errorum colluviem inde prorumpentem satis cumulate compensari ex libro aliquo, qui in hac tanta pravitatum tempestate ad Religionem ac veritatem propugnandum edatur.-Nefas profecto est, omnique jure improbatum, patrari data opera malum certum ac majus, quia spes sit, inde boni aliquid habitum iri. Numquid venena libere spargi, ac publice vendi, comportarique, imo et obbibi debere, sanus quis dixerit, quod remedii quidpiam habeatur, quo qui utuntur, eripi eos ex interitu identidem contingal?

Verum longe alia fuit Ecclesiæ disciplina in exscindenda malorum librorum peste vel ab Apostolorum ætate, quos legimus grandem librorum vim publice combussisse." p. 367.

This Scriptural authority is followed up by references to the decrees of the Fifth Lateran Council and the encyclical letters of former Popes of blessed memory, all condemning the toleration of works containing impure doctrine. The Tridentine

Fathers, it is remarked, made this a matter of their chief solicitude, applying as a remedy to this so great evil, that most salutary decree, de Indice librorum quibus impura doctrina contineretur conficiendo. We exclaim against the Mohammedan barbarians who made war against libraries and literature; but the Lateran and Tridentine doctors are their rivals in this unintelligent and intolerant zeal.

Waxing warmer as he proceeds, Pope Gregory, in insisting upon the duty of passive obedience to all emperors and kings,

* Hither tends that worst and never sufficiently to be execrated and detested liberty of the press, for the diffusion of all manner of writings, which some so loudly contend for, and so actively promote. We shudder, Venerable Brethren, at the sight of the monstrous doctrines, or rather portentous errors, which crowd upon Us in the shape of numberless volumes and pamphlets, small in size, but big with evils, which stalk forth in every direction, breathing a malediction which we deplore over the face of the earth. Yet are there not wanting, alas! those who carry their effrontery so far, as to persist in maintaining that this amalgamation of errors is sufficiently resisted, if, in this inundation of bad books, a volume now and then issue from the press in favour of religion and of truth. But is it not a crime then, never sufficiently to be reprobated, to commit deliberate and greater evil, merely with the hope of seeing some good arise out of it? Or is that man in his senses, who entrusts poison to every hand, exposes it at every mart, suffers it to be carried about on all occasions, aye, and to become a necessary ingredient of every cup, because an antidote may be afterwards procured which chance may render effective?

Far other hath been the discipline of the Church, in extirpating this pest of bad books, even as far back as the times of the Apostles, who, we read, committed a great number of books publicly to the flames.'

1

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

MDCCCXXXV.

JULY -DECEMBER.

THIRD SERIES.

VOL. XIV.

Φιλοσοφίαν δὲ οὐ τὴν Στωικὴν λέγω, οὐδὲ τὴν Πλατωνικὴν, ἢ τὴν Επιτ κουρεῖον τε καὶ ̓Αριστοτελικήν· ἀλλ ̓ ὅσα εἴρηται παρ' ἑκάστῃ τῶν αἱρεσίων τούτων καλῶς, δικαιοσύνην μετὰ εὐσεβοῦς ἐπιστήμης ἐκδιδάσκοντα, τοῦτο σύμπαν τὸ ΕΚΛΕΚΤΙΚΟΝ φιλοσοφίαν φημι.

CLEM. ALEX. Strom. L. 1.

LONDON:

JACKSON AND WALFORD,

18, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD.

1835.