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t i

HUSENBETH'S, DEFENCE

OF THE

CATHOLIC CHURCH:

A Complete Refutation of the Calummes contained in a

Work entitled

THE POOR MAN'S PRESERVATIVE
AGAINST POPERY,

By the Rwerend JOSEPH BLAJ^CO WHITE,

M A.. B. D., iB the UaiTenity of ^erilto ; Licentiate of Difinity in the Uni-
▼enitT of Otona : formeri^ CluidiAn Magittnl (Preaeher) to the Kiof of
Spain, in the Royal Chapel at SeviUe ; Fellow, and ooee Bcetor of the
CoUeice of St. Mary a /««tt of the saoie Town ; Synodal Eiuuniner of the
Diooese of Cndiz : Member of the Royal Academy of Bellea-Lettiw of
Serille, 4*0. ^. ; now a Clergyman of the Church of England.

WITH A

PREFACE

• . BY A

CATHOLIC LAYMAN OF UPPER CANADA;

In which the Retur6 of the Hon. John Elmsley to the Reli-
gion of our Fathers, is defended on the Grounds of Rea-
son and Duty, hy the Hon. and Rev. George Spencer,
Son of thb present Earl Spencer, and Brother of Lord
Althorp, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the Account
given by himself of his own Conversion to the Catholic
raith, in a Letter to the Rev. N. Rigby of Egton Bridge,
dated January 3d, 1834 ; and in which it is demonstrated,
by Reference to History, that, from the very origin of
Christianity, the CATHOLIC has been the Inward
FAITH, and the outwardly-professed RELIGION of the
ENLIGHTENED, the BRAVE, and the FREE.

TBERBFORE^" 2ViAe JEUed <o Yovr$tl9e$, that your BtaH bt not Dt-
ceivid, and yt turn atide and tcrre elA«r god9, and toonMp them."

^,1 !l

TORONTO: ^

SRINTBD WOK THE FB0P11IET0R8 BY T. DALTON, ^

PATBIOT OFFICE, 233. KINO fITRBST. _ | ^

1834.

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PREFACE.

/ (

In a free country where every man has the right to profess
the creed which he finds most congenial to his conscience, we
see no reason why a Catholic should be hunted down, for
availing himself of the privilege which every sectarian in the
land enjoys.

The desertion of the Hon. John Elmsley from the Church
of England, and his embracing the doctrine of the Catholic
Church, has raised such an alarm among protlstants of all
denominations in this city, that it appears to be the tocsin for
those, of the most jarring and discordant dogmas to rally
round their divided fabric, and bring their united artillery to
bear upon Mr. Elmsley ; not satisfied with the " triumphant
and gentlemanlike" answer of the Venerable Archdeacon of
Toronto, they must pour upon him, the most scurrilous and
billingsgate abuse from the kennel of the Courier, which is,
however, far beneath the notice of any man of character to
answer ; and as if this were not enough, they quote in the
first number of the poor man's preservative against Popery,
" the excellent observations" of the Christian Guardian upon
the subject of Transubstantiation, although the creed of the
Ryersonians and that of the Church of England, agree only in
hatred against Catholics.

Their long catalogue of calumnies, so often refuted, disa-
vowed, and disclaimed by Catholics, their enemies with insa-
tiate rancour still continue to pour out against them.
* As their principal hope however of overwhelming the in-
fluence of the Catholic Religion, seems to rest in the publica-
tion of that super-eminent production, Blanco White's poor

mana preservative against Popery, it will not, be considered
foruij^u to our purpose to give sonic account of its Author.

It is a well known antl acknowledged fact, that Southy the
poet Laureat is the real author of the " poor man's preser-
vative," althoughj^lanco White thought it an honor to avow
lumself the fat'.ior of it, and thereby has obtained a fat living,
with the favour and protection of a moral peer of the Realm,
and a meml)er of the British House of Lords, whose immacu-
Info lady, it is said, was much censured by her own sex, for ha-
ving shewn the good taste of exchanging an old Baronet (poor
Sir (todfrcy Webster) for a young Lord, and abandoning her
worn out husband, and seven children, whom she deprived of
X4000 a year, to increase thefortuneof her uxorious gallant.

Mr. Blanco White was appointed Tutor and Spanish Mas-
ter to Lord Holland's eldest son, immediately after his con-
versiou from *' infidelity" to the Protestant religion, and was
80on afterwards endowed »vith a rich and comfortable living
in the Church of England.

To shew his gratitude for such favours, the least return he
thought he could make, was to lend his name, and assist the
invention of the poet to abuse and calumniate the religion of
his ancestors, and the Church in which ho had received his
early education, and so many honours and distinctions.

Were the enemies of our religion to charge us only with te-
nets and dogmas which we really believe, we should have no
cause to complain, but when they accuse us of doctrines which
are not contained in our creed, and which we abhor, and de-
test, we think ourselves most unfairly and unjustly dealt with.

Surely Catholics ought to know their own tenets, and every
liberal and unprejudiced man, who wishes to acquire a correct
..n«i thorough knowledge of them, must apply to the Catho-
lics themselves for that knowledge: thus

When the late Right Hon. William Pitt, in the year 1793,
came to a determination of granting relief to Catholics from
the pressure of penal laws, he demanded of the Vicars Apos-
tolic of Great Britain, a correct statement: or formula of their
religious tenets ; but in order to satisfy himself, whether they
did, or did not, hold the obnoxious and unchristian dogmas
i*nputed to them by Protestants, such as not holding fdth with
heretics, Absolution from their cathsof allegiance to their law-
ful Sovereign by the Pope, d:c. ^c. — and apprehensive, ih^\

Ill

aUhough such doctrines might have been exploded in Great'
Britain under a Protestant Government they might still hei
lield in Catholic countries ho sent certain queries upon this
subject to different Catholic Universities in Flanders, France,
Spain and Italy, viz. the Universities of Lauvain, Valladolid,
Seville, Alcola, Padua and others, and the answers being en-
tirely to his satisfaction, Mr. Pitt was ever after, as was also
Mr. Dundas, (afterwards Lord McUville) anxious, and even
solicitous, to emancipate the Catholics of Great Britain and
Ireland, and put them in possession of their natural rights as
subjects.

These great statesmen were men of honour and candour,
and when perfectly convinced of the falsehood of the cruel
imputations against Catholics, felt it incumbent on them to en-
deavour to procure them justice ; and to mark their sincerity
both resigned their situations in the Cabinet in the year 1799,
because they could not prevail on his then Majesty Geo. III.
to permit Catholic emancipation to be made a Cabinet Ques-
tion, his Majesty thinking it contrary to his Coronation oath.

In introducing to the notice of our readers the very clear,
luminous, and satisfactory reply of the Rev. Mr. Husenbeth
to the work which bears the name of the Rev. Joseph Blan-
co White, we cannot help expressing our surprise, that the
production of an individual who admits that he was an Atheist
for many years, and an immoral man as well, should have
been necessary to counteract the effect of an extract from the
work of the pious Bishop of Strasbourg.

Leaving for a moment the authority of the Church out of
the question, and taking the scriptural arguments only into
account, well might we be satisfied to leave the issue of the
controversy to the unbiassed judgment of those, who have
read the arguments of the Bishop of Strasbourg, and the re-
marks of the Archdeacon of Toronto. Although the scurrilous
writer in the Courier has attempted to assail the Church, and
has been profuse in his calumnious vituperation regarding it ;
although he may hope to annihilate the church of eighteen cen-
turies, that like a second Ark has floated over the waters of
j>ersecution ; although he may revile the numerous converts
to it, and traduce their motives, yet he will find that even with
laws, more bloody than Draco ever formed, &: carried into exe-
cution, for the purpose of extinguishing it in Ireland antl Eng-

h '

land, that ** the everlasting God was its refuge, & underneathi
were the everlasting arms." We fear not the efforts of tho
Archdeacon of Toronto, nor tho abuse of the Courier, they
might as well endieavor to stay tho winds of Heaven, as strive
to overthrow a Church that Christ has cemented together with
his blood, and to which he has given his bond and promise.

The Catholic, Church is not a church of yesterday ; it is
not a novelty like protestantism, a vagary like Mormonism,
nor a rhapsody like Methodism. It is the true begotten and
immaculate spouse of the living God.

It is impossible but to contemplate with delight the enno-
bling spectacle of perfect agreement in matters op faith,
through all ages, and in all nations in this one, holy, Catho-
tholic and Apostolic Church. Here indeed wo discover one
Faith, one Lord, one Baptism. We behold in her divine and '
most holy mysteries the most perfect adaption of religion to
the necessities and morals of mankind ; philosophy without
its pride, and knowledge without its guile. We believe ' to
be the immaculate spouse of Christ, that requires not a dower
of the mammon of this world to secure her fidelity to her be-
trothed Lord. Can the Venerable Archdeacon say of th^e*
Church of England, as the illustrious St. Augustine said of
the Church of Rome; that she bears on her front the im-
press of the Divinity ; that she was the fabric of an immor-
tal hand, that her materials were immutable, and imperisha-
ble. Alas ! for the Church established by acts of Parliament,
instead of by the acts of the Apostles ; we too clearly recog-
nize in it, the traces of human mutability ; we see it* changing
with an accommodating and pliant hand, every quarter of a
century through its short lived existence, according to the
wishes and caprices of the people; we see that it contains
within itself the elements of self destruction; and we know
that sooner or later, it must yield to that moral revclution
which has laid in the dust the proudest monuments of human
folly. Heresy, like a noxious weed, sprung up — the Catho-
lic Church like a faithful sentinel of Christ immediately de-
notinced it. Nothing has eluded her vigilance ; no fraud re-
mained undetected ; no imposture unexposed ; no falsehood
uncontradicted ; no calumny unrefuted ; and in every attempt
niade to fasten error on the Church of Rome, she has emerg-
ed from the trying ordeal with spotless purity, the symbol of

her

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her innocence, the symbol of her truth. To suffer persecu-
tion was a part of the inheritance bequeathed to the Church
by its divine founder, and that in this respect the Church of
Rome has suffered a full portion, is abundantly attested by
the long train of holy and venerable martyrs* who have perish-
ed in her hallowed cause, exhibiting the most exemplary pa-
tience, bearing wrong without a murmur, breathing the sub-
limest aspirations of charity, and answering tortures only by
prayers."

The satrap in the Courier insolently sneers at the conver-
sion of the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Spencer and insinuates that a
Cardinal's Cap might be the reason, but perhaps he will bo-
kind enough to allow the Hon. and Rev. Gentleman the per-
mission to assign the reasons of his conversion lor himself^
they are as follows:

Conversion of the Hon. and Rev. John Spencer^ (Son of the
"present Lord Spencer^ and Brother of Lord Althorp.)

The following account was given by the Nobleman himself
to the Rev. N. Rigby of Egton Bridge, in a letter, dated Ja-
nuary 3, 1834,

DEAR AND REV. SIR,

I was ordained Deacon in the Church of England, a-
bout Christmas, 1822, being sntisfled at the time, that all was
right in that Church, although I had not taken much pains
to study the grounds and principles of its establishment —
When I entered upon active employment as a clergyman, I
was naturally led to seek information more fully ; I often
used to read and admire the Church Liturgy, but often won-
dered how such a beautiful work could have b^en produced
in the midst of such confusion and wickedness, as I learned
from Protestant histories, had accompanied all the proceed-'
ings of the chief actors in the Reformation of England. I had
been brought up in, the habit of looking on the Catholic
Church as a mass of errors,, and little did I think at that
time, that all I admired in the Church of England* Liturgy,

*The advocates of^the established Church, often extol the beauty and per.
fcction of their Liturgy, but they ought, at the same time, to be so kind as to
inform the Public, that the greatest part of their Liturgy has been borrowed

1^-

^Tismorrly an inconsistent nbridgcment of the holy, admirir-
hlo ofticos of the Roman Catholic Church. What first led to
an alteration of my views in rep;ard to the soundness and ex-
cellence of the Church of England, was the intercourse
which I had with various dissenting Protestant Ministers. —
I used to seek their conversation with the hope of leading back
some of them, and their flocks, to the Church with which I
was satisfied, and which, I did not think they had any good
reason for leaving ; but every sect with which I became ac-
quainted, seemed to liave something apparently reasonable to
say in behalf of tlK.'ir own views and against the established
Church. I knew of coiirse these sects could not be ail right
in their contradictory doctrines and rules of practice, and I
clearly saw palpable errors in their several systems, but at
the same time, I learned from their conversation, that I could
not defend every part of my own system, and I also found
that these Ministers could bring arguments against it, which
I could not satisfactorily answer. At length I found difficul-
ty regarding the Thirty-nine Articles, which made me see
that I could not rest as I was. In- signing these articles, my
assent was required to certain declarations of doctrines, ex-
pressly on the ground, that they could be proved by most cer-
tain warrant of the Holy Scripture, and indeed Protesta. ,s
hold it as a general principle, that the ** Holy Scripture con-
taineth all things necessary for salvation, so that whatsoever
is not contained therein, nor may be proved thereby, is no t
to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an ar_
tide of faith, or be thought necessary as requisite forsalva.
tion." Now, with the doctrines in question, 1 found no fault,
but I could not draw a clear and satisfactory demonstration
of them from the Scriptures alone ; in order to establish them
I found myself obliged to have recourse to arguments from
reason, independent of the Scriptures, or to appeal to the gen-
oral consent of christians in successive ages ; in other words»

from the Catholic Missal and Ritual. Oi this, anyone may be convinced, who
will compare the prayers, lessons, and gospels in the Catholic Missal and Ili.
tual, with those in the Book of Common Prayer. But though our service hai
been thus borrowed, it has not been preserved entire, but stands in the Protes-
tant prayer book, deprived of the principal ^essential worship of all the ancient
churches, the Holy Mass, this true fy propitiatory sacrifice, as it stands in all the
ancient Missals, has been reduced in the Bock of Common Prayer to a mere ver.
bal worship in "The order for the Morning Prayer." Hence our James I.
pronounced the order for the Morning Prayer to be an ill said Mass.

to tho tradition ofthe Clmrch. I felt I could not again sign
the thirty-nino articles, unless this objection woro removed.
I proposed it to my superiors, but, as tho oxpl .lation given
by them did not satisfy mo, aAcr what I had considered a suf-
ficient pause, I declared finally my resolution of not signing
them any more. I was now the more free to seek tho truth,
where it might be found, but I had then no idea that it was in
tho Church of Rome. My friends would havo dissuaded mo
from having any communication with Roman Catholic priests,
but I thought they ought not to be excluded from the general
scheme of re-union which I wished to se-j set on foot ; I used
therefore to speak to them frequently. At first I expected to
iind them ignorant of truo spiritual religion, mere formalists,
and quite unable to defend, what I thought, the absurdities of
their creed, but to my surprise, every conversation with them
led mo to see that I had been deceived ; I found that they both
understood the tenets of their Religion well, and could explain
and defend them in a most masterly manner, and I began tu
see that there was more in the Catholic Religion than I knew,
though I was not convinced I was wrong in being divided
from it, as I still thought it was erroneous and unscriptural
in many points. The first thing which changed materially
my views of the Catholic faith, was a correspondence which
I kept up with an unknown person for about half a year. This
person stated, that he had been travelling abroad, and having
frequently entered Catholic Churches, was surprised to see how
devout and holy the services were, he was led to examine fur-
ther, & began to entertain doubts ofthe wisdom of the English
Reformation

I thought I could soon set him right by pointing out to him,
what I had for some time thought denunciations against the
Catholic Church, in the ilpocalypse, and in other parts of
the Scripture. In the course of our correspondence he forc-
ibly opposed those ideas, and so far from allowing that they
«ould be proved from scripture, he treated them as the mere
inventions of men. I was then led to ask myself, whether I
had drawn them simply from scripture, and found, that I had
never entertained them, before some Protestant Commentators
had put them into my head. My principle was to attend to the
word of God alone ; I therefore determined no longer to pay
regard to those ideas, unless I should find the scripture of it-
self lead me to them. From that time, those ideas never made

'• I

any impression on me. I never knew who this correspond-
ent was, until I went abroad to prepare for my ordination ; I
then learned that it was a young lady, who was on the point
of becominor a Catholic, but who, for further satisfaction,
wrote to me, and to one or two other Protestant Clergymen,
to hear what we could say in defence of our religion. You
may naturally suppose, that our answers instead of weaken-
ing, would rather confirm her attachment to the Catholic faith.
Just so : she became a Catholic, and was on the point of being
professed a Nun, in the order of the Sacred Heart, when she
died a holy and edifying death. Owing to this correspond-
ence, I became much more willing to give Catholics a favora-
ble hearing but it was yet three years before I was led to
the further step of embracing the Catholic faith.

This was brought about in the following manner. 1 had
made acquaintance about the year 1829 with Mr. Ambrose
Phillipps, eldest son of the member for Leicestershire. The
conversion of this young gentleman to the Catholic Faith, at the
age of fourteen years, (about seven years before I knew him,)
had very much surprised me, when I first heard of it. His
character and conversation interested me, and with pleasure
I accepted his invitation to spend a week at his Father's
house at Garrenden Park, I was in hopes, that I should thus
have an opportunity of inducing him to think more correctly
about religion. I had indeed no great hopes of being able to
dissuade him from the Catholic Religion altogether, nor did I
earnestly wish it, for I had been already convinced, that men
might be'good christians in that religion. I left home for Gar-
renden Park, January 24th, 1830, on Sunday night, after
preaching two sermons in my Protestant Church, at Brington
in Northamptonshire, of which I was Rector, and little did I
think then, that those two sermons would be the last I should
ever preach in a Protestant church. All the time at Garren-
den was nearly devoted to religious conversation, and I soon
fouud, that instead of my being able to teach Mr. Phillipps, to
think more correctly about religion, I was obliged, in many
points, to acknowledge, that I had to be a learner myself. I
found him well able to stand his ground in defence of the Ca-
tholic faith against me, and some other more experienced
Protestant Divines, who occasionally joined our conversation.
At last, finding that 1 was contending with obstinacy, and not

. /

r/Ji-

with the candour I professed, I made up my mind to look in-
to the affair with a new feeling, and with a real determination
to follow the truth. This resolution gave me immediate com-
fort, and the consequence of it was, I was soon delivered from
ail my douhts. I had intended to have gone home on Satur-
day, to resume my duty at Brington, but I first went with Mr.
Phillipps on Friday to Leicester, where we dined and spent
the evening with Mr. Caestrick, an old French Missionary,
who had been stationed at Liecester for several years. The
kindness, and patience, with which he met my objections,
made me more willing to listen to correction ; his statements^
and reasoning, came upon me with authority and conviction,
which I felt I could not, and must not resist, and before night,
I declared my submission to the Church of God.

The conversation of Mr. Caestrick had satisfied me, that
the Roman Catholic Church was that Church which our Sa-
viour had founded, and that he had promised that Hell's gatei
should never prevail against his Church, and that He and his
Holy Spirit should remain with it forever, teaching all truth,
and had commanded it should be obeyed in words so clear,
" he that will not hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a
heathen and a publican," Matt. 18, 17; I felt convinced, that
in obeying it, I was doing the will of Him, on whom I had
placed my firm and only dependence for peace and salvation,
and in doing this, I knew I could not be led astray. Thank
God ! I put aside the thought, which first offered of going;^
home and looking into the affair the week after. The step
which I took the next day of professing myself a Catholic, is
one on which I have never reflected with any thing but com-
fort, as I do even at the present moment. The truth is so
plain, that the Catholic Church was founded by our Saviour,
that it has all the four marks of Christ's Church, and that it
has Jesus Christ's infallible word, that it shall continue until
the end of the world. The Protestants indeed tell us, that it
was t^^e first true Church, but that it afterwards fell into idol-
atry and damnable doctrine, but they cannot show How, when
and WHERE, it fell into idolatry and damnable doctrine.
I thought it therefore more prudent, (and so I now do think
it,) to trust to the infallible promise of our Saviour, than to
any man's assertions, and if my resolution to become a Ca-
tholic on this ground, was sudden, I defy any man to prove

it rash. I saw that God promised me no better opportunity
than the present, so I sent a messenger home that night to
announce my resolution, and I made my abjuration oi' the
Protestant faith, in Leicester Chapel, on Saturday morning
the 30th of January. I had for a long time no thoughts but
of serving God in the ministry of that Church, which ever it
was, that I should find to be the true one , and so I at once
offered myself to Doctor Walsh, Catholic Bishop of the mid-
land district, who sent me to the English College at Rome ;
where by a happy coincidence of circumstauees, I was or-
dained for the English Mission, May 26, 1832, St. Augus-
tine's day, in St. Gregory's Church, the very spot from
which St. Augustine received his mission from that holy Pope
to undertake the conversion of England, and I humbly ask
your prayers, that I may be by his mercy an humble instru-
ment toward's its conversion, which I trust is not far dis-
tant, & which it is the dearest desire of my heart in this world
to see accomplished.

J , ^ I am, Dear Sir, Yours most truly,

' '^ GEORGE SPENCER.

West Brunswick, January 3, 1834.

That the Venerable Archdeacon of Toronto should find
cause for complaint against the Honorable Mr. Elmsley, for
preferring the old religion to the new, appears to the candid
inquirer somewhat curious, when it is recollected that Mr.
Elmsley selected a Church not bolstered up by the power
and patronage of the Government, but the old fashioned one
that requires fasting and numberless privations — that enjoins
humiliation instead of holding out prospects of ambition or
preferment : in fine, to a Church which even as it regards the
subject of the present controversy, the real presence, certain-
ly believes what it professes, instead of that accommodating
Church which professes what it does not believe.

it has been the transcendent glory of the Church of Rome,
to have been the instrument of converting whole nations to
Christ. The history of Christianity in every nation under
heavon, attests the glorious and astounding fact. To account
for which, we earnestly invite the attention of our readers to
the contrast between the different modes which Catholic and
Protestant Missionaries adopted in pursuit of this work.

I'd I'

' 3

The history of the missions of Paraguay by Muratovi', will
shew that adopted by the much persecuted and calumniated
order of Jesuits, in their successful efforts to convert the sav-
age and brutal Indians of Paraguay to the faith of Christ. In
perusing this interesting and delightful account of these mis-
sions, we shall find these zealous apostles of the new woi'ld,
to have been men of the most indomitable fortitude, great
humijity, intense perseverance, the utmost patience and ser-
aphic piety, extensive knowledge and commanding intellect.
Their intention was not to avail themselves of the ignorance
and simplicity of the natives, to amass wealth, and bring the
poor Indians under the iron yoke of religious tyranny, but
to enlighten their minds, and instruct them in the truths of
Christianity, and to meliorate their condition, and exalt them
from the miserable and debased slate in which they found
them, to one of comfort and respectability, and their indefat-
igable and astonishing labors were blessed by Almighty God
with most abundant success. / " ' • r

On their first arrival at Paraguay, they found the people
idle, dissolute and brutal ; filthy in their habits, unrestrained
by authority, and in a total state of barbarity. In a short
time they became, under the pious tuition of their excellent
and indefatigable instructors, industrious, virtuous, cleanly
in their persons, ol)edient and submissive to authority, exhib-
iting the comforts and blessings of a civilized and christian
community. Those misrepresented sons of St Ignatius,
taught their converts all manner of handicraft, the building
of comfortable habitations, commodious granaries, and decent
churches ; agriculture in all its branches, to which the rich-
ness of the soil, and mildness of the climate afforded every
facility, so that the country from* the most debased state of
barbarity, became comfortable and happ_, and the people
from a state of precarious subsistence, and often of starvation,
saw themselves surrounded with abundance of every comfort
of civilized life. The population in place of decreasing had
augmented ten fold, from the time the first missionaries en-
tered Paraguay, till the suppression of the order of Jesuits,
through the intrigues and influence of the Marquis of Pom-
ball, and Count of d' Arauda.

We should not omit here to mention that when the order
came from the ('abinet of Madrid, for the Jesuits to quit Par-

'tl

■ III

aquay, that the whole population of the country offered to de-
fend their clergy against all the power that Spain could send
against them, which they could easily have done, as the Jes-
uits had organized a well regulated government amongst
them, and upon a former occasion, had brought ten thousand
men to the field in defence of their country, when invaded by
the Portuguese, but they preferred following the example of
their Divine Master, who declared that his kingdom was not
of this world, and submitted without resistance to the unjust
order of their sovereign.

From the contemplation of the apostolic ministry of the Je-
suits in Paraguay, how fearful is it to turn to the well authen-
ticated accounts of the American Methodist missionaries in
the South Sea Islands, of which we find one, in a late New
York Courier and Enquirer, as follows.

Missionaries in the South Sea Islands. — Our readers are
perhaps not aware that an ecclesiastical empire is growing up
gradually in the South Seas, in the Archipelago of Polynesia.
For this empire too great parties are contesting — the English
and American missionary societies. Incited, probably, by
the successful example of Dr. Francia, who has established
a rigid ecclesiastical despotism among the Indians of Paraguay,
similar attempts appear to be making in other quarters, among
the Cherokees, and in the islands of the South Pacific. As
yet we have few particulars respecting the plans and success
of these contending parties. All, or nearly all we know, comes
from the Missionaries themselves, or from the reports of Amer-
ican naval ofiicers, who have visited these remote islands. It
may naturally be inferred, without impeaching the veracity
of the former, that they are extremely likely to be misled ei-
ther by zeal or hope, by conscientious obligations, or motives
of worldly interest, into partial views of present success, and
over-sanguine anticipations of the future. They have too much
at stake to see clearly, or speak truly. With regard to our
naval officers, we have heard of one, for whose dismissal from
the service great efforts were made, a few years since, on the
score of some details he made in relation to the state of morals
and religion in Owhyhee and some of the neighbouring islands
of the Sandwich group, which he had visited. In this state
of things, it is not likely that we shall get the truth from the

xtii

friends of these missions, from the rais^'-^naries themselves,
or from officers who may proclaim it at the risk of their rank
and future prospects. From their enemies it would be unjus
to take our impressions ; but the following article comes from
one who was, it appears, not only a friend but a supporter of
missions, one who visited these islands with high-wrought an-
ticipations of seeing new Edens growing up in these lonely
lands of the ocean, and bsholding the triumphs of religion and
humanity in a new world.

How he was disappointed, will appear from his own details,
which most assuredly, if true, will afford little gratification to
those who have bestowed thousands and tens of thousands to
foster plans that have resulted in such deplorable conse-
quences, and less encouragement to future contributions. W«
had heard something of these things before, from an American
naval officer, who visited these islands, ajid whose name we
shall not give, lest it should subject him to persecution and
slander. We think it highly probable that the details in the
following statement may be tinctured with a spirit of national,
if not missionary rivalry, and that they should be taken with
some grains of allowance. But there is enough in them to
call for a strict scrutiny into the effects resulting and likely
to result from the millions of money abstracted from the pur-
poses of religion and humanity at home, to expend in schemes
of more than doubtful utility in a distant hemisphere. We
publish the article to excite enquiry. When rogues — we
mean — when honest men fall out, rogues come at the truth.

AMERICAN MISSIONAEIES IN THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS.

It is extremely painful to be obliged to say so much against
the American missionary system, as 1 found it existing in
these highly favored islands. Whilst travelling in Europe,
the writer had always been friendly to the cause, and had been
also no mean contributor to missionaries generally to the
South Seas, and therefore visited the various groups of islands
quite prepossessed in favor of them ; but truth compels him
to say, that his personal observation tt^on the spot, of the ef-
fects produced by the conduct of the American missionaries in
the Sandwich Islands, wrought on him a sad and melancholy
disappointment.

No doubt, among so numerous a body as the American mis-

XIV

sionaries, there are many very valuable men, who would do
honor to any employment they might be engaged in, and

among these I have great pleasure in recollecting Mr. in

Owhyhee, but " exceptio probat regulum :" and it is to be re-
gretted such instances are not more numerous. The system of
exacting a Spanish silver dollar from every black man and wo-
man before the missionary will marry them, is certainly not
one of their instructions, and is highly oppressive among a po-
pulation that can hardly obtain a dollar by any exertions, cou-
pled, as this priestly regulation is, by a summary denounce-
ment against all those who cohabit together without the form
of marriage. A sermon which I heard in the island of Woa-
hoo was frightful : it was something to these words : '♦ You
will go to the horrible place of torment in everlasting flames,
unless you rely solely on our Lord Jesus Christ. It is no use
your being honest, no use your being sober, feeding the hun-
gry, and healing the sick, and leading what the world call, a
virtuous and upright life one towards another ; all this, 1 say,
is of no use ; you and your children will be cast into the fiery
pit, which burueth for ever and ever, the bottom of which is
paved with the little bones of infants not a span long !" I would
ask any body if this is the way to begin with people in a com-
plete state of nature! The preacher was a young man of
about twenty, that had, just arrived from the establishment at
Princeton in New Jersey ; but it is to be hoped that he will
follow in the path so abundantly set before him by his elder
brethren, and end with the same amount of discretion as he
has now of zeal, and thereby accumulate, as I was informed
tlie head missionary, but ci-divant chair-maker, has done,
twenty-thousand dollars worth of property in his house at Ho-
norura!

No wonder the population is gradually falling off, when,
added to this system of frightening the people, and charging
them a dollar forgetting married, they are compelled to attend
the church and school four davs out of seven, and the fifth
day is spent in compulsoiy luhor for the chiefs ; thus leaving
only two whole days for the purpose of tillage and growing
their necessary food. '■

The missionaries have prohibited — fishing, bathing, jews-
harps, and the surf-board, and every other description of a-

li ^

musement among the notivc population ; besides wlucli they
have introduced an old law of the Connecticut puritans, and
will not allow an English or ilmerican gentleman to ride on
horseback on Sunday, or drink spirituous liquors, or play at
bowls or billiards on any day in the week; whilst they them-
selves are driven about the town and about the country four-in
hand, with their wiveg and families, Sundays and working
days, not by horses, which are plentiful and cheap enough iu
those islands, but by human beings, — four naked black fel-
lows, their own hearers, and probably fellow-communicants !
The missionaries wanted to proclaim the ten command-
ments of Moses as the supreme law of the land throughout the
islands ; but some difficulties were started, and the plan v. a«
abandoned.

