Letter I.
However known my sentiments may already be to you, from several letters, which I have recently written to your two Cardinals, Polidori and Lambruschini, I still regard it as desirable to make a more ample declaration to yourself, so as to throw greater light on my faith, and to leave no longer in doubt the form of religion which I follow and profess.
Believe not, Holy Father, that I am urged to this step by any feeling of resentment in consequence of the injuries done me in Rome by certain of your ministers; or that I wish to avenge myself thus, for the hundred days during which I was shut up, last year, in the Inquisition without any just cause. May God pardon you your offences as entirely as I pardon you that act, though it brought upon me heavy sufferings! I have been enabled to derive benefit from it; and that which by you was designed for my injury, the all-wise God has turned to my advantage. So that now, on reckoning up my account, I find that my gain has been far greater than my loss; that my sorrow has been turned into joy; that the plot has turned against the plotters, to whom nothing has remained but remorse for the attempt, and the shame of a miserable defeat.
Holy Father, if you really fear God, you know sufficiently that He is not to be trifled with—we cannot lie to Him, nor purpose one thing and say another. Allow me, then, now to summon you into His presence, to discuss your faith and my own; for we are both equal before Him; the Decalogue and the Gospel are equally imposed upon us both. Excepting these, I know no other law to direct me in my belief and in my actions; and I am convinced that there should be no other for any one who calls himself a Christian.
Tell me, I pray you, whence you derive those of your dogmas which exist not in the Gospel, and those numerous doctrines which are not to be found in any book of the Scriptures? I am entitled to ask you; for, after examining your lauded fountains of tradition, your theologians, and the Fathers, so dishonestly edited,—I have found superabundant fraud, both in interpretation, assertion, supposition, and inference; for all seem to be concentrated in the object of making the Pope universal sovereign; establishing him as head and lord of the entire Church, with full and absolute power of loosing and binding—that is, of destroying and building up,—declaring his Church, as a spiritual kingdom, superior to every state, to every people, to every dynasty; so that, according to this theory, the power of the pope is made to absorb every other power; from that of God Himself, who alone, in other times, judged men to life or to perdition, down to that of the lowest baron, who can only have from the pope the legitimate power over his vassals.
Such fables might be told in the vaunted days of Gregory VII.; when they were coined with the design of extending the papal mantle over the whole world; subjecting to him, as far as possible, the kingdoms of Europe and Asia. Such was the object of the Crusades. Such was the object of the foundation of the numerous Orders,—enrolled, under various devices, for the purposes of the popes, and sent to the most remote countries, to preach, together with the Gospel, the primacy, the sovereignty, the infallible, irresistible, fearful omnipotence of the Most Holy Bishop of Rome; under pain, if they did not, of being severely punished, and with the promise, if they did, of being rewarded, after death, with the honours of the altar.
History, Holy Father, teaches us this, whenever we read it with the necessary discernment. These Orders, however, increased, spread, and were laden by Rome with privileges, exemptions, and even riches; for the monks, yet more than the priests, played the papal game, and related to the nations the holiness of the popes, how they were chosen by the Holy Spirit, and how Christ and the Virgin conversed with them familiarly. Happy, then, did those consider themselves, who could obtain an Agnus Dei, or other favour; whilst for an indulgence, silver and gold were spent without restraint. Hence the immense riches which, from every quarter showered upon Rome, and rendered the popes proud, their courts insolent, their city the most beautiful in the world.
But times changed; that is to say, many well-informed persons amongst the faithful, perceived the imposture of these sellers of Christ; and first with words, afterwards by acts, revolted against the disorder which not only blinded them with error, but despoiled and oppressed them.
And now came the epoch of the Reformation—of that religious rising which, excited by God, and guided by the Spirit of the Lord, succeeded in enlightening and persuading half Europe to separate from the theories of popery, without fear of offending religion,—nay, rendering justice, by so doing, to that Gospel which the popes had adulterated, which Rome had profaned, which had been made an instrument of extortion and falsehood, by the aid of priests and monks. But this lesson, honestly given to them by nations, was not enough to correct the popes; even the half of their proselytes who remained to them, were sufficient to maintain their courts in all their luxury; and one hope comforted them, that by the use of skilful artifices, they might destroy the work of Luther and of Henry VIII., as they had done that of many others.
Holy Father, how has this hope for three centuries failed your predecessors! Nay, you yourself have had the grief of losing several districts, in the north and in the south, which called themselves yours, without any hope that they will ever return to you again.