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Ludewig, "that since all the kingdoms of Europe have carried on so many wars, and Germany in particular has been subject to such intestine commotion, no doubt all ancient documents have thereby perished, which led to the forging of new and suppositious ones. But, as nobody doubts respecting the construction of manuscripts through these causes, so there were also means by which they might escape. For soldiers, intent on gold, and silver, and other things which they could turn to account, were, as they are now, careless about writings, especially considering the ignorance and contempt of letters which then prevailed among them. To this we may add, that even amidst the outrages of war, the soldiers were restrained by superstition from laying hands on the literary treasures of the bishoprics." He goes on afterwards to speak of fire, and represents his opponents as saying that there is scarcely to be found a city, a monastery, or a habitation of any confraternity of any kind which has not been more than once the subject of a conflagration, in which all its documents have perished. This, also," he replies, "is most true; for my own part, I declare that I have never been in any archives in Germany, though I have visited them without number, where the keepers have not attributed their deficiencies to fires which had destroyed those very documents which were most important. [He adds in a note, "The keeper at Mayence told the same story in 1705. When I inquired for their documents of ealier date than the period of Frederic I., he answered, that they had all perished when the castle and the court, which were of wood, were burned.] But," he goes on to say, "even in the most tremendous fires, the first care is commonly to preserve the public archives from destruction; nor do I hesitate to commend the prudence of the celebrated Maskowsky, Chancellor of Darmstadt, who, when the castle and principal palace were on fire, proposed and paid a reward to those who, at the risque of their lives, went into the lowest story, which was well arched, and brought the written documents out of the archives, which were thus saved like brands plucked from the burning. The same thing we may reasonably suppose to have been done in older times by prudent keepers."*

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I did not like to pass over this point without some notice; but the reader will at once perceive that there is an important difference between the case of which I am speaking and that to which Ludewig refers. Indeed, so far as our subject is concerned, I really have the suffrage of both parties in this diplomatic war in my favour. Those who contend that wars and fires must have destroyed the diplomas, charters, deeds, and other comparatively small and portable manuscripts of the dark ages, will readily grant that books were not likely to escape; and those who reply, as Ludewig justly does, that such documents would be kept with peculiar care, and saved first, and at all hazards, in case of danger, would not think of extending their argument to such manuscripts as we are concerned with.

Relig. Manuscript. Prof. p. 84, 85.

496

ST. ANNE SHANDON CHAPEL OF EASE.

[Omitted for want of space in the last Number, where a Plate of the Chapel was given.] THIS edifice, which is now nearly completed, is from designs by James and George R. Pain, architects to the province of Cashel. It is in the form of a Greek cross, of the internal dimensions of 70 feet by 35, and is finished by a tower and spire 110 feet in height. The expenses of the building, amounting to 2,4007., are to be defrayed by private subscriptions, aided by a grant from the late Board of First Fruits. A considerable sum is still required.

The chapel, calculated to contain 800 persons, is situated in one of the most extensive and populous parishes in the city of Cork, where the mother church is not capable of accommodating half the protestant population.

It is a gratifying circumstance, that since the accession of the present bishop to the see of Cork, six additional licensed places have been opened for divine worship, and four new churches have been built, or are in progress of erection. The number would be considerably greater, but for the straitened means of the clergy, and the inability of the ecclesiastical commissioners, from want of funds, to grant necessary aid.

the

A. C.

PROTESTANTS CANNOT CONSCIENTIOUSLY BE PRESENT AT THE

CELEBRATION OF MASS.

(Bishop Davenant's Seventh Determination.)

TRACTS AGAINST POPERY, NO. V.

BELLARMINE + himself has most justly observed, that if all the other controversies were disposed of, yet protestants and papists could never be reconciled, because the latter hold their mass to be the highest act of divine worship, while we consider it awful idolatry. Our present object, however, is not to lay open the impiety of the mass, but to shew that protestants, who abhor this impiety in their minds, cannot be present, even in body, at the celebration of these masses. And this argument is directed against those who have the folly to think that no danger nor sin can arise from outward communication with those who are guilty of what we consider idolatry, provided the mind detests their superstition. But, in truth, every one who acts thus violates the integrity of an honest conscience, and sins in more than one respect.

