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 Traevern, J. F. M. 1754- 
 1842. 
 
 An answer to the Rev. G. S 
 Faber's Difficulties of 
 
 SOL 
 
ANSWER 
 
 TO THE 
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 
 
AN 
 
 aif^W^! 
 
 TO THE 
 
 REV. G. S. FABER'S 
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF ROM ANIS3I, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Right Rev. J. F. M. TREVERN, D. D. 
 
 BISHOP OF STRASBOURG, 
 
 LATE BP. OF AIRE. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY THE 
 
 REV. F. C. HUSENBETH. 
 
 " Qui estis? Unde vcnistis? .... llabeo origincs lirmas nb ipsis autoribus 
 quorum res fuit: Ego sum hares Apostolorura .... vos exhaercdave- 
 runt semper et abdicaverunt ut extraneos, ut inimicos." 
 
 Tertullian. L. dc Prescript, c. 37. 
 
 Baltimore: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY F. LUCAS, Jr. 138 MARKET STREET. 
 
Tenenda nobis est Christiana religio, et ejus Ecclesiae commu- 
 nicatio, quae Catholica est, et Catholica nominator, non solum a 
 suis, verum etiam ab omnibus inimicis. 
 
 8. Augustin, de vera Relig. Cap. VIL 
 
 lucas fc D«aver, print* 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 In presenting the following work to the public, it 
 may be requisite to state the circumstances which 
 have led to its* : composition. They are briefly these. 
 Some years ago the Abbe Trevcrn, formerly Vicar- 
 general of Langres, being an emigrant to England in 
 consequence of the French Revolution, published in 
 London a French work, in two volumes, entitled "Dis- 
 cussion Amicale sur UEglise Anglieane, et en general 
 sur la Reformation, dediee au clerge de toutes les Com- 
 munions Protestantes" When the London edition of 
 this work was exhausted, its learned and highly re- 
 spected Author, being then in France, and raised to 
 the episcopal see of Aire, published a second edition 
 of it in Paris, in the year 1824. An English transla- 
 tion of this valuable work has not yet appeared, but 
 one is on the point of. being published by the Rev. 
 Wm, Richmond, of Swinnerton Park. 
 
 It was not till the year 1826, that any attempt was 
 made to refute the above masterly composition. In 
 that year there appeared a work from the pen of a 
 clergyman of the Church of England, of well known 
 talent and erudition, the Rev. G. S. Faber, B. D. 
 Rector of Long Newton, bearing for title " The Diffi- 
 culties of Romanism." No sooner did the worthy 
 
vi INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 prelate become acquainted with this work — which 
 professes to adopt his Lordship's Discussion Amicale 
 as a text-book, and to furnish a refutation of it, than 
 he applied himself with indefatigable exertion to vin- 
 dicate his own book, and answer the alleged Diffi- 
 culties of Mr. Faber's — and this amid the confusion, 
 anxiety, and pressure of affairs of every kind atten- 
 dant upon his Lordship's being translated from the see 
 of Aire to that of Strasbourg. The good bishop trans- 
 mitted his work in M. S. as he wrote it, to the transla- 
 tor, who now confidently presents it to the public. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACE 
 
 Introduction, ------ _ - - 5 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 Oil the first three Letters of the Discussion Amicale. 
 
 The first Letter, 13 
 
 Ths second Letter, - - - - - - - -15 
 
 The third Letter, 20 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 On the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Chapter the first, _--__---()."> 
 
 Chapter the second — Proofs from Scripture, - 74 
 
 Chapter the third — Proofs from Tradition, - - - - v 84 
 First General Proof — the Discipline of the Secret. - - 91 
 
 Second General Proof from the Liturgies, - 117 
 
 Extracts from the Liturgies. ------ 12$ 
 
 General Proof from the Catecheaes. 
 
 Chapter the fourth — Particular Proofs from the Fathers, - 14^ 
 
 St. Clement of Alexandria, ------ 166 
 
 Theodoret, -_-_--.-- 168 
 
 St. Chrvsostom and Sr. Ausustin, ----- 1 7-i 
 
>iil CONTENTS. 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Succinct Review of the Difficxrfties of Romanism, - - 193 
 
 Introductory Statement, ------ 199 
 
 Celibacy, 202 
 
 Tradition, 203 
 
 Real Presence, --------- 206 
 
 Characters of the first Reformers, - 216 
 
 Confession, -- 225 
 
 Satisfaction, - - - - - - - - 230 
 
 Indulgences, --------- 234 
 
 Prayers for the Dead — Purgatory, - 239 
 Invocation of the Saints, - - - - - -249 
 
 Relics, --------- 253 
 
 Sign of the Cross, - 254 
 
 Church of England, ------- 256 
 
 Supremacy, --------- 258 
 
 Re-union, --------- 261 
 
 Inquisition, --------- 266 
 
 Intolerance, 271 
 
 Recapitulation, - 275 
 
 Conclusion, _---,.__- 37G 
 
ANSWER 
 
 TO 
 
 FADER'S DIFFICULTIES 
 
 OF 
 
 ROMANISM. 
 
 My dear sir, 
 
 You have so earnestly requested me to reply to 
 the work lately published by the Rev. G. S. Faber, 
 B. D. against my Discussion Jlmicale, that I should be 
 truly deserving of reproach if I refused to comply. 
 The only difficulty attending your request arose from 
 my finding it impossible to reconcile the labour re- 
 quired, with the occupations of governing a diocese. 
 My necessary resolve was to interrupt the latter for 
 a time, when I reflected, on the one hand, that the re- 
 futation had appeared to you peremptory and conclusive, 
 and understood, on the other, that my silence would be 
 interrupted by your countrymen as the tacit avowal of 
 a defeat. You assure me that the attack directed in 
 my person against the doctrine I profess, issued from 
 a celebrated pen, from the first even of your contro- 
 vertists. Well, sir, I rejoice with you for it: the 
 reputation and talents of such an antagonist will only 
 add greater splendour to the truth. I trust that ere 
 long you will see the arguments of your renowned 
 theologian fall before you, one after another, without 
 force or effect; and the proofs developed in my work 
 remain still unshaken after the appearance of his. 
 And then I hope you will yourself conclude that the 
 2 
 
10 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Faith of the Catholic Church is impenetrable to the 
 shafts of its enemies. 
 
 In the first letter you did me the honour to address 
 to me, I was informed that your learned friend had 
 engaged to refute my work; that he purposed follow- 
 ing me step by step, and shewing on each point that I 
 had uniformly built upon a vain illusion, by believing 
 myself always supported by the Scriptures and the 
 Primitive Church. This plan was certainly the only 
 methodical one, and at the same time the fairest and 
 best calculated to exhibit the truth with the strongest 
 evidence. You assured me that such was the plan to 
 be adopted by my antagonist. Imagine then my sur- 
 prise, my dear sir, when as I looked over his refuta- 
 tion, I found that instead of proceeding step by step 
 after me, instead of adhering to the arrangement, 
 which I had adopted for the various questions, he had 
 preferred abandoning it altogether, displacing the 
 questions, and putting those in front, which ought only 
 to have appeared in the rear. A writer of the pene- 
 tration you profess to find in him, ought undoubtedly 
 to have been sensible how much strength is acquired 
 by proofs when properly connected with each other, 
 and how much they lose by being separated. 
 
 Although Mr. Faber and myself are widely divided 
 in opinion, the same motive has led each to take up 
 the pen — that of convincing your countrymen: our 
 great opposition is in our respective objects. Mine 
 was to make them sensible of the reasons, which ought 
 to lead them back to unity; his on the contrary, was 
 to exhibit those, which might still farther remove them 
 from it. I strive to persuade to re-union: he endea- 
 vours to perpetuate dissension. I consider that you 
 would gain every thing by becoming again what } T ou 
 once were; he thinks on the contrary, that you have 
 every thing to lose, if you do not remain what you 
 are. Which of us has the more effectually pleaded 
 his cause, or rather your cause? Our judges are those 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. H 
 
 for whom we have written. Our books are the cause 
 to be tried. Let them not consider their authors, but 
 weigh well their respective arguments. 
 
 In the comparison I solicit, I see at once that my 
 antagonist has a powerful advantage over me; he ex- 
 presses himself in the language of the interested party, 
 while I write in a language to which the greater num- 
 ber are strangers. I entreat those nevertheless who 
 understand both, to compare the Discussion Amicale 
 with the Difficulties of Romanism, and impartially to 
 weigh our proofs. This labour will no doubt cost 
 them application and patience. I solicit them to be- 
 stow it for the honour of truth, in the name of their 
 dearest interests, of their happiness in this world and 
 the next. 
 
 Do not expect me, sir, to enter at length upon all 
 the questions, which divide us; upon the motives, which 
 establish the truth of the Catholic faith; its conform- 
 ity, whether with the natural light of human reason, or 
 with the text of Holy Scripture, or the doctrine and 
 practice of the primitive Church: consequently the 
 necessity of adopting it, namely, of renouncing a pre- 
 tended reformation, equally null in its establishment, 
 and erroneous in its doctrine. This would be a labour 
 far exceeding the leisure allowed by my habitual oc- 
 cupations; and would be to recommence what I have 
 already published, and transcribe the Discussion ^mi- 
 celle almost throughout. It is a more simple plan to re- 
 fer you to that work, by pointing out the volume and 
 page* You will there find the proofs I have deve- 
 loped on the contested points; I make bold to assure 
 you that they still remain in all their strength, and 
 that the Difficulties of Romanism, however specious it 
 may have appeared to you, has not made any real at- 
 tack upon them. 
 
 •These will be cited from the more correct edition, published in 
 Paris, by Potey, No. 46. Rue du Bac. 1824. 
 
12 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 I shall confine myself, therefore, to placing again 
 before your view some of the more important articles, 
 with an analysis of the proofs and objections, which 
 the Rev. Mr. Faber brings against them. To this I 
 shall dedicate the first and second parts of his Reply, 
 they will suffice, I trust, to justify my assertions, to 
 rectify the judgment you have formed of them, and 
 to confirm the triumph of the Catholic Creed. In the 
 third part, I shall take a review of the false supposi- 
 tions, wrong interpretations, mistakes, reproaches, dis- 
 position to ill-humour, and hostile indications, which I 
 have unfortunately, but too frequently, met with in 
 The Difficulties of Romanism. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 13 
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 ON THE FIRST THREE LETTERS OF THE DISCUSSION 
 
 AMICALE. 
 
 The first Letter places before the reader an histori- 
 cal summary of the establishment of the Church ol 
 England. It exhibits Elizabeth, authorized by her 
 Parliament, driving out of their sees those Bishops who, 
 with a single exception, opposed her assumptions; and 
 replacing them with men servile and accommodating, 
 chosen from the second order of the clergy. Dux 
 femina facti. It is nevertheless incontestable that 
 Jesus Christ confided the government of his Church, as 
 well as the teaching of his doctrine, to the Apostles 
 and their successors, and by no means to the potentates 
 of the earth. It is true therefore that a radical defect 
 of competent authority rendered null the work of Eli- 
 zabeth, and her two houses of parliament, who formed, 
 if you will, a parliamentary and royal church, but as- 
 suredly not one canonically Christian.* 
 
 Apply again with me, sir, to the unhappy schism 
 of 1559, what your learned doctor wrote against that 
 of 1689, and which ought, with much greater reason, 
 to have disgusted him with the assumption of Elizabeth. 
 Listen to this able theologian: "A decree was made by 
 a senate of laymen, that the bishops who refused to 
 take the new oaths should be ejected out of their 
 places. The time for taking them being expired, and 
 these fathers refusing them, they are deprived of their 
 palaces, revenues, in short of all rights annexed to their 
 
 * Humanam conati suntfacere Ecclesiam, would be here repeated 
 by St. Cyprian. (Ep. 52.) 
 
14 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 episcopal office. Hitherto we complained not. Let 
 the secular hand reassume, if it pleases, what it has 
 bestowed upon the Church. This may hurt the tem- 
 poral estates of the bishops, but can never affect the 
 consciences of subjects: for Christ has laid no obliga- 
 tion upon us to assert the legal rights of bishops, in 
 opposition to the magistrate; but certainly he has 
 obliged us to assert those rights, which he bimself be- 
 stowed upon the Church, in order to preserve it under 
 persecution; and which no earthly power ever gave, or 
 was able to give. And yet the violence of our adver- 
 saries proceeded so far! Our reverend fathers were 
 driven at last from the very cure of souls; altars oppo- 
 site to theirs erected, and bishops, of an adverse party, 
 thrust into their places. Though they were alive, 
 their seats were filled, and filled by colleagues, before 
 they were vacant, before their predecessors were de- 
 prived of episcopal power by bishops, who had au- 
 thority to do it. Upon this account we looked upon 
 the obedience we owed them to be still valid, nor 
 could we transfer it to their successors, who had de- 
 parted from Catholic unity, from Christ himself, and 
 all his benefits, according to the doctrine of St. Cy- 
 prian's age"* 
 
 Such is, word for word, the history of the deplora- 
 ble overthrow effected in 1559: and thus ought all those 
 to have spoken respectfully, but firmly, whose misfor- 
 tune it was to witness it. Such is the language of 
 every man of enlightened understanding, who knows 
 what are true canonical principles — the distinction of 
 the two powers, and their boundaries — what belongs 
 to the one and to the other. It will ever be the mani- 
 fest condemnation of Elizabeth and her parliament. 
 Mr. Faber appears to have been sensible of this, since 
 he has not attempted to contradict it. He has done 
 honour to his judgment and prudence, by keeping si- 
 
 •Dodwell on the late Schism. London, 1704, pp. 4, 5 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 15 
 
 lence upon the conclusions at the end of my first letter. 
 Those alone ought to suffice at this day to bring back 
 England to unity. The establishment of Iter Church, 
 once found to be null in its origin, will be null for ever. 
 Two centuries and a half have already passed over 
 the actual state of things: ten more might pass, but 
 they would never render that valid and legitimate, 
 which was not so the first day of its existence. There 
 is no prescription against Heaven. 
 
 After having related the origin of your Established 
 Church, and shewn its essential defect, I pass in my 
 second Letter to the examination of its doctrine. The 
 end of my whole discussion is to shew — 1st. That an 
 absolute necessity, stronger than every obstacle and 
 repugnance, renders it obligatory to put an end to the 
 schism, by returning to the mother Church. 2dly. To 
 prove that all the pretexts and grievances alleged to 
 justify separation from that church, or to retain people 
 at a distance from it, far from being founded on scrip- 
 ture or primitive tradition, are most certainly in oppo- 
 sition to them I begin then by demonstrating — and 
 there is no exaggeration in the expression — that the 
 Church is essentially one, that there can never be a 
 motive for breaking unity with her, and that to depart 
 from unity, is by the very act, departing from the 
 Church of Jesus Christ. Here proofs of every kind 
 combine to exalt to the highest degree of certainty, 
 this fundamental truth, entirely decisive between our 
 separated brethren and ourselves: both the natural 
 light of the human mind, and the design and precepts 
 of our Saviour, the Father and Creator of this light; the 
 doctrine of all the apostles* and their disciples, doctors 
 or bishops, as well in their particular writings, as in 
 their decisions in council; the practice of the Church, 
 
 * God is not the God of dissension, but of peace: as also I teach in all 
 the churches. 1 Corinth, xiv. 33. And all the Apostles like St. 
 Paul, since their teaching was the same, and upon this point St, 
 Jude testifies it expressly of all. 
 
16 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 and the order of its government pursued from the be- 
 ginning; and finally, the testimonies even of those, who 
 broke unity in the 16th century, and of those, who in 
 support of that particular reformed party in which they 
 were born, never ceased to thunder against those, who 
 dissented from them.* 
 
 I have collected in my second Letter a number of 
 texts on this great question, which appear to me well 
 calculated to make an indelible impression upon my 
 readers. Yes, sir, if I do not deceive myself, who- 
 ever among your countrymen is faithfully in search of 
 the truth, will there clearly see, as I venture to assure 
 him, that truth can never be found in schism and sepa- 
 ration. Shall I only recall to your remembrance those 
 words twice repeated by our Divine Saviour in the 
 admirable prayer which he made to his Father in the 
 midst of his Apostles, the. evening before his passion? 
 "That they all may be one," said he, "that the world 
 may believe that thou has sent me. That is to say, 
 
 *I have quoted these various authorities in my second letter 
 from page 53 to 60. I will here add the following to the celebrat- 
 ed Theologians of your church: "The King' 1 (says Casaubon of 
 James the First) "plainly believes, without fallacy or deceit, that 
 there is but one true church, called Catholic or Universal, out of 
 which he holds that no salvation is to be expected. He detests 
 those who in old times and afterwards either departed from the 
 faith of the church, and so became heretics; or departing from 
 her communion became schismatics." How was it possible to 
 speak so well, and yet not apply his principles to the transactions 
 of the preceding reign? How was it that James the First was not 
 sensible of the strict obligation of honestly labouring to bind again 
 the bond of unity? What did it profit him to wear so rich and 
 noble a crown during a mortal life in the midst of the schism, if he 
 knew it to be such? "The ark out of which all perished," says 
 Mr. Perkins, "was an emblem of the church militant, out of which 
 all are condemned: out of the militant church there being no means 
 of salvation, no preaching, no sacraments; and by consequence no 
 salvation." On the Revelation, p. 308. 
 
 "If the Church of Rome," says Tillotson (T. 6, p. 245J be the 
 Catholic Church, it is necessary to be of that communion; because 
 out of the Catholic Church there is no ordinary possibility of sal- 
 vation." 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 17 
 
 that all those who may hereafter believe my word, 
 and the preaching of my Apostles, may be one among 
 themselves, as thou and I, Father! are one: in order 
 that by the agreement of their faith, by their adherence 
 to the same pastors, their perseverance in the same 
 Church, they may prove to all the faithful that my 
 mission came from thee. For thou alone, O Father! 
 canst command the minds and hearts of men; thou 
 alone canst bring them to uniformity of belief, and 
 retain them in it. At this spectacle, hitherto unknown 
 upon the earth, the infidels will feel thy power and 
 thy sweet influence, and will come to adore thee at 
 the feet of the same altars. Let them be one, that 
 the world may know that thou hast truly sent me!" 
 
 Tell me, sir, can you ever be persuaded that any 
 man can love our amiable and adorable Saviour, and 
 remain insensible to this moving prayer? That any 
 one can be zealous for his glory, and yet be pleased 
 with divisions, and oppose the accomplishment of his 
 wishes? That it is possible to desire the extension of 
 his kingdom, and yet arrest its progress by word and 
 example? To wish that his divine mission should be 
 displayed in the intimate union of all his followers, and 
 yet by laborious efforts to retain Christians at a dis- 
 tance from one another, and by rash and often calum- 
 nious accusations prevent them from religiously giving 
 each other the hand, and becoming again among them- 
 selves what they were in the days of peace and con- 
 fraternity? 
 
 I seriously invite my reverend antagonist to weigh 
 in his heart and before God the considerations which 
 arise from the sublime prayer of our Saviour. I en- 
 treat him moreover to dwell some moments on these 
 words of the celebrated Protestant Claude, to Dr. 
 Henchman, Bishop of London, in 1 680, on occasion of 
 the Dissenters in that extensive diocese: "Evidently," 
 he wrote, "their conduct is equivalent to a positive 
 schism, a crime detestable in itself both to God and man. 
 
13 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Those who are guilty of it, whether by first establish- 
 ing it themselves, or continuing to enforce it among 
 others, must expect to have a terrible account to ren- 
 der at the great day of judgment." Claude did not 
 perceive that he himself was at the head of a party of 
 Dissenters whose origin and schism came from Calvin! 
 He was not sensible that he himself was continuing to 
 maintain this schism among his partizans! and he did 
 not apply to himself what he said with so much justice 
 of his imitators present and future, that they must expect 
 to have to render a terrible account! What astonish- 
 ing blindness! How can we consider it but as a just 
 visitation from above? But why should this unhappy 
 Claude find imitators even in our days? Why must we 
 even now have the pain of witnessing an able writer 
 sharing his inconsistency; proclaiming like him the 
 enormity of schism, and like him taking up his pen or 
 raising his voice to attach the people to it more firmly? 
 Let him prove then at the same time either that Eliza- 
 beth and her clergy did not break unity; or that out of 
 unity, and in schism, we can secure our salvation. 
 Neither he, nor any one in the world, will ever prove 
 either. 
 
 I must however remark, to his praise, — and it is a 
 consolation to me to make it public, — that he appears 
 to have felt the force of the proofs, which filled my 
 second Letter. Had he found them defective, he 
 would not have hesitated to object to them. I take 
 authority from his silence to say, that on the decisive 
 question of unity we are both agreed. What I truly 
 deplore is, that while he admits the principle with all 
 the Protestant communions, he rejects with them its 
 essential and immediate consequence, though he prides 
 himself on logical exactness. This consequence ought 
 long ago to have led him and them to that tribunal of 
 Divine creation, which Jesus Christ has erected in his 
 Church, to preserve the faithful in unity. The estab- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 19 
 
 lishment of this tribunal, and the obligations of sub- 
 mitting to it, are the subjects of the Letter following. 
 
 When it is once demonstrated, and acknowledged 
 on all sides that the precept of unity is indispensable, 
 and of rigorous obligation upon all Christians, it must 
 be believed that our Divine Legislator has given us 
 the means of observing it. Now this means, since per- 
 sonal inspiration has ceased, can be no other for us all, 
 than the establishment of a supreme tribunal, which 
 has the right of declaring what is revealed, and what 
 is not; and which, itself secured from error, will also 
 preserve us from it while subject to its decisions. If 
 such a means does not exist, then we have no means 
 whatever of obeying Jesus Christ on this essential 
 point. Without this tribunal, it is impossible for us 
 ever to remain united; with it, we can never be other- 
 wise. If the New Testament had never been written, 
 we ought still to have believed in the institution of this 
 ancient authority, and admitted it as the necessary ef- 
 fect of a known cause, and the evident consequence 
 of an acknowledged principle. Both are inseparably 
 bound by a chain, impalpable, but indestructible. 
 
 This method of reasoning is not at all to the taste of 
 Mr. Faber. There was one way, and only one of re- 
 futing it: he should have proved that without acknow- 
 ledging an infallible authority, Christians can always 
 remain in unity of faith. But neither he, nor any other 
 upon earth, will discover such a proof. The passions 
 of men and the experience of ages will eternally ap- 
 pear in opposition to it. What then is his resource to 
 furnish a refutation? At first he professes not to per- 
 ceive the intimate relation and connexion between the 
 precept of unity, and the necessary existence of an 
 infallible tribunal. He takes infallibility separately, 
 as if persuaded that by keeping it apart from unity, he 
 can attack it with greater advantage. He therefore 
 passes over my second Letter like the first, and enters 
 at once into discussion with the third. Wc shall soon 
 
20 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 see whether his attempt is crowned with success; but 
 it is curious enough to observe how, after so often re- 
 peating that he would take my work for his text, he 
 passes over in silence the first hundred pages! 
 
 It is true, however, that farther on he glances at the 
 first argument of my third Letter — and at page 39 he 
 has chosen to say a few words upon it without finding 
 fault. Here however he appears to disapprove of the 
 observation I made in these words, "God commands 
 us to preserve unity in religion; therefore he has fur- 
 nished us with the means of so doing." This mode of 
 concluding a priori appears to him too hazardous, too 
 bold and venturesome. And yet no one more freely 
 yields than himself to the dictates of his own reason. 
 He very often delights in putting whole pages of my 
 book into form, into syllogisms suitable to his purpose, 
 and intentionally so turned as to introduce what he 
 intends to object to me. Nay more; in the same chap- 
 ter, page 38, he forgets what he has just blamed, and 
 pleads himself in favour of theological reasoning: "we 
 shall introduce," says he, "an universal scepticism, if 
 we deny the right of forming a private judgment upon 
 
 perfectly unambiguous propositions In these 
 
 matters, and in various others which might easily be 
 specified, I hold private judgment to be strictly legi- 
 timate; and I feel persuaded that the Bishop of Aire 
 will not disagree with me." Well, sir, do you find 
 any ambiguity in the propositions which I have advanc- 
 ed, on the absolute necessity of a supreme authority? 
 Are they not on the contrary as clear as the light? I 
 had a right then, according to Mr. Faber himself, to 
 use them, and he was wrong in censuring me for it. 
 
 After declaring what reason suggests on the neces- 
 sity of a supreme tribunal, I come to the authorities, 
 which demonstrate its real existence. It is Jesus 
 Christ who teaches it; his apostles and their succes- 
 sors; the conviction which ever animates the Church, 
 and directs her dogmatical decisions in councils. 
 
.DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 21 
 
 These proofs brought together demonstrate that in 
 fact this tribunal, the propriety of which good sense 
 alone had ascertained, was positively established by 
 Jesus Christ. I beg those who have at bond the 
 Difficulties of Romanism, to compare the 2d chapter 
 of the first book with my third Letter. Mr. Faber saw 
 very plainly the force and development of (he proofs 
 which I there adduced, and he docs not even endea- 
 vour to destroy them! He contents himself with ad- 
 vancing that I do not reason according to the promis 
 and expressions of our Lord, but from the mterpn 
 tions, which I give to them. Judge, sir, between us-, 
 are not the following words clear and positive declara- 
 tions — u Go ye therefore and teach all nations: teach- 
 ing them to observe all things whatsoever 1 have com- 
 manded you: and behold I am with you all dayt 
 to the consummation of the world?"* What need h< < 
 of arbitrary interpretations? How can these wo] 
 be susceptible of opposite expositions?! Jesus Christ 
 promises his and their successors to the end of the 
 world that he will assist them, when they shall teach 
 the precepts, which he has given them. Can it enter 
 any sensible head, that error can corrupt that teaching. 
 which is directed by our Saviour himself? And when 
 be says to them, U I will ask the Father, and he will 
 give you another Paraclete: when he shall come, the 
 spirit of truth, he shall teach you all truth." Can 
 there be any fear of pernicious mixture in doctrine, 
 where the Holy Spirit resides, and teaches all truth? 
 What is wanting to the clearness of these magnificent 
 promises? What need have they of any interpretation 2 
 And above all, bow can they be interpreted in an op- 
 posite sense? Truly there are certain unfortunate 
 minds, for which no human language is sufficiently 
 plain. Tell them further with St. Paul that the Church 
 
 •St. Matt, xxviii. 19,20. 
 
 t See Bossuet, Corollaire de la Defense du Clcrge Gall, parae;. 6 , 
 and Dissertation Prelimin. parag. 21. 
 
 3 
 
22 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 of God is the pillar and ground of truth; they will 
 reply that doubtless it was so in the time of the 
 apostles, but that in our days we behold this pillar on 
 the contrary surmounted by a group of errors. Have 
 then the gates of hell prevailed against the Church? 
 Has Jesus Christ ceased to be with her? Has he 
 withdrawn his Holy Spirit, and failed to accomplish his 
 word? No, no, my dear sir, far be such blasphemy 
 from us; we know that the world will pass away, but 
 that his word will not pass away. Let us hold fast 
 his brilliant promises; and pity every communion, which 
 rejects them, which prides itself on having no con- 
 nexion with them, and by that alone cuts itself off 
 from the body of Jesus Christ. Let us deplore the 
 blindness of those who invent interpretations opposite 
 to the promises given to the Church, only because they 
 are determined, in spite of every proof, never to re- 
 enter her bosom. 
 
 "That the privilege of infallibility resides in the 
 Catholic Church," says Mr. Faber at the beginning of 
 his discussion, page 10, "is strenuously maintained: 
 but as to the precise quarter where it is to be found, 
 there is not the same unanimity." He goes on to say, 
 that some hold it to reside in the Pope and others in a 
 general council: and adds, page 12, "Under such cir- 
 cumstances, if the prerogative of infalibility belong to 
 the church, we must seek its residence elsewhere than in 
 the person of the Pope." A truth too striking for me 
 to wish to dispute. But let him listen to one reproach 
 which he very often deserves. He sets out with say- 
 ing, and repeats again and again, that he chooses the 
 Discussion Amicale for his text, and that it is his in- 
 tention to comment upon it from beginning to end. 
 And yet at page 224 of the 1st volume, I insert this 
 objection at length, and give its solution: he takes no 
 notice of this whatever. He forgets his engagement 
 with the public and with myself. I can no longer dis- 
 cover his purpose. He must be satisfied with my re- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 23 
 
 ferring both himself and his readers to my book. I 
 will here only sum up my answer in a few words. 
 "The general acceptation of the bishops dispersed 
 over the world assures us that a council is really 
 oecumenical or universal: by them also are we made 
 certain that the Pope has pronounced ex cathedra. 
 Thus we Catholics agree perfectly in the same princi- 
 ple*, and in reality we on both sides attach the seal of in- 
 fallibility to universal consent." This, I conceive, is all 
 that needs be said in reply to this formidable objection. 
 The opinion of those who place infallibility in a 
 general council, appears best to suit the taste of 
 Mr. Faber. But unluckily, says he, "from faithful 
 history we learn, that general councils, upon points 
 both of doctrine and practice; have decided in plain 
 and avowed opposition to each other.'" He is not the 
 first, who has made this assertion: but certainly if he 
 had been able to prove it, he would have been the 
 first, who had succeeded in so doing. It is curious to 
 observe how he proceeds in his demonstration. He 
 takes two councils, one of which was from the begin- 
 ning rejected by the whole of the West, and soon after 
 by the universal Church: and the other immediately 
 approved by it. He wonders to find them teaching 
 opposite doctrines, as if he had honestly expected to 
 find them unanimous. Truly I lament that this pitiful 
 objection should be revived in these days. There is 
 not a student in our seminaries who does not know that 
 the Conciliabulum of Constantinople in 754 was never 
 acknowledged .* Every difficulty, once solved, should 
 
 * : 'How could it be a general council, when it was neither re- 
 ceived, nor approved, but on the contrary, anathematized by the 
 bishops of other churches — when neither concurred in by the 
 Pope, nor by the bishops about him, nor by legates, nor by a cir- 
 cular letter according to the usage of councils? Which had not 
 the consent of the patriarchs of the East, of Alexandria, Antioch, 
 or Jerusalem, nor of the bishops dependent upon them.' 1 ' Extract- 
 ed from the Refutation of this Conciliabulum, read in the 6th session 
 of the 2d Council of Nice. See Fleury's Church Hist. vol. 6th, 
 book 44, § 36, of the quarto edition, printed at Caen. 
 
24 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 be consigned to oblivion: it is unworthy of a man of 
 learning to mention it again. It may deceive the illite- 
 rate; but in the end it will disgrace that man in the 
 eyes of both parties, who flattered himself that he 
 could still turn it to the credit of his own. 
 
 In support of the pretended opposition between 
 general councils, of which he has selected such an un- 
 lucky example, I find him inserting long historical 
 notes., which, I am sorry to say, are complete in every 
 thing except applicability and truth. Mr. Faber disco- 
 vers in the South of Spain, in the small town of Elvira, 
 a council of nineteen bishops, who forbid painting the 
 Godhead on the walls of the ir churches; and by a very 
 illogical way of arguing, concluding twice from par- 
 ticulars to universals, he deduces from this prohibition 
 two false conclusions. The first, that it was forbidden 
 to paint on the walls any kind of pictures: the second, 
 that in the first ages of Christianity not only was the 
 veneration of images and pictures unknown, but even 
 that their introduction into the churches was forbidden. 
 Mr. Faber would have reasoned otherwise if he had 
 taken St. John Damascen for his guide, who was so 
 famous in the grand dispute about images: "We 
 know.*' says he, "what can, and what cannot be rep- 
 resented by images. How can an image be made of 
 Him, who has no body? But since he became man, 
 you may make a representation of his human form, of 
 his nativity, of his baptism, his tranfiguration, his cross, 
 His burial, his resurrection, or ascension. Express all 
 these by colours as well as by words; be not afraid." 
 The first consequence deduced by Mr. Faber from 
 the council of Elvira is therefore false. Must we say 
 the same of the second? Let us refer it to the deci- 
 sion of St. Basil. "I receive the apostles," he wrote 
 to Julian, "the prophets and the martyrs. I invoke 
 them to pray for me, and that by their intercession, 
 God may be merciful to me, and forgive my trans- 
 gressions. For this reason I revere and honour their 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 25 
 
 images-, especially since we are taught to do so (this 
 is addressed at once to Mr. Faber) "by the tradition of 
 the holy apostles; and so far from these being forbid- 
 den us, they appear in our churches."* Mr. Faber 
 read this passage, with many others, in the Discussion 
 .Imicale, vol. 2. page 364; but he passes them all over 
 in silence, and is unwilling to make them known to 
 those whom he undertakes to instruct. 
 
 The following is of the highest antiquity; and I wish 
 to retrace it before my readers, first, because he has 
 considered it prudent to withhold it from his; and 
 secondly, because when we undertake to enlighten 
 mankind, there is no need of concealing from them the 
 truth. Tertullian, when driven to the excess of rigour 
 by tlie inflexibility of his character, reproached the 
 Catholics with having absolved adulterers, and defend- 
 ed such indulgence by the words of the good Shepherd 
 represented in painting, or in relief upon the clialices. 
 "Let us now," he resumes, "produce the pictures upon 
 the chalices."f It was at the close of the second cen- 
 tury that he spoke thus of this figure painted or en- 
 graved, as of a common ornament. Would it be an 
 unwarrantable presumption to attribute its origin to the 
 days of the apostles? In the stormy centuries of re- 
 viving persecutions, the Church possessing neither tem- 
 ples, nor oratories, had not been able to fix pictures or 
 images on the walis or altars, in the same manner as 
 she did later. But she had portable ones on the cha- 
 lices, such as alone were suitable to her uncertain and 
 fluctuating situation. This sentence of Tertullian, let 
 
 *In 814 Leo, the Armenian, at that time the disguised patron of 
 the Iconoclasts, assembled several bishops in order to induce them 
 to break pious images. Euthymius, metropolitan of Sardes, thus 
 addressed him: "Know, sire, that for 800 years and more since 
 Jesus Christ came into the world, he has been painted and adored 
 in his image. Who will be bold enough to abolish so ancient a 
 tradition?"— Who? the Rector of Long Newton.— See Heury, vol. 
 7. b. 46. § 13. Quarto edit, of Caen. 
 
 fLe de Pudic. ch. 7. 
 
 3* 
 
26 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 iall by the way, and without any regular design, ap- 
 peared to me in 1812, a ray of light for our cause. I 
 have since had the satisfaction to see the same view 
 of it taken by Leibnitz, the most penetrating and uni- 
 versal genius of the reformation.* 
 
 I again feel compelled against my inclination to re- 
 establish a fact mutilated by the faithful and modest 
 pen of my antagonist, who thinks himself justified in 
 praising a Bishop of Marseilles for what St. Gregory 
 the Great found worthy of censure, and in blaming 
 With contempt the decision of one of the greatest 
 lights, who have governed the Church. Such a forget- 
 fulness of all that is becoming would cause disgust, if 
 it were not still more calculated to excite pity. Read 
 what follows, sir, I beseech you, and say if you think 
 me too severe: — "I have learnt," writes this great 
 Pope to Serenus, "that seeing some persons adore the 
 images in the Church, you have broken them: I com- 
 mend your zeal for preventing the adoration of things 
 made by the hand of man. But I am of opinion that 
 you ought not to have broken these images; for pic- 
 tures are placed in the churches (observe the general 
 custom) in order that those, who cannot read, may see 
 upon the walls what they cannot learn in books. You 
 ought therefore to have preserved them, and deterred 
 the people from sinning by adoring the 'painting." 
 And in a second letter, "Shew the people by the Holy 
 Scripture, that it is not lawful to adore what has been 
 made by the hand of man; and add, that seeing the 
 lawful use of images turned into adoration, you be- 
 came indignant and broke them. If you will, you can 
 further say — I willingly allow you to have images in 
 
 *Et quanquam sub initio Christianismi, aut nullas aut perraras 
 fuisse imagines, probabilius videatur, (unius enim imaginis Christi, 
 sub habitu boni pastoris ovem errantem requirentis, sacris calici- 
 hus insculpti mentio reperitur apurl Tertullianum) paulatim tamen 
 fuisse receptas ncgari non potest. — Syst. Theolog. p. 132. Ed'U, 
 P*ris. 1819. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 27 
 
 the church for your instruction, for which purpose 
 
 they were made tn former days If any one 
 
 wishes to make images, do not hinder him: only forbid 
 the adoration of them. The sight of the historical re- 
 presentations ought to move them to compunction; but 
 they ought only to how down to adore the Holy Tri- 
 nity. I say all this to you out of the love I have for 
 the Church; not to weaken your zeal, but to encourage 
 you in your duty.*" Could any one convey a more 
 sensible admonition, or one at the same time more pa- 
 ternal? And yet the Rector of Long Newton does not 
 blush to call this a decision wretchedly injudicious! 
 
 I am happy to be able to present to him a judge 
 whom doubtless he will not refuse. Leibnitz himself 
 shall speak: I regret that I cannot give at length the 
 judgment of this great man on the subject of images. f 
 "As to the veneration of images, it cannot be denied 
 ihat the Christians abstained from it a long time through 
 fear of superstition, while they were mixed with the 
 Pagans. But at length when the worship of demons 
 was destroyed in the greater part of the known and 
 civilized world, even grave men found no longer any 
 reason for excluding images from being used in the 
 worship of the true God, since they are the alphabet 
 of the unlearned, and a powerful motive to excite the 
 common people to devotion. It must be observed that 
 a double honour is paid to images: one 4dnd which 
 belongs to the image, as when it is placed in a remark- 
 able and honourable situation, set off with ornaments, 
 surrounded with lighted tapers, or carried in proces- 
 sion; and in this I see no great difficulty. The other 
 kind of honour is that which is referred to the original. 
 When for example, it is kissed, when people uncover 
 their heads before it, or bend their knees, or prostrate, 
 or offer prayers, or vows, or praises or thanksgivings: 
 
 ♦The first letter of St. Gregory the Great to Serenus, Bishop of 
 Marseilles, in the year 599. the second hi 600. 
 tSee his Syst. Ttieol. p. 121. 
 
2S ANSWER TO THE 
 
 but in reality, although they are accustomed to talk of 
 paying homage to the image; it is not the lifeless thing 
 incapable of honour, but the original which they honour 
 before the image.* No one with sound sense will 
 say and think, 'grant me, O image, what I ask; and 
 to thee, O marble or wood, I return thanks;' but 'it 
 is thou O Lord, whom I adore, and whose praises 
 1 publish.' .... I see no evil in prostrating before 
 a crucifix, and when looking upon it, honouring him, 
 whom it represents. But the advantage of it is evi- 
 dent; since it is incontestable that this action won- 
 derfully excites the affections; and we have seen that 
 it was customary with St. Gregory the Great." (We 
 have seen it too with St. Basil.) "Those who fol- 
 low the confession of Augsbourg are not entirely op- 
 posed to this custom: and certainly if we did not 
 know that there were formerly great abuses in the 
 t veneration of images, which have rendered suspicious 
 a thing good in itself; if we did not know the animat- 
 ed disputes which have arisen on this point, and even 
 in our own days; no one perhaps would have thought 
 of suspecting any concealed evil in the veneration 
 paid before an image, or any danger, or cause of 
 scruple; so innocent is the thing considered in itself, 
 I will say even so reasonable and praiseworthy." O 
 that the Protestant communions, who will not own a 
 supreme tribunal created by our Divine Legislator, 
 would at least submit to the authority of superior men 
 of disinterested minds ! O that they would be per- 
 suaded by a Grotius or a Leibnitz ! Their schisms at 
 length would cease to divide the kingdom of Jesus 
 Christ. Will they ever find safer guides, or judges 
 
 *"If it were possible in human language to express ourselves 
 with rigorous precision, instead of the veneration of images, we 
 should say veneration of Saints before their images." See Disr 
 cussion Amicale, vol. 2, p. 348. Let any one be at the pains of 
 comparing my 16th letter with Leibnitz, and they will see that I 
 have had the happiness of falling in exactly with that profound 
 thinker. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 29 
 
 more unexceptionable than these two geniuses; both 
 nurtured and rendered illustrious in the bosom of the 
 reformation, both surmounting' by profound research 
 the prejudices of birth, and the habits of life, and 
 consigning, in their immortal testaments, the triumph 
 of Catholicity?* 
 
 I was far from expecting, from the opinion you had 
 given me of the author, that I should see figuring in 
 the Difficulties of Romanism, the apparent contradic- 
 tion between the Fathers of the second council of 
 Nice, and those of Frankfort and Paris. It is pain- 
 ful to have to explain again what has been explained 
 so often. O that this at least may be for the last 
 time ! No doubt you have seen in the commerce of 
 life, friends or families who lived in union, disagreeing 
 all at once through a mere misunderstanding. Com- 
 plaints are made on both sides; they avoid each other 
 and condemn each other. The separation and dissen- 
 sion last as long as the error from which they arose. 
 At last comes an explanation: the mistake is discover- 
 ed, and the falsity of the reports, which had circulated: 
 they regret that they ever believed them, acknow- 
 ledge their faults, and on both sides return with plea- 
 sure to their former sentiments of esteem and concord. 
 Now this is precisely the history of the temporary mis- 
 understanding on the subject of images, between the 
 East and the Gauls, at the time of which we are 
 speaking. Alarming reports of the sentiments and de- 
 cisions of Nice give occasion to the convocation of 
 the council of Frankfort. An unfaithful translation of 
 the Greek acts unluckily comes to confirm these re- 
 ports, and leaves no room to doubt that absolute ado- 
 ration has been impiously given to images. "The 
 question proposed," say the fathers at Frankfort, "is 
 that of the recent council of the Greeks for the ado- 
 
 * Votum pro pace, and Systema Ttieolog. productions of the two 
 first heads of the reformation. • 
 
30 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 ration of images; in which it is written, that whoever 
 will not render to the images of the saints service and 
 adoration as to the Divine Trinity, shall he considered 
 anathema." Thirty years afterwards the council of 
 Paris still attributed the same sentiments to the fa- 
 thers of Nice, and pronounced their condemnation, 
 after the example of Frankfort and the Caroline 
 books, and under the same erroneous impression. In 
 course of time the truth came to light. Correct ver- 
 sions were spread about, the mistake was acknow- 
 ledged, and justice was done to the Eathers of Nice. 
 How indeed could such justice have been refused, 
 since in the second session the patriarch Tarasius was 
 found approving of Pope Adrian's letter, and adding, 
 "I am of the same belief, that images are to be adored 
 with a relative affection, reserving to God alone the 
 faith and worship of t, atria:" and all the council 
 loudly proclaiming itself of the same opinion. When 
 also in the fifth session this passage came from the 
 Bishop of Thessalonica in reply to a Pagan: "We 
 do not adore the images, but what they represent; 
 and even then we do not adore them as gods; God 
 forbid ! but as the servants and friends of God, who 
 pray to Him in our behalf." And this passage of a 
 dialogue where the Christian replies to a Jew, who is 
 converted, but scandalized at images: "The scripture 
 forbids us to adore a strange God, and to adore an 
 image as God. The images, which you see among us 
 serve to remind us of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, 
 by representing his face; those of the saints represent 
 to us their combats and their victories. When we 
 venerate them, we invoke God. "Blessed be thou O 
 God of this saint, and of all the saints." Finally, 
 when at the last session, these words were read in the 
 decision of the council: "To images are to be render- 
 ed the respect and adoration of honour; hut not true 
 latria, which our faith requires, and which belongs 
 solely to the Divine nature. But incense and lights 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 31 
 
 are to be used before these images, as is customary 
 with regard to the cross, and the gospels, all after the 
 pious customs of the ancients: for the honour paid to 
 the image is referred to the original; and he who 
 adores the image, adores the "subject which it repre- 
 sents." These latter expressions are cited by Mr. 
 Faber, while he suppresses the preceding ones, and 
 takes care not to give the passages mentioned above, 
 nor the following pronounced by the Bishop of Ancy- 
 ra in the first session: "I receive the venerable images 
 of Jesus Christ inasmuch as he became man for our 
 salvation; those of his holy mother, the angels, the 
 apostles, the martyrs, and all the saints. I kiss them, 
 and give them the adoration of honotir. I reject with 
 all my heart the false council called the seventh, as 
 contrary to the whole tradition of the Church. n He 
 himself has subscribed for fear of persecution: but re- 
 morse brought him with many others to a solemn re- 
 tractation. 
 
 It is well known that the word adoration was in 
 use in the East to signify a simple testimony of sub- 
 mission and respect; whilst in Gaul it was used solely 
 to express the homage rendered to the Supreme Being. 
 Is it not an absurd injustice to give it only the latter 
 signification in the mouth of the Orientals? Is it to no 
 purpose then that they themselves distinguish two 
 kinds of adoration, that of /iono?<r, and that of latria? 
 To no purpose that they proclaim that the former is 
 for the images of the saints, and the latter for God 
 alone? It is in vain for them to declare that the ho- 
 nour and adoration pass from the image to the origi- 
 nal: they cannot persuade certain obstinate and preju- 
 diced minds. These will maintain, in spite of their 
 declarations, that the word adore is only susceptible 
 of one signification, and that consequently they cannot 
 attach to it any other: these will maintain that when 
 they pray before an image or picture, (for they must 
 know better than the others) they only pray to the 
 
32 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 marble, the wood, or the canvass, that they have no 
 thought beyond these, and consequently that they 
 have been, are, and will be forever idolaters, both 
 they and their adherents ! What then is to be done? 
 What course must we take? Pity these peevish and 
 contentious spirits, and leave them to themselves. 
 
 To sum up — the Fathers of Nice, those of Paris, 
 and those of Frankfort, agreed without being aware of 
 it, in the self-same doctrine. The opinion of the Ori- 
 entals, falsely interpreted for some years, but better 
 understood afterwards, was found conformable to that 
 of Gaul, Germany, Italy, and ancient tradition: and in 
 the end it reigned exclusively in the East, under the 
 rule of the Empress Theodora. Here is precisely 
 what should be thought of the vicissitudes, occasion- 
 ed by the Iconoclast Emperors. I am sorry for Mr. 
 Faber's sake, after all the pleasure he has felt in 
 enumerating the pretended variations of a Church, 
 which believes itself, with reason, unchangeable in 
 faith, and which even by its Divine constitution, can- 
 not be otherwise. 
 
 After attempting to shake our infallible tribunal by 
 exhibiting councils opposed to each other, and com- 
 pletely failing in this first attempt; is it likely that Mr. 
 Faber will be more successful in opposing them by 
 turns to the primitive Church, and the sacred scrip- 
 tures? He has persuaded himself that he should 
 triumph over the fourth council of Lateran, held in 
 1215, under Innocent III. He takes offence at the 
 word transubstantiation, employed in the first chapter, 
 to express the change of substance, in the Eucharist 
 He pronounces that the word and the thing are in 
 manifest opposition to the belief and doctrine of the 
 first five centuries. He expresses himself in a deci- 
 sive and dogmatical tone, like a man sure of what he 
 asserts; and he little suspects that he is all the while 
 completely in error. He will see positive proof of 
 his being in error in the next chapter. I shall there 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 3$ 
 
 establish the proposition precisely contrary to his; that 
 is to say, the exact conformity of the doctrine of the 
 first five centuries with that of the fourth council 
 of Lateran. You will, I flatter myself, agree with 
 me, that Mr. Faber has not discovered the spirit and 
 doctrine of the Fathers upon the Eucharist, that he 
 takes their doctrine in an inverted sense; as do Tillot- 
 son and all the sacramentarians — whence it follows 
 that he thinks them contradictory to each other and 
 even to themselves. I will throw new light on this 
 subject; and the result will necessarily be, that what 
 he calls my "shrewd arguments," furnished in rigo- 
 rous truth, the only key, which can lay open the 
 opinion of the fathers, and acquit them of the charge 
 of being at variance with themselves and one another. 
 At present I pass on to the pretended opposition oi 
 our general councils to the sacred scriptures. But 
 previous to replying to the examples of it which he 
 produces, it will be necessary to shew him again, since 
 he does not know it, or pretends not to know, by what 
 marks the (Ecumenicity, or universality of councils be- 
 comes acknowledged, as well as their decisions of 
 doctrine, or other regulations. It is strange that pro- 
 fessing to refute my work step by step, he leaves it 
 continually, and flies oft', no one knows where, to rind 
 something to sift and dispute. I have undoubtedly a 
 right, when he professes to attack me, to require him 
 to do so upon my own principles, and not upon those 
 of others. Now I have laid down as a fundamental 
 principle, with all our able theologians, that the gene- 
 ral acceptation of the bishops dispersed oveF the 
 world, the judges of faith, could alone make known 
 to us whether such a council was really oecumenical, 
 or such a decree of a Pope pronounced ex cathedra; 
 and consequently whether the decision of the council 
 or Pope appertained to faith. Upon this principle, it 
 is easy for you, sir, to judge, that the whole of what 
 Mr. Faber adduces from Ins second chapter to the end 
 4 
 
34 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 of page 17, is entirely foreign, and inapplicable to the 
 Catholic doctrine. He would have done very wisely, 
 if he had spared himself the trouble of swelling out 
 his book with it, and us the labour of reading articles 
 which do not in any way interest us. 
 
 We should be greviously mistaken, if like Mr. Fa- 
 ber, we were to take for decisions and articles of faith, 
 all that we found in the decrees, chapters, or canons 
 of general councils. We often find in them sentences 
 introduced to serve for explanation, or to prevent a 
 difficulty; others hardly touched upon, and merely 
 given en passant, which therefore do not belong to the 
 main subject of the decision. Tkese incidental sen- 
 tences do not in any way concern faith, and impose 
 no obligation of belief or assent* If you please, we 
 will take, as an example, one of the canons brought as 
 an objection by Mr. Faber, page 2 3 — the sixth canon 
 of the second council of Laleran, in the year 1139, 
 that we may discuss the second council before the 
 third with the Rector's permission, though he takes 
 them the other way. "Decernimus ut ii qui in ordine 
 subdiaconatus et supra uxores duxerint, aut concubi- 
 nas habuerint, officio atque ecclesiastico beneficio 
 careant." This is the whole decree of discipline. 
 Let us observe what follows: "Cum enim ipsi tem- 
 plum Dei, vasa Domini, sacrarium Spiritus Sancti de- 
 beant esse et dici, indignum est eos cubilibus et im- 
 munditiis deservire." This passage follows the deci- 
 sion, and does not belong to it: it is added in the way 
 of explanation to justify the prohibition and obviate 
 objections. In a word, it is a reflection, and not a 
 decree. This, I imagine, should be enough to pacify 
 the mind of Mr. Faber, which has taken fire at the 
 reflection of the fathers of Lateran. Let him then 
 cool down, and not imagine that if he became a Ca- 
 
 *See Melchior Canus de locis Theol. a celebrated theologian of 
 tbe council of Trent. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 35 
 
 tholic, he would be obliged to admit as an article of 
 faith, what appears to have given him so much of- 
 fence. 
 
 I do not see, however, that he ought to feel any 
 great difficulty in adopting it, if lie reflected ever so 
 little. If in the law of Moses, the man who had car- 
 nally cohabited with his wife was considered unclean, 
 and could not on the same day even enter the sanctu- 
 ary, is it not very congruous that the priest of the 
 new law, obliged as he is every day to administer the 
 sacraments or celebrate the sacred mysteries, should 
 absolutely refrain from conjugal obligations? Let the 
 Rector only take a review of the distractions, disqui- 
 etudes, and other consequences, entailed by the nup- 
 tial union; let him reflect on the first bower of man- 
 kind, and I cannot think he will find any exaggeration 
 in the words employed by the council to justify the 
 prohibition of marriage for ecclesiastics. Neverthe- 
 less, however rigorous and general it appears, there 
 might be circumstances in which, with the hope of 
 promoting greater good, the Church might judge it 
 right, as at Nice, to leave to priests both the condi- 
 tion and use of marriage. For the rest, Mr. Faber is 
 wrong in imputing to us the prohibition of marriage 
 in general. He ought to know that it is more honour- 
 ed by the Catholic Church, than by his own. With 
 him and every other Protestant, matrimony is merely 
 a civil ceremony; witli us, this civil ceremony is ex- 
 alted by the Sacrament of matrimony. 
 
 It is ridiculous to behold, at pp. 27 — 28, the imagi- 
 nary triumph of the Rector, and to pursue the pom- 
 pous chain of syllogisms and dilemmas, which he un- 
 rols in order to place the council in evident contradic- 
 tion with the scripture. When Luther formerly 
 sought to prove that good works availed little lo sal- 
 vation, he advanced on the authority of St. Paul, that 
 man was justified by faith alone. People cried out 
 on all sides, that the word alone was not in the apos- 
 
36 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 tie's text. In reality it never was there; but it re- 
 mains in Luther's quotation to lead astray the simple 
 and ignorant who may read it. After the example of 
 the veracious patriarch of the reformation, Mr. Faber 
 will also quote St. Paul, (Heb. xiii. 4) with equal 
 fidelity. "Scripture declares," says he, "that mar- 
 riage is honourable in all men, ivhether they be 
 clerks or laics." Would you not suppose, sir, that 
 this text, distinguished by italics and capitals, was 
 really St. Paul's? Divide it in two, however, and be 
 so kind as to return the larger half to our good Rector. 
 Of the twelve words in italics, the seven concluding 
 ones are his own; St. Paul only says, "marriage hon- 
 ourable in all:" Ti^iog 6 Td^og iv faffi. 
 
 I understand the text to mean, "let marriage be 
 honourable;" and not "marriage is honourable," as 
 Mr. Faber translates it. He will say that his English 
 bible translates as he does: let it be so; but then I find 
 two in fault instead of one: they are both wrong. In 
 that chapter the apostle is giving precepts of morality, 
 and all in the imperative mood; as verse 1st, Let fra- 
 ternal charily, fyc. — v. 5, Let your manners, tyc. — ver. 
 7. Remember, fyc. — v. 9, Be not led away, fyc. and so 
 on in verses 13, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24; and in the 
 last verse, we have Grace be ivith you, even in your 
 bible, where the Latin is merely, Gratia Dei vobiseum. 
 Therefore the text in question ought to be understood, 
 Let marriage be honourable in all. What completes 
 the proof is, that by translating, Marriage is honour- 
 able in all men, the proposition thus put forth in the 
 affirmative and general sense, would be untrue: for 
 certainly marriage is neither honourable nor honoured 
 in those spouses who break their mutual engagement. 
 I have dwelt a long time on the monosyllable is; but I 
 considered it necessary to furnish you with the means 
 of judging if Mr. Faber had any right to conclude as 
 lie does; "Hence it is evident," — "and hence also it 
 is evident .... by the indisputable fact, &c." Lan- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 37 
 
 guage has nothing stronger, and yet more foolishly pa- 
 raded than the word evident. Now judge, if you 
 please, where is the double evidence of Mr. Faber, in 
 his critique upon the second council of Lateran. I 
 flatter myself that, at least in your opinion, certitude 
 is on my side. 
 
 It appears that my antagonist has a particular dis- 
 like to all that was formerly transacted in the ancient 
 basilic of Lateran. We shall have hereafter to de- 
 fend the fourth council from his attacks. Here he 
 falls upon the third; and in what manner do you think? 
 You will soon admire with me the most generous and 
 magnanimous exertions of good faith and zeal for the 
 truth. In fact, he lights upon the 16th chapter, 
 chooses out and places by itself the following passage: 
 "for those are not oaths, but perjuries, which are 
 made against the utility of the Church, and the insti- 
 tutions of the holy fathers." It is easy to see how 
 this passage, thus insulated, will provoke a zealous 
 comment from the indignation of the Rector. His 
 tact is chiefly conspicuous in his having detached it 
 from what preceded and followed it; and thus given 
 it a general and indefinite sense, which is far from the 
 intention of the council. I must give you the whole 
 of the 16th chapter, entitled, "Of the regulations of 
 Churches." "Since in all churches, what has been 
 approved by a majority of the ancient brethren should 
 be observed without delay; those deserve to be repri- 
 manded, who, few in number, and less influenced by 
 reason than caprice, oppose what has been decided by 
 the majority, and thus disturb the course of ecclesias- 
 tical government. Wherefore we decree by these 
 presents, that except in cases where reason and truth 
 are on the side of the minority, the determination of 
 the more numerous and wise portion of the chapter 
 shall be put in execution, notwithstanding any appeal. 
 And let not this our decision be evaded, even if any 
 one of the members should maintain that he is obliged 
 4* 
 
38 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 by oath to support such or such a custom of his church. 
 For tlwse are not oaths, but perjuries, which are made 
 against the utility of the Church, and the institutions of 
 the holy Fathers. And if the member persists in de- 
 spising decisions conformable to reason and holy insti- 
 tutions, let him be subjected to a suitable penance, and 
 so long deprived of the participation of the body of 
 our Lord." It is plain that this regulation regards the 
 canons of cathedrals, where the capitular statutes are 
 made by the majority; and it supposes a case where 
 the wish of the majority is to abolish a custom become 
 prejudicial. One of the members chooses to oppose 
 the measure, under the pretext that he has sworn to 
 observe the usage or custom which the majority wish 
 to abolish. u You swore to keep it," they tell him, 
 "when it was in full force; but now the authority 
 which established it, is resolved upon its abolition. — 
 This at once annuls the obligation of your former 
 oath. To persist in defending it, would be going 
 against the statutes of our fathers, and against the 
 utility of the church: your oath would become a per- 
 jury." Nothing can be more simple and true than 
 'this. 
 
 But how does Mr. Faber proceed? He picks out 
 a sentence to his liking; he presents it in an insulated 
 "form; for cathedral churches he substitutes the Catho- 
 lic, church, and puts its rulers in place of the canons 
 of chapters. From this he sets off heroically to de- 
 claim against the political and ambitious views of 
 Rome ! You will allow, sir, that his favoured 
 hands do not change lead into gold. 
 
 His violent sally against the policy and projects of 
 aggrandizement used by the court of Rome, is led on 
 by a pompous display upon the sacred inviolability of 
 aii oath, of whatever kind it may be: for he makes no 
 exceptions^ not even of one made against the interests 
 of an individual, of a family, or against the rules of a 
 society. If he does not go thus far,, he argues away 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 39 
 
 from the question, and says nothing that will avail; 
 since the council only declares those oaths to he per- 
 juries, which are made against the utility of the 
 churches and the statutes of the holy fathers. 
 
 Little would the reader here expect to see poor 
 John Huss hrought on the stage. The Rector, after 
 his ingenious comment on the 16th chapter, brings 
 forth the faggot of this unfortunate man, as a conse- 
 quence of the doctrine, which he pretends to have 
 there discovered. According to his account, the Em- 
 peror had sworn to preserve the life of John Huss; but 
 this oath being considered contrary to the interests of 
 the Church, was annulled, he says, by the fathers of 
 Constance. Well, sir, would you wish to know the 
 truth of this affair? Sigismund had taken no oath at 
 all; and consequently the council did not annul any. 
 The Emperor had directed a safe-conduct to be given 
 to John Huss, who wished to defend his doctrine at 
 Constance. There his doctrine was condemned; and 
 the man declared a heretic for his obstinacy in not 
 renouncing his errors. The law, unhappily in force 
 on the Continent at that time, as well as in England, 
 was put in execution against him. Sigismund was so 
 far from having sworn to preserve his life, that he de- 
 clared in the council itself, that if Huss did not retract, 
 he himself would be the first to set fire to his pile.* I 
 must say, that if it be disgraceful in a controvertist to 
 repeat an objection, a hundred times solidly refuted, 
 it is fatiguing to me to have again to write its refuta- 
 tion, as if it were for the first time. 
 
 How unpleasant and painful indeed is the task, to 
 have % again to expose the false exhibition, which Mr. 
 Faber makes of the 27th chapter of the same council. 
 Where are we henceforth to look for equity and good 
 
 • The Protestant historian of the council of Constance informs 
 tis that John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, were delivered up to 
 the flames by order of Sigismund himself. — L'Enfant, bock 3, § 43. 
 
