is, that nothing must be hid from the confessor, because God knows all, and his vicegerent must also know all; the third is, that a blind and most absolute obedience is owed to the confessor as to God himself. Hence it is easy to see that Popery, by an abominable substitution, makes a man disappear as much as possible, and puts God himself in the place of man. This idea, once deeply impressed in the minds of boys, from their childhood, strengthened all the tenets of the Catholic church in the confessional, in the catechism, in discourses, in books of piety, &c., it is not astonishing that such respect, veneration and obedience are paid to the confessor. The Protestant who reads the history of my country, will cease to gaze with surprise at those facts (incredible, perhaps to him) of a confessor who orders his penitent to kill another man by the command of the Lord. When a confessor ordered the fanatic and deluded Clement to kill his king, Henry III., the order was from God. When Damiens stabbed Louis XV., the order was from God. When the confessor of Louis XIV. ordered him to revoke the edict of Nantes, the order was from God.
"But it would be quite useless to give any more particular examples, since, according to the true spirit of confession, there is not a single crime which, looked at in the light of theology, cannot, must not, be advised and ordered by the confessor; above all, for the advantage of the Catholic church. When a man acts for this end, he cannot sin; for, as it is said among priests, 'the end sanctifies the means.' This is the key-stone to the Romish edifice; and the priest, feeling his human weakness, has called the name of God to his help, to strengthen his feebleness, to authorise his errors, to sanctify his crimes.--I have confessed priests and laymen of every description, a bishop (once,) superiors, curates, persons high and low, women, girls, boys. I am, therefore, fitted to speak of the confessional.
"The confession of men is a matter of high importance in political matters, to impress their minds with slavish ideas. As for other matters, confessors endeavour to give a high opinion of their own holiness to fathers and husbands, that they may be induced to send to the confessional, without any fear, their wives and daughters. Because, doubtless, should fathers and husbands know what passes at the confession-box between the holy man and their wives and daughters, they never would permit them again to go to those schools of vice. But priests command most carefully to women never to speak of their confession to men, and they inquire severely about that in every confession.
"The confession of the female sex is the great triumph, the most splendid theatre of priests. Here is completed the work which is but begun through all their intercourse with women; for all our relations with them begin from their birth and continue till their death. In their baptism we sprinkle their heads with holy water, at their
and the simple and holy practices of the primitive churches! The Reformation has restored to us God's own word, which teaches us the sanctity of the marriage relation, teaches females as well as males to confess their sins not to the priest but to Him, who alone can pardon them, to God; which inculcates a standard of moral purity, and of female delicacy, such as would make a Protestant lady shrink with detestation from such questions, as according to their own directory, even every American Catholic female must converse about to her priest at confession.
„Discourse in commemoration of the glorious reformation of the sixteenth century“ von Samuel Simon Schmucker († 1873), Gould and Newman, 1838 · Text nach einer digitalen Abschrift des Drucks, gemeinfrei · Originalscan bei archive.org · Titelbild schlicht selbst gestaltet