A. great point in the theologic controversy has been grounded
on a per- secuting passage in the oaths to be taken by Roman Catholic Bishops at their consecration, and by Cardinals on their receiving the pallium. In the lectures which; at the request of the' Society for Promoting the Reli- gious Principles of the Reformation, Dr. Cumming, the Presbyterian orator of Crovin. Court, has been delivering to immense audiences in the TranOver Square Rooms, the oath was quoted from the Pontificals Ito- nianum. The persecuting clause reads thus—"Hereticos; schismaticos, et rebelles Domino uostro, vel successoribus, proposse persequar et ina- pagnabo." So eminent an ecclesiaitic as Dr. Wordsworth quoted this passage from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey itself, on Sunday the 3d instant, with an emphatic translation of it for the more effective stir- ring of the heretic and schismatical Protestant mind, and anintimation that Cardinal Wiseman, having duly sworn to "persecute and make war upon heretics,"-might'be expected to act accordingly. But all this appears to have been Stated, Whether by Dr. Wordsworth in the pulpit or Dr. Cum- ming on the.platforni, under a grand mistake. The terrible clause was expunged from the oath as administered to British ecclesiastics, by Pope Pius the Seventh, in April 1818. Dr. Wiseman took the oath in its amended form when he was made a Bishop in 1840 • the recent Bishops took, or will take, the same amended oath ; and Dr. Wiseman on receiving the pallium took no oath at all, Cardinals being exempt. These particu- lars are communicated in a letter signed " Francis Searle," of St. George's, Southwark ; who assisted at the ceremony in which Cardinal Wiseman received the pallium.
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