errors in religion, and sent succours to the Calvinists in France, to enable them to retain Rochelle then in their possession. He was unfortunate; for both the Scotch and English Parliamentarians took up arms against him, and after several battles he lost the kingdom. He took refuge with the Scotch, but they delivered him up to the English, and they, at Cromwell's instigation, who was then aiming at sovereign power, condemned him to be beheaded, and he died on the scaffold on the 30th of July, 1648, the twentyfifth of his reign and forty-eighth of his age.

86. He was succeeded by his son, Charles II., born in 1630; at his father's death he went to Scotland, and was proclaimed King of that country and of England and Ireland likewise. Cromwell, who then governed the kingdom, under title of Protector of England, took the field against him, and put his forces to flight, so that Charles had to make his escape in disguise, first to France and afterwards to Cologne and Holland. He was recalled after Cromwell's death, which took place in 1658, and was crowned King of England in 1661, and died in 1685, at the age of sixty-five. He was succeeded by his brother, James II., born in 1633. James was proclaimed King on the day of his brother's death, the 16th of February, 1685, and was soon after proclaimed King of Scotland, though he openly declared himself a Roman Catholic, and forsook the communion of the English Church. Ardently attached to the Faith, he promulgated in 1687 an Edict of Toleration, granting to the Catholics the free exercise of religion, but this lost him his crown, for the English called in William, Prince of Orange, who, though James's son-in-law, took possession of the kingdom, and, in 1689, James had to fly to France. He soon after went over to Ireland, to keep possession of that kingdom at all events, but being again beaten he fled back again to France, and died in St. Germains, in 1701, the sixty-eighth year of his age. As this sovereign did not hesitate to sacrifice his temporal kingdom for the Faith, we have every reason to believe that he received an eternal crown from the Almighty. James II. left one son, James III., who died in the Catholic Faith in Rome.

SEC. III.THE ERRORS OF CALVIN.

87. Calvin adopts the Errors of Luther. 88. Calvin's Errors regarding the Scriptures. 89. The Trinity. 90. Jesus Christ. 91. The Divine Law. 92. Justification.

93. Good Works and Free Will. 94. That God predestines Man to Sin and to Hell, and Faith alone in Jesus Christ is sufficient for Salvation. 95. The Sacraments, and especially Baptism. 96. Penance. 97. The Eucharist and the Mass. 98. He denies Purgatory and Indulgences; other Errors.

97. CALVIN adopted almost all the principal errors of Luther, who adopted almost all the errors of the ancient heretics, as we shall hereafterwards show in the refutation of Luther and Calvin. Prate

olus (1) reckons two hundred and seven heretical doctrines, promulgated by Calvin, and another author (2) makes the number amount to fourteen hundred. At present I will only speak of the principal errors of Calvin, and will give in the last part of the work a particular treatise to refute them.

88. As regards the Holy Scriptures, Calvin, in his book against the Council of Trent (3), says the Church has no right to interpret and judge of the true sense of the Scriptures. Second. He refuses to receive the Canon of the Scriptures as settled by the Council. Third. He denies the authority of the Vulgate. Fourth.-He denies the Canonicity of the books of Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, Tobias, Judith, and the Maccabees, and totally rejects Apostolical Traditions (4).

89. Regarding the Persons of the Trinity, he does not like the words Consubstantial, Hypostasis, or even Trinity. "I wish," he says, "all these words were buried in oblivion, and we had this Faith alone, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God" (5). The Church, however, has inserted in the Office of the Breviary the Athanasian Creed, in which it is positively laid down that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are not only one God, but also three distinct Persons; for otherwise one might fall into the errors of Sabellius, who said that these were but simple words, and that in the Trinity there is but one Divine Nature, and one Person, and on that account the Holy Fathers made use of the words Hypostatic and Consubstantial to explain both the distinction and the equality of the Divine Persons. Second.-It is a foolish thing, he says, to believe in the continual actual generation of the Son from the Eternal Father (6); but this doctrine is not only the general one among theologians (7), but is proved by the Scriptures: "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee" (Ps. ii. 7). St. Augustin, explaining this text, says: "This day, that is, from all eternity, and in every continuous instant, he begets me according to my Divine Nature, as his Word and his Natural Son."