40 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 faith, if they are no longer in the mouth, and under the 
 pen of a clergyman? The Rector has the effrontery 
 to advance, that by this 27th canon, the obligation of 
 destroying heretics, was imposed upon the faithful, who 
 are bound, as he would have it, even in these days, 
 either to fulfil this obligation, or to reject the infalli- 
 bility of the Church. And yet he cannot be ignorant 
 of the difference, which we make between dogmatical 
 decisions, which command the faith of Christians for 
 ever, and ordinances of discipline, which change with 
 the circumstances, which gave them birth. The Rec- 
 tor could not have been ignorant, that at the period of 
 which he speaks, the two powers acted in. concert; 
 and that the council did no more than support the tem- 
 poral authorities, by pressing the people at their re- 
 commendation, to march against certain barbarous and 
 formidable sects. He must have known that the coun- 
 cil, so far from ordering the destruction of heretics in 
 general, marks out most distinctly those of whom it 
 has been informed, and distinguishes by name the Al- 
 bigenses, Bulgarians, Cathari, Publicani, sprung from 
 the Eastern Manicheans, and the excesses and rava- 
 ges committed by them in Italy, throughout the South 
 of France, and even in Spain. "They exercise," 
 says the council, in the same 27th canon, "such cru- 
 elty upon the Christians, that without regard to church- 
 es or monasteries, they spare neither widows, orphans, 
 old men or children, age or sex; but destroy and lay 
 waste all before them, like the Pagans." In fine, Mr. 
 Faber must have been aware, that against every other 
 kind of heretics, the Church has never known, and ne- 
 ver will know, any other arms than persuasion" and 
 prayer. 
 
 In truth, sir, I cannot forget the assurance with 
 which Mr. Faber takes to himself the praise of having 
 supported, upon facts, his arguments against the infal- 
 libility of the Church. Unquestionably his "naked 
 facts," as he calls them, have all their merit intrinsical- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 41 
 
 ly in themselves; they have nothing to do with extrane- 
 ous ornaments. Nevertheless, their nudity has need of 
 some covering, and this indispensable covering is truth. 
 You have seen that truth is essentially wanting, to 
 what he has, with a semblance of candour, presented 
 you as "naked facts." You have seen the arguments 
 which he has professed to deduce from them, disap- 
 pear along with them, upon the slightest examination. 
 Really, if I were a member of your church, I am sorry 
 to say that I should feel obliged to petition for an in- 
 junction, to forbid any apologist to undertake her de- 
 fence with such weapons: for it is manifesting to the 
 world, that there are no solid arms to be found for 
 your cause. 
 
 Reading, at page 31, these words of Mr. Faber: 
 "The Bishop lastly argues, &c." I expected that the 
 Rector was about to mention and refute my final proofs 
 of the infallibility. Not at all: he says nothing about 
 them; he conceals them from his readers, and gives in- 
 stead of them, arguments drawn from I know not 
 where. This leads me to make an observation, which 
 is but too applicable elsewhere. When he chooses 
 to sum up in a few lines, whole pages of my work, — 
 my ideas, words, and proofs are completely metamor 
 phosed beneath his pen: — I no longer recognise my- 
 self; it is not me, but some other, whom he appears to 
 attack. This obliges me to beg of my readers to do 
 me the justice to confront my text with what he im- 
 putes to me. I particularly request them in this place, 
 to compare my third letter with his second chapter. 
 They will then be convinced that instead of producing 
 my proofs, he suppresses the most striking among 
 them, and imputes to me what are not mine. I can 
 solemnly declare, that if the reader only knows my 
 work by the Difficulties of Romanism, he will have 
 
42 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 but an incomplete and often false idea of the Discus- 
 sion Jlmicale. 
 
 In every question treated in that work, the plan, 
 which I have constantly followed, has been to prove 
 our doctrine by the holy scriptures, and by the tra- 
 ditions of the primitive Church; as these two princi- 
 ples are generally admitted and acknowledged by 
 Protestant theologians. I cannot answer for their be- 
 ing so by Mr. Faber; for, on the subject of tradition, 
 he appears hardly to know what to hold. Sometimes, 
 he seems sufficiently disposed to admit it, and some- 
 times to reject it altogether. At page viii. of his pre- 
 face, he requires us to produce, from period to period, 
 an uninterrupted chain of witnesses, up to the apos- 
 tles themselves: in other places he persuades himself 
 that he can shew us to be in opposition to the primi- 
 tive Church, by some detached passages from the 
 third or the second century. At page 33, he tells us, 
 that if the Christians of the second century, could 
 easily join with those of the first; we can no longer do 
 the same, separated as we are from the apostles' time, 
 by too great a distance, to pass safely over the space 
 of eighteen centuries, and join the last link of the 
 chain to the first. But from page IT to 18, he quotes 
 against us several passages from Fathers, of whom St. 
 Clement of Alexandria, is the most ancient. At page 
 35, he will admit no doctrine which is not clearly 
 founded on the holy scripture; and at page 49, he 
 maintains that the precept of St. Paul, "Hold the tra- 
 ditions which you have learned, whether by word, or 
 by our epistle,"* was not binding, except about the 
 period when he inculcated it to the Thessalonians. 
 But at page 1 8, he labours hard to prove, that the first 
 five centuries are against transubstantiation. At page 
 32, he approves of the argument of prescription of 
 Tertullian and St. Irenaeus, which we still use to shew 
 the apostolicity of any dogma or custom. 
 
 •Thcss. ii. v. 14. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 43 
 
 Among the doubts and variations of Mr. Faber, he 
 will not object to my adopting, that as his opinion, 
 which is the most favourable to tradition. I am the 
 more inclined to do this, as it will be the means of 
 reconciling his sentiments, with those of the most ce- 
 lebrated theologians of his church, who profess an 
 entire deference for the fathers and councils of the 
 first five centuries,* and with the great lights, the 
 learned personages of that admirable and pious epoch. 
 I have quoted many testimonies from them in the 
 fourth letter of the Discussion Amicale. There, you 
 may see, my dear sir, several passages to which it 
 
 * "Let us stand to the judgment and decision of antiquity, and 
 embrace that saying of the Nicene Fathers, as if it came from an 
 oracle, let the ancient customs be observed." — Bp. Montague 
 Pre/, to App. ad orig. Ecclcs. 
 
 "Whilst men do labour to bring into discredit the ancient Fa- 
 thers and primitive Churches, they derogate from themselves such 
 credit as they hunt after, and as much as in themlieth, bring many 
 parts of religion into wonderful uncertainty. — Bp. OveraVs Convo- 
 cation Book, p. 191. 
 
 "Although scripture is the most certain and safe rule of belief, 
 yet there being no less veracity in the tongues than in the hands, 
 in the preachings than the writings of the apostles: nay prior scrmo 
 quam liber, prior senilis quam stylus, saith Tertullian, the apos- 
 tles preached before they writ, planted Churches before they 
 addressed epistles to them; on these grounds I make no scruple to 
 grant that apostolical traditions, such as are truly so, as well as 
 apostolical writings, are equally the matter of that Christian's 
 belief, who is equally secured by the fidelity of the conveyance, 
 that as one is apostolical writing, so the other is apostolical tra- 
 dition." — Dr. Hammond's Disc, of Heresy. 
 
 "If any other matters not yet received or practised in our 
 Church, should be found to be of equal antiquity and universality, 
 I declare it to be my hearty desire that they also maybe restored: 
 for I am well assured, that from the beginning of the gospel of 
 Christ, to the time of the council of Nice, and long after, during 
 the fourth century, the Catholic Church all over the world was 
 united in one holy doctrine, discipline, and manner of worship." — 
 Dr. BreWs Introduction to his Independency of the Church, p. 7. 
 
 "During the first five centuries, the Church then pure and flour- 
 ishing, taught unmixed the faith which the apostles had preached." 
 Ulntaker on Antichrist, p. 51. 
 
44 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 would have been easy to add a hundred more, from 
 St. Augustine, St. Vincent of Lerins, the 318 bishops 
 of the great council of Nice, St. Chrysostom, St. Epi- 
 phanius, St. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, St. 
 Irensus, all decisive upon the authority of tradition. 
 
 Let us stop at the second century; and shew by 
 contemporary writers, that the doctrine and practice 
 of the Church at that period, were the same as those 
 of the first century.* St. Clement of Alexandria, tes- 
 tifies that "Some of those who had immediately suc- 
 ceeded the apostles, and preserved the tradition of 
 their doctrine, had lived even to this time, in order to 
 
 "This general consent of our so profoundly judicious Protes- 
 tants, in appealing unto the primitive Church for the space of the 
 first four hundred and forty years after Christ, thus acknowledged 
 by our adversaries, may well serve for a just reproof of their 
 slander, who usually upbraid Protestants with contempt of all 
 
 antiquity: for here even old Rome is commended Protestants 
 
 are so far from suffering the limitation of the first 440 jears, that 
 they give the Romanists the scope of the first 500 or 600 years, as 
 our adversaries themselves do acknowledge." — Morton's Catholic 
 ilppealc for Protestants. Edit. London, 1610, book 4, chap. 30, page 
 573. 
 
 "It cannot be doubted, 1 ' says the learned Usher, "that St. 
 Patrick had a peculiar veneration for the church of Rome, whence 
 he had been sent to labour in the conversion of our island; and I 
 myself had I lived at that time, should have submitted as willingly 
 to the judgment of that church, as to that of any other in the 
 world: so sacred is the esteem which I cherish for the integrity 
 of that church in those happy days." (At the end of Usher's Reli- 
 gion of the Irish, p. 87, of the 5th century — epoch of St. Patrick. 
 
 These will suffice: but you may find thirty other authorities in 
 Wix's Reflections, 2d edition, London, 1319. 
 
 ®It would be easy to prove, from your best divines, that the 
 doctrine of the apostles was taught in its integrity, down to the 
 5th century inclusively. Besides the passages of Usher, Morton, 
 and Whitaker just quoted, I could cite many others produced by 
 Mr. Wix. The common opinion of your able theologians is, that 
 the first four general councils ought to be received, and the doc- 
 trine of the same space of time considered as apostolical. This 
 observation overturns the first principle laid down by Mr. Faber in 
 his preface, where he requires in proof of apostolicity, a chain 
 of witnesses uninterrupted up to the apostles themselves. I could 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 45 
 
 scatter and cultivate the seed of the true faith." What 
 St. Clement testified with regard to Egypt, analogy- 
 allows us to suppose for several other churches; such 
 for instance, as that of Smyrna, whose bishop, St. 
 Polycarp, martyred at the age of a hundred, in 166, 
 had actually been a disciple of St. John. "God," as 
 I observed in the Discussion Amicale, v. I. p. 194, 
 in his designs of protection for his Church, permitted 
 that in the midst of persecutions and dangers, some 
 few of these primitive and holy bishops, should have 
 their career protracted to a very advanced age; and 
 as heretofore in the beginning of the world, the pa- 
 triarchs by means of their long lives, transmitted more 
 easily to posterity what they had learned from their 
 fathers of the creation of the world, the dogmas of re- 
 ligion, and the principal traits of the antediluvian his- 
 tory, so in the Christian dispensation, these venerable 
 old men served to bear witness that their faith was 
 exactly the same, which they had received trom the 
 apostles or their immediate disciples." Tertullian in- 
 forms us by what means the doctrine of the apostles 
 was preserved in the various churches. I cannot help 
 placing before you a very curious passage on this sub- 
 ject. u According to the order prescribed for all the 
 churches, councils are assembled in certain parts of 
 Greece, where the most important affairs are discus- 
 oblige him, by the superior authority of his own masters in theo- 
 logy, from the first apologist of your reformation Jewel, down to 
 the doctors of our own times, to admit as apostolical the doctrine 
 of the 3d, 4th, and 5th centuries. But I will not rigorously assert 
 my rights, and he ought to thank me for my forbearance. I at- 
 tach myself to one of his opinions, page 32, where he acknow- 
 ledges that the doctrine of the second century was truly that of 
 the apostles: let us be satisfied with this, and endeavour to make 
 him also satisfied. Among the witnesses of the 2d century, I 
 reckon St. Cyprian, born about the year 190, converted by the 
 aged Cecilius— Origen, born about 165 — Tertullian, born about 
 160 — St. Clement of Alexandria, about 151 — St. Irenaeus, about 
 120— Theophilus of Antioch, about 115— St. Justin in the year 
 103. 
 
 5 
 
46 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 sed in common; and this representation of the whole 
 Christian name obtains among us the greater* venera- 
 tion."* From this institution resulted that kind of 
 consanguinity in doctrine, which existed, as he says 
 in his usual energetic manner, among all the churches, 
 of the Christian world. Does he not likewise refer 
 those, who wished to know the tradition of the apos- 
 tles, to the churches founded by them, such as Cor- 
 inth, Ephesus, &c. See, he adds, what Rome has 
 learned, "what she teaches, and the perfect harmony 
 between her doctrine, and that of the churches of Af- 
 rica." "It is asked," says he in another place, 
 whether no tradition is to be admitted but what is 
 written" — this is precisely the idea sometimes affected 
 by Mr. Faber; and here follows its refutation — "To 
 begin with baptism; when we go down into the water, 
 we protest in the Church and under the hand of the 
 bishop, that we renounce Satan, his pomps and his 
 angels: then we are plunged three times, answering 
 something more than our Saviour prescribed in the 
 gospel. When we come out of the water, we taste 
 a mixture of milk and honey; and from that time we 
 abstain for a week from our daily bath, The Sacra- 
 ment of the Eucharist, ordained by our Saviour at sup- 
 per, and for all, we take in our assemblies before day- 
 light, and only from the hand of him who officiates; 
 we offer for the dead; we celebrate annually the na- 
 tivities of the martyrs. You ask me some law of the 
 scriptures for these usages and others like them; you 
 will find no such law. But we produce you tradition 
 which adds them, custom which confirms them, and 
 faith which practices thcm."f 
 
 - No doubt Tertullian extolled with reason the faith 
 of the churches founded by the apostles, when he 
 
 •Treatise on Fasting, ch. 13. To these councils here spoken of 
 by Tertullian, our learned Usher refers with equal sagacity and 
 justice the most ancient apostolic canons. See what he says of 
 them in Cotelier, No. 8, T. 1, p. 430. 
 
 t Lib. de Corona, n. 3, 4. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 47 
 
 directed persons desirous of knowing what doctrine 
 had been revealed, to such of the churches as were 
 nearest to him. But St. Irenaeus, before him, had ren- 
 dered the most glorious homage to the see of St. 
 Peter; eminent above all others, when he declared* 
 "that all the churches in the world should be in good 
 understanding and accordance with that of Rome, 
 where the tradition derived from the apostles is pre- 
 served in its integrity." Thus the particular councils 
 which, according to the first quotation from Tertullian, 
 were held in Greece, according to the rule establislied 
 from the time of the apostles, and the teaching of the 
 Roman Church, the centre of all churches, according 
 to St! Irenasus, were the powerful motives which pre- 
 served all the faithful in unity of faith and episcopal 
 government. 
 
 I will conclude this digression on the second century 
 by Hegesippus, who in his old age wrote at Rome, in 
 176, under Pope Eleutherius. That Pope succeeded 
 Soter, and Hegesippus had seen him the deacon of 
 Anicetus. Hegesippus had travelled- from Jerusalem 
 into Greece and the islands, had conversed with a 
 great number of bishops, and testifies in a fragment 
 preserved by Eusebius, (Hist. Eccl. lib. 4,) "that in 
 every Church* was held the self-same doctrine, which 
 is contained in the law, in the prophets, and in the 
 preaching of our Saviour. 
 
 Although Mr. Faber, p. 32, acknowledges the doc- 
 trine of the second century to be apostolical, I have 
 thought myself bound to place again before you, de- 
 cisive proofs and undeniable testimonials of it. I have 
 thought it the more necessary to fix your ideas, and 
 confirm them upon this important point, as those of 
 the Rector are wavering; and if he appears, at p. 32, 
 to admit the authority of the second century, he seems 
 elsewhere to reject altogether the tradition of the 
 
 •Lib. 3, contra Haeres, ch. 3. 
 
48 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 primitive Church. Without looking farther than page 
 35, he will hear nothing of decisions, either of Rome 
 or of any other councils. He will have the Holy 
 Scriptures to be the sole judge of controversies. — 
 u As no one pretends," says he, "that we possess 
 any other written, and therefore any other certain 
 revelation; we must evidently begin with rejecting 
 every doctrine and every practice built upon such 
 doctrine, which have clearly no foundation in Holy 
 Scripture." Thus apostolical tradition in this place 
 goes for nothing: but to whom does it belong to in- 
 terpret the Holy Scripture? Is it to be delivered up 
 to private judgment, to the insulated opinion of each 
 individual? This was Luther's resolution: he proclaim- 
 ed for all, the liberty which he had claimed for him- 
 self. Without such liberty indeed his reformation 
 would never have advanced a step. But he was not 
 long without tasting the bitter fruits, which it brought 
 him. He thundered and blushed at the divisions 
 among his followers; but did not put a stop to them. 
 They have never ceased to succeed one another, and 
 tear Protestantism to pieces. All have sprung from 
 the same principle, and keep continually issuing from 
 it, like mushrooms from the earth, as Mr. Faber him- 
 self expresses it. In a word, this principle, which 
 gave life and increase to the reformation, has progres- 
 sively brought on its decline; and will infallibly cause 
 its death. Mr. Faber sees it, and curses its fatal and 
 inevitable eifects: let us mark well this acknowledg- 
 ment. Would Heaven, that his brethren and supe- 
 riors would lift up their voices with him to sound the 
 same warning throughout England! But when a prin- 
 ciple is acknowledged to be thus monstrously abusive, 
 it is not enough to deplore it; they should have courage 
 enough to renounce its consequences. The first of 
 these, not to mention others in this place, was schism. 
 Let then the Established Church return without delay 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 49 
 
 to unity. This must be; or the sects she lias produced 
 will soon be the death of their mother. 
 
 Mr. Faber assures us that the principle of private 
 judgment was not that of Parker and his colleagues. 
 How then did they raise themselves to the head of 
 the ecclesiastical government? Was it not in opposi- 
 tion to the discipline universally established; in oppo- 
 sition to their spiritual superiors, and in open revolt 
 against them, and the canons of the Church? It was 
 then by exalting their private opinions above the doc- 
 trine universally received. The Rector calls those 
 reformers wise and venerable, whom he beholds ne- 
 vertheless enthroned in sees, which were not vacant, 
 but occupied by a right, which violence could neither 
 give nor take away, by bishops who sacrificed their 
 temporal interests to the duties of conscience, and the 
 divine and ecclesiastical laws of episcopal govern- 
 ment. Mr. Faber is in admiration at the conduct of 
 these intruders, p. 40— he proposes it as a model in 
 preference to the decrees of general councils.* A 
 miserable and anticanonical convocation of certain 
 minds groveling before the temporal power, and in re- 
 bellion against the Church constitutes an authority 
 with him; and all the bishops of the Catholic Church 
 in his eyes possess none ! Can you conceive, sir, a 
 blindness, a delirium equal to this? Can the perver- 
 sion of reason go farther? How strong then must 
 be the power of early education, of self-love, party 
 spirit and prejudice, even in minds of superior cul- 
 tivation ! But O God ! what will those ministers an- 
 swer at thy tribunal on a future day, who have led 
 their people astray by such instructions ! 
 
 However, let us see what these "wise and venera- 
 ble reformers," these great models of Mr. Faber's, 
 did at their convocation in 1562. According to him, 
 
 •"Nothing ought to be more venerable upon earth than the de- 
 cision of a true oecumenical council." — Leibnitz, Letter to the 
 Dutchess of Bmnswick, July 2, 16U4. 
 5* 
 
50 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 when the Holy Scriptures did not give them sufficient 
 light, they had recourse to the primitive Church. I 
 know perfectly w T ell that they did no such thing; but 
 let the Rector's assertion pass: and since he recom- 
 mends the imitation of this pretended example, here 
 we are once more led back by himself to the primi- 
 tive Church. Now at least let us endeavour to keep 
 him to it. After the repugnance he has but too often 
 manifested towards it, he seems now to return to it in 
 good earnest, against, his will it would appear, but 
 carried on by a force which is irresistible. At page 
 42, he mentions among the doctors of the primitive 
 Church, Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, 
 Origen and Cyprian; and adds as follows: "The se- 
 veral writers here enumerated, though but few out of 
 many, form a chain, which reaches up to St. John and 
 the apostles. Hence, if we can be morally certain of 
 any thing, we may be sure,* that, in their exposition of 
 scripture, so far as the great leading doctrines of 
 Christianity are concerned, they would proceed, 
 either on direct apostolic authority, or at least accord- 
 ing to the then universally known analogy of apostolic 
 faith." And further on, he says, "Where in her yet 
 existing documents, the primitive Church is explicit, 
 we must, so far as I can judge, on the principles of 
 right reason, submit ourselves to her decision." 
 
 Then it is proved, agreed, and decided between us 
 that the doctrine of the second century was conforma- 
 ble to that of the first, and is known to us by the 
 writings of St. Cyprian, Origen, Tertullian, St. Cle- 
 ment of Alexandria, St. Irenaeus and St. Justin. This 
 is amply sufficient, sir, to enable you to pronounce 
 with safety upon the questions between us. For if 
 you will be at the pains of looking once more into my 
 Discussion Jlmicale, you will see that the traditionary 
 proofs of dogmas and practices, which I defend, reach 
 up at least to the second century, by means of one or 
 other of the very writers whom the Rector has just 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 51 
 
 selected, and whom I regard as well as himself as un- 
 deniable witnesses of all that was believed and prac- 
 tised in their times. From this you will conclude, 
 that if he had reasoned consistently with himself, he 
 would have found himself obliged to agree with my 
 book; since he acknowledges that every doctrine or 
 practice which ascends to the second century, without 
 any known origin posterior to that period, must be 
 apostolical. 
 
 But pray explain to me, my dear sir, what Mr. Fa- 
 ber means, for I cannot understand him, when he pre- 
 tends that the proof of tradition, a as employed by the 
 Bishop of Aire is a mere fallacy, the detection of 
 which is not very difficult" — page 33 — and when he 
 supposes that "I would carry the chain down to the 
 present time," through a space of nineteen centuries: 
 page 45. I confess that he is here quite incompre- 
 hensible. Nothing can be more simple than my rea- 
 soning, which is absolutely the same as his own, and 
 that of every man of sense. In fact what have I to 
 prove? The conformity of any given doctrine with 
 that of the primitive Church; for instance, praying for 
 the dead, confession, satisfaction, or the sign of the 
 cross. Well, sir, am I to lose my time in extracting 
 and accumulating testimony upon testimony, from age 
 to age, from our own up to the apostles? Certainly I 
 shall do no such thing; and for two reasons: 1st, be- 
 cause the belief of the last fourteen and fifteen centu- 
 ries is not disputed, but rather accused of novelty and 
 corruption. 2dly, because my proofs do not derive 
 force from the intermediate generations, but power- 
 fully from the primitive ages. My belief ought to be 
 founded upon that of the apostolic times; and the cer- 
 tainty that they could not have been deceived is also 
 my security. Leaving therefore what is not disputed, 
 I proceed straight to the fifth century, and by the fa- 
 thers who attest the doctrine of their time, I prove 
 that such an article was then taught and believed. In 
 
52 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 the same manner I pass to the fourth century, which 
 abounds like the fifth with ecclesiastical documents, 
 Following the same method, I arrive at the third cen- 
 tury, and take advantage of similar authorities which 
 I find there, and which, though less numerous, are 
 sufficiently so for my purpose. Thus I come to St. 
 Cyprian, Origen, Tertullian, St. Clement of Alexan- 
 dria, St. Irenaeus, St. Theophilus of Antioch and St. 
 Justin; and supported by these eminent personages, I 
 enter triumphantly the second century, and repose at 
 length with the Rector at the fountain of pure and 
 apostolic doctrine. What can he discover in such a 
 progress, which is unfair and fallacious?* If in my 
 Discussion Jimicale I have often quoted testimonies 
 from the fifth, fourth, and third centuries, it was be- 
 cause I was reasoning at the time with able theolo- 
 gians of your communion, who comprise the first five 
 centuries in the primitive Church. The Rector of 
 Long Newton has chosen to mutilate and confine it by 
 his own private authority to the second century. I 
 now accommodate myself with as good grace as pos- 
 sible to this new fancy of the Rector's, though I see 
 what has led him to it very clearly. He was no 
 doubt sharp-sighted enough to perceive, and I confess 
 such perception was just — that he would be more vio- 
 lently overthrown by the whelming force of the autho- 
 rities which would crowd upon him from the centuries 
 he has lopped off, in favour of the Catholic faith and 
 in opposition to his own opinions. 
 
 This brings us to the third chapter; in which Mr. 
 Faber proposes to answer two of my letters; and after 
 all, answers neither. He gives a summary of certain 
 arguments, which he supposes to be mine, but which 
 
 •"In this manner we can reason even at this day; and can there- 
 by make Irenaeus 1 and Tcrtullian's argument our own, provided 
 we have first proved that the faith we contend for is the very 
 same that obtained in the churches of that age." Waterland on 
 Holy Trin. p. 380. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 53 
 
 are foreign to my meaning. If I sought to exhibit all 
 his deficiencies in this chapter* it would be necessary 
 to consume a hundred pages, to expose the five of 
 which it consists. I will confine myself to the defence 
 of what I wrote upon the sixth article of the convoca- 
 tion of 1562. He takes up its cause; and forgetting 
 once more that he has just acknowledged the authority 
 of apostolical tradition, at least to the end of the se- 
 cond century, he maintains here, with those whom he 
 styles his profound and wise reformers, that the Holy 
 Scripture contains all that is essential to salvation. If 
 this be so — since 1 am compelled to use repetitions — 
 what becomes of the necessity of baptism for infants, 
 and the sanctification of Sunday? The Scripture says 
 nothing about either; and yet the Rector admits both, 
 equally with ourselves. What becomes even of the 
 authenticity of Scripture? For this can only be prov- 
 ed by the testimony of the primitive Church; and you 
 will soon see the Rector compelled, in spite of himself, 
 to own it; thus, in the same page, he admits tradition; 
 and rejects it, in favour of the sixth article of his pro- 
 found and wise reformers. 
 
 It is the misfortune of those who take up a false po- 
 sition, to find themselves unavoidably assailed on all 
 sides by difficulties. Tradition presented inextrica- 
 ble difficulties to the chief reformers; they exclaim, 
 "Away with tradition! The Bible! the Bible alone!" 
 and drew up their sixth article. They did not see, 
 and the Rector who defends them does not see, that 
 new and insoluble objections are the only result. In 
 fact, they there lay down as a fundamental principle, 
 that the scriptures contain all that is necessary for 
 salvation. This principle, unless they drew it gratui- 
 tously from their own heads, ought to have been deriv- 
 ed from the Scripture. If so, let the Rector prove it 
 to us: let him produce one. single text, whe/e any one 
 of the inspired writers teaches that we may confine 
 ourselves, both for faith and practice, to what is writ- 
 
54 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 ten; one solitary place, where he declares that the 
 Scripture delivers all that the apostles taught; or if 
 you will, all that is essential to salvation. But where 
 will he meet with such a passage, since we find one 
 absolutely contrary, word for word. "Stand fast; and 
 hold the traditions which you have learned, whether 
 by word, or by our epistle." 2 Thess. ii. v. 14. You 
 see the apostle distinguishes his verbal, from his epis- 
 tolary instructions: he prescribes to the Thessalonians, 
 to keep both equally; to observe the doctrines which 
 he had given them in words, and those which he had 
 delivered in writing. 
 
 The Rector replies that this held good at the time; 
 for, "when that epistle was written, most certainly not 
 
 all the four gospels had been published It is no 
 
 very chimerical supposition, that the matters, verbally 
 delivered by St. Paul, were afterward, in the course 
 of God's providence, committed to faithful writing. 
 Whence it would follow, that the position contained in 
 the sixth article of the angelican Church, though not 
 strictly true when the apostle wrote his second letter 
 to the Thessalonians, may yet, in the sixteenth centu- 
 ry, have been an incontrovertible verity." This sub- 
 terfuge is not without subtility, and even address, if 
 you would so have it * It is only a pity that it wants 
 solidity: it betrays the Rector's embarrassment, and 
 but helps him a little out of it, to throw him into con- 
 tradiction with the Fathers, with the best theologians 
 of his own Church, and even with himself. 
 
 The holy Fathers had the New Testament in their 
 
 hands, as well as ourselves; and yet they did not cease 
 
 to insist on the necessity of admitting the apostolical 
 
 traditions, and to establish the obligation of so doing, 
 
 t 
 
 •It is borrowed from Stillingfleet's Scripture and Tradition Com- 
 pared; from Dr. Patrick, Bishop of Ely, Discourse on Tradition; and 
 from Dr. Williams, Bishop of Chichester, Exam, of Texts, &fc — 
 See {Preservative against Popery, vol. I. Edit. London, in folio— 
 1738. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 55 
 
 upon this very passage of St. Paul to the Thessaloni- 
 ans. St. Chrysostom comments upon it thus: "We 
 see by this that the apostles did not write every thing; 
 but taught many things by word of mouth only. But 
 whatever way they come to us from them, we are 
 equally obliged to believe them. Let us believe the 
 tradition of the Church; it ought to be enough to move 
 us to believe — to know that it is a tradition."* "I 
 should consume the whole day," says St. Basil, 
 "were I to recount to you all the mysteries transmit- 
 ted to the Church, without the Scripture. . . * . Among 
 the dogmas of the Church, there are some contained 
 in the Scriptures, and others come from tradition; and 
 both liave equal force, with regard to our pious vene- 
 ration. For it would be mortally wounding the gos- 
 pel, to regard traditions as things of little authority. "f 
 Yet, this Mr. Faber does; according to St. Basil, he 
 mortally wounds the gospel, by rejecting all that is not 
 written. "We do not rind all in the Scripture," says 
 St. Epiphanius, "because the apostles, who have left 
 us many things in writing, have also left us others by 
 tradition. "J St. Epiphanius, then, was far from teach- 
 ing that all verbal instructions were finally record- 
 ed in the New Testament; and among others, those 
 which were to be observed, according to the precept 
 of St. Paul. Call to mind in this place, sir, the most 
 illustrious example of anitiquity, that of the council of 
 Nice. Eusebius, who had been a member of it, tes- 
 tifies, "that the bishops opposed the false subtilities 
 of the Arians, by the grand truths of the Scriptures, 
 and the ancient belief of the Church, from the Jlpostles 
 to that time." And Gelasius informs us, that after having 
 a long time, maturely and fully considerecf this adorable 
 
 * St. Chrysost. Serm. on the 2d Ep. to the Thess. ch. 2. 
 
 f On the Holy Spirit, ch. 27, on the same passage of St. Paul. 
 
 \ Heres. 75, where you see verbal traditions distinguished from 
 written traditions, long after the publication of the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
56 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 subject — the divinity of Christ — it appeared to all ours 
 at once, that the consubstantiality of the Word ought 
 to be defined as of faith, in the same manner as this 
 faith had been transmitted to us by our holy Fathers 
 after the Jlpostles. 
 
 The Rector and his sixth article, are no better in 
 accord with your learned theologians, than with the 
 318 bishops of the council of Nice. He that will not 
 submit to the current evidence of the ancient liturgies, 
 Fathers and councils, may bring into controversy, not 
 to mention other things received by the Church in all 
 ages, the divine authority of the inspired writings, in- 
 fant baptism, episcopacy, the Lord's day, and even 
 the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and 
 so, at once blow up the Catholic faith and Church."* 
 
 In ecclesiastical history, and there only, I may say, 
 is the decision of all controverted points in divinity, ei- 
 ther as to doctrine or discipline. For every one of 
 them must be determined by matters of fact. It is not 
 refining, and criticisms, and our notions of things, but 
 what that faith was, which at the first was delivered 
 to the saints. This is matter of fact, and must be de- 
 termined by evidence. And where any text of the 
 New Testament is disputed, the best evidence is from 
 those Fathers of the Church, who lived in the apostolic 
 age, and learned the faith from the mouths of the apos- 
 tles themselves, such as St. Clement, Ignatius, Poly- 
 carp, &c. These must best know the sense and 
 meaning of the words delivered by the apostles. And 
 next to them, they to whom they did deliver the same, 
 and so on through the several ages of the Church, to 
 this day. And those doctrines, and that government 
 of the Churcfi, which has this evidence, must be the 
 truth. And they who refuse to be determined by this 
 rule, are justly to be suspected; nay, they give evi- 
 dence against themselves, that they are departed from 
 
 *Dr. Hicks on the Christian Priesthood, vol. I, p, 145. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 57 
 
 the truth."* Those who admit the canon of Scrip- 
 ture, upon the testimony of the Fathers, will find them- 
 selves hard put to it for a reason why they reject tlie 
 very same testimony in the case of church government. 
 For, to admit their testimony in one case, and to reject 
 it in another, equally^clear and universal, is to play fast 
 and loose, and to act upon no principles at all."t "As 
 to the matter in hand, the defender's persuasion is this: 
 1 . Where there is any plain opposition between Scrip- 
 ture and tradition — there, the Scripture must be fol- 
 lowed. 2. That no such plain contradiction is to be 
 found, where tradition appears early and general. 3 
 That tradition is necessary to explain some passages of 
 Scripture, ichere the sense is not clear and indisputable, 
 (and what is there that men will not dispute?) and that 
 without this supplemental assistance, neither the ne- 
 cessity of infant baptism, nor the obligation to keep 
 Sunday, can be made out. 4. That without tradition, 
 we cannot prove the Old and New Testament to be the 
 word of God," &C.J "The admitting such a second- 
 ary proof, (tradition,) in this case, is not derogating 
 from Scripture authority, but is confirming and strength- 
 ening it in more views than one."§ u There would 
 scarcely be the smallest doubt that this doctrine of 
 the Scripture, on the sacrifice, came down from the 
 apostles, and that, consequently, it was necessary to 
 hold to it, even though we should find not a word for 
 it in the writings of the phrophets and apostles; for the 
 precept of St. Paul is universal — My brethren, stand 
 firm, and hold fast the traditions which you have learn- 
 ed, whether by word of mouth, or by our epistles."|| 
 I am happy in being able to quote to the Rector of 
 
 *Mr. Leslie Dis. concern. Eccl. Hist. p. 2 and 3. 
 t -Mr. Reeve's Pref. concerning the right use of the Fathers, rol. 1 , 
 p. 16. 
 X Collier's Vindication, part 1, p. 2 and 3. 
 \ Waterland on the H. Trinity, p. 401. 
 (I Dr. Grabe on a passage of St. Irenaus. 
 
58 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Long Newton, the very doctor from whom he has bor- 
 rowed what I have called a subterfuge. You shall 
 hear, then, Dr. Patrick, Bishop of Ely. The following 
 is from his discourse on tradition: "For in all this 
 Christians are agreed, that whatsoever was delivered 
 by Christ from God the Father, or by the apostles 
 from Christ, is to be embraced and firmly retained, 
 whether it be written or not written; that makes no 
 difference at all, if we can be certain it came from 
 him or them. For what is contained in the Holy 
 Scripture hath not its authority because it is written, 
 but because it came from God. If Christ said a thing, 
 it is enough; we ought to submit to it: but we must 
 first know that he said it; and let the means of knowing 
 it be what they will, if we can certainly know he said 
 it, we yield to it."* And at the end of the first part 
 of his discourse: 
 
 "Whatever is delivered to us by our Lord Jesus 
 Christ and his apostles, we receive as the word of 
 God, which we think is sufficiently declared in the 
 Holy Scriptures. But if any one can certainly prove 
 by any authority equal to that which brings the Scrip- 
 tures to us, that there is any thing else delivered by 
 them, we receive that also. The controversy will 
 soon be at an end: we are ready to embrace it, when 
 any such thing can be produced. 
 
 "Nay we have that reverence for those who suc- 
 ceeded the apostles, that what they have unanimously 
 delivered to us as the sense of any doubtful place, we 
 receive it and seek no farther. 
 
 "In short, traditions we do receive, but not all that 
 are called by that name. Those, which have sufficient 
 authority; but not those, which are imposed upon us 
 by the sole authority of one particular church, as- 
 suming a power over all the rest.f 3 
 
 * Introduction, parag. iv. p. 8 
 
 |End of 1st part, parag. viii. p. 26 and 27. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 59 
 
 It is easy to see that this last stroke is directed against 
 the particular Church of Rome, "with which, never- 
 theless, St. Ireneeus declares, that all others ought to 
 agree, on account of its acknowledged preeminence 
 and authority." But Rome is not concerned here 
 alone; and Dr. Patrick might well have abstained from 
 wrongfully shewing hostility and injustice towards her. 
 He requires, before he considers himself obliged to 
 admit any tradition, the proof of its being apostolical; 
 here he is right. And the proof which Tertullian, St. 
 Basil, St. Augustin, and St. Vincent of Lerins, gave to 
 the heretics of their times, we also give to our separat- 
 ed brethren in England and elsewhere. When they 
 saw an article of faith, of discipline, or practice gener- 
 ally established in the Church, they attributed its origin 
 to the teaching of the apostles; provided, however, 
 that no more recent beginning of it was known. In 
 fact, it is impossible to assign any other cause to such 
 unanimity. 
 
 Mr. Faber is so good as to make me the following 
 "large concession," as he terms it: "Let his Lordship 
 prove that the traditions of the modern Latin Church, 
 are the identical verbal traditions of St. Paul, and the 
 Anglican Church, I feel assured, will forthwith re- 
 ceive them." He must allow me to tell him, that such 
 a sentence leads me to wish that he possessed a fund 
 of sounder theology. First, because the present La- 
 tin Church does not, and even cannot, admit of any 
 other apostolical traditions, than those, which were 
 admitted in the age of St. Augustin. Secondly, be- 
 cause it is not according to right notions of theology, 
 to distinguish in the preaching of the apostles, the 
 teaching of St. Peter, of St. Paul, of St. Matthew, or 
 of any others in particular. Let him consult his an- 
 cient masters; and he will learn from Dr. Stillingfleet, 
 among others, that "We have all the reason in the 
 world to believe that the apostles delivered one and 
 the 6ame faith to all the churches, having the same 
 
60 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 infallible spirit to direct them."* This sameness of 
 teaching, is the source of oral and apostolical tradi- 
 tions; to that must be attributed, all that is uniformly 
 found in all the Christian liturgies of the fifth century, 
 prayer for the dead, confession, satisfaction, &c. I 
 have developed the proofs of this, in my Discussion 
 Amicale. 
 
 Allow me to present you one more quotation at the 
 end of those already drawn from your own theolo- 
 gians. It may perhaps be a little bitter to you to hear 
 the first of your apologists, the celebrated Jewel, thus 
 express himself on the subject of tradition. "Although 
 we have departed from that Church, which they call 
 Catholic; .... it is sufficient for us that we have de- 
 parted from that Church, .... which with our own 
 eyes we plainly saw had deviated from the holy Fa- 
 thers, and from the primitive and Catholic Church. — 
 But we have approached, as near as possible, to the 
 Church of the apostles of the ancient Catholic Bishops 
 and Fathers, which we know was sound, and, as 
 Tertullian says, a spotless virgin, "f 
 
 From this passage it follows that your Established 
 Church separated from ours; that it made a schism 
 between us; and why? Because according to Jewel, 
 our Church had visibly departed from the Holy Fa- 
 thers and the primitive Church. Then according to 
 him, as well as in my belief, we must attach ourselves 
 not to the Scriptures alone, but also, and according to 
 the precept of St. Paul, to the oral traditions known 
 by the teaching of the Holy Fathers; we must sepa- 
 rate from those who separate from the faith and prac- 
 tice of the primitive Church. This is precisely what 
 I maintain against Mr. Faber, whilst he holds against 
 Bishop Jewel and myself, that it is sufficient to be 
 guided exclusively by the Scripture. 
 
 * Stillingfleet's Sermon on Tradition. 
 
 •\JeweVs Jlpology, section x. — CampbeWs Translation* 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 61 
 
 In his celebrated sermon at St. Paul's Cross in 
 1550, three years before the publication of his Apo- 
 logy, Jewel exclaimed thus: a O Gregory ! O Augus- 
 tin ! O Jerome ! O Chrysostom ! O Leo ! O Diony- 
 
 sius ! O Anacletus ! &c If we be deceived 
 
 herein, ye are they that have deceived us. You have 
 taught us these schisms and divisions, you have taught 
 us these heresies.'" After this, enumerating at length 
 the controverted points on the Eucharist, he denies 
 that in the first six centuries, the real presence, the 
 change of substance, the adoration of Jesus Christ 
 present under the species of bread and wine were 
 ever taught; and continues in these words: "If any 
 man alive were able to prove any of these articles, 
 by any one clear or plain clause or sentence, either of 
 the Scriptures, or of the old doctors, or of any old 
 general council, or by any example of the primitive 
 Church I speak not this in vehemency of spi- 
 rit, or heat of talk, but even as before God, by the 
 way of simplicity and truth; .... if any one of all our 
 adversaries be able to avouch any one of all these ar- 
 ticles, by any such sufficient authority of Scriptures, 
 doctors or councils, as I have required, as J said be- 
 fore, so say I now again, I am content to yield unto 
 him, and to subscribe." Is this, I beseech you, the 
 language of a man who believes that the Scriptures 
 contain all that is necessary to salvation? Will Mr. 
 Faber hold such language? Will he who has read in 
 the Discussion Amicale texts so clear and numerous 
 on the real presence, the change of substance and the 
 adoration, engage with me to subscribe upon one sin- 
 gle testimony of the Fathers, to all the rest of the Ca- 
 tholic doctrine? In the place of Bishop Jewel would 
 not he have expressed himself rather as follows: — 
 "Leave all your troublesome quotations from the Fa- 
 thers: shew me your Eucharistic mysteries in the Bi- 
 ble. You will not find a syllable about them in the 
 whole New Testament. Tm> utter eilenca prove* 
 6* 
 
62 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 two things; first, that you are wrong in your ideas of 
 the real presence, since these immediate consequences 
 of it are no where to be found; secondly, that they 
 cannot in any case claim our assent, since all articles 
 of faith ought to be found in the Scriptures, and there 
 they are not." But Jewel holds quite another lan- 
 guage. A Catholic Doctor could not express himself 
 more energetically on a subject of pure oral tradition, 
 or with more veneration on the authority of the Holy 
 Fathers. He was not therefore of the opinion of 
 those, who two years later drew up the sixth article. 
 Jewel, it is trwe, had a seat in their assembly: he 
 ought even to have been the soul of them, as he was 
 the ablest of them all. How then came he to permit 
 such an article to be composed? How came he still 
 further to subscribe it? It is no business of mine to 
 make him appear consistent with himself;* but I flat- 
 
 *Mr. Faber is much dissatisfied with the anecdote I have re- 
 lated of Bishop Jewel in the Discussion Amicale, vol, 2, p. 135. 
 He does not consider it worthy of credit. I will remark, that it is 
 related by Dr. Smith, Bishop of Chalcedon, who printed it in 
 1654, at the age of 87 years, and who therefore was born in 1567, 
 three years at least before the death of Jewel, which took place 
 September 22d, 1571. This Dr. Smith venerated by all who knew 
 him, after a long and saintly career, left behind him a singular 
 reputation for virtue and piety. Such a character could not be 
 suspected of falsehood. He had printed the anecdote first in 
 1614, when the two Catholic Lords were still living from whom 
 he had received it, and also the physician, Dr. Twin, who had 
 told it to these two Lords, as he had heard it from Genebrand, 
 the chaplain of Jewel, to whom the Bishop when dying had con- 
 fided it. 
 
 In 1614 it would have been easy and natural to contradict this 
 narration. But Mr. Faber comes too late at this time of day to 
 call it in question. He has no proofs whatever to weigh against 
 the authority of the pious and venerable Dr. Smith, and justify 
 him in accusing the good Bishop either of imposture or credulity 
 in believing or publishing such a calumny. For the rest, Jewel, 
 brought up a Catholic, became a concealed Protestant under Henry 
 Till, a declared friend of the Zwinglian Peter Martyr, under Ed- 
 ward VI. a Catholic under Mary for a short time, a Zwinglian during 
 his stay in Germany, and Episcopalian in fine under Elizabeth, 
 from whom he did not scruple to accept the see of Salisbury — 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 63 
 
 tcr myself that neither Mr. Faber nor any other will 
 henceforth attempt to defend the sixth article, and 
 support its doctrine. 
 
 What appears particularly to embarrass and cha- 
 grin Mr. Faber, is that he finds himself compelled to 
 have recourse to tradition at the very time when he 
 has just pronounced it of no use. For being soon 
 obliged to express himself upon the canon of the 
 Scriptures, he speaks thus; page 51 — "In the judg- 
 ment of the Bishop, tradition is of such vital impor- 
 tance, that the very canon of Scripture itself depends 
 upon it. By renouncing, therefore, the tradition of 
 the Latin Church, we effectively invalidate the autho- 
 rity of the canon of Scripture." Admire the candour 
 of the Rector. Without appearing so to do, he dex- 
 terously makes me substitute the tradition of the 
 Latin Church, which I never once mentioned, for the 
 universal tradition, which is the sole subject of the 
 present question. "One might almost imagine," he 
 adds, "that our Latin brethren deemed us altogether 
 ignorant of the very existence of the early ecclesiasti- 
 cal writers." No, sir, we imagine no such thing; 
 they are in your hands: we only lament that you after 
 all abandon them. Is not primitive tradition com- 
 posed in fact from their writings and testimonies? 
 Did you not receive from their hands the canon of 
 the Scriptures? You are ready yourselves to assure 
 us that you did so: "we resort not to the naked dog- 
 matical authority of the see of Rome" — you tell us 
 with a tone of harshness, and a want of politeness 
 more in character with the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries than with our own — "but to the sufficient 
 evidence borne to that effect in the yet existing docu- 
 
 He was possessed of much information considering the age in 
 which he lived, and the shortness of his life. It has been said of 
 him, from his writings and conduct, that he had a good memory, 
 but little judgment. 
 
64 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 ments of the primitive Church." Undoubtedly, and 
 this is what I have often represented to you. You 
 ought then in prudence to have given up your sixth 
 article: you ought not to have set out with declaring 
 the Scripture alone sufficient for salvation; and that 
 the instructions verbally given by the apostles had 
 been afterwards inserted in the writings subsequently 
 published by them. You ought not to have said, at 
 the very time when you were forced to observe your- 
 self the precept of St. Paul, that it did not apply to 
 us, and was even inapplicable very soon after it was 
 given. In fine, you ought not to have maintained with 
 so much assurance that the Scripture was all-suffi- 
 cient, at the moment when you were seeking for 
 apostolical instructions in the Fathers, and apart from 
 the Scripture, to prove even its authenticity. Save 
 yourself, if you can, from the charge of self-contra- 
 diction; and look out, if you please, some other than 
 me to make you consistent with yourself. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 65 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 ON THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIRST. 
 
 When I received a letter addressed to me by the 
 Rev. G. S. Faber, Dec. 20, 1825, I imagined that I 
 should find him a man of learning well versed in theo- 
 logical science, in the reading and doctrine of the 
 Fathers of the Church; an ecclesiastic the friend of 
 peace, deploring like myself the fatal separation ef- 
 fected in the sixteenth century, by a policy as blind 
 as it was interested; a pastor disposed to unite his 
 efforts with mine to re-unite Christians but too long 
 separated, and to bring back to the bosom of unity, 
 hearts formed for a mutual good understanding, for 
 loving each other, and conjointly strengthening upon 
 earth the kingdom of our divine Saviour. O flatter- 
 ing hopes and charitable anticipations, why did you so 
 quickly vanish? Why at the very first reading did 
 my antagonist's work present only a mass of imagina- 
 ry Difficulties, laid to the charge of what he chooses 
 to call Romanism? Why so much gall discharged 
 upon the Discussion Amicalc, and mixed with so many 
 unmerited praises of its author, whom he does not 
 know? That Mr. Faber is an able writer, I am quite 
 disposed to think; that he is much followed as a 
 preacher, I can readily believe; but that he is a 
 judicious and pacific controvertist I can boldly deny; 
 and, sir, you will soon be of my conviction by pursu- 
 ing with me his discussion on the Holy Eucharist. 
 
66 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 I. He begins by laying down the question as he 
 understands it; page 52. — "The disagreement be- 
 tween the Church of England and the Church of 
 Rome, in regard to the doctrine of the Holy Euchar- 
 ist, chiefly respects the supposed process denominat- 
 ed transubstantiation Here, if I mistake not, is 
 
 the main disagreement between the two churches. 
 With respect to the doctrine of the real presence, 
 they both hold it." If the Rector were speaking of 
 the doctrine taught in England for one hundred years, 
 or thereabouts, from the reformation of Elizabeth 
 down to 1662, I should be entirely of his opinion; for 
 during that time the real presence was the most pre- 
 valent doctrine. "The King," as Bishop Andrews 
 testifies in his answer to Card. Bellarmine's Apology, 
 "the King (James 1st) acknowledges Jesus to be 
 truly present, and truly to be adored in the Eucharist." 
 I also with St. Ambrose "adore the flesh of Christ 
 in the mysteries." (Bishop Andrews, ch. 8, p. 1 94. ) 
 Would Mr. Faber hold such language ? "The most 
 sensible Protestants," says Bishop Forbes, (de Eucha- 
 ristia I. 2, c. 2, § 9,) "do not doubt that Christ is to be 
 adored in the Eucharist. For in the reception of the 
 Eucharist, Christ is to be adored with the true worship 
 of latria. 'Tis a monstrous error of the rigid Protes- 
 tants, who deny that Christ is to be adored in the Eu- 
 charist, except only with an inward adoration of the 
 mind, but not with any outward act of adoration; as 
 kneeling or other like posture of the body." Yet is 
 not Mr. Faber obliged by the existing rubric, to teach 
 this monstrous error? 
 
 "I suppose," says the learned Mr. Thorndike, 
 (Epil. I. 3, c. 30, p. 350.) "the body and blood of 
 Christ may be adored, wheresoever they are; and 
 must be adored by a good Christian, where the cus- 
 tom of the Church, which a Christian is obliged to 
 communicate with, requires it. And is not the pre- 
 sence thereof in the Sacrament of the Eucharist a 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 67 
 
 just occasion presently to express, by that bodily act 
 of adoration, that inward honour which we always 
 carry towards our Lord Christ, as God? Mr. Fabcr 
 would exclaim, take care how you hold such an 
 opinion." 
 
 I might here also quote Ridley, Hooker, Casaubon, 
 Montague, Taylor, and Cosin.* Such was at that 
 time the doctrine of the most celebrated theologians of 
 the Church of England: they adored Jesus Christ 
 in the Eucharist, because they believed him there 
 present. 
 
 II. With the year 1662 we are introduced to a 
 new epoch. We find your church solemnly proscrib- 
 ing the adoration of the Eucharist.f By a necessary 
 consequence of this sacrilegious proscription, the Cal- 
 vinistic opinion is introduced into the kingdom, it 
 *reaches through the schools, and is heard in the 
 pulpits of the established Church. And in fact, if the 
 adoration necessarily supposes the presence; explain 
 it as you will, the presence obliges also the adoration.^ 
 
 *See the Discussion Amicale, T 1. pp. 314, 315, 316, and Essay 
 towards a proposal for Catholic Communion, chap. 5. 
 
 fSee the concluding notice of the Communion Service in the 
 Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 JChristum in actione coenae vere et substantialiter praesentcm, 
 in spiritu et veritate adorandum, nemo negat nisi qui cum sacra- 
 mentariis vel negat, vel dubitat de pnesentia Christi in ccena. 
 Kemnitius T. 2, Edit. Francofurt. p. loO, No. 4 Exam. Cone. Trid. 
 
 In 1G70 the ministers of Strasbourg presented in a body to the 
 magistrates a request by ■which they demanded, among other 
 articles, that all who approached to the Lord's Supper should 
 be required to receive it kneeling; they instanced the example of 
 the Church in Saxony, and gave as a motive the faith of the real 
 presence, adding that if, according to the expression of St. Paul, 
 "every knee should bow at the name of Jesus," much more should 
 it be done before his sacred person. 
 
 Zwinglius could not comprehend how those who believe Jesus 
 Christ to be present, can escape the guilt of sin in not adoring him 
 (In Exer. Euch. ad Luther.) Calvin declares loudly, and Beza after 
 him, that it always appeared to him most conclusive to say, that if 
 Jesus Christ be present in the bread, he is there to be adored. Ao« 
 
68 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 From the moment it is forbidden to adore, it is equally 
 unlawful to believe Jesus Christ present in the Eucha- 
 rist. We must then pass with Mr. Faber to that 
 kind of change, which he presents us with so much 
 self-complacency, that moral change, which conse- 
 crates the bread and wine, it is true, for a religious 
 ceremony, but leaves them untouched in their sub- 
 stance. Thus the Sacrament will exhibit nothing but 
 empty and material symbols, and we must only speak 
 of it as an inanimate figure without any reality; for, I 
 beseech you, what is a figurative presence, but a real 
 absence? / 
 
 You who have rejected with your Church, the adora- 
 tion of Jesus Christ in his Sacrament; you, who with her, 
 condemn it as a shameful idolatry, how can you come 
 forth and tell us, that you are agreed with us on the 
 real presence? Ah! sir, if you were convinced of this 
 holy presence, you would be seized with awe and 
 trembling on approaching the holy table; you would 
 annihilate yourself before your God, veiled under the 
 sacramental species, but revealed to your faith; you 
 would receive him with every testimony of profound 
 and lively adoration; and after the humble centurion of 
 the gospel, you would say with your forefathers, with 
 ours, and with us, "O Lord, I am not worthy that thou 
 should st enter under my roof; but say only the word, 
 and my soul shall be healed." This was the language 
 of your country, for eleven hundred years. You can 
 no longer hold and pronounce it with the sentiment 
 and attitude of adoration! Alas ! for you it exists no 
 longer — I do not say upon the altar, since you pro- 
 scribe the very name and idea, but upon the table of 
 
 semper sic rationati sumus: si Christus est in pane, esse sub pane ador- 
 andum. (con. Luther.) But neither Calvin and his disciples, nor 
 Mr. Faber and the modern Church of England men, adore Christ in 
 the Sacrament: therefore they do not believe him there present, 
 however strong, and as it were, Catholic, may be the expressions, 
 which they often affect to use. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 69 
 
 the Lord's Supper, — you have nothing but bread and 
 wine. The body of Jesus Christ, you say, is become 
 a stranger to earth and her forsaken inhabitants, since 
 it has been in heaven. Adoration, therefore, in you, 
 would be real idolatry. Tims, Mr. Faber is mistaken 
 when he assigns transubstantiation as the fundamental 
 point of opposition between his Church and ours. He 
 ought to have assigned the doctrine of the real pre- 
 sence, by reducing the first and principal question be- 
 tween Catholics and modern members of the Church 
 of England, to the following terms: Is the body of Christ 
 really present in the Eucharist, or is it not? This 
 question, moreover, holds the first rank, fiom its very 
 high importance. In fact, the conviction of the real 
 presence, gives to the faith of the true Catholic, an 
 impulse perfectly sublime; and then it calls him bark 
 to the acknowledgment of his own lowliness, of his 
 profound unworthiness, and concentrates all his pow- 
 ers in silent adoration. To him, it is a source of the 
 most delightful emotions, and at the same time a prin- 
 ciple of spiritual strength, of love, joy, consolation and 
 hope: in fine, it transports him above all terrestrial 
 things; and in some measure, deifies him upon earth. 
 Tell, me, candidly, sir, has the cold and lifeless opi- 
 nion of the figure ever produced, or can it ever pro- 
 duce any thing like this? 
 
 It is sufficiently strange that a man persuaded of the 
 real absence of the body of Jesus Christ from the sa- 
 crament, should take any great interest in the transub- 
 stantiation. Does any one torment himself to discover the 
 mode of a thing's existence, which he does not believe 
 to exist at all? To what purpose would a man dispute 
 of the manner in which the prodigy of the real pre- 
 sence is effected, if all the while he disavowed the 
 belief of a real presence? Even if the Rector should 
 successfully demonstrate to Catholics, that the change 
 of substance in the Eucharist is inadmissible, he would 
 not thereby prove that the reality of the presence is 
 7 
 
70 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 also inadmissible. He would still have to combat and 
 overturn the Lutheran opinion. For the real presence 
 is understood in two ways; either by the change of the 
 substance of bread, into the substance of Christ's body, 
 as the Catholics hold; or by the junction or union of 
 the .two substances, as the Lutherans contend. On 
 the other hand, the same proofs which establish the 
 doctrine of transubstantiation, demonstrate that of the 
 real presence. As soon as the substance of the sa- 
 cred body has taken place of the substance of bread, 
 we must necessarily believe and adore Jesus Christ, 
 under the figure and form of bread, under the sensible, 
 qualities of a substance which no longer exists. You 
 perceive, sir, that the principal difference, and the 
 greatest opposition between our Church and yours, is 
 in the real presence. Transubstantiation is but second- 
 ary. It springs from the doctrine of the reality, but it 
 follows, and never precedes it. By placing it in the 
 foremost rank, the Rector has made a mistake very 
 surprising in a theologian. He has badly stated the ques- 
 tion, because he has erroneously conceived concerning 
 the Holy Eucharist. He appears to have but confused 
 ideas of our mysteries: and hence he has not perceived 
 the principal opposition of the two churches, where it 
 really exists; but has placed it where it is not. 
 
 III. At last, I arrive at two consoling pages, full of 
 wise and judicious reflections.* I have read them, 
 and read them again with great satisfaction; and I feel 
 much pleasure in thus openly making the acknowledg- 
 ment. Why are such pages so rarely found in the 
 work to which I am replying? If it be truly painful, 
 when we are labouring to reconcile two parties at va- 
 riance, to find in one, hostile dispositions and difficul- 
 ties raised in an arbitrary manner, it is delightful to 
 hear both express the same sentiments on any ques- 
 tion. Here Mr. Faber unites with us in censuring the 
 temerity of those theologians, who inflated with vain 
 
 *pp. 54, 54. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 71 
 
 science, and imposed upon by presumptuous sugges- 
 tions of reason, imagine consequences absurd and con- 
 tradictory in the doctrines of the real presence and 
 transubstantiation * He appears to address such vain 
 and restless minds in these words of Ditton — "They 
 must leave off this quibbling and disputing, and take 
 whatever they find revealed in the gospel; remember- 
 ing that the infinite wisdom and goodness can never 
 possibly oblige them to believe any thing that is really 
 ' absurd and contradictory, .... yet they may be oblig- 
 ed to believe many things which unconquered preju- 
 dice may tell them are absurd and unreasonable, 
 and which they may think to be so, by using them- 
 selves to judge of the ways of God too much by hu- 
 man rules and measures."! 
 
 With Cosin, Bishop of Durham, Mr. Faber ac- 
 knowledges the possibility of the presence in several 
 places, and with Forbes that of a change of substance. 
 The first expresses himself as follows : "We confess 
 with the Holy Fathers, that the manner is ineffable 
 and unsearchable, that is, not to be enquired and search- 
 ed into by reason, but to be believed by faith alone. 
 For although it seems incredible, that in so great a dis- 
 tance of place, Christ's flesh should come to us to be- 
 come our food; yet we must remember, how much the 
 power of the Holy Spirit is above our understanding, 
 and how foolish it is to measure his immensity by our 
 capacity. But what our understanding comprehends 
 not, let faith conceive."! 
 
 Now you shall hear the second: "Many Protestants 
 too boldly and dangerously deny that God has power 
 to transubstantiate the bread into the body of Christ. 
 
 * It is plain that he alludes to several writers well known in 
 Englaud, among others to Tillotson. 
 
 f Discourse concerning the Resuirect. of Jesxcs Christ. — London, 
 1714, 2d Edition, Part I. sec. 4, p. 15. 
 
 X Cosin Hist. Transub. p. 36, sect. 5, n. 4. 
 