First, he sins against himself, in wounding his own conscience, by an unlawful and impious hypocrisy, and defiling and contaminating his soul. For the mind of a well-informed protestant at once declares, that the mass of the papists is not an expiatory sacrifice for the

* Formerly Provost of Trinity College, Dublin.
Tom. i. de Laic. lib. iii. cap. i. 19.

living and the dead, but a sacrilegious violation of the sacrifice once offered through Christ; but the very act of attendance in a popish temple, and of association with those who adore the mass, is, to all public appearance, a declaration, that he hopes for expiation of sins by that mass, and that he approves of it as a lawful act of sacred worship. Besides, the mind of the protestant declares, that the wafer, which is elevated by the officiating priest, is not Christ the incarnate (lit. the God-man, 0ɛáv0pwTov,) Son of the living God; but the act of prostration and adoration proclaims to all there present, that under the illusive* appearance of the bread, God himself is worshipped and acknowledged. I call this discordance of outward actions with the internal sentiments of the mind most rank hypocrisy, and a lie, just as intolerable as if such a man were to testify his approbation of the popish mass in express words; for truth essentially requires that a man should appear, as far as his outward demeanour is concerned, to be what he really is; and it is a violation of this truth, when a man, by outward signs, signifies the contrary to that which he holds in the secret recesses of his mind; and this simulation may be called "an acted lie," (mendacium in factis,) as Thomas Aquinas has justly observed. He, therefore, who in his mind abominates the masses of the papists, and yet retains this external participation in these rites, is so much the more to be condemned, because what he does insincerely he yet does in such a manner, that the people may believe him to be acting with sincerity, as Augustine writes about the philosopher Seneca.

Secondly, if any one of our people attends the masses of the papists, he sins against the brethren, especially the weaker ones; for he puts a stumbling-block in their way, by inviting and alluring them, through his example, to indulge in this practice, by which their consciences must necessarily be defiled. And how great a sin this is, these words of Christ will shew:-"Woe unto that man by whom the offence cometh.” (Matt. xviii. 7.) Nor can it be denied, that a scandal is created by such an act, especially to the weaker brethren; for a scandal means only any impropriety of conduct, or of language, which gives an occasion of falling to another. Now this conduct gives a colour to the weaker brother to suppose that the mass is not an impious and idolatrous act, and thus prefaces the way for his apostatizing to the papists. Those, therefore, who assume the liberty of joining themselves to the papists, in the external celebration of the mass, although they may be mentally averse from the superstition of papists, violate that precept of the apostle-" Abstain from all appearance of evil.” (1 Thess. v. 22.) Nor will it avail to excuse them if they aver that they have no intention of testifying, by this act, their approbation of what is done, in celebrating the mass, and, far less, of inducing their weaker brethren to think that the sacrifice of the mass is lawful and agreeable to God;

Sub vacua panis specie, under the empty show of bread. The Roman-catholic doctrine is, that the accidents of the bread remain without its substance.

+ Aquin. ii.; 2 Quæst.iii.; Art. i.

Aug. de Civ. vi. 10.

because, in the case of scandal, we must judge, not from the secret intention of the agent, but from the plain quality of the action. It is the quality and the nature of that act to lead the weak into this error, and to allure them to sin; wherefore, whatever was the intention of the agent, the action itself is chargeable with scandal. As, therefore, every one is bound to abstain from any action which he is not compelled to perform, whereby scandal may be justly feared to be given to the weak,* how much more is a man bound to abstain from being present at the mass, to which there is nothing to constrain him to go, and by which the minds, both of the weak and of the strong, are justly scandalized?