90. Speaking of Jesus Christ, he says, that he was the mediator of mankind with his Eternal Father before he became man, and before Adam sinned (8). "Not alone," he says in one of his letters, "did Christ discharge the office of a mediator after the fall of Adam, but as the Eternal Word of God." This is a manifest error, for it was when Christ took flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary that he became the mediator of reconciliation between God and man; as the Apostle says, "for there is one God, and one mediator of God and man, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy, ii. 5). He also blasphemously taught, that when Christ descended into hell (and

(1) Præteol. Hær. 13. Antid. ad Synod. Trident. Instit. . 1, c. 13, sec.

(2) Francisc. Forfandes. in Theomach. Calv. ad Sess. IV. (4) Calvin. in Antid. loc. cit.

(3) Calvin,

(5) Calvin.

(6) Calvin. vide loc. cit. (7) Calvin. Epist. ad Stancarum.

(8) Calvin, Instit. l. 2, c. 16.

he understands it as the hell of the damned), that he suffered the pains of the damned, and this was the great price he offered to his Eternal Father for our redemption. Cardinal Gotti says (9), that like Nestorius, he recognized two persons in Christ (10).

91. Concerning the Divine law, and the sins of mankind (11), he says it is impossible for us to observe the law imposed on us by God, and that original concupiscence, or that vicious leaning to sin which exists in us, though we do not consent to it, is still sinful, since such desires arise from the wickedness which reigns in us; that there are no venial sins, but that all are mortal; that every work which even the just man performs is sinful; that good works have no merit with God, and that to say the contrary is pride, and proceeds from a wish to depreciate grace (12).

92. Concerning justification, he says that it does not consist in the infusion of sanctifying grace, but in the imposition of the justice of Christ, which reconciles the sinner with God. The sinner, he says in another place, puts on the justice of Christ by Faith, and clothed in that, appears before God not as a sinner, but as one of the just, so that the sinner, though continuing a sinner still, is justified by being clothed with-masked as it were-the justice of Christ, and appears just by that means (13). He also says, that man, in a state of sin, is not justified by contrition, but by Faith alone, believing in the promises and in the merits of Jesus Christ (14). This was the doctrine of the French Calvinists in their celebrated profession of faith: "We believe that we are made participators of this justification by Faith alone, and this so happens because the promises of life offered to us in Christ are applied to our use." He likewise said, that those who are justified should believe with a certainty of Faith that they are in a state of grace, and that this certainty should be understood not only of perseverance, but even of eternal salvation; so that one should consider himself as one of the elect, as St. Paul was by the special revelation he received from God (15). He likewise said, that Faith and justification belong to the elect alone, and that once in possession of them, they cannot be lost, and if any one thinks he lost them, he never had them. The Synod of Dort, however (16), opposed this doctrine, when it decided that in particular instances one may lose the Divine grace. We should not at all be surprised at this disagreement in the same sect, for as the heresiarchs separate from the Church, they cannot blame their disciples for separating from them; as Tertullian says, when each follows his own will, the Valentinians have the same right to their own opinions as Valentine himself (17). 93. He uttered horrible blasphemies when speaking of human

(9) Gotti, Vera Chiesa, t. 1, c. 8, sec. 1, n. 9. n. 23, 24.

(10) Calvin. Instit. 7. 1, c. 13, sec. 9, (11) Calv. l. 3, c. 3, sec. 10. (12) Idem. l. 3, c. 14, sec. 4. (13) Idem. (14) Idem, l. 3, c. 11, sec. 3. (15) Calv. Inst. l. 3, c. 2, (16) Idem, l. 3, c. 2, sec. 11, 12. (17) Tertull. de Script. Hærat. c. 42.

l. 3, c. 11, sec. 15, 16. sec. 16, & seq.

actions as meritorious to salvation or otherwise. The first is, that man has no free will, and that this word free will is but a name without the substance (18). The first man alone, he said, had free will, but he and all his posterity lost it through sin; hence, anything that man does he does through necessity, for God has so willed it, and it is God himself moves him to do it, which movement man cannot resist. But then, it may be said, when man acts without free will, and through necessity, both when he does what is good, as well as when he does what is evil, how can he have merit or demerit? Calvin again blasphemously answers this and says, that to acquire merit, or deserve punishment, it is enough that man should act spontaneously, without being driven to it by others, though all the while he acts without liberty and through necessity. But if God moves the will of man even to commit sin, then God is the author of sin. "No," says Calvin, " because the author of sin is he alone who commits it, not he who commands or moves the sinner to commit it." He does not blush, then, to give utterance to a third blasphemy, that every sin is committed by the Divine authority and will; and those, he says, who assert that God merely permits sins, but does not wish them, or instigate them, oppose the Scriptures. "They feign that he permits those things which the Scripture pronounces are done, not only by his permission, but of which he is the author" (19). He bases this falsehood on that text of David (20): "Whatsoever the Lord pleased he both done in heaven and on the earth" (Psalms, cxxxiv. 6); but he appears to forget what the Psalmist says in another place: "Thou art not a God that willeth iniquity" (Psalms, v. 5). If God, I ask, moves man to commit sin, how can he avoid it? Calvin not being able to get out of this difficulty, says, that carnal men as we are, we cannot understand it (21).

