DEALINGS WITH THE INQUISITION; or, Papal Rome, her Priests and her Jesuits. With important Disclosures. By the Rev. GIACINTO ACHILLI, D.D., late Prior and Visitor of the Dominican Order, Head Professor of Theology, and Vicar of the Master of the Sacred Apostolical Palace, &c. &c.

London: Arthur Hall, Virtue, and Co. FACTS attest that the instinct of animal ferocity cannot be eradicated. It may be held in check: wise and vigilant precaution may prevent its development, or guard against its sanguinary outbreak; but no process of training, or form of discipline can altogether remove it. When restraint is withdrawn and vigilance is permitted to slumber-an appropriate stimulus being at the same time presented-the animal that seemed gentle, fawning upon its keeper, and licking his hand in proof of affection, yields to the impulse of its instinct, and seeks gratification in blood. In like manner, we believe, facts, as well as the claim to unchangeableness and infallibility set up by the Papal Church, abundantly attest, that neither the general progress of civilisation, nor the toleration and concessions of England, will eradicate the spirit of usurpation, rapacity, and blood by which that system is essentially distinguished. Let its history be read, not in the exaggerations of ignorant declaimers, or prejudiced partisans, but in the calm and concurrent testimony of enlightened historians-and intolerance and persecution will be found to be its uniform characteristics. Not only has it in every land, where it had gained the ascendancy, frowned on civil freedom; but, with dungeon and scaffold and stake, it has uniformly striven to extinguish all free and enlightened opinion on questions connected with religion. To the truth of this the annals of almost every European nation bear the amplest testimony; and none, perhaps, more emphatically than those of England. Let them be dispassionately examined, and even the false liberalism, and the affected sense of political justice, which seem now so solicitous to guard the immunities of Romanisin against the possibility of infringement, must acknowledge that it has uniformly been the opponent of civil rights, and the bitter and unrelenting enemy of all religious toleration. Nor, with the page of history before them, can the politicians and religionists who plead for the unrestricted toleration of Romanism, imagine that, in the ascendant, and allied with "the powers that be," it would reciprocate that toleration. If re-instated in the position,

and invested afresh with the authority, it once possessed in England, it would immediately repay toleration with the fieriest forms of persecution, and would not hesitate to immolate on its altars the very men who are now so eloquent and zealous in its defence.

That the Papal Church is unchanged, and that its instinctive ferocity, which thirsts for blood, although restrained at the present time in England, is still active, and prompt to seize and rend its victims, is attested by the fact that the Inquisition-designated by priests, "holy Roman, universal, apostolic❞— now exists in Rome, with its full complement of judges, secretaries, gaolers, spies, familiars, and apparatus of torture; and that the writer of the volume now before us, a distinguished scholar, and once a zealous Romanist, escaped from its dungeons with the utmost difficulty, and only by the interference of a foreign power. A system, indeed, that could frame, and could continue, amid the light of the nineteenth century, to employ, an engine of persecution so tremendous, that a perusal of its history overwhelmns the spirit with mingled feelings of grief and indignation, and fills the imagination, for ever after, with images of horror, should be held up to the universal execration of mankind, and should be repudiated and branded by every nation of the earth, as immutably and incurably wicked, as the enemy of all civil freedom, and the unrelenting foe of all genuine religion.

A perusal of this volume will abundantly show that the Inquisition is still an essential and recognised part of the Romish system, and that, wherever opportunity presents itself, it is ready to practise before "high Heaven" its deeds of horror, which, in ages past, have so often made "the angels weep." And hence that every nation, seeking the maintenance of freedom, and the progress of religion, should avow itself hostile to the Papal Church; and that Englishmen should strive to defend themselves against the possibility of its ascendancy among them, not merely by the diffusion of knowledge, and the preaching of the gospel, but by sound forms of legislation, is demanded alike by the recollections of the past, and the admonitory facts of the present. Should Romanism, unchanged and unchangeable in its spirit, be permitted by Englishmen to invade, without limit or hindrance, the prerogatives of the crown; to map out the country into Sees at the bidding of the Vatican; and to bedeck itself with lordly and illegitimate titles for the purpose of dazzling and seducing the multitude, then

