FAREWELL TO THE POPE!

OR,

REASONS

FOR

RENOUNCING THE CHURCH OF ROME.

BY J. J. MAURETTE,

LATE PRIEST OF THE PARISH OF SERRE (ARIÉGE).

With an Introduction,

BY THE REV. JOHN CUMMING. D.D.

"I abjure Popery to embrace the doctrines of Jesus Christ."

ABBÉ MAURETTE.

LONDON:

C. EDMONDS, 154, STRAND

1846.

1185.

INTRODUCTION.

WHILE many Protestant divines are unhappily apostatizing to the Church of Rome, and numerous Romish Priests are vigorously spreading their pernicious errors among our people, it is some compensation to those who deplore these calamities, that in France and Germany the tide rushes in an opposite direction. In France especially, whole communes have recently cast off the superstitions of the Papacy, and embraced the glorious truths of the blessed Gospel. Not a few of the priests also have not only renounced the apostacy, in which they have been nursed, but in the face of persecution and reproach, have given irresistible reasons for the better faith that is in them. Among these is the Abbé Maurette, who furnishes a short but noble reason for his change, in these words, "I abjure Popery to embrace the doctrines of Jesus Christ." He abandons the traditions of

man for the truth of God; the worship of the creature for that of the Creator; and trust in a spurious sacrifice for faith and confidence in the perfect propitiatory sacrifice made once for all, for the sins of them that believe.

His little work is an exposition at length-eloquent, simple, and in most points truly satisfactory-of his reasons for abjuring the Romish system and embracing Protestant, that is, Scriptural Christianity. His preface, which is given entire in this edition, is happily conceived and beautifully executed.

The work has excited a great sensation on the continent, and no little interest in our own country; and the present faithful translation, it is hoped, is calculated to increase it. It is plain, from the experience of the Abbé Maurette, that

Romanism is the same in the nineteenth century, in all its substantial features, that it was in the tenth or fourteenth. It is what it has been from the beginning, a scheme which, assuming the name of religion, professes to meet man's perplexities, and quell his fears, while it keeps him at a distance from God. It so provides for man's love of sin, and his dread of its penalties, that he is encouraged in indulging the one, and is hardened against the influence of the other. It keeps down the fears of conscience by confessions, penances, and absolutions, and then allows its victim to go on unchecked, until conscience feels another paroxysm and drives him to the confessional for another opiate. Thus it keeps man really an Infidel, while it makes him believe he is a Christian. An exposure of these, its deadly errors, by one who once fully believed, and too faithfully taught them, is of immense value at all times, and especially at the present moment; and the more extensively it can be circulated among the great mass of our population, the more extensive and blessed we believe will be its effects.

Let us be thankful for our Protestant Christianity. Let us praise God that he has brought another priest out of darkness into its marvellous light.

Abjuring Popery as Maurette has done, let us with him embrace and hold fast the doctrines of Christ.

Let us cleave to the Bible, our only rule of faith—" alone the religion of Protestants." It is the charter of our rights, the palladium of our safety, the sacred ensign, around which freedom finds its firmest footing, humanity its bravest champion, and religion its purest altar. What it repudiates is heresy, what it rebukes is sin, what it commands is interest and duty, and what it is silent on is not essential to salvation.

Let us cleave to Christ and Him crucified. This is at once the essential and distinctive doctrine of Christianity; the Gospel without this great truth is the atmosphere without its oxygen. It is the trunk, and other doctrines are but boughs and branches; and social prosperity, and peace and happiness are but the parasite plants that feed on it, and derive their beauty and permanence from it. If

we let these great truths perish from our creeds and hearts we part with our strength; we give up the sun for a taper, and the bread of God for the husks of swine; and the church that surrenders it will perish like a lighthouse in the sea.

It is the great design and end of the atonement to "bring us to God." No priest, or pope, or ceremony, or sacrament, or church, or angel, or archangel, may come between us and God. This is Protestantism; Popery brings man to the priest, the sacrament, the church-but not to God.

Let us cleave to the Holy Spirit as our only life-giving Lord. He only can change the heart. No ecclesiastical rite, however valuable-no sacrament, however precious, can make new creatures. Man's ruin is too great; were humanity in a swoon or faint, the lustral waters of baptism might revive it, but man is dead in trespasses and sins, and none but Deity can quicken the dead.

There is no atoning efficacy in tears and sufferings; there is none anywhere but in the sacrifice of Jesus. There is no regenerative energy but in the Holy Ghost.

The clear and cordial belief of these truths is the best preservative from Romanism. We have not one moment's doubt however of the ultimate and universal ascendancy of Protestant Christianity. It has too many allies around it, and too many victories behind it, to allow us to fear for its future prospects. It is sustained by reason, and it must in the end triumph over folly; it is upheld by the deepest and truest feelings of conscience, and its sovereignty is sure; it is founded on the word of God, and it will have free course and be glorified, and the writings of Fathers and Schoolmen must all be conformed to its truths, or perish in its way to victory. The most plausible and popular errors are ephemeral; the least and most unpalatable truth is eternal.

The Abbé Maurette is a first-fruit only of mighty multitudes that are soon to follow. He has heard the Apocalyptic voice, "Come out of her, my people," and he has led the path of peril simply because he has seen it to be the path of duty.