them no harsher a term, have been generated and fostered a spirit and conduct on the part of Protestants, unworthy of their principles, and impolitic and unjust in the results, a most important point will be attained, and a desirable object accomplished: for the liberal genius of the Protestant doctrines is most assuredly hostile to all acts of oppression, and all sentiments manifestly unjust.'

Every review of a subject so important as the nature of Catholicism, that may tend to remove unfounded prejudices, is intitled to the fullest attention; and, as Mr. N. has taken pains to obtain the best information, we have no doubt of the favour able reception of his work.

Whether St. Peter was ever settled as a bishop at Rome, (he could not possibly ever have been, in our sense of the word, Bishop of Rome,) and whether the list of his successors in this office be or be not correct, are points of little moment in this inquiry; except indeed to those who assert that visibility and episcopal ordination are essential to the character of the church of Christ,' and to such the true history of the Popes offers difficulties which we shall not stay either to encounter or to state. Before and even after the conversion of Constantine, which conferred on Christianity a political consequence and stability, the principle of an universal bishop was not generally acknowleged; and Mr. N. seems to lean too much to the assertion of Catholic writers, that "the management and primacy of the whole church had been given to St. Peter:" a position which no Protestant ought to allow, when the only evidence for it is a total misconception of the meaning of the words of Christ to the Apostle, On this rock I will build my church. That the bishops of Rome, from an early period, held a peculiar authority over a large part of the Christian world,' is also a concession which as a Protestant Mr. N. should not make. He indeed wonders that Protestants should feel sore on this point; yet it is surely of some importance to resist this first datum of the advo cates for the Pope's supremacy: since, if it is by no means clear that St. Peter had any superior rank or authority over the rest of the apostles,' every idea of his primacy in the church at once falls to the ground; and those who arrogate supremacy, as his real or pretended successors, urge an authority to which they have no shadow of claim. Nothing can be more manifest from the resistance offered by Paul to Peter, (Gal. ii. 11.) and from the blame which the former attaches to the latter, than that even the apostles did not acknowlege any paramount authority_in Peter, nor regard him as invested with infallibility. Besides, what good reason can be assigned to prove that the See of Rome should domineer over all the churches of Christ? Because this city was the capital of the Roman world, is its bishop

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bishop to take precedence in the kingdom of Christ, which is not of this world? Considering the obscurity and persecuted State of the Christian church in the first two centuries, its bishops could obtain no very extensive influence; and it was not till Constantine professed the doctrines of the cross, that its ministers, catching the spirit of the world, grew ambitious of dominion:- then, it was easy to find fathers and ecclesiastical historians to write up their consequence, and make out their succession from the apostles. Before the imperial residence was removed to Constantinople, the Bishop of Rome took the lead in spirituals, as his master did in temporal affairs; 、and, as Mosheim says, this pre-eminence resulted from "those dazzling marks of human power, which have such a mighty, influence on the minds of the multitude." Still this pre-eminence, however coveted, was only that of rank, the Bishop of Rome being named before the Bishops of Antioch and Alexandria but none of the prelates " acknowledged that they derived their authority from the permission and appointment of the Bishop of Rome, or that they were created bishops by the favour of the apostolic see." Now, if at this period the Bishop of Rome, with all his grandeur, was only Bishop of Rome, all the subsequent high-flown assumptions of the occupiers of this See are deserving, in the eye of reason, of ridicule rather than of grave discussion. We wish Protestants to treat the subject as it merits, and British Catholics to abandon the shackles which these pretensions impose. Their system may emanate from the Roman Catholic church, but let them not be held in thraldom by it.

Mr. Nightingale is inclined to sneer at the account of the cause of Constantine's conversion: but he does not advert to the reason for his adoption of Christianity given by Zosimus, the historian. Perhaps the vision of the cross, and the splendid display of it on the Labarum, were intended to conceal the real motives which induced the Emperor to embrace the new faith. Instead of tracing the operation of this mighty revolution in the temporal condition of the church, Mr. N. adopts a statement which was put into his hands by the ingenious Mr. Charles Butler: but we should have been more satisfied if the author of the Portraiture had employed his own pencil. We could not indeed have supposed that he would be so complimentary to any Catholic, as to present the following passage for a summary of historic truth: "Thus from a regular train of historical facts, beginning with the earliest monuments of the Reformation, and ascending to the time of Christ himself, we find the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, both in rank and jurisdiction, an admitted article of Christian belief." A writer in the ca

pacity of Mr. N. does not perform his duty by offering to the public so manifest a misrepresentation, acknowleging that it is not satisfactory, and then frigidly adding, Let those answer it who have a taste for this kind of controversy.' - Of the temporal power of the Pope, this writer wishes to take a distinct view, and to contemplate it by itself: but, as the Roman pontiffs have enjoyed a prominent advantage over the other sovereigns of Europe, by the singular union of ecclesiastical and temporal power, it is proper to estimate the effects of this union; and, though Mr. N. regards the mode of electing to the Papal chair in a favourable light, we cannot coincide with him in opinion, nor think that the history of the Popes justifies his

encomium.

In the section on the Council of Nice and the Arian controversy, Mr. N. remarks,

It does not appear, in these proceedings against the Arians, that the Bishop of Rome took any very important or active share, or that he was ready to interpose his influence in the suppression of so dangerous a heresy as it is represented to have been. The Council was called by the Emperor solely, and the Roman Pontiff was not even present at the Assembly, but sent two priests, or proxies, to give his vote and sign the Acts; neither does it appear, that these priests enjoyed any superior rank or influence.'