In short, civilation, as it is unfortunately going on at pre-
sent in the Sandwich Islands, under the mismanagement of
the American missionaries, is only another word for extinc-
tion.

The bulk of the people are in a state bordering on starva-
tion, because the adults are taken away from their enclosures
of taro and potatoes to learn to read and spell ; thus beginning
at the wrong end, and the time that should be devoted to the
agricultural and mechanic arts, is now fruitlessly wasted in
teaching old men of seventy to spell a, J, ab ! and where one
naturally looks for the outward signs of industry, the spade,
the hoe, the fishing net, &c., there is nothing but a vain and
idle exhibition of the palapala, or spelling book, bought ot tho
missionaries at a high price.

in fact, the whole system, with an honorable exception or
two is nothing but a money-making fraud, and instead of tend-
ing to the benefit of the wretched people, may be considered
almost as a visitation of wrath, and a direct cause of the de-
population before spoken of.

First, by a tax on marriage, much above the means of nine-
tenths of the people, which tax is not received by the king or
government, such as it is, to be disbursed and circulated again,
but goes directly into the pockets of the missionaries, to be
hoarded by them and taken out of the country when they have
sufficiently feathered their nests, and by denouncing eternal
torments on those who marry according to the ancient usages,
that is, without paying a dollar to the reverend fathers.

' fi

:'i

XVI

Second, by starvation, employing the natives four days on
of the seven, in useless school learning, or otherwise taking
them from the cultivation of the soil.

Third, by disease, prohibiting bathing, which, in that cli-
mate is almost as essential to existence as fresh air ; the na-
tives, from being the fine healthy people they were in Cook's
time, are now covered with vermin and scorbutic eruptions.

Fourth, by prohibiting their innocent sports ; and by fruit-
lessly attempting to bind human beings to a mode of life which
is contrary to their nature, their spirit is broken, and they have
now become listless and enervated ; and, should the presen
system continue, there will, ere long, be none but the white
population for the missionaries to preach to. — James's Pamph-
let, extracted in the Metropolitan.

It was a trite observation of Dean Swift's, that when the
Pope weeded, his garden, he generally flung the weeds over
their walls, that is of the " pure Protestant Church," and Char-
les the second in an equally laconic way, when congratula-
ted on the accession of a new brother, viz. the conversion of
a Catholic priest to that of a Protestant, used to remark, you
will soon have to congratulate me on our having a sister. —
Meaning that he had changed his creed for the license to
marry. Thus while the Protestant Church may glory in the
accessionof such converts, the one holy Catholic and Apos-
tolic Church, points with exultation to the pious, learned and
accomplished converts which every year and day are added
to her number — Gether, Haller, Dryden, Campion, Right
Rev. Doctor Hay — cum multis aliis, ornaments of literaturct
models of piety, and the most ardent promoters of the happi-
ness of mankind. She has no rich Archdeacottries to assist
her in her efforts ; no sinecures to offer ; no emoluments to
bestow: her priests are wedded to the Church, to her they
must devote their energies, and if necessary, surrender their
lives. The inclemency of winter, and the heat of sum-
mer, must be equally endured in prosecuting the labors of
their arduous missions. The terrors of pestilence must be
surmounted ; the pangs of poverty must be submitted to, yea,
they must count every thing as " dung and dross, for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ." And here it will
neither be irrelevent nor unreasonable to draw a parallel be-
iween the conduct of the Catholic Archbishop of Paris, and

XVll

the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, during the visitation of
that dreadful scourge the cholera, in their respective countries.
The former, whose palace was ransacked by a revolutionary
rabble in their demoniac phrenzy, and whose hoary hair and
reproachless life scarcely saved him from destruction, gave
up his residence to the people as a public hospital, and in
conjunction with his domestics, waited upon, and attended to
the sick and dying. The latter in possession of great wealth,
sends a circular round to his clergy, informing them that, in
such an alarming state of disease as then existed, they were
released from personal attendance on thv sick, because their
families might fall victims through their medium.

■To the charge of apostacy so liberally dealt out against the
Honorable John Elmsley, that gentleman might with proprie-
ty, reply in the words of a worthy predecessor, who on being
taunted with his apostacy, by the Rector of his parish in Lon-
don, replied as follows :

" I anticipate the approbation of my Protestant friends
while I thus proclaim aloud my attachment to that venerable'
Church, which has subdued me to her tenets by the power of
argument. She had no suggestion of self interest, no pros-
pects of advantage, no allurements of worldly aggrandizement
to tempt me to adopt them. On the contrary, past prejudices,
present impediments, passions, future hopes and advantages
in life, all combined to fix me with immovable firmness in the
religion in which I had been educated. Every step I took in
approaching toward the sacred rock on which I now stand*
presented some new cause for lingering in my errors ; there
was no precipitation in my resolves ; on the contrary, even
when judgement was convinced, prejudice still retained its
empire, still procrastinated, the contemplation of heavenly
truth was still clouded by her mists ; on what side soever my
thoughts turned, I was still perplexed by sonn new dilemma.
I was disquieted by the importunities of friends, by my reluc-
tance to displease them, and above all by the foreseen con-
tempt and ridicule of those who, in the absence of all argu-
ment, would call me an apostate. These were' the consider-
ations which long operated in my breast against the avowal
of that choice which I have not only made, but in which I
glory. As to the word apostate, it may sound plausibly e-
nough in the ears of men wedded to worldly interests ; but in

11. 1

xvm

the oar of him who weighs the force of arguments rather than
of words, it is a mere bugbear, invented by crafty politicians,
to deter thought from investigating, and conscience from ad-
opting truth. If it have any real determinate meaning ; if
its etymology be worth unravelling, it is you, sir, who will
be found the apostate, not I. Catholicity was during too many
centuries enthroned m the belief, and embodied in the very
history of the nation, to give the least plausibility in the ap-
plication of the word apostate to any man, who, in the pres-
ent age returns to the original faith, to the faith planted by
St. Augustine, not by Henry the 8th, your glorious benefac-
tor in this Island. Supposing, sir, for a moment, that on act
of parliament, which arrogates as you well know, as much
infallibility in these matters as the Church of Rome, were to
declare, or rather to enact, that our blessed Saviour was not the
Son of God, but a mere man, & that three centuries should pass
away, during which time the whole population ofthis country
should frequent unresistingly Socinian Churches, & pay as un-
resistingly by tythes Socinian pastors. Would, that man, let me
ask, who, upon mature deliberation should be convinced that his
immediate forefathers were successively in error, and that his
forefathers a little higher up were in the right faith, be called
an apostate, if he shook off with indignation, what he deemed
an imposture, and embraced with eagerness, and joy, what he
considered as the true religion ? Would he be an apostate,
I say, if he adopted the faith of fifteen centuries in prefer-
ence to new fangled dogmas, though sanctioned by the exam-
ple of a nation, and imposed by the authority of law ?
Who then, sir, in the eye of reason, is the true apostate,
you or II If there be any infamy in the name, on which
of the two, in all equity, will it be more appropriately fixed ?
Have I adopted the innovation in religion, or you ? God
forbid, however, whilst I throw back this dart of obloquy on
the cruel, rapacious, tithe exacting Rector of this parish,
that I should feel conscious of the least infection of that ran-
cour, or prejudice against my Protestant brethren, which is so
predominant in his bosoo* against the Roman Catholics. No
sir, my family, my nearest relatives are members of the
Church of England. I love them with sincere and undimin-
ished ardor, whilst they still continue without the least moles-
tation on my part, to profess that religion which to me ap-

pna

No
for

on
rish,
ran-
is so

the
min-
oles-

ap-

XIX

pnars to have been founded in error, and to them in truth.
Nor do they in their turn cease to cherish the same affection
forme. In a word, we all cling to our respective churches
without being dissevered from charity : the ties of nature have
not boon loosed on either side by the unshaken conviction of •
our consciences.

we follow indeed difToront guides, but it is the ardent u ish
of all of us alike, tliut we may be conducted in the end to
the same mansion of eternal happiness ; my beloved, my
venerated parents, repose in a Protestant Church Yard.
They died in that faith to which thoy clung with sincerity —
that faith which I with equal sincerity have renouncfid ; nor
shall I blush as an Apostate, but meet them with all the /.cnl
and gladness of a real convert, when we shall be assembled
at the last day in the presence of our common redeemer.
They will there learn, that unless I had renounced that faith,
I should have rebelled against what I deemed the voice of
truth, the dictates of unbiassed judgment, the inspirations of
God, yes Sir, of that Holy Spirit, to whom we pray in the Ca-
tholic Church , ,,/■ • ■ '
** Veni Sancte Spiritus
Reple tuorum corda fidelium
Et tui amoris in eis ignem accende."
Like the illustrious Laval, like the renowned and philoso-
j)hic Ilaller and others, who have dared to read, to think, to
act for themselves. I have abjured, what to my judgment ap-
pears, a system of religion within recent memory carved out
in the cabinets o^ men 'politically wise; 'politically propagat-
ed ; and politically forced upon the conscience, from its first
origin to the present day ; I have found it to be full of incon-
gruities from first to last, wherefore unswayed by any tempo-
ral interest, and undaunted by what the world might say, I
have proclaimed myself Catholic, und in this Catholic armour
the faith of nations, and of ages, I feel not the sting, nor the
stigma of the charge of Apostacy ; nor do I stand in need of
any other consolation to support me, than the pleasing reflec-
tion, that I am in the bosom of the great Catholic Church ; in
wliich, with the grace of God, I am resolved both to live and
die. Id counterbalance to your censure and dispraise, I will
iiierel) observe to you, that there is a sweet encomiast within
ine, cuiled con$cience, that will know how to cheer my jour

•4:

i ' !

ney to the tomb, aye, and that will not deBcrt me oven in tho
realms beyond it."

The hireling of the Courier, whoso ignorance is only o-
qualled by his effrontery, has more than insinuated, that Ca-
tholicism is inimical to freedom. Knows ho not, that Catho-
licism was the religion of Alfred, Edward, Charlemagne, and
St. Louis ; that Catholicism was the religion of the Helvetic
Uarons ; of the renowned Bishop Langton, tho father of Bri-
tish liberty; of those who created trial by Jury ; of those
who fenced the statutes of Mortmaine round the liberties of
the people ; that Catholicism was the religion of Tell, tho
hero of Switzerland ; of Alapamello, tho patriot of Naples ;
of Buonaparte the idol of France, and of Bolivar the liberator
of South America ; that it was the religion of theCavallieros,
and Ricos ilombres of Arragon ; of the States of Portugal ;
of the enactors of the Sicilian Constitution ; of the Swiss Pa-
triots against the despotism of Austria ; of tho Republicans
of Italy, Germany, South America, and of some of the States
of North America. The great Charter, tho great law of pro-
munire, the Pragmatic . anction of Bourges, the resolutions
of Poland and Hungary in their Diets, all were the offspring
of Catholic freemen. The common law, the foundation of
the whole system of our jurisprudence, was founded by the
Catholic ancestors of the British nation, as was also that glory
of the British Constitution, the representation of the people in
Parliament — Catholicism is equally adapted to all Govern-
ments, as Clement 14th said, " the power of the Church is
purely spiritual." Thus it is that Geneva when a Republic,
was Catholic ; Venice, before she sunk by many a blow into
the depth of despotism, and while yet she flourished in glory
and republicanism, was Catholic — so was Ragusa. In short,
all the Italian Republics, while in the full glory of republican
strength and security, were Catholics. When the Apostacy,
miscalled Reformation, commenced, Sweden was the best of
all governments, a free constitutional Monarchy. When the
reformation commenced, Denmark was also a free and consti-
tutional Monarchy. As this glorious change progressed, and
the *' pure Protestant Church" was forming, these countries
exchanged their constitutional Governments for the yoke of
Despotism. This will surely suffice to prove that liberty is

tr
tl^

fif

XXI

not a jest where CatholiciHm prevails as tho flippant writer
in the Courier would wish people to believe. Did the con-
trast!" to which we have directed the mental vision of the gen-
tle reader, between the conduct of the Catholic missionaries
in Paraguay, and the Protestant missionaries in tho South
Sea Islands, and between the Catholic Prelate of Paris and
the Protestant Prelate of Dublin, need additional testimony
to prove the superior efficacy of the Catholic Religion in ad-
ministering to the improvement and happines^of man,
it may be found in tho works of several eminent Protestant
authors, who have lately written on the United States, from
the most powerful of whom we take the liberty to quote the
following elegant and retributive extract :

** Both Catholic and Protestant agree that all men are e-
qual in the sight of God, but the former alone gives prac-
tical exemplification of his creed. In the Catholic Church
tho prince and the peasant, the slave and his master, kneel
before the same altar, in temporary oblivion of all worldly
distinctions. They come there but in one character, that of
sinners, and no rank is felt or acknowledged but that connec-
ted with the offices of religion; within these sacred precincts, the
vanity of the rich man receives no incense, the proud are not
flattered, the humble are not abased. The stamp of degradation
is obliterated from the forehead of the slave, when be be-
holds himself admitted to community of worship with the
highest and the noblest in the land. But in Protestant Chur-
ches a difierent rule prevails. People of colour are excluded
altogether, or are moved up in some remote corner, separated
by barriers from the body of the church. It is impossible to
forget their degraded condition, even for a moment. It is
brought home to their feelings in a thousand ways — no white
Protestant would kneel at the same altar with a black one.
He asserts his superiority every where, and the very hue of
Religion, is aflected by the colour of the skin. From the
hands of the Catholic priest the poor slave receives all the
consolations of religion. He is visited in sickness and con-
soled in affliction ; his dying lips receive the consecrated
wafer, and in the very death agony, the last voice that meets
his ear is that of his priest, uttering the sublime words, "de-
part Christian soul." Can it be wondered, therefore, that
the slaves in Louisiana are all Catholics ? tliat while the con^

xxu

gregation of the Protostant Church consists of a few ladies
arranged m well cushioned pews, the whole floor of the ex-
tensive Cathedral should be crowded with worshippers of aK
colours and classes ? From all I could loarn, Uae zeal of
the Catholic pxiests is highly exemplary. They ne ver forget,
that the most degraded of human forms is animated by a soul*
as precious in the eye of God as that of the sovereign Pon-
tiff. The arms of the Church are never closed against the
meanest oujlcast of society. Divesting themselves of all pride
and. caste^ they mingle with the slaves, and certainly under-
stand their character far better than any other body of relig-
ious teachers. I am not a Catholic, but I cannot suffer pre-
judice of any sort to prevent my doing justice to a body of
Christian ministers, whose zeal can be animated by no hopes
of earthly reward, and whose humble lives are passed in
difiusing the Indueuce of Divine truth, communicating to the
meanest and most despised of mankind, the blessed comforts
of religion. These men publish no periodical enumeration of
their converts. The amount and the success of their silent la-
boursr is not illustrated in the blazon of Missionary Societies,
nor are they theoretically set forth in the annual speeches of
Lord Roden and Lord Bexley. And yet, we may surely as-
sert, that not the least of their labours is foi^otten. Their re-
cord is, where their reward will be."* This honest and unbi-
assed testimony must effectually counteract the calumnies of
the writer in the Courier, who in his attacks on the Catholics
and their principles affibrds a melancholy proof that a man
may be scurrilous, who has not the capacity to be severe.
This compound of falsehood, flippancy, and conceit has had
the effrontery also to represent Catholicism as unfavorable to
learning. It would occupy a volume, instead of a preface, to
c-jte the names of those members of the Catholic Church who
liuve been eminentlydistinguished for science, literature, geni-
us,erudition,and the acquirement of every accomplishment that
could dignify or adorn mankind — Venerable Bede, Alcius,
Anselm, St.Thomas Aquinas, Chaucer, Erasmus, Sir Thomas
Moore, Matthew Paris, Roger Ascham, Albertus Magnus, Pe-
ter Dulvo, St. Augustine, St. Basil, St- Jerome, St Cyprian,

* Uamiltoo's Men and MBoonen in Ain«ifl«k

XXIU

La Rochefocault, Flechier, Pascal, D'Argenson, Henaull,
St. Chrysostoni} Lactantius, Camocns, Ariosto, Dante, Cer-
vantes, Le Sage, Metastasio, Marmontel, Bossuet, Fetielon*
Butler, Descartes, Cassini, Corneille, Moliere, Gother, lial-
ler, Dryden, Laval, Challoner, Milner, Hay, Lingard, Bai-
nes, Doyle, De la Mennais, and England — ^but to bring our ob-
servations to a close, a whole host of learned individuals havo
written on the doctrine of transubstantiation,proving it to have
been the uniform belief of the Christian Church from the Apos-
tolic period to the present day, in vain do we bring forward
the testimonies of the ancient Liturgies ; in vain do we exhi"
bit the sentences of the early fathers conclusive on the point ;
in vain do we point out the belief of the Greek Church and
many of our separated brethren ; in vain do we ask the Pro-
testants of the Church of England to account for the ditfor-
ence v/hich exist3 on the subject between the Lutheran Church
and their own ; in vain do we ask them to account for the
ambiguity of their Catechism in which they slate tiiut the
body and blood of Christ is verily and indeed taken, and
demand of them how they can verily and indeed take what
they afterwards tell us is verily and indeed not there ; in vain
do we show them the more modest opinions of the more an-
cient worthies of the English Church on this blessed Sacra-
ment, Thorndike, Montague, Jeremy Taylor, Forbes, and
others, and contrast them with the more modern dogmas of
the less learned Divines of the Church of England of the pre-
sent day, they still bring forward charges and accusations
abundantly disproved, and talk of moral change and figurative
change, rather than submit to the force of argument and the
power of evidence. In addition to the present work of the
Rev. Mr. Husenbeth which we earnestly recommend to the
serious and solemn consideration of our readers, we would al-
so add the works of the Rev. Drs. Poynter, Baynes, Milner,
and Fletcher. The work of the first, entitled Evidences of
Christianity is of such transcendant merit, and so particularly
calculated to check the infidel and latitudinarian spirit of the
times, as to have extorted the praise of the most celebrated the-
ological review of the present d-^y ; the production of l^r.
Baynes is a vindication of the Catholic doctrine of the real
presence, f;om the objection of an Archdeacon of Bath ; that
of the illustrious and erudite Dr. Milner, entitled " the end of

AXIV

Religious Controversy," which obtainetl him 'rtlc uppcllJitiou
of the sedoftd Athiiousiws, is one of ttte nrost "powci^lil and
M>tere5tiiig works that ever issued ftoitt the Pr6»^ ; aAd !astty
the wodts ol'Dr. Fletcher, <!tttilted Hhe diificuftiCs o't" "PVotost-
aiilism> a oompartrtive view '«!>f the two ChutKihcs of Rmhe aft A
Br^land, a^TKl the spirit of religioiis controversy. An ^tteWive
perusal of these wodts, with eftrftest siippliciition to the lioty
sfpirit, that ho mig'ht with hw blessed irtifhittice, lead thci'i'i in
the true way, is th«e only wish of the airthfjt of ttiis pt¥^lUcf .
The iHMstriows FtechievBisl»op of Ni^mfes ^aW »* VVe know
that faith may yield to persttftsron, but it iieveir xvillt/e cdntrrtl-
led." Gawrdinal CAniw> said ** Remcttiber that tlie disfeaisrcs oV
the soul are not to be cured by wsttaint and violence" artd lh'6
benign, ammblc aftd pioMs Feivelon in his iitnTVovtal advitij^
to the Duke xifBui-gundy, sard, "indulge every one with ci-
vil toleration.'* Thus much may pertrnps siiffitie to pfbVe 'M
the discriminftting people of Toronto, that (!!iatbolicism is not,
that monster which they have beeh ft\Wght to believe ; but tbftt
its traducers and shi*d«if6r«, whatever may be the motived
which actuate them wouM do ^voll to t^onsidfer Ihie conse^tJCttC^
on that tremendous attd awftil dny, when tbfe words of troth
shall bespoken by God.himself,— the Gtwl of justice^, atitlwhew
mercy will be his attribute m> more.

,' ■ ■ . - ,. .' ■-; '■ ■ . ■■:■.,' i ■" ■ ' -I'M

, , ,. . ^ , , "i-

BRRATA.
Is Page ▼, Line 16, f«r Rev. ,/bkn, Read Jieu. Qtor^t.
In Page xv, Line 15, for civilation, Re«d civilixution.

%■

- If

it'.'

1 /

^^UB, Divine Ucdocmor declared, in confirmation of the
prediction of the I'rophet, that " a man's enemies should
be they of his own hou.seliold'-'' — St. Matt. x. 36. ; and his
Church has, at various times, found the bitterest enemies in
those whom she had nourished in her bosom. She has had
reason to exclaim, " 1 have brought up children, and ex-
alted them, but they have despised me," — Isaiah i. 2. An
enemy of this kind has appeared of late in the person of the
Rev. JosKPH Blanco VVhitk, M. A. B. D. in the University of
Seville ; Liccnliate of Divinity in the University of Osuna ;
former hj Cho'ii/ain Mdfri.yiral (Preacher) to the King of
»S, uin, in the Royal Chapel at Seville ; bellow, and once
Hector if ike College of St. Moxy u Jc^ni of the same Town;
Synodal Examiner of Ike Diocese of Cadi::,; Member of the
Royal Academy of Belles-Leitrcs of Seville, ^'c. S^c. ; now
a Clergyman of the Church of England.

Accustomed to be reviled by those who have been taught
to hate our Ueligion from their infancy, who, misled by pre-
judice, blinded by interest, or enslaved by party, have never
correctly informed tlieinselves of our. real principles, — wc
Jiave in general I'Ue fear that, from such assailants, the

lii-
I'll'

X t

'^■?

HUSENBETfFS

DEFENCE

I-

OP THE

CATHOLIC CHURCH.

weak should find a scandal or our friends a stumbling-block.
But, when a man whom our Church has honored and che-
rished, not only forsakes her fold, but does his utmost to be-
tray her to her enemies, we feel with the Holy Psalmist,
*' If my enemy had reviled me, 1 would verily have borne
with it. And if he that hated me had spoken great things
against me, I would perhaps have hid myself from him.
But thou^ a man of one mind, my guide and my familiar,
who didst take sweetmeats together with me, in the house of
God we walked with consent."— Psalms Iv. 13, 14, 15.
Our Redeemer complained in these affecting terms of the per-
fidy of one of his own Apostles : He who was silent under his
other sufferings, felt the treachery of his friend more deeply
than the malice of his open enemies. *' Even the man of my
peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, hath greatly
supplanted me." — Psalm xl. 10.

Though Mr. White has, too unhappily for himself, fulfilled
the import of these words, and greatly laboured to supplant
the faith in which he was nurtured, there is no reason to fear
that his works will seduce any to imitate his apostacy. Ca-
tholics know too well tlie voice of their faithful pastors to
listen to the call of a hireling ; tliey are too well acquainted
with the true features of their religion to be allured by the
revolting' caricature under which this man would cxliibit her
portrait. But there may be some, of other communions,
with whom the priestly character of this writer may so far

weigh as to lead them to

give

credit to all his statements

concerning the Catholic Religion ; and we arc persuaded that
the pompous enumeration of his former honours in the titlc"
page of his works was not made without some idea that such
an effect might be produced. It may naturally be thought
ihat a priest must be a creditable witness on the subject of
Catholic Faith, — and that great must be the supcrioi y of
another creed which could prevail upon a man so talented
and honored to give it the preference. This, in general, is
quite rational ; and certainly, if a priest of holy and edifying
life had If^Il the communion of the Catholic Church, embra-
ced another creed in preference, and were faithfully to ex-
hibit the Faith of Catholics, honestly expose his objections to
it, and simw honorable motives for leaving it, — what he
said might merit attention. But h will be easy to show,

from Mr. White's own works, that the foutiires of his case
arc widely different ; and that iio is a very incompetent wit-
ness against the creed of iiis forefathers.

Mr. WhitT is the author of two works against our Religion.
The first is entitled, " Practical and Internal Evidence against
Catholicism." It is an octavo volume of nearly 300 pages:
its style is laboured and obscure, a...l its whole argumen-
tation so tedious, that, though many have taken it up
through curiosity, few will have had patience to go through
it, and much fewer can have felt satisfied with its peru-
sal. It was written, as Mr. \Vhite tolls us, for the higher
classes, and wo should liavc left it to have its due sopo-
rific effect upon them in their library chairs, if Mr^ White
had not soon after put forth his " Poor Man's Preserva-
tive against Popery ; addressed to the lower classes ;" in which
he throws off" the reserve of his first work, and declaims with
unmeasured virulence against us, whom he styles as opprobri-
ously as the worst of our enemies, Romanists and Papists.
This latter work is printed in a cheap form ; the profits are
to ba given to the " Society for Promoting Christian Know-
ledge," and no doubt this redoubtable production will be ad-
ded to their list of works against Popery.* Perhaps, thus
industriously spread among those classes of the community
who are already sufficiently prejudiced against Catholics,
and who have not often the means of reading ob hearing any
thing in our defence, this production of Mr. White's may
add more animosity and increase unjust prepossession against
the Faith of Catholics ; and the present work is undertaken
to defend our Religion from the evil report which Mr. White's
writings liave given of it, — and in order that, where his
poison has reached, an antidote may be soon at hand. It
will be found to contain a close examination of both the above

* The writer of these pages sent some time ago to the Society above-named
for all the works he had on sale against Popery. He received fifteen tracts of
the most violent and calumniating character, imputing to the Catholics abomi-
nable tenets which they never held, and grossly misrepresenting what they do
hold. Let those attend to this who are so loud in complaining of works circu*
lated by Catholics. Let them point out one which charges Protestants with
doctrines which they disclaim : and let them say if it be not a disgrace to a
Society which professes to promote Christian Knowledge, to lend itself thus
to the propagation of calumny, misrepresentation, and bitterness against so
great a proportion of the Christian world .

' ;

works ; principally, however, following the text of the
*' Poor Man's Preservative against Popery." It must be
'observed that the plan of both Mr. White's books is much
the same, as is the order pursued in each. The latter is
little else than a reduction of his larger work to a cheap
form, and a more intelligible style for the unlearned ; and, as
might be anticipated, it vilifies the Catholic faith in terms
more undisguised and unsparing. Every thing material in
both works shall be noticed in the present publication.

The " Poor Man's Preservative" contains Four Dialogues
between Mr. White and his Reader. The title of the First
Dialogue is as follows : — " An Account of the Author ; how
the Errors of the Roman Catholic Church made him an In-
fidel ; and how, to avoid her tyranny, he came to England,
where the Knowledge of the Protestant Religion made him
again embrace Christianity." The account which the Au-
thor gives of himself is extraordinary enough : The reader
will do well to attend closely to its outline, and judge if the
subject of it can be at all a competent exposer of Catholic
Faith or Discipline.

It appears, from the account in both works, that Mr. Jo-
seph Blanco White was born in Spain, though of Irish ex-
traction, — that, at the age of fourteen, he decided on study-
ing for the Church, and was oidained priest at twenty-five.
Soon after, he was made a chaplain to the King of Spain,
and obtaine(f all the other honours enumerated in the title
given above from his larger work. About two ypnrs after,
or somewhat less, he became an absolute infidel ; and,
though he had renounced Christianitjj in his heart, as hu
himself tells us, he continued for 10 years to perform all the
duties of a priest ; to teach, with the basest hypocrisy, what
he did not believe ; to receive the confidence of numbers in
the sacred tribunal of confession ; who gave it, as they
thought, to a faithful minister ; and, in fine, to carry on a
complete system of deception upon innumei'able unsuspecting
Christians. At last, in 1810, he came to England, where
he proceeded by a curious route to the ministry of the loaves
and fishes. He tells us that he was first moved by hearini,' a
hymn sung in a church in London ; which must have been
powerful indeed to move a man who had heard and recited
so many hundreds of hymns in the course of his ministry it*

Spain, ami was proof agairst tliom all. Then he took a very
simple method, as he says, to work round to Christianity
again : he said the Lord's Praijer every morning for three
years ! A simple method truly, and much simpler and
lighter to flcsli and blood than having to say the same Lord's
Prayer more than a dozen times a-day in his Breviary ;
— besides a great number of liymns, psalms, lesrons,
prayers, and antiphons. In three years, then — about the
year 1814 — he bGcame a Clergyman of the Church of
Rngland, subscribed the Articles, and became tutor to the son
of a Nobleman. What Catholic will envy the Church of Eng-
land the possession of such a man ? What Catholic will not
rejoice that such a deceitful shoplierd should cast off the sheep's
clothing, and thereby an end bo put to his cruel imposition and
devastation among the unsuspecting faithful'? The Church
of England, liowcver, was near losing this precious prize ; for
after professing himself a Protestant, this very consistent man
tells us, that he was again strongly tempted in his faith, and
inclined to Unitarianism ; and in such a degree that "ho fear-
ed his Christian faith had been extinguished."' However,
he settled ncraiu to the Church of England, and this is the
outline of the history of ihis valuable acquisition to the estab-
lishment.'-

r.Ir White is very an.xioUs to make it appear, that immoral-
ity and levity did not prepare the way for his renunciation of
(yhristianity. "I declare," ho says, " most solemnly, that
my rejection of Christianity took place at a period when my
eonscicnce could not reproach me with any oipen breach of du-
ty but those committed several years before.'^ What is this
but an acknowledgment that vice did p'repare the way for his
mfidelity ? He has told us that, at the ago of fourteen, he was
v(!ry j)ious and virtuous : ho rejected Christianity about the
age of twenty-seven ; so if he had committed open breaches
nfduty several 3'ears before, it is clear from his own account,
that during the important years of collegiate retirement and pre-
paration for the sacred ministry, he was guilty o^open a'/?'.s' ; and
it is easy enough to understand how so unworthy a preparation!

^:|'

* What would Swift have said of sucli "a Convert from Popery!" His
usual remark was ; " I wish luhen the Pope weeds his gurden, fie tcoiildnol
Ihrow liis nclllcs ovir czir T;all .'"

