It is obvious how fatally a doctrine of this order must operate on society. If man could clear himself from the punishment of a life of profligacy by a bequest on his deathbed, his whole responsibility would be removed at once. The fear of judgment would be extinguished throughout his life; he could have no restraint but the arm of society. Masses would be his substitute for morals; and his conscience would be cleared by the acts of others, for years after he was laid in the grave. If Masses could avail, there would be no use in living virtue, to any man who was able to _pay for them_. This doctrine, intolerable in the view of common sense, unjust in placing an insurmountable distinction between the rich and the poor, and wholly contradictory to the spirit of the gospel--which commands that "every man shall work out his _own salvation_ with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in him, _both to will and to do_"--was created and continued for its vast profits to the priesthood of Rome. The celebrated Council of Trent, which, under various forms, sat from 1542 till 1563, collected all these doctrines into a _system_, and the subsequent act of Pius IV. gave them in the shape of a creed to the Popish world. We are glad to find that the "Papal Aggression" has awakened the intelligent and important authority of the English bar. On all great questions of the liberties and rights of the empire, that authority is of the most decisive order; and in this spirit we welcome with peculiar gratification a pamphlet from the well-known and eloquent pen of Mr Warren.[23] He commences by this bold and manly denunciation of the Papal interference with the rights of the Church and the privileges of the crown:-- "The ascendency of the Protestant faith in this country is in danger, notwithstanding the noble movement which has been made in its defence. The position so suddenly taken by the mortal enemy of that faith, is meant to be permanent; and he is silently intrenching himself in it: regarding all that has been said by this great nation as "sound and fury, signifying--NOTHING." He is infinitely more to be feared than he wishes at present to be believed; and though the precipitancy of priestly ambition may have deranged, for a moment, the working of his policy, it is really profound and comprehensive, as its results will in due time show; and has been accommodated to the political and ecclesiastical circumstances of the country with malignant exactitude and skilfulness.