72 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 'Tis true all own that what implies a contradiction 
 cannot be done. But because, in particular, nobody 
 certainly knows what is the essence of every thing, 
 and consequently what implies a contradiction, and 
 what not; 'tis, without question, a rashness in any to 
 put limits to God's power. I approve the opinion of 
 the divines of Wittenberg, who assert the power of 
 God to be so great, that he can change the substance 
 of the bread and wine into the body and blood of 
 Christ."* These principles, which are equally those 
 of the Rector, and Bishops Forbes and Cosin, are 
 also quite conformable to those of Grotius, Leibnitz, 
 Molanus, and your most learned countrymen, who 
 would all have repeated that beautiful invocation of 
 one of your bishops: a O God incarnate, how thou 
 canst give us thy flesh to eat, and thy blood to drink! 
 How thy flesh is meat indeed! How thou who art in 
 heaven, mi present on the altar! I can by no means ex- 
 plain. But I firmly believe it all, because thouhast said 
 it; and I firmly rely on thy love; and on thy omnipo- 
 tence to make good thy word, though the manner of 
 doing it I cannot comprehend. "f 
 
 Since the time of this religious and truly philosophi- 
 cal invocation, theology has sustained a terrible shock 
 in your Church. Bishop Ken and Mr. Faber were 
 brought up in quite opposite doctrines on the subject 
 of the Eucharist; the former in the principle of reality, 
 the latter in that of figure, which so far from inspiring- 
 its cold partisans with the sublime faith of the Bishop, 
 would not even allow the Rector to admire it. Still 
 let us congratulate him on his having rejected as rash 
 and presumptuous the consequences, which many of his 
 brethren have imputed to the Catholic doctrine, and 
 censured the declamations with which their pulpits 
 have been made to resound in that positive and deci- 
 
 * Bp. Forbes De Euch. 1. 1, c. 2. 
 
 •f Z)r< Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells. — Eocposition, 1685. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 73 
 
 sive tone, which imposes on minds imcapable of fathom- 
 ing metaphysical questions. 
 
 Mr. Faber, as I feel happy again to acknowledge, 
 beheld the difficulty with a great deal of just discrimi- 
 nation when he reduced it to this simple question of 
 fact: "Was transubstantiation revealed by Jesus 
 Christ or not?" But he soon after without being aware 
 of it, substitutes the dogma of the real presence for that 
 of transubstantiation; for the greater part of his argu- 
 ments are directed against the reality. I am induced 
 to remark this, not so much to reproach him with it 
 as to exhibit the want of accuracy in his ideas. For 
 after all it is evident, that if there be no real presence, 
 there can be no transubstantiation in the Eucharist. 
 Let us now examine his proofs against the real pre- 
 sence. Hitherto it has been the usual course of di- 
 vines to examine the promise made by Jesus Christ, 
 before its accomplishment. Such is not the plan of 
 the Rector: he returns to his usual method of inverting 
 the order of his ideas. He enters upon the discussion 
 of the scripture proofs by the words of institution-, 
 taking care however to discourse later of the promise 
 which our Saviour had made long before hand. He 
 must allow us to bring back things to their natural 
 order: we will follow him afterwards in the inverted 
 march, which he has chosen to adopt. 
 
74 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 CHAPTER THE SECOND. 
 
 PROOFS FROM SCRIPTURE OF OUR DOCTRINES ON THE 
 HOLY EUCHARIST. 
 
 I. I think you will not require me to repeat to you 
 at length the arguments developed in my first volume, 
 from p. 250 to 279. Be so kind as to read again this 
 portion of the Discussion Jhnicale. I content myself 
 with presenting you a summary sketch of the argu- 
 ments which prove that Jesus Christ had promised to 
 give us, not the figure, but the reality of his sacred 
 body. 
 
 1 . He begins by reminding the Jews of the great 
 miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, which had 
 taken place before their eyes the preceding day, and 
 which alone ought to have gained him their entire 
 confidence. He reproaches them with their back- 
 wardness in confiding in him, and establishes his claim 
 
 their confidence. What is the meaning of this ex- 
 ordium, and this manner of opening himself to them 
 imperfectly and by degrees? Whence comes it that 
 la-, reminds them at every turn of the necessity of faith 
 due to his character, his miracles, his heavenly origin 
 and divinity? What is the object of these recommen- 
 dations, precautions and preliminaries? What end 
 has he in view, and what does he intend to propose 
 to them? Certainly something extraordinary, and ex- 
 tremely difficult to receive. Let us attend to his 
 words: "I am the living bread .... if any man eat of 
 1his bread he shall live for ever: and the bread that I 
 will give, is my flesh for the life of the world."* A 
 
 *St. John xl v. 51, 52. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 75 
 
 declaration so strange, so far removed from human 
 ideas, could not relate to a figurative eating, which is 
 simple enough. The natural sense of the words as 
 the Jews have just heard them, astonishes and con- 
 founds their minds. They judge it impossible for 
 them to eat the flesh of Jesus. The carnal manner, 
 which they conceive inseparable from this manduca- 
 tion, evidently supposes the reality; and no less evi- 
 dently excludes the figure. It was the reality, there- 
 fore, which they understood. 
 
 2. So far from undeceiving them, or explaining his 
 words in the figurative sense, our Lord subsequently 
 repeats no less than six times his first declaration 
 with expressions every time stronger. The energetic 
 words in which he expressed himself even shocked 
 several of his disciples; they declared that they were 
 too hard for them to bear. They must then have 
 conveyed the sense of the reality, incomprehensible 
 to the human mind; and not the figurative sense, 
 which is so conformable to our ideas. 
 
 3. Jesus adds, that if they are scandalized at what 
 he has now told them, they will be much more so 
 when they see him ascend where he was before: that 
 is, that the accomplishment of his promise will appear 
 to them much more incredible, when he shall no longer 
 be present before their eyes. But a figurative man- 
 ducation becomes still more easy after his ascension, 
 that splendid proof of his divinity; whereas the real 
 manducation is far more incredible, for you gentle- 
 men especially who are forever repeating to us, that 
 his body is as far from our altars as heaven is from 
 earth. Therefore it was not a figurative, but a real 
 manducation which our Saviour had announced. 
 
 4. Nevertheless, in order to remove from their 
 imagination the crudity of a carnal manducation, Jesus 
 adds, that his words are not to be estimated according 
 to human reason, but according to the enlightening 
 grace of the Holy Spirit. For "it is the spirit that 
 
76 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 quickenetb: the flesh" (or human intelligence) "profit- 
 eth nothing."* But no, exclaims Mr. Faber: "our 
 Lord teaches us, that his language is to be interpreted 
 figuratively, not literally." And I rejoin that it is not 
 so; and cannot be so. For if by this sentence, our 
 Lord had given them to understand • that his discourse 
 was to be interpreted in a figurative sense, those Jews 
 who had revolted at the gross idea of a real manduca- 
 tion, and those of his disciples who had found his 
 words a hard saying beyond bearing, would immedi- 
 ately have been pacified; they would have been re- 
 conciled to the discourse of their master, and more 
 
 * Spiritus est qui vivificat, caro nonprodest quidquam: quod indicat 
 ista Spiritus Sancti auxilio intelligi oportere. Carnem enim, hoc 
 est rationem humanan in hisce divinis rebus nihil prodesse, hoc 
 est, caligare et ineptire. — Centur. Lutheran. Cent 1, c. 4. Mr. Fa- 
 ber would have it that the ancient fathers understood this 64th 
 verse, as he does. He says at p. 87, "that it may be more dis- 
 tinctly seen how widely the ancients differed from the Bishop of 
 Aire, I subjoin, as a specimen, the gloss of Athanasius:" and then 
 he gives a translation worse than incorrect, as will be readily seen 
 by the Latin version of the Learned Benedictines, as follows: 
 "De seipso dixit Christus, filius hominis et Spiritus, ut ex illo, quce 
 cwpus suum spectarent; ex Spiritu vero, spiritualem suam et intelligibi- 
 lem, verissimamque divinitatem declararet, (and after quoting verses 
 62, 63, and 64) nam hie etiam utrumque de se dixit, carnem et spiri- 
 tual: etspiritum a came distinxit, ut non solum quod apparet, sed etiam 
 quod invisibile est credentes discerent ea quae ipse loqueretur non esse car- 
 nalia sed spiritualia. Quot enim hominibus corpus satis esset ad esum, ut 
 Mud totius mundi jieret alimentum? Sed ideo meminet ascensionis Filii 
 hominis in cczlum, ut a corporali cogitatione ipsos retraheret, atque hinc 
 ediscerent carnem, de qua, locutus fuerat, cibum e supernis, cczlestem et 
 spiritualem alimoniam ab ipso dari: nam quce locutus sum vobis, inquit, 
 S]jiritus et vita sunt: quod perinde est ac si diceret: quod ostenditur et 
 datur pro mundi salute caro est, quam ego gesto: sed hoec vobis cum 
 ejus sanguine a me spiritualiler esca dabilur: ita ut haec spiritualiter 
 vnicuique tribuatur, et fiat singulis tutamen in resurrectionem vitoi 
 ceternce." Ep. 4, ad Serap. Episc. Thmuitanum; 
 
 Observe these word s ; but this flesh with its blood shall be given to 
 you by me in a spiritual manner; this is precisely our doctrine. — 
 There is a wide difference between saying that the flesh and blood 
 are given in a spiritual manner, and saying that they are given in 
 figure only. A body in figure is not a body; but a spiritualized 
 body is a real body still. It is such as the bodies of the elect will 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 77 
 
 attached to him than ever. And yet it was immedi- 
 ately after this last sentence that they withdrew, 
 abandoned their master, and walked no more with 
 him ! Therefore this last declaration did not indicate 
 the figurative sense. 
 
 5. Jesus reproaches the disciples with not believing 
 his word: "there are some of you that believe not." 
 But if he had explained himself in the figurative 
 sense, these would have believed; none would have 
 merited the reproach of incredulity. He adds, that 
 no one can believe in what he has said, unless it be 
 given him by the Father. But to believe in a figura- 
 tive manducation, there is no need of any particular 
 grace. 
 
 6. The doctrine of Jesus on the promised mandu- 
 cation prevented many Jews from believing in him; 
 and induced many disciples to forsake him. Now 
 our doctrine on this point prevents many Christians 
 from adopting our creed, and causes some to abandon 
 it; whereas the present doctrine of your Church in 
 general attaches its members to it, and withholds 
 those who would otherwise come over to us. Our 
 
 be in heaven. Semintur corpus animate, surget corpus spirituals 
 The Rector has taken the passage of St. Athanasius in a wrong 
 sense from beginning to end. 
 
 In the Discussion Amicale, pp. 263, 264, vol. 1, I said, Christ 
 when he announced his ascension, insinuated to his disciples, and 
 gave them sufficiently to comprehend, that in the manducation of 
 his flesh, the senses would have no share, as they had imagined, 
 and that his presence would be neither palpable nor visible; since 
 according to this natural presence, they would see him disappear 
 and ascend into heaven. He further instructed them that they 
 ought not to judge of his body as of other human bodies, incapa- 
 ble of themselves of a similar ascension: that his would prove to be 
 divinely constituted; his flesh, that of the Son of God, upon which 
 he could stamp an almighty power, and which he could easily 
 change and give in a supernatural state." I thank Mr. Faberfor 
 having shewn me that without being aware of this passage of St. 
 Athanasius, I had been so fortunate as to light in part upon the 
 ideas of that great Prelate. 
 
78 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 doctrine therefore, and not yours, is conformable to 
 that of Jesus Christ. 
 
 7. Lastly; and I beg you to attend well to this final 
 observation. Several disciples chose to withdraw 
 from their master, even after the declaration he had 
 just made, rather than rely on his word for the man- 
 ner of accomplishing what he promised: — but the 
 apostles remain attached to him; and building on his 
 divinity, depend upon his power for the execution of 
 his promise. But the former would not have abandon- 
 ed such a master through unwillingness to believe so 
 simple a thing as a manducation explained in Mr. 
 Faber's way, in a figurative sense: nor would the 
 latter have needed to rely for their belief, upon his 
 diyinity and omnipotence. Therefore neither party 
 could have understood this manducation in the figura- 
 tive sense of the Rector: and therefore I conclude that 
 the true sense is that of the real presence; that being 
 the only sense which can explain the opposite conduct 
 of the disciples who departed, and the apostles who 
 remained. 
 
 II. I now ask you, sir, if the long and memorable 
 scene at Capharnaum must not have made a deep and 
 indelible impression upon the apostles? In how great 
 expectation must they have been held by a promise 
 so extraordinary and wonderful, that it could have 
 been conceived and proclaimed by none but God him- 
 self! It must have required no less than the miracles 
 which they witnessed every day, and the full convic- 
 tion of the divinity of their master, to keep them in the 
 assurance that he would one day realize his promise, 
 however unintelligible to them was the manner in 
 which he would execute it. This unheard-of scene 
 must have frequently returned to their minds; but 
 especially at the memorable time, when, after the 
 paschal supper, and the washing of their feet, being 
 again seated at table by his order, and seeing him 
 take bread in his venerable hands, bless it, and lift up 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 79 
 
 his eyes to heaven in prayer — they heard him solemn- 
 ly pronounce those words, take and cat, this is my body. 
 These words dart light at once into their minds; their 
 expectation is accomplished, their hope and faith are 
 crowned: and even we ourselves, sir, though at so 
 great a distance from this grand event, assist at it in 
 imagination, and partake of the banquet oi our Sa- 
 viour. We can imagine that we have just heard him, 
 as we heard him before in the synagogue of Caphar- 
 naum. Here as on the former occasion, we enter into 
 the sentiments of the apostles: with them we perceive 
 in a moment the manifest connexion between the pro- 
 mise of this great favour, and its accomplishment; be- 
 tween the food promised, and the food bestowed; the 
 flesh which the Lord was to give them to eat, and that 
 which he actually gives them to eat. We compare 
 the narrative of St. John with those of the other 
 evangelists: these words of the former, "the bread 
 which I will give is my flesh for the life of the 
 world,'" with the words of St. Luke: "This is my 
 body which is given for you." In both, the subject 
 is the same; there, as here, the same meaning, the 
 same mystery, the same truth. We further remark 
 that this great miracle, designated beforehand in terms 
 precise and expressive, is now announced in the most 
 clear and. simple terms which language can furnish; 
 and we say, Jesus Christ pronounced the words of in- 
 stitution in the same sense as those of the promise; but 
 we have just seen that he certainly pronounced the 
 words of promise in the sense of the real presence. 
 Moreover, the apostles must have given to the words 
 of institution the same sense in which they had taken 
 the words of promised but that sense was assuredly 
 that of the real presence: therefore in the same sense 
 they understood the words of institution. 
 
 III. If notwithstanding, it will afford you satisfaction 
 for me to resume the retrograde movement of Mr. 
 Faber, and go back from the institution to the promise; 
 
80 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 be it so, I am quite willing. But what advantage will 
 the Rector gain for his opinion of a figurative presence? 
 This we shall soon see. Whether the words of 
 promise are placed first, or introduced after those of 
 institution, I see no difference, except in the subver- 
 sion of natural order. The intimate relation between 
 them renders them inseparable. They admit not of 
 being insulted, they demand comparison and juxtapo- 
 sition: so close is their natural union. This Mr. 
 Faber ought to admit; for he himself makes use of 
 the 64th verse of the vi. ch. of St. John, to endeavour, 
 if possible, to explain the words, " This is my body" 
 in a figurative sense. He cannot therefore dispute my 
 right to employ the same chapter, to shew that the 
 words of institution import the real presence. 
 
 It is indeed the indispensable duty of every com- 
 mentator to bring together the ideas, which must at 
 that time have occupied together the minds of the 
 apostles. Who can doubt that the astonishing scene 
 at Capharnaum was at this moment present to their 
 memory? Certainly we have sound reason to believe 
 that so extraordinary a discourse as the one held by 
 our Saviour on that occasion, followed up and incul- 
 cated by him with equal force and perseverance, ad- 
 dressed first to the Jews, then to the disciples, and 
 always with particular energy, must have left a deep 
 impression on the minds of the apostles. Judge of 
 this, sir, by St. John. About seventy years had rolled 
 by, when he retraced this scene with so animated a 
 pen, so much circumstantial precision and such confi- 
 dent recollection, that when you read it, you seem to 
 see it passing before your eyes. How much more 
 strongly then must it have been remembered by the 
 apostles at the end of a few months; and especially 
 when being prepared for something extraordinary, and 
 all their attention fixed, and rivetted upon their master, 
 they heard these words from his mouth: Take, eat: 
 this is my body which shall be delivered for you! We 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. hi 
 
 may well suppose them exclaiming at that moment; 
 "Behold now the accomplishment of what he had 
 promised us! This is the bread of which he spoke to 
 us; the bread, which came down from heaven to give 
 life to the world: this is the reality of that mysterious 
 declaration; Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you vat 
 the flesh of the Son of *Uan, and drink his blood, you 
 shall not have life in you .... He that eateth my flesh 
 and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: .... My 
 flesh is meat indeed; and my blood is drink indeed . . . 
 He that eateth my flesh, arid drinketh my blood, abideth 
 in me, and I in him. These words must then have 
 loudly echoed in the ears of the apostles: and I beg 
 you, sir, to tell me honestly, whether such language as 
 this, and affirmations thus repeated can be reconciled 
 with a metaphorical sense; or if they do not neces- 
 sarily exclude a figurative acceptation? Is it not true 
 that the words my flesh is meat indeed, rigorously ex- 
 press the reality? For after all, flesh in figure would 
 be at most but figurative nourishment; it never could 
 be meat indeed. It is therefore manifest, that the 
 words of promise import the reality; and since the 
 words of institution cannot be susceptible of a differ- 
 ent signification, we must acknowledge in them also 
 th e real presence. 
 
 Need I go farther? I am willing certainly, if it be. 
 required, to separate the words, this is my body; and 
 to consider them by themselves. I maintain that they 
 must always exhibit to us the real presence. Other- 
 wise instead of interpreting the words of Jesus Chi 
 we must change them; we must make him say the 
 very reverse of what he did say. For if he only left 
 us the figure, it follows that what he declared to be 
 his body, is not his body; inasmuch as the sign of a 
 tiling is not the thing itself, but only a representation 
 of it. Then instead of these positive words, this is my 
 body, we must make him say, at least in equivalent 
 words, this is not my body, but only the figure of it. 
 8 
 
82 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Moreover, would he not himself have led us astray, if 
 the words we read in his Testament, the living bread, the 
 bread, which came down from heaven — the jlesh,meat in- 
 t i ee d — the body, which shall be delivered, express only a 
 wrong idea; while the words sign and figure, which 
 we do not find at all, are the only ones which will open 
 to us the true meaning of the Scriptures?* 
 
 IV. Mr. Faher with a good grace, surely, represents 
 me as an enemy to metaphors, ready to "make short 
 work with the whole family of them!" No, sir, I am no 
 
 *I observed at page 293 of my first volume, "that before the 
 institution of the Eucharist, bread had never been taken in the 
 ordinary usage of language, as a sign of any thing whatever," Mr. 
 Faber replies, that in the Old Testament bread is sometimes men- 
 tioned as a sign of the body of Jesus Christ. I know it is; and 
 the Rector must also know that a sign exhibited in some parts of 
 the Old Testament is not therefore proved to have been employed 
 in common use, in the language of conversation and the ordinary 
 intercourse of life. This was what I said, and all that it waa 
 necessary to say; particularly when we reflect that before the 
 descent of the Holy Ghost, poor Galileans as the apostles were, 
 could not have been familiar with the books of the Old Testament. 
 
 The Rector observes in a note, p. 92, that according to the 
 ancient fathers, bread and wine in the Old Testament are signs 
 and figures of our Lord's body and blood. And he thence con- 
 cludes that they must be so in the New Testament. But any one 
 would have inferred that they could not be so in the New 
 Testament. For the figures of the Old Testament were not re- 
 peated, but fulfilled by our blessed Saviour. If bread and wine 
 are still only figures in the New Testament, the Rector with such 
 ah opinion, ought to have said, that in the Old Testament they 
 were figures of the figure of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. 
 
 1 say the same of the loaves of proposition, figurative of the 
 bread consecrated upon our alters. If ours is no more than it was 
 heretofore, there is nothing but figure in both Testaments, and 
 reality in neither. I conclude then, that on the one hand, the 
 passages of the Old Testament were bread is given as a figure 
 of Christ's body, do not prove that it was so considered in the 
 ordinary use of language, which was all that I advanced: but on the 
 other hand, they'prove that the bread, which prefigured the body of 
 Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, was to become and did become 
 his real body in the New Testament. And thus, sir, you behold 
 the pretended objections of the Rector become, in reality, fresh 
 proofs of the truth of the Catholic faith: sagitta parmdorum factte 
 sunt plagce eorum! 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 83 
 
 enemy to them; I know too well their value in writing 
 or speaking-, to wish to banish them. But because 
 they are to be welcomed when they appear in features, 
 which are readily acknowledged, docs it follow that 
 wc must admit them, when no such features appear: 
 I can see metaphors in the words, J am a door, or / 
 am the vine. The explanations, which immediately 
 follow them unfold the metaphors, which otherv, 
 were not altogether new. But the words, this is my 
 body, are not followed by any explanation: so that to 
 find their interpretation we must recur to the sixth 
 chapter of St. John; and we have seen that so far 
 from giving any idea of a figure, that chapter visibly 
 imports the reality. 
 
 This I think will suffice upon the arguments for, 
 and against the real presence, drawn .from the New 
 Testament; particularly if taken in conjunction with 
 those, which I have developed in the sixth and seventh 
 letters of the Discussion Jlmicale. To me every 
 difficulty appears cleared up on this subject 3 the ques- 
 tion decided, and the real presence solidly established 
 by the Sacred Scripture- 
 
84 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 CHAPTER THE THIRD 
 
 PROOFS OF OUR DOCTRINE ON THE EUCHARIST FROM 
 
 TRADITION. 
 
 I. A divine, a philosopher — every man accustomed 
 to order in his ideas, will never fail to arrange them 
 on paper with the same attention to method and per- 
 spicuity. Mr. Faber however disdains to follow ser- 
 vilely in the train of the learned writers who have 
 preceded him. He departs from the beaten track, 
 and opens for himself a new one, just as his ideas 
 bear him along from one subject to another. After 
 trying in his fourth chapter to explain in a figurative 
 sense the words of our Saviour, which with sublime 
 simplicity express his real presence; he leaves the 
 Gospel all at once; passes unceremoniously to the 
 writings of the Holy Fathers, which he abandons in 
 the chapter following to resume the Holy Scripture, 
 leaving this again altogether at chapter sixth, where 
 he returns to the examination of the Fathers, which he 
 had begun without being able to finisji. I cannot ad- 
 mire such disorder; I shall pursue the regular course 
 which I have prescribed to myself. I have said 
 enough to establish the truth of our doctrines by the 
 Holy Scripture; I now enter upon tradition, and the 
 proofs, I shall deduce from it will fill this third chap- 
 ter. In the third part of this work, I purpose to col- 
 lect the mistakes, contradictions, studied suppressions, 
 infidelities and false imputations, which are scattered 
 through the whole of the Rector's production. I shall 
 pass over these various matters as cursorily as possi- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 35 
 
 ble, as being of minor importance, and for the most 
 part regarding me personally. 
 
 I must own, sir, I had flattered myself that my 
 three letters on the general and particular proofs 
 from tradition would have found some favour with 
 Mr. Faber. ' But he professes to discover nothing in 
 them but an ingenious and subtile argumentation, and 
 certain captious approximations, capable of deceiving 
 none but the most unenlightened. They have not 
 been elsewhere so esteemed, by able divines of vari- 
 ous communions, and even of his own. It shall be 
 my object to compel him to the same avowal as his 
 brethren, or at least to silence. And I am sure of 
 success, if I can present these proofs to his view, 
 with the force and clearness which are so peculiarly 
 their own. I begin by exhibiting to him and to you 
 an anal}~sis of the three letters, such as it appeared in 
 a French paper at the time when the Discussion Ami- 
 cale was brought over from London to Paris. 
 
 II. a The secrecy universally observed during the 
 first live centuries on the mysteries of the altar, is the 
 principal point on which the labours of the author turn, 
 on the subject of the Eucharist; and may be called 
 the pivot of his demonstration. He beheld the com- 
 mand of this carried so far, that the Fathers did not 
 hesitate to declare that it was better to shed their 
 blood than to publish the mysteries; and that in fact 
 several did shed their blood, rather than reveal them. 
 He saw that this discipline must of necessity be traced 
 up to the apostles; and after establishing this point of 
 history beyond a doubt, he asks himself this question: 
 What then was concealed beneath this secrecy rela- 
 tive to the mysteries of the altar? It must have been 
 either the figure of the Sacramentarian, or the real 
 presence of the Catholic. In the first supposition, 
 there could be no reason for keeping silence; because. 
 with a figure there is no mystery; and the law of se- 
 crecy would in that case have been established not 
 8* 
 
86 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 only without any substantial motive, but even in oppo- 
 sition to the most cogent reasons for speaking freely. 
 The assemblies of the Christians were calumniated; 
 they were charged with unheard-of crimes; the faith- 
 ful were put to the torture to force from them the 
 avowal of what passed clandestinely among them. — 
 Why not then throw open every door? Why not ex- 
 pose to the light the innocence of their religious rites? 
 And why did they not invite the Pagans to come and 
 be convinced with their own eyes, that they took 
 nothing but a little bread and wine, as a sign of mutu- 
 al fellowship, and a memorial of their Saviour? Rea- 
 son, charity, and self-interest, would have obliged 
 them to do this. The secrecy then which they per- 
 sisted in keeping is absolutely incompatible with the 
 belief of the Sacramentarian. 
 
 a In the belief of the Catholic, on the contrary, who 
 does not see the propriety and even necessity of this 
 discipline? The exalted dogmas of our faith are so 
 far above human understanding, that at the first men- 
 tion of them, the Pagans would have derided them as 
 foolish and extravagant, and uttered against them a 
 thousand insults and blasphemies. Their prejudices 
 would have been strengthened against that religion, to 
 which nevertheless, they were by degrees to be en- 
 ticed. Thus on the one hand, the respect due to the 
 mysteries of our Lord, and on the other, the regard, 
 which charity would suggest for the weakness of the 
 Pagans, sufficed to command in the Catholic belief, a 
 careful silence on such doctrines, and not to make 
 them known till after a lengthened course of instruc- 
 tions preparatory to baptism. After this, read the 
 Fathers; read the motives which they assign for the 
 law of secrecy; and you will confess that they are 
 precisely such as I have just mentioned. Conformity 
 of reasons demonstrates conformity of belief. We 
 earnestly exhort our readers to follow up in the eighth 
 letter this first general proof assigned by the author. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 87 
 
 In the development of this interesting discussion, they 
 will at once be convinced of the connexion and evi- 
 dent agreement;between the discipline of the secret, 
 and the Catholic doctrine of the real presence; and no 
 less evidently will they see its incompatibility with 
 the figure of the Sacramentarians. 
 
 For the rest, what to certain prejudiced minds 
 might appear in the eighth letter no more than an in- 
 ference, drawn with more dexterity than certainty, 
 becomes, in the letter following, a positive fact, and 
 thus acquires a force that is irresistible. What in- 
 deed was concealed in part by the secrecy of the 
 Christians? That which was practised in their reli- 
 gious assemblies, and performed at the altar. And 
 what was this? Interrogate the liturgies; they are 
 ready to answer you. About the time of the council 
 of Ephesus they are for the first time produced in 
 open light; previous to that time they had been con- 
 fided to the memory of the bishops and priests; for 
 the danger of the secrets' being betrayed had forbid- 
 den their being committed to writing. But at that 
 period, Christianity having taken the lead, and having 
 nothing more to fear from Paganism, every church 
 committed its liturgy to writing. And what is the 
 information they give you? All, without exception, 
 present to us the altar, the oblation of sacrifice, the 
 real presence by the change of substance, and the 
 adoration. 
 
 Nestorians, Eutychians, Jacobites, are here agreed 
 both among themselves and with Catholics, all, not- 
 withstanding schism and heresy; in spite of distance 
 and separation, in spite of the difference of rites, 
 prayers and solemnities; all in Italy, Africa, Spain, 
 Gaul and Great Britain, as well as in Greece and its 
 islands, in Asia Minor, the Indies, Egypt and Abyssi- 
 nia; all describe to us the same mysteries, the same 
 dogmas; all profess the same faith, and proclaim the 
 same doctrine. An agreement so wonderful, an uni- 
 
88 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 formity so admirable could only proceed from one and 
 the same cause; and that cause would be sought for 
 in vain elsewhere but in the teaching of the apostles. 
 Such is the substance of the second general proof 
 drawn out before us in the ninth letter. 
 
 Its connexion with the preceding proof is this. The 
 secrecy of the Christians concealed the mysteries of 
 the altar. The written liturgies disclose them; they 
 display to us the real presence, transubstantiation and 
 the adoration. Therefore these mysteries were really 
 enveloped in the secret. The facts speak for them- 
 selves, and the primitive liturgies demonstrate by their 
 mutual agreement, the correctness of our views and 
 argumentation. But the secret is traced back to the 
 apostles; the essential part of the liturgy comes 
 equally from them, and both were common to all the 
 churches in the world. Here, then, are two general 
 and certain proofs of the apostolicity of our doctrine 
 on the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 This is not all: the particular proofs are admirably 
 connected with those which are general. For in fact, 
 what the faithful celebrated at the altar, what they so 
 carefully concealed from the non-initiated, was made 
 known for the first time to the neophytes just after 
 their baptism, and before they approached to the Holy 
 Communion. They were detained, that what till then 
 had been withheld, and what they were soon to re- 
 ceive, might be explained to them. And what was 
 then explained ? What dogmas, what doctrine did 
 they then hear? Was it the^wre of the Sacramenta- 
 rian, or the reality of the Catholic? Let us open the 
 catecheses; they will point out the instructions, which 
 were then given. All these so plainly exhibit our 
 mysteries, that it would be impossible at the present 
 day to express in terms more clear, precise, and ener- 
 getic, the oblation of sacrifice, transubstantiation, and 
 the real presence, with the adoration, which it de- 
 mands. Thus then we are assured a second time by 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 89 
 
 the cateclieses* that it was this sublime belief, which 
 was concealed beneath the discipline of the secret. 
 
 "Whoever searches for it, and wishes to see it in the 
 ancient Fathers, must always bear in mind that they 
 spoke or wrote uniformly under the law of the secret; 
 that in discourses pronounced before the uninitiated, in 
 writings destined for the public, always in fine when 
 there was danger of betraying the discipline, they 
 were under the necessity of using obscure and ambi- 
 guous expressions: that consequently whoever is de- 
 sirous of forming clear and certain ideas of what they 
 believed and taught on the Eucharist, should not depend 
 on writings of this kind; because good sense would 
 dictate that clearness is not to be sought, where obscu- 
 rity was commanded. This observation suffices to put 
 to silence every objection drawn from various passages 
 of the Fathers. But when they addressed the faithful 
 only, or wrote for them alone, then freed from re- 
 straint, they could speak of the mysteries without dis- 
 guise; they were obliged by their ministry, to speak so, 
 whenever they had to instruct the newly baptized. 
 These are the discourses and writings, which we ought 
 in these days to consult, in order to become acquainted 
 with their real sentiments, and their inward belief on 
 the mysteries; and in these we find openly, and at 
 every word, our genuine doctrine on the Holy Eu- 
 charist. " 
 
 III. Thus all is explained and understood, all is 
 connected in these three dissertations. FrOm the triple 
 alliance of the secret, the liturgies and the catecfieses, 
 results a complete harmony, and an irrefragable proof 
 of the apostolicity of our doctrine on the Eucharist. 
 The Rector, who appears to have felt and dreaded 
 the force of this triple alliance, attempts to weaken, 
 and, if possible, to break it. He separates the three 
 parts, and attacks them in succession. It becomes 
 then my business to strengthen them one by one, and 
 
90 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 draw closer the cords, which unite them : funiculus 
 triplex difficile rumpitur* 
 
 IV. He begins by condemning, as I did, the extra- 
 vagant opinion of those, who date the origin of the 
 secret discipline from the fourth century. How in 
 fact could it be imagined, that the Church would un- 
 dertake to deprive, in one day, all who were not Chris- 
 tians of the knowledge of mysteries universally diffused 
 the day before? How are we to suppose that such an 
 undertaking could be carried into effect? Mr. Faber 
 acknowledges with me the folly of such a supposition: 
 but soon after, by some unaccountable caprice, while 
 he owns that the secret, as regarded the Pagans, was 
 to be traced up to the apostles, he confines its esta- 
 blishment with respect to the catechumens, to the 
 middle of the second century. What fact, what de- 
 cree, or what monument does he produce in proof ? 
 None at all. In what place, by what order was the 
 knowledge previously communicated to the catechu- 
 mens, withheld from them? The Rector says not a 
 word. He gives us in the outset his own conjecture, 
 without supporting it by a single testimonial. He 
 imagines that St. Paul, full of admiration for the secret 
 mysteries of the Pagans, had some idea of placing 
 under a similar safeguard, those of Christianity; and 
 that a hundred years afterwards, the Church pre- 
 scribed such a law of secrecy with regard to the cate- 
 chumens. He refers to certain passages of St. Paul's 
 Epistles, without quoting them, which appear to him 
 to prepare the way for this discipline. I have verified 
 these passages; and there is not one among them 
 which can justify his conjecture. 
 
 But it must be further observed that the catechu- 
 mens before baptism, were only either Jewish or 
 Pagan unbelievers, who came of their own accord 
 to submit to probation, and demand the instructions 
 
 *Eccle$iastes iv. Y. 1SJ. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 91 
 
 which they were required to go through, before they 
 could be judged worthy of baptism. If there had 
 been no secret with regard to them, before this period, 
 it must follow, that in the primitive days, the Church, 
 forgetful of the precept received from her divine legis- 
 lator, cast the precious pearls of her doctrine before 
 swine. For according to the language of tradition, 
 the pearls are the mysteries, and the swine designate 
 the unbelievers. In fine, those who in this glorious 
 century became Christians, had commenced by being 
 catechumens; and the number of these latter from the 
 days of the apostles to the middle of the second centu- 
 ry is incalculable. Among so great a multitude, it is 
 morally impossible that several attracted at first by cu- 
 riosity, and even by better dispositions, should not 
 have been disgusted, and abandoned the austere and 
 fatiguing course of probation and instructions, to re- 
 turn to the religion of their Fathers. They would then 
 have carried away with them into the world the know- 
 ledge of the mysteries; they would have communica- 
 ted it to their relations and friends, and to all who 
 cared to be informed of it. There would in such a 
 case have been no longer any secret for the catechu- 
 mens, or even for the Pagans. So far, sir, are we led 
 by the arbitrary and ill-digested supposition of Mr. 
 Faber. Let us leave it then for what it is worth; and 
 consider it as never proposed: for what settles the 
 question against the Rector in one word, is, that all the 
 ancient liturgies exclude the catechumens before the 
 celebration of the mysteries. This rule is general: 
 therefore apostolical. 
 
 FIRST GENERAL PROOF— THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 SECRET. 
 
 I. I now pass on to the general proof, which I ex- 
 tracted from the discipline of the secret; not however 
 that I ever insisted that the Eucharist was its sole, ex- 
 clusive, or even principal object. The Rector makes 
 
92 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 me assert this in his book, though he knows that I ne- 
 ver said it in mine; he repeats it to satiety, as if to 
 shew me up to his readers as in error, and enjoy a vic- 
 tory as easy as it is imaginary. Let him exult; I offer no 
 interruption: I shall not disturb his triumph; I am ambi- 
 tious of one more real and substantial; I will establish 
 it upon incontestable monuments. Without producing 
 them all, I will present you with several; and if I 
 fatigue you with their number, you must blame the 
 man who compels me to it. You shall see the disci- 
 pline of the secret in vigour, from the epoch of the 
 council of Ephesus in 431, up to the days of the 
 apostles. 
 
 II. Century 5th. I begin with the celebrated presi- 
 dent of the above mentioned council: these are the words 
 of St. Cyril of Alexandria in his seventh book against 
 Julian. He does not notice the objections of that empe- 
 ror against baptism, but contents himself with saying, 
 that "these mysteries are so profound, and so exalted, 
 that they are intelligible to those only, who have faith; 
 that therefore he shall not undertake to speak on what is 
 most admirable in them, lest by discovering the myste- 
 ries to the uninitiated, he should offend Jesus Christ, 
 who forbids us to give what is holy to dogs, and to 
 cast pearls before swine." Observe, sir, that ac- 
 cording to this learned Patriarch, the precept of the 
 secret discipline comes from Jesus Christ himself: and 
 pray bear in mind this important testimony, which will 
 furnish later the solution of a difficulty, which the 
 Rector imagines to be insoluble. After saying some 
 little of baptism, he adds: "I should say much more, 
 if I were not afraid of being heard by the uninitiated: 
 because men generally deride what they do not under- 
 stand; and the ignorant, not even knowing the weak- 
 ness of their minds, despise what they ought most to 
 venerate." 
 
 "It is requisite," says St. Isidore, of Pelusium, to 
 have in the heart zeal, and the love of virtue, in order 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 9$ 
 
 to eat worthily the true and divine passover. They 
 fully comprehend my meaning, who folio wing the sane- 
 tion of the Legislator, have been initiated in the mys- 
 teries."" It was therefore by order of the divine Le- 
 gislator that they spoke clearly of the mysteries on- 
 ly to the initiated; and the mysteries of the Eucharist 
 were comprehended in the number. 
 
 Innocent first wrote thus to the Bishop Decentius: 
 "I cannot transcribe the words (the form of confirma- 
 tion) for fear of appearing rather to betray, than reply 
 to your consultation". . . .and farther on; . . . ."as to 
 those things which it is not lawful to write, I can 
 tell you them when you arrive." 
 
 In the first of his three dialogues, Theodoret intro- 
 duces Orthodoxus speaking thus: "Answer me, if you 
 please, in mystical and obscure words; for perhaps 
 there are persons present who are not initiated in the 
 mysteries. Eranistes — I shall understand you, and 
 answer you with the same precaution;" and farther on, 
 "You have clearly proved what you intended, though 
 under mystical terms." In the second dialogue, Era- 
 nistes asks: "How do you call the gift which is offered 
 before the invocation of the priest? We must not 
 mention it openly," replies Orthodoxus, "because we 
 may be overheard by persons, who are not initiated. 
 Therefore speak in disguised and enigmatical terms; 
 a food made of such a seed." The same Theodoret 
 in his preface to Ezechiel traces up the secret disci- 
 pline to the precept of Jesus Christ. "The divine 
 mysteries are so august, that we are bound to keep 
 them with the greatest caution: and to use the words 
 of our Lord, these pearls ought never to be cast be- 
 fore swine. For indeed men finish with despising 
 what they have obtained without difficulty." 
 
 St. Augustin in his discourses before catechumens, 
 or in such writings as might fall into their hands, never 
 failed to conceal from them the mystery of the Eucha- 
 rist. His ordinary expession was, u the faithful kno\» 
 9 
 
94 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 it." In his fourth sermon on Jacob and Esau, speak- 
 ing of this mystery, he does not venture to call it the 
 sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, but 
 only "the sacrament known to the faithful, made from 
 corn and wine." In his epistle to the catechumen 
 Honoratus, he says, "We render thanksgiving to the 
 Lord our God in the great Sacrament, in the sacrafice 
 of the new law: when once you have been baptized, 
 you will know where, when, and how it is offered.''' 
 Speaking of the manna in the 12th treatise on St. John; 
 "We know what the Jews received; and the catechu- 
 mens do not know what the Christians receive." And 
 in the preceding treatise: "Ask a catechumen if he 
 eats the flesh of the Son of man, and drinks his blood; 
 he does not know what you mean; .... the catechu- 
 mens do not know what the Christians receive .... 
 the manner in which the flesh of our Lord is received, 
 is a thing concealed from them." "What is there hid- 
 den from the public in the Church?" he says in his first 
 discourse on the 103d psalm. "The sacraments of 
 Baptism and the Eucharist. The Pagans see our good 
 works, but not the sacraments. But it is precisely 
 from those things, which are concealed from their 
 sight, that those spring, which cause their admiration." 
 And in the 10th sermon on St John, "Those who 
 know the scriptures, understand perfectly what Met- 
 chisedech offered to Abraham; we must not here 
 make mention of it, because of the catechumens: 
 nevertheless the faithful are acquainted with it." 
 
 III. Fourth century. — St. Chrysostom takes occa- 
 sion from baptism to express himself as follows, on the 
 secrecy of the mysteries in general: Homil. 40 on 1 
 Corinth. a I wish to speak openly, but I dare not, on 
 account of those who are not initiated. These persons 
 render explanation more difficult for us; by obliging us 
 either to speak in obscure terms, or to unveil the things 
 which are secret: yet I shall endeavour as far as possi- 
 ble to explain myself in disguised terms." "Take care 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 95 
 
 not to give that which is holy to dogs, and to cast pearl 
 before swine," says he in his first book on compunction 
 of heart. He takes occasion from this divine precept 
 to declaim against the abuses of granting baptism to 
 catechumens not properly disposed, and admitting to 
 the holy table impure and corrupt Christians. In the 
 letter in which he informs the Sovereign Pontiff, Inno- 
 cent the First, of the tumult excited against him in his 
 Church, he relates that the seditious persons, among 
 wlwm were many of the uninitiated, forced a passage 
 to the place where the sacred things were deposited: 
 that they saw every thing there, and that the most holy 
 blood of Jesus Christ was spilt upon their garments. 
 Palladius giving an account of the same sedition in his 
 life of St. Chrysostom, says only that the symbols 
 were spilt. You see here the difference of expression: 
 the Patriarch uses no circumlocution in a confidential 
 letter to the head of the Church; but Palladius speaks 
 with reserve, and in disguised terms in a history in- 
 tended for the public. For the sake of brevity, I will 
 repeat to you the words of your learned Casaubon. 
 "Is there any one so much a stranger to the reading 
 of the Fathers, as to be ignorant of the usual form of 
 expression, which they adopt when speaking of the 
 sacraments, the initiated know what I mean? It occurs 
 at least fifty times in the writings of Chrysostom alone, 
 and as often in those of Augustin." 
 
 : I am ashamed," said St. Gregory of Nyssa, to an 
 aged catechumen, "to see that after having grown old 
 in probation, you still suffer yourself to be sent out 
 with the catechumens, like a little weak boy who 
 does not know how to take care of what is entrusted 
 to him; join yourself to the mystic people, and become 
 at length acquainted with our secret dogmas." 
 
 St. Gregory Nazianzen says that the greater part 
 of our mysteries ought not to be exposed to strangers; 
 and further, that "we ought rather to shed our blood 
 than publish them." Orat. 42, et 35. 
 
96 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 "We receive," said St. Basil, "the dogmas trans- 
 mitted to us by writing-, and those which have de- 
 scended to us from the apostles, beneath the veil and 
 mystery of oral tradition — the words of invocation in 
 the consecration of the bread, and of the Eucharistic 
 chalice; which of the saints have left us them in wri- 
 ting ? The apostles and fathers, who prescribed from 
 the beginning certain rites to the Church, knew how to 
 preserve the dignity of the mysteries by the secrecy 
 and silence in which they enveloped them. For what 
 is open to the ear and the eye can no longer be mys- 
 terious. For this reason several things have been 
 handed down to us without writing, lest the vulgar, too 
 familiar with our dogmas, should pass from being ac- 
 customed to them, to the contempt of them. A dogma 
 
 is very different from a sermon Beautiful and 
 
 admirable discipline! For how could it be proper to 
 write or circulate among the public, what the uniniti- 
 ated are forbidden to contemplate?" (On the Holy 
 Ghost, c. 27.) 
 
 Listen to the synod of Alexandria, speaking of the 
 Eusebians, enemies of St. Athanasius, in 340. "They 
 are not ashamed to celebrate the mysteries before the 
 catechumens, and perhaps even before the Pagans, 
 forgetting that it is written, that we should hide the 
 mystery of the King; and in contempt of the precept 
 of our Lord, that we must not place holy things before 
 dogs, nor pearls before swine. For it is not lawful to 
 shew the mysteries opeyily to the uninitiated; lest through 
 ignorance they scoff at them, and the catechumens be 
 scandalized through indiscreet curiosity."* 
 
 St. Epiphanius (Anchor. No. 37) wishing to prove 
 that the allegories of Origen were to be rejected, and 
 that we must believe things without always seeing the 
 
 * These motives were no less strong in the first century, in which 
 the Rector gratuitously conjectures that the mysteries were 
 open to the catechumens. The synod was accountable to all the 
 Bishops for the catholicity of its condemnation of the Eusebians. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 07 
 
 reason for them, quotes the Eucharist as an example. 
 "We see that our Lord took a thing into his hands, as 
 we read in the gospel, that he rose from table, that he 
 resumed the things, and having given thanks, he said, 
 this is this of mine. Hoc meam est /ioc." This singu- 
 lar turn of expression and reservation conveyed no 
 meaning to those who are uninitiated. But ought it not 
 to speak very loudly to Mr. Faber? What think jou, 
 Sir? Does it favour the opinion of a figurative pre- 
 sence? And do you not at first sight penetrate the 
 meaning of the enigma? 
 
 St. Jerome replying to Evagrius, who had consulted 
 him on an obscure passage of the apostle, touching the 
 sacrafice of Melchisedech, says: "You are not to 
 suppose that St. Paul could not easily have explained 
 himself; but the time was not come for such explana- 
 tion: he sought to persuade the Jews, and not the 
 faithful, to whom the mystery might have been deliver- 
 ed without reserve." 
 
 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, expresses himself as fol- 
 lows, (Catech. 6, No. 29) — "We do not speak clearly 
 before the catechumens on the mysteries, but are 
 obliged often to use obscure expressions, in order that 
 while we are understood by the faithful who are in- 
 structed, those who are not so may suffer injury." 
 And in Catech. 18, No. 32, 33, "at the approach of 
 the holy festival of Easter, — you shall be instruct- 
 ed, with God's grace, in all that it is proper for you 
 to know; with what devotion, and in what order you 
 
 are to enter the laver of regeneration, with what 
 
 reverence you must proceed from baptism to the holy 
 altar of God, to taste the spiritual and heavenly mys- 
 teries which are there dispensed after the holy 
 
 and salutary day of Easter, you shall hear, if it 
 
 please God, other catechetical instructions and 
 
 on the mysteries of the New Testament which are 
 celebrated upon the altar, and had their beginning in 
 this city, all that is taught of them by the Divine 
 9* 
 
98 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Scriptures, as also what is their force and power; in 
 ike, how you are to approach to them; and when, 
 and how they are to be celebrated. " Nothing marks 
 more forcibly the importance of the secret, than the 
 notice placed by St. Cyril at the end of the preface at 
 the head of his catecheses; the last five of which 
 disclose the mysteries of Baptism, Confirmation, and 
 the Eucharist. It is as follows: "Give these cate- 
 cheses, made for their instruction, to be read by those 
 who approach to baptism, and by the faithful who 
 have already received it. But as for the catechumens, 
 and those who are not Christians, take care not to 
 communicate them to such. Otherwise take notice, 
 you will be accountable to God. If you transcribe a 
 copy of them, do it I conjure you, as in the presence 
 of the Lord.' 1 
 
 St. Gaudentius, Bishop of Brescia, contemporary 
 with St. Cyril, speaking to the neophytes on their 
 return from baptism, said to them; "In the lesson 
 which you have just heard from Exodus, I shall choose 
 such parts as cannot be explained in presence of 
 catechumens, but which it is necessary to disclose to 
 neophytes." In another place he proclaims; "that 
 the splendid night of Easter requires him to confess 
 less to the order of the text, than to the wants of the 
 occasion; so that the neophytes may learn the esta- 
 blished rule for eating the paschal sacrafice, and the 
 faithful who are instructed may recognize it." (Trea- 
 tise 5 on Exodus.) 
 
 St. Ambrose, in his book on the mysteries, c. 1 , n. 2, 
 says — "The time admonishes us to treat of the myste- 
 ries, and to explain the meaning of the sacraments. If 
 before your baptism and initiation we had thought of 
 sneaking to you on these subjects, we should have 
 appeared rather to betray than explain them." 
 
 "It is not given to all to contemplate the depth of 
 our mysteries. Our Levites exclude from them at 
 rirst, that they may not be seen by those who ought 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 99 
 
 not to behold them, nor received by those who cannot 
 preserve them." In his book, De Olliciis, "Every 
 mystery should remain concealed, and covered by 
 faithful silence, lest it should be rashly divulged -to 
 profane ears." And upon this verse of psalm 118, / 
 hare hidden thy words in my soul, that I may not sin 
 against tlice: "he sins against God, who divulges to the 
 unworthy, the mysteries confided to him. The danger 
 is not only of telling falsehoods, but also truths, if 
 persons allow themselves to give hints of them to those, 
 from whom they ought to be concealed." And he 
 opposes such indiscretion by the words of our Saviour. 
 "Beware of casting pearls before unclean animals.'" 
 
 IV. Third century. — Zeno, Bishop of Verona, in a 
 discourse on continence, exhorts the Christian woman 
 not to marry an infidel, for fear she might betray to 
 him the law of secrecy, ne sis proditrix legis. And he 
 adds, "Know you not that the sacrifice of the unbe- 
 liever is public, but yours secret? That any one may 
 freely approach to his, while even for Christians, if 
 they are not consecrated, it would be a sacrilege to 
 contemplate yours?" In a discourse on the 126th 
 psalm, we read these words. — "Custom has given the 
 name of the house of God, or temple, to the place of 
 our assemblies, which are surrounded with walls, in 
 order to secure the secret celebration of our sacra- 
 ments."' 
 
 St. Cyprian thus begins his book against the pro- 
 consul of Africa: "Till now I had despised the impie- 
 ties and sacrileges which thy mouth discharged inces- 
 santly against the only true God;" he adds, that if he 
 had been silent, it was not without the command of his 
 Divine Master, "who forbids us to give that which is 
 holy to dogs, and to cast pearls before swine." He 
 contents himself with establishing the unity of God, 
 without saying a word on the Trinity, or the sacra- 
 ments of the Church. 
 
100 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Origen, in his 13th homily on Exodus, preparing to 
 treat of the mystery of the Eucharist, says: "I am 
 afraid and doubt much if I shall find suitable hearers, 
 and that I shall be demanded an account of the pearls 
 of the Lord; where, how, and before whom I have 
 produced them." And in a homily on Leviticus, "Do 
 not stop at. flesh and blood, (the lambs and goats 
 spoken of by Moses) but learn rather to discern the 
 blood of the world; hear what he himself says: This 
 is my blood which shall be shed for you. Whoever is 
 instructed in the mysteries knows the flesh and the 
 blood of the Word of God. Let us not dwell on the 
 subject, which is known to the initiated, and which 
 the uninitiated ought not to know." 
 
 The very ancient author of the Apostolic Constitu- 
 tions, book 3, ch. 5, admonishes, "that in speaking of 
 mystic things, care must be taken not to be indiscreet, 
 and to express one's self prudently, bearing in mind the 
 w r ords of our Saviour, c do not cast pearls before 
 swine, lest they trample them under foot.' " 
 
 St. Clement of Alexandria,, in the first book of his 
 Stromata, says — "I pass over intentionally several 
 things, fearing to commit to writing what I took great 
 care not to say, lest those who read these waitings 
 should take my words in an improper sense, and we 
 should be accused, as the proverb says, of putting a 
 sword into the hands of a child. There are certain 
 tilings which the Scripture will show r me, though they 
 are not there openly expressed .... there are some 
 which it will only touch upon; but it w r ill endeavour to 
 say them under a veil, to disclose them while it con- 
 ceals them, and to shew them while it is one's self." 
 
 Tertullian seeking to deter his wife from marrying 
 an infidel if she should survive him, says to her 
 among other reasons: u You would thereby fall into 
 this fault, that the Pagans would come to the know- 
 ledge of our mysteries Will not your husband 
 
 know what you taste in secret, before any other food; 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISNf. 101 
 
 and if he perceives bread, will he not imagine that it 
 Is that so much spoken of?" Therefore secrecy co- 
 vered the mysteries of the Eucharist. 
 
 In the liturgy called that of the apostles, and later 
 of St. John Chrysostom, the priest and deacon bow- 
 ing down, and each holding a part of the sacred host, 
 make together an admirable confession, which begins 
 thus: "I believe O Lord, and confess that thou art the 
 Christ, the 'Son of the living God, who didst come 
 into the world to save sinners, of whom 1 am the chief; 
 let me partake of thy mystical supper. I will not re- 
 veal the mystery to thine enemies." Therefore the 
 Eucharistic mysteries were covered by secrecy.* 
 
 The author of the Recognitions, which are very an- 
 cient, since they were translated by Rufinus in the 
 fourth century, proves as follows, the difficulty of 
 preaching before a multitude: "For what is, cannot 
 be said to all as it is,f on account of those who give a 
 captious and malignant ear. What tlien icill he do icho 
 imparts the word to a erowd of people unknown? Will 
 he conceal the truth? But how then can he instruct 
 those who are deserving? If however he exhibits the 
 clear truth before those who are indifferent about sal- 
 vation, he is wanting to him, by whom he is sent, and 
 from whom he has received orders not to cast the 
 pearls of doctrine before swine and dogs, who would 
 be furious against it by arguments and sophisms, 
 envelope it in the mire of their sordid and carnal under- 
 standing, and by their barking and disgusting replies 
 would tear and fatigue the preachers of God." 
 
 *This liturgy is still followed by all the Greeks, who are in the 
 West, at Rome, in Calabria and Apulia, by the Georgians, the 
 Bulgarians, the Russians, and Muscovites; by all the Christians, 
 the modern Melchites under the patriarch of Alexandria, resident 
 at Cairo, under the patriarchs of Jerusalem and of Antioch, resi- 
 dent at Damascus — Set P. It Brun Ceremonies of the Mast, T. 4, 
 in Svo. 
 
 fBook 30. 
 
102 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 V. Second and first centuries. — The secrecy of the 
 first Christians on the Eucharistic dogmas is demon- 
 strated from the unworthy calumnies spread and be- 
 lieved in the pagan world against their assemblies; by 
 the punishments employed to extort from the Chris- 
 tians an avowal of what they practised, and by the 
 origin of these calumnies and cruelties which dates 
 from the first century. 
 
 Tertullian, in his Apology, exclaims wh*en repelling 
 the accusations of infanticide and impurities; "Who are 
 those who have made known to the world these pre- 
 tended crimes? are they those who are accused? But 
 how could it be so, since it is the common law of all 
 mysteries to keep them secret? If they themselves made 
 no discovery, it must have been made by strangers. 
 But how could they have had any knowledge of them, 
 since the profane are excluded from the sight of the most 
 holy mysteries, and those are carefully selected who 
 are permitted to be spectators?" The Pagans then 
 were ignorant of what passed in "the assemblies of the 
 Christians; and this ignorance evidently pre-supposes 
 the secrecy preserved by the faithful. The object of 
 this secrecy was the Eucharistic bread; the mysteries 
 of the altar. For these alone could have given rise to 
 the calumnies, while at the same time the sight of 
 them was forbidden to the profane, and permitted 
 solely to chosen spectators. These reports indicate 
 manifestly the Sacrament of the body and blood of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Let us hear the Pagan Cecilius, in the curious and 
 interesting dialogue of Minutius Felix, which I recom- 
 mend you to read: "Shall we allow men of an infamous 
 and desperate faction to attack the Gods with impuni- 
 ty; and gathering together an ignorant rabble and cre- 
 duluos women, instruct them for a profane society, not 
 to say a conspiracy, which is not done by any holy 
 ceremony, but by sacrileges, nocturnal assemblies, 
 solemn fasts and horrible meats: people who love 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 103 
 
 darkness and fly from the light; who say nothing in 
 public, and talk incessantly when assembled together 
 — -this evil sect increases every day; wherefore wc 
 must endeavour to extirpate this execrable society. 
 They know one another by certain secret signs, and 
 love one another almost before they are acquainted. 
 Lust forms a part of their religion: they commonly call 
 themselves brothers and sisters, to make simple forni- 
 cation become incest by this sacred name; so much do 
 these wretched people indulge in crimes. Certainly 
 if there were not such crimes among them, there 
 would not be so loud a cry against them. The cere- 
 mony which they observe, when they admit any one 
 to their mysteries, is not less horrible because it is 
 public. They place before the new comer an infant 
 covered with paste, in order to conceal the murder 
 which they will have him commit. At their bidding 
 he gives it several stabs with a knife. The blood runs 
 on all sides; they eagerly suck it up; and the common 
 crime is the common pledge of silence and secrecy. 
 Their banquets are also known; and our Cirtensis 
 makes mention of them in his harrangue. They all 
 assemble on a solemn day, men, women, children, 
 brothers and sisters of all ages and both sexes; and 
 after having well eaten and drunk, as the heat of the 
 wine and the meat begins to provoke them to lust, 
 they throw something to a dog who is tied to a chan- 
 delier, and throw it so far that he cannot reach it, on 
 purpose that in springing forward he may overturn 
 the lights. Thus having got rid of the sole witness of 
 their crimes, they are guilty of promiscuous inter- 
 course; and by this means are all incestuous in will, if 
 not in effect, since the sin of each one is the wish of 
 the whole company. I pass over many things design- 
 edly; and indeed here are already too many. And 
 truly the darkness, which they seek for their myste- 
 ries, are sufficiently evident proof of all we say, or at 
 least the greater part of it. For why conceal all that 
 
104 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 they adore? We are not afraid to publish what is 
 proper: crimes only demand secrecy and silence." 
 
 Mr. Faber could have no motive to make him 
 afraid of communicating openly to Cecilius his opin- 
 ion of a figurative manducation, of a moral change in 
 the substance of the bread, of the real absence of 
 Jesus Christ. The Christian Octavius has no such 
 replies to make. He does not disclose what is believ- 
 ed, nor what is done: he contents himself with repel- 
 ling the infamous calumnies. "I would now," he re- 
 plies, "address myself to those who say, or who 
 oelieve that the murder of an infant is the ceremony 
 of introduction to our mysteries. Do you then think 
 it possible that a poor infant, a little body so tender is 
 destined to die beneath our violence; and that we shed 
 the blood of a being newly born, as yet of imperfect 
 form, and scarcely a human being? Let those believe 
 it, who could be cruel enough to perpetrate it. You 
 indeed expose your children to savage beasts, and 
 birds, as soon as they are born, you strangle and suf- 
 focate them: there are even some who by cruel po- 
 tions murder them in their wombs, and kill them 
 before they see light. This you have learned from 
 your Gods. . . . Nor are those far removed from 
 such a crime, who feed on savage beasts just come out 
 of the ampitheatre, all bloody and full of those whom 
 they have just devoured. As for us, we are not allow- 
 ed to see murders, nor to hear them; and blood so fills 
 us with horror, that we do not even eat that of 
 animals. As to the incestuous banquet, it is a calum- 
 ny invented by the devils to sully the glory of our 
 chastity, and deter men from our religion by the 
 horror of so great a crime. What your orator Cir- 
 tensis has said is rather an injurious accusation than a 
 testimony. And truly you are far more guilty of in- 
 cest than we .... and thus you accuse us of false 
 incestuous actions, while you have little remorse in 
 committing real ones. But the Christians do not place 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 105 
 
 chastity only in the exterior, they place it in the mind, 
 and do not so much study to appear chaste, as to be 
 60 in reality: .... and if we are chaste in our assem- 
 blies, we are no less so in all other places. Many 
 preserve the holiness of celibacy even until death, 
 without any boasting: and so far are we from incest, 
 that some are ashamed even of lawful pleasures." 
 
 "If our accusers are asked," said Athenagoras, "if 
 they have seen what they assert, there will none be 
 found impudent enough to say that they have. How 
 can they accuse those of killing and eating human 
 beings, who, it is well known, cannot bear the sight of 
 a man put to death even justly? Men like us, who 
 have renounced the spectacles of gladiators and wild 
 beasts, believing that there is little difference between 
 seeing a murder and committing one?" 
 
 "Those," said St. Justin,* "who accuse us of these 
 crimes, commit them themselves, and attribute them to 
 their Gods. For our part, as we have no share in 
 them, we do not distress ourselves, having God for 
 the witness of our actions, and thoughts. . . . We 
 entreat you that this request may be made public .... 
 that it may be known what we are, and we may be 
 delivered from these false suspicions, which expose us 
 to punishment. It is not known that we condemn 
 these infamous deeds which they proclaim against us, 
 and that for this very reason we have renounced those 
 Gods who have committed such crimes, and require 
 such. If you command it, we will expose our maxims 
 to the world, that, if possible, it may be converted." 
 Observe, he does not say, we will expose our mysteries 
 to the world. 
 