■|

i r u

might justly deserve a subtraction of divine Grace, and might
cause him to fall, by little and little, into the gulf of infidelity.
The most deplorable falls from Faith arc- not always immedi-
ately consequent upon immorality ; but the secret judgments
of God aro often working their slow but certain vengeance ;
and those open breaches, which Mr. White acknowledges to
have committed before his ordination (to say nothing of secret
sins, which he docs not disown), may indeed have deserved,
by an ordinary judgment of the Almighty, the loss of the pre-
cious gift of Faith soon after it. Faith, as Mr. White knows,
and declares, is a supernatural gift, and };e will never per-
suade us, that the God of goodness and justice would have
deprived him of that precious gift, and left him to fall into in-
fidelity, if he had been as immaculate in morals us he would
have us believe. His own evidence condemns him clearlv on
this head, and places it beyond all doubt, that his progress to
unbelief was not different from that of so many before him ;
who, (as F. O'Leary used to say,) " never laughed at their
catechisms till they had lost their innocent;e." lie tells us
that he read the works of able French authors against infidel-
ity, and other works of the same kind, and that he preached
an elaborate sermon against unbelief;* yet ail in vain — he soon
after bordered on Atheism. Can any one believe, that a man
of sincere piety and upright moral conduct, would have been
left thus to sink into the absolute denial of Christianity.

At page 11 of his Preservative, Mr. White, speaking of a
neighbor who boasts of being an infidel, says, that he feels
(juite assured, that if the man would "abstain l\om open sin,
and pray daily to his Maker to lead him into the truth, ho
would soon become a sincere ChristiL^n." How comes it then
that the same means did not preserve Mr. White from leav-
ing Christianity? Probably he found that it is not enough to
abstain from open sin ; if he even did so much. The Grace
of God is too fatally lost by secret sin», Avhich do not openly

* Tho occasion of tliis sermon, Mr. White tells iiSj was the conaing of a
Royal Brigade to icors'iiji the body of Saint Ferdinand. Why did INIr. White
employ this word which he knew is usually understood of supreme adoration
due to (ifld alone, and never paid by Catholics to the Saints. This is a
fair specimen of the disingenuousness and insidious misrepresentation of the
Catholic Religion throughout the works.

appear to men, but arc avenged by Ilim " who searchcth the
reins and the heart."

To extenuate his own apostacy, Mr. White would liavo it
believed that a groat portion of the S[)anish Clergy are unbe-
lievers in their hearts. There was a Judas among tlie Apos-
tles ; and it is no wonder if there be bad priests among th(!
clergy of any country. It is in the economy of Providence
to suffer tares among his corn, and to " let both grow till the
harvest;" but it will not be believed on the testimony of an
apostate, that a great portion of the clergy arc tainted with
infidelity. The assertion only shows what sort of company
Mr. Wliitc kept in Spain.

But it is time to examine what were the weighty aiguments
which overturned the belief of Mr. Blanco White, The Ca-
tholic will be surprised and amused to find, that the grave ard
important reasoning which shook this writer was the old
worn-out falscliood, so often objected to Cathulicjby the name
of the vicious circle. And Mr. W. pretends that it was the
spontaneous suggestion of his own mind. Certainly no proof
of mental vigor is exhibited in such a discovery. " I believe,"
says Mr. AV. " that the reasoning is not new in theological
controversy." Not new, indeed ; for cvcrv cour;ie of divin-
ity exposes the falsehood, and Mr. W. must have met with it
many times over before he took his degrees in theulogy. '• I
believed," says he, " the infallibility of the Church, because
the scripture said ^hc was infallible ; while I had no better
proof that .scripture said so, than the assertirai of the Churcli
that she could not mistake the scripture. In vain did I en-
deavor to evade the force of this argument ; indeed, 1 still
believe it unanswerable." What an acknowledgment for a
Licentiate in Divinity ! To be staggered by a fallacy which
any student in Logic can detect. This only proves more
clearly that Mr. W. did not thea possess the unclouded recti-
tude of mind which ever accompanies a spotless life.

Now, to reply to this unanswerahlc argument : — it is eas-
dy shown that Catholics do not reason in a circle. To con-
stitute a vicious circle there must be two projiositions, equally
nnknmon, mutually used to prove each other against Ike same
opponents, and in the same loay of demonsi ration. But the
. authority of the scripture and the authority of the Church are
not equally unknoton ; for we are persuaded, first of the au-

,(«•

^;<'

ihority of tlu; Clmrcli by motives of credibility ; and next,
llio Cluircli thus known to iis proposes llio scripturo as the
\v(jrd of (jod, nnd tiu) seriijtiiru nianifustly confirms tho au-
thority of the Churcii. Nor tiro tlio uuthoiity of the scripture
and that of tlic Cliurch used (igainsl ihe same opponents ; for
against infidels tho scripture is proved iVom the Church,
wJiicli is known to them by otlicr motives of credibility; and
against heretics tho Church is piovc:d by an argument urn ad
homincjH from the scripture wliicli tlioy admit Nor arc these
authorities used in tho samewaij vf dcnwnstralion ; for tlui
authority of scripture is proved a posteriori, ti/j cause from
the effoct, by the authority of tho Church ; and the authority
of the Church is proved a priori, the elfect from tho cause,
'by that of tho scripture. Such a method of proving is (juitc!
common : the existence of Cod is proved from tho existence
of bodies, and the existence of bodies is proved from tlie ex-
istence of God. Tho skill of a physician is proved by the
euro of diseases, and the cure of di^seascs by tlie skill of a
good physician. If wc have to deal with one who denies both
tho authority of scripture, and that of the Church ; wc first
prove the authenticity of the Bible in the samo way as that
of any other book ; and secondly, demonstrate that the wri-
ters of it must have been inspired ; in tlie third place, we
show from the scripture that Christ instituted a Church, and
promised that it should not err. When tliis is done, we pro-
pose the truth and canonicity of tho S(3rlj)i.ures to be believed
now with divine faith, from the authority of the Church,
which we have found. Where is there a vicious circle in this
argumentation ?•

It is somev/hal strange that Protestants should charge us
with a circle, when they themselves cannot avoid falling into
one by their own method. For when we ask them why they
believe this or that book to be canonical, they reply, because
their own private examination has convinced them of it ; and
when wc further ask, how they know that their own private
examination is a suro way of distinguishing between books
canonical and apocryphal, they reply that the scripture ex-
pressly tells tlujm that it is. Thus they believe their private
judgment syjjicievt, because the scripture says it is sufficient ;
while they have no better proof that it says so, than their own
private judgment that they cannot mistake the scriptures. —

Let Mr. White compare this with his own grand argument
quoted ubove, and see where the vicious circle lies.

The Catholic Church has a double authority : one as an il-
lustrious society, and the Church of Christ ; another, as be-
ing by his promise infallible in points of Faith. Hut if ho
had not given her this privilege, she would yet have been tho
most illustrious society upon earth ; because she would have
had a lawful mission and succession from the Apostles, with
many thousand martyrs, holy doctors, and unquestionablo
miracles. Her testimony would even so have been evidence
enough to make us believe what she proposed as revealed
truths ; though no authority but that of God could bo the pro-
per motive of divine Faith. Our Saviour gave testimony to
St. John Baptist, and St. John gave testimony to our Saviour ;
but such as knew Christ first, might, upon his word, believe
St. John ; and such as first knew St. John, might, upon St.
John's word, believe in Christ. So those who kpow tho
Church by the marks it would have had, although the scrip-
ture had never been written, may believe the scripture because
the Church bids them; and those who believe the scripture, be-
fore they know the true Church, may believe tlie Church be-
cause the scripture bids them. " For," says Augustine,
" there are not so many heresies against the Church as there
are texts of scripture for it."

Mr. White confesses that such was the powerful effect of
this grand argument upon him, that from the moment he be-
lieved that the Roman Catholic religion was false, he had no
religion at all, and lived without God in the world. (Preser-
vative, page 9.) The reader with whom he holds the sup-
posed dialogue, says he might at least have tried some other
Church before he became an Infidel. Mr. White's reply de-
serves particular notice. "You forget," he says, " that I
was in a country where the Roman Catholic religion played
its accustomed game of Christ with the Pope, or no Christ. —
The first thing that a true Roman Catholic teaches those who
grow under his care, is cither all that the Church of Rome
believes is true, or all that is contained in the scripture is
false. To believe that the Church of Rome can be, or is
wrong in one single article of her creed, is, according to that
Church, the same as to disbelieve the whole Gospel." It ap-
pears then thai ten years of infidelity have made Mr. White;

'.J

rii.>'i!

forget, nmong othor things, that tho groat St. Augustine said,
♦♦ For my i'Aut I would not ijklikvk tiik Gospel, wnlkss
rjiE Catholic Chi ivcm iNorcLi) me to it. Ir you kordiu me
to kelikve the Catholics, you take an ill (-olrhe to
iihin(i mk over to your i'ersi'ahion dy the (lomi'kl j be-

CAIME I IIEL1E\ED THE GoM'KL ITbELK UPON THE RECOMMEN-
DATION OK THE Catholk H.-' Ill tho judginciit of St. Augus-
tine, to reject thu authority oftlio Catholic ('hurch, is to over-
throw Christianity. Let .Mr. W'liitu rcnieniber that thu ('hurch
«»rKngiaml professes to vcnemto the wrii.inj;s of the early Fa-
thers, and if he has any sincerity left, let him not talk of Ca-
tholics playing tlu.'ir " accustomed game;," lest he bo found
to ridicule the most illustrious doctor of the Church.

I [avin^j " thrown olfall allegiance to the Christian religion,
though //r/cv/," h(! says, ^^ lo enjoy mijscif and indulge my
desires^ I could find neither happiness nor comfort. I lived
ten years in the most wretched and distressed state of mind ;
nofhing was UHinlinif to my Icing happy but the liberty of de-
claring my opinions."' Whatever, then, had been his pre-
vious conduct, it is avowed here that he abandoned liimself to
licentiousness when he had forsaken his faith. This is all in
c'haractcr ; but how comes Mr. VVhiti; to say now, — now that
he professes to be a Christian and a Church of England min-
ister — that in that deplorable abyss of infidelity and vicious
indulgence, nothing icas loaniing to his being happy but the li-
l)erty of declaring his opinions? Docs this "well for his
sincerity and rectitude at present, to declar .> thus to the wa-
vering Christian that he may plunge intoinfidelity and immo-
rality, and yet nothing will hinder liim from being happy,
provided he can declare his opinions freely ? Oh, we do not
envy the Church of England such a patch-up proselyte ! These
are only stronger evidences against his boasted purity of mo-
rals before his infidelity. Ho never learned in the bosom of
the Catholic Church, that infidelity and vice could give any
real happiness to their deluded victims ; or that libei'ty of de-
claring their opinions is all that is required to make such men
liappy.

Ten years Mr. White spent, acting daily as a minister and
promoter of a religion in which he did not believe ; and when
the various duties of a Catholic priest are considered, a more
complete instance of hypocrisy and deception can scarce be

•»

•

BE-

imagined than that to which Mr White pleads guilty. Dur-
ing those ten years, Ik; must have often recited and sung lh(!
Divine Ofhee in public at least — in private, of course, he did
not wear out many breviaries, — he must have pretended ma-
ny hundred times to say Mass ; deceiving thousamU of sincere
Catholics, who little thought they were assisting at a diaboli-
cal imposture, for most probably ho omitted or nullified the
most sacred parts of the sacrifice, and could have had no se-
rious intention at any time, lie must hnve preached and pre-
tended to enforco what his heart atllicted to deny — he must
have received the most ;acred ccjnfidence of many souls in
the tribunal of conf('ssi(jn ; and how cruel was the imposition
he practised upon their confidin<^ cjuulour ! I le probably wa«
called to prepare the sick and dying for the most awful pas-
sage to eternity ; and the mind shudders at the thought of poor
souls in the straits of death bcnng at the mercy of a wolf iii
sheep's clothing. Does I\Tr. W. think he can find a j)alliation
for his impostures in pretending that ho was compelled to be
a hypocrite'? Would any mind, with a single principle of na-
tural rectitude left, with any sense of honor and sincerity re-
maining, have consented to pursue a lengthened course of de-
ception like this ? No : better a thousand times, and more
honorable, to expose himself to ])eril, than to become the base
deceiver of thousands of unsuspecting Christians. He pre-
tends to have been afraid of the Inquisition, and is very loud
about the tyranny of the Church of Rome ; but it comes out
that another reason weighed heavier — the fcarof afflicting his
parents ; for he tells us, what any one could readily see —
that he could have gone to North America, but the love of
his parents withhold him ; so that rather than grieve his pa-
rents, lie remained a hypocrite. It is not unlikely that his
clerical emoluments had a stronger hold upon an infidel than
filial affection ; and wlum the French came at last, and put
his revenues in jeopardy, and all things in confusion, he pro-
bably moved ofl", for the best of all reasons — because he was
obliged.

Mr. White, in his book for the lower classes, paints in fear-
ful colours the Inquisition and the tyranny of the Church of
Rome. He always puts religious tyranny in italics, and illus-
trates it by such strokes as the following : — " The Popes of
Rome believe that they have a right to oblige all men who

have been baptized by their priests, to continue Roman Ca-
tholic to their lives' end. A Roman Catholic loho is not pro-
tected hy Protestant Imos, is all over the world a slave. The
Roman Catholic religion in itself, and such as the Pope would
make it all over the world, if there were no Protestant laws
to resist it, is the most horrible system of tyranny that ever
opposed the welfare of man.'' — Could not Mr. AVhitc content
himself at least with the truth ; and not thus outrageously vi-
lify and misrepresent the religion of his fathers ? He knew
very well when he wrote, that the Popes of Rome believe no
such thing as that Ihey have a right to oblige people to conti-
nue Roman Catholics. The Popes have no separate articles
of faith from those of the Catholic Church throughout the
world ; and Mr. W. well knows that he can produce no sha-
dow of proof that such an absurd tenet was ever believed by
the Catholic Church. That Church has ever believed it obli-
gatory upon her to use every means which the Gospel puts
into her hands to keep her children from being seduced by
false teachers ; namely, the means of exhortation, reproof,
and all such correction as is consistent with personal liberty ;
but it is no part of Catholic Faith, that people are to be any
other way ohligcd to continuo in her communion. Mr. White
knew, too, that a Catholic is not a slave all over the world,
where there are no Protestant laws to protect him. He knew
that l^nglish Catholics were truly free before the very name
of Protestants was heard of ; and, alas ! he was not ignorant
that Protestant laws, so far from protecting them, have made
them slaves in their own land. There are no Protestant laws
in France, nor in many otiicr countries of the globe, where
Catholics are very far from being slaves. To say that the
Roman Catholic religion in itself, is the most horrible system
of tyranny, is saying a groat deal more than Mr. W. would
be able to prove : and be docs not attempt to support it by any
proof, except a vehement decbiniation against the Inquisition.
This is leading his readers ialsely to imagine that the Inq .i-
sition is an essential compfini'ju of Catholicity ; that we can-
not be true Catholics, without approving its alleged cruelties.
These ore monstrous misrepresentations, as a few plain state-
ments will abundantly show.

That the Inquisition is no part of our Religion, is manifest
from the plain facts, that the Catliolic Religion existed 1,200

t ^

Lni] .1-

years in every part of the globe, without any tribunal of th«
kind; that there are very many countries in which it was nev-
er established, though the Catholic Faith flourished in them ;
and that the Popes, with all the religious tyranny with which
Mr. W. reproaches them, never refused to acknowledge tho
Catholics of those countries equally with those who had an In-
quisition. — Few, if any Catholics in France, or in this king-
dom, will praise the Inquisition or its proceedings ; but so ma-
ny falsehoods and exaiggerations have been propagated against
that tribunal, that it is but just to distinguish truth from false-
hood in its regard.

The Inquisition, as all history testifies, was never establish-
ed in any kingdom, but by the consent, and sometimes even
at the request of its sovereign. It is essential to keep this
point steadily in view, for declaimers against the Inquisition
always conceal it ; and Mr. White, like the rest, tries to make
i: believed that it is solely the Pope's Tribunal, " established,"
he says, " kept up, and managed by £uid under the Pope's au-
thority." But if this were the case, it would be natural that
in Rome, where the Pope is absolute sovereign, spiritual and
temporal, the Inquisition would be the most cruel and san-
guinary, whereas the contrary is a well known fact. — The
Roman Inquisition is the mildest of all ; no example is record-
ed of its punishing any one with death ; and if Mr. White had
been sincere he would not have written a charge so triumph-
antly contradicted by this striking fact. The many English
that have visited Rome will testify that Protestants can enjoy
perfect liberty and security there ; and even asscuible for their
own worship without fear of the Inquisition. After all, when
a Spaniard is reproached with the rigors of the Inquisition,
he may reply that far less blood has been shod by all the In-
quisitions ever established, than has flowed in Franco and
Germany from wars in the causo of religion; and that
the Inquisition has, at least, secured Spain from the poison
of infidelity, which has infected almost every other nation of
Europe. There is httle doubt but that, if once those who
profess to be Atheists and Deists became our masters, they
would establish an inquisition more rigorous than that of Hpuin,
against those who retained any respect for religion ; witnoss
the horrors of the French revolution ; witness the sentence of
Kousseau, in hia Contrat Social, upon any one who would

)iOt act conformably with his Civic Religion : Let him be
punished with death /

But let us follow Mr. White to England, and see how he
profited of his escape from the horrors of Popery. Ho tells us
that the unmeaning ceremonies of Catholics had made him sick
of Churches and Church service. If Mr. White had ever done
his duty as a Priest, he would have examined the ceremonies
of our Church more closely, and would have found that no one
of them is without meaning. Very many have produced the
jiiost striking effects upon strangers who witnessed them, and
have proved the beginning of fur more valuable conversions
than Addison's Hymn caased in Mr. Blanco White. Why,
then, does he thus conder. n our venerable ceremonies by
wholesale, when he knows that the greater part of them
are of the highest antiquity, and are oi^ly unmeaning to
those who have " said in their hearts, there is no God.^" He
uiTects to have been moved with the "beautiful simplicity"
and "warm heartedness" of the book of Common Prayer. —
Did ho not know that whatever beauty thai Book contains, be-
longs to the Catholic Missal, Ritual, and Breviary, from
which it is often literally translated ? Yes, he knew all this,
hut his ctudied malevolence against the Catholic Church
prompted him to conceal it.

After saying the Lord's Prayer every morning for three
years, and reading Paley's Evidences, Mr. White tells us that
lie was enabled " with humble sincerity to receive the Sacra-
ment according to the manner of the Church of England,
ivhich appeared to him to he, of all human establishments, the
most suited, in her disci[)line, to promote the ends of the Gos-
pel, and in her doctrines, as pure and orthodox as those which
were founded by ilie Apostles themselves." This s^ jitehce
owns a great deal more, probably, than Mr. White meant to
acknowledge. The Chiu h of England may be the best of
human establishments ; and if Mr. White was in search of no-
hing higher, he did well to turn in there. The Catholic
' 'hurch is no lunran estul)!islinunt ; it claims a dixrinc fouhda-
'ion, and was bni!i: by the Apostles themselves, which Mr.
White here adm!:s that the Church of England was not,
as indeed all the v,(Mld iaiows.

When Mr. Wl.i;. soon after, was wavering between the
(Muuch of Englaiid Doctrines and Unitarianisni, he tells us

him be

that, in the midst of all his doubts, he presented himself at the
Sacramental table. We should be glad to know what disposi-
tions he possessed for receiving ihaf, which, whatever the
Church of England believe it to be, she considers faith at least
quite necessary to receive. In fact faith is the whole of a
Protestant's Communion: for if ho expects to receive Christ
at all in his Sacrament, it is only by faith that he considers
himself to partake of his body and blood — so that Mr. White,
in the judgment of a Protestant, must have had glorious dispo-
sitions for communion, with his mind full of doubts about the
Divinity of the Son of God. However, this communion
wrought wonders, if we arc to believe Mr. White, for after it
ho found himself stronger than ever in the creed of the Church
of England.

After detailing his various fluctuations in religion, Mr.
White is forced to give testimony to the truth in these remark-
able words ; "Happy, indeed, are those millions of humble
(yhristians, who from the pul)lication of the gospel to our own
times, have received the doctrines of the Bible by the simple
means of their Catechism, and the instruntions imparted by
their Christian Pastors, and so ordered their lives as not, to
wish those doctrines to be false ! Hjio infinilehj more happy is
the lot of these humhle Christians than mine /" This is a true
(Catholic sentence. Our Church has ever proceeded upon die
simple method here commended: and if Mr. White still thinks
well of it, why has he joined a communion, which, by extolling
private interpretation, and making every man independent of
pastoral instruction, acts completely at variance with the plan,
which Mr. White here pronounces to be best calculated to make
millions ha[)py ? iJut let the candid reader mark well the
avowal contained in the words we have put in italics, and say
if they do not refute his whole book, and if it bo not just to
exclaim — " Dc ore tuo Ic judicoV^

Towards the close of the first dialogue in Mr. White's
'' Preservative," he is asked this (piestion : " Do you be-
lieve then, sir, that the Roman Catholics are not Ch 'istians '*"
He answers, that, though he has known most sincere fol-
lowers of Christ amongst them, he is convinced that Catho-
licism, by laying another foundation than Christ, — by ma-
king the Pope, with his Church, if not the author, certainly
:he finisher of their faith, — exposes its members to the most

ill

imminent danger from the arguments of infidelity. If Mr.
White has known most sincere followers of Christ amongst
Catholics, our religion cannot be so bad as he otherwise la-
bours hard to represent it : if it were possible for him to
have been a sincere follower of Christ in our communion,
he need not have left : nor is there any room for the exulta-
tion he affects to feel at his change from it. There cannot
be anything radically bad in a communion which is capable
of forming sincere followers of Christ ; and therefore the
charge of making the Pope the finisher of our faith, and
building upon another foundation than Christ, is as contra-
dictory and incon? uent as it is false and malevolent.* How
will Mr. White ; 'mpi to prove so odious an accusation
against the Cathol Church ? In what book of Divinity, or
in what profession of Faith, did he ever find Catholics hold-
ing doctrines which, by any perversion but his own, could
be construed into a blasphemous opposition to the words of

r, Il«

l,ii

iUi

lit '.''W

* Thia question, which Mr. White puts to himself in the Dialogue, in at
•mbarrassing as the celebrated one which St. Francis, of Sales, put to Theo-
dore Beza; and Mr. White will find it as difficult as that reformer did to
SToid its overwhelming consequence. St. Francis, of Sales, asked Beza,
Whether salration was attainable in the Catholic Church 1 — Beza left the
room to consider ; and, after walking about in an agitated manner for a quarter
«f an hour, he returned to St. Francis, and said : " We are alone ; I can ex-
pose my real sentiments to you ; I believe salvation to be there attainable."
St. Francis, availing himself of an answer which gave him such a manifest
advantage over Beza, observed, that he must then believe that the Catholic
Church was the true Church ; because, if it were not the Church established
by Christ, salvation could no more be attainable in it than security from de-
•tructiou could be found out of the ark in the Deluge. Beza made no reply ;
and St. Francis asked, Why then he had left the Catholic Church— for he ob-
served nothing but the absolute impossibility of being saved in the Catholic
Church could justify such a separation from its communion 1 Beza was ex-
tremely embarrassed by this and other questions of the hjly prelate, and be-
came towards the end very violent and even insolent. But the immovable
meekness of St. Francis made him ashamed of his violence, and he at last mad*
r. handsome apology.

Libertinism contributed not a litUe to the apostacy of this unhappy man.
When be was asked in confidence by Deshayes what was the leading reason
which connected him with the Calvinists, Beza called in a beautiful young
woman who lived with him, and said—" That is the principal reason which
convinces me of the excellence of ray religion." — Deshayes was struck with
horror at vuch an answer, especially as Beza was then advanced in years. —
Met a Full Account of kt. Francises Cor\ference with Beza, in tht Lift e;f'
1h9 aaint, by Martollier, Vol. I, Book 3d.

ir*?

the great Apostle, who directs us ever to look '* on Jesus,
the author and finisher of (liitli T'

Mr. White knows very well thiit wo have ever believed
Christ Jesus our Loru to bo tiic .supremo head of our Church:
that we only obey and reverence the Pope as his vicar and
representative on earth : that in subinittinir to the authority ol'
the Church, wo believe ourselves submitting to Divine author-
ity delegated to the Church by those; memorable words to the
latter part of which Mr. White would do well to attend : " lie
that heareth you, heareth irie ; and lie lliat despiscth ytm, des-
piseth meJ^ How, then, can the monstrous charge be sub-
stantiated that wo blasphemously make the Pope with his
Church the finisher of our Faith! Our Cluirch proposes no-
thing to our Faith but what she received from the Apostles,
and was taught from the beginning. Every article of our
creed comes down to us, hallowed by the concurrent testimo-
ny of eighteen centuries ; sanctioned by Fathers, councils,
and holy writers, attested by the blood of martyrs, and illus-
trated by the spotless lives of innumerable " most sincere fol-
loweis of Christ." — But how is it with our adversaries ? And
how does Mr. White attempt to show that Catholics rrf-e more
exposed than Protestants to danger from the arguments of in-
fidelity ?

"The Romanist,'' he says, "groundsills belief of the Bi-
ble on his belief in the Church of Rome : the Protestant, on
the contrary, grounds his respect for the Church to which he
belongs, on his belief of the Bible." We must stop here to
remark, that if by the " Church of Rome," Mr. White means
the Catholic Church in communion with Rome, we shall not
deny, that we believe the Bible upon the authority of that illus-
trious church. St. Augustine, as we have seen above, was not
ashamed to believe it from the same authority, and we shall
not blush to follow his great example. Let Mr. White show
how he himself came to believe in it; how he would ever
luive possessed it, if the Catholie Church had not preserved it
for him ; or how he could have ..nown what parts to believe;
as Scripture, and what to reject as not Scripture, but from the-^
testimony of that Church against whom he ungratefully re-
bels. Ho may talk, like other Protestants, about the internal
testimonies of Scripture, its force and eflicacy to convince
(iur minds, (Sec. ; but all these were the same in the fourth

15 2

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\.i;'

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arui fit'tli cer'.uries as thoy are now, and yet St. Augustiiif ,
with all his earning and acuteness, solemnly owned, that his
only inducei ient to receive the Scripture was the authority ot"
the Catholic Church. A word also upon the second part o^-
the sentence. Mr. White had told Us bcibre, that he jointJ
the Church of England, because it appeared to him the best
•aJculated of all human cslahlishmenis to promote the; doc-
trines of the Gospel. If, then, a Protestant considers hig
Church as a human establishment, why docs he look for it in
his Bible ? or how can ho be said to " ground his respect fur
it on his belief of the Bible?" But Mr. White goes on with
itnore inconsistonoios. lie tells us that the Protestant " has a
Chuioh which leaves him free to try her authority by her cor^-
ftrmity with the vScripturc. — A true Protestant Church will
leave her members in perfect freedom to desert her, and
ohooso their o'.vn Christian guides, but God has rewarded thi«
generous forbearance by appropriating it to the Protestant
Churches," dsc. : And to this he applies the words of our Bles-
sed Saviour, " By this shall i\\\ Jiien know that ye are my
disciples, If you have love on'; towards another." How
glaring is the absurdity of all this ! How will the
Church of England adiTiire ihio singular exhibition ul"
her wisdom and consistency 1 Heie is some mention of
Church authority, which comes out to be no authority
at all, for all the members may judge of it as they
jjease, receive oi reject it as it strikes their fancy, and si'iy
in it, or leave it, equally to the Church's satisfaction. Can
thia be the Church which Christ appointed to guide us into all
truth, with which he promised to abide for ever! When {St.
Paul exhorted the faithful to be obedient to their prelates, and
" be gubject to them," did he mean that they might forsake
lliem and choose their own Christian guides '? When the same
great Apostle said, " Remember your prelates who have spo-
ken to you the word of God, ivhose faith follow," did he
niean that they might choose their own faith, and believe as
ihoy pleased? " Generous forbearance" indeed, to let every
wolf come and scatter the sheep, and let poor souls be tossed
about with every wind of doctrine I O let .such forbearance
have the reward which Jlr. White assigns it ! Let it be ap- .
^opriated to Protestant Churches. — We have no wish to sec
ihe Chureh of Christ permitting false teachers to invade hev

flock by ft cruel forbearance. VVc know who has said —
♦' Tho hireling, and ho that is not the fsho])hcnl, whose owa
the sheep arc not, seeth tho Moll'eoniing, and leaveth th<»
sheep, and flceth," &c. And this, accor.ling to Mr. White,
i« the precept of our Redeemer " to have; love for one ano-
tljcr !" That is, to see one another in danger of being
•' led away with various and strange ducirine.s," anti vet be
indiflerent about our brethren's following truth or error,
walking in light or darkness : This is a false charity, a cruel
kindness, a fatal indifTerence, far removed from tiic true love
which should chaructorizc the disciples of him who is " the
wp 7, the irutk, and tho life."

Mr. White favours his readers with a quotation from a Pro-
testant Bishop, IJedell, whom he calls '* a pious and amiable
liishoj)," and who calunuiiatcs the Catholic Church in his pi-
<!us, and amiabh; and truth-tclHng style : " Without cxpecling
Ciirist's sentence, tho Church of Rome cuts with the tempo-
ral sword, hangs, burns, draws those that she perceives in-
clined to leave her, or have left her already.'' Are we to be
falsely accused under the name of piety and amiability too ?
Arc we never to obtain a hearing, when we protest that the
i\ct of individuals ought not to bo charged upon our boily,
when they arc not done as being dictated by our creed, but by
the mistaken judgment of particular persons? How often
must we declare, that our Church claims no temporal power,
and has never taught that any unfortunates were to be cor-
porally punished merely for foi'saking her communion? Mr.
While follows up the quotation with strong invectives against
the wiles of Rome, tho tyranny of the Pope, and such men of
straw of his own making; lot him indulge in these rhapso-
dies, for in all these things words go for nothing. He must
produce more proofs than tlic " pious and amiable" calum-
nies above noticed, before he cu.i merit the altenliou of any
rational and considerate Christian.