94. It is a necessary consequence of this doctrine that the sinner who is lost is lost by Divine ordinance, and even this horrible blasphemy did not affright Calvin; monstrous as it is he agrees to it, and concludes that God, knowing beforehand the salvation or reprobation of each person, as he has decreed it, that some men are predestined to eternal torment by the Almighty, solely by his will, and not by their evil actions (22). Such, reader, is the fine theology of these new Reformers of the Church-Luther and Calvin, who make the Almighty a tyrant, a deceiver, unjust and wickeda tyrant, because he creates men for the purpose of tormenting them for all eternity; a deceiver, because he imposes on them a law which they never can, by any means in their power, observe; unjust, since he condemns men to eternal punishment, while, at the same time, they are not at liberty to avoid sin, but constrained to commit

(18) Calv. Inst. l. 3, c. 2 sec. 16, & seq. (19) Calv. l. 2, c. 3. (20) Calvin de Prædest. Dei, æterna. na.) Calv. Inst. l. 3, c. 23. (22) Calv. ibid.

it; and wicked, for he himself first causes a man to sin, and then punishes him for it. Finally, they make God distribute his rewards unjustly, since he gives his grace and heaven to the wicked, merely because they have Faith, that they are justified, though they should not even be sorry for their sins. Calvin says that this is the benefit of the death of Christ; but I answer him thus: If, according to his system, a man may be saved, then good works are no longer necessary, and Christ died to destroy every precept both of the Old and New Law, and to give freedom and confidence to Christians to do whatever they like, and to commit even the most enormous sins, since it is enough to secure their salvation without any cooperation on their part, that they should merely believe firmly that God does. not impute to them their sins, but wishes to save them through the merits of Christ, though they do everything in their power to gain hell. This certain faith in our salvation, which he calls confidence, God, he says, gives to the elect alone.

95. Speaking of the sacraments, he says that they have effect on the elect alone, so that those who are not predestined to eternal happiness, though they may be in a state of grace, receive not the effect of the sacrament. He also says that the words of the ministers of the sacraments are not consecrating, but only declaratory, intended alone to make us understand the Divine promises (23), and hence he infers, that the sacraments have not the power of conferring grace, but only of exciting our Faith, like the preaching of the Divine Word (24), and he ridicules our theological term, ex opere operato, for explaining the power of the sacraments, as an invention of ignorant monks; but in this he only shows his own ignorance, as he understands by opus operatum, the good work of the ministers of the sacraments (25). We, Catholics, understand by opus operatum, not the act of the minister himself, so much as the power which the Almighty gives to the sacraments (if not hindered by sin), of operating in the soul; that which the sacrament signifies, as Baptism, to wash; Penance, to forgive; the Eucharist, to nourish. He denies that there is any difference between the sacraments of the Old and the New Law (26); but St. Paul says that the former were but weak and needy elements (Gal. iv. 9), and a shadow of things to come (Colos. ii. 17). He ridicules the sacramental character which is impressed by Baptism, Confirmation, and Orders (27), and Christ, he says, only instituted three sacraments Baptism, the Supper, and Ordination; the first two he positively asserts to be sacraments, and the third he admits. "The imposition of hands," he says, "which is performed in true and lawful Ordinations, I grant to be a sacrament;" but he totally rejects the Sacraments of Confirmation, Penance, Extreme Unction, and Matrimony (28). (23) Calvin. Instit. l. 4, c. 14, s. 4. (24) Idem, l. 4, c. 14, s. 11. (25) Idem, 1. 4, c. 14, s. 26. (26) Idem, 4, c. 14, s. 23. (27) Calvin, Instit. in Antid. Conc. (28) Idem, l. 4, c. 19, s. 19, 20.

Trid. ad Can. 9, Sess. 7.