 VI. Punishments employed to extort from the Chri$~ 
 tians the secret of what passed in their assemblies. 
 Eusebius has preserved for us the admirable letter 
 which the Churches of Lyons and Vienne wrote to 
 
 "Second apology addressed to If. Aurelius in 16f. 
 
 10 
 
106 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 those of Asia and Phrygia, on the persecution, which 
 they had just suffered in Gaul. We find in it the fol- 
 lowing passages. u They took some of our servants, 
 who were Pagans, and being filled with the spirit of 
 the devil, and apprehensive of the torments, which 
 they had seen the faithful suffer, deposed falsely, 
 through the violence of the soldiers, that we made 
 feasts like Thyestes, that we indulged in the pleasures 
 of (Edipus, that we committed abominations, which it 
 is not lawful to think or speak of; and of which we 
 Cannot believe that any one ever would have been 
 guilty. When these black calumnies were spread 
 among the public, every one rose up with such fury 
 against us, that our neighbours, who had previously 
 treated us with some moderation; became the most 
 enraged. . . . The number and cruelty of torments, 
 which the holy martyrs suffered are beyond all that 
 we can express. . . . This happy woman (the heroic 
 servant Blandina) felt new strength as often as she 
 renewed her profession of faith, and found relief and 
 pleasure in repeating — 'I am a Christian and no evil is 
 committed among us.' Sanctus also supported the tor-» 
 meuts with a constancy more than human; and when in 
 the midst of the most cruel punishments, the impious 
 wretches interrogated him in the hope of extorting from 
 him by the violence of pain some word unworthy of him , 
 instead of replying to their questions .... he answer- 
 ed nothing else, but C I am a Christian' .... The 
 devil, who thought he had overcome Bibliada, be- 
 cause she had renounced the faith like certain others, 
 was desirous of crowning her condemnation by calum- 
 ny; and caused her to be tormented afresh, in order 
 that, weakened as she was by her fall, she might 
 depose against us. But this violence served only to 
 rouse her from her profound lethargy. The punish- 
 ments which the executioners exercised upon her, mad© 
 her remember the fire of hell, and she said to them — 
 '-How shovld the Christians devour infants, when they 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 107 
 
 are not even permitted to eat the blood of beastsV She 
 then confessed that she was a Christian, and was 
 numbered with the martyrs .... Those who had 
 renounced the faith were shut up in prisons, as well 
 as those who had confessed it: so far from deriving 
 any benefit from their apostacy, they were arrested as 
 criminals and murderers, and tormented more cruelly 
 than the others. . . . They were moreover despised 
 by the Pagans as cowards who had renounced the 
 glorious character of Christians to become their own 
 accusers of murder. . . . Attalus having been placed 
 upon the iron chair and burnt, said to the people in 
 Latin, pointing to the intolerable smoke which rose 
 from his body, 'it is truly eating men to do as you do: 
 but for our part, we do not eat them, nor commit any 
 other crime.' "* 
 
 •Besides this letter written by witnesses, who had still before 
 their eyes the bloody but glorious tragedy, I had quoted a sbort 
 fragment from St. Irenasus, preserved by (Ecumenius, an author 
 of the tenth century. Mr. Faber attaches himself exclusively to 
 this fragment, and for reasons best known to himself, says not a 
 word on the original letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne. 
 I here subjoin the ancient Latin version of the fragment, that by 
 comparing it with that of the Rector; a judgment may be formed 
 of his rare talent for translation, and his extreme exactness even 
 fn the smallest tilings. It is as follows: "Cum Grseci servos horum 
 Christianorum in divinis mysteriis edoctorum apprehendissent, 
 deinde vim inferrent, ut videlicet arcanum quidpiam ab his de 
 Christianis discerent; cum hi servi non haberent quomodo vim 
 infercntibus ad delcctationemet gratiam loquercntur, prseterquam 
 quod a dominis audierant divinamparticipationem esse sanguinem 
 et corpus Christi; existimantes ipsi quod vere sanguis etcaroesset, 
 hoc responderunt inquirentibus. llli vero id sumentes tanquam 
 reipsa hoc perageretur a Christianis, id aliis quoque manifesta- 
 bant Graecis; et martyres Sanctum et Blandinam tormentis id 
 fateri cogebant. Quibus libere et scite Blandina locuta est, 
 dicens: quomodo hoc fcrrent, qui ob divinum studium et medita- 
 tionem ne concessis quidem carnibus vescuntur?" 
 
 The fragment and letter both speak of the same persecution; 
 the letter names in detail several martyrs: the fragment only 
 Sanctus and Blandina. The information in both comes from 
 servants; the inculpations are for a similar crime; here it is 
 human blood, human flesh; and there, feasts like that of Thyestes. 
 
F 
 
 108 ANSWER TO THR 
 
 In the second apology which St. Justin addressed 
 in 166 to Marcus Aurelius, I read as follows: "But 
 kill yourselves then, all of you, you will say; and you 
 will thus find God, without troubling us with your per- 
 sons any longer." St. Justin tells them in reply, that 
 the faith which the Christians have in Providence does 
 not permit them so to do; and he adds that to justify 
 the calumnies propagated against the Christians, they 
 put to the torture slaves, children, and women; they 
 made them suffer horrible torments to extort from 
 them a confession of the incests and banquets of human 
 flesh, of which the Christians were accused. They 
 who accuse us of these crimes, commit them them- 
 selves, and attribute them to their Gods. For our 
 part, as we have no share in such horrid crimes, we 
 do not give way to uneasiness, having God to witness 
 all our thoughts and actions." 
 
 The answers breathe the same sentiments, and the like horror. 
 "How should they do what you say," says Blandina, "who through 
 piety and having God before their eyes, abstain even from lawful 
 meats?' 1 "How," exclaimed Bibliada, "how should the Chris- 
 tians devour infants, when they are not even permitted to eat the 
 blood of beasts? And Attalus: "for our part, we do not eat men, 
 nor commit any other crime." 
 
 Now let us come to the translation: Existimantes ipsi (not the 
 Greeks, but the servants,) quod vere sanguis et caro esset, says 
 the Latin Version. The tormentors, says Mr. Faber, fancying thut it 
 was literal blood and flesh, (literal blood, literal flesh, literal body 
 occur incessantly in his book: we can say with propriety that any 
 word is taken to the letter, or literally; we speak of a literal ex- 
 plication; but who ever heard of a literal foot, a literal hand, heart 
 of literal blood or flesh? I know of no language which admits of 
 such an expression. But let us pass on to the other words,) 
 quibus libere ac scite Blandina locuta est; Blandina readily and 
 boldly answered— boldly is not the. meaning of scite. What St. 
 Irenseus admires in the answer is not the boldness, but the pru- 
 dence, the wisdom which while it repels the accusation, takes 
 care not to disclose the secret. Ask your Rector what scite means; 
 press him to give you its real sense: he will not be able to give it; 
 for, to adopt his style, if the Christians at that time eat only literal 
 bread and drank only literal wine, Blandina ought to have so de- 
 clared without disguise; and in not doing so, she would have re-« 
 plied, non scite, sed stolidc* 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 109 
 
 Pliny the younger, governor of Bithynia, giving an 
 account of the Christians to Trajan, occasioned by the 
 reports which had gone abroad against them, says that 
 he had determined to take proper measures for ascer- 
 taining the truth. "This made me consider it the 
 more necessary to extort the truth by the force of 
 torments from the female slaves, who were said to 
 belong to the ministry of their worship: but I dis- 
 covered nothing except a bad superstition carried to 
 excess." 
 
 VII. These calumnies and cruelties take their origin 
 from the first century. Celsus, who writing icith grey 
 hairs in the first years of Adrian, must have been 
 born between the years of seventy and eighty at the 
 latest; begins with the reproach of clandestine practi- 
 ces, which he often repeats against the assemblies of 
 the Christians. Origen replies that the doctrine of the 
 Christians was better known than that of the philoso- 
 phers. "It is true nevertheless," he adds, "that there 
 are certain points not communicated to every one: but 
 this is so far from being peculiar to the Christians, that 
 it was observed among the philosophers, as well as 
 ourselves. . . . Celsus therefore attempts in vain to 
 decry the secret kept by the Christians, since he does 
 not even know in what it consists.* One would think 
 that Celsus sought to imitate the Jews, who when the 
 gospel began to be preached, disseminated false reports 
 against those who had embraced it: that the Christians 
 sacrificed a little child, and eat its flesh together; that 
 to do works of darkness, they extinguished the lights, 
 and then abandoned themselves to impurity indiscrimi- 
 nately."f 
 
 "For my part," says St. Justin, "when I, who am a 
 disciple of Plato, heard the Christians denounced in so 
 unworthy a manner, and saw them walking with such 
 
 •On?. Book 1, No. 7— Edit. Bened. T. 1. 
 tlbid, Book 6, No. 28. 
 
110 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 intrepidity to death, and to all that was terrible; no, 
 said I to myself, it is impossible that such men should 
 live in the depravity of vice, and the pursuit of infa- 
 mous pleasures. Is there in fact a man so enslaved to 
 voluptuous gratifications, or of such outrageous intem- 
 perance as to find supreme luxury in a banquet of 
 human flesh; and who at the same time will run gaily 
 to punishments, and throw himself into the arms of 
 death, to deprive himself voluntarily of what he 
 loves?" 
 
 From the testimony of Eusebius, Saturninus and 
 Basilides sprung from Menander, who himself sprung 
 from Simon; u The devil," he adds, who has no 
 pleasure but in evil, made use of these monsters .... 
 to give occasion to the infidels to cry down our reli- 
 gion. . . . Thence came those black calumnies that 
 the Christians committed incests with their mothers 
 and sisters, and eat abominable meats."* 
 
 "We are traduced," exclaimed Tertullian,t as the 
 most wicked of men; bound to each other by an 
 oath of infanticide; guilty of regaling ourselves upon 
 the flesh of the infant which w r e have just slain; 
 and afterwards abandoning ourselves to incest, after 
 the dogs who are accomplices in our debauchery have 
 procured for us, by overturning the lamps, the protec- 
 tion of darkness, and the effrontery of crime. . . . 
 The imputation of these works is dated, as I have 
 said, from the reign of Tiberius. Hatred of the truth 
 began with it; it was detested as soon as produced to 
 the world." 
 
 Finally, we learn from Tacitus, speaking of the 
 burning of Rome, that Nero accused people of it who 
 were odious by their crimes, and called Christians. . . 
 "They first apprehended those who confessed; after- 
 wards a great multitude were convicted upon their 
 
 *Eus. IRst. Eccl. Book 4, chap. 7. 
 ]Jipol. ch. 7. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 1 1 1 
 
 information, not so much of the burning of Rome, as 
 of hatred of the human race."* He afterwards speaks 
 of them as criminals deserving of death. Could we 
 conceive that a society of men so pure and perfect 
 could have been devoted to the hatred of mankind, if 
 we were not informed by Eusebius and Tertullian of 
 the abominable calumnies which the emissaries of the 
 Jews had spread abroad against them as early as the 
 reign of Tiberius? 
 
 VIII. If, sir, you have paid attention to the passages 
 from the Fathers, which I have now laid before you 
 relative to the affecting and admirable discipline of the 
 secret, you can no longer entertain a doubt on either of 
 the following points — 1st. That the origin of this dis- 
 cipline is to be dated as early as the preaching of the 
 gospel, and that it was in vigour in all ; the Churches 
 during the first four centuries — 2dly, that the Euchar- 
 istic dogmas were concealed beneath the secrecy ob- 
 served during this long period. 
 
 1. In fact, either we must attribute the discipline of 
 secrecy to apostolic institution, or say that the Church, 
 after having delivered the mysteries to the public dur- 
 ing a century, more or less, decided all at once upon 
 depriving them of the knowledge of these mysteries. 
 To impute to her such a decision, would be to charge 
 her with a conduct most absurd and extravagant; or 
 rather to accuse ourselves of absurdity, and lie open 
 to just reproach. The secret so religiously observed 
 in the fourth century, demonstrates, by the very fact, 
 that it must necessarily have been so observed up to 
 the days of the apostles.f Positive proof of this is 
 furnished by the testimonies which have just passed in 
 review before us. You must have remarked that the 
 greater number of the Fathers, whose words I have 
 
 * Annul y Book 15. 
 
 f You will find the proof of this fully developed in the 1st vol. of 
 the Discussion Amicale, p. 350, et seq. 
 
112 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 cited, many more of which I could have produced, 
 trace the discipline of secrecy up to the precept of Je- 
 6us Christ: "take care not to cast pearls before swine." 
 We have seen, moreover, that the atrocious calumnies 
 spread abroad against the Christians, arose from the 
 privacy of their assemblies, and the inviolable secrecy 
 as to what was done in them; and we learned at the 
 same time that these calumnies began even in the 
 reign of Tiberius. In fine, it is here that the solid- 
 ly true axiom of St. Augustin becomes applicable: 
 "Whatever the universal Church holds, and has 
 always held, ivithout its having been established by any 
 council, is to be justly considered to have come down 
 from apostolical tradition" We know of no council 
 which established the discipline of secrecy; and we 
 are sure that it was observed in all the churches in 
 Christendom. Our witnesses are — for Rome and the 
 whole of Italy, Julius the First and Innocent the First 
 — for the Milanese, Ambrose — for Aquileia, Rufinus — 
 for Dalmatia, Jerom — for Brescia, Gaudentius — for 
 Verona, Zeno — for Carthage, Tertullian and Cyprian 
 — for Hippo and all Africa, the great Augustin — for 
 Alexandria, Clement and his disciple Origen, and the 
 patriarchs Athanasius and Cyril, and the synod of that 
 famous metropolis in its encyclical letter to all the 
 bishops of the world — for Jerusalem and Palestine, 
 the celebrated catechist Cyril — for Cyprus and the 
 islands of the Archipelago Epiphanius — for the coun- 
 try about the Euphrates, Theodore t — for Antioch, the 
 queen of oriental cities, Chrysostom — for the towns of 
 Nyssa and Nazianzum, the two Gregories — for Cap- 
 padocia and Pontus, Basil — for Helenopolis, Palladius 
 and Sozomen — for Constantinople, Isidore of Pelusium. 
 In a word, if the discipline of secrecy had been dis- 
 regarded in one single church of consequence, it soon 
 must have ceased every where else. Suppose that at 
 the end of the first century, some one of the churches 
 founded by the apostles had not conformed to this dis- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. H3 
 
 cipline: what would have been the result? The mys- 
 teries would have been divulged from one to another 
 by persons travelling from that diocese in the neigh- 
 bouring countries, and in a short time the secret would 
 have been published every where. Put these various 
 considerations together, and you will agree with me 
 that the apostolicity and universality of the discipline 
 of secrecy are of the number of facts the best attested 
 in history. 
 
 2. It is no less certain that the dogmas of the 
 Eucharist were concealed beneath the secret. Mr. 
 Faber would maintain the contrary. He must forgive 
 me if I prefer the testimonies of contemporary Fathers 
 to his views and opinions. You have read them; 
 almost all declare it in terms so positive, that it is im- 
 possible to be mistaken. They even go so far as to 
 name among the mysteries concealed from the profane, 
 the Eucharist, the Christian Passover, the sacrifice of 
 bread and wine, prefigured by that of Melchisedech. 
 And in fact, what could be the object of the infamous 
 calumnies spread against our brethren from the birth 
 of Christianity, but the Eucharistic mysteries? To 
 what could they allude by their tales of infants mur- 
 dered, their flesh served up as meat, and their blood 
 as drink — of banquets of Thyestes, &c. if not to the 
 dogma of the real presence, to the manducation of the 
 body of Jesus Christ? And is it not clear that these 
 abominable imputations were grafted on the commu- 
 nion of the faithful, and ridiculed in the most revolting 
 manner by the Jews, in order to excite the hatred and 
 horror of mankind against the rising Church? 
 
 IX. And now, sir, that you see these two points 
 solidly established; and the apostolicity of this disci- 
 pline followed in all the churches during the first four 
 centuries; and the Eucharistic dogmas concealed be- 
 neath the secret; address yourself, I pray you, to the 
 Rector of Long Newton. Ask the teacher of a moral 
 change, of a figurative presence, of a real absence, 
 
114 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 the champion of literal bread and literal wine, and the 
 adversary in consequence of the adoration of Jesus 
 Christ in the Eucharist — ask him how an opinion so 
 simple as his own, so conformable to our natural ideas, 
 could have been ranked by antiquity among the mys- 
 teries? how the Fathers could have taught the faithful 
 of their time that they must rather shed every drop of 
 their blood than divulge it? how the numerous martyrs 
 of Lyons could suffer themselves to be tormented and 
 torn in pieces, rather than loudly declare it? and how 
 the reply of the magnanimous Blandina has excited, and 
 will excite the admiration of every age? 
 
 What, sir! are we to imagine that while the most 
 horrid calumnies were disseminated on all sides 
 against the primitive Christians; while they were ac- 
 cused of murdering new-born infants in their secret 
 assemblies, of feeding upon their palpitating flesh, and 
 intoxicating themselves with their blood — and of 
 abandoning themselves like blind furies to excesses 
 unheard of upon the earth; while they were devoted 
 as a race accursed to the execration of mankind, and 
 to atrocious tortures; that they would not open their 
 mouths to declare their innocence? At least for the 
 purpose of charitably saving the magistrates and the 
 multitude from the horror of commanding or contem- 
 plating so many barbarous and protracted massacres? 
 From what motive could they have forbidden them- 
 selves an innocent and natural defence? Why at least 
 did they not say to their fellow citizens: "Come then 
 to our assemblies; see what passes their amongst us; 
 we take a little bread and wine in memory of our 
 good Master, who delivered us from sin and opened 
 for us the way to virtue. He himself commanded us 
 to use this simple and affecting ceremony: come, and 
 you will learn to know us better 3 and understand what 
 we really are?" 
 
 X. Nay more; if the faith and practice of the first 
 Christians had corresponded with the belief of Mr. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. . H5 
 
 Faber; if the Eucharist had been viewed in the same 
 light by them, as it is by him; not only would it never 
 have formed a part of the discipline of secrecy, but it 
 never would have occasioned the malignity of their 
 cruel enemies, who so far from believing their unwor- 
 thy calumnies, would never even have thought of 
 inventing and propagating them.* 
 
 I assert, sir, with full and ehtire conviction, that in 
 this ancient discipline of secrecy, there is a certain 
 mute, but perpetual and decisive evidence in favour of 
 the real presence. It is in vain for the Rector to con- 
 tend; he will always find himself borne down by its 
 irresistible force; and struggle as he may, he will 
 never rise from his overthrow. I say the same of your 
 whole Church; let her assemble all her champions; 
 let her put forth through them every resource of wit 
 and learning — and undoubtedly she possesses much of 
 both — she can never account for the establishment of 
 secrecy with regard to the Eucharist. It will ever 
 be to her a problem, whose existence will be as 
 incontestable, as its solution will remain impossible. 
 To discover it, recourse must of necessity be had to 
 Catholic principles; and she must behold with us, in 
 the primitive Church, the belief of the real presence 
 of our Saviour in his Sacrament, the heavenly, the 
 ravishing object of our faith and adoration. Then it 
 will be readily conceived that by divulging the mys- 
 tery so exalted and inaccessible to reason, scandal 
 would have been given to the pagans and catechu- 
 mens; and railleries provoked, which would infallibly 
 have been poured forth by men, who were not Chris- 
 tians, since you hear them incessantly even now from 
 the mouths of your theologians and preachers. Then 
 we can conceive that by speaking openly of the real 
 
 •See page 363, vol. 1, of the Discussion Amxcah — the fine theo- 
 ry of the two Anglican Bishops, Pearce and Hoadley, and of Pre- 
 bendary Sturges, on the manner of presenting the Eucharist. 
 
116 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 presence, and of the change of substance, they would 
 nave shocked the imagination of the Pagans, and kept 
 those at a distance from the religion, whom it was 
 their duty to attract to it. Then we can understand 
 the precept of Jesus Christ, and the prohibition of 
 the primitive Church, "to cast pearls before swine." 
 Then also we can well conceive, that through obedi- 
 ence to the law of their divine Legislator, and the 
 command of his Church, the faithful would rather shed 
 their blood than betray the secret. Then are we in 
 admiration at the faith and heroism of those martyrs, 
 who without revealing the secret, were contented 
 modestly to reply in the midst of torments, "there is 
 no evil committed among us." Then in fine every 
 thing is understood and explained in those illustrious 
 ages; the rule of the Church — the exact conduct of 
 the faithful — the self-devotion of her martyrs — and the 
 frightful calumnies and atrocious torments, of which 
 they were the glorious victims. 
 
 I finish with one final conclusion. The discipline 
 of secrecy in the first four centuries is evidently in- 
 compatible with the actual doctrine of your Church; 
 but perfectly conformable with that of ours. I had 
 reason therefore to say, that it was a general proof 
 that in the first four centuries, the Christians believed 
 what the Catholics have believed, still believe, and 
 will ever believe, the reality of the presence of our 
 divine Saviour in the most holy and most adorable Sa- 
 crament of the Eucharist.* 
 
 • On the subject of the atrocious crimes attributed to the first 
 Christians, the Rector furnishes us with a striking proof of the 
 candour of his soul, and the rectitude of his mind. He knows 
 perfectly well that when we approach to the Holy Table, we are 
 persuaded, as the persuasion generally was among you, up to the 
 reign of Charles II. that we receive, under the sensible appear- 
 ance of bread, the body of Jesus Christ present in a supernatural 
 manner, a body spiritualized, invisible, inaccessible to all the senses. 
 Such is the mystery which we believe on the word of our God- 
 Saviour. Now listen to the reasoning of Mr. Faber: "the pagans 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 117 
 
 SECOND GENERAL PROOF OF THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE 
 ON THE EUCHARIST, TAKEN FROM THE ANCIENT 
 LITURGIES. 
 
 1. When I perceived at my second reading of The 
 Difficulties of Romanism, the title of the seventh chap- 
 ter, I laid down the book upon my table, and asked 
 myself these questions: "What will the Rector say 
 here? What part will he take with regard to our an- 
 cient liturgies?" They all speak uniformly, and in 
 expressions the most energetic of our doctrines. All 
 proclaim with one voice the altar, the oblation, the 
 unbloody sacrifice of the new covenant, the real pre- 
 sence of the victim, the change of substance, and in 
 fine, the adoration. We see by them that all the 
 Christians in the world, at the moment of communion 
 
 fancied that the early Christians literally devoured human flesh 
 and literally drank human blood .... Now they could not with 
 truth have denied the existence of such abomination, if they had 
 held the doctrine of the real presence: for in that case, they must 
 have been conscious, that according to their full knowledge and 
 belief, they were in the constant habit of literally devouring human 
 flesh and of literally drinking human blood. Yet under the most 
 severe torments, they invariably and totally denied the fact. 
 Therefore by denying the fact, they of necessity, denied also the 
 doctrine of the real presence." Is it possible thus to keep those 
 in the dark whom it is a duty to enlighten? Where is the Catho- 
 lic in the whole world who can recognise his sentiments in tnose 
 attributed to him by Mr. Faber?* Which among us would not feel 
 horror-struck at the idea of them? His language answers to th« 
 notion of the men of Capharnaum; and one might imagine him to 
 have just arrived among us from their synagogue. 
 
 In quoting Mr. Faber's words, I have purposely substituted the 
 real presence for the word transubstantiation, which he employs; and 
 my object was to shew you and make you sensible that his reason- 
 ing bears in the most direct manner, and in the first instance, 
 against the doctrine of the real presence. He generally affects 
 to reason only against the change of substance; because having 
 set out with assuring us that our respective churches are agreed 
 as to the real presence, he is afraid of appearing to contradict 
 himself. But I beseech you only to pay attention, and you will 
 see that he combats the real presence almost wherever be names 
 transubstantiation. 
 11 
 
1 1 8 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 heard from the mouth of the deacon these words, the 
 body of Jesus Christ, and they replied, it is true. This 
 Amen repeated by innumerable lips during a succession 
 of generations and centuries, is an admirable confes- 
 sion of faith, which will resound from the primitive 
 Church even to the end of the world, in proof of the 
 real presence.* 
 
 Would the Rector in those days have been daring 
 enough to oppose his voice to that powerful and uni- 
 versal testimony; and instead of Amen, replied, "I see 
 nothing but a figure?" The liturgies agree in present- 
 ing us with lively invocations to beg of God to send 
 his Holy Spirit upon the gifts offered, in order that the 
 bread may become*the body of Jesus Christ, and what 
 is in the chalice may become his blood, by his changing 
 them through the virtue of his Holy Spiritf . Would 
 Mr. Faber have raised his discordant voice to explain 
 these invocations in his favourite language of a moral 
 change? and will he still maintain before us now, that 
 in imploring the Divine Omnipotence to descend upon 
 the gifts, it was merely to change them from common 
 and domestic use, to a service symbolical and religious? 
 The liturgies represent to us the clergy and people by 
 turns in fear and trembling, in the attitude of profound 
 adoration, when they partake of the Eucharist; and 
 put into their mouths at that time the most lively con- 
 fessions of faith in a presence, which commands the 
 sovereign worship of the latria. What then would 
 have been the expression of the Rector's countenance 
 in the midst of these fervent assemblies? Would he 
 have shared the ardent devotion, the religious awe of 
 those humble adorers of Jesus Christ? or rather will 
 
 * Habet cnim magnam voccm Christi sanguis in terra, cum eo 
 accepto, ab omnibus gentibus respondetur Amen. August, contra 
 Faustwn. Lib. 12. 
 
 fThe liturgy, called that of the apostles — transmutet etperficiat — 
 Lit. Syri. translated by Renaudot. — Transmutante in te. Lit. Nest. 
 translated by Renaudot. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 119 
 
 he not be ready to involve them with us in the guilt of 
 idolatry? Will he not accuse them together with us 
 of rendering sacrilegious worship to material things, 
 and to speak in his own language, to a morsel of literal 
 bread? 
 
 After revolving these reflections in my mind for 
 some time, I resumed the book, and read with avidity 
 the chapter on the liturgies. What reply then does 
 the Rector make to their decisive authority? None 
 whatever, sir — to my utter astonishment, none. He 
 would have done better therefore if he had not men- 
 tioned the liturgies in the title, since he says not a 
 word of them in the chapter. Doubtless it is wise to 
 keep silence about proofs, which we are not prepared 
 to combat; but it would have been wiser, more candid, 
 and more courageous to surrender to their victorious 
 power. I will endeavour again to confront the Rector 
 with the liturgies. When he looks them a second 
 time full in the face, perhaps he will receive a more 
 favourable impression. I even augur it from his silence. 
 For if he could have pounced upon them in any part, 
 he would certainly have done it, with the laudable 
 zeal that animates him. Being unwilling however to 
 interrupt the reflections, which I am compelled to sub- 
 mit to you, I shall place my extracts from the liturgies 
 at the end of them. I regret that I am obliged to revert 
 to them, and to swell out my reply to his book by a 
 long addition, which he might have spared me the 
 trouble of doing, if he had pleased. 
 
 II. It must have been proved to a demonstration to 
 you, sir, that the discipline of secrecy covered with 
 a mysterious and impenetrable shade the assemblies 
 of the Christians, the dogmas therein professed, the 
 prayers there made to God, and the rites there prac- 
 tised. These rites, prayers and dogmas, so long un- 
 known to the profane, the liturgies revealed to the 
 world, as soon as they were committed to writing. 
 We have the good fortune to possess a great number 
 
120 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 of them, and from almost every country where Chris- 
 tianity reigned in the fifth century. They do not leave 
 a shadow of doubt of the consequences, which we 
 have deduced from the discipline of the secret, by the 
 aid of simple reasoning: they confirm their justice and 
 truth, and establish our first assertions. They intro- 
 duce us to the interior of the oratories, where the early 
 faithful assembled. We see them placed there in 
 perfect order; the men on one side, the women on the 
 other; the children nearest to the sanctuary. There 
 we behold the catechumens, here the penitent; and 
 the bishop advancing to the altar preceded by his 
 clergy. With them we assist at the divine worship, 
 the same in every country, at least as to every thing 
 essential. With them we partake in the prayers, and 
 lectures from the Old and New Testaments. Shortly 
 after we hear the officiating deacon raise his voice 
 and say, "depart in peace," addressing the catechu- 
 mens* 
 
 Then it was that the divine office began, the cele- 
 bration of the holy mysteries. They disposed them- 
 selves for the sacrifice by preparatory prayers : the 
 bread and wine were removed from the credence table 
 to the altar. The graces and blessings of God were 
 invoked upon the assembly of the faithful, upon the 
 Catholic Church, the sovereigns, and magistrates, upon 
 the army, the bishops and clergy, upon every class of 
 the faithful, enemies and persecutors, the Christians 
 who were in prison or condemned to the mines, for the 
 conversion of the gentiles, the return of schismatics and 
 heretics, for the salubrity of the air, and the preserva- 
 tion of the fruits of the earth. They commemorated 
 the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs and confes- 
 
 * Litur. of the Apost. Constit. — '•Catechumens, retire; let no one 
 t emain here." Lit. of Constantinop. "Let there be no catechu- 
 mens any longer, nor any of those who are not initiated in the 
 mysteries." "Let each one be known, and the doors carefully 
 kept." Lit. of St. James, 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 121 
 
 sors; and prayed for all who had departed this life in the 
 faith.* Then came the preface, the beginning and end 
 of which are the same at this day. It was the intro- 
 duction to the principal action of the sacrifice, which 
 we call now, as formerly, the canon; in which they 
 never failed to repeat the words of the institution of 
 the Eucharist in the same terms as those of the evan- 
 gelists. To these were added, particularly in the 
 East, admirable invocations to beg of God to send 
 upon the gifts his Holy Spirit, the witnesses of the 
 sufferings of our Lord Jesus, that by his presence and 
 power the bread and wine might be changed into the 
 body and blood of Jesus Christ. The Lord's Prayer 
 and the Apostle's Creed were commonly recited after 
 the canon. The fervour excited by the approach of the 
 consecration was kept alive after it: it even increased 
 and became profound adoration, when the deacons 
 distributing to the faithful both species, said to each 
 one, u This is the body, this is the blood of Jesus Christ." 
 The receiver answered "Jlmen." This affecting spec- 
 tacle of love and devotion, worthy of the regard of 
 heaven and the admiration of earth, concluded with 
 lively acts of thanksgiving. 
 
 III. Such, in the primitive church, was the order of 
 the divine service, which the Christians celebrated with 
 the doors shut, and which they kept secret every where 
 else with a fidelity which nothing could overcome. 
 We have seen them suffering torments and death, 
 rather than divulge what passed in their pious assembles. 
 
 * From the birth of the Church to the sixteenth century no 
 liturgy was ever known without a commemoration of the saints, 
 and prayers for the dead. "We make memory of the patriarchs, 
 prophets, apostles and martyrs, that by the merit of their prayers, 
 God may favourably receive ours: we pray afterwards for the 
 holy fathers and bishops, and in fine for all departed in our com- 
 munion, believing that their souls receive great relief from the 
 prayers which we offer for them at the moment when the holy 
 and awful victim lies upon our altars." — S. Cyril of Jerusalem 
 Cat. J\Iyst. 5 — ^&b uno disce omnes. 
 11* 
 
122 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 The liturgy was the faithful representation in detail of 
 their worship. You will therefore readily imagine that 
 it was not committed to writing. The secret would 
 have been exposed to too many risks, if each Church 
 had written its own. From the beginning they had 
 adopted the only means of avoiding accidents, and 
 concealing the knowledge of the mysteries from the 
 profane. It had been determined that the prayers of 
 the liturgy and consecration should be confided to the 
 memory of the priests and bishops, as also the creed 
 to the memory of the faithful* This salutary precau- 
 tion continued as long as the apprehensions which had 
 rendered it necessary. But at length Christianity 
 having gained the ascendancy, there was no longer 
 any hesitation in publishing the mysteries. This happy 
 period was about the time of the general council of 
 Ephesus, in 431. It is even fair to presume that this 
 determination was taken by the fathers of that council; 
 for then the liturgies began to be written every where 
 all at once. The Nestorians and Eutychians soon 
 imitated the example of the Catholic Church; and in a 
 short time, every Church in the East had its liturgy 
 written.f 
 
 IV. But here, sir, you will be inclined to ask, how 
 are we sure that liturgies written three centuries and 
 a half after the apostles' time, came originally from 
 them? In this manner: it cannot be reasonably doubted, 
 
 * "The symbol of our faith and hope comes to us from the apcs- 
 tlea, and is not written.— St. Jcrom. Ep. ad Pam. No one writes 
 the creed; it cannot be read; repeat it to yourselves everyday, 
 when you lie down and when you rise. Let your memory be 
 your book." — Sit vobis codex vestra memoria. — & Jlug. ad Caiech.T. 6, 
 p. 548. 
 
 f We or.ly know of two liturgies written previous to the council 
 of Ephesus; that which I have quoted of St. Cyril, and that of 
 the anonymous author of the Apostolic Constitutions; and both 
 contained a strong prohibition to communicate them to the unini- 
 tiated, because of the sacred things they contain. Hence at the 
 time when they were written, the discipline of secrecy was still 
 ia vigour. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 123 
 
 that the earliest liturgy was drawn up by the apostles, 
 conformably with the instructions of their Master, and 
 celebrated by them in those daily assemblies which 
 they held at Jerusalem before they separated. Of 
 this indeed we have positive evidence. St. Irenaeus, 
 a disciple of St. Polycarp, assures us of it in these 
 words: "Our Lord taught the new oblation of his New 
 Testament: the Church has received it from the apOs- 
 tles, and presents it to God in every part of the w r orld.* 
 This declaration establishes the fact decisively: and 
 we naturally conceive that the apostles departing 
 singly from Jerusalem would give the same liturgy, 
 \vhich they had there composed together, to the 
 churches founded by them in the course of their preach- 
 ing the gospel. 
 
 St. Epiphanius, though born" in 310, two hundred 
 and ten years after St. John, is nevertheless a valua- 
 ble witness in this matter, because he united with the 
 virtues of a great prelate, the science of a consum- 
 mate theologian. Observe what he says after repeat- 
 ing the names of the twelve. "They were all elected 
 apostles, to preach the holy gospel over the world, 
 with Paul, Barnabas, and the rest; and they were the 
 institutors of the mysteries, with James the brother of 
 our Lord, and first bishop of Jerusalem."t We dis- 
 cover in Pliny some confused traces of the liturgy, 
 which the Christians celebrated under his govern- 
 ment.;]; St. Justin represents it to us more distinctly 
 in the account which he thought it a duty to give to 
 the Emperor Antoninus, of what the Christians did in 
 their secret assemblies. The description which he 
 gives corresponds precisely with the liturgies.|| I 
 have adduced other authorities in my ninth letter and 
 its appendix at the end of the 1st vol. of the Discus- 
 sion Amicale; I beg to refer you to it 
 
 *Adi\ Hares. Lib, 4, cap. 32. \ Letter to Trajan, 
 
 f Hares. 79, No. 3. y 1st Apol. 
 

 124 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 V. I see plainly enough you will reply, that the 
 apostles composed a liturgy together; I conceive too, 
 that they would communicate it to the churches, which 
 they founded: but where are we to find this apostolic 
 liturgy in these days? We have a great number 
 which differ from each other considerably. If we 
 suppose that these were traced upon the model of the 
 primitive liturgy drawn up at Jerusalem, by what 
 mark are we to distinguish what comes from the apos- 
 tles, from what does not? I have laid down the cer- 
 tain and indubitable mark of distinction in my ninth 
 letter, where you may see it solidly proved. The 
 finger of the apostles is manifest wherever the various 
 liturgies all unanimously agree. This apostolic mark 
 has been acknowledged and described by eminent 
 men in your Church: and persuaded as I must be, that 
 their judgment will have more weight with you than 
 mine, I will here present you with it. "It was highly 
 unreasonable to suppose," says Dr. Water-land, "that 
 those several churches, very distant from each other 
 in place, and of different languages, .... should all 
 unite in the same errors, and deviate uniformly from 
 their rule at once. But that they should all agree in 
 the same common faith, might easily be accounted for, 
 as arising from the same common cause, which could 
 be no other but the common delivery of the same uni- 
 form faith and f^^Mne to all the churches by the 
 apostles themselves. Such unanimity could never 
 come by chance, but must be derived from one com- 
 mon source; and therefore the harmony of their doc- 
 trine was in itself a pregnant argument of the truth 
 of it."* 
 
 Archbishop Wake says; "As for the liturgies 
 
 - ascribed to St. Peter, St. Mark, and St. James, there 
 
 is not I suppose any learned man, who believes them 
 
 written by those holy men, and set forth in the manner 
 
 • Importance of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, pp. 372, 373. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 125 
 
 they are now published. They were indeed the an- 
 cient liturgies of the three, if not of the lour patriar- 
 chal churches — viz. the Roman (perhaps that of An- 
 tioch too) the Alexandrian, and Jerusalem Churches, 
 first founded, or at least governed by St. Peter, St. 
 Mark, and St. James. However, since it can hardly 
 be doubted, but that these holy apostles and evange- 
 lists did give some directions for the administration of 
 the blessed Eucharist in those churches, it may rea- 
 sonably be presumed, that some of those orders are 
 still remaining in those liturgies, which have been 
 brought down to us under their names; and that those 
 prayers wherein they all agree (in sense at least, if 
 not in words) were first prescribed in the same or like 
 terms by those apostles and evangelists; nor would it 
 be difficult to make a further proof of this conjecture 
 from the writings of the ancient fathers, if it were 
 needful in this place to insist upon it."* 
 
 "I add to what hath been already observed," says 
 Bishop Bull,t "the consent of all the Christian Church- 
 
 M Qi8e$V,rse before his translation of the apostolical fathers, p. 102. 
 
 ~\ Sermons on Common Prayer. Serm. 13, vol. 1, new edit. I had 
 remarked that if Bishop Bull had with just reason concluded from 
 the liturgies thececessity of acknowledging the unbloody sacrifice 
 of the new law, a man so well informed ought equally to have in- 
 ferred the necessity of helieving the real presence of the divine 
 victim, the change of substance and adoration; since the liturgies 
 are no less unanimous on these dogmas than on the sacrifice. I 
 had quoted previously the following truly orthodox words of the 
 3ame bishop: "If it be imagined that all the pastors could have 
 fallen into error and deceived all the faithful, how can the word 
 of Jesus Christ be defended, who promised his apostles, and their 
 successors in their persons, to be always with them? A promise 
 which would not be true, since the apostles were not to live so 
 long a time, if their successors were not here comprehended in 
 the persons of the apostles themselves." I had added, that with 
 such accurate reasoning, he ought to have come over to the Catho- 
 lic Church. What does Mr. Faber say in reply to my reflections? 
 He observes that Bishop Bull, notwithstanding died in the bosom 
 of the Church of England. This I well knew, and deplored his 
 inconsistency. Let the Rector explain it as he pleases; I can 
 
126 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 es in the world, however distant from each other, in 
 the prayer of the oblation of the Christian sacrifice in 
 the Holy Eucharist, or sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
 per; which consent is indeed wonderful. All the an- 
 cient liturgies agree in this form of prayer, almost in 
 the same words, but fully and exactly in the same 
 sense, order and method; which whosoever attentively 
 considers, must be convinced, that this order of prayer 
 was delivered to the several churches in the very first 
 plantation and settlement of them." 
 
 I conclude with Grotius, who is honoured by all 
 parties as he deserves: "I find," says he in his Votum 
 pro pace, w in all the liturgies, Greek, Latin, Arabic, 
 Syriac, and others, prayers to God, that he would 
 consecrate by his Holy Spirit the gifts offered^ and 
 make them the body and blood of his Son. I was 
 right therefore in "saying that a custom so ancient and 
 universal that it must be considered to have come 
 down from the primitive times, ought not to have been 
 changed." 
 
 "In the matter of worship," say the ministers of 
 Neuchatel, in the preface prefixed to their liturgy, 
 dedicated to the King of Prussia in 1713, "great re- 
 gard must be had to what was the practice of the first 
 ages of the Church; and it must be acknowledged that 
 we find in the prayers of the ancients a very peculiar 
 simplicity and unction. Besides, who can doubt that 
 what was done in those times, and established by the 
 successors of the apostles, was most conformable to 
 the spirit of the gospel, and deserving of respect from 
 all Christians? It is true that the usages of churches 
 varied considerably afterwards .... but it is certain 
 
 only lament over it, and leave the judgment to Him who searches 
 the reins and the consciences of men. 
 
 For the rest, I find, on the subject of the liturgies, men of your 
 Church equally clever and more consistent than Bishop Bull. 
 Whiston, Stephens, and Grabe, composed liturgies in which they 
 included the unbloody and rational sacrifice, the real presence, change 
 of substance and adoration — See Discussion Amicale, yoI. 1, p, '426, 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 127 
 
 that the foundation and essence of the ancient worship 
 has been preserved hi almost all the liturgies; and that 
 if, without regard to what is peculiar to each liturgy, 
 and what was added in proportion as ignorance, error 
 and superstition found their way into the Church, we 
 retained ichat icas of ancient and general use, and what 
 all liturgies agree in within a very little, we should 
 have the true form of worship among the primitive 
 Christians. Such also would be one of the best means 
 of arriving at that uniformity, so necessary for the 
 peace and edification of the Church."* 
 
 VI. If then it should happen that in the midst of 
 variations unavoidable in the lapse of so many cen- 
 turies, so many events, idioms and Churches of differ- 
 ent kinds, nevertheless all the. liturgies agreed in the 
 sense of those prayers which precede, accompany and 
 follow the consecration; and if those prayers clearly 
 expressed the real presence, transubstantiation, adora- 
 tion and sacrifice, we must conclude that such uni- 
 formity, while it designated the esence of the liturgy, 
 denoted also its apostolic origin. For it were impos- 
 sible to suppose any other cause of such uniformity. 
 We can find no other sufficiently preponderating and 
 universal to unite in this manner all the Churches in 
 the world in one spirit, one perfect adherence to these 
 same dogmas, and one attention alike scrupulous to 
 
 * It i3 impossible to think on this subject more sensibly than 
 Messrs. Waterland, Wake, Bull, and those ministers of Neucha- 
 tel. They agree in theory, as your doctors do, that all that ought 
 to be retained, in which all the liturgies agree! You say this, you 
 teach it, and still you do not practise it ! All the liturgies have 
 exhibited and will here exhibit to you the altar, the unbloody sa- 
 crifice, the real presence of the divine victim, the change of sub- 
 stance, the adoration, and prayers for the dead; and you do not 
 retain these sublime doctrines, but trample them under foot ! You 
 have pronounced your own condemnation. And your contradic- 
 tions do not open your eyes ! Nor the eyes of those who hear you! 
 What? so many lights to distinguish what is good, and so much 
 obstinacy in rejecting it.! Great God ! will they never recover 
 from such blindness? 
 
]2Q ANSWER TO THE 
 
 profess them in the same circumstances. There is no 
 council to which this singular unanimity could be attach- 
 ed; and indeed the most oecumenical council would not 
 have sufficed; because the heretics would never have 
 followed its decisions, and the schismatical commu- 
 nions of the fourth and fifth centuries, being as inimical 
 to each other, as to the mother Church, would never 
 have agreed together to adopt the forms of prayer and 
 professions of faith drawn up by the council. Noth- 
 ing then but the institution and authority of the 
 apostles, held by all equally sacred, can adequately 
 acount for such uniformity, if it really exists in the 
 Christian liturgies written in the fourth and fifth cen- 
 turies. Now I pledge myself to convince you in the 
 most palpable manner, that all the liturgies of those 
 times, in use not only in the Catholic Church, but even 
 among the schismatics and heretics, unanimously agree 
 in the prayers, which precede, accompany and follow 
 the consecration; and that they express in the clearest 
 and most energetic manner the belief of sacrifice, of 
 the real presence, of transubstantiation and adoration. 
 The fact in question is most easy to demonstrate, and 
 established by authentic quotations extracted from all 
 these liturgies. I will collect them for you, and let 
 them pass in review before your eyes. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE VARIOUS LITURGIES. 
 
 "We offer to thee who art King and God, this 
 bread and this chalice, according to the order of our 
 Saviour; returning thee thanks through Him, for hav- 
 ing vouchsafed to permit us to exercise the priesthood 
 in thy presence. We beseech thee to look down 
 favourably upon these gifts in honour of Jesus Christ, 
 and to send down upon this sacrifice thy Holy Spirit, 
 thelwittness of the sufferings of our Lord, Jesus Christ, 
 that he may make this bread become the body of thy 
 Christ, and this chalice his blood; we offer to thee, 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 129 
 
 &x." # The prayers are long and very beautiful. At the 
 moment of communion, the people exclaim; "Hosanna 
 to the son of David, blessed be the Lord God, who 
 cometh in the name of the Lord, and has shewn him- 
 self to us." The rubric adds: "The Bishop gives the 
 Eucharist with these words: It is the body of Jctus 
 Christ. The receiver answers; Amen. The Deacon 
 gives the chalice, saying: It is the blood of Jesus Christ, 
 the cup of life. The receiver answers; Amen. And 
 after the communion, the Deacon begins the thanks- 
 giving, saying: after having received the precious body, 
 and the precious blood of Jesus Christ, let us give 
 thanks to Him, who has made us partake of his myste- 
 ries." The Bishop concludes it by a noble prayer. 
 
 In the liturgy, rather alluded to than reported in the 
 second book, we read simply as follows: "The bene- 
 diction is followed by the sacrifice, during which all the 
 people should remain standing and pray in silence; and 
 after it is offered, each one, in order, should receive 
 the body and blood of the Lord, and approach to it with 
 the fear and reverence due to the body of the King." 
 
 "We beseech thee, O God, to cause that this obla- 
 tion may be in all things blessed, admitted, ratified, 
 reasonable and acceptable, that it may become for us 
 the body and blood of thy well beloved Son, our Lord, 
 Jesus Christ. . . ." And after the consecration: "We 
 offer to thy supreme majesty, of thy gifts and benefits, 
 a pure host, a holy host, an unspotted host, the holy 
 bread of eternal life, and the chalice of everlasting 
 salvation." And at the moment of communion, the 
 Priest bowing down in sentiments of profound adora- 
 tion and humility, addresses himself to Jesus Christ 
 present in his hands, and says to him three times: 
 "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under 
 my roof; but say only the word, and my soul shall be 
 
 *Liturgy taken from the 8th Book of the apostolic Constitutions, 
 written in the 4 th century. 
 12 
 
130 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 healed." And giving the communion, as in receiving 
 it himself, he declares again that it is the body of our 
 Lord , Jesus Christ* 
 
 Such were the expressions of the liturgy introduced 
 into the British isles in the year 595, and which was 
 universally celebrated till the sixteenth century in the 
 three kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland, as 
 it has been for many centuries in France, Germany, 
 Spain, and every country in the world, where there 
 are Latin priests. It would be superfluous to produce 
 in this place the ancient liturgy of Spain, since we 
 know from the learned St. Isidore among others, who 
 succeeded his brother St. Leander in the see of Seville 
 in 600, that it was conformable to the Roman liturgy, 
 of which we have just given an extract, in the canon 
 and essential parts of the mass. 
 
 Unfortunately we have no manuscript or monument 
 to inform us of the ancient liturgy of Gaul, in its full 
 extent and without any mixture of others. There 
 remains an abridged exposition of the mass, composed 
 by St. Germanus of Paris, in the middle of the sixth 
 century. By the help of this small treatise, and of 
 what we find in the works of St. Gregory of Tours, a 
 few years after St. Germanus, we learn however 
 accurately enough the ancient order of the Gallican 
 mass, and the learned discover in it more analogy with 
 the oriental liturgies, than with the Roman. 
 
 St. Germanus, speaking of the gifts placed upon the 
 altar, says; u The bread is transformed into the body, 
 and the vine into the blood. The Lord having said of 
 the bread, this is my body, and of the wine, this is my 
 blood. The oblation is consecrated upon the paten. 
 The angel of God descends upon the altar as upon the 
 monument, and blesses the host. "When the fraction 
 takes place, the clergy, in a suppliant posture, will sing 
 the anthem: Vouchsafe, we humbly beseech thee, to 
 
 ' Tlie Roman Liturgy, according to tlic sacramentary of Gelaslus. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 131 
 
 receive this sacrifice, to bless it, and sanctify it, that 
 it may become for us a lawful Eucharist in thy name, 
 and that of thy Son, and of the Holy Spirit, being 
 transformed into the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus 
 Christ,"* 
 
 "May the spirit, the comforter of thy blessing, thy 
 co-eternal co-operator descend, O my God, upon these 
 sacrifice?, that .... this aliment being* transformed 
 into flesh, this chalice into blood, what we have offered 
 for our sins, may save us by his merits. Ut translata 
 fruge in corpore, calice in cruore, proficiat meritis 
 quod obtulimus pro delictis."t 
 
 ''•Beseeching by our fervent supplications, that he 
 who changed water into wine would change into blood 
 the wine which we ofter."J 
 
 The Gothico-Gallican Missal of the end of the 
 seventh century contains a prayer to God in form of 
 an invocation. "That thou wouldst vouchsafe to look 
 down with an eye of mercy upon these gifts brought to 
 thy altar, and that the Holy Spirit of thy Son would 
 cover them with his shadow." As also this prayer 
 after the consecration: "Being mindful of the passion 
 and resurrection of our most glorious Lord, we offer 
 to thee, O God, this spotless host, this reasonable host, 
 this unbloody host." Again the following prayer be- 
 fore the communion: '-Accomplishing the sacred solem- 
 nities, which we have offered to thee according to the 
 rite of the high-priest Melchisedech, we devoutly be- 
 seech thee, O eternal Majesty, for grace to receive 
 this bread, changed into flesh by the operation of thy 
 power; this drink, changed into blood, and to drink 
 from the. chalice the same blood, ichich ran from thy 
 side upon the cross." 
 
 The priest takes the bread, and says of Jesus 
 Christ: | "Taking the bread in his holy, spotless, 
 
 * Gallican Liturgy — Mass of the Circumcision. 
 
 t Mass of the Assumption. 
 
 X On the Epiphany. 
 
 || Liturgy of St. John, or of Jerusalem. 
 
132 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 and immortal hands, lifting up his eyes to heaven, 
 shewing- it to thee, O God, his Father, giving thanks 
 to thee, sanctifying it, and breaking it, he gave it to 
 us, his disciples and his apostles, saying: take and eat, 
 this is my body, which is broken for you, and for the 
 remission of sins." (They answer amen.) "In like 
 maimer after he had supped, taking the chalice and 
 mixing water with the wine, looking up to heaven, 
 shewing it to thee, O God, the Father, and giving 
 thanks, sanctifying it, blessing it, filling it with the 
 Holy Spirit, he gave it to us his disciples, saying: 
 Drink ye all of it; it is my blood of the New Testa- 
 ment, which is shed for you and for many, and which 
 is given for' the remission of sins: 5 ' and afterwards; 
 "We offer to thee, O Lord, this awful and unbloody 
 sacrifice." And again; "His vivifying spirit, who 
 reigns with thee, O God, the Father, and with thy only 
 Son, who spoke in the law and in the prophets, and in 
 thy New Testament, who appeared and rested in the 
 form of a dove upon Jesus Christ, our Lord in the fiver 
 of Jordan, who descended in the form of fiery tongues 
 in the supper-room of the holy and glorious Sion; send 
 down now this Holy Spirit upon us, and upon these 
 gifts, that by his holy, beneficent, and glorious pre- 
 sence, he may make this bread tlie sacred body of Jesus 
 Christ, Amen; and this chalice the precious blood of 
 Jesus Christ , Amen" Before communion, the priest 
 thus addresses himself to Jesus Christ upon the altar: 
 u O Lord, my God ! who art the bread of heaven, and 
 life of the world, I have sinned against heaven, and 
 against thee: and I am not worthy to partake of thy 
 most pure mysteries: but through thy divine mercy, 
 grant that, without incurring condemnation, thy grace 
 may make me worthy to receive thy sacred body and 
 thy precious blood, for the remission of my sins, and 
 life eternal." At the communion of the people, the 
 deacon says: "Approach with fear, with faith, and with 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 13c* 
 
 love." The people answer: "Blessed is he that 
 cometh in the name of the Lord." 
 
 "Receive us at thy holy altar," says the priest mak- 
 ing the oblation, "according to thy great mercy, grant 
 that we may be worthy to offer thee this rational, un- 
 bloody sacrifice, for our sins, and for all the ignorances 
 of the people."* Then after the words of institution, 
 which are not omitted in any liturgy with which I am 
 acquainted, the priest bowing down says in secret: 
 "We offer to thee this rational and unbloody worship; 
 and we beseech, we pray and entreat thee, to send down 
 thy Holy Spirit upon us, and upon these offerings: .... 
 make indeed this bread the precious body of thy Christ;"' 
 The deacon, answers "Amen;" And what is in this 
 chalice, "the precious blood of thy Christ;" The 
 deacon, Amen;" " Changing them by thy Holy 
 Spirit." The deacon, "Amen, Amen, Amen." After 
 several prayers, addressing himself to Jesus Christ, 
 the priest says: "Look down on us, O Lord Jesus 
 Christ, our God, from thy holy dwelling,°and from the 
 throne of the glory of thy kingdom, and come to 
 sanctify us, thou, who sittest together with the Father 
 in the highest heavens, and art here invisibly present 
 with us; and vouchsafe, with thy powerful hand, to 
 impart to us thy immaculate body and thy precious 
 blood, and by us to all the people." The priest and 
 deacon in adoration say each three times: "Have mercy 
 on me a poor sinner." The people adore in like 
 manner. Before the communion, the priest says to 
 the deacon: "Draw near " The deacon bows reverent- 
 ly before the priest, who holds a part of the sacred 
 host. The deacon says: "Give me, O Lord, the pre- 
 cious and holy body of our Lord, God and Saviour. 
 Jesus Christ." The priest gives it into his hand say- 
 ing: "I give to thee the precious, and holy, and pure 
 body of our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ." — 
 Then the priest and deacon bowing down and holding 
 
 *Liturgy of Constantinople, called that of the Apostles, and later, 
 that of St. Chrysostom. 
 
 12* 
 
134 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 the sacred host, make together an admirable confes- 
 sion of faith, which begins thus: "I believe, O Lord, 
 and I confess, that thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
 living God, who didst come into the world to save 
 sinners, of whom I am the chief; make me a partaker of 
 thy mystical supper. I will not reveal the mystery to 
 thy enemies', nor will I give thee a kiss like Judas; but 
 like the good thief, I confess what thou art." I re- 
 gret that I cannot here transcribe the whole of this 
 confession, which ends with these words: "O Lord our 
 God, forgive me all my sins, thou who art goodness 
 itself; and by the intercession of thy immaculate Moth- 
 er, ever a Virgin, grant that without incurring condem- 
 nation, I may receive thy precious and most pure body" 
 Then the priest presents the chalice to the deacon, who 
 says: "Behold I come to the immortal King: I believe, 
 O Lord, and confess thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
 living God." The priest says to him, "Servant of 
 God, Deacon N. thou dost communicate of the pre- 
 cious, and holy body, and blood of our Lord, and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ, for the remission of thy sins, and 
 everlasting life." 
 
 The deacon going to communicate the people says: 
 "Approach to God with fear and faith; the choir an- 
 swers, Amen, Amen, Amen; blessed is he that cometh 
 in the name of the Lord." — Receiving the consecrat- 
 ed species of bread and wine in a spoon, the commu- 
 nicant says: "I believe, O Lord, and confess that thou 
 art truly the Son of the living God." The deacon says 
 to him: "Servant of God, receive the most holy body and 
 the precious blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ." 
 
 This liturgy is followed by all the Greeks who are 
 in the West, at Rome', in Calabria, in Apulia; by the 
 Mingrelians, Georgians, Bulgarians, Russians, and 
 Muscovites; by all the modern Melchite Christians 
 dependant on the patriarch of Alexandria residing at 
 Cairo, on the patriarch of Jerusalem, and the patriarch 
 of Antioch resident at Damascus. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. \So 
 
 Those from which we shall now give extracts are* 
 the liturgy of St. Mark, called that of St. Cyril; that 
 of St. Basil and that of St. Gregory of Nazfanzen. 
 The Jacobite Coptic Christians opposed to the council 
 of Chalcedon in 451 have continued to make use of 
 them, and have done so for 1200 years. 
 
 In the preparatory prayer, the priest says: "O 
 Lord, do thou make us worthy, by the power of thy 
 Holy Spirit, to perform this ministry, that Ave may 
 not incur judgment before the throne cf thy glory, and 
 may offer thee this sacrifice of blessing.'" Some of 
 the words of the oblation: "O Lord Jesus Christ, only 
 begotten Son, word of God the Father, consubstan- 
 tial and co-eternal with Him and the Holy Ghost . . . 
 look down on this bread and on this chalice, which 
 we have placed on this thy sacerdotal table; bless 
 them, sanctify them, and consecrate them; change them, 
 so that indeed this bread may become thy holy body; 
 and that which is mixed in this chalice, thy precious 
 blood. " After having religiously recited the words 
 of institution, the priest continues: "We adore thee, 
 according to the good pleasure of thy will, and we 
 entreat thee, O Christ, our God, we sinners and thy 
 unworthy servants, that thy Holy Spirit may come 
 down upon us, and upon his proposed gifts, to sanctify 
 them, .... and to make of this bread the holy body of 
 our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ himself, who is 
 given for the remission of sins and everlasting life to 
 him, who shall receive him." The people answer, 
 Amen. "And of this chalice to make the precious blood 
 of the New Testament of our Lord, God and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ himself, who is given for the remission of 
 sins and everlasting life to him, who shall receive him." 
 The people answer, Amen. At the breaking of the 
 host the priest says, "O Lord, our God, .... thou, who 
 hast sanctified these oblations placed before thee, by 
 
 * Liturgy of Alexandria. 
 
136 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 making thy Holy Spirit descend upon them." At the 
 approach of the communion, the Deacon gives notice 
 by these words; "be attentive and trembling before 
 God." The people: "O Lord, have mercy on us." 
 ^ hen the priest taking in his hand the larger part of 
 the host, elevates it, and then bows down and exclaims 
 with a loud voice: "Holy things for holy persons." 
 The people prostrate uith their faces to the ground. 
 Then comes the profession of faith, which the priest 
 makes in these terms: " The holy body, and precious, 
 pure, true blood of Jesus Christ, the Son, our God. 
 Amen. The body and blood of Emmanuel, our God, 
 this is in real truth. Amen. I believe, I believe, I 
 believe, and confess, to the last breath of my life, that 
 this is the life giving body of thine only begotten Son, 
 our Lord God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He receiv- 
 ed it from the Lady of us all, the Mother of God, the 
 sacred and holy Mary, and made it one with his divi- 
 nity, without confusion, without mixture or alteration. 
 He gave of himself a good testimony before Pontius 
 Pilate, and delivered himself for us to the tree of the 
 holy cross, by his only will, and for us all. I believe 
 truly that his divinky was never separated from his 
 humanity, not an hour, not the twinkling of an eye.* 
 He delivered up his body for the salvation, remission 
 of sins and eternal life of those, who shall receive him. 
 Thus I believe in exact truth."! 
 
 * These words convey a sense perfectly Catholic; they mark 
 union and not mixture; they do not confound the two natures as 
 the Eutychians did. And in fact the Jacobites attached to Dios- 
 corus, rejected, it is true, the council of Chalcedon, which had 
 condemned him; T)utJ they equally anathematized Nestorius and 
 Eutyches, according to the edict of union of the emperor Zeno, 
 which they always received. 
 
 t We are indebted for the information acquired upon the subject 
 of the Coptic Jacobites, to the travels, intelligence and labours 
 of the learned Vansleb, born at Erfurt. He studied the Ethiopian 
 language under M. Ludolff, who induced the Duke of Saxony to 
 send him to the Levant, and into Ethiopia, iu the hope of his 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 1 37 
 
 The liturgies of Ethiopia or of Abyssinia so much 
 resemble those of the Coptic Jacobites, that it will 
 suffice to quote some passages peculiar to them. The 
 liturgy instituted by the 318 Fathers expresses the 
 invocation in the following manner: "We beseech thee 
 therefore and entreat thee, O Lord, graciously to send 
 thy Holy Spirit, and to cause him to descend, to come 
 and diffuse his light over this bread, that it may be- 
 come the body of our Lord, and that what is contained 
 in this chalice may be changed and may become the 
 blood of Jesus Christ.* Another liturgy translated 
 into Latin by Mr. LudolfF, a Lutheran, speaks thus: 
 "We beseech thee, O Lord, and entreat thee, to send 
 thy Holy Spirit and his power upon this bread, and 
 upon this chalice, that he may make of them the body 
 and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, our Lord for 
 ages of ages." 
 
