quently adopted by the Inquisition where it is manifest the offence is not, strictly speaking, heresy. That Galileo was condemned for teaching, or rather, for the manner in which he taught, the doctrine of the earth's motion, we did not deny; but that the doctrine itself was condemned as heretical we did, and do still, deny. We quoted, in proof of our denial, the words of the pontiff under whose reign he was condemned, and of Galileo himself. We also showed that the reigning pontiff was himself favorable to the doctrine, and that at the very moment of the condemnation of Galileo it was publicly taught in Rome by the professor of astronomy in the pope's own college. It is idle, then, to pretend that it was condemned as a heresy.

The doctrine of the motion of the earth as a scientific hypothesis had long been promulgated at Rome, and Galileo might have taught it undisturbed, if he had chosen to observe certain very proper restrictions. The difficulty was in the fact, not to be denied, that the doctrine of the earth's motion is repugnant, or apparently repugnant, to the literal sense of the Holy Scriptures. It was never held that the literal sense of Scripture might not be set aside on competent authority, and a less literal construction adopted. But this can never be done to make way for a conjecture or an hypothesis. Science and revelation can never be in contradiction; but what you allege as science must be science, must be absolutely demonstrated, before it can be taken into the account in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. Now, in the time of Galileo, the doctrine of the earth's motion was not demonstrated, was at best a mere hypothesis; and therefore to have undertaken to explain the texts which seemed to contradict it, and which, as they had hitherto been understood, did contradict it, so as to make them conform to it, was, to say the least, rash, and implied an heretical disposition on the part of him who should so undertake. Here was the rock on which Galileo split. He undertook to explain the Scriptures in accordance with his theory, and treated the Scriptural objections with a degree of levity and contempt incompatible with a becoming respect for the language of the inspired writings. Had he followed the direction of Cardinal Bellarmine, who suggested that it would be time enough to take into consideration the interpretation of the texts which seemed to oppose the theory after the theory should be proved to be demonstrated, no one would ever have disturbed him.

As to the second point, we would remind the reviewer, that, while we accept his authority on any question of the constitution of the Methodist society, we do not recognize it where he assumes to speak as a Catholic doctor. We told him, and we tell him again, that the Inquisition is not an institution of which Catholics predicate infallibility. It is no essential part of the church, and its decrees have been and may be set aside by a higher authority. "It is sufficient for us to know," says the reviewer, "that the decrees of that court claim to be infallible, and are enacted with that claim with the pope's knowledge and approbation, and the condemnation of heretical books and persons by the holy officer are as much the act of the church of Rome as any act of the supreme pontiff." Here are many things jumbled together that should be kept distinct. We have no time or space to disentangle them. The Inquisition without the pope is evidently not infallible, according to Catholic principles. Admit its decrees, when formally approved by the pope, and thus made his, are to be held by Catholics as infallible, it still will not affect the case before us; for the approbation of the pope was not thus given to the condemnation of the doctrine in 1616, and in 1633 it was not, as we have seen, in question. The act which received the pope's approbation was the condemnation of Galileo in 1633, when the question turned not on the doctrine, but on Galileo's contempt of authority.

"And whatever Mr. B. may say, this has been the opinion of abler and better informed Roman Cotholics than himself." If the reviewer means that it is the opinion of abler and better informed Roman Catholics that the Inquisition is an institution of which Catholics predicate infallibility, we deny it, and challenge him to prove his assertion. If he means simply that some Catholics as well as Protestants have taken a different view of the condemnation of Galileo from the one we have given, we do not deny it, and have no wish to deny it, for Catholics are not infallible, and may err in their version of historical facts.

"And in the preface of the Jesuits' edition of Newton's Principia, we have the clearest evidence that the editors supposed his system under ban of the church. This is the language-Newton in his third book supposes the motion. of the earth. We could not explain the author's propositions otherwise than by making the same supposition. We are therefore forced to sustain a character not our own;

but we profess to pay the obsequious reverence which is due to the decrees pronounced by the supreme pontiffs against the motion of the earth." 999 This would seem to be conclusive; but, unhappily for the reviewer, this Jesuits' edition of Newton's Principia is a pure fiction. The Jesuits never published such an edition, and the language quoted never was written by a Jesuit. The language betrays at a single glance its origin. There are no decrees, and there never were any decrees, pronounced by the supreme pontiffs against the motion of the earth. The Jesuits never published an edition of Newton's Principia, except the edition by Father Boscovich, and that is not the edition referred to. The edition cited was got up by a couple of infidel editors, in France, we believe, and was palmed off as an edition of the Jesuits. The extract the reviewer quotes from the preface bears the living impress of the French infidel of the last century. No Jesuit could ever have spoken thus ironically of what he held to be a decision of the sovereign pontiff. It would be even more out of character than for the reviewer to invoke the Blessed Virgin, or to officiate at High Mass.

