From the Southern Religious Telegraph.
THE BIBLE OF THE PAPISTS.
The following paragraphs are from the notes of the Rhemish and Douay Bible,
issued at Dublin in 1826?, the only version of the Bible which the Papists in
the United States, Canada and Ireland, are permitted by their priests to read.
An edition of it was published but a few years since, in cheap numbers, for
circulation among the poor; whom it was difficult to prevent from having the
bible in some form:
In their note on Mathew iii, the popish commentators say; "The good must
tolerate the evil, when it is strong that is cannot be redressed without danger
or disturbance of the whole church; otherwise, where evil men, be they heretics
or other malefactors, may be punished and suppressed without hazard
of the good, they may and ought, by public authority, either spiritual or temporal,
to be chastised or executed."
On Mark iii, 12, they write- "Their prayers and services," (adverting
to the Protestants), "though ever so good in themselves, out of their mouths
are no better than the howling of wolves."
On John xv, 7, they say, "The prayer of a Protestant cannot be heard in
heaven."
On Galatians i, 8, the expositors write- "Catholics should not spare their
own parents, if heretics."
To 2 Timothy iii, 9, they append- "All wise men see, or shall see, the
deceits of all the heretics; though for troubling such commonwealths, where
unluckily they have been received, they cannot be suddenly extirpated."
This doctrine, in its practical exhibition, satisfactorily accounts for the
commotions, single murders, and massacres, which have characterised benighted,
wretched Ireland.
On Hebrews, v, 7, they remark- "The translators of the English Protestant
Bible ought to be abhorred, to the depths of hell."
This principle was also taught by Pope Gregory, who, in his bull denouncing
the first English translation of the bible, describes Wickliffe, as "vomiting
out of the filthy dungeon of his breast, divers false and erroneous conclusions,
and most wicked, and damnable heresies;" and Leo X. and XII. affirm, with
papal authority, that "the translation of the scriptures into the vulgar
tongue, makes the gospel of CHRIST a gospel of the devil!"
Upon Revelations xviii, 6, these commentators observe- "When Rome puts
heretics to death, and allows their punishment in other countries, their blood
is no more than the blood of thieves, man-killers, or other malefactors; for
the shedding of which, by the order of justice, no commonwealth shall answer!"
Thus every Papist is enjoined, by the highest authority, to estimate all Protestants
as equally odious and sinful as thieves and murderers, whose guilt can be removed
only by their death. Look, reader, at these comments on the word of GOD; study
their import; and see if the evils of popery with which this country is threatened,
are not greater than Protestants imagine. |