• '

Origin of Protestantism. — What i« callei? the Reformation, proved to have been
unlawful in principle, crirainiil in means, and fatal in eflects. — Spiritual au'
thority of the Pope. — False charge renewed by Mr. White, that Catholici
Hckno>vled<;e temporal authority in the Pope. — His attack on the Catholic
clergy. — His erroneous account of the doctrine of exclusive salvation. — That
doctrine properly stated and explained. — True account of the Albigenie*.
and Vaudois, or Waldcnses.

Mr. White professes, in the beginning of his second Dia-
iogue, togivctiie origin and true principles of Protestantism.
The origin would be easy enough to give ; but tlu; second part
of the undertaking is no easy task. Who can give the tru«.':
principles of Protestantism, which has no fixed principle, ex-
cept enmity to the Catholic Church, in which all the many
sects of Protestants devoutly agree 1 They allow every one
the boasted liberty of forming his own principles as he pleases,
of speaking what he believes, and believing what he pleases.
A man may make out whatever he chooses from his Bible,
provided he does not find the doctrines of the Catholic Church
there, and be a very good Protestant. It is absurd then to
talk of pointing out the true principles of those, who boast of
havingHiberty to adopt any that they imagine to be taught by
the Bible. But let us examine how Mr. White proceeds to
his Uisk.

*' The Roman Catliolics," he says, " would fain persuade
the world that Luther is the author of our religion. But such
iis are learned amongst them cannot but know that Protes-
tants acknowledge no master, on religious points, but Christ.''
Mr. White is very sore that it should be thought that Protes-
tants should follow Luther ; and yet, a short time before, he
was loud in accusing Catholics of laying another foundation
than Christ, and making the Pope, if not the author, at least
the finisher of our faith. However, the truth comes out a little
further on, at page 48, where he says, Lu^')er and the Re-
formers, loho established our Church. No C itholic ever char-
ged Protestants with exalting Luther above Christ ; but they
regard him as the instrument of God in reforming Religion, and
they are obliged to own that he established their Church. —
'I'his is enough for us ; Luther's own writings testify his cha-
• actor, and it is easy to show that the Almighty would never

■( ■ '

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have chosen such an instrument to reform his Church ; if w«
could for a moment suppose thnt his Cliurch could need any re-
form in faith, after he had expressly promised that his Holy
Spirit should guide it into all truth.

Mr. White professes to liavc carefully examined the works
of Luther, and assures his reader that the well-known confer-
ence of Luther with the Devil is a calumny. It may be that
he examined them in a library where the memorable seventh
volume is kept out of sight : is is known to be the case in cer-
tain libraries in England, but if he did examine the seventh
volume, with what face can he jjrctend to deny, that Luther
acknowledges having had this conference with the Devil ? —
Let Mr. White look again ; and in the seventh volume, and in
the treatise de Unet. et Missa Privata, fol. 228, 229, 230, of
the Wirtemborg edition, in 1558, he wi'l find the whole ac-
count, of the first part of which the following is a faithful trahs-
lation. "It happened tome," says Luther, "once at mid-
night, to awake on a sudden. Then ?atan began tins sort of
disputation with me. * Hear Luther,' he said, * most learned
doctor, dost thou know that even for fifteen years thou hast
celebrated private masses almost every day? What if such
private masses should prove to be horrible idolatry V To
whom I replied, ' I am an anointed priest. I have done all
these things by the command of my superiors, and in obedi-
ence to them : this thou knowest.' * That,' he said, * is all
true^ but the Turks and Gentiles also do all things in their
temples out of obedience.' In these straits, in this combat
against the Devil, I wished to overthrow the enemy with the
arms to which I was accustomed under the papacy, &c. But
Satan, on the other hand, urging me more strongly and vehe-
mently, said, * Come, then, show me where it is written, that
a wicked man can consecrate, &c.' And Satan pressed me
further; ' Therefore, thou hast not consecrated, &c. What
is this unheard-of abomination in heaven and in earth?'" —
Besides this, Luther has published to the world, that he held
frequent communications with the Devil ; and the writer*
of his life speak of many other apparitions of the Devil to him.
Now, for Mr. White, after these well-known passages, to at-
tempt to persuade his readers, that Luther's conference with
the Devil had no other foundation than "the spite of the Ro-
man Catholic chrgy," is monstrous and disgraceful. It only

I ■ I

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ll-

shows how much Mr. White ilroaded the clear inlbronco to bo
♦Irawn from Luther's own aekiiowledgment ; namely, that iic,
who, by Mr. White's own admission, csljihlished the Protestant
Church, learned the most material part of his Jleformation, the
abolition of the mass, from the Devil!

" It is nothing to us," says Mr. White, "by what instru-
ments God was pleased tu deliver us from the impostures and
tyranny of the church of Rome. If Luthtn- had really been
the worst of men (which is the reverse of the truth,)" «fec. —
Does then Air. White mean to make his readers believe that
I>ul!ier was a good man 1 The contrary i,> evident, even from
bis own account of himself. lie acknowledged that while he
was a Catholic, he spent his lite in austerities, in watehings,
in fasts, in prayer, with poverty, chastity, and f)bedience: but
after \u) bfjgan his reformation, he declares, " ho could no
more bo without a woman, than he could cease to be a man."
(Sermon, Do Mat., tom. v. p. 119.) To prove wliichhe broke
bis solemn vow of contlnency, and married a nun, bound by
the same solemn obligation; for wiiich even Henry VIII. tells
him tliat he has committeil a horrible sin, for which even in
ancient days he would have been whipped to death, and his
wife buried alive. In iiis answer to Henry VIII. he says, " lie
yields not in pride either to himperor, King, Prince, or De-
vil; not to tlio imiverso itseh".'' If this, and much more that
could easily be ([uoted from his own writings of himself, do
not prove him to have been the worst of men, Mr. W. can ne-
ver prove any thing like the reverse of it, viz. that he was the
best of men, or any thing api^roaehing to a good man. Mr.
Wiiite appears to bo sensible of this, when he aflecls t<j fe(^l
that the vicious character of the rc^ortners is not of any conse-
»|uence, because the Almighty can cfTecl his purposes by the
jnost unworthy instruments. IJutthis plea will not avail. If
the Church of Christ had really strayed into error and impos-
ture, the work of its Reformation would certainly have been one
f great and extraordinary importance. If any individual had
been inspired for that great work, he would certainly have
been able to exhibit proofs of his divine commission, to oblige
men to loUow him. The Almighty uniibrmly enabled his pro-
phets and messengers of old to i^upport and confirm their com-
mission by the most convincing signs. Prophecy, miracles,
and above all, a holy and exemplary life, were the attestation'^

of iheir being fnvourod with Divine communications. But
JjUthcr and his nssociatcs cxhihitcd none of these; nor could
they give any other proof of thoir being the instruments of the
Ahnighty. It is tlicrefore u great deal to Protestants, though
Mr. VV. pretends ♦♦ it is nothing," what characters their foun-
ders bore: for our Saviour had said long before, that "an
evil tree could not bring forth good fruit."

But Mr. White thinks he has a triumphant retort against
Catholics, when he recounts the wicked lives of several Popes;
u fact which, he says, wo "shall not venture to deny." No,
we shuil not; and let Mr. White be equally candid, and not
attempt to deny the accusations of all history against Luther
and the reformers. But we have something important to say
upon the matter; and we can soon show Mr. White that thcrtj
is no parity in the two cases. We acknowledge that there
]>ave been very wicked Popes ; but let it be well observed, that
it is a very dillhront thing for ordinary ministers of wicked
l\ character, to be permitted to carry on a religion otherwise

firmly established ; and for extraordinary men to appear, of
dissolute lives, and give themselves out to be special Apostles
commissioned from the God of Holiness, to reform his Church
and purify it from corrnption. We are ready to allow that
perhaps a tenth part of the Popes have been wicked men ; but
even these always fulfdled the public duties of the Church, and
maintained the Apostolic doctrine^ order and mission ; so that
their personal vices did not esi^cntially affect the Church. The
inscrutable Providence of God has permitted that bad men
should sometimes be invested with the ordinary mission and
ministry in his Church ; and this is not lost by any persona
crimes, nor does their wickedness justify the faithful in refu-
sing to obey them : the Scribes and the Pharisees have sitten
on the chair of Moses. All therefore whatsoever t key shall
say to yoUf olscrv?. and do : hut according to their toorks do
ye not. — Matt, xxiii. 2, ?u

The great Protestant Philosopher, Leibnitz, thought very
differently of the Poptjs from Mr. Blanco White. " It must
be acknowledged," ho says, " that the vigilance of the Popes
for the observance of the canons, and the suj-,port of Church
discipline, has produced from time to time very excellent ef-
fects, and that exercising an influence with Kings, in season
uudout of season, either by remonstrances, which the author-

K'l

ily of their charge entitled them to make, or by the fear of
ecclesiastical censures, they prevented many disorders."*

We repeat, then, that if the Church of Christ had needed a
reform in faith, such men as Luther and his brother reform-
ers would never have been chosen for its reformation. But
the very idea of reforming the fuith of the Church, is an
insult to its divine Founder, Jesus Christ. He had pro-
mised to be with his Church to the end of time ; he declared
it built upon a rock, and proof against the gates of hell : he
promised that the Holy Spirit should guide it into all truth;
who then will say that ho did not fulfil his promises 1 What
are we to think of men pretending to reform the Church of
Christ, and loudly proclaiming that it had become corrupt in
faith and discipline, that its doctrine was erroneous, its wor-
ship superstitious, and its discipline full of abuses? Far be
from us the blasphemous idea that the promises of. Eternal
Truth should have failed, or that the increated wisdom of God
should have founded a Church liable to become corrupt and
erroneous 1 Against the empty boasts about the glorious
work of the pretended Reformation, we shall show that this
Reformation was unlawful in its principle, criminal in its
means, and fatal in its effects ; it was the work of human
passions and not of divine grace.

The pretended reformers were, in the first place, men with-
out mission, ordinary or extraordinary ; they could show no
proofs of a supernatural commission ; though so great a work
as that 'if reforming the Church of God would have demand-
ed no less powerful signs than those given by Moses, by Christ
©ur Lord, and his Apostles. When Luther and Calvin arose,
there was already in the Church a public ministry appointed
to teach, a body of pastors claiming an ordinary mission,
which came down to them in regular succession from Jesus
Christ and his Apostles. When the Sacramentarians and
Anabaptists preached contrary to Luther, he haughtily re-
quired them to show supernatural proofs of their mission, as
if he had been able to exhibit any such of his own. When
Servetus and others taught against Calvin, he drove them out

* S«e the admirable work ofa Protestant Minister, the Baron'de Starck, en*
titled, '* Entretiena Philoiophiqaes sttr la Reuniou dea differentcs Conunu-
■i«M Chretieiuief ," page 39!^.

of Gnnovii; or piiniMlipd thmn by tlio mm of tlio secular pow-
er. This was lint actiir^ liko thn ApoNtlpH ; thoy pniploycd
nc;'iinst those wIk) opposod thnrii, only the girts "f tho Holy
(ihosf, and tho ascpiitlatiry oC tlicir otniiKMit virtiir?. Tho rc-
fornifrs rlainio 1 llic right of proa{'hirij» against the faith of tho
whole Christian worM, ^.V ihcy refused every one the hht^rty of
preaehini; ajj-'i'i^f ihem. As the reformation proceeded, con-
fnsion and(Nssention daily increased ; there was soon a swarm
of seets, Lntheran-^, Aiiahaptists, ('alvinists, Znitiirhans,
Ciuireh of I'ln.'^l iiid, tVr. cVc. Calvin i)e;>-;in to t-ee the dis-
jrraeefnl consc(|nene( m, :\nt\ wrole iluis to Melanethon, a bro-
ther-reformer : — " It is of fh'? jjjreatest importance that no
nrcoiinf of th(? divisions I hat nre amoncrst tis should "o down

V.J n

to future aijes ; Inr it is worse than ridiculous, that, al'tor
breaking off iVoni all tl;e world, wt; slioidd have agreed so
ii!ll(,' among ourseKc:, e\er siii('(! th(! beginning of the Re-
formation." Another leading Protestant says : — *♦ Our
people nre carried away by every wind of doctrine. If you
know what their heli'f is lo-dav, vou cannot tell wliat it will
bo to-morrow. Is there fine article of leliin'on in uiiich tho
Churches that are at war wit!i tlie I'np'^ agree together'? It*
you run over all tlie artir'les, from tho first to the last, you
will not find (kv) which is not held by some of them as an
article of faith, ami r(>jected hy others as an imniety."' —
(Diitil/t inter Epi~'u'. Lrifd.) Nothing t'aen could Le n.oro
contrary to ;;!1 1 iw, and order than the assumption of LiUher
and his f)llowers to be divinely commissioned to reform a
Church founded and pj'cserv(M| by the I'Uernal Truth.

Let us i:ext examine the mnins ado|)led by the Ileformers.
Their conduct conti'iidicted tla^ir principles. They laid down,
as a fundariental maxim, that tho Hiblc was the sole rule of
faith and nutrality ; and that cvcm'v one could inter[)rct it as
he pdeased, : inf;e it was clear in all things necessary for .sal-
vation. Yet they themselves disi'uted eternally about the
meaning of the Scriptures: They did not hcgin to study the
Pibhi coolly and impartially ; but mey boldly contradicted
tho ('atholic dcctrincs, and then looked out texts and accom-
modated ihem to their own dogmas. After promising tl.o
people the great evangelical liberty of reading and judging
for themselves, Uiey drew up various Conlbssions ol" I'ailh
and Catechisms ; und, as the Protcbtant Rlosheim acknow-

lOBSUIilllSIJ'

ledgeit obliged people to follow them, under pain of exeonv
municatioot prison, exile, and even the sword — (Sect. 37,
38, 39.) Thus, in professing to free the people from the
duthority of the Catholic Church, they laid upon them a yoke,
a hundred times more insupportable. In this kingdom Queen
Elizabeth was not behind them with her Act of Uniformity
and High Commission Court, which was a real Inquisition.
sThe historian Hume declares that this Court was an inquisi-
torial tribunal, with all its terrors and iniquities.* Maclaine
shows that the High Commission Court " was empowered
to make inquiry, not only by legal methods, but also by rack»
torture, inquisition, and imprisonment ; that the finea and
imprisonments to which it condemned persons weie limited
by no rule but its own pleasuie."t Thus the Reformers
never adhered in practice to their leading principle of th$
Bible and every man his oion interpreter.

A second means, equally criminal, which the Reformers
adopted, wuc that of misrepresenting the Catholic doctrines.
To instance one in which Mr. Blanco White closely treads
in the steps of those who founded his adopted Church : — ^Tho
Cuthulic Church has ever taught that the rule of faith is the
whole word of God, unwritten, as well as written ; that the
Bible is not the sole rule of faith, but the Bible explained and
understood by the tradition and belief of the Church; that,
though any point be not formally and evidently taught in the
Scripture, we are still obliged to believe it, if it be taught by
the constant and uniform tradition of the Church. But the
Protestants have always accused us of taking for our rule of
faith — not tlio Bible, but tradition ; of exalting the word of
man, above the word of God ; of following traditions contra-
fy to the Scripture. These are egregious misrepresentations
«nd calumnies. '

A third means to establish the Reformation was — Revolts
against all authority, seditions, wars, massacres, and especi-
ally pillage of churches and monasteries. The o.iginal do-
sign of the Hefortners was to abolish the Catholic Religion
altogether, an ' to employ for this end all possible means.

the

I'V i>r England, James I., Chnp, vi.
^ 1)11 \l(i4heint, Vol. vi. i». 3i)> >

This fanaticism prevailed in much the same manner in Qer-
many, Switzerland, France, England, and Scotland. Thui
were the means of the Reformers criminal.

How could the effects of such a Reformation be otherwise
than fatal ? This blessed and glorious work, as it is called,
produced furious and interminable disputes, national and in-
testine hatreds, and new schisms, constantly arising. There
were twelve sects of the Reformed, in the first fifty years ;
and they are now mnltiplied to a prodigious extent. If any
one imagines that this pretended Reformation contributed to
establish purity of morals, he is much deceived. From the
testimonies of the Reformers themselves,— of Luther, Calvin,
Musculus, and other leading Protestants, as well as of Era«-
mus, — it is acknowledged that the Reformed were generally
much more dissolute than the Catholics. Luther's own testi-
mony is in these words : — " The world grows every day
worse, and worse. It is plain that men are much more cove-
tous, malicious, and resentful, much more unruly, shameless,
and full of vice, than they were in the time of Popery." —
** Formerly, when we were seduced by the Pope, men wil-
lingly followed good works ; but now all their study is to get
every thing to themselves, by exactions, pillrCge, theft, lying,
usury." — '* It is a wonderful thing, and full of scandal, that,
from the time when the pure doctrine was first called to light,
the world should daily grow worse, and worse." Bucer, an
immediate disciple of Luther, says : — " The greater part of
the people seem only to have embraced the Gosi)el in order
to shake off the yoke of discipline, and the obligation of fast-
ing, penance, «Sic. which lay upon them in the time of Pope-
ry ; and to live at their pleasure, enjoying their lust and law-
less appetites without control. They therefore lend a willing
ear to the doctrine that we are justified by faith alone, and
not by good works, having no relish for them." Calvin
complains the same : — ♦♦ Of so many thousands, seemingly
eager in embracing the Gospel, how few have since amend*
ed their lives! Nay, to what el.^e does the greater part pre-
tend, except, by shaking off the yoke of superstition, to
launch out more freely into every kind of lasciviouanessl"
The conclusion to be drawn from all this is, thtit this pro-
tended Reformation, unlawful in its principle, criminal 'n\ its
means, and fatal in its effects, bears every mark of a false

religion ; and could never have been approved, much less in-
spired by AlmiglUy God. *i,w«'5f: .vivy .'

The next portion of Mr. White's second Dialogue of the
Preservative, prolesscs to give ihu *' origin and progress of
the spiritual tyranny of tiie Pope." In his larger work of
*' Evidences against Catholicit-m,"'"' he has a long and confus-
ed Dissertation about the Pope, wiiich is entitled '* Real and
practical extent of the authority of the Pope, according to the
Roman Catholic Faith." A few plain observations will suffice
to expose the fallacy of both his productions on this subject. ••

Mr. White would persuade the readers of his Preservative,
that " Christianity had been long established before the Po[)es
bethought themselves of claiming spiritual dominion over all
Christendom ;" that tiie Dishops of Uomo only began to claim
authority over the Church when the Pagan persecutions ceas-
ed in the beginning of the fourth century ; and that the belief
that St. Peter had been Bishop of Rome was an idle and un-
grounded report, it is deplorable to sec u Licentiate in Di-
vinity attempt thus to impose upon such humble readers as
have no means of examining history by such worn-out falla-
cies and vile fabrications as these. The constant testimony
of all ecclesiastical writers, without one exception, for fifteen
centuries, proves that St. Peicr fixed his See at Rome, and di»
ed there bv rnartvrdom. In the first century it is testified by-
Papias, a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, and by Saint Ig-.
natius. Martyr, in his Kpistle to the Romans. In the second
century, by St. Irenccus, by DionysiLis of Corinth, Caius and
Clement of Alexandria. In the third century by Origen,
TertuUian, and St. Cyprian, la the fourth and fifth ci iituri<;s
by St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, Eusebius Lactan^
tius, Thcodorct, Sulpicius Severus, St. Cyril of Jerusalem,
St. Chrysostom, St. Athanasius, and many others followed
throughevery century up to the pretended Reformation. Even
a Pagan writer in the fourth century, Ammianus Marcellimm
(Hist. 1. XV, c, 7,) says, that the chief authority among the
Chribtians is placed in the Bishop of Rome : many illustrious
Protestants hiivo. ;icl:iiowledged the sani(\ With what face
then can Mr. White attempt to delude his readers with tho
groundless assertion, that St. Peter's having been bishop of
i<ome was all " idle report?" -

It is false to assert that " Christianity had been long estab- .

lished before the Popes bethought themselves of claiming spir-
itual dominion over all Cliristondom. " Mr. White pretends
that the Popes never claimed spiritual authority over the
Cliurch, at least for the first three centurie-!, during which it
suffered from Pagan persoculions. The contrary is easily
proved. St. Irenoius in the second century, in the place al-
luded to above, says that " to the Church of Rome, oniU'
count of Us supreme 'prhicipnUhj, every other church must
repair." Tertullian in the third century, says these words ;
" I hear that an edict is put forth — the bishop of bishops says,
&c "

Pope Victor at the close of the second century claimed and
exercised the supreme spiritual authority, by threatening ex-
communication to certain Chiirch(;s of Asia Minor. Pope
Stephen in the third century exercised the same authority, in
the case of those who were for re-baptization. It is vain for
Mr. Whit!! to attempt to contradict these proofs. He can im-
pose his assertions upon no one who has read history; and,
truly, wc])!ush for the want of common sincerity thus exhibit-
ed by a man, who professes to be a Licentiate of Divinity,
and has many more titles than we can stop to enumerate.

" You must know," says Mr. White, " tliat there exists a
very ancient and numerous (church which is called the Greeks
which has never acknowledged the Pope. There arc; also
the Churches of the Armrnians and l-^thiopians, which were
established by the Apostles, or their early suL^ccssors, that have
no idea of the nncjcssity of submission to the Pope, in order to
be true christians." What dojs Mr. White mean to infer
from this? Does ho mean (hat auy one may be a true chris-
tiany providw'd only that he abjures the Pope'? Docs ho mean
that, because thes(! Churches a!>iuro the Pone, they arc good
Protestants! He would not like to stand to such inferences;
for he knows, though he conceals it from his re.ulers, thai the
Greeks and Armenians and I'Uhiopiansbold most tenets which
the Catholic Church does. They hold- transuhstantiation, the
seven sacraments, purgatory, invocation of saints, tVc. ; and
us to their not acknowledging the Pope, it proves at least,
that people may hold all tl.'o above doctrines without beinfj: en-
slaved to Poperv ; and then wh tt becomes of Mr. Planco
While's fine th(!ory about (^ur making i'.ie Pope \\\o,fniishr.rcf
our faith, iim\ the eternal reproach that we build our filth up-

■f!

'i;<ffsn

on the traditions of men ? But he again states what is not
true, when he says that the Greek Church never acknowledg-
ed the P(ype* A man read in divinity, and history, like Mr.
White, must know that till the time of Phontius, the author of
the Greek schism, in the ninth century, the Greek Church
had ever been in communion with Rome, and acknowledged
the supremacy of the Pope. — Mr. W. cannot 03 ignorant that
the Ethiopians were in communion with the Pope, up to tho
fij\th century, when they were drawn into the errors of Euty-
ches, which a Protestant of the Church of England can have
no reason to approve. It is equally well known that the Ar-
menians were in communion with the Pope till the year 535,
when many became Jacobites or A^onophysites ; but even now
one pari of them, called free Armenians, are Catholics, and
subject to the Pope. Why does Mr. White disingenuously con-
ceal all this %

Hovr to not(oe the laboured efforts of Mr. White in his
" Evidences," to work out his alarming account of the " real
and practical extent of the authority of the Pope," &.c. ; we
are glad to find that Mr. White, unblushing as he is, does not
directly charge us with the old calumny of holding the tempo-
ral power of the Pope; he has chosen a new route, by which,
however, he labors hard to arrive at pretty much the same
conclusion. He endeavours to shew that the interference of
the Pope with the civ'l allegiance of his spiritual subjects -s,
*• a fair consequence of doctrines held by the Roman Church
as of divine origin, and consequently immutable." We shall
briefly shew that It is not : videhunt recti, et Iculabuntur : et
omnis iniquitas (yppflahit os suum,

Mr. White begins by finding fault with the statement of
the Faith of Catholics on the authority of the Pope, given by
C. Butler, Esq. in his excellent ♦' Book of the Roman Catho-
lic Church,. That gentleman has ably defended himself from
the charges of Mr. Whito, in the beginning of his "Vindi-
cation of his Book of the Roman Catholic Church," to which
work Mr» White ond his readers would do well to attend.

What is Mr. While's object in his dissertation on the Pope's

supremacy. It Is not easy, from his own account, to discover.

•«I have examined," he says, **the Roman Catholic doctrine

concerning the Pope's supremacy, no/ iccaase / conce/re it

to huvG any practical effect, in ihis country, but in order to cj;-

I :\

1 18 not

lowlcdg-
ike Mr.
uthor of
Church
wiedgcd
rant that
ip to tho
)f Euty-
an have
tlie Ar-
ear 5t35»
iven now
lies, and
jsly co^-

e in his
he *' real
&c. ; we

does not
le tcmpo-
)y which,
the sume
ere nee of
ibjects '%
n Church
We shall
mtur : et

ement of
given by
in Ca tho-
se! f from
" Vindi-
to which
[:nd.

10 Pope's
discover,
doctrine
ueive it
er to 65-

pose the vagueness, obscurity, and doubt in which it is in-
volved." '* The days arc no more, when the Pope might
endeavour to remove a Protestant king from the throne." So
then, he has covered ten paj;;os withutt('m()ts to shew that Ca-
tholics tolerate a doctrine, which he afterwards owns has no
practical effect in this country, and the time for acting upon
which, is gone by ! The rest of his essay is to shew, that Bri-
tish Catholic subjects are still exposed to a trial which flows
directly from the spiriLual cVoHms of the Pope; and what he
means by this is, that in virtue of the obedience we owe to
the Pope, he can command us to assist in chicking heresy by
any means not likely to produce loss, or danger to the Roman
Catholic Church ; and he insinuates, that our Church cannot
acknowledge ihe validity of any engagement to disobey the
Pope in such cases. It is in fact to charge us with being
obliged to obey the Pope in any means he may command u;i
to employ against heresy : a charge a thousand times brought
against us in plain language, and now resorted to, >n a long
round-about way by Mr. Blanco White.

This author complains, that our doctrine concerning the
Pope's supremacy is involved in vagueness, obscurity, and
doubt. It may appear so to those who are determined not to
understand it ; but to all Catholics it is very evident : and the
Catholics of this country have given the clearest proofs of
their understanding it, by repeated oaths and protestations that
they disclaim all temporal power in the Pope out of his own
dominions, that they " do not believe that the Pope hath, or
ought to have, any civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or
pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm." If
the Pope's deposing power be still a tolerated opinion, let Mr.
W. point out, if he can, any Catholics in any part of the world
who believe it ; he will find few, if any : and if many believ-
ed it, they would not believe it as of faith, but as a private
opinion.

How will Mr. White make out that the interference of the
Pope with the civil "allegiance of his spiritual subjects, is a fair
consequence of our doctrines? Our doctrine is, that he has
no right to interfere with our civil allegiance ; that we only
owe him obedience in spiritual concerns. How unjust is the
attempt to infer a consequenoe for us, which we have loudly
and repeatedly disclaimed! It is no use to tell us, that Popes

;.k ■■

ii^

Ml'

have claimed temporal power beyond their own dominions :
Mr. W. should show loho acknoidcdged that poioer. It avails
nothing to tell U3 that tho Pope absolved the FiHglish from
their Allegiance to Queen Elizabeth; he should show us any
Catholics who refused to ackno"vled"e her as their sovereign
in consequence. Why docs Mr. White rake up this old grie-
vance, acknowlodginir all the while that " the days are no
more, when the Pojje might endeavor to remove a Protestant
King from the throne?" It is needless to add more, than
that the days never were, when Cat-liolics were bound by any
article of their faith, to forward any such endeavor of the
Pope.

l?ut Mr. Wliite would have it believed of us, that in conse-
quence of our holding the Pope's spiritual author'ty, we are
hound to obey hi.n in any means he may command us to use,
for checking tho progress ol" heresy. This would be acknow-
ledging an indirect temporal power in the Pope, which we
have so often disclaimed. We protest again, and again, that
we should not olx^y the Pope were he to command the use of
Tiny other means (or checking heresy, than such as were strict-
ly consistent with our civil allegiance to our sovereign. W^e
acknowledge no authority in the Pope to enforce his spiritual
power by any temporal means ; he may command us to as-
1 sist in checking the progress of heresy by spiritual means, by
preaching, and teaching, but by no other means : and we are
not bound to obey him if he commands the use of any other
means.

The following passage is so admirable a defence of the
Catholic Clergy, whom Mr ^V'llitL• lias been ungenerous
enough to insult, that we t;d<e the liberty of extracting it from
" Mr. C. Butler's Vindication of his book of the Roman Ca-
tholic Church, ;" and we do it the more readily, as our de-
fence will come better from a Jjayman than from any of our
own Body :— "In pngo GO, (F.videncf), Mr. Blanco White
informs us, that ' he knew very few Spanish Priests, whose
talents or acquiremonts were above contempt, who had not
a;3cretly renounced their religion.' I have never been in
Spain, and have known few Spanish priests ; But I have con-
versed with many Spanish, and many English, and Irish Ro-
man Cathohc gentlemen, intimately acquainted with the opin-
ions, the manners, and the habits of the inhabitants of Spain ;

! \i

all assure me, that there is not tho slightest ground for this ac
cu:;ation. Mr. Blanco White intimates, that sotncthini^ sim-
ilar may he the case of the I'nijHsh Catijuiic prict-thouil, on
accountof the support which they seem to give to oaths aa
abhorrent Iroin tii.; brlii^'l" ol' their C'lnu'ch, a:i thi)se whicli
rriiist precedo the aihiiission of ni(jml;ers of tiiat Church into
rarlianient. These are the Oaths of Supremacy, and tiiose
against Transubstantiatiou and Popery. Here Mr. Bhnico
White ims been miserably deceived. Th.ere is not, and there
never was, a ivoman Catholic Priest who supported these
oaths, or a similar oath ; or who did not believe, and if called
upon, (lid not explicilly declare, that a Roman Catholic would,
by taking them, ahv)Iutely abjure the Roman Cathoh.. Re-
ligion.