We here take our leave of the Methodist Quarterly Review, by simply reminding the editor that he is not qualified to be our biographer. His assertion, that there "are hundreds of living witnesses who heard our atheistical lectures in the city of Boston," is absolutely and unqualifiedly false; for we never gave an atheistical lecture in the city of Boston or elsewhere in our life. We never were, properly speaking, an atheist, a transcendentalist, or a pantheist, the assertion of the reviewer to the contrary notwithstanding. For a few months, some years ago, we had, it is true, some doubts as to the existence of God; but, since the latter part of the year 1830, we are not conscious of having had, even for a moment, a single doubt cross our mind of the existence or the providence of God. It is true that we fell unconsciously into some speculations which had a transcendental and pantheistic tendency; but, the moment we discovered that they had that tendency, we renounced them, and for the very reason, that they had it. We have been, ever since we resided in Boston, or for the last ten years, constantly writing and publishing against both transcendentalism and pantheism. We have had errors enough, without having laid to our charge errors we have never entertained.

HOPKINS'S BRITISH REFORMATION.*

[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for January, 1845]

WE agree entirely with Bishop Hopkins, that "the aspect of the religious world, at this moment, presents the same elements of controversy, only under varied forms of practical application, which agitated all Europe three hundred years ago." A little over three hundred years ago, under pretence of religious reform, and of reviving the faith and worship of the primitive Christians, a portion of the nominally Christian world seceded from the Catholic Church, and set up new establishments for themselves, with such forms. of worship, such symbols of faith, and under such systems of government, as they judged most advisable. The church then existing, and which had been regarded by the whole Christian world, condemned heretics and schismatics excepted, for fifteen hundred years, as the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, as was to be expected, condemned them as heretics and schismatics, declared them out of the pale of the church and severed from the communion of Christ.

For three hundred years, these seceders and their successors have been laboring to effect a reversal of the sentence then solemnly pronounced against them, and to convince the world that they were wrongfully condemned; that their private establishments are really living members of the church of Christ, and that they, in founding them, acted by the authority of Christ himself, and did not break the unity either of the orthodox faith or of the Lord's body. They have been zealous and diligent, have had learning, talents, genius, and power on their side, but they have labored without success. The sentence has not been reversed; their claims have not been admitted; and never has the necessity of their undertaking to defend themselves been greater than now. The religious world at this moment seems further than ever from reversing the sentence recorded

*Sixteen Lectures on the Causes, Principles, and Results of the British Reformation. By J. H. Hopkins, D. D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Vermont. Philadelphia: 1844.

against them. The church from which they seceded is now, if possible, more vigorous than ever, and counts a larger number of members than at any former period of her existence. Her missionaries have penetrated to almost every nook and corner of the globe. She is rapidly regaining the ground she had lost in France, England, and Germany, and has obtained a new empire in America; while, on the other hand, the Protestant churches, cut up into innumerable sects, are everywhere languishing and disappearing. Nowhere do they gain on Catholicity; nowhere have they gained on Catholicity for the last two hundred years. In fact, they everywhere lose ground. They have lost it in Ireland, in France, in Germany, and are losing it in our own country and even in England. And, what is perhaps more discouraging still to their cause, in the bosom of each and all of their communions there is a wide and deep feeling that the separation from the Catholic Church, if not absolutely unauthorized, was unnecessary and ill-advised; that what was substituted for the church does not and cannot supply her place; that Protestantism has proved a failure; and that nothing remains for us but either to return to Catholicity, or to lapse into complete infidelity.

The seceders, through their successors, are, therefore, unquestionably under the necessity either of abandoning their cause or of renewing the controversy. It is no time for them to be idle, no time for them to sleep, and to dream that the controversy is over. The church has abandoned none of her claims, and never will abandon any of them; for her authority she has inherited from the apostles, and her faith she holds as a sacred deposit from Christ the Head. She has made, and will make, no compromise with error and schism. She must be all or nothing. She has not ceased, and she will not cease, to exert herself with all fidelity, zeal, and diligence, to recover every revolted province, and to secure the heathen and the ends of the earth to God's dear Son for his inheritance. The church does not sleep; she does not cease from her mission. Everywhere does she bear witness for her Lord; everywhere is she ready to combat for the truth, and shed the blood of her martyrs for the salvation of souls. She will give no rest to heretics and schismatics. If, then, they mean to defend themselves, to maintain the ground they have acquired, they must be vigilant and active. Nay, they must do more; they must meet the question fairly, in open and rational debate. They can