A canon of the Council of Chalcedon, held about a century after that of Nice, is subsequently quoted as decisive evidence against the primitive universal jurisdiction of the See of Rome.

From these antient councils, the author makes a transition to a view of the state of the church, and the attempts at reform previous to the time of Luther;' or from the fourth to the twelfth and following centuries. Here the complaints of Catholics, respecting abuses and disorders which had crept into the church, are noticed; complaints which proceeded so far as to assert that there was almost nothing sound either in its visible head or in its members:' but it is, at the same time, remarked that the doctrines of the Universal Church were in no instance the object of attack. The causes of the Saxon and German Reformation, which followed in the early part of the sixteenth century, are thus enumerated:

I. In the continued profligacy and laxity of the clergy. II. The pride and obstinacy of the Roman court. III. The extravagance and indifference of the supreme Pontiff Leo X. IV. The recent invention of the invaluable art of printing. V. The disgraceful use which Tetzel and others made of the doctrine and sale of indulgences. VI. The persevering boldness of Luther. And, lastly, though by no means the least, VII. The avarice and rapacity of several princes, and inferior magistrates, who instigated and encouraged op

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position

position to the papal power, that they might themselves partake of the spoils or the prerogatives of the Church.'

When Mr. N. reckons among the causes of the Reformation the invaluable discovery of printing, we are surprized to find him asserting that had the moral conduct of the head and ministers of religion been such as became their holy office, it is more than probable that no particular outcry would have been raised against the Catholic doctrines to the present hour.' Independ antly of the disgust excited by the immoral lives of the clergy, the Catholic system of faith must have been a matter of doubt as soon as the N. T. came to be generally disseminated; and any person, who entertains this author's sentiments on the evil of uniting the church with the state, will surely think that the Catholic religion must by this time have had protesters, even if the Popes had been all moral and estimable characters. Why Mr. Nightingale should be so strenuous an advocate for the sincerity of the faith of Leo X., and pronounce his supposed remark respecting the profitableness of the fable of Jesus Christ to be a senseless slander,' we cannot perceive: but of this we are very confident, that Leo X. acted more like an infidel than like a true believer. His profuse issue of indulgences manifested his own want of faith in a system so moral as that of Christianity, while it operated as a heavy tax on the credulity of the multitude. It is more likely that he did than that he did not make the speech attributed to him. The issue of dispensations and indulgences is a branch of the Catholic religion' which may be profitable to Popes, but is not to be found in the record (which infidels call the fable) of Jesus Christ. Mr. N. terms the sale of indulgences a species of traffic: but, if it belongs to the department of the Papal treasury, how can it be a branch of religion?

Monastic institutions find an advocate in Mr. N.; who, paying tribute to their influence in preserving antient literature, and in promoting the study of it, is not sufficiently attentive to their immoral and anti-social effects. He does not seem to recollect that St. Paul ranks "forbidding to marry" among "the doctrines of devils."

In the account of Martin Luther, the coarse arrogance of this reformer's behaviour to Leo is reprobated, while the forbearance of the Pope in not silencing him by the means employed against John Huss and Jerome of Prague is approved; though, perhaps, the violence of one party and the apparent moderation of the other arose from the same cause, viz. the protection which Luther obtained from the Elector, and his other powerful friends. This German reformer's orthodoxy was not united with Christian charity, and he combated error

too much in the spirit of an intolerant. The time, however, was not then arrived for the dissemination of the true principles of religious liberty; and some allowance must be made for him, when we consider the age in which he lived.

Respecting the Influence of the Reformation on the Arts, on Literature, on Religion, and on Morals in general, Mr. N. presents us with some very judicious observations. Its unfavour able operation on the arts is instanced in the decline of churcharchitecture:

The observer, who compares the magnitude, the number, and the magnificence of the structures erected within the compass of three hundred years, (between A. D. 1000 and A. D. 1400,) with the progress of ecclesiastical architecture in England, since the accession of Elizabeth, will find no hesitation in admitting, that within any twenty years of that period, a greater amount of architectural taste, and of wealth and enthusiasm to render that taste effectual, was called into action, than during the whole of the 17th or 18th centuries. The labours of Sir Christopher Wren, unremitted and extensive as they were, scarcely effected so great a progress in ecclesias tical architecture, as was conceived and executed by men whose names are now forgotten. The very conception of Henry the VIIth's chapel demonstrates an enthusiasm of feeling, and a confidence in the limitless extent of his resources, that at once exalts the character of the architect, and evinces the spirit of the age as oper. ated upon by the character of its religion. Whatever may be the ultimate decision of men of taste, on the comparative excellencies of Grecian and Gothic architecture, it must be admitted that in England, the productions of the admirers of the ancients bear no comparison, even as works of genius and taste, with those of the Catholic artists. Even St. Paul's, the greatest effort of English Protestantism, would not have existed but for the model and the example afforded by Catholic enthusiasm. And what comparison can even this structure, and many of the most celebrated efforts of the same architect sustain, with the classical structures that, beneath the sway of Catholicism, have exalted modern Rome into the rival of its parent?'

If, however, in matters of taste and poetry we have profited little by the Reformation, we are great gainers by it in every thing which respects the enlargement of the mind:

In all that relates to the conduct of man, to the knowledge of his mental structure, and to the gratification of his natural aptitude for knowledge, the Protestants have proceeded with a progress to which the Catholic religion would have presented the most insur. mountable obstacles. The Reformation not only relieved philosophy from the oppression of a religion that abhorred the very approaches to unbounded inquiry, but by the exercise that it gave to the faculties of man, and by the example it afforded of extrication from ancient prejudices, contributed to the activity as well as the freedom of in

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vestigation,