there will be ground to fear that the Protestantism, which has enriched the diadem of England with its brightest jewels, and has invested its people with their noblest privilege, is waning, and destined to fall. Only let the Papal system, once driven out of England, return, and, instead of coming in a modified and tolerant form-instead of yielding to the softening and humanising influences of the nineteenth century-instead of patronising civil freedom and the exercise of private judgment-instead of permitting Protestants to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, it will come with its spirit of intolerance and persecution augmented, if possible, sevenfold. The recollection of its defeat and humiliation in this country, combined with the malignant gratification experienced by ignoble natures in the free exercise of revenge long pent up, would so inflame its darkest passions, and so sharpen its thirst for blood, that scaffolds would be erected, and stakes lighted, in every town and city. One dreadful Bartholomew would smite the whole land with desolation, and number Protestantism with the things that had passed.

Some among the avowed friends of Protestantism may be disposed to smile at all this. They may pronounce us mere alarmists, and may charge us with mistaken apprehensions of truth, and a want of confidence in our principles. It is easy to do this; and it may sound very fine, and may seem noble and generous and high-souled to speak of the immortality of truth, and to plead for simple reliance on great principles. But, if we have not altogether misunderstood some of the leading tendencies of human nature, and read amiss the great lessons of history, our fears are not idle fancies, nor are our anticipations, in the event of Papal ascendancy in this country, a "sick man's dream." History reminds us that truth has oftentimes been trodden down in the streets, and that great principles, if not destroyed, have for centuries been arrested in their development, like seeds entombed in the Pyramids of Egypt, by tyranny and superstition. The annals of France and Spain and England tell of the arrest of great principles, and of the dishonour and apparent extinction of Protestant truth. And what has been done in past ages by the selfishness and violence of men, stimulated by superstition and a love of power, may be repeated. If truth is not guarded by its friends-if it is not defended from the violence of its enemies, by such munitions as its conflicts with false systems suggest-if great principles are left, like seeds scattered by the wayside, to be trodden down by every passer-by, the future must be as the past,-error must prevail; and Protestantism may fall beneath the in

tolerance and usurpations of the Papal Church. Had Dr. Achilli been abandoned by his friends, and left single-handed and alone to effect his own deliverance-had not the strong arm of power been stretched out on his behalf, he would have remained in the grasp of the Inquisition, and would have perished in its dungeons. We affirm, then, that when the rude hand of violence would attempt to dishonour the ark of God, it should be thrust back; that sacred thing should be so compassed about and fortified by the sanctity and authority of law, that the guilty assailant would find himself arrested by penalties and solemn sanctions. We do not mean, however, that religion should be enforced by pains and penalties, but that such a conspiracy against the rights and immunities of nations, and the freedom of opinion, as is implied in the Papal system, should not be permitted to develope itself afresh in England without being arrested and put down by the authority of law. Let Romanists have perfect toleration; let them rear their sanctuaries and practise their mummeries in open day; let no penalty visit them, because they embrace the follies of transubstantiation and sacramental grace; but, at the same time, we contend that our civil rights and religious freedom should be guarded, by the authority and the sanctions of law, against the usurpation and encroachments of a system, whose essential principles and past history proclaim it to be the antagonist of liberty, the enemy of free inquiry, and the advocate of persecution in its foulest and most sanguinary forms.

Protestantism, we doubt not, will prevail, involving in its progress the overthrow of Romanism. But if this consummation is to be secured, the friends of truth must not yield to the supineness of " dull ease," or permit themselves to be seduced, by the fallacies and plausibilities of a false liberalism, into forgetfulness of all precaution and means of protection against the rapacity and violence of the Papal Church. The friends of Protestantism must arise, and apply themselves with augmented earnestness to the adoption of such active measures as are necessary for the propagation of their principles, whilst, at the same time, they see to it that the broad shield of legal protection is spread over their civil and religious immunities.