 The liturgy called of the Apostlesf after the words 
 of our Saviour, continues thus: "The people say; 
 Amen, Amen, Amen; we believe it, we are certain 
 of it, we praise thee, O Lord, our God. It is truly 
 thy body, ice believe it to be so; and after the words over 
 the chalice, the people say Amen, it is truly thy blood, 
 we believe it." Here we see before the communion 
 that lively and strong profession of faith, which I have 
 
 making discoveries there favourable to Lutheranism. Not being 
 able to reach Ethiopia, Vansleb applied himself to the Jacobite 
 liturgies, examined them thoroughly, was convinced by them of 
 the errors of his own communion, became a Catholic, and after- 
 wards a Dominican at Rome. He came into France, and was 
 graciously received by M. Colbert. This great minister, who 
 sought nothing so eagerly as men capable of seconding his va~t 
 aud noble designs, sent him back to the Levant, with orders to 
 purchase all the oriental JMSS. which he could find. Vansleb 
 sent more than five hundred to the Bibliotheque du Roi. After 
 vainly attempting to penetrate into Ethiopia, he returned in 1676 
 into France, where he died a few years afterwards. 
 
 ■ Translation of Vansleb, History of Alexandria, Chapter on Tran- 
 substantiation. 
 
 t Latin translation of Renaudot. 
 
133 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 copied from the Coptic liturgy; it stands here with the 
 same expressions. The Priest gives the communion 
 to the people with these words: "This is the bread of 
 life which comes down from heaven, truly the precious 
 body of Emmanuel, our God." The communicant 
 answers, "Amen," The deacon presents the chalice, 
 saying: "This is the chalice of life, which comes 
 down from heaven, and which is the precious blood of 
 Jesus Christ." The communicant answers, "Amen, 
 Amen." 
 
 The liturgies were much more multiplied among the 
 Syrians, than among the other Christian Churches. 
 That of St. James is considered by them as the most 
 ancient, the most common, and that which contains 
 the whole order of the Mass, to which all the others 
 have a reference. I have already quoted some portions 
 of it from the Greek version. I will now produce 
 others from Syriac. At the preparation of the sacra- 
 flee, the deacon says: "O God, who in thy mercy didst 
 accept the sacrifices of the ancient just, accept also 
 in thy mercy our sacrifice, and vouchsafe to accept 
 our prayers." Between the words of institution, and 
 those of invocation, which are the same here as in the 
 Greek version, the deacon announces the descent of 
 the Holy Ghost upon the gifts, by a very striking ad- 
 monition. "How terrible, O my brethren, is this hour, 
 how awful is this moment, when the holy and life- 
 giving Spirit is about to descend from the highest 
 heavens, and bow down upon this Eucharist placed in 
 the sanctuary, and sanctify it; be ye therefore in fear 
 and trembling; keep yourselves in prayer; may peace 
 be with you, and the security of God, the Father of us 
 all. Let us exclaim three times, "Kyrie efcison." Then 
 follows the invocation, the same as in the Greek version. 
 The deacon makes afterwards a very beautiful prayer 
 in a loud voice: "Bless us again and again, O my God, 
 by this holy oblation, by this propitiatory sacrifice, 
 which is offered to God, the Father, which is sanctified, 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 139 
 
 completed, and perfected by the descent of the Holy 
 Ghost, the life-giver. ... Ye ministers of the Church, 
 tremble; for you administer a burning fire: the power 
 which is given you is greater than that of the Sera- 
 phim. Happy the soul who presents herself with 
 purity at this altar! For the Holy Ghost inscribes 
 her name, and carries it to heaven. Tremble deacons, 
 at the sacred hour when the Holy Ghost descends to 
 
 sanctify the body of those, who receive him Be 
 
 mindful of the absent, O my God! take pity on us. 
 Peace and repose to the souls of the departed: pardon 
 the sinners at the day of judgment: tbose, who are de- 
 parted and separated from us by death; O Christ place 
 their souls in peace, with the pious and the just: let thy 
 cross be their support, thy baptism their garment: let thy 
 body and blood be to them the guide to conduct them 
 to thy kingdom." The deacon addressing himself after- 
 wards to the people, says : "Bote down your heads be- 
 fore the God of mercies, before the propitiatory altar, 
 and before the body and blood of our Saviour." At 
 the fraction, and communion of the priest, it is always 
 the body of Jesus Christ, which was broken and 
 sprinkled witb his blood; the holy body, the life-giving 
 body which he receives. The deacon administering 
 it to the people, says: "My brethren, the Church cries 
 out to you: receive the body of the Son, drink his 
 blood with faith .... this is the chalice which our Lord 
 mingled upon the tree of the cross; approach mortals, 
 drink of it for the remission of your sins." 
 
 The following is the invocation of the Syriac liturgy, 
 called that of St. Maruthas, Metropolitan of Tagrit in 
 Mesopotamia, and a friend of St. Chrysostom V, * 
 "Have mercy on me, O my God, who lovest mankind, 
 send upon me, and upon this holy oblation the Holy 
 Ghost, who proceeds from thee, who receives of thy 
 Son and perfects all the mysteries of the Church, who 
 
 * From the Latin of Renaudot. 
 
140 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 reposes upon these oblations and sanctifies them." 
 The people, "pray:" the priest: "Hear me, O my 
 God:" the people thrice; "Kyrie eleison:" the priest, 
 raising his voice; "that he may make this mere bread 
 by transmutation (transmutet atque efficiat) the very 
 same body, which was immolated upon the cross, the 
 same body, which rose again with glory, and never 
 knew corruption ! the body, which prepares life ! the 
 body of the word himself, God, of our Saviour Jesus 
 Christ, for the remission of sins (the people, "Amen,") 
 and the mingled wine which is in the chalice, he may 
 make by transmutation (transmutet et perficiat) the very 
 same blood, which was shed on the summit of Golgotha! 
 The same blood, which streamed down upon the earth, 
 and purified it from sin ! The same blood, which pre- 
 pares for life, the blood of the Lord himself, of the 
 word of God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, for the 
 remission of sins and eternal life to those, who shall 
 receive him. 
 
 At the offertory the priest says;* "May Christ, 
 who was immolated for our salvation, and has com- 
 manded us to commemorate his death and resurrection, 
 may Christ himself receive this sacrifice presented 
 by our unworthy hands!" And as he had desired the 
 concurrence of the people, they answer: "May the 
 Lord gratiously hear thy prayers, may he be pleased 
 with thy sacrifice, and vouchsafe to accept thy obla- 
 tion, and honour thy priesthood !" The priest says: 
 "May thy Holy Spirit come, O my God, and repose 
 upon the oblation of thy servants; may he bless it, and 
 sanctify it !" In this M. S. the prayers for the conse- 
 cration are wanting; but at the breaking of the host, at 
 the mingling of the species, the liturgy speaks only of 
 the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the precious 
 blood, the life-giving body. At the communion, the 
 
 *Nestorian Liturgies — that called of the apostles, from the Latin 
 of Rinaudot. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 141 
 
 <ieacon exclaims : "Let us all approach with tremb- 
 ling." And again, "My brethren, receive the body of 
 the Son — the voice of the Church — and drink his 
 chalice with faith." And in an act of thanksgiving, 
 the priest says: "Christ our God, Lord, King, Saviour, 
 and giver of life, has graciously made us worthy to 
 receive his body and his precious and sanctifying' 
 blood." 
 
 "With hearts filled with fear and veneration,* let 
 us all approach to the mystery of the body and pre- 
 cious blood of our Saviour, — and now, O Lord, 
 that thou hast called me to thy holy and pure altar to 
 offer thee this living and holy sacrifice, make me 
 worthy to receive this gift with purity and sanctity." 
 
 And again the priest says at the communion: "O 
 
 Lord, my God, I am not worthy, and it is not right that 
 I should receive thy body, and. the blood of propitia- 
 tion, nor even that I should touch them; but let thy 
 word sanctify my soul, and heal my body?" And in 
 the thanksgiving after communion, the priest says : 
 "Strengthen our hands, which have been stretched out 
 
 to receive the Holy One repair by a new life 
 
 those bodies which have tasted thy living body God 
 
 has filled us with blessings by his living Son, who for 
 our salvation bowed down from the highest heaven, 
 put on our body, and gave its his own, and mingled his 
 venerable blood with our blood, a mystery of propitia- 
 tion 
 
 After the words of institution, the deacon says 
 aloud:f "Silence and trembling!" Then comes the 
 invocation, which the priest commences thus, in an in- 
 clined posture; "may the grace of the Holy Ghost 
 come down upon us, and upon this oblation; may he 
 dwell aud infuse himself on the bread aud on the chalice; 
 may he bless and sanctify them: .... may the bread, by 
 the virtue of thy name, this bread, I say, be madethe holy 
 
 * Liturgy of the Nestorians of Malabar. 
 
 ]Liturgy of Theodorus, of Mopsuestia, translated by Renaudot. 
 
 13 
 
142 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 body of our Lord, Jesus Christ: and this chalice, the 
 blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ." 
 
 The invocation is expressed as follows:* "O my 
 God, may the grace of the Holy Ghost come, and 
 dwell, and rest on this oblation, which we are offer- 
 ing before thee; may he sanctify it, and make it, that 
 is, this bread and chalice, the body and blood of our 
 Lord, Jesus Christ, thou transmuting them (transmu- 
 tante ea te,) and sanctifying them, by the operation of 
 the Holy Ghost." 
 
 In all other parts, this liturgy of Nestorius and the 
 preceding one of Theodorus, resemble the first insti- 
 tuted by the apostles. 
 
 At the oblation of the mass for the dead,f we find 
 these words: "Holy Father, lover of mankind, re- 
 ceive this sacrifice in memory of the dead: place their 
 souls among the saints in the heavenly kingdom: may 
 thy divinity be appeased by this sacrifice, which we 
 offer thee with faith, and grant the repose of their 
 souls!" At the canon, the priest says of our Saviour, 
 "taking the bread in his divine, immortal, spotless 
 hands, which have also the power of creating, he blessed 
 
 it, gave thanks, broke it, &c O God send upon us, 
 
 and upon these gifts thy holy, co-eternal and con-sub- 
 stantial Spirit:" [Here the deacon bows down at the 
 corner of the altar:] "that thou mayest make this blessed 
 bread the body of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ;" 
 and holding the host over the chalice, he adds, "that 
 thou mayest make this blessed bread and wine, the true 
 body and very flesh, and the true blood of our Lord and 
 Saviour, Jesus Christ, changing them by thy Spirit." 
 .... The priest adores thrice, and kisses the altar, and 
 from that time he does not any more raise his hands 
 above the offerings. Now fixing his eyes upon them 
 he adores them as God, and represents to him his 
 
 * Lit. of Nestorius, from the Latin of Renaudot. 
 t Armenian Liturgy, from the Latin of Mr. Pidou de Saint Olon, 
 Bp. of Babylon, and the French of P. Le Brun. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 143 
 
 desires with tears Towards the communion, the 
 
 priest adores, and kisses the altar; taking the sacred 
 body, he dips it entirely in the precious blood, saying: 
 a O Lord, our God .... we beseech thee to. make us 
 worthy to receive this sacrament for the remission of 
 our sins." The priest with humility elevating from 
 the holy table the sacred body and blood of our Lord, 
 and Saviour, Jesus Christ, turns towards the people, and 
 exhibits them, saying: "Let us taste in a holy manner 
 of this holy, sacred, and precious body and blood of 
 our Lord, and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who descending 
 from the heavens is distributed among us." He says 
 afterwards, "I confess and believe that thou art the 
 Christ, the Son of God, who didst bear the sins of the 
 
 world O Jesus Christ, my God ! / taste with 
 
 faith thy holy and life-giving body for the remission of 
 my sins. O my God, Jesus Christ, I taste with faith 
 thy purifying and sanctifying blood for the remission of 
 my sins." Then making upon his mouth the sign of the 
 cross, he says these words of St. Thomas the apostle; 
 "may thy incorruptible body be in me for life, and thy 
 sacred blood for the propitiation and remission of sins!" 
 Then turning towards the people with the chalice: 
 "Approach with fear, with faith, and communicate in a 
 holy manner." During the communion of the people, a 
 canticle is sung with these words: "This bread is the 
 body of Jesus Christ; this chalice is the blood of the 
 New Testament: the hidden sacrament is made manifest 
 to us, and thereby shews himself to us; here is Jesus 
 Christ the Word of God, who is seated at the right 
 hand of the Farther — he is sacrificed in the midst of 
 us," &c. 
 
 VII. After the extracts you have now read, per- 
 mit me, sir, to conclude the subject of the liturgies by 
 a two-fold supposition, which will personally concern 
 you, inasmuch as it will place your existence about 
 the year 256, under Decius. I will suppose then that 
 in the middle of the third century, certain motives of 
 
144 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 curiosity or business had led you into different coun- 
 tries, and had afforded you opportunities of assisting 
 at the divine worship. You would have found in the 
 several countries, in substance, the same liturgy. At 
 Rome, at Carthage, or Alexandria; at Jerusalem, 
 Ephesus, or Antioch; at Corinth, or Athens; in Spain, 
 or in Gaul, you would have heard the same prayers 
 recited, the same invocations, at least in signification, 
 to obtain the change of bread and wine into the body 
 and blood of Jesus Christ; the same professions of 
 faith in the real presence of the divine victim; you 
 would have adored him upon the altar, receiving him 
 with your brother Christians; and with them you would 
 have derived from these sublime dogmas an angelic 
 fervour, and sentiments above the terrors of this world, 
 a courage unshaken and super-human in the fire of 
 persecution, at the glare of the faggot, and the sight 
 of the sword. 
 
 I will suppose in the second place, that at the end 
 of your travels, arriving in some great city, you fell in 
 with some Christian congregation, which however 
 would have been impossible at that period, where you 
 heard some venerable ecclesiastic explain to the peo- 
 ple that what was elsewhere called an unbloody sacri- 
 fice was no more than a pious chimera; that the altar 
 of the Christians was an altar without a victim; that 
 every thing there was in figure; that the presence of 
 our Saviour was only a fiction, since his body had been 
 long ago in heaven, and could not at the same time be 
 found upon earth; that the change effected in the offer- 
 ings by the Omnipotence of the Holy Ghost, consisted 
 in making a religious emblem of a domestic aliment; 
 that after the consecration, the substances offered 
 were what they had been before, literal bread and 
 literal wine; and that consequently the adoration of 
 Catholicism was gross idolatry. What then would 
 have been your sentiments? Allow me, sir, to ask you: 
 would you not have left this congregation with perfect 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 145 
 
 horror? Would you not have fled with precipitation 
 from such a preacher? Doubtless you would from that 
 time have been even more ardently attached to the 
 doctrine of the universal Church. Well then, my 
 dear sir, what you would have done then, do, I be- 
 seech you, now. The ancient liturgies are still those 
 of the Catholics; your own is new, national, and dis- 
 cordant. The language of ^ the supposed heterodox 
 preacher is precisely that of the Rector of Long New- 
 ton. Both declaim against the faith of the primitive 
 Church! both are at open war with the teaching of the 
 apostles, with the oblation transmitted by them to the 
 Church. Return, sir, I conjure you, to the doctrine 
 and practice of the beautiful ages of antiquity. It is 
 not you alone, nor the laity only, to whom I now most 
 solemnly appeal. I appeal to all those to whom I 
 dedicated my Discussion Amicale; I appeal especially 
 to the Rev. G-. S. Faber, to the doctors of your univer- 
 sities, to those of every communion, holding, like your 
 own, opinions manifestly opposed to that apostolical 
 tradition, which is imprinted on all the ancient litur- 
 gies, in characters uniform and indelible.* 
 
 *I cannot too strongly recommend to my readers the very curious 
 work of 1 P. Le Brun, where all the liturgies, ancient and modern 
 are exhibited. This work is indispensable for the young clergy, 
 who are applying to theology in the universities of Oxford and 
 Cambridge. I invite them to take with it the dissertation of 
 Schelestadt De disciplina arcani. In these two works they will find 
 most solid and essentially necessary information on the history and 
 doctrine of the primitive Church. 
 
 13< 
 
146 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 
 
 GENERAL PROOF OF OUR DOCTRINE ON THE EUCHAR- 
 IST FROM THE CATECHESES. 
 
 Particular Proofs from the Fathers. 
 
 I. Every one who has studied the monuments of 
 tradition on the subject of the Eucharist, must have 
 remarked a singular difference in the expressions of 
 the Fathers, when they speak of the sacrament of the 
 altar. Sometimes they explain themselves with all 
 imaginable clearness, on the reality of the presence 
 of Jesus Christ under the species, and on the change 
 of substance. At other times they designate the 
 gifts offered, by the expressions of symbols, types, 
 signs, figures, representations, or allegories of the 
 body and blood of Jesus Christ. This diversity 
 of language, occurs not only among different doctors, 
 but often even in the same Father, for example, in St. 
 Chrysostom, or St. Augustin. The Catholics with 
 good reason attach themselves to the passages of the 
 former kind, while they give the most satisfactory ex- 
 planation of the others. The Protestant sacramenta- 
 rians build upon the passages of the latter kind, which 
 suit their opinions; and at the same time, glide hastily 
 over those of the first description, which overthrow 
 their system. Both parties, agree that the Fathers are 
 not to be accused of being contradictory to one another, 
 and still less to themselves. But, as far as 1 know, 
 neither Catholics nor Protestants have ever yet asked 
 themselves the cause of this difference of language on 
 the same subject? Why the Fathers, after having 
 spoken entirely in the sense of the real presence, ap- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 1 47 
 
 pear in other places to express themselves in that of 
 a figurative presence. It is however a duty to make 
 sucli enquiry, and this is the precise point to be inves- 
 tigated and cleared up, in order to dissipate the slightest 
 cloud, and bring forth in the full blaze of day the true 
 doctrine of the Fathers — the real belief of the primi- 
 tive Church. 
 
 II. The answer to this important question is by no 
 means difficult; and 1 am persuaded, sir, that you have 
 not arrived thus far, without foreseeing it yourself, 
 without my suggestion. The Fathers, as you know, 
 lived under the discipline of the secret^ and observed 
 it so strictly that they were ready to shed their blood, 
 as were the faithful after their example, rather than 
 violate it by betraying the mysteries; and among others, 
 that of the Eucharist. They could speak openly of it, 
 without fear, to the faithful, either in their family 
 circles, or in the church in discourses delivered be- 
 fore them exclusively: they were obliged to expose them 
 with all possible clearness to the neophytes, previous 
 to admitting them to communion and on the following 
 days.* On the contrary, in presence of the unbaptiz- 
 ed the secret was scrupulously kept. And you will 
 readily conceive, that if it were prohibited to confide 
 the least portion to a single individual uninitiated, it 
 must have been much more so to speak openly of the 
 
 *"On the eve of the great day of Easter and of your regenera- 
 tion, we shall teach you with what devotion you must come forth 
 from baptism, approach the altar; and partake of the spiritual 
 and heavenly mysteries, which are there offered, that your souls 
 being enlightened by our instructions and discourses, each one of 
 you may know the greatness of the presents, which God gives 
 him." (S. Cyr. of Jcruc. Catteh. 18.) "We shall only speak now 
 of things, which cannot be explained before catechumens, but 
 which it is necessary nevertheless to lay open to those, who have 
 been recently baptized." (St. Gaudcntius to the Xcoph.) "In this 
 paschal solemnity," said St. Augustin, (Serin, on the 5//i day after 
 Easter,) "these first seven or eight days are devoted to the instruc- 
 tion of the children, (the newly baptized) upon the sacraments." 
 
148 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 mysteries in writings intended for public circulation. 
 "How could it be allowed," says St. Basil, "to publish 
 written explanations, of what the uninitiated are for- 
 bidden to contemplate?' 1 
 
 III. What then, in these days, has he to do, who 
 would understand clearly the sentiments of the Fathers 
 on the Eucharist? What course will he take to attain 
 his object? It would be the height of folly to seek 
 their belief in writings where they were not permitted to 
 divulge it; in those, for instance, which they published 
 against the pagans and heretics of their, times: or in 
 discourses pronounced with open doors before catechu- 
 mens and gentiles. Any sensible man wishing to learn 
 in the school of the Fathers what has been revealed 
 on the subject of the Eucharist, will open those 
 instructions, which they gave to the newly baptized. 
 He will take his place, not among the catechumens, 
 before whom they concealed the mysteries; but among 
 the neophytes, to whom it was a necessary duty to 
 display them. These are, in the outset, the writings, 
 which any man of sincerity will consult, when desirous 
 of knowing with certainty, the doctrine of the Fathers; 
 but the catecheses before all, and even them alone, if 
 he would spare himself much labour and research. 
 For with them, he is sure to discover what the Fathers 
 believed, and what they taught: and by consequence, 
 with them he may save himself all farther trouble. 
 
 Nevertheless I would advise him to consult another 
 kind of monuments, from which he will derive parti- 
 cular edification without any trouble, and a firmness in 
 faith most valuable in the evil days in which we live. 
 I allude to the liturgies, which are so evidently con- 
 nected with the catecheses. In fact, what did these 
 latter teach the neophytes? They taught what passed 
 at the altar. And what else do the liturgies describe? 
 Both then necessarily contain the same mysteries, the 
 same doctrine, the same creed What the catecheses 
 put forth in theory, the liturgies exhibit in action. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 149 
 
 There are the principles, motives and reasons for be- 
 lieving: here the sentiments of gratitude, love and 
 adoration which faith inspires. If a more extensive 
 knowledge were desired, it might be found in the 
 sermons preached before the faithful exclusively, for 
 then the orator felt no restraint in expressing himself 
 openly, whenever his subject led him to speak on the 
 Holy Eucharist. 
 
 IV. But at our distance from the primitive times, 
 how are we, in these days, to distinguish among so 
 many homilies and sermons, those at which none as- 
 sisted but the initiated, from those attended by other 
 persons? How, after so many centuries, are we to 
 understand, whether the audience was composed pure- 
 ly of the faithful, or was made up of the faithful and 
 the profane, attracted perhaps by the reputation and 
 eloquence of the orator? We shall be supplied in this 
 case with certain rules by sound criticism. If the lan- 
 guage of the sermon accords with that of the catecheses, 
 if the preacher speaks of the Eucharist as openly as 
 the catechi;#,Mve may conclude with certainty that 
 the auditory was wholly Christian. But when the 
 preacher premises, like Theodoret in his first dialogue, 
 that he shall express himself "in mystic and obscure 
 terms, because perhaps he is speaking before persons 
 uniniatiated;" when he testifies, like St. Cyril of Alex- 
 andria, "a fear of discovering the mysteries to the un- 
 initiated;" — when he declares, like St. Clement of 
 Alexandria, that he will "endeavour to say certain 
 tilings under a veil, and to shew them, while he is, in a 
 manner, silent upon them;" or when he uses that ex- 
 pression, so common to S. Chrysostom and S. Augustin: 
 the "initiated understand ?ne, the initiated know it; n 
 or finally, when he seems to use expressions contradic- 
 tory to those which he has elsewhere employed before 
 the faithful ; — then, and in aU such cases, we are per- 
 fectly assured that there were some of the profane 
 among his hearers. 
 
150 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 V. These preliminary observations will not appear 
 to you, sir, as I love to believe, inspired by prejudice; 
 but rather dictated by the spirit of impartial criticism: 
 and if you are desirous of acquiring an exact and 
 thorough knowledge of the primitive doctrine on the 
 sacrament of our altars, you will doubtless seek out in 
 the first place, the elementary discourses still extant, 
 for the instruction of neophytes; then the ancient litur- 
 gies of the Christian churches, and finally the dis- 
 courses composed exclusively for the faithful. As to 
 the sermons addressed indiscriminately to Christians 
 and others, as also those works intended for the public ; 
 knowing that the discipline of the secret required the 
 mysteries to be concealed, you will not think of seek- 
 ing for them in writings of that kind: and when you see 
 your own divines attaching themselves by choice to 
 such works, and quoting passages from them with self- 
 complacency, you will say to yourself: "What can they 
 mean -by such a method? Why enquire of the Holy 
 Fathers their sentiments on the Eucharist, in circum- 
 stances in which they were obliged to efticeal them ? 
 What they said at those times was never intended by 
 them to guide us in this matter. To persist in taking 
 them for judges contrary to their known intention, is 
 willfully to deceive one's self and others." This is en- 
 tirely my opinion. To seek to discover what the Fa- 
 thers thought on the Eucharist, in writings where they 
 were obliged to conceal their sentiments; and not in 
 those where duty made it a law to expose them openly, 
 is assuredly following a method totally opposed to the 
 dictates of common sense.* 
 
 •Here observe that your divines, when combatting the real pre- 
 sence, transubtantiation, or the adoration of Jesus Christ in the 
 blessed sacrament, never reason from the catecheses, the liturgies, 
 or the sermons preached before the faithful exclusively. At most 
 they will quote a few insulated phrases from them, carefully con- 
 cealing what proceeds and follows them. You will soon see more 
 than one example of this. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 151 
 
 VI. Open then with me the instructions addressed 
 to the neophytes; read again the extracts, which I shall 
 point out to you; and remark, if you please, their con- 
 formity in doctrine with that of the liturgies. The 
 venerable patriarch St. Cyril, addressing the neophytes 
 of Jerusalem, thus expresses himself:* "As then 
 Christ, speaking of the bread, declared and said, this 
 is my body, who shall dare doubt it? And as speak- 
 ing of the wine, he positively assured us; and said, this 
 is my blood, who shall doubt it and say, that it is not 
 his blood ?"(Who ? Mr. Faber would reply to St. Cyril, 
 I shall doubt it.) "Formerly at Cana in Galilee, Jesus 
 Christ changed water into wine by his will only; and 
 shall we think it less worthy of credit, that he changed 
 wine into his blood ?f ... .Wherefore with all confi- 
 dence, let us take the body and blood of Christ. For 
 in the type or figure of bread his body is given to thee, 
 and in the type or figure of wine, his blood is given; that 
 so being made partakers of the body, and blood of 
 Christ, you may become one body and one blood with 
 him. Thus the body and blood of Christ being distri- 
 buted in our members, we become Christophori, that 
 is, we carry Christ with us; and thus, as St. Peter says, 
 
 *Catech. Mystag. iv. No. 1 and 2. 
 
 fAfter quoting thus far, the Rector stops short, and says in a 
 note, page 68; "I have selected this passage, because, so far as I 
 know, it is the strongest which can be produced from antiquity in 
 favour of the Latin doctrine of transubstantiation.'" What an ap- 
 pearance of candour ! How could it fail to deceive his readers r 
 He knows that the very contrary to what he says is the fact. For 
 he sees in the same page, and he has seen in my book, the words I 
 have cited in continuation ; and yet he has the effrontery to sup- 
 press them! I blush to record so unworthy an artifice. How can 
 a man pretending to prove to his countrymen the truth, conceal it 
 thus willfully from their sight ? I am at a loss for expressions, 
 which, without incurring impoliteness, might inflict well merited 
 correction on this shameful want of good taith. I defy any one, 
 and above all, the champion of figure and moral change, to ex- 
 press transubstantiation more clearly than St. Cyril doe9, in the 
 words Mr. Faber has artfully suppressed. 
 
]52 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 we are made partakers of the divine nature.*.... 
 Wherefore I conjure you, my brethren, not to consi- 
 der them any more as common bread and wine, since 
 they are the body and blood of Jesus Christ according 
 to his words; and although your sense might suggest 
 that to you, let faith confirm you. Judge not of the 
 thing by your taste, but by faith assure yourself, with- 
 out the least doubt, that you are honoured with the 
 body and blood of Christ. This knowing, and of this 
 being assured, that what appears to you bread, is not 
 bread, but the body of Christ, although the taste judges 
 it be bread; and that the wine which you see, and which 
 has the taste of wine, is not wine, but the blood of Christ ."f 
 And in the succeeding catechesis, where he describes 
 the liturgy of St. James, in use in his time in Jerusa- 
 lem, St. Cyril prescribes the manner of receiving the 
 chalice, in these words: "After having thus received 
 the body of Jesus Christ, approach to the chalice of 
 his blood, not extending your hands, but bowing in an 
 attitude of homage and adoration, and answering — 
 Jlmen.^X 
 
 VII. St. Ambrose said to those about to partake of 
 the sacred mysteries: "Water flowed from a rock for 
 the Jews; but for you, the blood of Jesus Christ him- 
 self flows But you may say: I see somewhat 
 
 else; how do you assert that I shall receive the body 
 
 of Christ? — This remains to be proved Moses 
 
 held a rod; he cast it on the ground; and it became a 
 serpent. ... If now the blessing of men was powerful 
 enough to change nature, what must we not say of the 
 divine consecration, when the very words of our Lord 
 operate? For that sacrament, which you receive, is 
 
 *Catech. Myst. No. 3. 
 
 jCatcch. Jlfyst. No. 6-»9. 
 • \Catech. Myst. y. No. 22. This adoration is the same which we 
 have seen in the liturgies rendered to Jesus Christ, under the spe- 
 cies, and consequently the adoration of latria. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 153 
 
 accomplished by the word of Christ.* The word of 
 Christ, which could draw out of nothing what was not, 
 shall it not be able to change the things that are, into 
 that ichich they were iwt? For it is not a less effect of 
 power, to give new existence to things, than to change 
 the natures tliat icere.-f. . . . Was the order of nature 
 followed, when Jesus was born of a virgin? Plainly, 
 not. Then why is that order to be looked for here? 
 It was the true flesh of Christ, which was crucified, 
 which was buried; and this is truly the sacrament of 
 his flesh. Our Lord himself proclaims: this is my bo- 
 dy. Before the benediction of the celestial words, the 
 bread (species) is named; after the consecration the 
 body of Christ is signified. He himself calls it his 
 blood. Before consecration it has another name; af- 
 terwards it is denominated blood. And you answer 
 Jlmen, that is, it is true. What the mouth speaks, let 
 the internal sense confess: what the words intimate, 
 let the affection feel. By these sacraments Christ feeds 
 his Church, and by them is the soul strengthened. It is 
 a mystery, whichj you ought to keep carefully within 
 yourselves .... for fear of communicating it to those, 
 who are unworthy of it, and of publishing its secrets 
 before infidels, by too great levity in speaking. There- 
 
 * According to Mr. Faber we should say: Moses knew how to 
 change physically his rod into a serpent; therefore much more can 
 Jesus Christ change morally the bread into a figure of his body; 
 which signifies in plain English — if Moses being only a man did 
 what was greater, Jesus Christ, a fortiori, can do what is less! 
 
 flf the word of Jesus Christ could, out of nothing, produce what 
 before did not exist, why should it not be able, in- certain circum- 
 stances, to substitute for the common use of bread, a distinction 
 wholly religious? Thus ought those to reason from the great mi- 
 racle of the creation, who in the Eucharistic bread admit only 
 the moral change of Mr. Faber. The absurdity of such reasoning 
 is palpable. St. Ambrose afterwards compares the miracle of the 
 production of Christ's body in the sacrament, with that of his birth 
 from a virgin. While Mr. Faber admits the miracle of his birth, 
 will he inform us where is the miracle of the production of his 
 body in the sacrament? This real and physical figure was certain- 
 ly miraculous : but how can a moral and figurative production be so ? 
 
 14 
 
154 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 fore you must watch with great care .... in order to 
 
 keep the fidelity of your secret."* 
 
 VIII. St. Gaudentius, bishop of Brescia, will repeat 
 to you what he said to his newly baptized Christians: 
 a Among all those things, which are marked out in the 
 Book of Exodus, on the celebration of the Passover, 
 we shall only now speak of such as cannot be explained 
 before the catechumens, but which it is nevertheless 
 necessary to make known to those, who have been newly 
 baptized. In the shadows and figures of the ancient 
 passover, they did not kill one lamb only, but several, 
 one in each house; because one alone would not have 
 sufficed for all the people, and because this mystery 
 was only the figure, and not the reality of our Lord's 
 passion. For the figure of a thing is not the reality, 
 but only the image and representation. But now, when 
 the figure has ceased, the one that died for all, immolated 
 in the mystery of bread and wine, gives life through all 
 the Churches, and being consecrated, sanctifies those that 
 consecrate. This is the flesh of the Lamb, this is his blood: 
 for the bread that came down from heaven said: the bread, 
 which I shall give you, is my flesh for the life of the world. 
 His blood is rightly expressed by the species of wine, 
 because when he says in the gospel, / am the true vine, 
 he sufficiently declares all wine, which is offered in 
 the figure of his passion, to be his blood. And he who 
 is the Creator and Lord of all natures, who produces 
 bread from the earth; of the bread makes his men 
 proper body, (for he is able, and he promised to do it;) 
 and who of water made wine, and of wine his blood .... 
 It is the pasch, he says, that is, the passover of the 
 Lord; think not that earthly, which is made heavenly by 
 him, who passes into it, and has made it his body and 
 bloody You ought not then to reject the mysteries of 
 
 * I ask again in this place — where is the mystery, and the ne- 
 cessity of keeping any secret in the system of figure and moral 
 change? 
 
 t In what St. Gaudentius here tells you, you look in vain, I 
 imagine, for the moral change of Mr. Faber. What follows is 
 not in the least, more like it. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 155 
 
 our Saviour's passion, by considering this flesh as if it 
 were raw, and this blood as if it were raw, as the 
 Jews did, nor say with them: how can he give us his 
 fiesh to eat? Neither ought you to consider this sacra- 
 ment as any thing earthly; but rather you should firm- 
 ly believe that by the fire of the Holy Ghost, this sa- 
 crament in effect is what the Lord assures you that it is. 
 Believe what is announced to thee; because what thou 
 receivest, is the body of that celestial bread, and the blood 
 of that sacred vine;* for when he delivered consecrated 
 bread to his disciples thus he said: This is my body; 
 this is my blood. Let us believe Him, whose faith 
 we profess; for truth cannot lie. . . .Receive then with 
 us, with all the holy eagerness of your heart, this sa- 
 crifice of the passover of the Saviour of the world 
 .... ichom ice believe to be himself present in his stucra- 
 ments." Do you think, sir, that the Rector of Long 
 Newton ever delivered a discourse like this to any 
 he prepared for the sacrament? No; no more than he 
 did like those of St. Ambrose and St. Cyril. Such 
 language can no where be found but in the mouth of 
 a Catholic pastor. 
 
 IX. St. Gregory Nazianzen, addressing his neo- 
 phytes^ applies to the Eucharist the precepts of Mo- 
 ses on the celebration of the passover. u Thelaw puts 
 a staff into your hand, that you may not stagger in 
 your soul, when you shall hear of the death of God. 
 Eat the body much more without any hesitation, and 
 drink the blood if you sigh after life. Never doubt of 
 what you hear concerning his flesh; be not scandalized 
 at his passion. Keep firm, aud resolved not to let 
 yourself be shaken by the discourse of your adversa- 
 ries, nor carried away by their efforts; with your foot 
 upon the rock, and your body resting on the column of 
 
 * In the system of a moral change, there is no living and ecclesias- 
 tical bread; it is only earthly, terrestial, and inanimate. 
 | Second Disc, on the Passover, Orat. 45. 
 
J 56 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 temple, remain immoveable on the pinnacle which you 
 occupy." How strange must language like this sound 
 to the ear of Mr. Faber? What can these precautions 
 and admonitions signify? What hesitation or doubt 
 could arise from a figurative manducation? Is there 
 any thing to terrify the imagination in a moral change? 
 Or any room for fear at the sight of literal bread? 
 
 X. It would be too long to quote the catechetical 
 discourse composed by St. Gregory of Nyssa in forty 
 chapters for the instruction of his neophytes: I will 
 however present you with a few passages. "When 
 persons, who have taken poison, wish to destroy the 
 mortal violence of the poison by a remedy, which will 
 counteract it, this counter-poison must enter into their 
 bodies, as the poison did before it, that it may diffuse 
 and insinuate its virtue in all parts, where the venom 
 has penetrated. In like manner, after taking the fatal 
 poison of sin, which destroys our nature, it is absolute- 
 ly necessary for us to take a remedy to re-establish 
 what was corrupted and changed, that this powerful 
 antidote, being within us, may drive away and repair 
 by its contrary virtue, the evil which the poison caused 
 in our bodies by its malignity and contagion. But what 
 is this medicine? That body, which was shewn to be 
 more powerful than death, and was the beginning of 
 our life; and which could not otherwise enter into our 
 bodies than by eating and drinking."* The body 
 then which we eat is that which suffered death, and 
 triumphed over it by the resurrection. But would it 
 not suffice, according to St. Gregory of Nyssa, to eat 
 this divine body by faith? Judge for yourself from the 
 following words of that great prelate: "Now we must 
 consider, how it can be, that one body, which so con- 
 stantly, through the whole world, is distributed to so 
 many thousands of the faithful, can be whole in each 
 receiver, and itself remain whole." A question totally 
 
 • Orat. Catech. ch- 3T. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 157 
 
 absurd, if there were no mandueation but by faith. 
 Surely you have never either heard or read it in your 
 Church; and certainly it will never enter Mr. Faber's 
 mind to propose it to you. "The body of Christ, by 
 the inhabitation of the Word of God, was transmuted 
 into a divine dignity: and so I now believe, that the 
 bread, sanctified by the word of God, is transmuted 
 into the body of Christ. This bread, as the apostle 
 says, is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer, not 
 that, like food, it passes into his body, but that it is 
 instantly changed into the body of Christ, agreeably to 
 what he said, this is my body .... By the dispensation 
 of his grace; he enters, by his flesh, into the breasts of 
 the faithful, commixed and contempered with their 
 bodies, that by being united to that which is immortal, 
 man may partake of incorruption. This is the gift 
 which v he bestows upon us, when, by the virtue of 
 the benediction, he changes or transforms into his body 
 the nature of the visible species. Virtute benediclionis 
 in illud corpus transelementatd eorum quce apparent 
 natural These are expressions which would appear 
 to me very strong, if I beheld in the Eucharistic bread 
 nothing more than a simple transportation from the 
 kitchen to the Lord's table, and from the commonest 
 use, a religious change or emblem. In truth, Mr. Faber 
 must be greatly scandalized at the doctrine taught by 
 the ancient Fathers of the Church, to their neophytes; 
 or rather he ought to abandon his own and adopt theirs. 
 XI. Let him listen attentively with us to the instruc- 
 tions of St. Chrysostom: "The statutes of sovereigns 
 have often served as an asylum to men who took 
 refuge near them; not because they were made of 
 brass, but because they represented the figure of 
 princes. Thus the blood of the Lamb saved the Isra- 
 elites, not because it was blood; but because it pre- 
 figured the blood of our Saviour, and announced his 
 coming. Now therefore if the enemy perceived, not 
 
 the blood of the figurative Lamb marked upon our 
 14* 
 
158 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 doors, but the blood of the truth shining in the moutlis 
 of the faithful, he would much more speedily depart 
 from them. For if the angel passed over at the sight 
 of the figure, how much more would the enemy be 
 terrified at the sight of the reality! .... Consider with 
 what food he nourishes and fills you: he himself is for 
 us the substance of this food." 1 ' (Therefore the sub- 
 stance of bread is no longer there.) "He himself is 
 our nourishment. For as a tender mother moved by 
 natural affection, is eager to support her child with all 
 the abundance of her milk, so Jesus Christ feeds with 
 his own blood those whom he regenerates." Could the 
 real presence be described or rendered by any com- 
 parison more touching and energetic* 
 
 Let us then, in all things, obey God.f Let us not 
 contradict him, even when what he tells us appears 
 repugnant to our ideas, and to our sight. Let his word 
 be preferred before our eyes and our thoughts. Let 
 us apply this principle to the mysteries. Let us not 
 regard what is exposed to our sight, but rather his 
 word. For that is infallible, whereas our senses may 
 deceive us. Since then the word has said; this is my 
 body, let us obey, let us believe, and behold this body 
 with the eyes of the soul. For Jesus Christ has given 
 us nothing sensible; but under sensible things, objects 
 which are only discernible by the spirit. For if you 
 were without body, the gifts which he has given you 
 would have been simple; but because your soul is uni- 
 ted to a body; under sensible things, he presents you 
 such as are not sensible. How many persons are heard 
 to say: I would willingly behold his figure, his shape, 
 his attire! But thou seest him, thou touchest him, thou 
 receivest him info thy breast. Yet thou desirest to see 
 his garments. He gives himself to thee, not to be look- 
 
 * Horn, to the neophytes, and nearly the same in a homily on St. 
 John, in the 60th to the people of Antioch. 
 \ Horn. QOth, to the people of rfntioch. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 159 
 
 cd on only, but to be touched, to be eaten, to be ad- 
 mitted into thy breast ! . . . . The treason of Judas, the in- 
 gratitude of those who crucified him made the most 
 holy body of our Lord suffer death; and thou, dost 
 thou receive him with a soul impure and defiled, after 
 receiving from him so many favours? For not con- 
 tent with becoming man, with suffering ignominies, he 
 would also mingle himself and unite himself with thee, 
 so that thou mightest become one same body with him, 
 and not only by faith, but effectively and in reality." 
 Do you hear any thing like this, sir, in your churches? 
 Do your preachers use any such language? They tell 
 you that you receive Jesus Christ by faith only; and St. 
 Chrysostom teaches that we receive him not only by 
 faith, but in effect and reality. Listen yet farther, I pray 
 you, to the admirable orator of Antioch. "How pure then 
 ought he to be who partakes of such a sacrifice! Ought 
 not the hand dividing this flesh to be more resplendent 
 than any ray of the sun? The mouth which is filled 
 with this spiritual fire, and the tongue which reddens 
 with this most tremedous blood? Think by what an 
 honour thou art distinguished, at what kind of table 
 thou art made a partaker. What the angels tremble 
 to behold, and do not indeed dare freely to look upon 
 o n account of the splendour which blazes forth from it, 
 with this we are fed, to this ice are united, and are made 
 one body and one flesh of Christ. Who shall speak the 
 power of the Lord, and make all his praises heard? 
 What shepherd feeds his sheep with his own blood? 
 Shepherd do I say? There are even many mothers 
 who after the pains of child-birth, deliver their chil- 
 dren to other nurses. But this he would not permit; 
 hut feeds us himself with Ids own blood, and unites us 
 with himself in every thing." 
 
 "He who did these things at that time, at that sup- 
 per, is the same who performs them now. We hold the 
 places of his ministers, but it is He himself who sanc- 
 tifies and changes them." Here, sir, you recognise the 
 
1G0 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 language of the catecheses, and the liturgies; these are 
 in the same terms the very mysteries which they con- 
 cealed from the uninitiated: therefore there were none 
 in the audience whom St. Chrysostom here addressed. 
 To what class of the faithful was he speaking ? Hear 
 what he says: 
 
 "I say these things to those, who communicate, and 
 
 to you, who minister And thou, O laic, when 
 
 thou beholdest the priest offering, do not consider the 
 priest doing this, but the hand of Christ invisibly ex- 
 tended. For he who has done more, that is, placed 
 himself upon the altar, will not disdain to present you 
 his body." 
 
 We have none of those dogmatical instructions ex- 
 tant, which undoubtedly St. Augustin gave to his neo- 
 phytes between their baptism and their communion; u in 
 order" says Hesychuis, u to make them sensible of the 
 greatness of the gifts which God was about to bestow on 
 tltem, and preserve them from the ignorance of which 
 those are guilty, who partake of the body of Jesus 
 Christ without knowing that it is in truth the body of 
 Jesus Christ" We have several of his discourses to 
 the newly baptized, to whom lie explains the disposi- 
 tions, which they ought to bring to the holy table, the 
 moral significations or relations between bread and 
 wine, and the mystical body of our Lord. Sometimes 
 however he introduces the Eucharistic dogmas; and 
 among others, in the following passage: "J engaged to 
 deliver a discourse to you who have been baptized, to 
 explain to you the sacrament of the altar, which you 
 now behold, and of .which you have been partakers this 
 last night. You ought to understand what you have 
 received; what you are about to receive; and what 
 you ought every day to receive. The bread, which 
 you behold on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, 
 is the body of Christ. That cup — that which the cup 
 contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood 
 of Christ." Here we have the doctrine of the real 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 161 
 
 presence, which St. Augustin recalls to the minds of the 
 neophytes, who must already have known it, because 
 they had communicated on the preceding night. 
 
 XII. The quotations you have read, though by no 
 means numerous, will suffice. One thing appears to 
 me absolutely incontestable: — in the primitive age there 
 were no churches without catechumens, and conse- 
 quently none without catechistical instructions. It was 
 necessary to teach the religion to those adults, who sig- 
 nified a wish to embrace it. They could not be admit- 
 ted to baptism and the other sacraments, until they had 
 been duly instructed in their greatness and importance. 
 It was therefore necessary to make them pass through 
 a course of preparatory proof, to be assured of their 
 progress, dispositions and piety, to make them sensible 
 of the necessity of grace, and describe its advantages, 
 previous to opening its channels in their favour. These 
 various instructions formed what we call catecheses. It 
 is clear that it could no more be permitted to commit 
 them to writing than the liturgies, as long as the disci- 
 pline of the secret was in vigour. Since both contained 
 the same doctrine and the same mysteries, the danger of 
 betraying them would have been the same, if by wri- 
 ting they had been exposed to the risk of falling into 
 the hands of infidels. Thus w T e see St. Cyril of Je- 
 rusalem take the precaution of placing at the begin- 
 ning of his catecheses an admonition of the most se- 
 rious character, and almost like that with which the 
 ancient author of the apostolic constitutions terminates 
 his liturgy and performance. We may therefore con- 
 sider it ascertain, that in ancient times all the churches 
 had their catecheses, which were learned and explain- 
 ed from memory, like the liturgies, and for the same 
 length of time. Of those written in the fifth century, 
 very few have come down to us. But by the small 
 number, which Providence has preserved for us, we 
 may fairly judge of all the rest; in the same manner as 
 we judge of the liturgies lost, by those still in our pos»- 
 
Ig2 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 session. These, that remain agree with each other in 
 every thing essential, and must equally have resembled 
 those, which are unknown to us. For whatever was 
 the difference of language, expressions and ceremo- 
 nies of the various countries, they were every where 
 employed to arrive at one and the same end, the one 
 only sacrifice of the new law. This reasoning is of it- 
 self applicable to the catecheses, which having been 
 only used to explain the Christian doctrine, must ever 
 have traced out the same dogmas, the same precepts, 
 under whatever form, and in what language soever 
 they were expounded. The experience of our own 
 times will suffice to convince us of this. Collect any 
 number of Catholic catechisms, written in English or 
 Celtic, French, German, or Portuguese, Spanish, 
 Greek, or Latin, or any idiom spoken upon the globe: 
 compare them with each other, and you will find per- 
 fect uniformity in all dogmatical points. Then compare 
 them with the remains of antiquity; and you will find 
 them in perfect conformity in all the essential articles. 
 But to any man of learning it will be unquestionable 
 that the catecheses of S S. Cyril and Ambrose, the two 
 Gregories, S S. Gaudentius, Chrysostom and Augus- 
 tin, were the same in every thing essential, with all 
 that were known to the primitive Church. It is incon- 
 testable that the catecheses of the first three centuries 
 were in substance conformable to those of the fourth 
 and fifth, in whichwe read the same dogmas, the same 
 doctrine which we read in our own — the altar, sacri- 
 fice, presence of the victim, change of substance and 
 adoration. Therefore these dogmas were transmitted 
 to the Church by the apostles; and consequently they 
 were revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ. In a word, 
 all Catholic catechisms agree on the Eucharistic dogmas 
 with those of the fifth and sixth centuries. But these 
 latter necessarily agreed on the same points with the 
 catechisms of the first three centuries. Therefore ours 
 agree equally with them; and our doctrine on the Eu- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 163 
 
 charist is primitive and apostolical. Or again; since 
 the Rector is so fond of the syllogistic form — the cate- 
 cheses of the first three centuries certainly agreed with 
 those of the fourth and fifth on the subject of the Eu- 
 charist. But ours agree with these latter on this 
 subject. Therefore ours agree with the primitive cate- 
 cheses. The major and minor are incontestable, after 
 all that I have thus far written upon the Eucharist: and 
 the consequence results inevitably from the well-known 
 axiom: Quce sunt eadem uni tertio, sunt eadem inter se. 
 Therefore the argument is incontestable. 
 
 XIII. To the authority of the catecheses, and to 
 the arguments, which they had suggested to me, in my 
 Discussion Jlmicale, what reply does Mr. Faber make? 
 The same which he had made to me on the discipline 
 of the secret, and on the liturgies; little, or rather noth- 
 ing, that can deserve notice. I had asked, and I here 
 ask again, how the Church could have prescribed 
 such rigorous secrecy on a thing so simple as a figura- 
 tive manducation? I had asked, and I here repeat the 
 demand, how the Church, if she only admitted a moral 
 change in the bread and wine, came to invoke in her 
 liturgies the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the obla- 
 tions, "in order to change them and transform them into 
 the body and blood of Jesus Christ?*" How it was 
 that she commanded the faithful to adore Him in the 
 sacrament, particularly at the moment of the Holy 
 Communion? I had asked, and I now ask again, how 
 the Fathers, if they beheld nothing in the bread but 
 some type, or emblem, or sign of Jesus Christ absent, 
 could have said in their instructions to those newly 
 baptized, that what was bread before consecration, 
 became after it the body of Jesus Christ; that it was 
 to be received as such, whatever it might appear to 
 the senses; because it is just and reasonable to depend 
 on the word of the God-man, rather than on a judgment 
 founded on the testimony of the sight and taste? I 
 defied and I again defy any one to produce a single 
 
164 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 dogmatical instruction from the first five centuries, 
 in which the catechist teaches the newly-baptized, that 
 after the consecration, the bread and wine remain 
 essentially what they were before; that the invocations 
 of the Holy Ghost have no other object but to obtain 
 a moral change of the bread and wine, and to transfer 
 them from common use to a religious destination; or 
 that bread and wine, which were figures of the body 
 and blood of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, are 
 so in the same sense in the New; or that the body of 
 Jesus Christ, being in heaven, cannot be here below; 
 and that consequently the adoration paid to Jesus 
 Christ in his sacrament would be gross idolatry. To 
 all these demands, what has Mr. Faber replied? He 
 appears not even to have received them; he takes no 
 notice of them, but loses himself in conjectures quite 
 foreign to my queries. He endeavours to counter- 
 act the incontestable proofs of the secret, the litur- 
 gies and the catecheses, by certain testimonies from 
 the Fathers, which he might have multiplied without 
 any more advancing his cause, if he had been inclined 
 to draw from the source which I had myself pointed 
 out to him. These passages are for the most part, 
 taken from writings published against the Jews and 
 Pagans, or from homilies pronounced before the unini- 
 tiated. In such circumstances, the Fathers not being 
 allowed to express themselves clearly, considered the 
 eucharistic bread and wine in their relation to the 
 senses, and denominated them types, emblems, images, 
 allegories, figures, and sacraments, without adding that 
 these visible appearances covered the body and blood 
 of Jesus Christ; which would have been at once dis- 
 covering and betraying the secret* 
 
 •On this occasion the Rector does me the honour to express 
 himself as follows: "I have rarely met with a more singular ex- 
 periment upon the presumed obtuse intellect of a simple laic, 
 than this which has been adventured by the learned Bishop of 
 Aire. An acknowledged symbol or image of a thing, if we may 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 165 
 
 XIV. I will afford you, sir, satisfactory proof of 
 what 1 advance, by giving you to understand more ex- 
 actly than Mr. Faber has done, the principal pas- 
 sages quoted by him. The two first which I shall 
 bring forward, are from St. Clement of Alexandria 
 and Theodoret, who both give us notice that they are 
 obliged to conceal their sentiments on the subject of 
 the mysteries. Since their pens were guided by this 
 principle, you will doubtless conceive, sir, that it 
 would be unreasonable to look in their writings, for a 
 clearness of expression on the eucharistic dogmas, 
 which they themselves inform us that they professedly 
 avoid.* 
 
 credit a very able divine of the Latin Church, may be at once both 
 a symbol of the thing in question, and yet the identical thing itself whick 
 it is employed to symbolize! pp. 131 and 132. To imagine, that a man 
 of the Bishop's superiour attainments could himself admit such a 
 tissue of rhetorical absurdities, .... is perfectly out of the ques- 
 tion." P. 134. Undoubtedly these are absurdities palpable 
 enough ; and such as I could not have imagined entering into any 
 man's head. The Rector would make it appear that he has seen 
 them in my book. I can assure you, on my side, that such are only 
 to be found in 77k Difficulties of Romanism. That Mr. Faber 
 should have been able to conceive them, and pursue them through 
 four consecutive pages of dulness, is a feat of strength, of which 
 I should not have imagined him capable, or a delirious illusion of 
 which I charitably lament to find him susceptible. 
 
 •Tertullian is of this number: I have quoted testimonies enough 
 from him on the secret of the eucharistic mysteries. St. Cyprian, 
 in the passage brought forward by Mr. Faber, says nothing more 
 than we ourselvcS would say. It is astonishing to see the Rector 
 claiming for his side St. Cyril of Jerusalem; such boldness is per- 
 fectly astounding. It is true, however, that at page 114 he quotes 
 those words of his which I reproached him with suppressing iu 
 the place, where candour and equity called upon him to bring 
 them forward. For the rest, he is satisfied at p. 114, that they 
 would appear indeed to establish transubstantiation. Having 
 said this, he quits the perplexing St. Cyril, and goes off to another 
 more accommodating. 
 
 15 
 
166 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 XV. "I pass over several things, fearing to commit 
 to writing what I was afraid to say, and because I 
 fear that those who may read these writings, may 
 take my words in a wrong sense, and fall into error, 
 and I may be accused, according to the proverb, of 
 putting a sword into the hands of children for their 
 
 destruction There are certain things which the 
 
 Holy Scriptures will shew me, although they are not 
 openly expressed. There are others, upon which 
 they will insist. There are others in fine, which they 
 will only touch upon slightly: but they will endeavour 
 to speak them, while they conceal them, and to shew 
 them while they keep silence."* 
 
 What is most remarkable in the quotations here 
 opposed to us by Mr. Faber, is the rare and particular 
 candour, which has presided over their arrangement. 
 He presents them in a line, one immediately following 
 the other. It is true, the references at the end of each, 
 might sufficiently admonish the attentive and practised 
 reader. But the greater portion not being of this des- 
 cription, must imagine that the texts are connected, 
 and all come together in the originals. Yet this is by 
 no means the case. Between the first and second, I 
 reckon ten lines: between the second and third, fifty 
 pages; between the third and fourth, a page and a 
 half. Here then we have sentences detached from 
 their proper places, and artfully reported side by side; 
 so as to present a meaning sufficiently connected and 
 natural. What makes the allusion pass off still better 
 is that the sentences are found connected by the con- 
 junctive adverbs for or then, as if they were proof 
 or consequence of the preceding phrase. No doubt 
 you would have suppressed them. Mr. Faber has 
 
 * Strom, liber 1. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 167 
 
 judged it more useful to preserve them: his intention is 
 manifest. In the first text, he translates autem by 
 therefore; in the second, St. Clement says, "Nc quis 
 vero alienum existimet quod nos sanguinem Domini lac 
 allegoric^ dicamus, annonvinum quoque allegoric^ dici- 
 tur? Qui lavat inquit, in vino vestem suam, ct in san- 
 guine uvce vestimentum suum" (Gen. 49.) Mr. Faber 
 translates thus: "Nor let any one think that we speak 
 strangely, when we say, that milk is allegorically 
 called the blood of the Lord: for is not wine like- 
 wise allegorically called by the very same ap- 
 pellation?" p. 75. And I translate word for word as 
 follows: "But lest any one should think it strange that 
 we call the blood of the Lord allegorically milk, is it 
 not also allegorically called wine? 'Who washeth,' 
 it says, 'his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood 
 of the grape.' " Ask the Rector, if you please, why 
 he abruptly cuts the passage short, by retrenching the 
 proof from Genesis. I will give you the reason pre- 
 sently. "The scripture then," continues he fiercely, 
 as if these two passages followed each other connect- 
 edly, although they are fifty pages asunder! St. Cle- 
 ment proves by the text from Genesis that wine was 
 there a figure of the blood of Jesus Christ. Mr. Faber, 
 who, by the expression, "the scripture then," leaves 
 us to conclude that it was in the scripture, and 
 perhaps even in the New Testament, makes it appear 
 as if he did not see the text from Genesis. Let us 
 leave him to argue at his ease, with his suppressions 
 and conjunctions; and let us conclude from the very 
 passage objected by him that wine having been in the 
 Old Testament a figure of the blood of Jesus Christ, 
 was to become really his blood in the New Testament, 
 which has fulfilled and realized the figures of the Old. 
 You have seen Mr. Faber suppressing the text from 
 Genesis: now you shall see him making us some 
 amends by shewing in the fourth quotation that he 
 knows equally well how to add as well as suppress, 
 
168 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 when it will serve his purpose, as in these words; "the 
 consecrated liquor therefore" consecrated, and therefore 
 are his own exclusively. He has not taken them from 
 St. Clement, but from his own head. I cannot help 
 observing that all this petty contrivance to adapt St. 
 Clement of Alexandria to his own ends, discovers a 
 deep fund of cunning in the author, which will cause 
 less surprise in England than elsewhere. 
 
 THEODORET. 
 
 XVI. In his first dialogue, he introduces Orthodoxus 
 expressing himself as follows: "Answer me, if you 
 please, in mystical and obscure words: for perhaps 
 there are persons, here who are not initiated in the mys- 
 teries. Eranistes: I shall understand you, and answer 
 you in the same vie\f ." And further on, the same 
 character says: "You have clearly proved what you 
 desired, though in mystical words." 
 The Rector of Long Newton seems never able to re- 
 present things as they really are; either he suppresses, 
 or he adds, or gives a sense to terms which they 
 cannot have. He has passed over in silence the above 
 extract from the first dialogue, and half of what you 
 shall now read from the second. — "Eranistes: Tell 
 me therefore; what do you call the gift that is afforded 
 before the priest's invocation? Orthodoxus: This must 
 not be said openly; for some may be present who are 
 not initiated. Eran: Answer then, in hidden terms. 
 Orth: We call it an aliment made of certain grains. 
 Eran: And how do you call the other symbol? Orth: 
 We give it a name that denotes a certain beverage.* 
 Eran: And after the consecration what are they called? 
 Orth. The body of Christ, and the blood of Christ. 
 
 * Do you remember, sir, that at p. 115 the Rector maintains, in 
 spite of what he quotes from St. Cyril, that the change of substance 
 had nothing to do in the mysteries: not even as the very smallest 
 and least important secret?" 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 169 
 
 Eran: And you believe, that you partake of the body 
 and blood of Christ? Ortk. So I believe. Eran: As 
 the symbols then of the body and blood of Christ were 
 different before the consecration of the priest, and 
 after that consecration are changed; in the same man- 
 ner we (Eutychians) say that the body of Christ after 
 his ascension, was changed into the divine essence. 
 Orth: Thou art taken in thy own snare; for, after the 
 consecration, the mystical symbols lose not their proper 
 nature: they remain in the shape and form of the for- 
 mer substance, to be seen, and to be felt, as before; but 
 they are understood to be what they have [been made; 
 this they are believed to be; and as such they are 
 adored."* The reasoning of Orthodoxits is not that 
 
 ■In this passage three small artifices are to be charged on Mr. 
 Faber. 1st, he carefully avoids quoting the words of the first dia- 
 logue, and those of the second, which shew the embarrassment of 
 Theodoret. and his fear of betraying the secret, as also the agree- 
 ment between the two speakers, to express themselves in hidden 
 term9. He lets no part of them appear; but begins his quotation 
 from the two final sentences. 2dly, he makes Theodoret say 
 that the bread and wine retain after consecration, their original 
 substance; page 140. Original is here unworthily substituted by 
 the candid and impartial bachelor of divinity. Theodoret says 
 former (toporipacr) ; a decisive Word, which evidently supposes 
 that a second substance has taken the place of the first, and thus 
 authorises the more intelligible translation which I have given, and 
 of which the Greek text is perfectly susceptible. 3dly, instead of 
 as such they are adored, the bachelor translates, venerated; without 
 considering that the liturgies, St. Ambrose, St. Augustin, Sac. tell 
 us that after the consecration, they paid the supreme adoration of 
 lalria, and therefore adored in the full energy of the word. And 
 what did they adore? Certainly not the visible species, nor the 
 substance of bread; but the body of Jesus Christ concealed under 
 the visible qualities of bread. 
 