Thirdly, those lukewarm protestants who frequent masses sin against the papists themselves, whom this hypocrisy confirms in their errors and idolatry. Indeed, when they see our people attending their masses, they immediately imagine, in themselves, that not only these masses, but all the other dregs of papistry, are approved of more especially since the mass is held to be a kind of symbol, or token, by which Romanists and protestants are distinguished. Let them, therefore, answer me, and shew how they can conscientiously confirm those in their superstitious rites, whom they are bound with all diligence to recal from these dark and ignorant doings. For that apostolical command is urgently incumbent upon us :-"Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." (Ephes. v. 11.) Now, judge how admirably such persons act up to this precept. The apostle forbids us to have communication with unlawful works; these people gratuitously thrust themselves into them, and join those whom we judge guilty of idolatrous practices, actually while occupied on their offensive deeds. The apostle commands us to reprove such works; these persons not only seem, by their silence, to consent to them, but, by conforming to these superstitious rites, to approve and to praise (if not in words, yet in deeds,) the very act of idolatry. By this hypocrisy, they render the papists more obdurate in their pernicious errors. They sin, therefore, against the charity which we owe to our very enemies; and this it is impossible to do, without injury to the conscience.

Lastly, they sin directly against God. For religion, which binds us to God, binds us to the profession of our religion; and as it prohibits any concealment of the true religion, so it forbids, more imperatively, any pretended assumption of a false one; and thence it is, that God himself acknowledges those only as his true servants who have no fellowship with idolaters, even in the mere external act of worship. "I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” (1 Kings, xix. 18., Engl. Trans.) If they had bowed their knees before an idol, with the worshippers of Baal, although in their hearts they had despised that idol, doubtless God would not have reckoned them among his people; for every man is bound perpetually to this

Gerson, part ii. Reg. Moral.

profession of religion-namely, to associate with the pious and the orthodox, and to separate from idolaters and heretics. (1 Cor. x. 21.) For since God is the creator of the body, as well as of the soul, and Christ is equally the redeemer of both, it is meet that we should yield to God the homage of the body as well as of the mind, and adhere to Christ, in body as well as in mind. (1 Cor. vi. 20.) Wherefore, it is vain for those who join themselves in idolatrous worship to the servants of the devil, and of Antichrist, to allege that they are still in allegiance to God and Christ. Tertullian says, with elegance, as well as with piety, "It is profaneness in any man to lie about his religion; for by the very fact of pretending that he worships one thing when he worships another, he denies the real object of his worship; and inasmuch as he has denied him, he does not worship him."* All these points might be illustrated by the examples of holy men, drawn alike from scripture and from ecclesiastical history. But time will not allow us to engage in this part of the argument.

Since, therefore, protestants, who are present at the idolatrous sacrifice of the mass, defile their own souls by an act of hypocrisy; injure the weak brethren, by putting a stumbling-block in their way; ruin the papists, by confirming them in their impious practices; and, lastly, dishonour God, by halting between the true and the idolatrous worship of him, we must conclude, that protestants cannot conscientiously be present at the mass.

ANTIQUITIES, ETC.

HYMNS OF RICHARD ROLLE.

THE following old English hymns are, I think, worthy of a place in the "Antiquities" of the British Magazine. They are not Wycliffe's, but they are probably from the pen of one of his disciples; or perhaps from that of Richard Rolle, the celebrated hermit of Hampole. I have transcribed them from a very curious volume, preserved among Abp. Ussher's MSS. in the library of the university of Dublin. (C. 5, 7.) It is a small quarto, written early in the fifteenth century, and contains some pieces of Richard Rolle, particularly his Treatise of Love, his Prayers or Meditations on the Passion of our Lord,† and his poem called "The Pricke of Conscience," which, in the present

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Apolog.

These prayers are a different series from those published some time ago in the British Magazine, with the notes, which render them so highly interesting to all lovers of old English. By a curious slip of the pen or of the printer, they are attributed, through several successive numbers of the Brit. Mag., to Robert Rolle, although the true Christian name appears in the title prefixed to the first of these prayers, Brit. Mag. Vol. iv. Sept. 1833, p. 261. Richard Rolle was an Eremite of the order of St. Augustine, and lived near Doncaster, in Yorkshire, A.D. 1340. Some of his works have been published in the Bibliotheca Patrum. Lugd. 1677. tom. xxvi. p. 609. His tract De emendatione peccatoris was published separately, Paris, 1510, 4to; and his Opuscula, Colon. 1536, fol. He is sometimes corruptly called Pampolitanus.

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