Mr. White, having allected to suppose that theie are scjmf?
amongst us, ready to take such oathr. as the above, invites'
such as " can con:-cIenliously swear to protect and encourage
the interciits ol' the Church of England, to t;pcak openly Le
fore the world, and be the lirst to remove that obstacle hJ
mutual benevolence, and perfect connnunity of political priv--
ileges — the doctrine of (exclusive salvation." This is quite an
original idea ! Mr. White has made a new discovery indeed,
that wo could obtain a community of political privileges by
renouncing the doctrine of exclusive salvation. To expect
(wm us too, to swciw to pro/ ect and encourage tho infcrcsls of
the Church of Eni^land, is rather too much. Mr. White may
bo well assured that he will never sec a Catholic ready to
swear away his creed in that manner. What would the Pro--
testants of Franco say, if the Clovernment oi'thut country Re-
quired them to swear, to protect and encourage tli>.' intt^rests
of tho Catholic Church, before it admitted them to a commun-
ity of political privilv'g(3s'? They would say "you may as
well ask us to alijuro our religion, and become CatholiCs at
once; for how can wo believe one religion conscientiously, and
yet swear to encourage the interasts of another'?" We "say
the same; it is quite enough for us to swear, that we will never
use any oilier moans against the csiablishcd Church, than those
of p- ..aching and tctuihiiig, and fullilling our ministry accord-
ing to th::; Co.i;)e!. This v/e are ready to sv/ear ; and truly
the Church of England must stand upon a iVail foundation, iC
it is so far afraid of us as to rcfu'ie u^:, a community of civil pri

f. ■

-I

▼ilcges, unlesA wc swear to " protect nnd encourage its inter-
ests!"

But our "doctrine of exclusive salvation is an obstacle to
mutual benevolence : cancel but that one article from vour
creed," says Mr. White, ♦♦ and all liberal men in Europe
will offer you the right hand of fellowship." So far, Mr
White in his »* Evidence." In his ** Preservative," he tells
us, in plain terms, what he means by our doctrine of exclu-
sive salvation. The reader is supposed to ask him; (| age
40.) ♦* Is it not a doctrine of the Pope, that all men who are
not of his opinion must be lost to eternity ?" And Mr. White
devoutly replies ; ♦* It is indeed It is an express u.. tide of
their creed, which it is not in their power to deny, without be-
ing accursed by their own Church," Sfc, Mr. W. talked
just now of the vagueness and obscurity, in which our doc-
trines are involved ; they would be vugue indeed, if they
were put forth as he has here represented them. We shall
not stop to point out the inconsistency of those parts we have
put in Italics, where "doctrines of the Pope," "opinions of
the Pope," and " article of our creed," are all gloriously
jumbled up together by a man who beasts forever of his know-
ledge of divinity. We shall simply strtc what we hold, and
what others hold, on this alarming subject, as ii is always mis-
represented to ima^'inations easily prejudiced and affrighted.

There is nothing so revolting in our doctrine concerning
salvation, when it is properly understood : nothing but what
all other communions ought to hold to be consistent, if they do
not hold it in reality. It is important in this matter to sepa-
rate doctrines from persons. It is very far from being the
doctrine of our Church that "all men who are not of our op-
inion must be lost to eternity. ' Mr. B. White, a priest,
whose *' lips should have kept knowledge," ought to blush at
so false an assertion as that above quoted. We believe that
there is no salvation out "f the Church of Christ. Every
Christian of whatever denomination ought to believe thesame.

Christ himselfexpressly taught it in the parables of the
good sheep, and the true vine and its branches. And speak-
ing " no longer in parable," he said manifestly that *' he thai
will not hear the church is to be held by its members as a heathen
& apublioan." This was held by the Reformers equally with the
Catholics. Calvin says, " out of the bosom of the Church

*'4\

there is no remission of sins, or salvation to be hoped for."
The same doctrine is expressed in all the confessions of Faith
of the Reformed Churches.

The question then only remains, lohich is the true Church
of C/irist'i We believe most firmly that the Catholic Church,
in Communion with Rome, is the true Church of Christ. If
another believes the Lutheran, another the Genevan, another
the English Church to he the true Church of Christ, all of
these, to be consistent, must believe that salvation cannot bo
had out of their respective communions. The moment they
adhere to them as Irue^ they mu^'t r.ject every other aa false
They could not value their respective systems, if they did not
consider them rignt, and preferable to all others. Hence, to
be consistent, they must hold, not indeed that *' all men not
of their faith must be lost to eternity," bui that though men
may be saved by other pleas, their false religion icill never
gave them. This, and no more, is the doctrine of the Catho-
lic Church on salvation out of her communion. We condemn
doctrines^ but noi Tpeuons indiscriminately; resigning all judg-
ment to God, we subscribe to the sentiment of a great doctor
and saint : '* They who, without passionate obstinacy, defend
their opinion, how false soever ; who solicitously seek for the
truth, ready to own their error as soon as the truth is discov-
ered, are no wise to be numb.ned among heretics-" (St. Au-
gustine, Ep. 43.

It is strange, however, that the doctrine of exclusive salvation
should be so often objected to us, by those whose church express-
ly teaches it: — that we should bo told by Mr. Blanco White
that the rejection of it would procure us civil privileges, when
the entrance to most important civil privileges is obtained for
others, by acting upon the very objected principle, (Excluding
us from salvation, by swearing that our doctrine i"- damnable
idolatry! The Church of England in those Articles which
Mr. White has signed, says expressly (Article 18tl>): '*They
also rre to be haeld accursed, that presume to say, that every
man shall be saved according to the Law or Sect which ho
professeth ; so that ho be diligent to frame his life according
to that Law, and the light cf nature." She also obiiLjos her
ministers to read publicly, thirteen days in the year, the an-
cient Creed, called the *'Creed of St. Athanasius," which seta
forth the Catholic faith, and contains these words : ** WhooO

li'ili

ever will bo snvful, before all tlilncrs It is necessary, that ho
hold the Catholic Faith--'IMiis is tlr- Catholic Fnith : which
except a in-in hcliMvo failliCully, hov-rniiot ho snvfd." Surely
no innu who siihsciihes to llie ArticI'vs ol'iI;o ('hiireh of Eng-
land, whi<,'h retains thi-; Creed, may reproach ('athoh'cs with
holdinfj a dofifmi " which is ac obstacle to mutual benevo-
lonce, ai.d per(l:ct commutiity jf political j)rivilc;L;es-" Let
Martin Lutlicr, whom Mr. White nek nowledffcs to havcfound-
ed his Church, put a powerful finish to thi^s question : — "I
know n:any were of opinion firieui years ijuice, that every
one miffht he .^aved in lii.sowu pcrsuasiuu — and wliat is this,
but to rnako one C/luirch out of all the enemies of Christ?
From whence it, W');ild also tollow, that there was no need of
Christ an 1 his Gospel, and there will be no diirercncc between
Tuiks, Papist'^ Jews, an! us who have the Gospel. Strange
then is the boldness, aud imnudrnice of the Zuiiiglians, who
dure advance such doctrine, and cover it with my authority
nnd example.'' O'l ; rv(^ how snui^ly Martin puts poor Papists
in, bntwcch Ti.rk'!, aed Jews, and how civilly he insinuates
that we have not (!ven the (JJospel ! VVe arc very easy upon
all such accusati )iis : Cc»nscious of adhering to the truth, wo
are only disposr^d lo smile at those who would consign us to
damnation, if others felt as firm a conviction of the truth of
their religion, as we do of the truth of ours, they would not
be troubled al)out (vvclusivc salvation being held by any one.
Mr. WhitT had done betfer if he had not m )ve;i this que; tion :
he has by criminating the Catholic Church, condemned the
Church of l^-nglaiid, in which he profcsi^es now to believe —
he has verified that passage of the P.-aimi ;t, whicli he used to
recite in his office book : '■'•S/i.<rift(P. ■pdrniJjrituifa' hr. sunt plo'
gur corum : ct iufirmaUc sunJ conlra on lingua coram.

Mr. White, after acknowledging that Luther and his bro-
ther reformers founde(' his Church, is a. ■; anxious as many
Protestants have been before him, to show, that Protestants
had existed, in sonic shap(! or other, long before. Thus he
tries to make out, that certain heretics and fanatics of the ele-
venth and twelfth centuries were Protos,,ants ! Following up
the luminous definition of a Protestant Lishoj). Tint Pro
testantism U the ahjuraiion of Popcnj, by wiiich Jews, Turks
and Chinese become, no doubt, very good Protestants. Mr-
White PTvs, that the heretics he alludes to *' were certainly

ProtPftnnta as far ns opposition to flic Popo'a tyranny and
usurpation is coiicornod ; tlioiiirh I rjuiiiot iinswc • for every
point of clocti'irio which thry held. So Mr. White nppcara to
roriiiin; a littl<> iiion; than Dr. I'lirifcss, to constitute a j)crfect
Protestant; but how riv'iciiloiis is liiis attempt to claim these
sects, as Prot(;stants, who, it is very (u.-rtfiin, would never
have sinrned the fjiithoran, or Cnlvieistic Drofi.'ssion of faith
l)oforo the U(>rormation ; nor would fn- sincere Protestant
be willing to adopt all the reveries ol ihese dillerent sects.
There were, about those times, two sects of people whose
origin is quite (h'stinct, and whose doctrines were for a long
time very diflerent from each ofjier, and essentially diiFerfrnt,
from any of the many forms of Protestantism. These were
the Alhip uses and the Vnudois. A book lately published by
an English Protestant Clergyman has excited a great feeling
in favour of the Vaudois, ns they now exist in the valleys of
Piedmont. It is nothing in the present question, what they
arc now. Mr. White takes care to tell us that they are
•* most excelkmt Protestants ;" that ♦' they have Bis/wpSy
Priests, and Deacons /" — So we may suppose the Scotch
and the Dutch, and ethers, fall short of being most excellent
Protestants ; and there must be another clause added to Dr.
Burgess's definition of Protestantism.

Our business is to show that these people taught few doc-
trines before the Reformation, which Protestants would be
willing to subscribe to; and, therefore, th;\t it is worse than
ridiculous for Protestants to claim them for their ancestors.

The Alhigenses were Manicheans, and arose about the be-
ginning of the 12th century. They were a confused collec-
tion of sects; generally very ignorant, and very unable to
give any regular acrouniof their belicf,---hut they all agreed
in condemning the use of all Sacraments, and the exterior
worship of the Church ; they wished to destroy the Hierarchy^
and change the established discipline. They held the mon-
strous doctrine of the Manichces, that there were two Crea-
tors — one good, the other had ; two Christs, an error of the
Gnostics ; no resurrection ; our souls ore devils y no purga-
tory ; no Hell; marriage unlawful ; and uiauy other abomi-
nations. Protestantism must bo wide indeed if it include
such as these ! Mr. AVhitc did well to say that he could not
answor for any doctrine they held.

^ii

li.'

Hut lot tis examine tho history of tho Vaudois, — •♦ simple
shepherds," os Mr. VVhito very simply calls them. *♦ By
menus of their poverty and simplicity," he adds, ♦♦ these
happy rustics preserved the doctrines of Christ, such as they
had received them from the er.ly Christian Missionaries,"
d'c. lie calls them, moreover, ♦* truly primitive Chrisli-
uns." What n pity it is that truth compels us to spoil this
simple, rural picture of primitive Christianity ! Tho\au-
dois bogan, in 1160, with Peter Valdo, or Waldo, a trades-
man of Lyons. He persuaded some ignorant people that po-
rcrly was necessary Jor salvaUon ; that, if priests and minis-
ters of the Church did not practise apostolic poverty, tfiey
were no longer ministers of Christ, and had no powers to ad-
minister sacraments ; that any layman who practised poverty
had more power than priests ; that oaths, war, and the pun-
ishment of death were nover lawful. How would Protestants
relish these tenets ? VVJiat are wo to think of simple, •' pri-
mitive Christians" like these 1

They taught many other errors equally revolting ; and,
concerning llic Eucharist, they did not deny Transiibstantia-
tioHj but maintained that a bad priest could not consecrate,
though transiibstantiation was effected in tho mouth of a
*rorthy receiver. They continued to teach these errors till,
in 15t36, they were induced by Favel to embrace Calvinism,
—but obliged I'lrst to reject several of their former errors, and
to renounce all belief in the real presence and necessity of
confession of sins. Tlius they became a great deal more
like Protci^tants than thoy were in their ** happy rustic and
primitive state," and we dare say thoy are still " most ex-
cellent Protestaui^." All we contend for is, that they were
very little like Pr tcstants before the era of the Reformation,
rind held doctiin( < before that time, which were most mon-
•^frnus and rcvoltin ;'.

Mr. White rctur.is to the A.lbigenses, and gives a moving
nceounl of their be, i; persecuted by order of Innocent III.
ill 1193; and ''on; who mjide most havoc among them,"
lie, s:iys, " is know, an.l ivorshi^ijvd by the Roman Catho-
lics by the mum of t* iiit Dominic. He was the founder of
t!i(! Inquisi'ioii." IL o he insidiofjsly uses tho word ivur'
shipped to r.Kiko poop: think that Catholics pay divine ado-
r»uon to tho t.a.ius, v ,.ich, he well knew, is not the case.

* simple

"By

" these

as they

maries,"

Chrisli-

spoil this

no \ au-

tradcs-

thnt po-

minis-

they

to ttd-

• ty,

urs

poverty
he pun-
rotestants
pri-

ing;

and,
ubstantia-
onsecrate,
outh of a
errors till,
Calvinism,
rrors, and
jcessity of
deal more
rustic and
* most ex-
Ihey were
formation,
most mon-

a moving
loccnt III.
ig them,"
an Catho-
rounder of
word wor-
ivine ado-

the case.

How basn is such an insinuation! St. Dominic was not the
founder of the Inquisition, nor did ho make any hai'oc among
the Albigenses ; for Ecliard, Touron, and the Bollandistv
prove that ho never was an inqumlor^ nor ever opposed
those heretics in any other way than by preaching, instruc-
tion, prayer, and patience. No Dominican was an inquisitor
till the year ri83, and Saint Dominic had died in 1221. So
much for the correctness and good faith of Mr. Blanco
White! As for the persecution of the Albigenses, wn can
never approve of any persecution on the score of religion;
but let it be remembered that many doctrines of the Albigen-
ses were such, as led to the most dangerous disordcri in civil
society, and many enormities which called for the interfe-
rence of the secular power; and we all know that, when
once the sword is drawn, barbarities and injustice are sure to
follow on both sides. These heretics, protected by Raymond,
Count of Toulouse, had been guilty of seditions and violence.
Jn armed troops they expelled the bishops, clergy, and religi-
ous, demolished monasteries, and plundered churches. They
were not persecuted by order of Innocent III. ; ho only or-
dered the Cistercian monks to preach against them. Several
princes protected the Albigenses and opposed the monks, and
one of the religious was assassinated by the heretics in 1208.
Then tho Pope exhorted the King of France, Philip Augus-
tus, to raise a crusade against these seditious disturbers of
the public peace, and tiie assault of the town of Beziers fol-
lowed ; but far be it from us to defend the cruel massacre of
its inhabitants, though they are proved to have been robbers
and plunderers, and guilty of all kinds of enormities. It was
done, however, by authority of the secular power, and not,
as Mr. White would insinuate, by order of Pope Innocent
III.

Now let the reader decide whether Mr. Blanco White has
gained any thing for Protestants by claiming these men for
their ancestors ; — wh'. ther ho has shown any candour, in his
representation of their history, and whether a sincere Protest-
ant has any reason to be glad of such a convert as Mr.
Blanco White.

.^ ,

[mi

Mr. White'i Absurd Explanations of the Words Chnich and Catholic— So-
phistry about the Pope's Supremacy,— 'rradition.— Transubstuntiatiou.—
Mr. W.'s Misrepresentations of the Doctrine of Catholics on Transnbsfaiiti-
ation and on Purgatory.— Indulgences — Confession, Relics, and Images.

The concluding part of Mr. Vv'iiito's Second Dialogue in
the ** Preservative" is so nearly connected with the whole
substance of Letter III. in the " Evidence," tiiat it will he
best to begin with the notice of both. The first treats of the
Churchy the second of the Pope.

The first is a paltry effort to explain away the meaning of
that article of the creed in which we profess our belief in the
Holy Catholic Church. Mr. White was well aware how in
consistent it is in a Protestant to profess belief in the Catho-
lic Churchf — when he cannot show that his Church is Ca-
tholic — that i?, universal — in any sense, either as to time, or
place. Hence he endeavours to do away with the difficulty
by confusing the real meaning of both the words, Church and
Catholic. Church he would have to mean " Christianittj in
general;" and when our Saviour promised that Satan should
not prevail against his Church, he merely meant that " the
Devil should never succeed in abolishing the faith in Cod
through Christ — not, tliat the Pope must always be in the
right," &c. But i^ Church, means no more than Christianity
in general, it must follow that ail those who call themselves
Christians are members of the Church of Christ, let their er-
rors be what they may ; and, if that be Mr. White's idea, how
came he to subscribe to the Articles of tin? Church of Eng-
land, the nineteenth of which gives a vci y dilferent definition
of the Church ? " The visible Church of Christ is a covgre-
gation rf faithful men, in which the pure word of C!od is
preached," &c. Mr. Thorndike, a learned Protestant, un-
derstood the matter much better. He says, in his Letter
concerning the Present State of Religion, that " when we
say, we believe the Holy Catholic Church, as part of that

1 1

faith, wliereby we hope to bo saved, we do not profess to Ins-
lie ve that there is a compciivj of men professing diristianity, but
that there is a corporation of true C/irisfinns^ excluding here-
tics and schismatics, — and that we hope to be saved by being
members of it." Wliat becomes now of Mr, Whitcs's absunl
notion of tiic Church? He has evidently not learnt yet,
what ho ought to hold as a member of the Church of Eng-
land ; he is too raw a convert from infidelity ; ho may learn,
from the Article of the Church of England, and this testi-
mony of a Protestant writer, to correct his ideas about the
Church, and salvation out of it.

Mr. White gives an explanation of the word Catholic, v-
qually removed from its real meaning and application. C«-
ihoUc means universal. So far Mr. VV. tells the truth ; but,
he says, that, as soon as errors arose, they were ♦' called
heresies, which means separations ; because those who set
up their own conceits as the doctrine of the Gospel, separa-
ted themselves from the universal belief." It may be humi-
liating to such a scholar as Mr. White to be reminded thiit
heresy docs not mean separation, but choosing for onci's self,
as any Greek lexicon would have informed him. It comes
from the verb aireo, to choose ; and hence those who despi-
sed the authority of the Catholic Church, and would choose
for themselves, were always called, from the same word,
heretics, that is, choosers. According to Mr. VV.'s account,
heresies became " so numerous thai the true (christian be-
lief could no longer be called Catholic or universal; so that,
to say — I believe in the Holy Catholic Church — was not tho
same as if one said, I believe in the true Church.*' He goes
on to state, llicrefore, that, in the course of about three C(;n-
turies, it became necessary to add the word Apostolic, as it
stands in the Nicenc Creed. Then he accuses us, whom ho
insultingly calls " Romanists,'' of artfully contriving to bo
called Catholic ■;, and cautious Protestants to bo aware ol'this
trick, and never call us Cj/hnlics, but Roman Catholics, Jlo-
manists, or Papists. Very good advice, no doubt ; but why
then did Mr. White say, in the first page of his book, that
he had been ordained a Catholic priest '\ Why? — but that
" great is the power of truth, and it will prevail !"

Now, to demolish all the sophi.'^try of this most * artful con-
trivance,' of Mr. Blanco White's ; all history testifies that the

D 2

'^1 I

;:i ;•

mil

'if iff

Ills

true Church always bore the honourablo and distinguishing ti'
tie of Catholic : and let Mr. VViiitc be well assured that with
all his good advice, and those of man} before liiin who labour-
ed hard to give us opprobr'ous names, v.e slmll ever be desig-
nated, by the glorious and original name of CalhoUcs. He
cannot prevent our having a title which has descended to us
through the unbroken course of eighteen centuries : he can-
not demolish the triumphant proof established in our favour, by
our uniform possession of that honourablo distinction. " Cinia-
tian is my name, Catholic my surrran)e,'"' snid St. Pacian, who
lived towards the end of the fourth century. Thai saint says,
the name of Catholic comes tVom God, and is necessary to
distinguish the dove, the undiviilnl Virgin Cfinrch, from all
sects, which^ are called I'rom their particular founders. Ob-
serve that this was in a letter to Sympronian, a Donatisr and
Novation heretic, who had found finilt with the true Church
for taking the title of Catholic. This makes powerfully
against Mr. Blnnco's aecoiuil; and di.-,f.lnct]y proves that the
name of Catholic was the distinclion from heresies, after the
period when Apostolical, was inserted in the Niccne Creed.
Now let us hear what St. Augustine said in the same centu-
ry: We must hold the communion of that Church, which is
Catholic, and is not crJij called so bij her cion children, hut by
all her enemies. For heretics, and schismatics, whether thej
will, or not, when the}?' rporJc not to their own ])eoplo but to
strangers, call Catholics CaihoUcs onhj. For they cannot be
understood, if they give ihem not that name, 7i-hichjill ths
world gives them." And this very circumstance, which Mr.
White has the efTronterv to contest, was one of the four im-
portant considerations whicli kept St. Augustine in the Catho-
lic Church ; that Church whicli Mr. While has been so un-
happy nsto forsake with all thcFC arguments before his face,
thus gtrongly urged by f.o groat a doctor as St. Augustine:
" TIkm'O nre manv other ihinr^s v.hich most iustlv hold me in
the communion of the Catholic Church. 1st. — 'V\\o. aureo-
mcnt of people and nations holds me. 2d!y. — Authority, be-
gun with miroclos, nourished with hope, incvcased w ith cha-
rity, confirmed by antiquity, holds me. Sdly. — A succession
of Bisliops (k.'scending from the Sec of St. Peter, t ) whom
Christ after his resurrection committed his Hock, to the })ro-
fi«nt «j)iti>copncy, Jiolds mo. 4tiiJy. — The ir ry name of C a-

-A

i^t

ling ti-
|at with
labour-
dcsig-
is. He
(1 to us
'le can-
our, by
' CiiJ'iii-
|an, who
nl says,
^sary to
from all
•s. Ob-
atist and
' Church
iwcrililly
that the
after the
e Creed,
ne centu-
whlch is
n, hut hy
ihor they
lo but to
lannot he
hall ths
liiuh Mr.
four im-
10 Critho-
:i so un-
hia face,
jTustino :
hi mu ifi
[? uifr'-o
)rity, be-
ith chn-
icccssioii
to whom
the pro-
IP of Ca-

rnohxc holds mp^ of whifih this Church alone, has, not without
reason, so kept tlic possession, that thoir^h all heretics dcnirg
to be called Catholics ; y(!tifa stranger ask them where Ca-
thohcs meet, none of tiic heretics iJare point out his own liouse,
or his Church."

Now which are we to believe, those holy and learned Fr-
thers, or Mr. I'danco White? Wiiat reasonable man does not
Bee that his account of the title Catholic, is totally incorrect
and unfoun led? The Church of God in communion widi the
Pope, preserved that title in every century down to the pre-
sent; and Mr. White knows that he cannot prove the contia-
ry. His attempt to do so, is the weakest we have ever seen-
Protestants have always been jealous of our sole possession of
this title : they have often tried to call themi^clves Catholics,
and to distint^uish us, as Roman Catholics', but in tins they
have never succeeded. To be Catholics they must provo
themselves to he universal as to //'wr, and pLtcf^, which a sys-
tem, or ralher a confused heap of systems, none older than
three hundred years, and confined to very few parts of tho
globe, can never do. " Thou art not yet four hundred ycaru
old, and hast thou seen the Apostles?"

But loe can readily and triumjihantly shew that our Church
is Catholic^ and the " holy Cafliulic Church," in v/hich we
profess to believe in the creed. Our Church is Catholic as to
time. It has existed in every ri^^o since the time of Christ.
We can point out the oria'iii of evcrv sect and division of
Chvistians ; but no one can assign any other beginning to our
Church, than tlir.t of Christ and ins Apostles. It is Catholic
as to doctrine. W'lmt it teaches j:ow, it has taught in every
age ; and though our adversaries are fund of accusing us of
adding new doctrines to tlioseof the primitive Church, such u
charge is more easily made than proved, Tiic testimonies of
tho e-'irly P"'athers abundantly shev/ that every single article of
our fail!) was taught from the beginning. It is Catholic as to
place. It is spread thvoiighoulthe wniid, and h;;s ever reck-
oned by far tlie greatest ntmiber of m?mbers in its
eon)munion ; as every book of Geography will testify. In
tine it is Catholic by the universal con -ciit cfall people, in all
ages, friends and enemies, have always called its mem-
bers Catholics, f^ume have sneeringiy called us llomai)ists,
PRpistfi, mud oti names, but thsy have never generally ob-

tained : we still are, and ever shall be distinguished by the
glorious surname of Catholics. ^'•

Mr. White's invention about the term AposfoUcal is as ri-
diculous as it is original. No one, surely, before him, pre-
tended to believe that Apostolical was inserted in the Nicene
Creed, because the Catholics could no longer be distinguished
from heretics. If they had separated from the Church, sure-
ly they could tell what Church they hac' left ; and all the world
knew Catholics from others then, as well as they do now,
though heretics are now much more multiplied.

The word Apostolical was inserted as one essential mark
of the true Church, as well as the other marks of Unity, Ho-
liness,, and Cotholidty. It signified that our Church had its
origin, its mission, and its doctrine, from t.ie Apostles. The
protestants have often boasted that their doctrine is apostoli-
tal, because they colloctod it, they say, from the writings of
the Apostles ; and Mr. White attempts the same argument,
though in a very bungling manner. But how do Protestants
know that they, alone understand the writings of the Apostles
in their true sense, while the whole body of the successors of
the Apostles maintain, that they understand them wrong, that
these writings have, in all ages been understood differently'?

Mr. White, after these luminous discoveries, proceeds to
condemn us as follows. *' The members of that heretical,
that is, particular Church of the Pope, — that Church of the
individual city of Rome, cannot be Catholic or universal, ex-
cept as far as they are Apostolic,^' And again : "We are
bound to declare her a corrupt and heretical Church" «^c
What absurdities are crowded together in these few lines .'
Who can value Mr. Blanco White's divinity a straw after such
» display? He tells us that " the Church of liie individual
city of Rome cannot be univcrsnl ;*'* which is about as wise as
flaying that London cannot bo Europe.. Who ever said that
the particular diocese of Rome was the Universal Cli.irch?
^Vc maintain, indcrrl, that the Church in communion with the
See of Rome, is Cdlholic, as all the world knows : wo main-
tain, that it is also Apostolic; but it is not its Apostolicity that
makes its Catholicity, as Mr. White confusedly pretends; and
it is utter absurdity ;o say that the Church in communion with
the See of Ivon.cis only Catholic as far as it is Apostolical.
Mr. White suddenly claims authority to pronounce us hervii-

■ '

by the

|s as ri-

pre-

[Niccne

juished

1, sure-

fe world

ilo now.

ealy by which, according to his former acvount, he moans that
yvc arc ficpnralcd (vom — from whrit — Mr. Blanco White? It
is anew idea truly, that, that cluircli i^houUl havo separated
from which all others separ/ifrd. "Ifslio fell hy heresy,
from what church did she i"ail ? \\liat church reproved her?
what council condeiruicd her? what Fatliers wroti; against
her? where were lier accusers? did no church condemn her?
No Ciiurch ! 7'hen she is not an luu-etica' Church"
Before Mr. White assumed autiiority to pronounce thus of the
Church he has d;!sert(;{I, Ik; should have exliil)ited some claim
for the Church of vvhich lie now ])rofess(.'.s to be a member.
Tcrtuilian would have deinaui'e I hi:; warrant in those terms ;
*' Let them produce llie origiiuji'tbeir Cliurch, lot them j^ivc
us a list of their bishops, deducod by succossiou from the he-
ginning, so that this first bishop had either an Apostle, or an
Apostolical nran for his pnxleoessor. Let heretics counter-
feit any thing like this if they can."

Having thus "destroyed the so|)histry" of Mr. White with
regard to the Catholic Church, v/o shall find him "•' at his dir-
tv workayain" in that Lellorinliis " l-ividenco" which treats
of the Head of that Church on earth, the Pope; as well as in
the third Dialogue of his "Preservative"

The substance of his Letter, as far as it regards the Pope
is this : Mr. White professos to examine the title by which
our ('htirch, with thr- Pope at its head, claii:ns infallible au-
thority, He sliit(!s, as the gnjUiiJ, of it, the momortildo text :
"Thou art Peter," cV,c. t:^i. Matt. xvi. 18. Ho iirmies, that
if those words contain what Catholics teach about the Pope,
it is only in an indirect and obscure manner ; " that Saint
Peter never alludes to his privilege;' in his I'ipistlcs: that our
system "w/r/iy iiid-^od be; contained in that passage, but il'so,
it is contained like a diamond in a mountain;" that it folii^ws
that the claim of t!u! Pope and his Church "Inning no other
than an obscure ami doiihtrul foundaticjn, f'ae btdiefof it can-
not be obligatory (Ml all Christir.ns ;" that if they have the
];owci- which tliciy claim, it i.; "one of the least obvious trulh.'i
in the Gos[;cl," that the force of his arguments rests upon
{\w doiih/fn/wss of the meaning of the text in question; that
chher Christ did not mean w hat Catholics claim ; or if he
did, he concealed his meaning, and iheroi'on;, obedience to
the Roman Church cannot be necessary. This is really the

-I

;■*• I

' l\

m\ I

substance of Mr. Whlte*s grand argument, which he has mud-
dily carried along through seven octavo pages !