Among the means which are essential for the resistance of Papal superstition, and the diffusion of sound Protestant principles, education, and the general dissemination of the Scriptures, hold a pre-eminent place. Where, indeed, the blessing of a sound and liberal education is enjoyed, together with that moral and spiritual training which is based on the Holy Scriptures, Romanism cannot exist. Amid the light of intelligence and scriptural knowledge, its follies and superstitions must

however, strikes us as occasionally putting on the less welcome form of uncharitable antagonism. In the deep sense which he entertains of the superiority of thought, and in his earnest advocacy of its power to lift man from the debasement of mere animal life, and to give him a place amid the scenes and pursuits of the intelligent universe, we fully sympathise. Everything, indeed, that aims to disentangle men from the thraldom of the senses, to show them the comparative worthlessness of the gewgaws and pageants of wealth and form, and to impress them with the conviction, that thought is the true source and characteristic of human greatness, should be regarded as a boon, and welcomed as a contribution to the complex and multiform agency now employed in conducting mankind upward to their higher destiny. And in the prominence which Mr. Thomas gives to religious thought, and especially to that which derives its hue and complexion from Christ, we need hardly say we feel the deepest and most approving sympathy.

As far, then, as the idea of the little book is concerned, we are perfectly at one with Mr. Thomas. In the manner, however, in which he has developed his idea, especially that element in it which he designates the redemptive," we are constrained to acknowledge that we do not feel complete satisfaction. It is not, indeed, on the score of what he has said—although not unfrequently his way of saying things is not accordant with our notions of taste-but on the score of what he has not said, that we must confess to a measure of disappointment. And this disappointment we feel the more, because there is in the little book a good deal of that parade and elaboration, and a considerable smack of that conscious, philosophical greatness, which lead simple, old-fashioned thinkers, like ourselves, to expect something very much beyond the common-something to convince us that our author has seen what we have not seen, and heard what we have not heard.

Mr. Thomas divides Christianity into three stages or forms of development—the sensible, the logical, and the spiritual. The first comprehends the facts, the embodiment, the objective reality of Christ and his history; and in its treatment our author shows not only that he has no sympathy with the mythical school, but that he is perfectly competent to reduce its doctrines to absurdity and contradiction. The second embraces the systematic arrangement, or doctrinal classification of the facts, incidents, opinions, and teachings presented in the history of Christ; and this, although admitted by Mr. Thomas to be a necessary and important part of Christianity, is evidently not an object of his entire and hearty approval. It seems to be admitted into his classification on sufferance, rather than on

the ground of its intrinsic merits. He seems to owe it a deep grudge, for he imputes to it evils of which, as an essential element in the development of Christianity, it is entirely innocent. He saddles it with "some of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated under these heavens;" whereas, philosophically considered, classified opinions, wrought up into one great whole, are less likely to lead to great crimes than those which are left disorganised and disjointed. Mr. Thomas, indeed, seems to perceive that it is the despotism, bigotry, and spirit of persecution, which employ logical Christianity as a mask and a pretence, that perpetrate the crimes to which he refers, and not Christianity, in any of its forms. Why, then, impute to systematic theology, or logical Christianity, the evils which are to be traced to the bad company with which it may unhappily chance to be associated? In itself it is an eminently good thing, arising necessarily out of the conditions of our intellectual nature, but susceptible of abuse at the hands of unprincipled men, like everything else, however excellent. It is too bad that logic, and system, and creeds should be so constantly hunted down and calumniated, as is the case now-a-days, by a certain class of divines and philosophers, when every sane man must know that he can no more dispense with them than with the aliment that sustains him, or the atmosphere he breathes. The third is that aspect or phase of Christianity which has regard to the moral elements of our nature. On this head Mr. Thomas is too brief and general, considering the vital importance of the topic; and, consequently, from a certain hazy indistinctness which hangs around it, we can hardly venture to say what is the spcciality of his view of spiritual Christianity, if

any.

The "redemptive idea," as Mr. Thomas styles it, he justly regards as the most vital and important of all. And it certainly is so, for it harmonises the various elements of revelation, and blends them into one consistent whole: it involves the vindication of law and the sublimest expression of love-it raises man from his moral debasement, and fits him for companionship with God. But as all these elements, and more than these, enter into and constitute the "redemptive idea," Mr. Thomas has not unfolded it to our entire satisfaction. He makes little or no allusion to its aspect or relations to the claims of the Divine government-to the inflexibility of law-to the vindication of insulted authority -to the necessity of expiation, or the principle of atonement. Now, without distinct and emphatic reference to these points, it appears to us that the "redemptive idea" is not properly dealt with, and cannot be presented to the mind in the special and Divine form which it evidently holds in the pages of in