the slight hold which promises made to Heretics, (so called,) have on the perverted consciences of Papists. But have they no shame? Have they no moral feeling of equity? If the Gallican Church was to be palisadoed round with securities; is the Church Establishment of Great Britain to be exposed to the machinations of intriguers, and the insults of those who assert that Protestants lie out of the pale of salvation ? Do the Roman Catholics read their own New Testament? Or, reading it, does an intolerant spirit impel them to disobey its injunctions ?— "Omnia quæcunque vultis ut faciant vobis homines, et vos facite illis." CHILLINGWORTH.

POPISH MISREPRESENTATIONS CORRECTED.

LETTER II.

To the Editor of the Protestant Advocate,

SIR; I beg leave to resume my observations on certain passages in the Popish, improperly called " the Orthodox Journal."-I pointed out in my former letter, (which appeared in your miscellany for August, p. 519), the dread with which the Papists witness the dissemination of the word of God, and, particularly, the gratuitous introduction of Bibles into the St. Giles's Roman Catholic Schools. I shewed you that the Papists plainly avow (what has often, by the liberalists, been reckoned an unfounded charge against them,) that the Catholic, in their sense of that word, cannot be instructed in his faith by reading the Bible. Aware, perhaps, of the use which a Protestant Advocate could not fail to make of such an avowal, the writer of the leading article, in the Journal for April, shifts his ground at p. 124, and professes a dislike to the Protestant translation. I transcribe the passage which I intend for the subject of my present communication:-"'Tis true we have a dislike to the Protestant translation; but then it arises from our conviction that this translation is a PALSE ONE, and consequently cannot be what it is called, the word of God, because God is truth itself, and can neither deceive nor be deceived. But a false translation must deceive, and therefore it is a duty incumbent upon every man to avoid it, and to deter others from falling into the same snare." I give the words, in this quotation, as they appear in the Journal distinguished by capital letters and italics.-That a translation may be an erroneous one, is very possible. Humanum est errare. To call it a false one, implies that it has been wilfully perverted, and intentionally made to deviate from the original, in order to serve some base purpose. But Protestant casuists allow of no pious frauds, they deny

that any end can justify unrighteous means. They count it a sin to "handle the word of God deceitfully." I indignantly repel the imputation of falsehood. In fact, there is not, in the English Bible, a single word, the rendering of which has been seriously called in question by the Papists, by Gregory Martin, or by Ward, that has not beeu examined by Dr. Fulke formerly, and recently by Mr. Grier, who has placed each word (together with the entire passage in which it occurs) in a table exhibiting a synopsis of translations ;-the Greek of the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, the Rhemish Version, Beza's Latin Text, the Bishop's Bible of 1568, and King James's Bible of 1611, (the Version at present in use), together with the Greek original of the New Testament ;-and the result is, that, comparing the Protestant and the Popish Versions, "the former, (as Mr. Grier informs us, and any scholar may see), comes nearest the meaning of the inspired writer." Nor can it be thought for a moment, that the author of this offensive article in the pseudoOrthodox Journal, could be ignorant of Mr. Grier's labours? if so, he has ventured to write on a subject which he is not competent to discuss. If he knew what Mr. Grier has accomplished in so masterly a way, and suppressed his knowledge, that he might wreak his spite on the patrons of the Bloomsbury Schools, and on the English authorized translation of the Bible, he smothered the truth, and threw out a false charge.There can hardly be conceived a more pregnant instance of, what I mentioned in my former letter, the Popish trick of re-asserting as unquestioned and unimpugned, unfounded charges, long since refuted, and repeatedly exploded.

There is another matter on which I beg permission to say a few words, that although the English Bible be put into the hands of the people, it was never intended to supersede the authority of the original. Let the Papists shew us, if they can, a mistranslation, and, notwithstanding that we esteem our National Version very highly, we profess ourselves ready to renounce the sense of the erroneous rendering, and to take up the purer doctrine conveyed in the terms of the original verity. The British Legislature never acted so foolishly as to decree, in the plenitude of usurped power, the English Version to be exclusively received by all Protestants of the United Kingdom, as true, legitimate, authentic and undoubted Scripture. Neither did the English Convocation, nor the English Parliament, ever venture on the uncharitable measure of consigning to everlasting damnation any who should dare to make the

"Ex certâ scientiâ, deque Apostolicæ potestatis plenitudine, pro verâ, legitimâ authenticâ, indubitatâ, declaratur." Sanction of Sixtus V, bestowed on his edition of the Vulgate.-Le Long.

VOL. III. [Prot. Adv. Oct. 1814.]

F

minutest change in the Bible of 1568; and again, forty-three years after, pronounce a similar curse on those who should dare to tamper with the amended translation of 1611. Infallibility, notwithstanding, acted in this manner in the instance of the Latin Vulgate published by Sixtus V, and in that published shortly after by Clement VIII. Whatever unfortunate Papist shall adhere, (or ever adhered,) to the incorrect copy of the former Pope, incurs, (or in his day incurred) the anathema of the latter; and those who now receive the edition of Clement, must risk the horrible malediction of Sixtus. In what inextricable difficulties do the errors of the Romish Church involve at once the Pontiffs and the people! I shall transcribe the dreadful anathema, pronounced under such circumstances as give it infallible authority, according to the doctrines of the Church of Rome.