 It is amusing enough to compare in this place Mr. Faber and 
 Dr. Cosin. We cannot but admire the dexterity of both. Dr. 
 Cosin more ready in expedients, suppresses without ceremony the 
 words, as such they are adored: but Mr. Faber more considerate, 
 instead of the word which annoys him, puts another which quite 
 alters the sense. On which I have but one simple question to put 
 to you; which of these two worthies appears to you to exhibit the 
 greater candour and good faith? 
 
 15* 
 
170 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 attributed to him by the Rector. Thou art taken, 
 says he, in thy own snare: there is certainly a change 
 in the bread, but not in its sensible and outward nature: 
 for it retains its figure, its form, colour, taste, and all 
 the qualities of its former substance (tfporspas.) Yet 
 we conceive it to have become what it is made, the 
 body of Jesus Christ, of which I told thee that we par- 
 take, and which consequently is essentially there pre- 
 sent: we believe it to be there present, though invisible, 
 and as such we adore it. This answer demolishes 
 Eutychianism triumphantly. It shews that the bread 
 is changed, not into the divinity, as Eranistes imagined; 
 but from its corporeal substance into the substance of 
 the body of Jesus Christ: in a word, both interlocutors 
 admitted a real change in the Eucharist; Orthodoxies, 
 that of bread into the body of Jesus Christ, since oth- 
 erwise he could not have partaken of that body in the 
 sacrament; Eranistes, that of bread into the divinity, 
 because as an Eutychian he acknowledged that only 
 in Jesus Christ, since his human nature had been ab- 
 sorbed by his divine nature after his ascension. 
 
 I allow, without difficulty, Orthodoxies and Eranis- 
 tes mutually kept their agreement. They had engaged 
 to make use of obscure expressions, and such their 
 expressions are at first sight. But with some atten - 
 tion, those who are initiated into the mysteries, as 
 they both were, can penetrate the hidden sense of their 
 dialogues. Mr. Faber, who is not thus initiated, has 
 read all, heard all, and understood all in a wrong 
 sense; like those who obstinately remained among the 
 catechumens, who neither knew the motives, nor the 
 objects of the discipline of the secret, and who in con- 
 sequence had never assisted at the liturgy, nor the mys- 
 tagogic catecheses, nor at the sermons delivered be- 
 fore the faithful exclusively. 
 
 Besides, the metaphysics of former days had a lan- 
 guage now no longer in use. For example, they at- 
 tach to the words natura, substantia, stfia, <pu<f»s, a dif- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 171 
 
 ferent sense from what we give to substance and iia- 
 ture. St. Peter Chrysologus, speaking of a body be- 
 coming glorious, says: ut hoc sic mutassc substanliam, 
 no)i mutdsse personam; and St. Augustin alluding to 
 the fall of man, says: per iniquitatem homo lapsus est a 
 substantia in qua factus est. We might further quote 
 Aristotle on the word substance, as for the word nature; 
 also Cicero, Virgil and Horace, who often use it for 
 the qualities and properties of beings. -'Substance" 
 says Tertullian, "is one thing, the nature of substance 
 is another. Stone andiron are substances, their hard- 
 ness is the nature of their substance: aliud est substantia, 
 aliud natvra substantia. Substantia est lapis, ferritin; 
 duritia lapidis ct Jerri natura substantia." (Lib. de 
 anima, c. 32.) Mr. Faber presents these words to his 
 readers in their modern signification. But, if you 
 please, let us appeal to the judgment of the celebrated 
 Leibnitz. "Gelasius, the Roman pontiff, gives us to 
 understand that the bread is changed into the body of 
 Christ, whilst the nature of the bread remains; he 
 means its qualities or accidents. For in those days 
 they did not express themselves with perfect preci- 
 sion and metaphysical accuracy. In the same sense 
 Theoderet says, that in this change, which he calls 
 fxeraboXr], the mystic symbols are not deprived of their 
 proper nature." (Sys. Theol. p. 227.) The Orthodox- 
 ies of Theodoret explains himself in the same terms: 
 "The bread and wine lose not their proper nature; 
 they retain their form, figure, and visible and palpable 
 qualities." The explanation of the word nature once 
 admitted, all difficulty vanishes in the passages from 
 Gelasius and Theodorus quoted by the Rector. There 
 only remains that kind of mysterious cloud thrown in- 
 tentionally, and by mutual consent, between Orthodox- 
 us and Eranistes. Far from being surprised at meet- 
 ing with this slight obscurity; it would be surprising in- 
 deed if it were not met with, after they had given no- 
 tice that they should thus obscure their discourse, in 
 
172 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 order to conceal their mysteries from the uninitiated. 
 What appears to me here exceedingly unreasonable, 
 and I may even say absurd, is to pretend in our days 
 to discover clearly the doctrine of an author by those 
 dialogues, in which he has forewarned us that he could 
 only declare it under hidden terms. 
 
 ST. CHRYSOSTOM AND ST. AUGUSTIN. 
 
 XVII. These, as Casaubon acknowledges, have 
 more than forty times declared their embarrassment 
 in explaining the Eucharist in presence of the uniniti- 
 ated. Every time that they spoke to the faithful alone, 
 they expressed themselves with energy in the Catholic 
 sense. After what I reported in my Discussion Ami- 
 cule from these two great prelates, I should not have 
 expected to find them among the authorities opposed to 
 me by Mr. Faber. I cannot conceive that he could 
 persuade himself that they were not both against him; 
 since to give them an Anglican appearance, he has 
 been obliged to mutilate quotations, suppress phrases 
 before and after, and mangle the passages unmerciful- 
 ly. I am aware that I here bring against him a seri- 
 ous charge: but it is one most easy to establish. I 
 have only to restore the mutilated passages to their 
 integrity. 
 
 At page 76 Mr. Faber quotes a passage from the 
 discourse of St. Chrysostom on the treason of Judas; 
 and like myself he read in the same discourse the fol- 
 lowing words, which he has carefully withheld from 
 his readers; "When I hear the body of Jesus Christ 
 mentioned, I understand what is said in one way, and 
 the infidel in another Although these unbeliev- 
 ers hear it spoken of, it does not seem as if they heard 
 it. But the faithful possess the intelligence given by 
 the Holy Ghost, and know the virtue and the power of 
 
 the tilings there concealed He that was present at 
 
 the last supper, is the same that is now present and 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 173 
 
 consecrates our feast. For it is not man who makes 
 the things lying on the altar become the body and blood 
 of Christ; but that Christ who was crucified for us. 
 .... He said: This is my body: these words make the 
 change." We find the same train of thought in his 
 83d homily on St. Matthew, a We behold the order 
 of ministers; but the sanctifier and changer of them is 
 himself."* Would Mr. Faber tell us that this change 
 is no more than a moral change? Would the inter- 
 vention of Jesus Christ be necessary to operate a 
 mere moral change? Would not the power of his 
 ministers suffice to give a pious destination to bread 
 and wine? Does not Mr. Faber do this by himself 
 when he administers the sacrament to his parishioners? 
 But is not his moral change incompatible again with 
 the following passages? 
 
 "Consider, O man? the royal table is spread. The 
 angels serve it: the King himself is there present: and 
 dost thou remain in stupid indifference! Thy gar- 
 ments are defiled, and thou dost not grieve! But they 
 are pure, you will say. Then adore and communicate:" 
 (Horn. 45.) "This body lying in the manger, the wise 
 
 men reverenced They came from distant lands, 
 
 and adored Him with great fear and trembling 
 
 Thou dost not see him in the manger, but on the altar. 
 .... Let us then shew him a veneration far above 
 that of those barbarians." (Horn. 24.) "Go then to 
 Bethlehem, to the house of spiritual bread .... pro- 
 
 * I really pity your Bachelor of Divinity when I find him pick- 
 ing out these words; "for the Eucharist is a spiritual food," in order 
 to turn St. Chrysostom against us, and against himself. Why did 
 he not also .select the following: "Go then to Bethlehem, to the 
 house of spiritual bread?" These expressions are quite Catholic; 
 we make use of them every day, and in the mouth of St. Chrysos- 
 tom they have the same sense as in ours: they mean that the spiri- 
 tualized body of our Saviour is communicated to us to be the nou- 
 rishment, not of our bodies, but of our souls, ut anima it Deo sagi- 
 netur, says Tertullian. Therefore this nourishment is a spiritual 
 food. 
 
174 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 vided however that you approach to adore, and not to 
 
 trample under foot the Son of God take care not 
 
 to resemble Herod, and say like him, "tliat I also may 
 
 go and adore Him; and go not to put him to death 
 
 "Let us tremble to appear as supplicants and adorers, 
 and yet to shew ourselves the contrary by our works." 
 (Horn. 7 on St. Matt.) I content myself with quoting 
 these few passages, because they can leave no doubt 
 in any impartial mind on the sentiments of St. Chrysos- 
 tom, and of the Church. The adoration alone, so for- 
 cibly required by the eloquent patriarch, utterly de- 
 molishes the opinion of a figurative presence, or a moral 
 change; demonstrates the doctrine of the real presence, 
 and by a further consequence, that of transubstan- 
 tiation. 
 
 XVIII. I am perfectly astonished at the intrepidity 
 of Mr. Faber. He brings against me one of the dis- 
 courses of St. Augustin, which I quoted in proof of our 
 doctrines. And how does he set about it? Still by 
 the help of the same stratagem, which assuredly he 
 would find most disreputable in any other. He selects 
 two or three passages, and exhibits them detached 
 from those which precede and follow. United in 
 their proper order, they exclude the actual doctrine 
 of the Church of England; separately, they might ap- 
 pear to favour it. Let us place the passages together, 
 and the illusion produced by their insulated appear- 
 ance, will at once vanish. You have seen the same 
 thing in St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and St. Chrysostom; 
 you shall now witness it in St. Augustin. u But how 
 adore the earth, when the Scripture says positively, 
 the Lord thy God shalt thou adore? and yet it says 
 here, adore his footstool?* But in explaining to me 
 what his footstool is, he says: the earth is my footstooV 
 (Isaias lxvi. v. 1.) "I hesitate in uncertainty; I fear to 
 adore the earth, lest I find myself condemned by Him 
 
 • In Psalm xcviii. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 175 
 
 who created the earth and the heavens. On the 
 other hand, I fear, if I do not adore the footstool of my 
 God, because the psalm says to me, adore his footstool- 
 .... In this perplexity, I turn towards Christ, be- 
 cause it is He whom I seek here, and I find in what 
 manner the earth is adored without impiety, and how 
 his footstool is adored without impiety. For he took 
 upon him earth from the earth; because flesh is from 
 the earth, and he took flesh from the flesh of Mary: 
 and because he here walked in this flesh, even this 
 same flesh he gave to us to eat for our salvation; 
 but no one eateth this flesh, without having first ador- 
 ed it. By this we discover how the footstool of 
 the Lord is adored; and not only we do not sin by 
 adoring, but we even sin by not adoring it. But 
 is it the flesh that quickeneth? The Lord even, in 
 exalting this earth to us, informs us, that it is the spirit 
 that quickeiieth, and that the flesh prqfitcth nothing. 
 Wherefore in abasing yourself and in casting yourself 
 down before any earth, consider it not as earth, but 
 consider in it that Holy One, of whom what you adore, 
 is the footstool. For it is for his sake that you adore it. 
 .... The disciples thought it very hard to hear him 
 say; unless you eat my flesh you shall not have eternal 
 life; they understood it stupidly, and conceived it car- 
 nally, imagining that he was going to cut off pieces of 
 his body, and give to them : . . . . but our Saviour in- 
 structed his apostles; (here begi?is Mr. Faber^s quota- 
 tion) the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and 
 life. Understand spiritually what I have saicL It is 
 not this body which you see, that you will eat; nor that 
 blood which they will shed, who will crucify me, that 
 you will drink. I have commended to you a certain 
 sacrament; spiritually understood it will give you life: 
 though it must be celebrated visibly, it must be con- 
 ceived of as invisible. Exalt ye the Lord our God, 
 and adore his footstool for it is holy?'' Mr. Faber has 
 thought it prudent to quote no more than the six or 
 
176 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 eight last lines of the text:* they serve as a commenta- 
 ry on the words which our Saviour had just spoken to 
 his apostles. After the example of St. Augustin, I 
 will give a commentary, but a very short one upon the 
 same words. The flesh profiteth nothing, it is the spi- 
 rit which quickeneth. Understand spiritually what I 
 say to you. It is not this body, such as you see it, 
 that you shall eat; you feel shocked at the idea: but 
 this body such as you do not see it. It shall be pre- 
 sented to you under a certain sacrament, which I have 
 in view. Thus you shall eat it: and without that, you 
 shall not have eternal life in you. Taken invisibly in 
 a visible sacrament, it shall be to your souls a spiritu- 
 al food, which you shall not take without having first 
 adored it. 
 
 XIX. The modern Church of England man no longer 
 acknowledges the body of Jesus Christ in the sacra- 
 ment: therefore he no longer receives it there. For 
 eating in imagination, in figure, in empty shadow, is 
 after all, not eating. Hence he has suppressed the 
 adoration. Where nothing is seen but material bread, 
 to adore would be to commit idolatry. The Catholic 
 confiding more in Jesus Christ, than in himself, be- 
 lieves in the word of his Saviour without hesitation, 
 and in his invisible presence without comprehending it; 
 he adores him veiled beneath the appearance of bread, 
 receives and eats his body in reality; certainly not in 
 a raw and Caphamite manner, but heavenly and spiri- 
 tual. For there is no other way of eating a body im- 
 palpable, invisible and spiritualized. 
 
 XX. Mr. Faber would not fail to cry victory, if I 
 were not to answer the objection suggested to him by 
 the silence of Julian. As a last resource in a despe- 
 
 •I must observe that in the translation, these words, as if he 
 had taid — identical, twice — on the contrary — do not belong to St. 
 Augustin, but to the inventive and fertile Bachelor of Divinity. 
 They add to the text without any way increasing the difficulty. 
 This is becoming an unfaithful translator to no earthly purpoie. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 177 
 
 rate cause, he calls to his aid that famous renegade 
 u as an unexceptionable witness.'''' Proud of the impe- 
 rial majesty on which he leans, he comes to us with 
 the air and tone of triumph. Would not any one sup- 
 pose that he had in his possession the grand work ot 
 that emperor against the Christian religion, and in de- 
 fence of paganism? Would not any one say that he had 
 read it from beginning to end, when he is heard assert- 
 ing in such an affirmative tone that Julian has not said 
 a word about the real presence, and the change of sub- 
 stance? Well sir, would you wish to know how much 
 truth there is in this boasted objection? The truth is, 
 that neither the Rector of Long Newton, nor any one 
 in the world possesses, or has read the work, in which 
 he has thus blindly placed his confidence. It \ 
 composed by Julian and the philosophers who follow- 
 ed him into Persia, in that expedition, which put an 
 end to his projects, his reign and his life. Some have 
 conjectured that it was divided into seven books, 
 others, into three. We know no more of it now than 
 those quotations from the first book, for which we are 
 indebted to the refutation of them written by St. Cyril, 
 of Alexandria, fifty years after the death of the apos- 
 tate* It may be easily supposed that the author had 
 
 * "Fifty years after the chath of the renegado, St. Cyril replied 
 to a work, which Julian wrote in three books against the Christian 
 religion, of which the saint has preserved the first .... We have 
 no more of the work of Julian against the Christians, than what 
 St. Cyril has quoted in order to refute it." Titlcmont Hist, des 
 Emp. 
 
 "During this journey into Persia, Julian wrote his grand work 
 against the Christian religion . . . . It was divided into seven books, 
 or according to others, into three. . • . St. Cyril has preserved a 
 great part of it, inserted in the reply which he afterwards made to 
 it." Fleury Hist. Eccl. T. 4. "Julian died before there was tinu- 
 to reply to his sophistry. . . . Nothing would have been left us of 
 them, if St. Cyril of Alexandria, having undertaken to refute 
 them fifty years afterwards, had not thus preserved a consider- 
 able portion." Le Beau Hist, du bos Emp. T. 3. "Julian wrote 
 an elaborate work against the truth of Christianity: of which 
 
 16 
 
178 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 deferred speaking of the Eucharist till the second or 
 third book; and then of course it would be no wonder 
 to find nothing of it in the first. But farther: if it be 
 insisted that he ought to have spoken of it in the first 
 book; he may still have done so; and no one can now 
 prove that he did not. All we know of his book is 
 from its refutation; and we are very much inclined to 
 think that St. Cyril would take great care not to give 
 greater publicity to the raillery of Julian against the 
 Holy Eucharist. How indeed could he have reported 
 them, or could he have defended our dogmas, without 
 attracting the notice and attention of the pagans to our 
 mysteries, and by such indiscretion injured the disci- 
 pline of the secret, as well as the precept of our divine 
 Legislator? This is not merely a conjecture thrown out 
 at hazard: it comes from Julian himself; hear what he 
 says about baptism: "But. this grave philosopher affects 
 to laugh at what ought rather to be to him a source of 
 self-congratulation: he is utterly ignorant of the effi- 
 cacy of the sacred water of baptism; he is pleased to 
 ridicule what is the most holy thing in the world; and 
 congratulate those who having believed in Jesus 
 Christ, have had the happiness to find a miraculous 
 water, which removes every stain, and has cleansed 
 them from head to foot. He adds other insipid jokes y 
 and old nurses' 1 tales; and he says afterwards that this 
 lustral water is without power, or virtue against bodily 
 diseases. But know, O wise and illustrious teacher! 
 that we do not apply the virtue of baptism to the cure 
 
 some fragments only have come to modern times." Recs' Cyclope- 
 dia. Art. Julian. 
 
 "The elaborate work, which he composed amidst the prepara- 
 tions of the Persian war, contained the substance of those argu- 
 ments, which he had long revolved in his mind. Some fragments 
 have been transcribed and preserved, by his adversary, the vehe- 
 ment Cyril of Alexandria; and they exhibit a very singular mix- 
 ture of wit and learning, of sophistry and fanaticism." Gibbon's 
 Decline and Fall, chap, xxiii. Fabricius and Lardner have com- 
 piled fragments extant of Julian. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 179 
 
 of the body, nor to things perceptible by the senses. 
 The mystery of Christ requires an intelligence, of 
 which those are not susceptible, who are plunged in 
 errors. It is faith, which opens to us the entrance and 
 knowledge of the divine mystery. Lut in the fear of 
 offending Jesvs Christ, who forbids us to give that 
 which is holy to dogs, and cast pearls before swine, 
 by presenting to profane ears wliat ouglti to remain 
 hidden, I shall pass over all that requires a high and 
 sublime intelligence." And after touching upon some- 
 thing of the power and miracles of our Saviour, he 
 adds: "I could say much more, and should have very 
 certain proofs to produce; if I were not apprehensive 
 of exposing myself to profane ears. For people gen- 
 erally deride what they do not understand; and the 
 ignorant, not even perceiving the weakness of their 
 minds, despise what they ought most to admire." 
 
 You see then, sir, that St. Cyril does not inform you 
 of all that Julian had written against baptism. His 
 replies are fully sufficient to refute the feeble objec- 
 tions, which he reports. There must have been others, 
 which he deemed it more prudent to pass over than to 
 publish. He clearly alludes to them when he talks of 
 the "insipid jokes, and old nurses' tales," which he 
 passes over for fear of infringing the law of secrecy. 
 We know nothing of these; we should not even suspect 
 their existence, if St. Cyril had not made the observa- 
 tions, which you have just read. Are we then to con- 
 clude, because he is silent upon the Eucharist, that 
 Julian had not turned its dogmas into ridicule? No, 
 sir, the silence of that great patriarch is no proof that 
 the emperor had been silent. If the Christian apolo- 
 gist considered himself obliged to be so reserved on 
 the subject of baptism, how much more ought he to 
 have thought himself so bound on the dogmas of the 
 Eucharist, the sublimity of which w r ould have been 
 much more open to the derision of the profane! Be- 
 sides, what passed at the altar in the assemblies of the 
 
180 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Christians, was, as you know, what the pagans most 
 eagerly sought to discover, and even to extort by pun- 
 ishments; and it was also what the faithful concealed 
 with the greatest care, perseverance and intrepidity, 
 even under the most cruel sufferings: you have seen 
 this abundantly proved. 
 
 I am tempted to retort the Rector's argument upon 
 himself. It is a fact that Julian says nothing of the 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ. Certainly, I may as 
 justly say to him, this lover of derision would not have 
 denied himself the gratification of turning that into 
 ridicule, if the Christians in his time had believed in 
 it. What reply would the bachelor of divinity make? 
 That no doubt he had amused himself in so doing at 
 the expense of the credulous Christians, in one or 
 other of the two books, which have never come down 
 to us. Let him not then take it amiss, that I give him 
 a similar answer on the Eucharist. When I hear Mr. 
 Faber so loudly extol the pretended silence of Julian; 
 when I hear him conclude his redoubtable argument in 
 these words, page 121 — "I may be mistaken in esti- 
 mating the strength of this argument; but it strikes 
 upon my own apprehension, as being perfectly irresis- 
 tible." I must say that one thing only astonishes me; 
 the assurance to which he abandons himself in termi- 
 nating his episode. I am of opinion that it will give 
 you little confidence in Mr. Faber's judgment. 
 
 XXI. I believe I have now sufficiently replied to the 
 quotations on the Eucharist, scattered up and down in 
 the Difficulties of Romanism. Mr. Faber might have 
 increased the list, by consulting the Perpctuite de la 
 Foi.* I contented myself with referring to that work 
 in my Discussion ,/)micale: and indeed to what purpose 
 should I have accumulated them? And what will it 
 avail Mr. Faber to make a lengthened display of them? 
 
 * The celebrated work of two of the ablest French controvert- 
 ists; always excepting him, to whom none can be compared, the 
 most brilliant genius that has appeared in the Church, Bossuet. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 181 
 
 Tliey arc taken from writings made for the public, or 
 discourses preached before the uninitiated, to whom 
 the Fathers addressed themselves more frequently 
 than to the faithful alone. Thus the obligation of con- 
 cealing the mysteries was more frequent than that of 
 manifesting them. Candour and good faith therefore 
 would direct us to put aside those texts, which present 
 intentional obscurity. But in place of these texts and 
 incidental expressions, let one single catechesis be final- 
 ly produced against us. Then the objection would 
 have some weight. For every one knows and acknow- 
 ledges that instructions must have been clear and ex- 
 plicit, which were made to the newly baptized, on the 
 subject of the sacrament of the altar, which they 
 were about to receive. There, and there only, will at 
 any time be found without obscurity, and treated ex 
 professo the true doctrine of the Fathers on the Eucha- 
 rist. Let only one of these catecheses be produced, 
 where the neophytes are instructed to see nothing in 
 the offerings after consecration, but mere signs, simple 
 types and figures of Jesus Christ absent, as Mr. Faber 
 affirms, without being able to give any proof of it;* let 
 such a document be produced, and then we shall have 
 really to solve a serious difficulty. But to go in search 
 of the real sentiments and belief of the Fathers in dis- 
 courses and writings where they could not disclose 
 them, where they themselves apprize us of their diffi- 
 culty in expressing themselves, this I must denounce aa 
 
 ♦After saying at page 129 that I copiously adduce passages on 
 the change of the elements into the body and blood of Christ, the 
 Rector reproachfully adds, that I say nothing of those, "in which 
 tliis change is declared to be purely moral, in which the elements 
 are pronounced to be mere symbols," though these passages "fulry 
 explain all passages of the former description." My reply is sim- 
 ple enough. 1 have not indeed cited a single passage which de- 
 clares, that there is nothing effected but a moral change, that the 
 emblems are mere symbols or emblems: for in truth I know of no 
 such passages, and the Rector knows none either. He produce* 
 none, and will never be able to bring forward any such passage. 
 
 16* 
 
192 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 a proceeding analogical, unreasonable and absurd. 
 That it should be pursued without reflection, and by 
 mere routine, as your divines have formed a habit of 
 doing since 1662, I can conceive: but that, after hav- 
 ing been admonished by a series of convincing proofs, 
 they should still obstinately pursue the same method, 
 and point it out to others as the true one, is assuredly 
 preferring error to truth, and being disposed to go 
 wilfully astray, and draw others into their own aber- 
 rations. 
 
 XXII. I beseech you, sir, to consider seriously the 
 method adopted by Mr. Father, and the consequences 
 resulting from it. To the instructions exposed with 
 the greatest clearness in the catecheses on the real pre- 
 sence, change of substance and adoration, what an- 
 swer does he give? The same as to our arguments 
 from the discipline of the secret, and from the liturgies. 
 He does not enter straight forward upon the discus- 
 sion: he bewilders his reader, and leads him out of the 
 way by irrelevant quotations; he opposes his quotations 
 to mine, and pretends that his own sufficiently explain 
 those, which I had previously cited against him* Your 
 dogmas, says he, could not have been either the ob- 
 ject of the secret , or the doctrine of the liturgies and 
 catecheses, if it be true that they were unknown to the 
 primitive Church. And it is precisely from the secret, 
 the liturgies, and the catecheses, that irrefragable 
 proofs crowd upon us, of the universality and apostol- 
 icity of our dogmas. But he, being unable to refute, 
 and unwilling to admit them, turns away his eyes, goes 
 out of the straight path, and imagines that he shall de- 
 stroy them, or at least counterpoise them, by shewing 
 what we do not dispute, that the Fathers in several 
 places have designated the offerings even after conse- 
 cration by the words, bread, wine, sign, sacrament, 
 type, emblem, figure and memorial; that they have 
 
 * Passages of this latter description, .... fully explain all pas- 
 sages of the former description, &c. p. 130. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 183 
 
 spoken of them as spiritual aliments, and beverage, 
 and mentioned mandueation with faith and by faith. 
 These expressions prove nothing against our belief, 
 since we often use them ourselves.* They were the 
 more familiar to the Fathers of the Church, as, with- 
 out injury to their faith, they happily promoted their 
 views, by designating the mystery by its external ap- 
 pearance only. The uninitiated conceived no idea be- 
 yond; while the faithful easily penetrated the veil, and 
 from the sensible appearance, were led to the reality, 
 which does not appear. 
 
 For the rest, sir, if you will be at the pains of ex- 
 amining, you will find that these expressions chiefly 
 belong, as I must once more observe, to those writings 
 which the Fathers gave to the public, and the dis-- 
 courses which they pronounced before the uninitiated. 
 In seeking the true sense of the catecheses in writings 
 of this kind, Mr. Faber must suppose that the Fathers 
 expressed themselves more openly on the Eucharist 
 before the catechumens, Jews and Pagans, than before 
 the newly-baptized at the moment of their first com- 
 munion! According to him then, the Church must 
 
 * We say, the sacrament of the Eucharist; we say the type, the sign, 
 but the visible sign of the invisible body is understood: in the canon 
 of the mass, and even after the consecration, we say: panem sanc- 
 tum vitcc a:tern<x et caliccm salutis pcrpetuce: before receiving the pre- 
 cious blood, the priest says: calicem salutaris accipiam ; we sing panls 
 angelicusfit panis hominum; dot paais adieus figuris tcrminum: we 
 oppose to the idea of the Capharnaites a spiritual mandueation. 
 
 It is done w*ith us by faith; with you, not at all. For what great 
 act of faith must be made, I pray you, to remember Jesus Christ 
 at the sight of bread and wine placed on the communion table in 
 memory of his death? Much the same as we make to remind us 
 of the Blessed Virgin, his mother, when we hear the Angelus-bell 
 ring. But we must have a lively and firm faith in the word of our 
 Saviour, to believe him present under the outward species, net- 
 withstanding all that is suggested by taste, colour, and smell. This 
 is so true, that the Sacramentarians rejected our doctrine, because 
 they could not bring themselves to make such an act of faith, and 
 they oppose incessantly the authority of the senses, to our confi- 
 dence in the word of Jesus Christ. 
 
184 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 have prcscibed greater reserve before the latter, and 
 kept her most intimate confidence for the former! But 
 she orderd precisely the contrary; you have seen it al- 
 ready demonstrated. It is therefore evidently false rea- 
 soning to wish with the reverend Bachelor to interpret 
 the doctrine which was of necessity to be exposed as 
 clearly as possible to the neophytes, by that which 
 was as necessarily to be concealed before unbelievers; 
 to explain what must have been manifest, by what 
 must have been intentionally hidden; that is, what is 
 clear, by what is obscure — light, by shade. This is a 
 first consequence of the method which I oppose. 
 
 XXIII. In the second place, admit for one moment 
 the principles and argumentation of Mr. Faber, and 
 you will be forced to conclude that the primitive 
 Church never knew any uniformity in her doctrine; that 
 she at this day presents nothing but a discordant scene 
 of opposite and contradictory opinions, a succession of 
 bishops in intestine war about doctrines, teaching pro 
 and contra, some the real presence and transubstan- 
 tiation, others a figurative presence, a real absence, a 
 moral change, the bread and wine retaining their own 
 substance with their sensible qualities, and only pas- 
 sing from ordinary use to a religious distinction. Among 
 the latter you must enumerate, if you believe Mr. 
 Faber, St. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, St. Cy- 
 prian, &c. while among the former we cannot but 
 reckon St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 
 S S. Ephrem, Ambrose, Zeno, Gaudentius of Brescia, 
 &c. whose testimonies we have seen, leaving not a 
 shadow of doubt on the Catholic belief. This is a 
 second consequence. 
 
 XXIV. Thirdly, not only will the Fathers be found 
 in contradiction with each other, but even contradic- 
 tory to themselves. For example: according to Mr. 
 Faber, page 68, there is nothingp/w/sicaiinthe change 
 of the bread and wine spoken of by St. Cyril of Jeru- 
 salem, (Catech. Myst. 4) every thing there is moral; 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 185 
 
 and consequently it proves neither the real presence of 
 Jesus Christ in the sacrament, nor a chan§ e of substance. 
 
 But St. Cyril, who apparently knew what he was a 
 ing, explains himself in these words in the same cate- 
 chetical instruction: u Believe thai what appears to yon 
 bread, is not bread, but the body of Christ, although 
 the taste judges it to be bread; and that tiie wine whieh 
 you see, and which Ins the taste of wine, is not wine, 
 but the blood of Christ.' 5 According to Mr. Faber, 
 St. Chrysostom acknowledges no more than a moral 
 change in the Eucharist, because he calls it spiritual 
 food, which after all is quite a Catholic expression; but 
 besides that in the same homily on the treason of Judas, 
 and in a hundred other places, several of which 1 have 
 already quoted, he clearly establishes our doctrines, it 
 will suffice to inform you in this place that he is con- 
 sidered among the learned as having been raised up by 
 the Almighty to exalt and extol in the Church the gran- 
 deur and sanctity of the Holy Eucharist. None ever 
 discoursed upon it with so much pomp and eloquence as 
 this great patriarch. If we are to believe Mr. Faber, 
 St. Augustin teaches simply a moral change in the 
 Eucharist, when he declares that the words of Jesus 
 Christ to bis disciples are to be understood spiritually. 
 But if we must attach the sense of Mr. Faber to this 
 expression, St. Augustin contradicts what he had just 
 established a little earlier in the very same discourse. 
 For he had just been proving that we not only may adore 
 Jesus Christ, when we receive him in the Eucharist, 
 but even that we should sin if we did not there adore 
 him. Here then we should have the real presence 
 demonstrated by the adoration, and rejected a few lines 
 farther on by the assertion of a simple moral change! 
 The same reasoning must be applied to Theodoret. 
 Indeed it is impossible for the Fathers to escape the 
 charge of self-contradiction, if you adopt the method of 
 Mr. Faber. On the contrary, that which we have de- 
 duced from the secret, the liturgies and the catceheses 
 
186 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Bare them from all contradiction with each other 
 and with themselves. They uniformly express them- 
 selves as they ought; openly, when they could; ob- 
 scurely, when they found it necessary; clearly, before 
 the faithful, dogmatically explicit before the newly- 
 baptized; but reservedly and in hidden terms before 
 the unbelievers. The error of Mr. Faber and all 
 the sacramentarians, is in looking for the doctrine 
 of the Fathers where it was necessarily involved in 
 obscure terms; instead of seeking it where it ought in- 
 dispensably to have been explicit.* 
 
 XXV. Fourthly, it is highly important to observe, 
 that Mr. Fabcr's method would convict the Fathers of 
 farther and still more fatal contradiction. Opposed to 
 each other, and at variance with themselves in their 
 instructions, they would have been still more so in their 
 conduct; their teaching would have condemned their 
 practice, and the doctrine which they taught in the pul- 
 pit, must have destroyed that which they professed at 
 the altar. Those apostolic men, those pious and learn- 
 ed bishops celebrated the divine mysteries as often as 
 circumstances permitted, at the head of their flocks. 
 There united in profound recollection, pastors and 
 people humbled before the majesty of God, addressed 
 to heaven prayers animated with the fire of charity. 
 There when profound silence announced the approach 
 
 * The Rev. Bachelor, at page 135, makes me say that on the one 
 hand, the Fathers communicated to the mystic the grand secret of 
 transubstantiation, while on the other, they declared to the unin- 
 itiated that the elements of bread and wine were only types, vr 
 figures, or representations of the body and blood of Christ. "By 
 this contrivance,'" he adds, '* and at no greater expense than that of 
 a direct falsehood, every thing continued as it ought to be." Now 
 here is a twofold und gross falsehood. It exists in the word only, 
 which he palms upon us, but which never came from the mouths of 
 the Fathers, nor from mine, when speaking of the sacrifice of the 
 new law. Take away this only, as truth, honour and good faith 
 demand and then are we all absolved — the Fathers and myself, 
 from falsehood, and Mr. Faber from imposition. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 187 
 
 of the holy sacrifice, the celebrant offered to heaven 
 those sublime prayers, in which he invoked the descent 
 of the Holy Ghost upon the offerings, that he would 
 come to change and transform by his omnipotence the 
 bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ 
 There before communion, each one made aloud a 
 fervent profession of faith in the presence of our Saviour 
 by the change of substance. There in fine, advancing 
 in turns towards the holy table, bowing down in silent 
 adoration, they received with love and trembling the 
 body of our divine Saviour veiled beneath the species. 
 These things, sir, you have seen in the ancient liturgies 
 of all the Christian churches. The Rev. Bachelor 
 must have read them. Finding it impossible to answer 
 them, he has turned away from them in sorrow. I do 
 not blame him for his silence, for neither he, nor any 
 one else wilfever obscure the unalterable splendour of 
 the liturgies. What I blame in him, is his not having 
 the candour and courage to acknowledge it and sur- 
 render himself to it; I blame him for having persisted 
 in his method, for continuing to suppose the Fathers 
 of the primitive Church contradictory to themselves in 
 instruction and practice; disclosing the mystery with- 
 out disguise to the uninitiated, and concealing it from 
 the neophytes; teaching the nations that in the new law 
 as in the old, the bread and wine are only signs and 
 figures of Jesus Christ absent, and at the same time 
 inviting the faithful by their example to adore Jesus 
 Christ as present under those signs, emblems and 
 figures. I accuse him in fine, of supposing the Fath- 
 ers to have been alternately Sacramentnrians in theory 
 and Catholics in the sacred functions of the priesthood; 
 advocates of a moral change in their writings and 
 sermons, after having shewn themselves at the altar 
 intimately persuaded of a change of substance; de- 
 claiming out of doors against the idolatry of paganism, 
 and in their secret assemblies erecting a new system 
 of idolatry for the faithful, and obliging them by their 
 
138 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 own example to -prostitute their vows and adoration to 
 mere material substances. 
 
 XXVI. I figure to myself that numerous and vene- 
 rable train of pontiffs and doctors, the witnesses of the 
 apostolical doctiines, and our true masters in faith — I 
 imagine those holy and illustrious personages, shaking 
 off the dust of the tomb, returned to life, placing them- 
 selves between us and the Sacramentarians, and ad- 
 dressing all those who share the profession and theolo- 
 gy of Mr. Faber in the following w r ords: — "You, who 
 seem to attach such value and authority to the uniform 
 traditions, which we bequeathed to you; and who only 
 need, as you say, to know them, to induce you to adopt 
 them; how came you to misunderstand those, which 
 we faithfully transmitted from the apostles to our vari- 
 ous Churches, concerning the most august of all the 
 sacraments? How came you not to understand what 
 we so often expressed in our writings, and what we 
 shall now briefly repeat to you? We admonished you 
 that "the sublimity of the Eucharist so far surpassed 
 the limits of the human understanding, that it would 
 have been folly in us to believe it, if it had not come to 
 us from the very mouth of our divine Founder. He 
 lias said, my flesh is meat indeed, my blood is drink in- 
 deed. He leaves no room to doubt of the reality of 
 his flesh and blood. Is not that the pure truth? Let 
 those only account it false, who deny Jesus Christ to 
 be the true God." # 
 
 XXVII. "In vain do you seek to persuade us that 
 you would not be staggered by mysteries, but would 
 admit the real presence and transubstantiation, if it 
 were proved to you that ice had ourselves admitted 
 them. You have abundant proofs that we did so; there- 
 fore you deceive yourselves. The truth is, that your 
 reason seeks to sound and penetrate every thing; and 
 because it cannot fathom the mystery, it imagines a 
 
 * St. Hilary, Book 8, on the Trinity. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 189 
 
 certain moral change, and certain empty signs to evade 
 our testimonies, and strive to reconcile faith with your 
 senses." 
 
 "What do you attempt, O daring mortals! Is it not 
 an excess of folly and temerit) m you, who are but a 
 little dust kneaded together, to presume to sound this 
 abyss? Partake of the immaculate body and blood of 
 the Lord, with a most full faith."* "Why do you at- 
 tempt to fathom what is unfathomable? Why do you 
 6eek to comprehend things incomprehensible; and to 
 penetrate what is impenetrable? Let us believe God 
 in all things, and not contradict him, although what he 
 tells us should appear to us contrary to our thoughts, 
 and to our sight. Since it is his word which says to 
 us: this is my body, let us be convinced of it, let us be- 
 lieve it, and behold it with an eye of faith, "f "I ask 
 no reason of Jesus Christ .... Therefore let no one 
 talk to me of argument, when I am required to have 
 faith: let reasoning be silent in the schools. Place 
 your hand upon your mouth; it is not lawful to dive in- 
 to mysteries."! "The mere animal and indocile mind, 
 when any thing is beyond its reach, rejects it as an 
 extravagant notion, because it surpasses its capacity. 
 Its ignorant temerity leads it to extreme pride .... 
 The Jews ought to have received the words of our 
 Saviour without hesitation, as they had often admired 
 
 his divine virtue, and invincible power upon earth 
 
 And vet behold them coming forth against God with 
 that senseless how: — How can this man give us hisjlesh 
 to eat? As if they were not sensible how blasphemous 
 was such a manner of speaking, since in God resides 
 the power of doing all without difficulty .... If thou 
 persistest, O Jew, in advancing this how — I will ask 
 thee, in my turn, how the rod of Moses was changed 
 into a serpent? How were the waters changed into 
 
 * St. Ephrem, Against curiosity infaViomingMyst. 
 f Si. Clirysostom, Horn. 23, on St. John. 
 j St. Ambrose, on Abraham. 
 
 r 17 
 
190 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 blood? It behoves thee then much more to believe in 
 Christ and give credit to his words .... As for you, when 
 you receive the divine mysteries, have faith free from 
 all curiosity. — This is what is required; and we must 
 not oppose a hoiv to the words which are there said."* 
 Candidly, gentlemen, do you find this doctrine at all 
 in unison with yourow r n? Do men express themselves 
 in this way,w 7 hen they behold nothing in the Eucharist 
 but your inanimate signs, your lifeless figures? Does 
 this vehemence of language suit your moral change; 
 or this elevation of sentiments, your pitiful transition 
 from a domestic use of the bread 1o a religious use? 
 Would ideas so gross and material as these have in- 
 spired what you have just heard, and what yet re- 
 mains to be presented to your attentive consideration? 
 XXVII. "A man may well be carried in the hands 
 of another, but no. ope, in his own hands; we cannot 
 therefore understand these words literally of David; 
 (he was carried in his hands)f but we see how that 
 may be understood of Jesus Christ to tfie very letter. 
 For when, committing to us his body he said: this 
 is my body, Christ was held in his own hands. He 
 bore that body in his hands." Jesus Christ drank 
 himself of his chalice, lest his apostles, hearing him 
 6ay these things, should say to themselves: what then. 
 Do we drink blood, and eat flesh? and should be trou- 
 bled. For when he spoke of these mysteries, many 
 were scandalized. In order therefore that they might 
 not then be troubled, he himself gives them first the 
 example, thus inviting them to partake without trouble 
 of the mysteries: therefore it was that he drank of his 
 own blood.""]; Do not deceive yourselves, gentlemen; 
 these ideas and comments are evidently incompatible 
 with your systems of a figurative presence, and a mo- 
 ral change. 
 
 * St. Cyril of Alexandria, B. 4 on St. John. 
 
 t St. Jlugustin, on the title of Ps. 33, according to the Septuagint 
 
 \St. Chrysost. Horn. 71. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 191 
 
 XXVIII. One single word ought to have sufficed to 
 convince you that the real presence of the body and 
 blood was always the object of our belief. This word 
 cannot have escaped your notice; so often is it repeat- 
 ed in our writings; it is this, once again: u adore and 
 communicate"* ''After having communicated of the 
 body of Jesus Christ, approach to the chalice of his 
 blood, not extending your hands, but bowing down in 
 (he attitude of homage and adoration, saying, Jlmen.-\ 
 Mary adored Jesus Christ, the Apostles also adored 
 him, and the angels even adore him, according as 
 it is written; let all the angels of God adore him. 
 But they not only adore his divinity, but also his foot- 
 stool, because it is hoi v. If the heretics denv that the 
 mysteries of his incarnation arc to be adored .... they 
 may read in the scripture that the apostles also adored 
 him, when he was risen with a body clothed in glory. 
 For we ought not to consider this foot-stool of his ac- 
 cording to the common use of men. Moreover we 
 ought not to adore any but God. . . . Therefore we 
 must examine more particularly what this foot-stool is, 
 which is beneath the feet of the Lord. For we read 
 elsewhere: the heaven is my throne, and tlie earth my 
 footstool. But we must not adore the earth, because 
 it is but a creature. Let us take notice however if 
 the earth which the prophet would have us adore, be 
 not that earth with which the Lord Jesus was clothed 
 in his incarnation. — We must say therefore that the 
 footstool is the earth; and by this earth, is to be un- 
 derstood the very flesh of Jesus Christ, which we still 
 adore in our holy mysteries,l and which the apostles 
 adored in his person." 
 
 The adoration spoken of here, and in several other 
 texts, and which we render to him in his sacrament, 
 
 • St. Chrys. Horn. 71. 
 
 ] St. Cyril, Horn. 4, Mystajj. 
 
 \ St. Ambrose, B. 3, of the II. Ghoet. 
 
192 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 cannot be reduced to a mere profession of honour, or 
 a simple feeling of respect. You have just seen that 
 it was precisely the same which he had received 
 from Mary, and the wise men in the manger, from 
 the apostles before and after his resurrection, from 
 the angels at his birth, and at his baptism, the same 
 spoken of by St. Paul, when he tells us that before 
 him every knee should bow, in heaven, on earth, and 
 under the earth; that adoration in fine which is due to 
 God alone. It was therefore the worship due by all 
 men to the supreme majesty of their Creator, the 
 worship of latria. 
 
 XXIX. But, gentlemen, you who speak in admira- 
 tion of the primitive Church, and boast of having 
 revived the beauty and purity of her doctrine, you 
 have basely rejected the adoration which she held due 
 to Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. You attempt to 
 justify yourselves before the people, and in your own 
 eyes, by bringing together those passages of our 
 writings, where we designate the offerings by the 
 names of signs, types, emblems, representations, figures 
 and memorials. But in the first place, you ought to 
 know that these expressions do not exclude the invisi- 
 ble presence of the body of our Saviour: you find our 
 successors in the ministry, and in doctrine, making use 
 of the same before your eyes: we ourselves also occa- 
 sionally used them before the faithful, to shew them 
 the agreement of both testaments, the connexion be- 
 tween the old and new laws, the figure and the reality, 
 the promise and its accomplishment. We expressed 
 ourselves thus: "The sacrifice offered by our Lord to 
 his Father is the same as that which Melchisedech 
 had offered in the figures of bread and wine. Jesus 
 Christ rendered present the truth of his body and of 
 his blood."* "After the manducation of the typical 
 passover, Jesus Christ proceeded to the true sacra- 
 
 * St. Cyprian, Ep. 53, to Cecilius. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 193 
 
 ment of the true passover; and as Mclchisedech had 
 offered in the figure of bread and wine, Jesus Christ 
 rendered present the truth of his body and of his 
 blood. "* There is no less difference between the 
 loaves of proposition and the body of Jesus Christ, than 
 between the shadow and the body, the image and the 
 truth, the figures of things to come, and what was re- 
 presented by those figures."f Every time that we ap- 
 proaeh to the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and 
 receive him in our hands, we believe that we become 
 flesh of his flesh and hone of his bone, as it is written. 
 — For Jesus Christ did not give to this body the name 
 of figure or appearance, but he said: this is truly my 
 body, this is my blood.^l The faithful who knew per- 
 fectly well that Jesus Christ came to fulfil the figures, 
 as well as the prophecies of the old law, understood 
 without difficulty the relation between the figures of 
 his body, and reality of his presence.§ 
 
 In fine we made frequent use of the words, signs, 
 types, figures, &c. and with a very different intention. 
 You are not ignorant that we lived in the midst of 
 Jews and Pagans; that our divine Legislator had ex- 
 pressly forbidden us to disclose our mysteries to them. 
 Place yourselves in our situation: what would you have 
 done, if from the pulpit you had discovered, as was 
 often our case, some of those profane persons in the 
 assembly of the faithful? Would you not then have 
 made choice of the vague, ambiguous, and indefinite 
 expressions which you often meet with in our dis- 
 courses and homilies? Would you not have equally 
 employed them in writings intended for public circula- 
 
 • St. Jerom. Ep. to Hedilia. 
 
 f Ibid, Ep. to Heliodorus. 
 
 J St. Maridhas, Bp. of Tagrit, Bibl. Orient. T. I, p. 179. 
 
 § It was reserved for Mr. Faber and his masters since the year 
 1662, to imagine that all the figures of the Old Testament had not 
 been fulfilled in the New, and to inform us that bread was nothing 
 more for Christians than for Jews; still continuing the perpetual 
 figure of the body of Jesus Christ. 
 
 17* 
 
194 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 tion. And what would you say in these days to per- 
 sons pretending to judge of your real sentiments, after 
 the lapse of so many centuries, by passages which 
 you found yourselves obliged to disguise? This point 
 we especially recommend to your notice; and may you 
 never forget it! If our belief on the sacrament of the 
 altar had been like yours, we should have had no 
 motive to conceal it; but on the contrary the most 
 urgent reasons for its manifestation. 
 
 XXX. Would you know in exact truth what we 
 concealed with so much care, concerning the Eucha- 
 rist; what we did in the divine service; and in what 
 that service consisted. You have only to open our 
 liturgies, and you will see these things faithfully de- 
 tailed. By our practice you will become thoroughly 
 acquainted with our belief. The connexion between 
 both is so evident, that we were commanded to with- 
 hold both alike from the knowledge of Jews, pagans, 
 and catechumens; but to shew them openly to the 
 newly-baptized. We faithfully discharged this two- 
 fold obligation. We scrupulously excluded the unini- 
 tiated at the moment when the sacrifice was about to 
 commence; and when we had to speak on the Eucha- 
 rist in their presence, we confined ourselves to the 
 exterior qualities of bread and wine. With the 
 neophytes we went further; we proceeded from the 
 appearance to the reality of the body which they were 
 about to receive, and explained to them the order of 
 the divine service, at which they were, for the first 
 time, about to assist. 
 
 Providence ordained that by exception from the 
 general prohibition, some few of our catecfwses should 
 be committed to writing, and descend even to you. 
 They suffice to give you a knowledge of all the rest; 
 for in every thing essential, they were alike in all the 
 churches of Christendom: those which you have ex- 
 hibit the universal doctrine of the first five centuries. 
 During that long period of fervour, there was not a 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM* 195 
 
 single Christian who heard from our mouths any other. 
 We instructed our adults, as you instruct your chil- 
 dren; except that we developed our dogmas more 
 fully, because their more enlarged understanding ren- 
 dered them capable of receiving them so developed. 
 Had you lived in our times, you would have received 
 the lessons which we gave to them; you would have 
 had the same doctrine delivered to you; and if it be 
 true, as you constantly declare, that you are anxious to 
 live and die in their communion, adopt we entreat you, 
 their faith and their works: believe and practice, on 
 the most important subject of the Eucharist, what 
 they believed and practised. 
 
 XXXI. Alas ! why is it not possible for us to 
 assure you, that you may safely persevere in the 
 opinions which you have received from childhood, and 
 which you preach so zealously! For we should be 
 delighted to speak to you none but pleasant things; 
 God is our witness! Yet at the hazard of displeasing 
 you, we love rather to render you a solid service. We 
 tell you therefore plainly; your belief is not that of the 
 primitive Church; we never knew such a creed. Com- 
 pare our catechisms with your own, on the subject of 
 which we treat; compare the explanations which you 
 give of them, with those which you read in our 
 catecheses. How remarkable is the difference! Yet 
 you must choose; and to which will you give the pre- 
 ference? You cannot hesitate without contradicting 
 yourselves; since, by your own acknowledgement, the 
 first five centuries breathed the true, pure doctrine of 
 the apostles. 
 
 XXXII. Jesus Christ has said to us; Jlmen^ Amen, I 
 my unlo you: except you eat the flesh of tlie Son of 
 JWan, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in 
 you. And you gentlemen, say; eat the type of his flesh, 
 and it is enough; we then promise you life. The 
 intention of Jesus Christ was to communicate himself to 
 all his followers, and thus to procure for them a fore- 
 
1 96 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 taste of heaven by a sacrament which no mortal could 
 conceive, much less invent. And this heavenly and 
 mysterious communication you reduce to the manduca- 
 tion of mere animal and sensible matter, and a re- 
 membrance which leaves the heart cold, and the 
 soul empty, and without nourishment. Jesus Christ 
 said; this is my body, no, you reply in equivalent terms, 
 it is only the figure of your body; the bread has only 
 undergone a moral change; and since its own substance 
 is still there, yours is not there at all. Our Church 
 taught by the apostles, invoked throughout the universe 
 the descent of the Holy Spirit, to change by his grace, 
 to transform and transubstantiate the bread into the 
 body of Jesus Christ: but if we are to listen to you, 
 this change, transformation or transubstantiation is no 
 better than a polluted source of idolatry and supersti- 
 tion. 
 
 XXXIII. But O friends and separated brethren! If 
 you knew how afflicting to us is the boldness of your 
 thoughts; if you knew how much we lament the endless 
 evils which it entails on yourselves and on your people; 
 if you could conceive the resources, the consolations 
 and delights, of which you deprive so many souls 
 redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and disposed to 
 consecrate themselves to him and receive him with 
 love, if they were otherwise instructed! Forgive these 
 admonitions, dictated solely by a regard for your inter- 
 est, and drawn from us by alarm but too well founded 
 for your security; return to the creed of your fore- 
 fathers, to that received by all the Christians of the 
 first five centuries: believe henceforth with them, and 
 according to our uniform teaching, "that after con- 
 secration, what appears to your eyes bread, is not 
 bread, though your taste judges it to be so; but that it 
 is the body of our divine Redeemer." 
 
 XXXIV. Unhappy is he, who having heard the 
 truth, persists in rejecting it! But more unhappy he, 
 who after having discovered his errors, obstinately 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 1 97 
 
 continues to impose tliem upon his people! There are 
 countries, as we see but too often, where it is deemed 
 honourable to disfigure the truth, and to embelish error 
 and falsehood; where at the expense of so doing, men 
 obtain applause and emolument. But to advance in 
 life, and soon after to have to appear before the last 
 awful tribunal, laden with this fatal applause, this 
 perfiduous. emolument; — great God! how can such a 
 thought be endured, without trouble and terror? 
 
193 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 PART THE THIRD. 
 
 SUCCINCT REVIEW OF THE "DIFFICULTIES OF RO- 
 MANISM. 
 
 I. I enter with painful feelings upon this last and 
 unpleasant portion of my defence. How sorrowful is 
 the task which remains for me to fulfil! Instead of the 
 pleasure and consolation which I should have found in 
 praising the accuracy, uprightness, and candour of an 
 antagonist, I find myself condemned to point out the 
 faults with which his production swarms; sometimes 
 infidelity in quotations, or design in suppressions; at 
 other times falsehood in allegations: in this place, hostile 
 disposition under the assumed tone of regard and po- 
 liteness; in that — treachery, speaking the language of 
 simple ingenuousness; and in a third, malevolence and 
 ill-will, evaporating, in calumniatory imputations. I 
 have already had occasion to exhibit several reprehen- 
 sible defects, and I have sometimes chastised them 
 with severity, because in a religious controversy I re- 
 gard them as disgraceful prevarications. I shall now 
 recommence a rapid review of the pretended Diffi- 
 culties of Romanism, and shall more or less lightly visit 
 upon what 1 find blameabie. 
 
 I have dwelt at length upon the questions which 
 occupy my first and second parts; because they are of 
 general interest to Protestants and Catholics, and are 
 decisive against the Reformation. As to those faults 
 of the author, which I now proceed to notice, as they 
 more personally concern him, I am aware that they 
 may be hut of feeble interest to the public. 1 should 
 on this account have spared myself the unpleasant 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 199 
 
 task of bringing them forward, had I not feared the 
 
 dangerous impressions which they might have made 
 on readers of moderate imformation. My natural in- 
 clination, in accordance with charity, would have led 
 me to throw a veil over them: but the interests of truth, 
 and zeal for the salvation of souls, impose on me the 
 duty of producing them to the light. 
 
 II. In the preface, page x, line 17 — I read as fol- 
 lows: u To charge a Latin (he means a Catholic) with 
 what he holds not, and then gravely to confute opinions 
 which all the while he strenuously disclaims, is alike 
 unfair and unprofitable." A maxim which is admir- 
 able, because it is just. If it were honourable to ad- 
 vance it, it was surely the contrary to forget it and 
 contradict it, as Mr. Faber has done in his attacks on 
 Satisfaction — Invocation of Saints, and Veneration of 
 Images and Relics. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 
 
 HI. At page 6 "of this work (Discussion Jlmicale) 
 the main object is evidently the proselytism of the 
 English laity." This reproach is for ever in the mouth 
 of the author: it is repeated "usque ad nauseam" from 
 beginning to end of his work. My object is, as he would 
 represent it, to deceive the English laity and families 
 travelling on the Continent, ineapable from circum- 
 stances of discovering the falsity of my assertions and 
 proofs. But it happens that this work destined thus 
 to effect conversions on the Continent was first prin- 
 ted in London, and in great measure sold in that ca- 
 pital. But what is most surprising is, that m the same 
 page the author had just made this observation: "In an 
 epistle prefixed to it, this important work is dedicated 
 to the clergy of all the Protestant communions." In 
 fact, the epistle begins thus; "Gentlemen, I cannot 
 consent to give the publicity demanded of me to a 
 discussion undertaken and conducted in the secrecy of 
 confidence, without wishing to address it directly to 
 
200 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 you. It appears to me just that I should present it in 
 the first place to those of the Reformed communions, 
 who with more interest to become acquainted with it, 
 have also more right to decide upon it. Let it go 
 forth then, and arrive where I desire; let it be exam- 
 ined by you, and receive from you its first judgment." 
 And in several places I refer my supposed corres- 
 pondent to the doctors of his own Church. Take as 
 an instance, the following, at page 8, vol. 2d, u Your 
 divines, as well as ourselves, have the catecheses at 
 hand; but I imagine, they have never appeared very 
 anxious to make you acquainted with them. Ask 
 them to communicate these to you, and tell you what 
 they think of them. You will see that they will not 
 comply with your request with a very good grace: 
 and in truth, to speak to you sincerely, they cannot do 
 it." Or another: "For the rest, I am far from wish- 
 ing to take your religion by surprise. If your doubts 
 are not yet dissipated — if there remains in your mind 
 any uncertainty as to the doctrine of the Fathers con- 
 cerning the Eucharist, you are at perfect liberty to 
 communicate this letter, as well as those preceding, to 
 such of your doctors as you may please to consult." 
 And at page 409, vol. 2, I address myself exclusively 
 to the established Church throughout two whole 
 pages; so that my discussion begins and ends by ex- 
 citing the attention and provoking the judgment of 
 your doctors. 
 
 This, I am of opinion, is a sufficient answer to the 
 narrow-minded views, the miserable artifice which 
 Mr. Faber would impute to me, when he supposes my 
 object to have been to cast dust into the eyes of read- 
 ers incapable of judging accurately. I could here 
 adduce twenty persons among your countrymen, whom 
 I have requested at various times to submit my work 
 to the examination of your leading divines. I have 
 always wished it, and I wish it still : and were I not 
 fearful of acting imprudently, I could name in the 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 201 
 
 church of England persons of extensive erudition, and 
 possessing a zeal for re-union, alas ! too rarely met 
 with, who have expressed a wish that my Discussion 
 Amicale were dispersed all over England. For my 
 owu part, so far from fearing any thing from real 
 intelligence, I have appealed to the enlightened, and 
 now appeal to them again, provided they be accompa- 
 nied with good faith. 
 
 IV. At page 20, Mr. Faber introduces to us for the 
 first time his favourite chimaera of a moral change of 
 the Eucharistic bread, which returns a hundred times 
 upon the stage, always with a bad grace, and ever 
 exciting the pity of men of information. The learned 
 Bachelor, delighted with his moral change in the Eu- 
 charist, undertakes to prove its apostolic origin from 
 the anited testimonies, as he says, of St. Clement of 
 Alexandria, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Augustin, St. 
 Athanasius, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret, Pope 
 Gelasius, Facundus, and St. Ephrem: and thus he 
 ranges them with, some small deviation from chronolo- 
 gical order; but no matter. I have demonstrated pre- 
 cisely the contrary assertion, as you know, by the 
 authority of the very same Fathers, as I may here 
 observe by the way; for this is not what I wish to 
 remark upon just at present. Th#se same Fathers 
 arc clear, express, and conclusive, upon the invoca- 
 tion of saints : consequently on that question, I quote 
 them with confidence. And what reply does Mr. 
 Faber make to this at the bottom of p. 238? "The 
 bishop cannot produce a single authority, for the invo- 
 cation of the saints, however modified from the two 
 first centuries." This sentence stands triumphantly 
 in small capitals. I perfectly understand the tactics 
 of the Rector: the Fathers of the third and fourth 
 centuries are irrefragable witnesses, when he thinks 
 them favourable to his opinions. But if they are 
 opposed to him, they are no longer of any value — then 
 18 
 
£02 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 he must have apostolic Fathers ! Behold the admira- 
 ble equity and logic of this gentleman ! 
 
 CELIBACY. 
 