Our task then, in rcr^ly, is sulliciently easy; it only rests
with us to shew that the claims of our Church and Pope, do
not rest on a doubtful foundation. Allowing, for argument
sake, that our only pro.vf of tlic authority of tur Cburch and
Pope, is the passage, ♦* Thou art P(!ter,'' &:c. which is by no
means the case, wc contend that even so, our claim does not
rest upon a doubtful, but a very sure foundation. How can
that passage bo of doubtful mcauiug which for so many hundred
years, by so many millions of peoijie, by all the Holy Fathers
and Doctors, by all the Councils, and by the most learned and
pious men in tho world in every age down to the Reformation,
was uniformly understood as Catliolics now understand it; and
since the Reformation has been understood the same by the
greater part of the Christian world? A line idea for a passage
to be called doubtful, because a handful of men choose to dis-
pute its meaning, in opposition to the rest of Christendom, and
1500 years after the passage was written, its meaning Ivaving
been agreed to, all that time throughout the Christian world !
Was not St. Augustine qualified to pronounce on such a pas-
sage? was not St. Jerome biblical scbolar enough to deter-
mine its meaning? Was that like a diamond hid in a mountain,
which was found &:used jy the primitive Fathers, &; has been
preserved in all its lirilliancy ever since? What does Mr. White
mean by a passage with a doubtful meaning ? Does he mean
a text which no one lias been eve. 'bund to dispute ? He will
find few such indeed in the scriptures. If so many discordant
meanings have been assigned to these four vvor<ls, " This is
my body," than which language can furnish none plainer,
how are we to hope for a passage like that in question to bo
undisputed ? — But in(le|!ondant of the glaring fact that such
an overwhelming majority of chrislians in every age, have
understood th's passage; in the one sense, and thereby remo-
ved all doubtfuliiess iVom its me;\ning, an iin|)artial examina-
tion of the Text, will shew clearly what our Savioar intended
by it.

Our Saviour had previously changed the Apostle's name
from Simon to that of Cephas or Peter, which means a rock.
(See St. John, i, 42). {{a shows in St. Matt, xvi, 18, what
he intended by so doing. Simon Peter had just made a glo-

rious confession that Christ was the Son of the living God;
and to reward him for this confession our Saviour conferred '
on him asph^ndid privilege in these words : *' I say to thee,
that thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of hell sliall not prevail against it." What can
this mean but that our Lord chose Peter to bo the rock or foun-
dation upon which his Church sliould !;o built — that he was to
support the whole edifice upon earth? Then our Saviour add-
ed : '• And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of hea-
ven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth it shall be
bound also in Heaven; and what.soever thou shalt loose upon
earth, it shall be loosed also in Heaven." This second me-
taphor of the keys plainly expressed the plenitude of his power
in the House of God ; for he who has the keys of the house or
city, has, committed to him the government, possession, and
administration thereof. Where is the t)bsciirity or doubtful-
ness of the passage ? It plainly confers the primacy of hon-
our ami juiisdiction on St. Peter; and these he is proved to
have exercised, though his iiumility may easily have prevent-
ed him from proclaiming his authority in Epistles, which
would, after all, have been a very needless proclamation
where his supremacy was never questioned. In proof that he
was ever the acknowledged head of the Church, it should be
observed that he is always named first in the enumeration of
the Apostles in the Gospels ; lie spoke first for the election of
an Apostle in place of Judas, declaring that "one of these
must be made a witness with us of his resurrection" (Acts, i);
he proclaimed the gospel first, and first opened the Apostolic
ministry on the day of Pentecost (Acts, ii) ; he first pleaded
the cause of the Apostles before the Council (Acts, iv) ; Ae
first began the conversion of the (Gentiles, in the person of
Cornelius (Acts x) ; he first spoke in the synod of Jerusalem^
opening it with authority, altliougl St. James was the Bishop
of that city in which it was held (Acts, xv). Thus do the
scriptures themselves testify the meaning of that passage which
Mr. White endeavours to obscure.

it has been shown that the meaning of the said text is not
doubtful or obscure, and this at once demolishes all Mr.
White's pompous argumentation. Mr. W. is wrong in stating
that the claims of our Church and the Pope, rest solely on the
above text- With his usual want of theoloj^ical accuracy.

ii '

iii!

<;■!'

very disgraceful in a man of his multiplied titles, he has con-
fusedly mixt up the soparato subjects of the Aufhoritif of the
Churchy the Head of the Church, and the hfaUibility of the
Church. All these important points we prove from various
weighty argumenta ; which as the nature and limits of this
little work neither require nor admit of our stntinjr nt any
length, wo refer the reader to the masterly exjiosilion ofthem
in that incomparable work, " The (mkI of lieligious Contro-
versy," by bish'^p Milne-, o. in the " Discussion Amicaic" of
the Abbe Trevc ■. n-- exalted to the Kpiscoiacy in France.
We confine oun iii!!- {<■:■ "^o sophistry of Mr. Blanco White*
and shall now sho.v h<:v, lie continues it in his '♦ Preserva-
tive," dialogue third.

What will the reader think of Afr. White's refTard for truth
and charity, when he finds him accusing Catholics of holding
such monstrous doctrines, as that the Pope has received the
power " of adding to the Scrip/ nrrs several ar licks of
FaithJ'' Perhaps this is as gross and absurd a calumny as was
ever put forth against the Catholic Church ; and it is broufrht
against her by one of her own ministers! his abroad insinua-
tion that the Pope claims the power of making articles of Faith,
when it suits his pleasure or profit ; and that we are bound to re-
•eive such articles equally with those in the Scri|)tures. It
was known to Mr. White that no Catholics ever held such a
doctrine ; and what could it avail him to be guilty of such
misrepresentation ? Catholics do not hold that f he Pope can
invent, or propose articles at his pleasure ; nor is any consti-
tution of the Pope binding upon us unless received and appro-
ved, by the open or tacit consent of the Church throughout
this world. •♦ The Church," says the illustrious Bossuet,
** openly professes that she says nothing from herself; that
she invents no new doctrine ; she only declares the Divine
Revelation by the interior direction of the Holy Ghost, who
is given to her as her teacher-"

With equal disregard to truth and charih/, Mr. White states
that the Pope *' grounds his claims on his own authority and
flupports his authority by the sword; that he objects to the
free circulation of the scriptures because they arc unfavoura-
ble to him ; and because he has added articles to them, decid-
edly to his own profit." Such is the contemptible fallacy with
wh'uili h« introduces several of our doctrines, in order to per-

simdo his readers that they are the inventions of Popory, and
additions to the word of God, for tho profit of tho Catholic
Church. Tiic clearest arguments in reply may bo thrown
away upon a mind so dishonourable, and so determined to
misrepresent. It may bo in vain to shew that the authority
of the Church and tho supremacy of the Pope arc clearly
taught in the Holy Scriptures : to protest, that we totally dis-
approve of and condemn perse:?ution in every shape for reli-
gious opinions ; that wo do not object to tho free reading of
tho Scriptures, from any fear tliat any part of our doctrine
will be disproved by them, and that our Church or Pope has*
never proposed any new articles of Faith, any contrary to
the word of God, or in addition to the word of Godj orany
not delivered to the Church by Christ, immediately or through
his Apostles. But though we have little expectation of con'
vincing u man so bent upon calumniating the creed of his fa-
thers, it will be right to examine the doctrines which he call
inventions of the Pope, and prove them to be all divino reve
iations, lest any be imposed upon by Mr. White's gricvcr
mis-statement. The points which he charges us with invent-
ing are Tradition, Transubstantiation, Confession, Relics, and
Images.

Mr. White's larger work does not profess to enter into ar-
guments upon these doctrines, but only to show their tenden-
cy to increase the power of the Pope and his Church, and
thence to infer tlis motive the Pojjo had in inventing them.
The smaller work, " Tho Poor Man's Presorvative," which
is the more inunediately under notice, is by no means so ro
served; it follows the usual train of first misrepresentii^g our
doctrines, and then ridiculing them and drawing the must un-
warranted consequences fiom them. The " Evidence" mere-
ly speaks of our placing tradillon on the same footing with
the scriptires ; the " Preservative" unblushingly charges ua
with making tradition or hearsay superior to the word uf God
in loriling ; and declares, that, " by placing Scripture under
the control of these hearsays, the Pope and his Church havo
been able to build up the monstrous system of their power and
ascendancy." All this will be best confuted, bv a conc.cw
statement of the real doctrine of Catholics concerning Tradi
tion.

The Rule of our Fbith id tho Pvevealcd Word of iWl The .

III

ti'

word of God is hvo-fold, written und unwritten. Tho written
is called Scripture, the unwritten, Tradilion. Tho unwritten
word, was the first rule of Christianity; tlie Church was esta-
blished before the New Testament was written ; Tradition
was already in possession ; anil when the New Testament
was added to it, it.} authority was not forfeited on tliat account.
Tho written word is not tho ic/wle icord of God, but only a
part It is not alone a sutlicient rule of faith, without tradi-
tional authority ; for if It were, thero would have l)oen no he-
resies, and the gospel should have been so clear and explicit
In every point of faith, as to preclude all doubt. Tho written
word itself was delivered down by Tradilion ; and its authen-
ticity is therefore traditional or dependent on Catholic tradi-
tion. By traditional authority the Church is empowered, both
to attest the authenticit} of Scripture and to determine its ori-
ginal, genuine', and orthodox interpretation.

The earliest Fathers, to whom no Protestant can object, re-
fer in striking terms to tho authority of Tradition. Tcrtul-
lian, in the third century, says, speaking of controversy:
** Wherefore tho Scriptures cannot be the test, nor can they
decide the conflict ; since, wit!i relation to them, the victory
must remain pendulous." St. Ircna-us in the same century,
■peaking of heretics, says: "They are averse from Tradi-
tion, saying that they are more jicnetrating, not than the Pas-
tors only, but than tho Apostles tluiinselves — that they have
discovered the general truth — tho hidden mystery." How
applicable to Luther and his associates, "who founded Mr.
White's Church ;" and to him who devoutly treads ia their
footsteps ! Sometimes, however, they themselves were com-
pelled to give glory to truth, as Melancthon does in the fol-
lowing remarkable words : " L(;t us learn to love, reverence,
and venerate the teaching Church ; — as it was most agreea-
bly signified in Samson's uliegovy ; had ye not ploughed with
my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle, that is : had yo
not heard the CInirch — which is the depositary of the word of
God — the word of God itself had been utterly unknown to
you." With this explanation and these testimonies, who will
credit Mr. White that Tradition was invented by tho Pope?

Mr. White next attacks Transubslantlatlon. He sets out
as usual with false assertions. He says it would be searched
for in vain in the Scriptures — that the Apostles could not un-

ritton
ritten

8 C8ta-

iditiun
aincnt
count,
tnly a

tradi-
no hc-
xplicil
vrlttun
utlien-

tradi-
d, both
its ori-

* I*

I i

fterstand the words of Christ in a corporeal sense — that S*.
Paul did not bclicvo in the real presence, — that in order to so-
curo vencrntioti for the priests, the people were taught the
real presence — and that It was so material a presence that if a
mouse eat up part of the host, it certainly cat the body of
Christ, dic. Ilcrc for once, Mr. White has not the small
merit of having invented false accusations. These are all
old attacks, a tliousand times made against us, and a thousand
times repelled. There is no truth in any one of them.

We certainly believe the doctrine of Transubstantiation to
have been handed down to us by divine Tradition, as a re-
vealed truth received from Christ himself, but not to the ex-
clusion of testimony in its favour in the So/iptures. It would
not te searched/or in vuin in the Scriptures. They contain
the memorable words, *♦ This is my body," &c. : and novr
Luther and Calvin shall prove for us, by condemning each
other, that Transubstantiation is the only true Scriptural doc-
trine of the real presence. Luther tried har^ to disbelieve
the real presence, but declared that the words were too strong
for him, and that ho was forced to believe that Christ was
truly and corporeally present after the consecration. How-
ever, he taught that the body of Christ was present in the
bread, and with the bread, which mode was called consubstan-
tiation. Calvin, however, denied any real presence, and ac-
cused Luther of doing violence to the words of Christ, for he
did not say, ♦♦ Tliis bread is my body," or, »* My body is in
this;" but, " This is my body." Therefore, said Calvin, you
must either admit no real presence at all, or admit Transuh-
stantiation with the Catholics. Luther replied that Calvin's
figurative sense did equal violence to the words of ovir Sa-
viour; for he did not say, *' This is the figure of my body ;"
nor, " This contains the virtue and efficacy of my body ;"
but simply, '* This is my body ;" therefore, concluded Lu-
ther, his body was there really present. Thus the enemies
of the Catholic Church, by refuting one another proved unin-
tentionally the truth of her doctrine ; and this alone will suf-
ficiently shew that Transubstantiation will not be searched for
in vain in the Scriptures. The Apostk's could understand
the words of our Lord in a corporeal sense : they knew him to
be the omnipotent Son of God, and the truth itself; hence
they must believe him able to change bread into his body, and

•k\

thoy mustbollcvo that ho gave them his body, when ho ex-
pressly declared that ho did to. l^ut, snys Mr. White, it
would have been "us if Ci)rist had said to thcni that lie wan
holding himself in his own hands." Exactly so, Mr. Blanco
White: the consctiuence is iigorou.sly true. Does Mr. While
mean to claim this paltry objection ns his own ! No, even thia
M an old quibble, and perhaps while he was an infidel, ho
learnt it from the works of J. J. Rousseau. That writer ex-
claimed in u tone of triumph : '♦ \V(; must believe then that
Jesus Christ put his body into his m )uth !" Let Mr. Whitu
and all such, be assured that this was after all no more ou
original idea of Rousseau's llian of his own.

This with every other dilliculty and conscquoneo of par
belief, was long ago seen and solved by venerable antiquity.
The holy fathers weighed all tliese things before God, & solv-
ed them by recurring to the Divine OmuipolcncCf as they did
in all other mysteries of religion. St. Augustine saw no ab-
surdity in the consequence thus objected. Ho has the very
words: " Jesus Christ held himself in his hands, when giving
his body, he said; this is my body, since he then held that
»amc body in his oion hands." Si. John Chrysostom sayc to
the same efi'ect: " He drank himself of his ownhhody In
fact the body which Christ gave, was by anticipation, his glo-
rified body . which was capable of being in many places at once^
and had other qualities, which our bodies will also possess,
when they have j)Ut on incorruption and immortality. It
was the same body as to the matter^ but different as to tho
manner : and hence, there is no absurdity in tho consequence,
that Christ held his body in his hands.

From the false assumption, that the Apostles could not un-
derstand tho words in a corporeal sense, Mr. W. draws a con-
sequence equally false. It is not true to say, that St. Paul
did not believe the real presence ; he did believe iff not-
withstanding Mr. White's mighty proof, from St. Paul's cal-
ling the elements irc^ri and cup. And observe, St. Paul's
belief no way follows from that of the other Apostles ; for ho
tells us, that what he taught of the Eucharist, he had learned
by express revelation from Christ himself: *' I have received
of the Lord, that which also I have delivered to you," &c. —
He delivered an exact account of the institution of this mys-
tery | and what heeaysof the use and effects of it, evidently

li, -4l

proves that he believed in the real presence of Christ's triM
body and blood. He declares that the unworthy receiver is
guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. How could that be»
if the body and blood were not there 1 He requires a person
to provo himself, bf^'bro he receives ; lest ho eat and drink
his own damnation, not discerning the body of the Lord, How
could a man bo guilty of not discerning the Lord's body if it
were not there present 1 St. Paul uses the words bread and
cu/), it is true ; buMhis makes nothing against his belief or
ours, in the real presence. Cup merely means, the contents
of the cup, be they what they may; the container, for the
thing contained, by a very common figure of speech, as Mr.
White knew very well. The blessed Sacrament may be cal-
led breadf for many reasons : 1st, — because it is consecrated
from bread. 2d, — Because it still retains the form and taste of
bread. 3d, — Because it is the bread or food of the soul. 4th,
— Because it is the body of Him, who is the tri> . bread of life,
our daily and supersubstantial bread. But it may still contin-
ue to be in reality the true body of Christ ; and therefore St
Paul's words prove his belief of the real presence. Mr.
White's note, telling his readers that Catholics use a white
wafer, instead of common bread, in order to remove the ap-
pearance, of bread, which would be too visible an argument
against their doctrine, is too visibly false, and ridiculous, to
merit serious refutation, tie knew that it was not done for
any such reason ; and he would have hard work to prove that
a white, wafer looks any more like the body of Christ than
common bread. i .

If Transubstantiation were invented by the Pope, how
comes it that the Greek Church teaches it? For Mr. Whil«
took care to tell us long ago, that the Greeks never acknow-
ledged the Pope, and lerefore he cannot suppose that th«v
would adopt h.'s invent, ms.

We hr.ve shown that the Greeks did acknowledge the
Pope up to the ninth century ; and if Mr. White means to
pretend that Transubstantiation is of later introduction ; it
rests with him to show how the Greek church came to em-
brace it ; and also how the Ethiopians, Armenians and oth-
ers, should profess it, who separated from the Pope much ear-
lier. The well-known fact that these early Separatists harv
«f w believed m Tnuisubstantiatioa, invincibly proves Waxx. i\

« 8

is no doctrine invented by any Pope, but taught from the bo-
ginning from no other source than Divir e revelation.

Mr. White's last attack is the most dishonorable, and with-
al the weakest he has made against Transubstantiation. "The
presence," he says, ♦♦ is so material, that if a mouse eats up
part of the consecrated bread, it certainly eats the body of
Christ," and this he calls our " most irreverent language." —
Let his readers be well assured that the irreverence is all his
own, and that of the poor objectors from whom he has copied
it. No Catholic ever thought so irreverently ; it is an old
objection which Mr. White has seen refuted over and over
again, in all ourbooks of divinity. He has been dishonorable
enough to bring forth the objection and suppress the answer ;
to charge us with the irreverent language of our opponents,
and to withhold our own reply. " Sec," said St. Augustine,
" by what arguments human weakness seeks to contradict
Divine Omnipotence." " We should not believe in Christ
himself, if we were to be moved by the scofls of Paganism."
We answer then to all such objectors: "You err, not know-
ing the Sciiptures, nor the power of God :" we deny that the
body of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament can suffer any in-
dignity, such as being devoured by mice or turned to corrup-
tion. It was liable to these things while in a state of mortali-
ty ; but being now risen from the dead, it cannot suffer any
more ; it is in a glorified state, impassible and incorruptible.
Hence, no kind of indignity affects the body of Christ in the
Eucharist, but only falls upon the species or outward accidents
under which it is concealed. Thus vanish all Mr. White's
groundless assertions about the Catholic belief in Transub-
stantiation.

The next point of our Faith whicli Mr. White attacks in
Piirgotorij. His lr.rj[.'cr work says little about it. He has
a flonrisli about those five sacraments which the Catholic
Church has ever held from the beginning, and which Protes-
tants have rejected, and he amuses himself with calling them
i?omf/n sacrament.'', l^nliickily for Mr. Wliilo's witty desig-
nation, it is weil known to him that they are not Roman sa-
craments alone, but hold now, as they ever have been, by the
Greeks, Armenians, Ethiopians, and Coptic Christians ; and
this puts an end at once to his attempt to call thmi in deri-
sion, Roman sacraments. ■ The " Preservative,'' as usual.

the bo-
ld with-
"The
■eats up

pody of
ige."—

mswer ;
jonents,
gustine,
jntradict
Christ
janism."
ot know-
that the
any in-
3 corrup-
mortali-
iffer any
rruptible.
st in the
accidents
White's
Fransub-

;tacks is
He has

Catholic
1 Protcs-
ng them
ty dcsig-
rnan sa-
1, by the
ns ; and
in dcri-
3 usaul.

)■

I 'A

first gives an erroneous account of the Catholic doctrine of
purgatory and then derides it.

Catholics are taught, if we are to take Mr. White's account,
that the Pope has the power to relieve or release the souls in
Purgatory, by means of indulgences. He calls Purgatory
" the offspring of Roman Catholic tradition;'* and says that
** tradition alone must have been brought to the aid of Purga-
tory." Also that the idea of Purgatory was first produced
by the notion that pain and suffering have the power of plea-
sing God. Would it not have been far more creditable in
Mr. White to state our doctrine fairly, and to oppose it with
honorable arguments ? There is some excuse for their mis-
stating our doctrines, who have never heard them but from
prejudiced and illiberal repoitcrs, but we can find nothing to
extenuate misrepresentation in a man whose profession oblig-
ed him to know them thoroughly. Our belief concerning
purgatory is simply this : " That there is a purgatory : und
that the souls therein detained arc helped by the sufiTragutt of
the faithful."

The belief is not the offspring of tradition alone : Wo find
it asserted even in the Old Testament that it is "a wholesome
thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from
their sins." 2 Macch. ch. xii. and though Protestants reject
the book of Macchabees (perhaps on this very account) they
are still obliged to admit, that this passage proves thattho Jcw»
were accustomed to offer sacrifices and prayers for the dead,
and that Judas Macchabcus, of the priestly race, would not
have ordered such sacrifices, if it had not been a roociived
doctrine that they were beneficial to the departed. In St
Matt. ch. xii. our Saviour speaks of a sin which shall not bo
forgiven in this world, nor in the next. This clearly indlcatOB
that there are some sins forgiven in the next world : and If
so, there must bo a purgatory. In St. Matt. ch. v. and HL
Luke ch. xii. mention is made of a prison, whence llioro shall
be no deliverance, till the prisoner has paid the last farthing.
This prison Tcrtullian and others understood to be purgatory;
and the well known passage (1 Cor. ch. iii.) where it is prom-
ised that a man '* shall be saved, ijct so as hij fire,''' has boon
understood of Purgatory by St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, i'li
Jercmo, and many other venerable authorities. Purgatory
IS also proved by reason itself : God is infinitely just, uud

; i

',''i

ft.

must render to each according to his works. Now as sonM
men die in mortal sins, there is hell to punish them ; as some
few die without any sin, there is heaven for their immediate
reward ; but as others die in small sins, or under the guilt of
neglected satisfactions, there must be a middle place of pun-
ishment for a time, for such souls. They are too good to bo
condemned to hell, and yet too defiled to enter heaven. The
middle place in which they must be purified, we call Purga-
tory. Hence, Mr. White has not truly said that " Tradition
alone must have been brought to the aid of Purgatory." But if
it rested solely on tradition, that tradition which supports it, is
of too venerable antiquity to be overlooked by any consist-
ent mind. Luther and Calvin, who "founded Mr. White's
Church," both acknowledge that it was the common doctrine
of the Fathers. We need only add, that TertuUian mentions
the custom of praying for the dead as an ancient usage, even
in his time, that is, in the third century. St. Cyprian, St. Am-
brose, and also the Gr^ek Fathers, as St. Epiphanius, St.
Chrysostom, and innumerable other authorities, bear testimo-
ny to it.

As to the assertion that Purgatory is grounded on the no-
tion of pain and suffering being pleasing to God, it only need
be observed, that if sullering inflicted for sin has not the
power of turning away the anger of God, and procuring his
pardon and favour, Mr. White must show how it was that
Ahab's punishment was averted, when he humbled himself in
sackcloth aud fasting ; how the Ninevites were spared, when
they did penance in fasting and suffering : and how, if volun-
tary austerities are not pleasing to God, St. John the Baptist
made so grievous a mistake as to lead such an austere and
penitential life in the desert. But it is very natural for those
to preach against voluntary suffering who have no relish
for it.

But Mr. White says we are taught that the Pope can '* to-
lieve or release souls in Purgatory by means of indulgences."
If by this he means to insinuate that the Pope claims jurisdio-
tion in the other world, and can relieve or release souls in
purgatory at pleasure, he knows that Catholics never held
such a belief. They believe that indulgences only profit the
souls in purgatory in the way of suffrage, that is, in much the
same way as prayers and other good works performed ac

rfr-

offered for the benefit of those souls ; and hence they do not
consider that any indulgence granted even by the Pope, is in-
fallible in its effects, but that it always depends upon the free
accej)tancc of God's mercy. Mr. White's derision of Purga-
tory is beneath nclice. The wisest of men has said : Qui
erudit dcrisorem, ipse injur iam sibi facit : ct qui arguit im-
pium, sibi maculam general.

The next subject with Mr. White is, naturally, ** Indulg-
ences," It is a bad way of reasoning, to argue from the par-
ticular abuse of any practice, against its general utility ; and
we are sorry, though not surprised, to find Mr. White falling
in with former revilers of tiie Catholic Ciiurch, and ground-
ing his chief arguments against Indulgences upon certain al-
ledged abuses of them, lie treats us to a strange account in
his *' Evidence" of the sale of Indulgences in Spain, and the
profits of them being divided between the Pope and the King,
and so forth. In his "Preservative," he tells us that the
Pope has the key of an infinite treasure of merits, by which,
if a man has been condemned to lie in Purgatory millions ol"
years, he could send him at once to heaven by a plenary in-
dulgence! And he absolutely asserts that his reader has only
to look into our Lally's Directory, and he will find the ap-
pointed days, when any one of us *' is empowered by the
Pope to liberate one s»>ul out of Purgatory, by means of a.
plenary indulgence." How foul and monstrous are such as-
sertions, in the mouth of a man ordained a Catholic Priest !
So far from every individual being empowered to release a
soul, we do not believe that all the Catholics on earth, Pope
and all, have any direct poiorr to release a suffering soul, by
any indulgence, or any number of indulgences ; but only that
we can, as above explained, apply certain indulgences for
their intention, in the loay of aitij'rage, devoutly hoping thai
God, in his mercy, will be moved to accept such suffrages for
their relief, as far as it shall bo his blessed will. Mr. White's
readers might look through our Directories a long time be-
fore they would find a word about releasing souls by indulg-
ences; and if they v/ere invented, as Mr. White insinuates,
for the profit of the Pope, how came the Greeks to hold them,
as tliiiy undoubtedly do, and ever have done'? (See Perpetuite
de la Foi, tome iii, ' page 724.) It has been already stated,
that we do not believe the Pope to have any jurisdiction ovoy

Purgatory, and therefore the idea of his enabling a soul to fly
to heaven by a plenary indulgence is widely remvwed from
our doctrine, which only teaches that indulgences may profit
the dead in the way of suffrage, offering to God in their be-
half, the infinite merits of his divine Son and those of his
Saints through Him. As to the sale of indulgences and other
abuses, the Council of Trent expressly urges, that all such
profanations be I'emedied and abolished, and commands all
Bishops diligently to correct them in their respective Churcli-
es. On this subject the venerable Dr. Milner thus expressed
himself: " I am far from denying that indulgences have ever
been sold : — alas ! what is so sacred, that the avarice of man
has not put up to sale ! Christ himself was sold, and that by
an Apostle, for thirty pieces of silver. 1 do not retort upon
you the advertisements I frequently see in the newspapers
about buying and selling benefices, with the cure of souls an-
nexed to them, in your Church ; but this I contend for, that
the Catholic Church, so far from sanctioning this detestable
simony, has used her utmost pains, particularly in the gener-
al Councils of Lateran, Lyons, Vienna, and Trent, to pre-
vent it."

Setting out, as usual, with a false assertion, — that the ol>
ject of the Catholic Church is "to deprive men both of their
understanding and their will, and make them blind toolsofher
own," Mr. White next speaks of confession. He misrepre-
sents its nature nn<\ effects, and of course its origin. He says,
erroneously and insultingly : " the Romanist Church makes
the confession of every sin, by thought, tcord, and deed, ne-
cessary to receive absolution from a ])riest." This he knew
to be a wrong assertion in two respects, for 1st. We are not
obliged to confess any sins which are not mortal, and 2dly,
we are only obliged to confess such, as we can remember af-
ter a diligent examination ; whereas Mr. White's proposition
would mean, that we could not be absolved unless we confess-
ed all our sins, and would leave no hope of forgiveness for
hose we have forgotten. We believe tl at bias inculpably
forgotion are forgiven as well as those confessed. Mr. White
no'it declares that confession " has changed the repentance
of ihe G;- pel, into u ceremony which silences remorse at the
wiighl expense ofa doubtful, temporary sorrow." — Mr. White
knovAs on the contrary, that we only believe confession pro-

il to fly
from
profit
leir be-

e of his

1(1 other

all such

nds all

^hurcli-

pressed

ve ever

of man

that by

ort upon

/spapers

souls an-

for, that

etestable

le gener-

t, to pre-

it the ob-
of their
olsof her
misrepre-
He says,
ch makes
deed, ne-
i he knew
e are not
and 2dly,
lember af-
roposition
3 confess-
roness for
nculpably
,{t. Whito
epentance
rse at the
Mr. White
ssion pro-

fitable, as far as it is joined to a true contrition or repentance
for sin, accompanied with a firm resolution to sin no more,
and to make satisfaction to God and our neighbour. As con-
fession is diflicult, and humiliating, a sinner will seldom be
brought lo it, unless ho has already conceived some sentiments
of repentance, and desires to be reconciled to God; and, so
ftu- from confession, "changing the repentance of the Gos-
pel," wo uniformly find that those who are abandoned to vice
desert the tribunal of confession, while those who are moved
to repentance always return to it. Many Protestants have
wished for the rc-establishmcnt of confession, and have ad-
mitted the depravity of morals which followed from its aboli-
tion among tliem : a proof that they did not consider it as
*' changing tho repentance of the Gospel."