"There is not, (says Mr. Grier) probably, a single objection urged against the infallibility of the Church of Rome, which carries with it such force as this. The Popish Doctors say, that his Holiness, assisted by his conclave of Cardinals and his Council, cannot err in matters of faith. But, if to determine what is, and what is not, Scripture, be not to act in matters of faith, it is impossible to say what is. Sixtus V. sets about preparing a perfect edition of the Latin Bible, collects the most ancient MSS. as well as the best printed copies, summons the most eminent* scholars to assist in the prosecution of the work, assembles a congregation of Cardinals, and presides over all with a zeal not to be exceeded by his knowledge. The result of their joint labours and study is an edition of the Vulgate declared to be corrected in the best manner possible, and published with a tremendous excommunication of any person, who would dare ever afterwards to make the minutest change. Notwithstanding this, after an intervention of the reigns of three Popes, (Urban, Gregory XIV. and Innocent IX.) which did not exceed two years, Clement publishes another edition repugnant to the former, which, in turn, he pronounces authentic, and enforces by a similar sentence of excommunication."

I shall now exhibit the form of the greater excommunication of the Romish Church, as it stands in Boxhornius's History of the Low Countries, and as it is published by Dr. Hales, in the second vol. of his Analysis of Chronology, p. 1024. It appears in Mr. Grier's excellent work ("An Answer to Ward's Errata," &c.) to which I am deeply in

"Lectissimis aliquot sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ Cardinalibus, aliisque tum sacrarum literarum, tum variarum linguarum peritissimis viris; adhibitis antiquissimis codicibus manuscriptis, &c. PREF. AD VULG. p. 6.

debted, and of which you, Mr. Editor, have spoken in terms of the highest approbation. There is, I admit, something shocking in the idea that any one in the form of man could conceive and use such a frightful string of imprecations. Your readers, however, will see to what a pitch of wickedness the Romish superstition has carried the Popes, who pretend to hold the keys of Heaven and Hell.

"By the command of the FATHER, THE SON, AND THE HOLY GHOST, of the blessed Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, of St. Michael, John the Baptist, and Peter and Paul, princes of Apostles, of St. Stephen and all the martyrs, St. Sylvester and all the confessors, St. Aldegonde and all the Virgins, and all the other Saints and Saintesses whatsoever, both in heaven and upon earth :

"We curse and cut off from Holy Mother Church, those who have (such or such a thing) or know it, or advised it, or had a hand therein. Let them be cursed in their houses, their beds, their fields, their lands, and their ways, in towns and villages. Let them be cursed in woods, rivers, and churches; cursed in their lawsuits, and in their quarrels ; cursed in their prayers, in speaking and in silence; in eating, drinking, and sleeping; in watching, walking, standing, running, resting, and riding, cursed in hearing, seeing, and tasting, cursed in all their actions. Let this curse strike their heads, their eyes, their whole body, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot.

"I adjure thee, Satan, and all thy agents, by the FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST, to take no rest, neither in the day, nor in the night, till you have brought a temporal and eternal confusion upon them, by contriving the matter so, that they may be drowned or hanged, or devoured by wild beasts, or torn by vultures or eagles, or consumed by fire, or killed by their enemies. Make them odious to all living creatures. Let their children be fatherless, and their wives widows. Let nobody, for the time to come, help them, or take pity on their fatherless children. And as Lucifer was expelled from heaven, and Adam banished from Paradise, let them likewise be expelled and banished from this world, being deprived of their estates; and let them be buried with the burial of an ass. Let them be partakers of the punishment of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, of Judas and Pontius Pilate, and of all those, who say to the Lord their God, "get thee gone, we will have no knowledge of thy paths." Afterwards he who pronounced these imprecations, put out two lighted candles, which he held in his hand, and added these dreadful words; "I

* See Prot. Adr. Vol. I. p. 294.

adjure thee, Satan, and all thy agents, to extinguish the light of their eyes, as these candles are extinguished, unless they do penance, and make full satisfaction. Amen, let it be so, Amen."

I fear that I have already exceeded the limits within which I hoped to have confined myself.-I intend in my next to exhibit some of the variations (the major part of them contradictions) subsisting between the Sixtine and Clementine editions of the Vulgate.-Infallibility against infallibility.

What can persuade Dr. Milner, Mr. Andrews, "with other work ́men of like occcupation," to publish monthly libels on the Protestant religion in a Protestant country? They will be sensible, ere long, of the powerful reaction which they excite. If they be wise (and Dr. Milner is far from deficient in good sense on any other subject than that of Popery), they will withdraw from the eye of the public. The people of England will not endure their intemperate absurdities, and they will only injure the cause which they attempt to uphold. The railing of Dr. Milner has no terrors; and the impertinence of that mock-bird, that dotterel, Mr. Andrews, is contemptible. At any rate the Bishop of Castabala, should procure a better double.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.

Aug. 1st, 1814.

INDAGATOR.

BIOGRAPHY OF ARCHBISHOP KING.

To the Editor of the Protestant Advocate.

SIR,-As biography is justly esteemed as useful and as agreeable a subject as can be presented to the public, I request the favour of your inserting in the PROTESTANT ADVOCATE the following account of Archbishop King, one of the brightest ornaments of the church of Ireland in the last century. It is chiefly taken from the life of that great prelate given by Walter Harris, in his improved edition of Sir James Ware's History of the Irish Bishops; and as that most valuable work has been long since out of print, this article may be acceptable to the Protestants of the empire, at a time when their hereditary adversaries are once more "unfurling the oriflam, and challenging the possession of the ark." I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

Maghera, July 12th, 1814.

JOHN GRAHAM.

William King was born on the first day of May 1650, in the town of Antrim. His father for many years held the mills near Stewardstown, in the county of Tyrone, which are still called by his name; and he was