 V. He has devoted pp. 25, 26, and 27, to the refu- 
 tation of the prohibition for priests to marry. This 
 time the Bachelor cannot keep his temper; he is quite 
 warm, and for three deadly pages in succession, he 
 vents his fire and bile against the right reverend Fa- 
 thers of the second council of Lateran. He attempts 
 no less a task than to prove them to be in opposition to 
 St. Paul. I have already proved that they were not 
 But I will here go farther, and in one word exhibit the 
 conformity between the strongest expressions of the 
 council, and those of the sacred scripture. They are 
 these : "indignum est eos (sacerdotes) cubilibus et im- 
 munditiis deservire:" these are words which provoked 
 Mr. Faber so furiously against the Lateran Fathers. 
 But let him cool a moment, if possible. I beseech 
 him and his readers to cast their eyes upon the first 
 four verses of the 14th chapter of the Apocalypse. 
 St. John enraptured with the admirable harmony he 
 has just heard, informs us that the celestial canticle 
 was sung by 144,000 voices, and could be sung by no 
 others. The Rector and many others with him, would 
 have attempted it in vain. But from what mouths did 
 these harmonious sounds proceed? Of what kind was 
 this class of privileged singers? Observe well, Mr. 
 Faber : u These are they who were not defiled with 
 women: for they are virgins." Hi sunt qui cum muli- 
 erihus non sunt coinouinati: virgincs enim sunt. 
 Now cry out loudly against St. John. For you see 
 that he has divided mankind into two classes, that of 
 virgins, and that of persons defiled. You must take 
 your choice: if you are no longer of the first, you 
 must of necessity belong to the second. Well then, 
 would it not have been better to have spared yourself 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 203 
 
 a sally so virulent and scandalous? Would it not 
 have been wiser to have held your tongue and respect- 
 fully bowed your bead before your superiors of Late- 
 ran, who so far surpassed you in knowledge? 
 
 TRADITION. 
 
 VI. In chapter third, on Tradition, page 46, the re- 
 proach is personally addressed to me. u No accurate 
 investigator can read the bishop's remarks on these 
 topics, without being struck with the singular fallacies 
 which pervade them:" and he cites my fourth letter, 
 wherein I establish the necessity of tradition by the 
 doctrine of the primitive Church. Now what course 
 does the Batchelor take? For the primitive and uni- 
 versal Church, of which I speak, he substitutes the 
 Latin church, which is here out of the question. He 
 sets out with this ingenious amendment to argue more 
 at his ease against the reasoning, which he imputes to 
 me. Open my fourth letter, sir, I entreat you: you 
 will see that I draw my proofs from St. Clement of 
 Alexandria, St. Basil, and St. Chrysostom, as well as 
 from Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Augustin, and St. Vin- 
 cent of Lerins; and in the first rank from the 318 
 bishops of the first council of Nice in the affair of 
 rebaptization, and the condemnation of Arius. Let 
 me ask you, if the universal and primitive Church 
 could be marked out more magnificently than by that 
 grand ancient council, accepted at the time by all 
 Churches, and celebrated ever since by every age of 
 Christianity. And yet Mr. Faber has the effronte- 
 ry to insinuate that my proofs are confined to the 
 Latin Church! And in his pretended answers, he see* 
 nothing but the Latin Church, which he ridicules with 
 so much taste and good manners. Thus by fraudulent- 
 ly substituting a word, he deceives his readers, and 
 6ets himself to refute what I never said. I have seen 
 you persuaded that Mr. Faber was a formidable theo- 
 
204 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 logian. Now judge of him by this single trait, and 
 rest assured that he is not even an honest, fair-dealing 
 man. This is not the language of politeness, I am 
 truly grieved to own it: but. if you can, pray tell me 
 how to expose politely so disgraceful a manoeuvre. 
 
 In the same place, No. 1 , you read as follows: "The 
 Latin Church, as we all know, has handed down to 
 the present time various doctrines and various prac- 
 tices. Some of these are received by Protestants; 
 others of them are rejected. Now this electric process 
 is censured by the bishop; and he requires us, as we 
 value the praise of consistency, either to receive the 
 whole mass or to reject the whole mass." So the 
 Bachelor makes me say: and it is always the Latin 
 Church, instead of the universal Church. The follow- 
 ing is what I really said, p. 196, vol. 1, referred to by 
 him. "Many already perceived (in the early contro- 
 versies) that in the violence of party spirit, things had 
 been carried too far. They began to compound for 
 the principle, being ready to admit tradition on cer- 
 tain points, and yet rejecting it on others, in honour of 
 the reformation. These first concessions led the way 
 for others more free and less circumscribed Wise 
 and enlightened minds,, considering calmly the precepts 
 of the apostle, the spirit of the primitive Church, and 
 the confidence, which must be yielded to the piety and 
 fervour of the primitive ages, to the deposition and 
 testimonies of all those holy bishops, and illustrious 
 martyrs of Jesus Christ, have felt the irresistible force 
 of the proofs, and have freely adopted the ideas and 
 language of antiquity on the subject of tradition." 
 Now do I speak in this passage of the Latin Church 
 Sk§ne, as the Bachelor would have his readers believe? 
 Do I not speak in express terms of the apostle, the 
 primitive church, and the first ages? And in express 
 terms of all their holy bishops, and their illustrious 
 martyrs? Do you see nothing in all this but the Latin 
 Church? And could any one, without the most disgrace- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 205 
 
 ful falsity, pretend to see her only, who is neither named 
 nor designated exclusively? Was I not right in affirm- 
 ing that the authority of the primitive ages, as I de- 
 scribed them, ought to be admitted in every question; 
 and that it could not be lawful to reject it on some 
 points of doctrine, when it was necessarily admitted 
 on others? 
 
 VII. You shall now see another specimen of bad 
 faith exhibited by the Rector at page 51 — u In the 
 judgment of the bishop, tradition is of such vital im- 
 portance, that the very canon of scripture depends 
 upon it. By renouncing, therefore, the tradition of the 
 Latin Church, we effectively invalidate the authority 
 of the canon of scripture." But who has said a word 
 to him about the tradition of the Latin Church? I have 
 only spoken of universal and primitive tradition. My 
 words are these, p. 177, vol. 1 — "Most positively you 
 are indebted to tradition for the scriptures, you have 
 them from the hand of tradition, and without that, you 
 would not know how to proceed to demonstrate their 
 authenticity: for it can only be proved that such a 
 book is of such an apostle or evangelist, by its having 
 been received and read as such in the Churches." 
 This is a general expression, comprehending at once 
 all the Churches founded by the apostles and their 
 successors, those of the East, no less than those of the 
 West, the Churches in fact of all Christendom. It is 
 clear that upon their testimony I build the authentici- 
 ty of our scriptures, and not on the single authority of 
 the See of Rome, as my truth-telling antagonist makes 
 me do, "on the naked dogmatical authority of the See 
 of Rome." He knew full well that such was not m\ 
 opinion, for my book was before his eyes; but it suited 
 his purpose to make those believe it, who are unable 
 to read my work. This is the third time in the same 
 chapter that he deceives his readers by a most odious 
 artifice. If I have not formed an erroneous estimate 
 of the English character, Mr. Faber will gaiu no cre- 
 18* 
 
J06 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 dit among his countrymen by methods 60 dishonoura- 
 ble, and proceedings so far below a man of real recti- 
 tude. 
 
 REAL PRESENCE. 
 
 VIII. In the fourth chapter, p. 56, Mr. Faber 
 teaches that the words, this is rriy body, may be under- 
 stood in the sense of the Catholic Church, and in that 
 of the Church of England; in the literal sense on the 
 principles of grammar, and in the figurative sense on 
 the principles of rhetoric; and thereupon he goes into 
 confused attempts at explanation. A body present 
 only in figure, is absent in reality. But according to 
 the sense of your Bachelor, the body of Jesus Christ is 
 present in the Eucharist only in figure. Therefore 
 according to him, it is absent in reality; and he every 
 where labours to prove it so. So far so good. But 
 since he possesses so much penetration, as to perceive 
 clearly in the words, this is my body, the real absence 
 of that body, how could he begin his chapter by telling 
 us that the two Churches, ours and his own, both admit 
 the doctrine of the real presence? "The disagreement 
 between the Church of England and the Church of 
 Rome, in regard to the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, 
 chiefly respects the supposed process denominated 
 transubstantiaiion .... With respect to the doctrine 
 of the real presence, they both hold it." What! one 
 believes in the real presence of her Saviour, the other 
 in his real absence, and yet both hold the same doc- 
 trine! The Catholics reject the figure, to embrace the 
 reality, the modern Anglicans have set aside the reality, 
 to attach themselves to the figure; and yet both are 
 said to maintain the dogma of the real presence, each 
 party remaining on their own side! What an extrava- 
 gant assertion! What surpassing absurdity! Was 
 ever any thing like it thought or said before? Can a 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 207 
 
 man be permitted thus to eontradict himself, and trifle 
 to this degree with his readers? 
 
 IX. At p. 66, it is curious to hear him again: "If, 
 during the term of several centuries, we shall find that 
 the figurative interpretation was the interpretation 
 adopted by the early Catholic Church, we shall possess 
 a moral certainty of its truth." You see plainly what 
 Mr. Faber wishes to find in the primitive Church; he 
 is running after his figurative sense; he would prove it 
 morally certain. Then he did not speak truth; when 
 he declared that he maintained like ourselves, the dog- 
 ma of reality. Here he extends the primitive Church 
 to a "term of several centuries," and he is right in so 
 doing. In other places he confines it to the second cen- 
 tury, and there he is wrong. You see, sir, we have 
 only to confront him with himself, to exhibit endless 
 contradiction between the opposite notions, which he 
 alternately adopts. 
 
 X. In the note at p. 71, the passage of St. Gregory 
 of Nyssa presents some examples of internal changes 
 were none appears outwardly: such as the stones of 
 consecrated altars, which still preserve the same qual- 
 ities apparent to the senses: such as the laic, who by 
 consecration and unction of the holy oil is changed into 
 a priest, without his ceasing to appear the same as he 
 was externally: such is the Eucharist, in which the 
 change of the bread is not preserved outwardly. 
 Under this relation, it is most justly, classed with the 
 other examples; and yet, because differently from the 
 other changes mentioned, that of the Eucharistic bread 
 affects the substance, St. Gregory is careful to declare 
 that expressly; fearing no doubt, that some on seeing 
 nothing more in that than in the other objects brought 
 in comparison, might wrongly interpret his opinion. — 
 And this is precisely what has happened to Mr. Faber, 
 and he would have escaped it, if he had weighed 
 attentively these words, which he transcribed without 
 understanding them; "but, when it has been consecra- 
 
208 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 ted in the holy mystery, it becomes, and is called the 
 body of Christ^ Mr. Faber traced this sentence with 
 his hand; but his tongue would not pronounce it. If 
 he consent to do so, God be praised! I ask no more of 
 him in this place. For the rest, I thank him for hav- 
 ing furnished me with a proof, in the very passage, 
 which he deemed favourable to his own opinion. 
 
 XL I know not, dear sir, if you will agree with me, 
 but I am convinced that in the important concerns of 
 salvation, it is highly criminal to present falsehood to 
 one's readers' with the confidence with which an hon- 
 ourable man would present truth. Open Mr. Faber's 
 work at p. 73 and read at the top the following dog- 
 matical sentence of two members; "Whenever the 
 Fathers descend to the strictness of explanatory defini- 
 tion, they plainly tell us, again and again, that the 
 consecrated elements are only the types, or figures, or 
 syvibols, allegorical images of the body and blood of 
 Christ: (first member of the sentence) and, not unfre- 
 quently, as if anxious to remove all possibility of mis- 
 apprehension, they assure us in express terms, that ice 
 do not eat the literal body, and that we do not drink the 
 literal blood of Christ, when we participate of the 
 blessed Eucharist." (Second member.) To eat the 
 body and drink the blood in the literal sense; is to eat 
 and drink according to the gross idea of the Caphar- 
 naites; a carnal and barbarous manducation, which all 
 ages and all Christian people have held in horror; and 
 of which consequently there can be no question 
 between us. But how can the Fathers be said to have 
 taught that after consecration there is" nothing but types 
 and figures in the Holy Eucharist; they who inform us 
 that it was adored by ail the faithful previous to their 
 receiving it? They who have told us that not to adore 
 it would be a sin? They who adored it as often as they 
 celebrated the liturgy at the head of the faithful? You 
 have seen, sir, multiplied and demonstrative proofs of 
 the belief of the Fathers in the reality of the body and 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 209 
 
 blood in the sacrament of the altar. The truth then is, 
 that in their catccheses they taught it with as much en- 
 ergy and clearness as we could do, and that they spoke 
 of it without disguise, when they could do so without 
 betraying the secret. But it is falsehood to assert that, 
 even when they concealed the mystery, they ever 
 went so far as to say that there was nothing in the con- 
 secrated elements but types, or figures, or symbols of 
 the body of Jesus Christ. Never, never did such ex- 
 pressions exclusively negative proceed from their lips; 
 never did their hands write them. But assuredly they 
 would have written and spoken them a thousand times, 
 had they corresponded with their belief. Then Mr. 
 Faber might have victoriously brought forth the numer- 
 ous passages. But neither he, nor any other has ever 
 discovered them: they have not produced, nor will they 
 ever produce a single one. And yet this unfortunate 
 man has dared to affirm to his countrymen, and before 
 God, that the writings of the Fathers were full of pas- 
 sages of that description. How much do I feel for his 
 readers! For they naturally give credit to the minister 
 who defends their creed, and presents them, with the 
 greatest assurance, assertions which they can neither 
 suspect nor discover to be false. O! if I could make 
 my voice be heard over all England, I would^say to its 
 generous people: "Be you our judges! Pronounce 
 between one doctrine, which can only be attacked by 
 continual outrages'against truth, and another, which can 
 only be defended by such disgraceful artifices." 
 
 XII. If Mr. Faber is so little scrupulous with the 
 Holy Fathers, and takes the liberty of making them 
 say what they never said nor thought, I need not be 
 surprised to find him allowing himself the liberty with 
 me to suppress and change my words, and to put his 
 own into my mouth. It is true that to give currency 
 to this habitual species of impoliteness, he takes care 
 to associate with it immediately some complimentary 
 epithet: or else to add, as at page 100, that my argu- 
 
210 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 ment appears to him managed "with no small dexter- 
 ity;" while it appears to me, in his exposition of it, 
 insupportably clumsy and ill-managed. I have fre- 
 quently had occasion to notice parts of my book, 
 which he has metamorphosed in his own peculiar 
 manner. It would be tedious to follow him in all his 
 turns, and to expose all the artifices which he allows 
 himself in this way; it is a poor and pitiful resource for 
 those, who are determined at all hazards to defend a 
 desperate cause, and who would have no rational 
 reply to make, were they not to begin by disfiguring 
 the arguments, which they undertake to refute. 
 
 XIII. One of his ar/ifices however richly deserves 
 to be exposed; for I must own that the bold mendacity 
 which distinguishes it would make it of itself suffice to 
 establish its author's reputation. "The theory of the 
 bishop," says he, p. 98, as might be anticipated from 
 the purport of his work, is this. The secret discipline 
 of the primitive Church had for its sole cause the 
 doctrine of transubstantiation: for, in the very nature 
 of things, it could not possibly have had any other cause 
 than that which is thus assigned to it. Hence it will 
 follow, that the grand and exclusive and special secret 
 of the Christian mysteries was the doctrine of transub- 
 stantiation." Here are as many falsities almost as 
 words. I speak of the real presence, Mr. Fa- 
 ber puts in place of that, transubstantiation. h say 
 that the secret discipline relative to the Eucharist 
 had no other, and could have no other cause than 
 that of the real presence: he makes me say that 
 the "secret discipline of the primitive Church had for 
 its sole cause the doctrine of transubstantiation." After 
 advancing this in my name, he makes me conclude 
 that "the grand, and exclusive, and special secret of the 
 Christian mysteries was the doctrine of transubstantia- 
 tion." This last word occurs twice in his two senten- 
 ces, while it is only found once in my whole chapter, 
 I confine myself to the mystery of the Eucharist, and 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 211 
 
 he represents me us taking in all the mysteries of 
 Christianity. 
 
 Mr. Faber addressing himself particularly to those 
 of his countrymen who are ignorant of French, affects 
 great impartiality in quoting a passage of my book, 
 which proves that I speak truth, and he falsehood. 
 He adduces it as follows in a note at p. 98: a Or je me 
 flatte a present, Monsieur, que vous voyez clairement 
 que la discipline du secret sur PEucharistie a eu effec- 
 tivement le dogme de la realite pour cause, et n'a pu 
 en avoir cPautre." I appeal to any one who knows 
 French, whether this passage is susceptible of the 
 sense given to it by Mr. Faber. Who could discover 
 in it transubstantiation? I am only speaking of the real 
 presence; and who could find there the mysteries of 
 Christianity? I speak only of the real presence; I give 
 that as the cause of the secret discipline on the sub- 
 ject of the Eucharist. For all that is exalted in this 
 august sacrament arises from the reality of the pre- 
 sence. But whence did the Rev. Bachelor draw the 
 conclusion which he attributes to me, if not, like the 
 rest, from the delirium of a capricious and over-heated 
 imagination? 
 
 There only could he further have read that the real 
 presence was the sole cause of the secret discipline. 
 This assertion is not mine. I distinctly wrote the 
 contrary assertion, vol. 1, p. 344, in these words: u l 
 purpose to examine thoroughly with you, the discipline 
 regarding the inviolable secrecy, which all the faithful 
 observed on the sacraments, and especially on the 
 sacrament of the altar." I knew well at the same time 
 that this secret discipline concealed from the pagans 
 the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation. I might 
 have said therefore, that it extended to both these 
 mysteries, as well as to all the sacraments. I did not 
 say it, for the obvious reason that I was not writing the 
 general history of the discipline in question. My sole 
 object being to consider it exclusively in relation to 
 
212 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 the Eucharist, my duty was to confine myself to my 
 subject; and not to run out unseasonably into a diffuse 
 digression on the several other subjects comprised under 
 the law of secrecy. 
 
 XIV. At page 100, the Bachelor returns to the 
 charge that all my argument is built upon the ruinous 
 foundation, that "the true doctrine of the Eucharist was 
 the exclusive secret of the Christian mysteries." He 
 supports the contrary with perfect justice: but how 
 does that affect me? Whom is he combating? I never 
 advanced any such thing. He goes on further to maintain 
 that "the true doctrine of the Eucharist was neither 
 the exclusive secret of the mysteries, nor yet even 
 their principal secret." How again am I concerned 
 in this? Whom is he attacking now? There is not a 
 syllable of all this in any part of my book. It appears 
 to have suited his purpose to impute to me the expres- 
 sions exclusive and principal secret: but once again, I 
 disclaim them, they are not mine. They belong ex- 
 clusively to the Difficulties of Romanism, not to the 
 Discussion Jlmicale; and for Heaven's sake, let eacli 
 keep his own property where he finds it! 
 
 XV. Mr. Faber here enters upon the exposition of 
 the catecheses of St. Cyril; of which the first eighteen 
 are for the catechumens, the five last for the neophytes. 
 The former often speak upon the Trinity, and present 
 but one short though powerful allusion to the Eucha- 
 rist,* which was developed at a later period to the 
 
 * It X9 as follows: "If the Lord shall deem thee worthy, thou 
 ihalt hereafter know, that the body of Christ, according to the 
 gospel, sustains the type of bread." Mr. Faber declares it diffi- 
 cult to say what these words can mean, unless "that the bread is 
 a type, or symbol, or figure, or representation of Christ's body." 
 But this is precisely reversing the declaration of St. Cyril. The 
 sentence is quite clear to any one initiated: the divine substance 
 sustains the appearance of bread, its qualities, apparent to the 
 senses, sustain the figure, or type, or representation of bread. In 
 St. Cyril, it is the body of Jesus Christ which represents the image 
 of bread: in Mr. Faber, it is the bread which represents the body 
 of Jeeus Christ. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 213 
 
 newly-baptized in two of the five cateclieses, which 
 were intended for them. Every one knows that bap- 
 tism is conferred in the name of the most Holy Trini- 
 ty. This established, the observation of the Rector 
 becomes absolutely silly. He is quite surprised that 
 the doctrine of the Trinity should be so often discussed 
 before those who were to be baptized in the name of 
 the Trinity! And he appears to wonder that there 
 should be but a single short hint of the Eucharist, be- 
 fore those from whom the law required it to be con- 
 cealed till after their baptism! But we have a new 
 proof of his erudition in another way. The Bachelor 
 remarks that in the last of the cateclieses, mention 
 is made of prayers for the dead: "which," he most 
 learnedly observes, "had then begun to be partially 
 introduced, which Cyril owns were objected to by 
 many, &c." He was not aware then that this practice 
 is in all the liturgies; a certain proof of its apostolicity. 
 As to the great opposition made to it in the fourth 
 century, that is a pure fiction. For we cannot make 
 any account of such men as Aerius and Vigilantius, 
 who were condemned at the time by all the churches 
 in the world. 
 
 XVI. After a long digression on the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, which is no way connected with my Discus- 
 sion Amicale, Mr. Faber triumphantly concludes that 
 the Eucharist was neither the exclusive nor the princi- 
 pal secret of the Christians. I wish him joy of his 
 discovery; I am noway concerned with the ten deadly 
 pages of this dissertation. But at page 115 he at 
 length arrives at the point; he announces his intention 
 to prove that the real presence — transubstantiation 
 according to him, for he always uses one word for the 
 other — "was not taught at all in the mysteries, even 
 under the form of the very smallest and least important 
 secret." O ! now I feel interested. I trust you know 
 by this time what to believe on this question : and I 
 am convinced that the Bachelor will proceed more 
 19 
 
214 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 carefully, if he returns to the subject. I give up my 
 proofs to him, to the divines of his Church, to all those 
 of the • Protestant Communions who accord with him 
 in opinion against the real presence of our divine 
 Saviour in his most holy sacrament of the altar. They 
 will labour in vain to demolish them. 
 
 Mr. Faber exhibits and admires with reason the 
 secret discipline, as one of the most curious subjects 
 of ecclesiastical antiquity. Yet he does not appear to 
 have searched it deeply. Had he done so, it would 
 have suggested to him very dhTerent reflections. I 
 even suspect that before the appearance of the Dis- 
 cussion Jlmicale, he was very little acquainted with 
 that venerable and ancient law of secrecy, sealed by 
 the blood of many martyrs; which is a mine rich in 
 proofs on the most important points called in question 
 by the ignorant temerity of these latter ages. I am 
 far from having exhausted it: others will penetrate yet 
 further into it. I applaud their success beforehand, 
 happy in having pointed out the opening, and put them 
 in the way. 
 
 XVII. In my Discussion Jlmicale I seriously chal- 
 lenged all the Sacramentarians, and I now challenge 
 them again, with Mr. Faber at their head, and with 
 him all his brethren of the Church of England since 
 the year 1662, to declare to us plainly why the primi- 
 tive Church ordained an inviolable secrecy on the sub- 
 ject of the Eucharist. Let us allow them time to con- 
 sider their answer well. They will take a long time, 
 I am afraid, before they produce one satisfactory. 
 Every one knows that the primitive Church had 
 strictly enjoined to conceal from the infidels what was 
 said and done in her assemblies, from which the pro- 
 fane were excluded. After the lapse of so many 
 ages, how are we to discover what the faithful prac- 
 tised there among themselves for so long a period, 
 unknown to the uninitiated? When the liturgies ap- 
 peared in open day, they made it known to the whole 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 215 
 
 world. They displayed to the eyes of all, the interior 
 of these holy assemblies. They indicate even at this day 
 the prayers, the acts of faith, hope, and charity, the 
 thanksgivings, which preceded, accompanied, and fol- 
 lowed the bloodless sacrifice of the new covenant. I 
 have given abundant details of these things in my ninth 
 letter, from p. 388 to p. 445 of my first volume. Mr. 
 Faber makes mention of this letter, he must at least 
 have gone through it, and yet, what does he say of it? 
 Nothing, sir: he does not dare to look steadily upon 
 the liturgies, their brilliancy dazzles his visionary or- 
 gans, he turns away from them, and runs for refuge to 
 mere common-place observations. You have seen 
 these refuted in the second part of the present work. 
 XVIII. I had remarked that the Fathers laid open 
 the mystery clearly to the faithful, while they con- 
 cealed it from the uninitiated. Mr. Faber, at p. 135, 
 reproaches me with having attributed duplicity to the 
 Holy Fathers, both in principle and practice : he ac- 
 cuses me of having represented them as guilty of 
 direct falsehood. "To the mysta, they declare, with- 
 out reserve, the grand secret of transubstantiation :" 
 (he ought to have said, of the real presence; he regu- 
 larly uses the wrong word in this matter,) "to the pa- 
 gans and catechumens, they propound the symbolical 
 or allegorical nature of the consecrated elements; 
 assuring them, that these elements are only types, or 
 figures, or representations of the body and blood of 
 Christ." This assertion is completely false; the great 
 falsehood lies in the word only inserted by Mr. Faber: 
 I have shown this repeatedly. I will merely in this 
 place justify the process of the Holy Fathers, and ac- 
 quit them of falsehood with the support of a decision 
 of St. Augustin, who was apparently quite as well 
 versed in morality as the Rector of Long Newton. 
 "He who seeks simplicity of heart, ought not to con- 
 sider himself culpable, if he conceal something which 
 the man from w r hom he conceals it, could not under- 
 
216 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 stand. Nor is it hence to be inferred that it is lawful 
 to lie. For it does not follow that we speak false- 
 hood, when we conceal the truth. "* This is precise- 
 ly the case with the ancient Fathers. They had no 
 need of reserve or caution with regard to the faithful; 
 therefore they spoke the whole truth to them openly. 
 But it was quite otherwise with respect to the unin- 
 itiated, to whom it was forbidden to reveal the mys- 
 tery, therefore before them they confined themselves 
 to the exterior part of the Eucharist. They said then 
 that it was the sign, the figure, the sacrament of the 
 body of Jesus Christ : but they never said that it was 
 only the figure of the body, as Mr. Faber loudly de- 
 clares, and wishes to persuade his readers. Thus did 
 the Fathers fulfil all justice; strong nourishment for 
 grown up men; milk for children and the infirm. 
 What Mr. Faber calls "contrivance," "dexterity," 
 "falsehood," was no more than prudence, charity, 
 and obedience to the divine and ecclesiastical law. 
 The Catholic finds every thing intelligible, connected, 
 and consistent in this method of the Holy Fathers ; but 
 to the Sacramentarian all is confusion, embarrassment, 
 and contradiction : a proof that the belief of Catholics 
 is true, and that of the Sacramentarians false. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE FIRST REFORMERS. 
 
 XIX. Passing on to p. 150 I find another reproach 
 which Mr. Faber thinks proper to bring against me 
 with his usual rectitude of mind. He accuses me of 
 being "superfluously copious," because I exposed Lu- 
 ther, Zwinglius, and Calvin at open war with each 
 other. But how could I pass over in silence the three 
 
 •"Qui simplex cor habere appetit, non debet sibi reus videri, 
 si aliquid occultat quod ille, cui occultatur, capere non potest. 
 Nee ex eo arbitrandum est licere mentiri. Non enim est conse- 
 quens, ut cum verum occultatur, falsum dicatur." — S. Jlugust. 
 contra Mendaciwn. Cap. x. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 217 
 
 champions of the reformation in a work on the Church 
 of England in particular, tfnd the Reformation in gen- 
 eral? I am perfectly aware that you do not recognize 
 the spiritual supremacy of any one of these three: but 
 if you acknowledge no. one of them as a Father, all 
 three must feel pride in claiming you as their children. 
 And for this reason : you have borrowed from one and 
 the other, and from their several contributions arose 
 your body of doctrine, which you have worked up 
 and established under the form which suited your con- 
 venience* You are not properly speaking, a Luthe- 
 ran, nor a Zwinglian, nor a Calvinist in particular, but 
 in a general point of view, you are all three — Luthe- 
 rans, Zwinglians, and Calvinists. Not so ; exclaims 
 Mr. Faber, "we are Catholics of the Anglican Church, 
 no less than the bishop of Aire (Strasbourg) is a Ca- 
 tholic of the Gallican Church." This was very true 
 before the fatal introduction of your King Henry to 
 Ann Boleyn; since that, your situation is altered. A 
 man is no longer a Catholic when he departs from 
 unity. You say in the creed, " I believe in one .... 
 Catholic Church." Return then to this one Catholic 
 Church, if you wish to be Catholics in England, as we 
 are in France. 
 
 XX. "Certainly," continues our author, "we honour 
 Luther and Calvin and Zwingle for their works' sake" 
 "without feeling ourselves pledged to act as um- 
 pires between these three enwient foreigners." It be- 
 comes then incumbent on me to give the reader a just 
 idea of these three heroes, on whom he respectfully 
 
 •I do not even except the episcopacy among you. The name 
 is of little consequence; the superintendants of Germany, and the 
 bishops of Sweden, Denmark, and England, are in reality on a 
 similar footing. They labour under the same doubts as to the 
 validity of their ordinations, the same certain nullity of their 
 spiritual jurisdiction. For schism has abrogated that every where 
 alike; in the same manner as the revolt of every embassador or 
 minister puts an end to the power which he held from his sove- 
 reign. 
 
 19* 
 
g[g ANSWER TO THE 
 
 bestows the title of eminent. This may lead me to 
 some length, but it is necessary. Luther claims the 
 first place; U I burn," says he, "with a thousand fires 
 in a flesh untamed. I feel excited towards women 
 with a fury which borders upon madness. I, who 
 ought to be fervent in spirit, am only fervent in impu- 
 rity."* "Strong in my knowledge, I would not yield 
 either to Emperor, King or Devil: no, not even to the 
 whole universe."t His cherished disciple informs us 
 that Luther knew his immorality so well, that he wish- 
 ed to be removed from the ministry of preaching. J "I 
 tremble," wrote Melancthon," when I think of the pas- 
 sions of Luther; they do not yield in violence to the 
 fury of Hercules."§ u This man," says one of his con- 
 temporaries of the reformation, "is absolutely furious. 
 He does not cease to combat the truth against all jus- 
 tice, and even against the cry of his own conscience. "|| 
 "He is inflated with pride and arrogance, and seduced 
 by Satan."^f "Yes Satan has so made himself master 
 of Luther, as to make us believe that he is determined 
 to possess him entirely. " ## "He has written all his 
 books by the impulse and under the dictation of the 
 Devil, with whom he had an interview, and who in 
 the struggle appears to have overthrown him with 
 victorious argument."ft "Truly," said Calvin, "Lu- 
 ther is very wicked. Would to God that he had taken 
 care to put more restraint upon the intemperance which 
 rages on all sides of him! Would to God that he had 
 thought more of gaining a true knowledge of his vices."JJ 
 O what an honourable and eminent personage! 
 
 * Luther's Tahle-Talk. 
 
 }His reply to the King of England. 
 
 XSleiden,bookxi. an. 1520. 
 
 ^Letter to Theodore. 
 
 \\Hospinian. 
 
 ^(Ecolampadius. 
 
 **Zwinglius. 
 
 ]\The ch. of Zurich against the Confess, of Luther, p. 61. 
 
 X\Qu>oted%n C. Schlussenberg. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 219 
 
 XXI. Now let the second appear on the stage. 
 Zwinglius speaks thus of himself: "I cannot conceal 
 the fire which burns me, and urges me to incontinen- 
 cy; since it is true that its eilccts have brought upon 
 me already but too many disgraceful reproaches 
 among the- churches."* Luther declared openly that 
 Zwinglius was the progeny of hell (what an origin for 
 the honourable and eminent personage of Mr. Faber!) 
 an associate of Arius, a man not deserving to be pray- 
 ed for by any one.f "Zwinglius" Luther wrote, "is 
 dead and damned, wishing like a thief and a seditious 
 man to force others by arms to follow his error."! 
 Brentius, whom Bp. Jewell called the grave and learn- 
 ed old man, declares that "the doctrines of Zwinglius 
 are diabolical, full of impieties, depravity and calum- 
 nies; that the error of Zwinglius on the Eucharist (that 
 of a figurative presence, so dear'to Mr. Faber,) led to 
 many others still more sacrilegious."§ ''Blessed is the 
 man who hath not gone into the council of the Sacra- 
 mentarians (the partisans of the figurative sense, such 
 as the modern Anglicans) blessed is the man who hath 
 not stood in the way of the Zwinglians, nor sat in the 
 chair of Zurich! You understand what I mean."j| 
 Such in doctrine and deeds was that Zwinglius, in these 
 days so honourable and eminent in the eyes of Mr. 
 Faber! 
 
 XXII. Let us complete the sketch of this noble and 
 pious triumvirate by a few traits of Calvin. u Do not 
 scruple," he wrote to one of his powerful friends, "torid 
 
 the country of those zealous fanatics, who would 
 
 represent our belief as a reverie. Such monsters ought 
 to be smothered, as I did in the execution of the Span- 
 iard, Michael Servetus. For the future, I do not ima- 
 
 *Jn Parenes. adHelvet. fol. 44. 
 
 fTome 2, fol. 36, quoted in Floyimond. 
 
 \Ibid. 
 
 ^Brentius in rtcog. Proph. et Jlpost. in fine. 
 
 ]\Luther. Ep. and Jacob, presb. 
 
£20 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 gine that any one will do such a thing." "Calvin, I 
 know, is violent and perverse; so much the better. 
 That is the man we want to promote our cause."* 
 "Calvin," said Bucer, "is a real mad dog. That man 
 is bad; and judges of people, according to his own 
 love or hatred of them." In 1588 there appeared in 
 London a writing approved by the Anglican bishopsf 
 against the Calvinist sect. Calvin and Beza. are there- 
 in represented as proud, intolerant men, who, by open 
 revolt against their lawful prince, had established their 
 gospel, and assumed the government of the churches 
 with a tyranny more odious than that, with which they 
 so often reproached the sovereign pontiffs. The Eng- 
 lish bishops protest before Almighty God that among all 
 the texts of scripture cited by Calvin or his disciples in 
 favour of the Church of Geneva against the Church of 
 England, (which at that time believed in the real pre- 
 sence) there is not one which is not distorted to a sense 
 unknown to the Church and the Fathers from the days of 
 
 the apostles.J So that were they to return to life, 
 
 they would be astonished that there should be found in 
 the world a man of such extravagant audacity as to dare 
 thus to abuse the word of God, himself, his readers, and 
 the whole world. "Happy," exclaims Bishop Bancroft, 
 "a thousand times happy had it been for our island, if 
 no Englishman or Scotchman had ever set his foot in 
 Geneva, if he had never known a single one of these 
 Genevese doctors !" Calvin declared that Luther had 
 done nothing of any value .... that people were not 
 
 *The German Wolmar, who while he gave him lessons at Bour- 
 ges in Greek and Hebrew, had filled him with the new doctrines of 
 Germany. 
 
 f"w3 Survey of the pretended Holy Discipline, by Bishop Bancroft." 
 At this period, the Church of England professed the doctrine of 
 the real presence, which she did not abandon till seventy-four 
 years afterwards. 
 
 Jit is remarkable that the Fathers quoted by Bishop Bancroft are 
 precisely those whom Mr. Faber has been bold enough to adduce 
 in favor of his moral change, his allegorical and purely figurative 
 sense: they are S S. Ambrose, Jerome, Augustin, Chrysostom, &c. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 221 
 
 to amuse themselves with following his footsteps, and 
 being half-papists; but that it was far better to build 
 a new Church altogether.* 
 
 By this time, sir, you will know what opinion to 
 form of these famous triumvirs. They aimed at the 
 same point, each in his own way: they understood each 
 other thoroughly. It would therefore be the highest 
 injustice to call in question the judgment they have 
 passed upon each other and upon themselves. Our 
 Rev. Bachelor particularly cannot but believe his hon- 
 ourable and eminent personages: he could not refuse 
 them credit, without contradicting himself. Let him 
 reconcile, as he thinks proper, his opinion of these gen- 
 tlemen with the characters they have left us of them- 
 selves. As for you, sir, I flatter myself that after 
 acknowledging the justice, which they have mutually 
 rendered to each other, you will so far do them justice, 
 as not to consider them worthy of credit on any other 
 subject. 
 
 XXIII. Thus when they tell you that Jesus Christ 
 did not establish the apostles and their successors to 
 preserve the faithful in the unity of his doctrine and of 
 his Church; that he did not promise to be with them 
 and direct their teaching till the end of the world; you 
 will not believe them. When they tell you that the 
 right of interpreting this Testament was left by Jesus 
 Christ to the faithful individually, or even to some par- 
 ticular teachers, you will not believe them: and you will 
 be the less disposed to give them credit, as you see in 
 your own country at this day, Christianity torn in pie- 
 ces and laid waste by a multitude of sects, all sprung 
 out of this absurd presumption. 
 
 If they shall tell you that in the most Holy Eucha- 
 rist, there is no change of substance, or that our Saviour 
 is not there really present, but that there is only a type, 
 
 * See the Appendix, p. 77, of my 1st vol. where will be found 
 what the early reformers thought and wrote in all truth. 
 
222 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 an emblem or figure of his body, you will not believe 
 them. When they tell you that confession to a priest, 
 though useful in some cases, is never necessary in any; 
 and that you can always obtain pardon of your sins, 
 without recourse to the ministry of those, to whom 
 alone Jesus Christ gave the power of remitting them, 
 you will refuse to believe them. When they say that 
 our Divine Saviour's satisfaction exempts you from any 
 personal satisfaction in this world, or the next, you 
 will not believe them. When they shall tell you that 
 at the moment of death, souls still defiled with those 
 smaller stains, which heaven cannot, admit, will be at 
 once cast into hell, you will refuse to believe them. 
 When in fine, they shall tell you that prayers for the 
 dead, in use from the first beginning of Christianity, 
 cannot afford them any comfort, you will not believe 
 them. 
 
 XXIV. "But," you will exclaim, "all these points 
 of doctrine are exactly our own: did they really come 
 to us from such depraved men?" If you consult Mr. 
 Faber, he will tell you that however great a resem- 
 blance may be found between the doctrine of the Church 
 of England and that of the three reformers, the utmost 
 that can be discovered is an imperfect family likeness. 
 For the established Church acknowledges none for its 
 progenitors, and heads, but those sages, those venera- 
 ble bishops, who in the convocation of 1562 modelled 
 their doctrines upon the antiquity, the faith, and prac- 
 tice of the primitive Church. Certainly it is not well 
 to deny our parentage. We may blush at what our 
 fathers were, but we ousrht not to disown them. With 
 history in our hands, let us compel Mr. Faber to carry 
 up his pedigree a step higher, though it will not there- 
 by be more ennobled. Ask him from what source 
 Queen Elizabeth's bishops derived their reformed the- 
 ology. The new doctrines had for more than forty 
 years been accredited in Switzerland and Germany; 
 irona those countries they had been introduced into 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 823 
 
 France and Holland. In the time of Henry VIII. they 
 had clandestinely found their way into England with 
 the most Rev. Dr. Cranmer and his wife; and under 
 the youthful Edward they spread abroad their sweet 
 odours more freely. When Mary came to the throne, 
 those ecclesiastics who were seduced or infected, 
 sought asylums at Geneva, in Switzerland, and various 
 states of Germany. Hence, after long draughts at the 
 fountains of Luther, Zwinglius, and Calvin, they return- 
 ed to their country, quite full of the new opinions, 
 which they afterwards produced in the form of the 39 
 articles; and seasoned to the taste of the country in the 
 holy and venerable convocation of 1562. Such is the 
 historical fact: such is the cause of that filial resem- 
 blance, which you judiciously observed between the 
 Fathers of the famous convocation and the immortal 
 triumvirate of the Continent. I am sensible how 
 humiliating is such a descent to the Church of England: 
 but there is still a way of escaping; it is to destroy it, 
 and retreat from it with all expedition. 
 
 XXV. At the end of the same note, Mr. Faber ap- 
 pears to find fault with my having adduced, p. 333. 
 vol. 1 — Forbes, Montague, Thorndyke, and Parker, 
 as favourable to transubstantiation. He alleges that 
 they only maintain what, the Church of England has 
 ever maintained, and what he himself has said. It is 
 true that Mr. Faber has expressed the sentiment 
 which I quoted from Forbes, and that I signified" my 
 satisfaction thereupon. But would he also consent to 
 say with the celebrated Thorndyke, that "the ele- 
 ments are really changed from ordinary bread and 
 wine, into the body and blood of Christ, mystically 
 present, as in a sacrament; and that, in virtue of the 
 consecration, not by the faith of him that receives?"* 
 Would he declare with Bp. Montague, after S S. 
 Cyprian, Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil and Ambrose, that 
 
 * Epilogue, b. 3, ch. 5. 
 
224 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 the change caused by the consecration of the ele- 
 ments is called a transmutation and transelementation?* 
 Would he acknowledge with Bp. Parker, that, "the 
 ancient Fathers, from age to age, asserted the real 
 and substantial presence, in very high and expres- 
 sive terms? The Greeks and Latins styled it conver- 
 sion — transmutation — transformation — transfiguration 
 — transelementation, and, at length, transubstantiation; 
 by all which they expressed nothing more or less than 
 the real and substantial presence in the Eucharist."f 
 Let Mr. Faber honestly adopt the doctrine and lan- 
 guage of these learned divines; and I shall then quote 
 him at the end of them, with much more joy than I 
 felt pain in refuting his pitiful invention of a moral 
 change, and the opinion of a figurative presence, which 
 he affects to discover in antiquity, with the moderns 
 of the Church of England, since the year 1662. 
 They borrowed it genuine from the schools of Zwing- 
 lius and Calvin. 
 
 Mr. Faber concludes his long note by shewing 
 great indignation at a liberty, which every contro- 
 vertist of good sense would have taken equally with 
 myself — that of producing against him his own divines, 
 Montague, Thorndyke, and Parker, who were so fa- 
 vourable to transubstantiation. So natural and just a 
 proceeding he denounces "a stratagem unworthy of 
 the Bishop of Aire," (Strasbourg): and particularly 
 as lie observes a In a work professedly addressed to 
 the "English laity. " The Rector must have a very 
 short memory : he continually forgets that he himself 
 represented my Discussion Amicale as not addressed 
 to the laity, but to the clergy of all the Protestant 
 communions, in a dedicatory epistle at the head of the 
 work.J 
 
 * Appeal, ch. 1. 
 
 f Reasons for abrogating the Test, p. 13 
 
 X See Difficulties of Romanism, page 6. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 225 
 
 COxNFESSION. 
 
 XXVI. In his ninth chapter, on Confession, Mr. Fa- 
 ber scarcely touches the proofs developed by me in 
 sixty-six consecutive pages. Since he has found it 
 convenient to leave my arguments and authorities un- 
 refuted, I shall content myself with entreating his 
 readers to compare my eleventh letter with his ninth 
 chapter. I shewed by reasoning suggested to me by 
 texts from the New Testament, and by testimonies 
 furnished by the Fathers of Antiquity, that auricular 
 confession is of divine institution; that it is indispen- 
 sably necessary, in act or desire, to obtain pardon for 
 our faults, and that it requires the enumeration of all 
 grievous sins of which we feel ourselves guilty. Mr. 
 Faber has read these arguments and testimonies : and 
 yet it seems that he wishes to ask me of what kind of 
 auricular confession I would be understood to speak? 
 Whether of that obliging to a special enumeration of 
 sins, or that which requires no more than a general 
 acknowledgment of our having sinned? Surely he 
 might have spared himself such a question, superflu- 
 ous to say the least, after my discussion of this impor- 
 tant matter. 
 
 He comes next to compare our confession made in 
 detail, with that of his own Church made only in gen- 
 eral terms: and, as would be readily presumed, gives 
 the preference to the latter. It is curious to see the 
 reason on which he builds his preference. He has 
 discovered with singular penetration, and rare saga- 
 city, that with the most exact detail, a hypocrite may 
 deceive his confessor as to the actual dispositions of 
 his mind. Assuredly, his supposition will not be dis- 
 puted; for no man can clearly read the heart of an- 
 other: but have I not the same right to suppose that 
 the sinner whom Mr. Faber represents "without a 
 single specification in detail," may be equally a hypo- 
 crite when he chooses to conceal his actual disposi- 
 20 
 
226 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 tions? He will even find it the more easy to succeed 
 in his deception, as he will have no probation to un- 
 dergo, fewer facts to declare, and fewer words to 
 speak. But what avail these poor attempts, and what 
 can be inferred from these imaginary suppositions, 
 against the habitual and voluntary course of the tribu- 
 nal of penance? 
 
 XXVII. Mr. Faber makes small account of entire 
 confessions. It is enough for him if the sinner ac- 
 knowledges in general terms that he has deeply sinned 
 against God, and declare himself repentant from the 
 bottom of his soul. He seems to have no true idea 
 of the ministry of a confessor. This does not solely 
 consist in granting or refusing absolution, but in decid- 
 ing upon it judiciously from an accurate knowledge of 
 the case. This, you will at once conceive, obliges 
 the priest to study the actual disposition of his peni- 
 tent, to feel assured, before he absolves him, that his 
 repentance is true, and not merely the effect of some 
 transitorv emotion: therefore he will have recourse to 
 delay of absolution and to suitable probations. In the 
 mean time, he will summon him from time to time, ex- 
 amine his predominant inclinations, and fortify him 
 against those temptations, to which he finds him most 
 exposed. He will insist, incase the sinner has injured 
 his neighbour, on the necessity of his making good 
 the injury he has caused to his neighbour's fortune or 
 reputation. In fine, it is his duty to exhibit towards 
 him the solicitude of a father, the tenderness of a 
 friend, and the prudence of an enlightened judge : or 
 if you prefer considering him under a more striking 
 image, I will tell you that the art of a spiritual direc- 
 tor is to apply to withered and languishing souls suita- 
 ble remedies and succours, with the same zeal and 
 attention with which a skilful physician applies them 
 to bodily diseases. The justice of this comparison 
 will become more evident from the following supposi- 
 tion; for which I crave your indulgence. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 227 
 
 XXVIII. I mil suppose, which God forbid — that 
 Mr. Faber is seized with some serious attack of 
 illness. The physician is sent for, and attend-. 
 "What ails you, my good sir? You seem greatly re- 
 duced: where do you feel pain?" "O I am very ill, my 
 suffering is excessive." "How did it begin? Where 
 do you feel it particularly?" "O, sir, 1 have aeted 
 very wrong, I acknowledge; and I am truly sorry for 
 it: if you did but know what I suffer !" "But tell me 
 then; is it in your head, or stomach, or side? let me 
 know where your pain lies." My pain weighs heavily 
 upon me; it is intolerable; I can tell you no more.'" 
 In vain does the physician persist in endeavouring to 
 obtain some further information, some particular 
 avowal of his real situation; he can elicit none. Not 
 knowing therefore what remedies to prescribe, and 
 fearful of bringing on his death, instead of promoting 
 his recovery, quod enirn ignored, medica non curat, he 
 leaves the patient to himself, and to his friends, who 
 are driven to despair by his obstinacy, which is so 
 likely to cost him his life. But be well assured, sir, 
 that Mr. Faber would never adopt for the cure of his 
 body, the plan of proceeding which he recommends 
 you to follow for that of your soul. He would conceal 
 nothing from his physician, he would tell him at once 
 the cause, the seat and the nature of his disorder; and 
 he would scrupulously confess the smallest circum- 
 stances, however slightly they might appear to aggra- 
 vate his distemper. Accurately informed by his ac- 
 count, the physician would act directly upon the evil, 
 and triumph over it by suitable remedies. Perhaps 
 Mr. Faber might relapse from time to time, but he 
 would be re-established by speedy recourse to the 
 physician, whose excellent treatment would long pre- 
 serve him to his family, his friends, and his deal 
 parishioners. I shall not be surprised if, after reflect- 
 ing on his own experience, he finds it not so objection- 
 able a plan to compare the confessor to the physici;*^ 
 
228 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 the sinner to the patient, and the infirmities of the sou! 
 to those of the body; and perhaps even ends by mak- 
 ing trial upon his own soul of that very process of cure, 
 which he at present so unreasonably condemns in the 
 practice of Catholics. 
 
 XXIX. I have been most struck in Mr. Faber's 
 work, with a certain peculiar method, which I find 
 him constantly pursuing. When he applies himself to 
 refute any one of my arguments, instead of bringing it 
 forward in my own words, he sums it up in his own 
 fashion, and says, that my whole proof, reduced to 
 regular form, would run as a syllogism thus — or words 
 to the same effect. Then he attacks his own syllogism, 
 of course with ample success; but leaves my real 
 argument untouched. If I produce the belief of the 
 primitive and universal Church, he very soon substi- 
 tutes for it the Latin Chvrch: and by this manoeuvre, 
 escapes the former, and insults the latter as he pleases. 
 Am I reasoning on the real presence? He makes me 
 argue on Transubstantiation, which pre-supposes it 
 certainly, yet is not identical with it. Speaking of 
 that part of the secret discipline, which regarded the 
 Eucharist, I say that the real presence was the sole 
 cause of the secrecy concerning the Eucharist; but Mr. 
 Faber declares to his readers, that, according to my 
 account — First, Transubstantiation was the sole cause 
 of the secret discipline. Second, that it was the sole, 
 exclusive cause of the secrecy observed upon the mys- 
 teries, and that Third, it was the principal cause of 
 the general discipline of the secret. Then he goes 
 into a long refutation of these allegations attributed to 
 me, but of which you will not find one syllable in eith- 
 er of my volumes. 
 
 At page 115 he pretends that the "five first centu- 
 ries recognised no change save a moral change in the 
 consecrated elements" — an expression unknown before 
 his own time — and that the Church "esteemed the 
 bread and wine to be only types, orjigvrcs, or symbols^ 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 229 
 
 or images of ... . the literal body and blood of Christ.." 
 Now lie has not only quoted no Father, nor can quote 
 any, who has made use of these negative and exclu- 
 sive expressions of the real presence; but it is a fact 
 on the contrary, that all the Fathers have professed 
 their belief of the real presence. I have placed be- 
 fore you proofs of this; and assuredly, if they are not 
 demonstrative, there are none such in questions of evi- 
 dence and history. At page 133 he makes me, and 
 even Bossuet say, that the figure of a thing may be at 
 the same time the thing itself: an absurdity created 
 only in his own brain. For I merely said that a thing 
 may be a sensible sign, a sign apparent to the senses, 
 of another thing, which is not so: I said that the visible 
 and material species concealed the spiritualized and 
 invisible body of our Saviour. 
 
 XXX. Now, sir, be pleased to interrogate Mr. 
 Faber: call upon him most seriously to explain clearly 
 to you by what right he has chosen to alter my 
 expressions, and put his own in their place; to impute 
 to me opinions, which are foreign to me* and personal 
 to himself: Ask him if such a mode of refuting an 
 antagonist be that of an honorable man: or if he 
 would be satisfied to have such a method employed 
 against himself. I appeal to your exalted mind and 
 rectitude of soul: I feel assured that you will agree 
 with me, that in a matter of indifference such jugglery 
 could be considered no better than low cunning, but 
 that in religious controversy it is a crime. Is it not 
 true moreover, does it not appear to your eyes as 
 clear as to mine, that had he detected me in any false 
 reasoning or quotation, he would have exhibited my 
 false assertions, just as I had written them? That he 
 would have exposed my argumentation and testimo- 
 nials exactly in my own words? Instead of recurring 
 to his usual skill in metamorphosing and condensing my 
 passages unfaithfully, he would have refuted what he 
 had read in my work, and not what he had been un- 
 20* 
 
230 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 able to find there? From this disgraceful manoeuvring". 
 I conclude that he found it impossible to reply to the 
 arguments I used, and the authorities I quoted: I con- 
 clude that he would have had nothing specious to 
 write against either, had he not substituted his own 
 words for mine, and falsely represented the Fathers 
 of antiquity in contradiction to each other and to 
 themselves: I conclude in fine, that the Difficulties of 
 Romanism is the most flattering eulogium upon the 
 Discussion Jlmicale, and a new triumph for the Catho- 
 lic faith? 
 
 SATISFACTION. 
 
 XXXI. In his chapter on Satisfaction, I detect your 
 Bachelor again; and there you will see him relapsing 
 into his habitual sin, his ruling infidelity. I entreat 
 you to read this chapter X: he is prodigiously wrath 
 with me for the merit which, he says, I attach to 
 works of satisfaction. He makes a great stir to shew 
 that neither I, nor any one can call them meritorious: at 
 every page he reproaches me with this epithet, which, 
 he assures his readers, is given by me to the satisfac- 
 tion of the penitent.* I dare say, sir, you are quite 
 convinced that I do in fact speak of the merit of our 
 satisfactions, that the expression — meritorious works 
 — occurs in my book frequently. Well, sir, only be 
 at the pains of looking over my 12th letter, vol. 2, 
 and to your great surprise, you will neither find the 
 merit of our satisfactions, nor satisfactory works. These 
 words, merit and meritorious^ for which Mr. Faber so 
 sharply reproves me, are not to be found at all in my 
 
 * "The bishop, not content with gratuitously carrying it (the 
 temporal punishment) into the next world, seems evidently to 
 consider it in the light of a meritorious expiation made on our part 
 when we either devoutly submit to it as sent from God, or when 
 .we freely and artificially inflict upon ourselves" — p. 168; and 
 at the bottom of the following page — "The bishop clearly deems, 
 them meritorious." — Et passim. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 231 
 
 letter, applied to our personal satisfactions; no, not in 
 a single instance. What I here declare may appear 
 bold, but it is perfectly true. Where then has Mr. 
 «Faber found these expressions? How comes it that 
 he incessantly attributes them to me, and takes occa- 
 sion thence to reproach me? "What does he mean by 
 this mode of replying to what I have never advanced; 
 and appearing to disregard what I have said? I defy 
 him to answer these questions satisfactorily. No 
 doubt it would have pleased him to find me really at- 
 taching a proper, independent merit to our satisfactory 
 works, as he represents me to have done. But fatally 
 for his honour and good faith, I have done no such 
 thing; but have written precisely the contrary. My 
 words are these, p. 215, vol. 2 — a Is it undervaluing 
 the merit of the cross, to acknowledge that without 
 the particular application of its infinite merits to us, it 
 is impossible for any one to derive benefit from it; that 
 this application nevertheless requires our co-operation, 
 because he who created us without our concurrence , 
 will not save us without our concurrence; and that 
 still our personal and satisfactory works are no more 
 in themselves than dead icorks, but that by being united 
 to those of our Saviour, by approaching his cross, and 
 touching the sacred and life-giving wood, they derive 
 life, strength, and value, as they are then offered by 
 Jesus Christ to his Father, and in Jesus Christ, are 
 accepted by the Father?* Is it derogatory to the 
 merit of the cross of Jesus Christ, to become his imi- 
 tators, as far as possible; to punish ourselves for our sins 
 after his example, as he was pleased that they should 
 be punished in his holy and divine person; to unite a 
 feeble and inefficacious satisfaction to that, which he 
 fully and abundantly paid for us with his blood? Tell 
 me: is it not our duty to imitate as closely as possible. 
 Him, who came to be our model, and who said: l If any 
 
 * Council of Trent, sect. xiv. ch. xviii. 
 
232 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 man will come after me, let him take up his cross and 
 follow me?" And is it not manifest that so far from 
 being derogatory to the merits of our Saviour, or in- 
 compatible with his suffering's, our temporal satisfac- 
 tions are absolutely inseparable from them? What 
 then? Because we cannot offer sufficient satisfaction, 
 are we to offer none? Are we exempt from all ex- 
 piation, because we cannot carry it to an infinite 
 extent? And because we are unable to pay the 
 whole debt, are we dispensed with from all efforts 
 to pay according to our means?"* Such is the pas- 
 sage of which Mr. Faber has quoted some few words. 
 Do you find in it a single expression objectionable? 
 Do you see there the merit of our satisfactions, and 
 our meritorious works? I say on the contrary that our 
 works are only in themselves dead works, and our 
 satisfaction a feeble and inefficacious satisfaction. But 
 it is not the less necessary on our part. Still the ob- 
 ligation of satisfying, and the merit of it are different 
 things! Mr. Faber has thought proper to be silent 
 upon the words above in italics, and to withhold them 
 from his readers by a perfidious suppression. In place 
 of them he brings forward what he wished to attack, 
 and what is not there to be found — the merit of our 
 w r orks, our meritorious satisfaction. O equity! O can- 
 dour! I look for you in my antagonist, but I cannot 
 find you! 
 
 In proof of the necessity of satisfaction, I quoted the 
 testimonies of Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, 
 and St. Augustin. — These are the very Fathers to 
 
 * I will here call to my support a grand and noble authority: 
 "Without the penance of our divine Saviour, yours would be un- 
 Jruitful: without yours, his would remain without effect. It is his 
 which gives value to yours, yours alone can give effect to his. Let 
 the sight of his satisfaction support and direct yours ; let it be its en- 
 couragement and pattern: let it teach you both the necessity and the 
 method of putting it in practice." The immortal Card. De la 
 Luzerne in his pious and profound Considerations on the Passions, 
 p. 328. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 233 
 
 whom Mr. Faber himself appeals at page 1 9, though 
 certainly most unwarrantably, in favour of his moral 
 change, and whose authority he there exalted to its 
 deserved height. But what does he say of them here? 
 At first he does not know well how to understand the 
 very clear passages by me adduced- but be the case 
 as it may, he adds: "If they use the term in his lord- 
 ship's apparent sense, I shall have no hesitation in sav- 
 ing, that their grossly unscriptural language merely 
 shews how soon and how easily a specious and flatter- 
 ing corruption crept into the Church." So modest a 
 declaration suggests to my mind a parallel sufficiently 
 rich between Mr. Faber and his eminent foreigner 
 Calvin. "I am little moved," says Calvin, "with what 
 we find at every step in the writings of the ancients 
 concerning satisfaction. I see that the greater part, 
 or, to speak more explicitly, almost all those whose 
 works remain to us, have either positively erred on this 
 subject, or have spoken upon it too severely." The 
 reformer candidly allows that almost all the ancient 
 Fathers taught the necessity of satisfaction. Our 
 reformed author does not dare to make the like avowal; 
 he still doubts: but in his hypothetic conclusions, he 
 agrees with his honourable patron; and it is easy to see 
 that the spirit of the sire has descended unimpaired to 
 his very distant progeny. Both are decisive in their 
 decrees against the Fathers, and have no hesitation in 
 arraigning of ignorance and error the most enlightened 
 geniuses of Christianity. What blindness and effront- 
 ery, not to discover in themselves the ignorance, which 
 they have the audacity to attribute to the great lumina- 
 ries of antiquity! Who can refrain from indignation, 
 or at least pity, to see both coming forward to dictate, 
 on an article of revelation, to illustrious doctors, who 
 received it from the disciples of the apostles, and taught 
 it with so much glory, in times, it is universally ac- 
 knowledged, that faith shone in all its primitive splen- 
 dour- 
 
234 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 XXXIII. Passing in fine, from speculution to prac- 
 tice, I exhibited the doctrine of the Fathers put in 
 operation in the canonical penances, so generally 
 established under the persecution of Decius; a striking 
 and incontestable monument of the universal belief of 
 the necessity of making satisfaction to Almighty God. 
 At the sight of this austere and imposing discipline, 
 Mr. Faber remains dumb. He finds no answer to make, 
 and is silent. I applaud his silence; why did he not 
 keep silent on all that preceded: He would have 
 saved himself the displeasure, which he has forced me 
 to give him, and me the sad and truly painful duty of 
 exposing his theological disqualifications, and his con- 
 tinual forgetfulness of good faith and probity in contro- 
 versial discussion. 
 
 INDULGENCES. 
 
 XXXIV. Whoever rejects with Mr. Faber the pre- 
 cept of satisfying God by works of penance, must, 
 with him and Calvin, not only accuse the Fathers of 
 error and severity in their teaching, and by an inevita- 
 ble consequence, the primitive Church of injustice in 
 the institution of canonical and satisfactory penalties; 
 but disdainfully refuse the helps and favours, which the 
 Church offers, and adds to the insufficiency of our 
 satisfactions. He must dismiss with the multitude of 
 fabulous inventions, the belief of a place of expiation, 
 between heaven and hell, and send without mercy to 
 eternal torments those souls who carry into the next 
 world any stains contracted in this. He must consider 
 all communication with his departed friends cut off- — 
 renounce the consolation of interesting himself for their 
 happiness, and regard the practice of praying for them 
 as vain and superstitious, since our prayers arc alike 
 unprofitable to them, whether their abode is with the 
 elector with the damned, with angels or devils. Thus 
 Mr. Faber will hear nothing about indulgencies, or 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 035 
 
 purgatory, or prayers for the dead. He reasons con- 
 sistently, I acknowledge, but as he sets out with a false 
 principle, his conclusions are equally erroneous. 
 9 XXXV. The twelfth letter of my Discussion Amicalc, 
 established the precept of satisfaction to the divine 
 justice: the thirteenth solidly proved the existence in 
 the Church of right and power to grant indulgences, 
 as also their utility and importance to sinners. Mr. 
 Faber attempts in his eleventh chapter to invalidate my 
 proofs; but in vain. You may judge by comparing our 
 respective writings. I need not observe, that in this 
 eleventh chapter he incessantly puts into my mouth 
 the merit of our satisfactions, our meritorious works 
 and meritorious expiations. It is clear that he is de- 
 termined to palm these expressions upon me, though 
 they never proceeded from my pen: but if he repeat 
 them a hundred times in succession, so many times shall 
 I reply that what he says is untrue. He maintains that 
 to attribute to the Church the power of granting indul- 
 gences, is as much as conceding to her the privilege of 
 depriving the divine justice of a part of the expiations 
 otherwise due; and this idea appears to him so luminous 
 and well imagined that he repeats it in the next para- 
 graph. But who was it that invested the Church with 
 this high prerogative? Was it not our Saviour himself? 
 Who then can restrain the exercise of a right, which 
 our Saviour promised her by those solemn words: 
 "whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed 
 in heaven?" 1 perceive also in page one hundred and 
 seventy-nine, that he would make you believe that this 
 right belongs to every priest. This is another notion 
 entirely his own. Yet he ought to know that priests 
 never make use of it but by delegation from bishops in 
 the extent of their jurisdiction; and that the power of 
 communicating to the whole earth the benefit of indul- 
 gences belongs only to the supreme head of the univer- 
 sal Church. 
 