Having thus misrepresented the nature ofconfession, it was
to be expected that Mr. White would be equally unsparing as
to its etrocts. Accordingly we find him aflccting indignation
at what ho tor.n.s " the paltry plea" that confession often cau-
ses the restitution of ill-gotten goods. *' The truth is," he
adds, *' that restitution is not a whit more probable among
Roman Catholics," than other Christians : and he sj)Iendidly
f confirms this by saying, that in the course of fifteen years

that he has lived in Lngland, he has known one restitution
by a poor person of a sum of money, without confession!
To this question we might answer, that where confession is in
use, theft is less likely to prevail, and restitutions are not so
often to be made : but \\\ ^ are content with observing, that
Catholics have all the motives to urge them to make restitu-
tion which others have, sucli as repentance, remorse, &c. ;
and In addition to them, they hav(! the serious remonstrances
and exhortations of every Confessor who does his duty, as
also to the delay or refusal of absolutions in cases of ne-
glect or unwillingness on the part of the sinner to restore.
Where then is the greater {)robability of restiluiion being
duly made ? In tho one case the sinner has no human being
to admonish him, but is left to his own conscience : in the oth-
ther, besides his conscience, he has tl;o exhortations and
threats of his Church, to urge him to his duty still more pow-
erfully. An instance was published in the newspapers not
very long ago, of a gentleman in London receiving a box of
valuable jewelry from Italy ; restored to him, through tbo

'■})

'"./

hands of a priest, by a servant maid who had robbed him of
it in England ; and this was eflected by the ministry of con-
fession. There is no Cixtholic Confessor who could not fur-
nish many instances of restitutions which he has known and
been instrumental in procuring ; but it will readily be conceiv-
ed that there are many imperious reasons which forbid the
disclosure(»f such examples. Mr. White, however, makes a
curious confession himself. He says ho can assure his read-
ers as Penitent, as well as Confessor, that " confession is ex-
ceedingly injurious to purity of mind."' This is rather an
awkward acknowledgement for a man who was v<?ry anxious,
in his first Dialogue, to have it beliLived tluit he had been so
innocent before he fell into infidelity ; it leads us to suspect
that Ik-' was not remarkably correct in his duty, either as Pen-
itent or Confessor, and ifso, it is no wonder if the laver of
grace and regeneration sliould have proved to him a source
ofdefdcment: ah immundo quidmwulalilur?

Ikit now comes a graver charge : "a Confessor can pro-
mote even treason with safety, in the secrecy which protects
his oiHco/' How so, Mr. Blanco White? If the Confessor
enduavf urs to excite his penitents to treason, surely they can
denounce bin to the civil powers ; and he must be very stu-
pid if he thinks himself secure by virtue of the secrecy of his
ulHce. He is quite as liable to punishment in such a case as
any other ])romoter of treason, and he would bo more richly
deserving of it, for having impiously profaned his sacred min-
istry. But if it is licre insinuated that a Confessor can pro-
mote treason in which tlic penitent confesses himself impli-
cated, tills is more improbable than the other ease ; for a pen*
itent cuncerned in treason would not be likely to present him-
Bclf at the confessional, or if ho did, he would not conlcss his
treason if he had not resolved to renounce it ; for Mr. White
knows jierfectly well that no man implicated in treason could
be absolved by a conscientious priest, but would be earnestly
exhoited by every means to renounce such iniquity, and to
give information to the proper authorities. For the rest, there
js nothing so holy that men will not abuse ; and whatever
abuses Mr. White's confessional practice may have brought
to his knowledge, they cannot justly be urged against the real
good of the institution, nor weigh a feather against its raanifesi
ttnd acknov/ledged utility.

the-
se

as Pen-
lave r of
source

can pi'o-
i protects
/onfcssor
they can
.'cry Sta-
cy of hi3
I case as
I'c richly
;rcd min-
can pro-
If impli-
3r a pcn»
sent hin;-
nlbss his
r. White
on could
larncstly
, and to
!st, there
whatever
brought
; the real
nanifeisi

Now to attend to Mr. Wlute's account of its origin : ho
puts this speech for the reader in his Dialogue : ♦* I cannot
help wondering how the Church of Rome could perPuade mea
to submit to such a revolting and dangerous practice.jas that
of cuiifession." It wouW certainly be niattcr for wonder if
the Church of Rome could have persuaded men to submit to
confession. That mankind have in every age submitted to
it, is a solid proof that it is no invention of Rome. Confession
is too painful and humiliating for any human authority to
have been able to establish it in every age and nation, as wo
know it to have been established; and we thank Mr. Blanco
White for thus unintentionally reminding us of one most pow-
erful i)roof of its being of Divine institution. It is a strong
argument of the truth of Christianity, that, opposed, as it is,
to the human passions, it was firmly established on the wreck
of Paganism; and it is a povvorful proof of the Divin©
institution of conlcssion, that it has been in every age obser-
ved bytlie great majority of the Christian world. It will be
well, however, to remind Mr. White again, that if, as he
■| would have it, confession was imposed upon the world by the

■ Church of Rome, he must tell us how it comes that the Greeks,

|| the Jacobites, the Nestorians and Armenians, havg C! t * j-

tained the praclico of sacramental confession, the same as Ca-
tholics. These sects separated from the communion of Rome
1,200 years ago ; and therefore confession must have beea
the usage of the universal Church at that time/ and then
what becomes of Mr. White's attenijit to show that Rome in-
vented it, in the ignorance of the da ik nges'?

But confession uiii not grow up gradually with what Mr. W.
opprobriously terms the '-Romanist system." In the c;econd
century, Origen speaks of Cotn'essioa being made to the
priest. In the third, St. Cyprian speaks of secret sins con-
fessed to the priests, and of remission granted by them. St
Ire.neus, Tertullian, and others testify to the practice of secret
confession to the ministers of the Church. And though Mr.
White pretends that there is nothing in Scrijjture to support
the practice, we can show him that it is solidly gn^unded upon
Scripture.,

In Si. Matt, xviii, 18. our Saviour assured his Apostles that
whatsoever they .should bind or l(M>se upon earth, should be
bound or loosed also in heaven. In St. John, xx, '22, !i ;. 'vo

?]'

them tho Holy Spirit, and declared that whose sins they should
forgive, should bo forgiven ; and whoso sins they should re-
tain, should bo retained. Now, how could the Apostles ex-
ercis* this power, unless Ihey know what the sins were which
they were to forgive or retain? And how could they como
to this knowledge, except by the confession of those who had
committed them? The power granted by Christ was clearly
a judiciary [)Owcr, which could only bo exercised to ith full
knowledge of the cause; such knowledge could only be obtain-
ed by the criminal's own confession. And thus the obligation
of confession is clearly founded upon Iho scriptures, no less
tJinn on tho uninterrupted tradition of tho Catholic Church, in
every age from the Apostles.

Protestants have often repented of the abolition of confes-
sion, and earnestly desired its rc-cstablisliir.cnt. This can
never be among those who have taught thut Sacramental Con-
fession was not instituted by the Divine Founder of Christian-
ity. They will no more submit to such a yoke than the first
Christians would have done, if they had not believed it of di-
Tino appointment.

It is a curious fact, that Mr. White's difficulties about Con-
feasion were very ably treated by a celebrated royal theolo-
gian, no loss a personage than King Henry VIII, who wrote
aa follows, in his " Defence of the Seven Sacraments, against
Luthc' " — ** But as to Confession, if not a vvord was said or
read in figure, or spoken by the Holy Fathers ; yet when I
see every one for so many centuries confessing his sins to the
Priests, when from that very practice I behold so much good
oome, and no evil, I can neither believe nor think but that the
practice was appointed and preserved, not by any human
•oun^el, but by divine command. For neither could the peo-
ple have been ever brought, by any human authority, to pour
out in the ear of another, who could divulge them if he pleas-
9^, their most secret sins, of which their conscience gave
them a horror, and which it was so much their interest to
•onceal, with so much confusion, and yet so readily: nor
oould it happen, that whi'rcas so many Priests, good and bad,
titi^ pronu'scuously employed in hearing Confessions, even
fthoae iihould keep them secret who keep nothing else ; unless
Cod, who instituted this Sacrament, protected by a special
£ra«« ••> ^lutary an institution. ) am porsuaded, therefore.

jJF

€3

Ishould
luld re-
lies ex-
which
como
Jho had
Iclearly
p full
lobtain-
ligatioD
no less
ircli, in

whatever Luther may say, that Confession comes not from
any popular custom or institution of the Fathers, but owen ita
establishment and preservation to God himself." Thus wrotu
our royal " Defender of the Faith" against the patriarch of
the Reformation.

From Confession, Mr. White, after a sentence or two about
ihe unscriptural encroachments of Romanists, passes on toth«
subject of Relics and Images. He thus questions his reader :
" Did you ever find mention of Relics in the Bible?" Th»
reader is made to answer — "Certainly not." We su'ppose,
then, that the obsequious reader never looked into the Fourth,
or, as it is called in the Protestant's Tr-'inslation, the Second
Book of Kings, ch. xiii, v. 21, where it is mentioned that a
dead body was raised to life hy having iouched the hones of the
Prophet Eliseus, or Elisha : and that he never saw, in the se-
cond chapter of the same Book, that the same Prophet had
used a Relic, namely, ihe cloak of Elias or Elijah^ to divide
the waters of the Jordan. He never read, we presume, the
19th chapter of the Acts, where it is stated that diseases and
wicked spirits were driven out by the application of Jiand"
kerchiefs and a'prons from the body of St. Paul. Who can
say, with these passages before him, that the Bible never men-
tions Relics ?

Mr. White next amuses his reader with assuring him that
Rome has long "carried on a trade in bones," and recount-
ing numerous abuses and impostures, with false relics, &c
<fec. ; as also with various Images, Pictures, and the like,
which he winds up with this sweeping conclusion : — *' Thus I
can assure you, before the whole world, that whoever submits
entirely to the guidance of Rome, must become a weak super-
stitious being, unless his natural temper should dispose him to
join with superstition the violence and persecuting spirit of
the bitterest bigotry."

We shall not trouble ourselves to examine the truth or false-
hood of Mr. White's pretty stories ; but we must say, that the
gross and multiplied misrepresentations in which he has been
already detected, gives a strong presumption against his ac-
curacy in such reports as these. If all the abuses exist which
he enumerates, and if many more exist, they are still abuses ;
and till it can be shewn that our Church gives countenance to
ithem, they will make nothing against the veneration of Kelio«

' I

and Images; properly understood and practised. If Mr.
White means to assert that Relics arc not to be held in a proper
degree of veneration^ the ovidenco of Scripture, of all Tradi-
tion and the Holy Fathers, is against him ; and St Jeromo
will condemn him in the remarkable language he used against
Vigilantius : ** The Pope then docs wrong when he offers sa-
crifice to the Lord over what we account the venerable bone*
but what you call the vile dust of the dead men, Peter & Paul,
consider their tombs as the Altars of Christ? — Oh impious
assertion, to be denounced to the ends of the earth!" The
Pastors of the Catholic Church have always watched with th»
greatest care to prevent and correct every kind of abuse in
the veneration of relics and holy Images. The use of them
is not of obligation upon any Catholic ; yet wo are unsparing-
ly reproached, as if we placed our hopes of salvafion in the
possession of ihem. We cannot better conclude than in the
feeling language of the pious and learned Dr. Milner on this
fubject — " It is a point agreed upon among Catholic Doctors
and Divines; that the memorials of Religion form no essen-
tial part of it. Hence, if you should become a Catholic, as i
pray God you may, I shall never ask you, if you have a pious
picture or relic, or so much as a crucifix in your possession ;
but then, I trust, after the declarations I have made, that you
will not account me an idolater, should you see such things in
my Oratory or S^udy ; or should you observe how tenacious
I am of my crucifix in particular. Your faith and devotion
may not stand in need of such memorials ; but mine, alas I do.
I am too apt to forget what my Saviour has done and suffered
for me ; but the sight of his representation often brings this
to my memory, and affects my sentiments. Hence, I would
rather part with most of the books in my library, than
with the figure of my crucified Lord." — End of Religiw*
Controversyt Letter 34.

jf Mr

iproper

iTradi-

jforomo

against

lers 8a>

10 bone*

; Paul,

Impious

Tho

fith tho

3use in

Kir. 'VThite't tbtord ciriratnre nf Calhntie practice!.— Trae neinUfr *f sufm:
fUtioti. — Tlii misrepresentation (>( llio nature, nf repentance, and of fitiliBf>. —
i<i« iiitidiou* attack upon the Roman breviary— itH rcul tttndency the vp|»-
»i(it til that charged upon it by Mr. Wiiite.— lliii faUe account of oar Jm-
tr.ne reipeu ting good worki-Mir dnctrinc truly ttuteii — Pretuoiptiua •(
Lettiar.— I>«f«f>o« of oultbacy utid reii^'iout vowi.— CoDcluiion.

Mr. White having atJvanced, in the conclusion of his third
dtalogue, that every Catholic " must become a weak, super-
stitious being," if not a violent and bigotted persecutor — pro-
ceeds in tho beginning of the fourth to attempt some proof of
his assertion. For this purpose he collects together a num-
ber of pious practices of Catholics, and some which probably
no Catholic ever thought of; and mixes them up in one mon-
strous caricature of a " Romanist retiring to bed at night."
He falsely asserts that the Catholic Church encourages a sw
|)er«^i7iou5 state of mind similar to that which makes people
afraid of witches, charms, omens, and such things ; and we
must say that if Mr. White's account of Catholic practice^
were any thing like truth, there would be some ground for
the assertion. But what are the practices he describes, and
what does he wish his reader to infer? We cannot afford
space for a copy of his picture, though it would be highly
amusing to a Catholic to see how Mr. White has ridiculously
worked it up. These, however, arc the leading features ;
The Romanist lights up two candles near his crucifix, beats
his breast till it rings again — takes a skull out of a cupboard
and kisses it ! gives himself a discipline, mutters several
prayers, turning to every picture in his room, sprinkles tho
bed and room with holy water to keep the devil off, and to
wash away his own venial sins, which, according
l» Mr. White, holy water has the power of clearing

F 2

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IMAGE EVALUATION
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away : then he has an Agnus Dei made in a mould,
•ays Mr. While, " not unlike a large butter-pot ,•" what he
does with this, Mr. White omits to tell us, but he says that
every kiss impressed upon it strikes off the amount of fifty or
an hundred days from the debt he has to pay in Purgatory. —
Then he feels for his rosary and scapular about his neck, says
a prayer to his good angel, and makes the sign of the cross
the last thing. These are some of the strokes in Mr. VVhite^s
labored caricature ; upon which we shall briefly remark :
1st, — That many of the practices may be done with a proper
intention, and assist a person to rest in a Christian manner ;
particularly begging the prayers and protection of our
Guardian angel, and the holy sign of the cross, which has
been in use from the very days of tho Apostles. 2d, — That
the use of holy water is very ancient in the Church, as a
means of drawing down a blessing of God, which we hope to
obtain through the prayers which the Church has appointed
to be used in blessing ''.': ; but that we do not believe, as Mr.
White falsely asserts, that the holy water has any power in itself
or spiritual virtue to wash away even venial sins. 3d, — That
no pious Catholic considers that any outward ceremonies pr
practices can avail him, without true repentance for his sins,
"without faith, hope, charity, and careful keeping of all tho
commandments : so that he will not neglect prayer, self-ex-
amination, meditation and spiritual reading, which Mr. White
takes care not to mention ; and that if to these he joins out-
ward mortifications or ceremoiiies, th?y are only adopted as
helps to interior devotion, or expressions of it. 4th, — That kis-
sing an Agnus Dei will not free us from purgatory ; and that
kissing a skull is a new way of cherishing the remembrance
of death, which we never heard of before. /

And from the above ridiculous caricature of religious prac-
tices, scarce one of which is held by any Catholic as essential
to religion ; and all of which, we feel confident, are not prac-
ticed by any one Catholic in the world, Mr. White attempts to
infer, thiit " we must become weak, superstitious beings !" 6»m-
perstition properly defined, is " an excessive and superfluoui
worship, by which cither sovereign honour is given to the crea-
ture, or in an unduo manner to the Creator." Our adversaries
have the word superstition so continually in their mouths
against our religious practices, without knowing what they

imark

really mean by the term, that it is necessary to lay down it<i
meaning accurately, & then we are not afraid Tor our practices
to be tried by it. None of our authorised religious ceremonies
or practices render sovereign Jionour to the creature ; we pay
to relics, images, &c. no more than a relative honour, as memo-
rials of Christ and his saints ; nor by any of them do we (utore
the Creator in an undue manner, that is, in a manner which
he has not appointed, either himself, or by those who have
authority from him, and which consequently is not pleasing
to him. We are ready to show that our religious practices
are grounded upon Scripture, and the universal practice of
antiquity, and approved by the Church of God, which has au-
thority to guide us, and if other practices are in use not so
grounded and approved, or if those that are approved are not
performed in the proper manner by any individuals, the
Church is not answerable for them. She does all in her power
to confine these practices within proper & salutary limits. Ma-
ny decrees of councils might be quoted, to prove how desirous
the pastors of the Church have been to prevent superstitions :
we shall confine ourselves to a decree of the Council of Meck-
lin in 1570, and select it, because its language is remarkably
applicable to Mr. White's picture of the Romanists; *'Let
not the faithful rashly give credit to certain books circulated
or even printed with privilege, which from light and su-
perstitious causes, and uncertain revelations, promise im-
moderate and unjustly exorbitant indulgences ; particularly
if they promise deliverance from certain effects, that is, from
dangers of swords, torments, horses, plague or certain deliv-
erance from purgatory." «' V i'

It was to be expected after this, that Mr. White would mis-
represent our virtue of penance. He has the boldness to
assert, that though Catholics believe the atonement of Christ
sufficient to save them from hell, they do not believe it enough
to save them from a temporal "punishment of sin. Thus he ca-
lumniously insinuates, that Catliolics do not believe in the all-
sufficiency of the atonement of Christ; but hope to atone
theToselves for what deserved temporal punishment, hj volun-
tary sufferings of their own, independent of the satisfaction of
Christ If this were Catholic doctrine, Mr. White mijiht well
"write a ** F eservative" from it. But we are of opinion, that
tho man who could tltus knowingly misrepresent the creed in

irhieh he was educated, de of which he was an appointed preaek-
er, would find equal room to condemn the great Apostle himself,
for he says of himselt, that he '* fills up tliose things that art
wanting of the sufferings of Christ in his flesh," &c. (Colosa.
i, 24.) We should be glad to hear Mr. W's. explanation of that
passage : but mean time we can assure his readers, what Mr.
White knew when he wrote perfectly well, — that the doctrine
of the Catholic Church is very far from being thus injurious to
the merits of Christ. What we call satisfaction, is nothing
else than an application of the infinite satisfaction of Jesus to
our souls. We believe that the atonement of Christ was fuU
and infinite in value ; that he oflered a superabundant satis-
faction for our sins, more than sufiicient to atone for all that
they deserved, both temporal and eternal. But he can apply
this satisfaction to us as he pleases : either by abolishing our
•ins entirely, and all punishments due to them ; or by removing
the eternal punishment, and still leaving us to endure some
temporal sufferings. The first method, we believe him to use
in Baptism, but the second frequently in regard of the sins
we commit after Baptism. He requires some temporal pun-
ishment to hold us to the line of duty ; and it is to fulfil
this obligation, that we undergo certain painful works,
which we call satisfactory. These reserved punishments do
not proceed from any deficiency in our Saviour's payment ;
but from a certain order which he himself has established
for the application of his atonement to our souls. Our salva-
tion is all the work of his mercy and grace, first and last :
what we do by his grace, is not less his, than what he does
himself by his own absolute will ; and we only hope, through
his merits, for our works to prove satisfactory.

This is the substance of the Faith of Catholics on this point
aa clearly laid down by the illustrious Bossuet, in his " Expo-
sition," to which the reader would do well to refer. Without
these principles, it would not be easy to explain how St. Paul
•ould speak of any thing " being wanting to the sufferings of
Christ," but by them we clearly see that the Apostle consider-
ed that the sufferings of Christ, though abundantly sufficient
in themselves, might be wanting in vs^ unless we laboured to
Jill them upf and procure their application to our souls by pe-
nitential works.
Hence Mr. White is wrong in attributing the origin of our

penitentia) practices to " a mean estimate of the atonement
of Christ:'' and as he frequently ridicules the idea of self-in-
dicted pain being pleaiiing to God; we shall direct his atten-
tion to the following, fnim the pen of a learned and venerable
theologian, on that subject : Cod," says the modern Free-
thinker, is not pleased with the sufferings of his beloved chil-
dren ; — No: nor even with those of Christ himself, if we ab-
stract from the motive. But their love of his justice, which
his pious children mean to satisfy, by generously passing sen-
tence upon themselves, is most acceptable to him. In union
with Christ's merits, the due performance of penitential works
is referred to its primary and principal cause, is infallibly as-
sured of the divine acceptation, becomes abundantly satisfac-
tory for sin, and even acquires a super-eminent degree of mer*
it"

Mr. White comes forth with the old pretence of Luther,^
who " founded his church," that the word metanoete in the
third and fifth verses of the thirteenth chapter of St Luke,
does not mean do penance^ or even be penitent, but merely
change your mind. On examining Luther^s translation, we
find that the German word he employs, is merely amend or do
better. The Dutch Calvinist text has a similar word, and ike
French Huguenot translation is, si vous ne vous repentet.
Now» as to the original Greek word, in this and other places,
perhaps Mr. White's horror of Popery may lead him to reject
any interpretation of the holy Fathers, but the following ex-
planation of a Pagan may satisfy him, that metanoia meant
considerably more than " changing one's mind." Ausonius
■ays : *' Sum dea, quee facti, non factique exigo poenas ; lit tft
pceniteat, sic metanoia vocor."

But to leave words for things. When Achab, and David,
and the Ninevites repented, they did much more than ** change
their minds;" they humbled themselves in deep sorrow, and
punished themselves in fasting, sackcloth, and other proofs of
a contrite and penitent spirit. When the prophet Joel ex-
horts to repentance, he calls upon the people to be converted
in fasting, in weeping, and in mourning, and exhorts them to
rend their hearts with contrition. What are these but self-
inflicted punishments for sin? Christ our Lord signifies that
true repentance v/ill be accompanied by the like self-inflic-
tions. *' If in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the mighty

^BlR^'.'f '

I s>

■II

|iji-.

works tliat have been wrought in you, they would have dona
penance long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes/' Repent"
ance then imports much more than merely changing our mind;
it signifies three things : sorrow for the past, punishment and
flatisfaction for the past, and a new life. These are the v>or^
thy fruits of penance which St. John exhorted sinners to bring
forth. And yet, in defiance of these, and many, very many
more proofs which could be adduced, and of which we cannot
suppose even an ex-priest ignorant, Mr. White declares that
the word repent cannot by any possibility mean any thing but
a change of mind !

Having taken up this unwarranted idea of repentance, Mr-
White finds himself obliged shortly after, on the subject of
fasting, to deny altogether that fasting is recommended by the
Church of England as an act of penance ; and contends that
it is ** a mere check upon indulgence, left to the discretion of
every individual." But is not a check upon indulgence pain-
ful f And is not what is painful a penanr^ ? Surely the
Church of England, in recommending fasting, did not intend
to recommend it in any other way than we find it practised and
recommended both r-^ the Old ds New Testament But there
we find David, Achab, Tobias, Judith, Esther, Daniel, and the
whole Jewish nation, humbling their souls and fasting for sin,
to obtain, the favour and mercy of God by ** self-inflicted pun-
ishment.'' Jesus Christ fasted for our example, and declared
that, afler his ascension, his disciples should fast. The Apos-
tles fasted, as we read in the Acts, and St. Paul exhorts us to
fasting (2 Cor. ch. vi, 5.) There can be no doubt that the
Church of England, though she may not have commanded
fasting, which is by no means clear, recommended it as prac-
tised and taught in the Scriptures. Any other kind of fast
would be widely inconsistent, in a Church which professes to
be so scriptural in her ordinances. Therefore Mr. White's
idea of fasting, if not his own invention, does not appear to
be that of his Church, and the zealous members of that church
will not thank him for thus representing its exhortations to
fasting. We have to make one remark more : he would have
it that the Church of England has great merit in not enjoin-
ing fasting ; but in whatever view it be regarded, whether as
a work of penance, or a " check upon indulgence," it will
prove of little use unless it is commanded. Experience shewa

I wor-

)ring

lany

inot

that

but

that what 18 only recommended, is sure to be neglected if k
be disagreeable to flesh and blood ; and the universal disre-
gard of fasting among Protestants, proves that the recom-
mendation of their Church has been of no practical benefit
The Catholic Church has made fasting a precept, and thereby
preserved its practice in every ago from the Apostles. Had
she only recommended it, the consequence would have been,
that by those good Christians who had least need of it, it would
have been observed; and by sinners to whom it was most ne-
cessary, in great measure, if not wholly, neglected.

The most insidious attack which !VIr. White has made upoa
Catholics, is perhaps his account of the Breviary, or Divine
Office of our clergy and religious, and his artful attempt to
prove that the tendency of that Prayer-book is to " cherish
credulity, and adulterate Christian virtue." This is all in
character however, in a man who has shaken offa yoke which
was probably never ** sweet and light" to him ; and who per-
haps, in his best days, never exclaimed with the fervent Ca-
tholic ecclesiastic ; sic psalmum dicam nomini tuo in saculum
taculi ; ut reddam tibi vota mea de die in diem. Indeed he
speaks of it as a task book, a tedious duty to be done every
day ; a proof that he was a stranger to that holy alacrity with
which the pious priest goes to the performance of an exercise
which affords him sweet relief from the vain pursuits of this
world, and happily recals him from time to time from the dissi-
pation of life, to a holy converse with God. How far was he
from the spirit of our holy Bishop Challoner, who spoke of
his office to be said, as a " pleasure to come !" He little
knew how dear to the fervent priest is his office-book ; how
unwilling, in fact, he would be to be released from the duty of
•aying his daily office. He says : " the scrupulous exactness
with which this duty is performed is quite surprising j" but
why did he not honestly conclude, from this well-known fact,
that it must be a dear duty, instead of a painful task? Why,
but because to him it must always have been a task ; and he
•onfesses as much when he tells us, that in spite of a rapid
mmneiation, it took him an hour and a half daily ; dilexisti
omnia verba pracipitationiSf lingua dolosa /

According to Mr. White's account, the Breviary was cono-
piled by order of Pope Pious V, and commanded to be used by
Uuk in 1666. This would make it appear that no such book or

ii; p.

'ST, 'l

practiee existed till that period. But though St. Pious V wat
the first who brought the office into the form of the present
Roman Breviary, the same office had been recited from the
earliest times in substance ; and many ancient councils de-
creed against those ecclesiastics who neglected it. Indeed in
the very Bull quoted by Mr. White, Quod a nobiSf the holy
Pope exempts certain chapters and monasteries, who had their
own Breviary two hundred years before this decree, from
the obligation of exchanging it for the Roman : and he there
speaks of other Roman Breviaries previously in use, and sig-
nifies the cause of drawing up n new one for the whole church
was chiefly to enforce uniformity in the form of the Divine
office.

Mr. White represents the Breviary as "the true standard
to which the Church of Rosie wis»hes to reduce the minds and
hearts of her clergy : Rome," he says, " evidently gives
it the preference over all other works ; — and should a Roman
Catholic Clergyinan be unable to devote more than an hour
and a half a day to reading, his Church places him under the
necessity ofdevivinghis whole knowledge from the Breviary."
These observations led Mr. White as he says, " to take his
old task-book in hand," in order to give an account of it, and
extract from it. They will lead us also to analyse it ; and
when the reader is put in possession of the true nature of the
Breviary, it will be easy for him to judge of the above declar-
ations.

Any one unacquainted with the Breviary would imagine,
from Mr. White's account of it, that it is principally made up
of legends of the Uaints ; and that all which those legendg
contain, is proposed for the exercise of the pious belief of the
elergy to its full extent. But let any one take the pains to
examine the Breviary, and they will find the case very dif-
ferent. To promote his insidious pur])ose, Mr. White dis-
patches, in half a page, his account of 'ho other parts of the
book; while he fills out his volume with near fifty pages of
extracts from the lessons which contain "compendious lives
of the Saints." Now the truth is, that the Breviary consists
of the whole Book of Psulms, portions of the Pentateuch, such
as leiate to the Fall of Man, the Historic, of the Patriarchs &
of Moses, very considerable portions of tlie Books of Kings
9x4 Cbronicles, aa well as Job, the greater and lesser Proph>

7«

'»

V was
present
om the
tcils jie-
deed in
holy
ad their
from
there
and sig-
church
Divine

standard

inds and

^ gives

I Roman

an hour

nder the

eviary."

take his

f it, and

! it ; and

re of the

3 declar-

imagine,
made up
legends
Bfoftho
pains to
^ery dif-
hite dis-
ts of the
pages of
us lives
consists
3h, such
irchs &
Kings
rProoh-

phets, and in fact, some portions of each book of the Old Tes^
taroent, and abundant extracts from the New. Indeed, there
are three Lessons from the Scripture in the office of every
day, besides a part of the Gospel almost every day, and three
Lessons from the Homilies of the Holy Fathers upon the
Gospel. Then there are recited every day at least five and
twenty Psalms, including the 118th Beuti immuculatit the
length of which is nearly equal to a dozen ordinary Psalms ;
and oflen the number of Psalms is greater, as in the Sunday
office, where it amounts to six-and-thirty. Besides thin very
great proportion of Scripture ; the Lord's Prayer is repeated
each day, in the office on an average a dozen times, and tlie
Cxeed always three times and often more. Then there are
recited each day lour or five Canticles, chiefly those in the
Scriptures ; eight Hymns; eight or ten Collects at least, and
a greatnumber of Versicles, responses, and Benedictions. As
to the lessons containing the lives of the Saints, thuy do not
occur every day, by any meaiiS : and when they are read
there are never more than three lessons, and often no more
than one. The proportion they bear in length to the rest of
the office, one day with anctlier, is not the twentieth part ;
they will occupy three columns in a Breviary, in which the
remainder of the office will fill between seventy and eighty
columns, for one day.

Any one may verify this analysis by referring to the Brevi-
ary ; and he will then learn how to estimate Mr. White's
statements of *Hhe great and never-ending variety of the lives
of the liaints."

It will thus be seen that the Breviary is composed almost
entirely of the Holy Scriptures ; and that the lives of the
Saints form not a twentieth part of it. And now it may be
confidently asked, if the Catholic Church did make the Bre-
viary "the standard for the minds and hearts of her Clergy,"
where would be her error in so doing 'i Would ^e be wrong
in obliging her ministers to employ an hour and a-half each
day, in reading a portion of the bible ? Is this charge to be
brought against her by those whose eternal cry is, '*The Bi-
ble I the bible is the religion of protestants !" If she gave it
"the preference over*all other works," surely she should not
ho blamed, since it is little else than a compendiuni of the Bi-

Me. If a **Catholic Priest can devote only an hour and a

'^'

half in the day to readtngt'' how can that hour and a half be
spent better than in reading extracts from the Bible, with
hymns, canticles and prayers ? If his "whole knowledge
must thus of necessity bo derived from the Breviary," whence
can he derive better knowledge than from portions of the
written word of God ? Where can he study better, than in
the pure fountain of eternal truth, in the inspired writings of
the prophets, in the holy treasure of the Gospell But in
what supposition is it "oHten the case,'' that a priest can onlj
read for an hour and a-half in the day 1 If his time has
been taken up with parochial duties, he has been acquirinfg
the most useful knowledge and experience ; and he must
have possessed a fund of knowledge before he could be quali-
fied for the care of souls. If ho has been employed in other
concerns, what business or occupation ought he to pursue^
before those of prayer, meditatiou, and the study of the divine
oracles ; and where are they better followed than in reciting
the Divine OfRce 1 Mr. White complains of its recitation be-
ing commanded ; but is it not a chief duty of the Clergy to
pray for the whole Church, to pray in the name of the
Church, and to pray for those whose necessary dutic in the
world leave them less time to pray for themselves ? If this
be a duty of the Clergy why not enjoin it ? Why not secure
its performance, by makin«; it of strict obligation ? We beg
Mr. White to attend to a remark of an able German writer
on this question; "If the Breviery were not of obligation, if
the reading of the holy scriptures and the prayers of each
priest were left to his own discretion by the Church, O how
many would be found neglecting both ! If I might here re-
ferto experience, how continually do we find that the enemies
of the Breviary are no friends to any other kind of prayer f
And how evident is it, that such men hurry over every other
spiritual duty, while they often and readily go into assemblies
of pleasure, and by their tepidity, indifference, and scanda^
lous deportment, ruin sou^s, rather than edify them !"

When the reader has duly attended to the account just gir-
en of the contents of the Breviary, he will at least think Mr.
White very bold in asserting that "there was a time when he
knew it by heart." And when he has considered what has
been said of the Saints' Lessons, he will not find Mr. W. cor-
rect in saying in his "Preservative," that legends of the

7ft

the
n ia

of
It in

nljF

img

nust

Saints are read, *«day by day, tlie whole year through/'
There are more than tixty fcriat in the year, when no Saints
lives are read at all ; there are about twenty Sundays when
no Saints are honored ; besides at least twenty days witMn
octaves of various feasts, making together about one hundred
days out of three hundred and sixty^five, on which no ** com-
pendious lives of the Saints are read at all !'' Yet Mr. W.
knowing how few will trouble to examine, boldly says, that
the Saints' lives are read, *'day by day, the whole year
through."

But it is time to examine his grand argument It is drawn
from the nature of those lessons we read of the lives of the
Saints. Mr. W. has collected a great number of curious his-
tories related in them, of extraordinary miracles, of austeri-
ties, singular visions, revelations and other astonishing nar-
ratives ; from which hoving copied them at great length, and
falsely insinuated that they are the principal part of the Bre.
viary, and read every day, he endeavours to draw the con-
clusion, that the tendency of our 06Rce-book is to * 'cherish
credulity, and adulterate Christian virtue."

But even if such were the tendency of those lessons, it
would not be a fair inference that such was the tendency of
the Breviary altogether ; since as it has been shewn, those
lessons form not a twentiteh part of the book, and they are only
recited two thirds of the year.

It is a fi l^e inference, however, that such is their tendency,
for, in the first place, we are under no obligation of belie-
ving all that is recounted of the Saints in those Lessons ; ma-
ny of them are very ancient, and, as well as most of the mo-
dern ones, well authenticated ; but others are known to be
of doubtful authority, and the Church does not oblige any one
to believe all that they contain ; and, in the second place,
the fact of several doubtful histories having been expunged
from many Breviaries in France, and that it is the wish of ma-
ny ecclesiastics in various countries, that the proper authori-
ties should suppress whatever has found its way into the lessons
through imprudent zeal and credulity, abundantly shews that
we are in little danger from those legends. But we shall not
submit them to the censorship of such a person as Mr. Blanco
White. We should fear from him, as from others who have
risen up against legend before him, that, in his fury against

'if; ■■:

1 I

fkfio and doubtrul nnrrativcf, he would become ra^h and hyp^
oeriticnl, and r tfuMo all crndit to thoHo nctn, of which the
truth and authenticity have bcun proved and acknowludgod.

Nor is their tendency t with all their doubtful or ovon falue
narrations, to adulterate Christian virtue. Mr. VVhito it
compelled to say thi8 in order to prop up his new theory of
the virtue of penance ; and his ideas, which will soon come
under review, ofseclui^ioi: and celibacy. But since it in ho
readily and triumphantly proved against his orroueous no-
tions, that self-inflictud pain, when sutlurod from the proper
motives of sitisfving the divine justice, and supplying, in the
sense of St Patil, for what is wanting in us, of the sufferings
of Christ, of being thereby made memUrs conformed to our
sufTering Head, and partakers of his passion, that by sutier-
ing with Him, we may hereailer be glorified with Him, und
ofdenying ourselves und taking up our cross, as our Lord
himself has admonished us, is a truly Christian and merito-
rious duty ; we miintain that the austerities recounted of the
Saints do not tand to adulterate, but to cherish and promote
christian virtue. Mr. White compares the Saints to Indian
fanatics, lot the Venerable Alhan Butler speak to this point.
*^I^he extraordinary austerities of certain eminent servants of
Oodf are not undertaken by them without a particular caK,
examined with maturity and prudence, and without a fervor
equal to such a state. Neither do they place sanctitv in any
practices of mortificotion, or measure virtue by them, as a
dervise or brachman might do ; but choose such as have the
greatest tendency to facilitate the subjection of their passions,
and regard them only as helps to virtue, and means to ac-
quire it, and to punish sin in themselves. Nor do they im-
agine God to be delighted with their pain, but with the cure
of their spiritual maladies. A mother rejoices in the health
of her child, not in the bitterness of the potion which she gives
him to procure it. The doctrine of Christ, and the exam-
ples of St. John the Baptist, St. Paul, St. Matthias, St. James
and the other Apostles, and many ancient Prophets and oth-
er Saints; from the first uges of our holy religion, are a stand-
ing apology «jid commendation of this spirit in so many serv-
ants of God." This extract so ably replies to every objection
iraised by Mr. White against the mortification of the Saints*
t^Hil there is no need of further observation on the sul^ecU.

Hyp-

tliO

1. t
altie

•

of
unie

» 80

no-

)|>er

tho

. Mr. White suppresMs the innumerable other edifjioK
traits recorded of the Saints in these lessons. Were it our
wiwh to swell out this work* it would be easy to do so with co*
pious extracts, illustrating the solid virtue oftlieite holy ser>
vants of God : their fervour and assiduity in prayer { their di-
ligence in the service of God ; their humility, meekness, con-
tempt of worldly greatness ; their union with God ; their in-
flamed charity, or Love of God, and of their neighbor ; their
care of the sick ; the humiliating service they of\en rendered
them ; ministering to Jesus Christ m the person of his saf-.
fering members ; their abundant charities to the poor^ and
kind offices to^all around them* These are brilliants in their
holy Crowns which Mr. White has enviously concealed ; and
the tendency of these is indisputably to animate us to every
Gospel virtue. Who can deny, that to read these virtues, is
of the greatest edification 1 Such are read in the lessons of
our Saints, and who then in common candour can venture to
assert, that the tendency of such lessons is to adulterate chris*
tian virtue.

Much as we have seen of Mr. White's misrepresentation of
our Faith, we really did not expect to see so gross a misstate^-
ment of Catholic doctrine as is contained in the following passa*.
ges of his "Preservative" (Pages 112— 114): ,'* Roman Catho-
lics are not taught that good works are the fruit oCtrue faith, but
that they bear a true share with Christ in tho work of our salva-
tion. They are thus forced by their doctrine to look to them,
selves for the hope of Heaven — The Roman Catholic believes
that his good works are, in part at least, the means of 'his
justification ; — the true Protestant feels assured that through
Christ's blood his sins are pardoned without reserve." )

How far this is from the true faith of the Catholic church,
let the following simple exposition she -/, which is gathered
from the decrees of the last general Council of Trent. First, .
however, let the reader be assured that there is no Catholic
who will not heartily say amen to the following anathema
against the doctrine imputed to us by Mr. Blanco White,
which we extract from Mr. Gother's " Papist misrepresented
and represented."

** Cursed is he who believes that, independent of the merits
and passion of Christ, he can obtain salvation through his
own good wovks, or make condign satisfaction for the guilts.

I to them. — Amen."

. i

pains eternally

CaCholict are not taught ** that good works bear a true
•hare ivith Christ in the work of our salvation/' Our doc-
trine is thus defined by the Council of Trent : — ♦♦ To those
vho do good even unto the end, and hope in God, eternal life
is to be proposed, both as a grace mercifully •promised to the
sons of Crod through Jesus Christy and as a reward to be faith*
fully rendered to their good works on account of the promise
of Grod himself. — Christ Jesus always influences the just by
his virtue ; which virtue ever precedes and accompanies and
follows their good works, and without which they could not
by any means t3 pleasing and meritorious in the sight of
God.-—'* Thus neither is our own justice established as our
own, coming from ourselves, lor is the justice of God un-
known or repudiated ; for that which is called our justice- be-
cause we are justified by it, being inherent in us ; the same ia
of God, because it is infused into us by God, through the me-
rit of Christ. Far be it, however, from a Christian to confide
in himself, or to glory in himself, and not in the Lord, whose
goodness towards all men is so great, that he is willing thai
what are his own gifts should be their merits."— We are not
taught that good works are only the fruit of true faith — thiB
doctrine the Council has condemned in the following canon —
** If any one ishall say, that justice when received, is not pre-
served, and even increased before God by good works, but
that works themselves are only fruits and signs of justification
obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathe-
ma."

These are our doctrines, and knowing them to bo suohp
how could Mr. White impute to us the abominable presumption
of holding that ** our works bear a share with Christ in the
work of our Salvation 1" We ask for every thing, we hope
for every thing, we give thanks for every thing, through our
liord Jesus Christ. How then does Mr. White say, that we
♦*are forced by our doctrines to look to ourselves for the hcpe
of heaven ?" And since we firmly believe, as the Council of
Trent declares, that we are justified freely, because none of
those things which go before justification, whether faith or
works, merit the grace of justification. With what face can
Mr. White proclaim to the world the foul calumny, that "the
Roman Catholic hclioves that his good works are, in part at
.l«ait, the meantj of his justification ?'' Well may the much

injured Catholic exclaim, under imputations like these, with
the indignation of Bossuet : Will the Church never be able to
persuade her children, who are now become her adversaries,
neither by the explanation of her faith, nor by the decisions
of her councils, nor by the prayers of her sacrifice, that she
does not consider herself as having life or hope, but in Jesus
Christ alone ?" Not while they are determined to misrepre»
sent us ; we fear, not while there are men still to be found,
who will adopt in these days the ravings of Martin Luther,
who Mr. White tells us, calling our system of justification *%
plain tyranny, a racking and crucifying of consciences/'
And since Mr. White so often commends Luther, acknowled*
ges that Luther and Co. founded his Church, and has been so
loud against our doctrine of justification, as well as in accu-
sing us of believing that God delights in the sufrerin|;s of his
creatures, we may do ourselves some justice by quoting a few
passages from Luther, that the reader may see how edifying
are-both his language and his doctrines on these subjects
Luther teaches "that God works the evil in us as well as the
good," and ** that the great perfection of Faith, consists in
believing God to be just, although by his own will, he neces*
sarily renders us worthy of damnation, so as to seem to take
pleasure in the torments of the miserable." Even Mr. White
never laid to our charge a doctrine so abominable as this I
Luther says again ; "I am delighted when I see my doctrino
give occasion to these disturbances and tumults." He at-
tached such importance to his doctrine of the inutility and im-
possibility of good works, that he declares it shall stand io
spite of all the Emperors, Popes, Kings, and Devils, and con*
eludes thus, "If they attempt to weaken this article, may hell
fire be their reward, let this be taken for an inspiration of the
Holy Ghost, made to me, Martin Luther." And whereas
Mr. White very boldly accused us of altering the text of St
Luke, and substituting do penance for a word which he pre-
tends means only change your mind, let him take this speci-
men of Luther's art of false translating, and even impiously
lamenting that he had not done worse : In Romans iii, 28, the
text says, " a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of
the law." Luther put in after Faith the word alone, to sup-
port his favorite doctrine against good works ; and he thus
audaciously glories in his infidelity in translating : " So I will

80 I command it to be. Let my will be the reason, Luther
wills it so, and says he is a doctor above all the doctors a«
mong all the Papists. Therefore the word alone shall remaio
in my New Testament— even if all the Pope asses should be
driven mad by it, still they shall not take it way. I am sor^
ry that I did not add further the word aAy twice over, so that
it might be, without any works of any laws." With these no-
tions of faith and good works, it is no wonder if Luther call-
ed the Catholic system of justification a ^*plain tyranny »
racking and crucifying of consciences."

Mr. White goes on to exemplify the tyranny of Rome, by
speaking with unmeasured violence against the discipline of
our Church with regard to celibacy and religious vows. Id
his ^'Evidence'' he has a letter on these subjects, which we
shall now notice, along with whatever new matter he has con-
densed on the same, in his "Preservative." '

He begins in his favorite manner by false assertions : Tho
principle of religious tyranny, he says, *' supported by perse-
cution, is a necessary condition of true Catholicism." He
talks of tho inexcusable obstinacy of Rome, in not altering
her discipline on celibacy, "for the benefit of public morals."
This is assuming boldly enough, that the celibacy of our cler-
gy and religious, tends to promote immorality, and this indeed
appears to be Mr. White's aim, in his invectives throughout,
against our discipline in this respect. For this end, he makes
the basest insinuations, and charges of the most rcvoltiug na-
ture, against both clergy and religious. Let the truth of what
he advances be tried by Scripture, reason, and experience.

Mr. White tells us that he does "not believe that virginity,
by its own intrinsic merit, and without ref<?rence to some vir-
tuous purpose, has value in the eyes of God." But he is
well aware that the virginity recommended and practiced in
the Catholic Church, has reference to many virtuous purposes
such as being more free to serve God and our neighbour, be-
ing better able, by this constant check upon our inclinations,
to gain that mastery over ourselves, which is so necessary in
order to keep in subjection all our rebellious passions. He
aaksif celibacy "and virginity are not described in the New
Testament as peculLir and uncommon gifts? Certainly they
are; and when did Catholics say that they are not? Our
iUdoenior himself has said that "all men receive not this

word, but they to whom it is given." (St. Matt, xix 10, 11,
12.) But he also added, *'he that can receive it, let him re<
ceivo it ; " ond this is all we contend for. We contend that
it is good and commendable, for all those who feel that "they
can receive it," that they can live better in that state, and
thus become more detached from the things of this world, and
"care more for the things of the Lord." Mr. VVhite asks if
our Saviour and his A|)nstle8 did not warn and caution us a-
boutitas often as they alluded to it ? Yes, because they knew,
what we never thought of denying, that it is a state of greater
perfection and difficulty, and therefore it was necessary to cau-
tion people not tocnterupon it without mature deliberation, and
after engaging in it, to be doubly vigilant to persevere faithful-
ly in our engagements to the end. The Catholic Church
has uniformly repected the same warnings.

Mr. White objects to the tyranny, as he considers it, of
perpetual vows. But if virginity is good, and for those that
can receive it, better than marriage, as St. Paul distinclly says
why not be permitted to make a vow of remaining in this bet-
ter and more perfect state ? If Mr. White would have such
vows to be only for a time, and not for life ; we reply that
vows are necessary to fix the inconstancy natural to human
nature, and to give more merit to good works ; and they are
best when perpetual ; because nsligious women, who have an
intention, at the expiration of their temporary engagement, of
returning to the world, and settling in it, have other ideas
than those of devoting thems(flves to the duties of charity and
religion. As to the early age at which Mr. White complains
that youths and virgins are "allured by the Church of Rome
to bind themselves with perpetual vows ;" we maintain that
the age is mature enough for them to be fully aware of what
they are capab'e, and to what they engage themselves ; be-
sides, the time of their probot-'^n and noviceship, before they
make any engagement, is long enough for them to know by
experience, the obligations, pains and difficulties of a religious
life and a state of continoncy. The Church takes every pre-^
caution to prevent any forced vows or professions. A novice
is always strictly examined, and obliged to declare upon oath,
if she was forced or allured to enter a convent, and it is as-
certained if she knows the extent of the obligations she takes
upon herself by her vows, if it is afterwards proved that

:|:

there was any compulsion, her vows are declared null and
void. But says Mr. White, the nunneries are large **houses,
with high walls like prisons ; having tall windows at a great
distance from the ground, and guarded by strong and close
iron bars, bristled over with long spikes." This is of course
to raise horror and sentimentality, and make people believe
that the inmates of these convents are prisoners forcibly incar-
cerated. But how far is this from the truth ! Bars, and spikes
and high walls, are not so much to hinder the nuns from getting
out, as to hinder young libertines from getting in ; to protect
the religious from insult ; and particularly to secure their repu-
tation from the calumnies of the wicked. If such means were
nececssary for preventing the inmates from escaping, we
should find them every whore employed for that purpose ; but
we could point out most regular and exemplary (^immunities
where they are not to be found ; and Mr. White advances,
what we defy him to prove, that in nunneiies in England,
*• many feel at present unhappy." He can know little about
convents here ; and it is unworthy of an honorable man to
cast upon them such sweeping and groundless imputations.

But if he cannot prove nuns unhappy in this country, he is
determined they shall be elsewhere, and th'^rcfore he strives
to illustrate his positions by three affecting histories of nuns,
of whom two were his own sisters, and the other a young
lady known to him, whose name was Maria Francisca Bare-
iro. Far be it from the writer of these pages to withhold
sincere sympathy for the loss Mr. White has sustained in his
two sisters, holy and virtuous as they undoubtedly were. But
fiat justitia ! the world is not to be told, with so little proof,
that these young ladies were brought early to the grave by a
conventual life. Of the first he says, " air, amusement and
exercise might have saved her." They might, but then also
they might not ; and she could have enjoyed all these freely
in the enclosure, for convents always have gardens for air
and amusement attached to them, and we are very sure that
the care and tender solicitude of nuns for their sick, is posi-
tively not equalled by that of any relatives or description of
persons on earth. The other sister embraced, it appears, a
severe rule ; but she had sufficient time to consider before
she took the step ; she had sit least a twelvemonth after she
assumed the habit, to try all the rigors of the rule, before she

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made her vows at her profession. If she acted after all im-
prudently, she alone was to blame, and not the institute which
she embraced. We feel deeply for the anguish which the
death of these angelic beings must have inflicted on their
brother ; but we cannot contented./ suffer that private feel-
ings and individual misfortunes should be brought forth as
condemnatoryof a system, sanctioned by the wisdom of so
many centuries. As to the narrative of Maria Francisca,
which is repeated in both Mr. White's books in the same
words, we have to observe, first, that it appears from Mr.
White's own account, that this lady was disliked and ill-used
by her mother, and rather than live with her, she came to the
impious resolution of *' risking the salvation of her soul ;"
and so entered a convent, evidently without a proper voca-
tion to such a life. Any one that acts thus is sure to be un-^
happy in a convent, and deserves to be so. Secondly, that
she three years afterwards made her escape from the convent
and appeared quite in despair, saying to Mr. White, there it
no hope for me ! Who can wonder at this ? She entered a
convent, feeling that she was not called to a cojiventual life ;
she took solemn vow s, which she felt she was not called upon
to take ; and if she afterwards broke these vows, and forsook
the convent, she may easily have bordered on despair ; but
who was to blame ? Certainly not the convent, but herself.
Thirdly, that being obliged to return to her convent, her
friends endeavored to prove the nullity of her profession, but
failed ; " because,'' says Mr. White, " the laws of Trent
were positive." But how is the conventual system to be bla-
med here ? She was not forced in the first instance to make
those vows ; she made them of her own accord, resolved
even to ** risk her salvation" by making them. Thus the
law of the Council which provides for the nullity of profes-
sion in cases where tho nun has been compelled, were wholly
inapplicable here. She had acted impiously, and was now to
abide by the consequences of her impiety; and though she
certainly deserved pity, that pity should lead no one to forget
the justice of exonerating religion from any blame in the
fransaction.

Mr. White entirely passes over the sound reason and man-
ifest advantages which recommend that priests should lead a
single life, and is wholly bent upon the gross and perverse idea,

f i ' '

that where marriage is not preferred, a vicious course of life
must inevitably follow. How insulting is such an assumption,
not only to the sanctity of so many thousands of holy Bishops
and other clergy, of whom the Catholic Church has been able
to boast in every age ; but even to numbers of virtuous laymen
who have voluntarily remained unmarried, and yet been mod-
els of purity and holiness ! We shall briefly state the advan-
tages of celibacy, and refute Mr. White's disgraceful deduc-
tion. A single life is oi'itself a more perfect state, and moro
becoming the clergy, than the use of marriage. St i^aul
teaches this clearly (I Cor. vii. 32. 33,) where he says that
the unmarried careth for the things of the Lord. When the
heretic Jovinian, first bronched the doctrine that there was not
more merit in a single life, the Church unanimously condemn-
ed him. Let the duties of a priest be considered — adminis-
ering the sacraments, particularly confession ; attending the
sick, and even persons with the most infectious disorders, and
liable to be called at all hours of the day and night. That he
must be the father of the poor ; of widows ; of orphans •
and the consoler of the afflicted and desolate. How incom-
patible are all these painful functions with the solicitudes of a
jioarried life ! A married priest, moreover, could never se-
cure for himself the respect and confidence essential for the
success of his ministry ; and particularly the great confidence
necessary for him as confessor. It is easy to conceive this
from the conduct of the Greeks towards iheir mrirried priests,
and the little respect and confidence of Protestants towards
their Ministers.

But to whom is the practice of continence painful ? To
those who have not always been chaste. To those who are
infected with the too common depravity of manners in the
world. Let the cause be removed, and virtue will soon re- <
rtume her rights. Where scandalous irregularities have dis-
graced the clerical profession, have they been found in those
who were zealous and laborious in the discharge of their du-
ties ; or rather, in those who neglected prayer and study, and
were unfaithful to their charge ; idle and dissi|)ated ; and in-
truded into the sacred ministry by family ambition and in-
trigue, and without any real vocation ?

Protestants have not always disapproved of celibacy with
llUe virulence of Mr. White. Mr. Thorndike's judgement is

worthy of attention : •♦ A single life is a safer way to perfec-
tion in Christianity than marriage. So is the pmfession of
the clergy, — and the grace which cur Lord, and St. Paul al-
ter him, owns in them that do this, is not a peculiar tenipcr
of the body, ouiiging him that hath it to live single, and him
that hath it not, to marry ; but a single zeal, to waive that
which God makes lawful for us, that we may the better conic
to his Kingdom." < ,

Here a learned Protestant judges a single life to be '♦ a sa-
fer way to perfection ;" and Mr. White, who now calls him-
self a Protestant, proclaims it an injury to public morals, and
that there is no alternative between matrimony ^ the grossest
profligacy. Deeply do we sigh over the man that could put
forth such shameless declarations as these ! We are unwil-
ling to charge him with having never known the purity of a
holy priest after God's own heart; we are unwilling to
charge him with having had the most abandoned characters
for ' 's associates ; and we feel great reluctance to defile our
pages with some extracts in his own words, though they are
necessary to vindicate our insulted clergy. The following are
Mr. White's own acknowledgements, and let the reader con-
sider well, how much they disclose of the character of their
author, and decide if such a man can be an immaculate wit-
ness, or judge of the value of celibacy. Speaking of such
ecclesiastics as were his own intimate friends, he says : "the
coarse frankness of associate dissoluteness, left nb secrets a-
mong the spiritual slaves, svho, unable to separate the laws
of God from those of their tyrannical church, trampled both
under foot in riotous despair. Such are the resources of the
knowledge I possess : God, sorrow and remorse are my wit-
nesses." Soon after, he mentions one of his particular
friends, who, after being promoted to one of the highest clerical
dignities in Spain, *' sunk at once into the grossest & most da-
ring profligacy," of which he gives an instance too abomina-
ble to appear in these pages. After this came the lollowing
remarkable words : " I had loved him when both our minds
were pure ; I had loved him when Catholicism had cU'ivcn us
both from the path of virtue," &c. Such avowals need lit-
tle comment : but if such was the character of Mr. White and
his bosom friend, we will not endure that tlie venerable body
of Fathers assembled at the Council of Trent should have it

asserted of them with daring and impious calumny, and >f ifb'
out any attempt at proof against even one individualrthat of
"six hundred bishops, few could have cast the first stone at the
adultress." Nor can we read without indignation the broad asser
tion that most priests wade through the miry slough of a vicious
^ife ; having the happiness to know from personal acquaint-
ance, with so many ornaments of the Catholic Priesthood^
and so many other respectable sources of conviction, how far
from truth is such a charge, or even from probability. The in-
nocent are not here to suffer for the guilty. The venerable
body of Catholic clergy is not thus to be impeached, because
Mr. White's friends, some Spanish ecclesiastics, sacrilegious
ly broke their solemn vows.

Mr. White is an admirer of Erasmus. Has he forgotten that
great man's satirical condemnation of the eagerness with
which the Reformer's flew to matrimony 1 This is the
way then that they crucify themselves! **The reforma-
tion seems to have no other end but to transform monks and
nuns into husbands and wives ; and this grand tragedy will
end like the comedies, where all are married in the last act''
It does not appear that Mr. White has married ; but in his
first dialogue of his preservative, page 24, he signifies that
he should have had no scruple about it. St. Paul, however, an-
nexes the guilt of damnation to a breach of a vow of chastity.
And St. Augustine declares his opinion thus ; " I am not
afraid to say, that falling from the chastity vowed to God, is
worse than adiiltery."

On this subject we shall make but one more observation .
In making only a general use of knowledge acquired as a
(Jonfessor, which Mr. White has done according to his own
acknowledgement, in pages 130, 133 and 135 of hie "Evi-
dence," he has acted as dishonorably as man is capable v^f act.
ing. Though he might cease to consider the obligation sa-
cramentally, he could not, as a gentleman and a man of hon-
or, consider the trust so reposed in him, but as most sacred &
eternally inviolable ; and though he has not betrayed individ.
wals, he has reflected upon whole bodies, in a manner which
renders him forever unworthy of confidence

As the great object of Mr. White, in both his books, was
evidently' to fix upon Catholics, the odious, the uncharitable,
jlie often refuted charge, of making persecution a part of their
creed, he winds up his " Poor Man's Preservative again&t

liU

iser

iPopery," with repeating in the most unmeasured term», this
insulting calumny against so many millions of his fellow
christians. To this charge we have already spoken, and
shall add no more in this place than indignantly to declare
that the accusation is totally false. How much more hon-
orable and christian like is the conduct of another clergyman
of the Church of England, who, instead of calling in calumny
and misrepresentation, to keep alive the prejudices already
too fatally enkindled against us, eloquently exhorts those who
differ from us, to examine our tenets accurately, and expose
them in such spirit and temper as may convince us, that their
heart's desire is to convert us if we were in error. *' If,"
says he, ** this mode does not su ;eed, our own personal ex-
perience, and the history of our own country, might serve to
convince us of the futility of any other. It is- in vain thatour
statute books have been disgraced by edicts more ingeniously
Cruel and absurdly oppressive than ever disgraced the codes
of Imperial or Papal Rome. It is in vain that parents were
compelled to surrender the nurture and education of their
children, and the child bribed to rebel against his parents,
to expel them from their homes, and consign them and their
helpiess families to beggary and famine. In vain have we
attainted as a traitor the minister for performing at the altar
the established offices of his religion, and branded as a felon
the pious devotee who assisted at the service. You have bea-
ten them down to the earth indeed, but they have risen up from it
with Antcean energy, and hydra-like fecundity. They sprung
up from your ungenerous oppression, and multiplied numbers
to shame and amaze you. But^there is no particular in which
we do so much injustice to our brethren of the Romish com-
munion, and eventually to ourselves, as by misrepresentation
of their tenets and principles."

How much more honorable, we repeat, is the recommenda-
tion of Mr. Bird, than the whole design of Mr. Blanco White,
in the works which we have now r'^viewed ! Their whole
end and object appears to have been to keep open, if not to
widen these unhappy breaches, .which every charitable chris-
tian would gladly see closed up forever. And this end has
been pursued throughout, as it has been our unpleasant task
to show, by misrepresentations, calumnies and base insinua-
lions, not to be equalled upon the whole, by any work that

i r

overcame before us from the pen of our most prejudiced ad-
versaries. '

Wo have now done with Mr. Blanco White. But in part-
ing we would entreat him to reflect how grievously his pages
have insulted the Church which nurtured him, and opened to
him the gates of her sanctuary. We would beg of him ser-
iously to consider how far he has ** impugned the known
truth," by the many revolting charges he has propagated a-
gainst the creed of his fathers. We have little hope that any
remonstrances of ours will lead him to return, as he has
deeply revolted ; we shudder when we read the extreme dif-
ficulty which the Apostles speak of, "for those who have
been once* enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly giil, and
have fallen away, to be renewed again to penance." But we
earnestly assure both him and his readers, that much cause
OS we have for resentment, we have not been moved to op-
pose him from that feeling, but from a sacred regard for
truth ; from a fear that some might be taught to think evil of
us, and others might be confirmed in their animosity against
us, by statements coming from a priest once of our commun-
ion ; and from^n earnest desire to vindicate our venerated
Church from the bitter enemy she has found in one formerly of
her own household. To us owr faith \a "far more precious than
gold," our religion dearer than any earthly prospects or re-
wards : our ancestors clung to it in the darkness of persecu<
tion, and we shall eagerly defend it against those who would
make our days of comparative " peace most bitter." Our
prayer is with the holy Psalmist : " Thou hast taitght me, O
Godyfrom my youth and till now I will declare thy wonderful
works. And unto old age and grey hairSf Gody forsake mt
not /"—Psalm Ixx, 17, 18.

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