236 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 XXXVI. I know not, or rather I can pretty well 
 guess, why he has chosen to misrepresent the affair 
 of the incestuous Corinthians, at p. 180. "The Corin- 
 thians, as St. Paul expresses himself, had deliver- 
 ed an incestuous member of their community unto 
 Satan," &c. — So says Mr. Faber, but in chap. 5, 
 of the 1st epistle, the apostle reproves them for hav- 
 ing kept him in their community: "I indeed, absent in 
 body but present in spirit, have already judged .... to 
 
 deliver such a one to Satan Your glorying is not 
 
 good. Know you not that a little leaven corrupteth 
 the whole lump?" And in chap. 2d, of the 2d epistle: 
 "To him that is such a one, this rebuke is sufficient, 
 that is given by many: so that contrariwise, you 
 should rather forgive him, and comfort him lest per- 
 haps such a one be swallowed up with overmuch sor- 
 row. Wherefore I beseech you that you would con- 
 firm your charity towards him and to whom you 
 
 have forgiven any thing, I also." Therefore it was 
 St. Paul who punished and who relaxed the punish- 
 ment. According to Mr. Faber the faithful chastised 
 and afterwards pardoned: "satisfied" he says, "of the 
 sincerity of the man's contrition, they pardoned him 
 the disgrace which he had brought upon the church, 
 and re-admitted him to the enjoyment of his former 
 privileges as a baptized Christian. The circumstance 
 and ground of his re-admission were communicated to 
 St. Paul; and St. Paul, in reply, informs them, that aa 
 they had forgiven the offender, so likewise did he foi k 
 their sakes in the person of Christ."* Would not any 
 one really say that it was decreed that this unfortunate 
 Bachelor should spoil every thing he touched, and never 
 represent things as they really are? 
 
 XXXVII. "The bishop," he goes on p. 182, "has 
 no hesitation in pronouncing, with or without the con- 
 sent of his Church, that the validity of indulgences . . . 
 entirely depends upon the dispositions of thesinner?* 
 Why should Mr -Faber raise a doubt on this h«ad ; 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 237 
 
 after reading the admirable dogmatical letter of the 
 learned and pious pontiff who now fills 3 in so worthy a 
 manner, the chair of St. Peter? The principle is there 
 most clearly developed.* The Rev. Bachelor pa 
 next to those abuses, which in the 16th century refli 
 ed dishonour on the publication of indulgences; am 
 may well be supposed that under his pen, these ab, 
 would lose nothing of their enormity. "What,-" says 
 he, with much warmth, "what was the crying abom- 
 ination, which first roused the indignant spirit of 
 great and much-calumniated "Luther?" No, Mr. Fa- 
 ber; calumniated is not the right word. No one has 
 painted this great Luther in more odious colours than 
 himself, and his associates in the work of the reforma- 
 tion, Zwinglius and Calvin, those two eminent persona- 
 
 3, who composed with Luther the honoured trium 
 rate of the Rector of Long Newton. No one has* 
 ter informed us of his passions and fury than his inti- 
 mate, but timid friend, Melancthon, who complained 
 of having received blows from him, and I engage, • 
 were none of the lightest.f To judge by the original 
 portrait, which I have seen in the temple of Wittem- 
 berg, the vigorous reformer must have had a he 
 hand. Taking altogther what we find in these fourco- 
 temporarv authors concerning Luther, of the impetu- 
 osity of his passions, and his unbounded pride, we must 
 feel convinced that this great, honourable, and eminent 
 man has left nothing even for calumny itself to invent 
 against him. 
 
 To return to the abuses spoken of by Mr. Fabe . 
 the publication of the indulgences of Leo X; an im- 
 partial and honourable writer would not have failed to 
 observe that the councirof Lateran, under Innocent III. 
 
 *I have lately read with fresh admiration this encyclical letter 
 to all the bishops of the Catholic world. I wish it were known to 
 Protestants: it would make on many a very different impression 
 from what Mr. Faber appears to have felt from its perusal : 
 
 t"Ab ipso colaphos accepi." Epist. ad Tlieodor. 
 21 
 
238 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 in 1215, and that of Vienne under Clement V. in 1311, 
 had previously fulminated against the greater part of 
 the same kind of abuses; and that the council of Trent, 
 grieving to find that the prohibitions of those councils 
 had not been effectual in eradicating the abuses in ques- 
 tion, considered it necessary to cut to the quick, and 
 suppressed the employment of questors, abolished their 
 very name in detestation of their scandals, and ordain- 
 ed that in future indulgences should be published by 
 the bishops.* 
 
 XXXVIII. On the subject before us, allow me, sir, 
 to place again before you a passage in my Discussion 
 Jlmicale, vol. 2, pp. 232, 234: "If Luther, supported by 
 the councils of Lateran, Vienne, and Trent, and by the 
 concurrent sentiments of the most able divines, of such 
 a man, for instance, as Cardinal Cusa, who gained the 
 admiration of Germany in the legation, which he per- 
 formed, and in which he published the indulgence of 
 the jubilee in 1450; if Luther had only risen up against 
 the ignorance of the preachers in his time, and the 
 disgraceful traffic, which w r as made of indulgences, he 
 would have merited the applause of the Church, and 
 of all succeeding ages. But this man of violent pas- 
 sions neither knew how to master himself, nor curb the 
 impetuosity, which urged him, step by step, to rebel- 
 lion. The consequences of that too celebrated dis- 
 pute are well known, as also how, passing on from the 
 abuse to the principle, he went so far as to deny that 
 the Church had any power to grant indulgences to 
 penitents. 
 
 " 'Give rather to the poor,' he exclaimed again and 
 again to his hearers, 'give for the love of God, to the 
 poor the money which is demanded of you for the 
 building of St. Peter's.' Who ever doubted that we 
 ought to give to the poor? How often have Churches 
 given up their vessels of gold and silver, their orna- 
 ments and jewels to feed the poor? But does charity 
 
 •See Discussion .imicale, vol. 2, p. 231. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 239 
 
 towards our indigent brethren forbid extraordinary 
 succour for the erection of a temple to the Lord, par- 
 ticularly in the mother-church? If the abuses in col- 
 lecting alms in Luther's time are to be condemned, 
 where is the man of sense and good taste who could 
 blame the intention of those alms? Surely none of those 
 who have visited and admired that Church, the most 
 worthy monument, which men ever erected with their 
 feeble hands to the supreme majesty of God. 11 
 
 Mr. Faber interprets in his own way my silence on 
 the subject of the riches, which constitute the inexhaust- 
 ible treasure of indulgences. It is clear however that 
 I had no need to repeat what is written in all the jubi- 
 bulls, and in every elementary book on indulgences. 
 This treasure is composed of the merits of Jesus Christ, 
 with which are associated those of such holy persons, 
 who by an especial grace, led upon earth a life of in- 
 nocence and purity. Their charitable and angelic 
 works, ever united to those of our divine Saviour, de- 
 rived- during this life all their merit from their union 
 with our Saviour's merits, in the same manner as after 
 death, they derive all their merit from the infinite merits 
 of the God-man. What can be objected to in this doc- 
 trine? In iruth, to find any thing here which we should 
 blush to acknowledge, can only be done by a head de- 
 plorably disordered by prejudice. He that would 
 
 5t ridicule on this pious and ancient -belief, would 
 only bring derision upon himself. 
 
 PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD— PURGATORY. 
 
 XXXI X. I had joined Purgatory and Prayers for 
 i1il j dead in one article; because the custom of praying 
 for the dead evidently pre-supposes the belief of a 
 middle place between heaven and hell; and because 
 when we shew this practice in the primitive Church, 
 we, by this single fact, demonstrate her belief in this 
 middle state, where souls are purified from every stain, 
 before they are admitted to the abode of innoce 
 
240 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 either preserved or recovered. Now what does Mr. 
 Faber? He separates prayers for the dead from pur- 
 gatory, in order to deprive them of their natural sup- 
 port, and attack them singly with greater advantage, 
 You will see that he succeeds none the better. But it 
 must be acknowledged that these two chapters dis- 
 play more of the artful sophistry, which he habitually 
 exercises, and uniformly with a tone of assurance, cal- 
 culated to impose upon readers unable to detect it. 
 He sets out in his usual manner with making me say 
 what I never did say, and even affecting to compli- 
 ment me. "The bishop fairly and honestly confesses, 
 that we have received no revelation concerning it 
 from Jesus Christ." No, sir, I have no claim to the fair- 
 ness and honesty of such a confession, for I never made 
 it: and he who would compliment me, ought to know 
 that I maintain precisely the contrary, in the follow- 
 ing words, p. 248, vol. 2: "Let us go farther, and bold- 
 ly assert that Jesus Christ did himself approve and re- 
 commend this practice to his disciples," (praying for 
 the dead.) I said, "There must remain for the most 
 part, much to expiate in the other world. But where: 
 In what place and manner? Had it been necessary for 
 us to be informed on these points, doubtless Jesus 
 Christ would have revealed them to us. He has not 
 done so: and therefore we can only form more or less 
 probable conjectures." Here Mr. Faber omits the in- 
 terrogations, and after reporting only the answer, he 
 concludes thus: "The doctrine, then, of purgatory is 
 confessedly not a matter of revelation: whether it be 
 true or false, we confessedly cannot ascertain from any 
 thing that Christ has said on the subject." (P. 186.) 
 Thus he makes me speak of the existence of purgato- 
 ry, when I am only treating of its locality. In his note 
 at the next page, he does pretty nearly the reverse. I 
 observed in a note, p. 243, v. 2, as follows: "You ad- 
 mit limbo, because its existence is proved to you, al- 
 though its situation remains unknown. Let it equally 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 241 
 
 satisfy you to be assured of the existence of purgatory, 
 without troubling yourself to discover its local po- 
 sition." But Mr. Faber distorts my reasoning in this 
 manner: "You believe the existence of such a place, 
 though its local position is unknown to you. Rest 
 then assured of the existence of purgatory, though he 
 may not be able to define its strict local position. 1 ' Is 
 this what I said? Would any man of good sense have 
 reasoned in such a manner? Mr. Faber gravely re- 
 minds his countrymen that "the point at issue is not 
 the locality but the existence of purgatory;" as if I had 
 spoken of the former only and not of the latter! I hope, 
 sir, you will pity the unfortunate lot of the Discussion 
 Amicale to have fallen into hands so little disposed to 
 be amicable. 
 
 XL. In the succeeding page I find again his meri- 
 torious expiation. He repeats it for ever; persuading 
 himself, no doubt, that by continuing to impute it to 
 me, he shall at last succeed in making it pass as mine; 
 and by perseverance in bringing it forward, from 
 false, he shall render it authentic. How pitiful are all 
 such artifices! And how necessary is patience to en- 
 dure such a tissue of false imputations, joined to infi- 
 delities so often repeated! With a candid and able 
 antagonist, I should have had, no doubt, points of eru- 
 dition to clear up, and important difficulties to resolve. 
 But assuredly I should not have found what I have had 
 to expose in this third part of my answer. We are 
 not yet at the end of these unpleasant subjects: there 
 are many more to claim our attention. 
 
 XLI. I shewed that the practice of praying for the 
 dead was anterior to Christianity by the book of 
 Macchabees, which is deutero-canonical, but not, as 
 Mr. Faber. would have it, apocryphal. For the third 
 Council of Carthage, resting on tradition, St. Augustin, 
 Innocent I. and Gelasius, with seventy bishops, place 
 it in the rank of divine Scripture. I said, that though 
 its canonicity had been doubted for a time, its historical 
 21* 
 
242 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 truth had never been questioned. This ought certainly 
 to suffice to shew that praying for the dead was in use 
 among the Jews before our Saviour, who would not 
 have failed to turn them from it, if he had judged the 
 custom bad and superstitious. 
 
 I afterwards shewed in concert with celebrated 
 doctors of your own, that this practice prevailed in 
 the primitive Church, from the testimonies of Tertul- 
 iian, S S. Cyprian, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Jerome 
 and Augustin; I shewed that Origen, St. Cyril of Jeru- 
 salem, and St. Gregory of Nyssa,had acknowledged by 
 name a middle place, where souls must he purified from 
 all defilement before they could enter heaven. What 
 reply does Mr. Faber make? First, He opposes to 
 them the silence of the apostolic Fathers, as if in the 
 small number of their writings which have come down 
 to us, they had been able to treat of every point of 
 doctrine, and their negative testimony could overturn 
 the positive atttestation of the others. Secondly, He 
 observes that the oldest of my authorities goes no far- 
 ther back than the end of the second century, namely, 
 Tertullian; who, he says, was too far from the apostles, 
 to justify us in grounding upon him an apostolical tra- 
 dition. I will just observe, in my turn, that Mr. Fa- 
 ber himself brought Tertullian against me, when he 
 believed that Father's testimony in favour of his cause: 
 then he was represented as close to the days of the 
 apostles. But it is not the authority of Tertullian to 
 which I wish in this place to appeal, but solely to his 
 evidence. Tertullian, who died in 216, at the age of 
 84, must have been born in 1 32. He was brought up at 
 Rome, where he studied the law, leading at that time 
 a dissolute life r and ridiculing the Christians, as he 
 himself informs us. He entered upon the examination 
 of Christianity, through mere curiosity, embraced it, 
 became its illustrious defender against pagans and 
 heretics, and found himself involved in the great affairs 
 of the Church. What better informed or more strictly 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 243 
 
 upright witness of what was then practised in the 
 churches could be desired? He speaks of praying for 
 the dead as a universal practice, and ranks it with the 
 points taught by tradition. Now what think you of a 
 practice universally established and come down by 
 tradition, less than 72 years after St. John? Can it, I 
 ask you, be other than apostolical? Will there be a 
 man of sense among us, who will be persuaded by the 
 assertion of Mr. Faber, and contrary to that of so 
 grave a witness of the second century, that this prac- 
 tice so far from belonging to tradition, proceeded from 
 an error newly broached at a period when, as the re- 
 formed churches acknowledge, doctrine flourished in 
 its native integrity and purity? 
 
 XLII. But let us come to an argument, which wili 
 cut short all the entangled confusion in which Mr. 
 Faber envelopes his readers and himself, and demon- 
 strate that praying for the dead is not, as he calls it, 
 a crude phantasy started by the "imaginative" Tertul- 
 lian. All the liturgies published from the Council of 
 Ephesus to the sixteenth century, Catholic, Nestorian, 
 Eutvchian, Malabar, Chaldean, Egyptian, Abyssinian, 
 and Ethiopian; those of Constantinople, of the Greeks, 
 Syrians, whether Orthodox or Jacobites; those of St. 
 Basil, St. Chrysostom, St. James, explained in the 
 fourth century by St. Cyril of Jerusalem; that, in fine, 
 of the apostolic constitutions written before the others 
 in the third century — all are uniform on this subject of 
 praying for the dead. I have given extracts from them 
 in my Appendix, vol. 2, p. 259. Mr. Faber does not 
 say a word about them: lie would make it appear that 
 he did not observe them. But pray ask him to ac- 
 count for this uniformity in the Liturgies of churches 
 separated in the fifth century. If he fail, all well in- 
 formed divines will answer you in the words of your 
 own Bishop Bull: "Ail the Christian churches in the 
 world, however distant from each other, agree in the 
 prayer of the oblation of the Christian sacrifice in the 
 
244 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Holy Eucharist, or Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; 
 (and the same applies to the prayers for the dead) 
 which consent is indeed wonderful. All the ancient 
 liturgies agree in this form of prayer, almost in the 
 same words, but fully and exactly in the same sense, 
 order, and method; which whoever attentively consid- 
 ers, must be convinced, that this order of prayer was 
 delivered to the several churches in the very first plan- 
 tation and settlement of them."* 
 
 Mr. Faber, fond of harping at words, will say that 
 the liturgies did not suppose souls to be in wiiat we 
 understand by purgatory. But let him cavil as he 
 pleases against our denomination of purgatory, it is 
 certain that the ancients did not pray for the inhabi- 
 tants of heaven, nor of hell. Where then dwelt the 
 souls for whom they prayed? In what place? He 
 may call it by what name he chooses; we dispute not 
 about the name, but the thing. Let him pray in the 
 style of the ancient liturgies, and say with the aposto- 
 lic constitutions: "Vouchsafe, O God, to look upon thy 
 servant whom thou hast made to pass into another 
 state. Pardon him if he has sinned wilfully, or invol- 
 untarily. Place him in the bosom of the patriarchs, 
 prophets, apostles, and all those who had the happiness 
 to please thee here below." Let him make such a 
 prayer in all sincerity: we shall for the present require 
 no more of him. 
 
 XLIII. The Rev. Bachelor, at page 191, brings 
 against me a passage from St. Cyprian, and at p. 200 
 a sentence from Tertullian. The latter is as follows: 
 "On a certain annual day we make oblations for the 
 dead and for nativities." Mr. Faber has very justly 
 observed that the nativities indicate the days on which 
 the departed saints dying to the world, were born to 
 immortality. But he did not observe that Tertullian 
 has distinguished the dead from the nativities; that is, 
 
 *Bp. Bull on Common Prayer, sermon 12, vol. 1 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 245 
 
 those, who had died a natural death, from those, who 
 had lust their Uvea to receive the crown of martyrdom. 
 The, oblations were the game, says Mr. Faber. Un- 
 doubtedly they were; for it waft, and always will be, 
 the oblation of the sacrifice of the new law, bloody 
 upon the cross, but unbloody upon our altars. It is 
 therefore necessarily one and the same. But the 
 prayers which accompany it were, and always will be 
 different for the saints, and for the common faithful 
 departed. They made commemoration of the elect of 
 both testaments, to thank and glorify God in their 
 persons; and generally of all that died, to beg of God 
 to pardon them, and fix them in a place of light, repose 
 and happiness. This, all the liturgies of antiquity 
 uniformly shew. Would Mr. Faher wish for a proof 
 from Tertullian himself? Let him read No. 10 of his 
 book of Monogamy. Tertullian speaking of the ^\ 
 who survives her husband, desires that thenceforth in 
 her widowhood u She should pray for the soul of her 
 husband, solicit for him refreshment, and offer on the 
 anniversaries of his death." u Pro aninui ejus (mariti) 
 oret, refrigerium interim adpostulet, et offerat diebus 
 dormitationis ejus." Bonnitationes expressed natural 
 deaths ; natulitio, the birth of the martyrs and saints 
 to immortality. Doubtless Mr. Faher will now re- 
 proach himself with having made Tertullian contra- 
 dict himself, as well as the liturgies, which certainly 
 he constantly frequented after his conversion to Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 I trust he will find equal reason to reprove himself 
 with regard to St. Cyprian, who in the passage quoted 
 at p. 191 begins with these words: "When once de- 
 parted this life, there is no longer any place for repen- 
 tance, nor for satisfaction." The last word must have 
 cost Mr. Faber a great deal; Ids hand must have 
 trembled as he wrote it. I am sorry to have again to 
 bring it before him: "What do they mean," said this 
 Father, to those who reconciled sinners before the 
 
246 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 time, "but that Jesus Christ shall be less appeased by 
 prayers and satisfactions? But that sins shall no more 
 be redeemed by just satisfactions? .... Let every 
 deep wound have long and careful treatment: let not 
 the penance be less than the crime."* And again: 
 "Behold the greatest wounds of sin, behold the great- 
 est transgressions; to have sinned, and not to satisfy: 
 to have offended, and not to weep." But I am fa- 
 tiguing Mr. Faber's ear too much with the disagreeable 
 words, satisfy and satisfaction. Let us return to the 
 contradiction which would result from the passage 
 quoted and explained by Mr. Faber, and that adduced 
 by me in the Discussion Jlmicale. Mine is as follows: 
 '•Our predecessors prudently advised that no brother 
 departing this life, should nominate any churchman his 
 executor; and should he do it, that no oblation should 
 be made for him, nor sacrifice offered for his repose." 
 And he adds that Victor having contrary to this law, 
 nominated the priest Faustinus his executor, u non est 
 quod pro dormitione ejus apud vos fiat oblatio, aid 
 deprecatio aliqua nomine ejus in ecelesiii frcqiientehir" 
 It is evident that this law, and its application to Victor, 
 suppose the custom of praying for the dead anterior to 
 St. Cyprian. But Mr. Faber would have it, that 
 according to the doctrine of that illustrious primate, 
 there were only heaven or hell to be expected after 
 death. Were that the qase, it would be alike evident 
 that this great man contradicted himself. 
 
 But let us comfort ourselves for the honour of St. 
 Cyprian, with the assurance that the contradiction is 
 entirely the act of his interpreter. The works of 
 penance and satisfaction belong only to this life; they 
 are strangers to the other world: purgatory knows 
 them not. That is the abode of sorrowful expiations: 
 there purification is effected by suffering. Yet who 
 
 * Let. 55 to Pope Cornelius. "Ecce majora peccati vulnera, 
 ecce majora delicta; peccasse, -nee satisfacere; deliquisse, nee 
 flere." 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 247 
 
 would not think himself happy in this life, if he were 
 certain of going thither at his death? St. Cyprian then 
 would have had reason to say, that even when satis- 
 faction remains to be made in the next world, we pass 
 from this life to a blessed immortality. But must he 
 by this blessed immortality have meant heaven? Even 
 so it is unquestionable, that after we have done, as he 
 requires elsewhere and supposes here, penance pro- 
 port'oiable to the sins, which it has been our misfor- 
 tune to commit, we pass immediately from death to 
 eternal happiness. But what I have here said regards 
 only Christians, and I acknowledge that St. Cyprian in 
 this place is not addressing them. He is writing to a 
 pagan named Demetrianus. What then is the case? 
 He seeks to attract him to Christianity; he exposes 
 the danger of deferring his conversion, and places be- 
 fore his eyes the salutary effects of faith, which from 
 repentance and confession necessarily leads to bap- 
 tism, and thus opens the gate of heaven to those, who 
 have just received the grace of regeneration. 
 
 You see that the passage brought against me is by 
 no means incompatible with purgatory, and that admit- 
 ting this abode of temporary expiation, St. Cyprian 
 might well express himself as he did, whether you ex- 
 den this expressions to Christians, who had or had not 
 entirely satisfied the divine justice in this life; or con- 
 fine them to the pagan Demetrianus; and since it can- 
 not be doubted, after what I have quoted from St. 
 Cyprian, that in his time, and long before, praying for 
 the dead was in use, that explanation must absolutely 
 be admitted, which makes the saint consistent with 
 himself, with the practice of the Church, and with the 
 apostolic liturgies. 
 
 Mr. Faber looks well indeed, when at p. 204 h e 
 tells us with perfect satisfaction at his performance: 
 a Cyprian I have already disposed of."* 
 
 * Epilogue, p. 337. 
 
248 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 XLIV. Enquire, I entreat you, sir, of your learned 
 Thorndyke; he will tell you : "One subject of refor- 
 mation, in my opinion, would be to re-establish prayers 
 for the dead, according to the primitive sentiment of 
 the universal Church: and I maintain that the suppres- 
 sion of such prayers, was not retrenching an abuse, 
 but cutting to the very quick." Listen to Bishops 
 Forbes, Barrow, Sheldon, Blandford, &c.* Compare 
 your modem divines with their predecessors; and you 
 will see that instead of returning to antiquity, they 
 every day depart more widely from it. They have 
 taught you to believe that death breaks off all commu- 
 nication between those, who remain upon earth, and 
 those, who have quitted it. Thus you have accompa- 
 nied your relations and friends with tears to the grave: 
 but the stone once closed down upon them, you have 
 left them to their fate. You have hoped; it is true, 
 that they were happy, but without daring to pray for 
 their happiness to the sovereign Judge. I am well as- 
 sured that your affection for them was not extinguish- 
 ed with their life: but it remained sterile and unprofit- 
 able to them. Educated in the unhappy principles of 
 a gloomy and discouraging creed, you have never yet 
 known the secret calm and resignation infused by 
 the thought that we can benefit our friends beyond 
 the tomb. Enter at least now upon this solid and 
 consolatory belief. Were it imaginary, were it an 
 illusion, it would still be delightful; and cruel is that 
 reformation, which presumes to forbid it. But it is in- 
 contestable, and a matter of primitive tradition; you 
 have seen that it is built upon the teaching of the 
 apostles, and consequently upon that of their divine 
 Master. Hearken then no more to those ignorant and 
 unfeeling sophists, who strive to deprive you of a re- 
 source so precious to those, whose lot it is to survive. 
 Practice it henceforth; betake yourselves to it with 
 
 ♦Sec Discussion Jlmicak, vol. 2, pp. 254, 255, 256. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 249 
 
 confidence; I venture to affirm that you will find 
 it a source of hope, of tender feelings and pious 
 emotions. 
 
 INVOCATION OF SAINTS. 
 
 XLV. Mr. Fabcr's chapter XV. is a succession of 
 faults, mistakes, and infidelities, which it would be 
 too long and tedious to exhibit piece by piece. He 
 had just before blamed me for adducing Tertullian as 
 a witness of the primitive faith; and here he himself 
 would have this primitive doctrine estimated by the 
 single testimony of St. Epiphanius, who lived two cen- 
 turies later! I had said that Asterius implored of 
 Phocas that intercession, which he himself had solicit- 
 ed and obtained of the martyrs; and he makes me say 
 — p. 227 — that Asterius begged "that Phocas, in the 
 ple7iitude of his power, (these words are an addition of 
 Mr. Faber's) would give to his survivors those bles- 
 sings, which he himself possessed!" I quoted in favor 
 of the Invocation of Saints, St. Irenaeus, Origen, StJ 
 Athanasius, Eusebius, St. Ephrem, St. Augustin, St 
 Ambrose, and the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedor, 
 that is to say, the brilliant ages of the Church, admitted 
 as such by the most able Protestants; and this man re- 
 proves me for so doing! He does not then comprehend 
 now these great doctors, these learned bishops, revered 
 as saints even by the followers of the reformation, could 
 have been other than Idolaters! Nor does he blush to 
 charge them with idolatry, by attributing sentiments 
 to them, which they never entertained! Let it suffice 
 for me to reply that the testimonies of these great per- 
 sonages of antiquity will undoubtedly weigh a little 
 more towards establishing the apostolicity of any dog- 
 matical usage, than the high authority of the Rector of 
 Long Newton, towards overturning it. 
 
 XLVI. He next proceeds to shew, p. 231, that the 
 idolatry of the early ages has passed down from hand 
 to hand in the Catholic Church, where it still holdg 
 22 
 
250 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 sovereign sway. He quotes from the Hours accord- 
 ing to the use of Salisbury, and draws his proofs from 
 the comments upon them, left us by the learned and 
 truth-telling Burnet. • He sets out with informing us 
 that these Hours were even printed at Paris in 1 520; 
 and with powerful logic he concludes from their Pari- 
 sian date, that it seems abundantly evident, that they 
 met with very general acceptation among what the 
 bishop styles the Catholic body. Let us not disturb 
 him in the "abundant evidence" of his splendid con- 
 clusion. Without taking the trouble to search out the 
 old rubric of Sarum, he need only have opened our 
 breviaries and the liturgical books in daily use among 
 us. He would have found there the same hymns, the 
 same invocations to the blessed Virgin and the Saints; 
 and with the honest and charitable industry, which he 
 is so fond of exercising, he might have easily changed 
 our prayers into acts of detestable idolatry. 
 
 Would you wish to know, sir, how he proceeds to 
 convert our devotions into idolatry? He separates 
 certain passages, certain words, suppresses those that 
 precede or follow, and thus by a very honest process, 
 he succeeds in giving them a sense, which they were 
 never meant to convey. In the hymn to the blessed 
 Virgin, which so particularly offends him, he suppres- 
 ses this verse: Monstra te esse matrem, Sumat per te 
 preces, Qui pro nobis natus, Tulit esse tuus. Show 
 thyself a mother, and let him, who for. us deigned to 
 become thy Son, through thee, hear our prayers. As 
 also the words, bona cuncta posce, obtain for us all good 
 things, and consequently all those, expressed in the insu- 
 lated verses produced by Mr. Faber. In this manner 
 those words, which serve to explain all the rest, are 
 adroitly concealed by him. He only exhibits such 
 passages as he chose to extract, in imitation of his 
 master the faithful Burnet; and thus the hymn appears 
 entirely covered with a shining varnish of idolatry. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 251 
 
 You will readily conceive that Mr. Faber has taken 
 good care not to let those versicles and prayers appear 
 which follow the above hymn, and all those which we 
 address to the blessed Virgin. One of the versicles is 
 as follows; "Pray for us, O holy Mother of God; that 
 we may he made worthy of the promises of Christ." 
 In the subsequent prayers, you will find the interces- 
 sion expressed in direct terms: "intercedentc sanctissi- 
 ma Dei genitrice. — Beatce Virginis JWaricz interccssio 
 gloriosa nos protegat; Genetricis Filii tui intercessione 
 sahemur, fyc" Mr. Faber would have apparently 
 required that the word intercession should be repeated 
 in every verse. I fear Mr. Faber is no poet; if he is, 
 he must know that the measure would not admit of all 
 this dogmatical exactness, and that the short lines of 
 our hymns reject words of live syllables. Let him 
 not then be so hard upon our sacred poets, but allow 
 them some license in favour of metre and precision; 
 and instead of interrupting their free and rapid course, 
 assist their words by supposing throughout, what they 
 every where wish to be understood. 
 
 But on the contrary, he is so blinded by the mania 
 of viewing us as absolute idolaters, that he does not 
 observe the intercession of Mary traced by his own 
 hand in the very prayers, which he quotes, and in 
 which he pretends that we invoke her as omnipotent. 
 P. 232 — u Bxj thy pious intervention wash away our 
 sins." "Have me excused with Christ thy Son" P. 
 233. — Pray for the people, interpose on behalf of the 
 clergy, intercede for tlie devout female sex" He gravely 
 attributes the prayer containing these last words to 
 the Church of Salisbury, and little suspects that it is 
 taken word for word from St. Augustin, from an ad- 
 mirable prayer composed by that splendid genius, and 
 which the Bachelor would not repeat, or report without 
 horror. 
 
 For our part, sir, we have been taught by pious and 
 learned antiquity to invoke the most holy of creatures, 
 
252 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Mary, mother of our Saviour, and all the Saints; and 
 they solicit in our behalf. Our invocation is made 
 upon earth; their intercession, in heaven. Thus a 
 continual religious intercourse is kept up between the 
 inhabitants of both worlds, between the blessed, who 
 enjoy the happiness of heaven, and mortals exposed 
 to the dangers of a life of storms and tribulations. 
 This is what we call the Communion of Saints, a con- 
 soling doctrine, a source of charming and pure delights 
 of which you would partake with us, if your dry and 
 gloomy doctrines had not taught you to dread it as a 
 fanciful bug- bear. 
 
 XLVII. We have told your divines a hundred times, 
 and we will not cease to tell them, till at last we drive 
 it into their heads, that idolatry is no less odious to us, 
 than to them; that we reject the very idea of it far 
 from us in our prayers; that we should hold it blasphe- 
 my to say to the most holy of creatures what we 
 address to Jesus Christ, and blasphemy to address 
 Jesus Christ as we do holy creatures. Witness our 
 litanies, where we repeat to the blessed Virgin Mary 
 and the Saints: "pray for us;" but to Jesus Christ, 
 u have mercy on its — deliver us — graciously hear us" 
 In a word, however strong may be the poetical ex- 
 pressions in our hymns, intercession is always under- 
 stood by us of necessity and right, whenever it is not 
 repeated. Mr. Faber had very judiciously observed, 
 p. x. of his preface, that "to charge a Latin (a Catho- 
 lic) with "what he holds not, and then gravely to con- 
 fute opinions which all the while he strenuously dis- 
 claims, is alike unfair and unprofitable. And here he 
 is employing this unfair and unprofitable method him- 
 self! Ex ore tuo tejudico! Let him cease therefore 
 to contradict himself, to condemn himself, and to bring 
 against us a charge of idolatry, which we shall never 
 cease to repel with all the energy in our power. 
 
 For the rest, be it known to him, for he has forgot- 
 ten what he must have read in the book, which he 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 2.53 
 
 professed to adopt as a text for his refutation — be it 
 Known to him that though we admit the invocation of 
 Saints as useful and profitable, we do not hold it to be 
 absolutely necessary, acting according as the Council 
 of Trent has decided. What does he mean then by 
 the conclusion of his note at p. 234, and the quotation 
 which overturn his thesis instead of supporting it? 
 What signifies the question proposed with such assur- 
 ance to his readers, with an emphatical tone complete- 
 ly ridiculous? "When such rituals were approved 
 and commonly used in the Latin Church of the West, 
 was, or was not, a reformation necessary?" In my 
 turn, I have a question to put to him, resting on a very 
 different foundation. Let him produce an answer. 
 "All that uproar and overthrow of every thing reli- 
 gious and political, was it, or %vas it not necessary to 
 abolish that, which was never held to be necessary?" 
 
 RELICS. 
 
 Let us endeavour to come to a conclusion: for in 
 truth, disgust makes the pen drop out of my hand; and 
 yet the most odious parts would remain to be refuted, 
 were I as much affected at the insults offered to me, 
 as at those directed against truth and religion. I will 
 confine myself now to a few passing reflections, short 
 and rapid. And first, on the subject of Relics, I must 
 observe, what I have alreadv had to remark over and 
 over again, that the Bachelor makes me still say what 
 I never did say, and even the very opposite to my own 
 words; and that he delights in repeating it, in order to 
 impress it upon his readers. The following are. my 
 words at the bottom of p. 309, vol. 2. "They talk of 
 the erroneous and superstitious notions, which people 
 have often entertained on the subject of relies; I do 
 not deny that such has been the case."* Mr. Faber 
 
 » On parle dc notions, erronecs, superstitieuscs, que les peuples 
 ont sou Tent prises, sur les reliques; ju u'tn disconviendrai pa*. 
 
254 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 gives my sentence as follows: "Men talk of erroneous 
 and superstitious notions, which ive have often taken 
 up concerning relics: but I have never been able to dis- 
 cover them" — page 245. You see he exhibits through- 
 out, the same tactics, the same upright and honourable 
 proceedings! 
 
 The Rev. Bachelor next affects the esprit fort on the 
 subject of miracles wrought by occasion and in pre- 
 sence of relics: he will not even listen to those r which 
 he finds solemnly attested by such illustrious men as 
 St. Cyril of Alexandria, or St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. 
 Ambrose, an eye-witness equally with St. Augustin, 
 who was then at Milan. See Discussion Amicale, vol. 
 2, p. 315. Let us congratulate the Bachelor on his 
 high opinion of his own wisdom, and the perfect self- 
 confidence, which he perpetually exhibits. Rest assur- 
 ed, sir, that he knows much more about what took place 
 at Milan nearly 1 500 years ago, than the learned and 
 holy archbishop of that metropolis; who when he learned 
 that certain Arians in that city called in question the 
 miraculous cure of a blind man, of which he himself 
 had been an eye-witness, mounted the pulpit the fol- 
 lowing day, and publicly proved the fact before an 
 immense assembly. 
 
 THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 But the powers of vision possessed by the oracle seat- 
 ed in Durham, penetrate still farther into the darkness 
 of remote ages. Go and consult him at Long Newton; 
 ask him why the Christians in the second century 
 gigned their foreheads with the sign of the cross r 
 when they rose in the morning, when they lay 
 down at night, before work, before and after meals, 
 &c. Ask him the reason; he will tell you, and be 
 sure to rely on his word, do not listen to such a 
 man as Tertullian. This Father acknowledges that 
 such a custom observed so faithfully did not come 
 from any gospel precept, but solely from tradition. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 255 
 
 You will perfectly understand what must have been 
 the source of a custom established by tradition in the 
 second century. But Mr. Faber decidedly pronounces 
 that it did not come from tradition; he understands and 
 maintains that it is no older than Tertullian; that the 
 custom and the Father entered the world much about 
 the same time — p. 286. It is evident that his ideas 
 must be more correct than those of the learned Afri- 
 can, as to what was believed and practised seventy 
 years after St. John the Evangelist. Happy is the 
 Church of England to foster in her bosom so bright 
 and even miraculous a luminary! Really the more I 
 think, the more I am persuaded that this gentleman 
 must be inspired: and here is my proof. — If he were 
 not, could he himself go so far as to imagine that he 
 knows the second century better than the most ad- 
 mired man of that period? Would he dare to give 
 the lie to that celebrated personage, and on a fact 
 in its nature so notorious, since the old men of that 
 time must have known perfectly well, whether when 
 they were young people they made the sign of the 
 cross? How then stands the case? Tertullian attests 
 that the practice of signing the cross on the forehead 
 came from a custom more ancient and handed down by 
 tradition-, and here Mr. Faber says to him in equiva- 
 lent terms: "It is not so; but the practice began in your 
 own time; you saw its beginning; and 1 am even tempt- 
 ed from your evident peevishness when asked for a 
 scriptural proof of its obligation, to suspect that you 
 may have been the author of it yourself." This lan- 
 guage proves indisputably one of these two things; 
 either inspiration, or a certain degree of folly. But 
 assuredly a grave and learned Rector could not be ac- 
 cused of the latter. Therefore we must acknowledge 
 his inspiration. 
 
 I observe that towards the end of the Difficulties of 
 Romanism, Mr. Faber no longer admits any authority 
 but Scripture. If he does not find there every letter of 
 
256 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 what you maintain against him, he accuses you with- 
 out ceremony of gross ignorance, and mere unscriptu- 
 ral superstition. At the beginning he was more polite, 
 and more respectful towards oral and primitive tradi- 
 tions. He did homage to them; he acknowledged their 
 authority: several times he attempted to support him- 
 self upon them against my assertions; and it has been 
 seen with what success. However, I content myself 
 here with observing that on the Invocation of Saints, 
 Relics, and the Sign of the Cross he pays no longer 
 any regard to primitive traditions, and those authori- 
 ties, which he delighted to quote r when he conceived 
 them favourable to his cause. This contradiction of 
 mind and opinion is not exactly insanity; it would be 
 wrong to pronounce it so: it is only caprice, and versa- 
 tility of principle. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 L. By beginning his refutation with my third Letter, 
 after announcing in his preface that he should follow 
 me step by step, Mr. Faber led me to believe that he 
 considered it most prudent not to enter upon the dis- 
 cussion of the two preceding Letters. I had no ex- 
 pectation of what I discovered as I advanced further 
 in my reply, that he had deferred the examination of 
 the first to the second Chapter of his Book II. page 
 309. He has nothing to say against the historical 
 summary of the establishment of the Anglican Church, 
 at the l>eginning of my work. He attacks the conse- 
 quences which I deduced from it, but he does not in 
 the least invalidate them. They remain strictly cor- 
 rect, and my arguments retain all their strength.* 
 
 •Mr. Faber has no just idea of the jurisdiction and character of 
 a bishop. He confounds the one with the other in what he calls 
 the power of order. Consecration L r ives the character: mission im- 
 parts jurisdiction, which is lost by schism, while the character re- 
 mains, because that is indelible. If the consecration of Parker had 
 been valid, he would have received the character, but not jurisdic- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 257 
 
 I argued the nullity of your church establishment, 
 not from the character of Elizabeth, as Mr. Faber sup- 
 poses, but from licr radical defect of competency. 
 The only method by Which he could refute me, would 
 have been to prove that Elizabeth had a right to bring 
 about the change, which she effected by violence; and 
 this he has not even attempted to demonstrate. On the 
 contrary, you shall see how he himself furnishes me 
 with a fresh proof of the incompetency of that Queen. 
 "Suppose," says he, p. 314, "that we were deprived 
 of our present legal establishment: what would be the 
 consequence? Should we lose our spiritual authority as 
 bishops or as presbyters? Such, I apprehend, would 
 by no means be the result .... The spiritual power of 
 order we assuredly derived not from Elizabeth: hence, 
 of that power no present or future Sovereign of Eng- 
 land can deprive us." It is certain that temporal rulers 
 have only a right to take away what they gave. It is 
 equally certain that they never could give spiritual au- 
 thority; nor in consequence, take it away. Therefore 
 Elizabeth could not take away sprit ual authority from 
 the Catholic bishops, who occupied their sees, before she 
 occupied her throne. Therefore they preserved their 
 authority: therefore the successors she gave them were 
 mere intruders, without power and without jurisdic- 
 tion. In a word, Elizabeth had undoubtedly a right to 
 deprive the Catholic bishops of their palaces, their 
 revenues, and their places in parliament: for they held 
 these temporal advantages from the Crown, but their 
 spiritual power came not from the Crown as Mr. 
 Faber has so justly maintained. I was right then in 
 saying, and he must from his own principles acknow- 
 ledge it; that "without a right to throw down, and 
 
 tion; which the four consecrutors, heing in open revolt against the 
 Church, could not have, and of course could not impart to him. — 
 When speaking of the submission due to the successor of St. Peter, 
 and head of the universal Church, Mr. Fab r allows himself to 
 designate him disdainfully as "an Italian prelate," "a bishop of 
 Italy," he only adds a pitiful insult to his bad defence of a worse 
 cause. 
 
253 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 without a right to re-build, her (Elizabeth's) underta- 
 king was null from the beginning."* 
 
 SUPREMACY. 
 
 LI. In chapter III. page 319, Mr. Faber enters 
 upon a long dissertation, which corresponds to no part 
 of my work. He directs it against the primacy of the 
 holy see, and begins by justifying the separation under 
 Elizabeth, by the right, which he attributes to every 
 national Church to choose such a form of government 
 for herself, as she shall think proper; as if it could be 
 proper to choose for herself any other, than the one 
 which Jesus Christ himself traced out for the universal 
 Church. Bp. Jewel in his apology, justifies the schism 
 by the necessity of departing from a Church degen- 
 erated, and disfigured by her innovations, her idolatry, 
 and her errors, on the subject of the real presence; 
 thus designating as innovations, errors and idolatry, 
 the dogmas, which you have seen taught and practised 
 by the primitive Church. 
 
 Mr. Faber proceeds next to the supremacy; against 
 which he renews old attacks, a hundred times repel- 
 led, and with which, for that reason, I shall not here 
 occupy my attention. I shall only make some rapid 
 reflections on certain allegations contained in this 
 chapter. 
 
 According to this author, and in opposition to the 
 universal belief of all parties, St. Peter is not to be 
 considered as the first Bishop of Rome, but St. Linus. 
 The proof he adduces is precisely the proof of the 
 contrary. For he insists that St. Linus was chosen 
 by the common consent of St. Peter and St. Paul. 
 But before the arrival of St. Paul, at Rome, St. Peter 
 
 * See vol. 1, p. 11, of the Discussion Jlmicale,2i very striking pas- 
 sage from Dod well quoted in a note. It seems to have been written 
 expressly to demonstrate the nullity of your ecclesiastical constitu- 
 tion through the incompetency of the Queen and her parliament. 
 It is also quoted in the 1st part ch. 1, No. 2, of the present Answer^ 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 259 
 
 had founded the Church there, and governed it lor 
 some years. Therefore he was its first Bishop; and 
 St. Linus was called in the same manner as St. Ignatius 
 was of Antioch, the first Bishop of that See after St. 
 Peter. For this reason, St. Irenaeus speaking of St. 
 Clement's elevation to the See of Rome, styles him 
 the third Bishop from the death of the apostles.* 
 
 St. Irenaeus thus expresses himself on the See of 
 Rome: "Ad banc ecclesiam, propter potentiorem prin- 
 cipalitatem, necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam; 
 hoc est, eos qui sunt undique fideles." Mr. Faber 
 thus translates the passage in a note at p. 345: "To 
 the Roman Church, on account of its more potent 
 principality, it is necessary that every Church should 
 resort; that is to say, those of the faithful who dwell 
 on every side of it." The text does not say, those of 
 the faithful who dwell on every side of it; but the faith- 
 ful who are on every side. He had just said every 
 Church; therefore he adds likewise, all the faithful. 
 And in fact, in the time of St. Irenaeus, the Churches 
 of Smyrna and Corinth had already recurred to 
 Rome in affairs of importance. It is to be observed 
 that the word resort, which Mr. Faber prefers to 
 agree with, which we commonly employ, renders very 
 energetically the pre-eminence of the Roman see: for 
 people only resort to superior authority .f 
 
 * Post Jnacletum tertio loco ab apostolis, episcopatum sortitur Cle- 
 mens. Iren. adv. Haer. lib. III. c. 3, § 2, quoted by Mr. Faber. 
 
 t In a note, p. 346, Mr. Faber supposes that in the above pas- 
 sage St. Irenaeus recommends the circumjacent churches to resort 
 to Rome partly to inspect the autographs of the apostles, in case 
 of any doctrinal difficulty. Let him attend on this subject to the 
 following admirable observations of a celebrated German divine: 
 "Qui ecclesiam sine litteris scriptis fundavit, rnultisque annis con- 
 servavit, ipse etsine autographis veram in ea fidem, ac puram doc- 
 triuamconservavit servatque. Nee unquam Jesus Christus dixe- 
 rat, qui non legerit codicem sacrum, sed quinon audieret ecclesi- 
 am, sis quasi ethnicus et publicanus; nee unquam S. Paulus suis 
 mandavit, et codicem aut epistolas custodirent; bene tamen deposi- 
 tum fidei, quod tradidit ipsis." 
 
 B interim Epist. Cath. de lingua originali A*. Test. — Note of the 
 Translator. 
 
260 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Tertullian, who was converted at Rome, towards 
 the middle of the- second century, and who lived af- 
 terwards under the primates of Africa, gives to the 
 bishop of Rome, the same title, which we give at this 
 day, that of sovereign pontiff. This Mr. Faber admits: 
 but he wrangles about St. Cyprian, and proves no- 
 thing after all, but that this learned and illustrious pri- 
 mate of Carthage admitted no infallibility in the Pope, 
 no more than Firmilian, the churches of the islands, 
 and of Africa. It is utterly false that St. Cyprian ever 
 opposed or disputed that Pope St. Stephen was the 
 successor of St. Peter. St. Cyprian wrote as follows 
 to Antonianus: "Cornelius has just been made bishop 
 of Rome, the place of Fabian, that is, that of Peter, 
 and the step of the sacerdotal chair having become 
 vacant." Nothing certainly could be more clear and 
 precise. 
 
 The passage of St. Cyprian, which Mr. Fab^r would 
 turn against the holy see, becomes even stronger in 
 its favour and more decisive, by his own explanation 
 of it. You will see this by the note at p. 348 of Mr. 
 Faber's book; "Cyprian speaks of one chair founded 
 
 upon Peter by the voice of the Lord By this chair, 
 
 he meant, not the see of Rome in particular, but tlie 
 chair of the collective united episcopate in general. " If 
 this be the case, it is most evident that not only the 
 chair of Rome, but all the episcopal chairs in the 
 world are founded upon Peter, and consequently upon 
 his successors. It is impossible to say more for the 
 universal supremacy of the see of Rome: see then how 
 error betrays itself! 
 
 The Greeks acknowledged the primacy of jurisdic- 
 tion in the Holy Father at the Council of Florence, and 
 more remotely in that of Lyons, as they had done from 
 the beginning of Christianity to the time of Photius. 
 On that acoount the deputies of the holy see presided 
 by universal "consent at the first Council of Nice, at 
 that of Constantinople, &c. For that reason St. Poly- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 261 
 
 carp, at ninety years of age, crossed the seas, and went 
 to render an account to Pope Anicetus of the reasons 
 which attached the churches of Asia to the custom of 
 celebrating Easter on the 14th day of the moon: it was 
 moreover on that account that the Corinthians sent a 
 deputation, not to St. Clement, who was not then in 
 the chair of St. Peter, as Mr. Faber seems to suppose, 
 but to St. Anacletus, to induce him to interpose his au- 
 thority to repress the schism, which threatened their 
 Church. 
 
 LII. 1 must beg Mr. Faber to explain, why, in his 
 discussion of the claims of the holy see to supremacy, 
 from the Holy Scriptures, he chose to pass over in 
 silence the celebrated text; feed my lambs — -feed my 
 lambs, — feed my sheep. Here are most certainly uni- 
 versal superintendance and jurisdiction given to St. 
 Peter, and in his person to his successors. If Mr. Fa- 
 ber has any desire to be comprised in the flock of Je- 
 sus Christ, he must acknowledge the shepherd placed 
 at the head of it by our divine Saviour. If he persists 
 in refusing to acknowledge him, he voluntarily sepa- 
 rates himself from the sheep and lambs of Jesus Christ. 
 I seriously invite him, his readers and mine, to medi- 
 tate on this awful consequence, and apply it in earnest 
 to themselves. 
 
 PROJECT FOR RE-UNION. 
 
 LIII. To my great surprise, Mr. Faber appears at 
 p. 355 to represent me as a kind of plenipotentiary to 
 the Anglican Church to bring about a reconciliation 
 between her and ourselves. I am represented as un- 
 dertaking to promise for the Catholic Church, and 
 propose concessions on the one hand and adoptions on 
 the other. This reminds me of what Lord Chester- 
 field writes to his son, which I also recommend to 
 Mr. Faber: "See what you see; read what you read." 
 He did not read what he read; he read what he did 
 23 
 
262 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 not and could not read in my book, for I have written 
 no such thing. Nevertheless I can hardly find fault 
 with Mr. Faber, since some of my own countrymen 
 have given into the same mistake, if I may credit re- 
 ports which I have heard. 1 must rectify the error of 
 both parties. I did then advance that though faith is 
 unchangeable, discipline is not so; and that if conces- 
 sions on the former were impossible, they might be 
 made on the latter. I named some of these possible 
 concessions, after the example of Bossuet, choosing, 
 as he did, such as would be best relished by Protes- 
 tants. 
 
 But it is one thing to say that such or such conces- 
 sions might be made, and another, to promise that 
 they will be "freely conceded." Here are two 
 questions: the first may be decided by any individual; 
 the second, by the Church alone. What are the arti- 
 cles of discipline susceptible of change? All. What 
 are those which it would be expedient to change, for 
 obtaining the return of a separated people? To the 
 Church alone belongs the right to answer. 
 
 For many years have I ardently desired the return 
 of the nations departed from unity. For many years 
 it has appeared to me that it would not be impossible 
 to bring them back: and my reading and reflections, 
 no less than my desires, have spontaneously turned to 
 an object so much wished for by all good men. 
 
 I have thought that the period in which we live, 
 presented more favourable chances of re-union among 
 Christians than any time preceding. On the one hand, 
 three centuries of commotions, of overthrows, of ani- 
 mated controversies, of intestine and cruel wars, have 
 fatigued the earth: on the other, the world is terrified 
 at the number of sects which the leading principle of 
 the reformation has produced, and after them, the in- 
 credulity, which has already caused so many revolu- 
 tions, and threatens nations and sovereigns with yet 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 263 
 
 more.* It must be evident that if temporal interests 
 formerly induced princes to adopt the reformation, 
 temporal interests of a higher nature involving their 
 very existence ought in these days to convince them, 
 that there can be no repose and no security for them, 
 but under the guardianship of unity, and of one su- 
 preme authority in matters of revelation. I have said 
 to myself many times, will not Christians at length listen 
 to their own experience? Will they condemn them- 
 selves to pass their days in dissentions and troubles; and 
 leave the same inheritance to their posterity? Re- 
 deemed by the same blood, regenerated by the same- 
 baptism, called to the same hopes, to the happiness of 
 another world, will they never give each other the 
 hand of union in this? Will they be forever seen se- 
 parated in communion, prayer, and worship? God our 
 Saviour declared that he would have on earth but one 
 sheepfold, one flock, one shepherd; and can they in 
 defiance of the order by him established, feel assurance 
 and delight in a multitude of flocks and sheepfolds? 
 No; there must either be a speedy end of this disorder, 
 or the termination of all human things. 
 
 In the midst of these reflections, I became very sen- 
 sible that to lead mankind to one belief, the first step 
 must be to prove its truth. I was perfectly aware of 
 the difficulty of such an undertaking; nor should I 
 have attempted to surmount it, had I reckoned solely 
 upon my own ability. My only confidence was in 
 Him, who had so long inspired me with the thought 
 and resolution. I never ceased to implore his assis- 
 tance and all-powerful grace in the course of my 
 researches and labours. Subsequently, the result was 
 
 •"Divisions in religion when multiplied, are sources of athe- 
 ism:" so said Bacon; and never was the assertion so fatally verifi- 
 ed as it has been in our days. 
 
 "By so many paradoxes, the foundations of our religion are shak- 
 en, the principle articles are called in question, heresies enter in 
 crowds into the churches of Christ, and the road is thrown open to 
 atheism." Sturmer, Ratio ineundce concordia An. 1579, p. 2, 
 
264 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 submitted to enlightened friends: I wished it to be 
 placed before well informed persons of other commu- 
 nions. It was so; and not always without approbation, 
 and some effect. An antagonist has at length arisen, 
 who certainly is not wanting in penetration of mind, 
 facility of language, or elegance of style; why am I 
 not permitted to add, in sincerity, love of union and 
 experience in matters of theology! By turns he extols 
 the character of the author, with whom he is unac- 
 quainted, and abuses the book which is before him. 
 He is wrong in both: in his commendations,- which un- 
 happily the author does not in any degree deserve: 
 and in his critique upon the Discussion Amicale, which 
 this answer will, I flatter myself, have placed above 
 the reach of his censures. He decomposes my proofs, 
 adds or retrenches, changes my words, palms upon 
 me his own, substitutes his own reasoning for mine, 
 and what is still more culpable, is equally unceremo- 
 nious with the ancient Fathers. With a boldness 
 hitherto unheard of, he makes them say what they do 
 not say, and even the very opposite to what they do 
 say; yes, the very opposite; I am truly sorry to have 
 to* reproach him with such conduct. I should never 
 have expected to detect such proceedings in an Eng- 
 lishman. I knew a great many during a residence of 
 thirteen years among them; but I never met with one 
 of this stamp. The most intellectual writer may un- 
 doubtedly be allowed to be no theologian; but never 
 to act dishonourably. 
 
 At page 370, Mr. Faber attempts to show that my 
 attacks upon the reformation would equally fall upon 
 Christianity itself, and does not perceive that his own 
 parallel between them is very closely allied to blas- 
 phemy. Yet he knows that the Christian revelation 
 came to us from heaven; that it presented itself to the 
 world with proofs of its divinity; that the apostles, 
 their disciples and their proselytes attracted mankind 
 by their virtues and heavenly doctrines;, that they suf- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 265 
 
 fered with resignation, without inflicting suffering on 
 any, that they shed no blood but their own, and pray- 
 ed for their persecutors; he knows, in fine, that the 
 preaching of the gospel was by the command of God, 
 and the establishment of the Church was a Work 
 purely divine. But what were the reformers? They 
 have answered the question themselves. Was it — I 
 will not say by the command of God — but purely for 
 his glory that they announced their doctrines? "This 
 quarrel did not begin for the honour of God; nor will 
 it end by it," said Luther on one occasion.* Did they 
 bear contradictions with Christian humility, and pray 
 for those, who condemned their preaching? Luther 
 exhausted his threats and imprecations against the 
 holy see and the Church in communion with Romef. 
 Calvin called those monsters who opposed his doc- 
 trines, and wished them to be treated as he had treat- 
 ed Servetus.f Zwinglius at the head of his troops 
 received that death which he would have dealt upon 
 his enemies. And what was the tendency of their 
 
 * At the dispute at Leipzig, in 1519, by order of Prince George of 
 Saxony, between Eckins of Ingolstatt, Carlostadt and Luther. See 
 Hist, of 70 years, dating from 1500, by Laurence Surius, the Carthu- 
 sian translated by Estourmeaux. 2d edit. 1572; Paris. Emser an 
 auricular witness reproached Luther with this, and he did no de- 
 ny it. 
 
 f "By my hand his death-blow shall be given," Luther wrote in 
 1520; "my doctrine shall prevail, and the Pope shall fall. — He 
 has refused peace, therefore he shall have war; we shall see who 
 will be tired first, the Pope or Luther .... Let us assail, assail 
 with all sorts of arms which wc can devise, this master of perdi- 
 tion, these Popes, cardinals and. all this Roman rabble of ordure: 
 let us wash our hands in their blood.'''' — And in his epistle to the peo- 
 ple of Strasbourg he testifies, that he did not engage so deeply in 
 this quarrel for the love of Christ, but through his hatred of the 
 Pope, against whom he proclaims a war of fire and blood." 
 
 J Call to mind here his letter to the Marquis of Poet, quoted 
 already. — "Calvini discipuli, ubicunque invaluerunt, imperia tur- 
 bavere: ,; says Grotius against Rivet. "Calvanism must necessarily 
 produce civil wars, and shake the foundations of states .... there 
 is no country where the religions of Luther and Calvin have ap- 
 peared, without causing an effusion of blood." Voltaire Siecle de 
 Louis XIV. ch. 33. 
 
 23* 
 
266 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 principles? To ruin our mysteries, and overturn reli- 
 gion* Wljo then was the real instigator of the refor- 
 mation, and whose work must we all call it? I leave 
 you to answer. 
 
 THE INQUISITION. 
 
 L1V. I know nothing worse than a man of genius 
 without good faith: he poisons what lie touches at 
 pleasure, and presents to his readers, under the at- 
 tractive air of truth, what he knows himself to be false. 
 How often has it pained me to apply this reflection to 
 the Rector of Long Newton? He undertakes at p. 
 372, No. II. to represent me to his countrymen as a 
 friend and partisan of the inquisition; and that they 
 may not doubt his sincerity, he appears to translate a 
 note which I beseech you to read in my 2d. vol. p p. 
 416, 417. He suppresses and adds, as he pleases, so 
 that the words which he attributes to me express suffi- 
 ciently well the very opposite to what I declared. "I do 
 not undertake," said I at the beginning, "to justify the 
 tribunals of the "inquisition in theory and principle." 
 He certainly read this first sentence carefully, because 
 he has taken good care to suppress it; and although I 
 there give notice that I am not going to defend the in- 
 quisition, he represents me as its defender. "They 
 are accused (and would to God it were with less 
 
 •"From thy doctrine and that of all thy accomplices and follow- 
 ers, all the condemned heresies receive, and the whole service of 
 God is repudiated. At what period were there ever more sacri- 
 leges of men consecrated to God, than under thy gospel? When 
 was rebellion against the magistracy more frequent than during 
 thy gospel? When have there been seen more pillage of churches, 
 more larceny and robbery? At what time had Wittemberg more 
 unfrocked monks than at present? When were wives taken from 
 their husbands to be given to others, as under thy gospel? When 
 did men commit more adulteries, than since thou wrotest that if a 
 man can hope for no issue by his wife, he may take another, and 
 that her husband is obliged to support the offspring which may 
 follow; and that a woman may act the same in the like case, &c 
 &c." Reply of Prince George of Saxony to Luther in 1526. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM- 267 
 
 reason!) of having carried severity to injustice and 
 cruelty!" Is this the exclamation of a man applauding 
 the severities, the injustice and cruelty of those tribu- 
 nals, or of one deeply lamenting them? Is it taking up 
 their defence to consider them in such a light? Or is 
 it not rather condemning them with feelings of pain 
 and disapprobation? "Why did they not imitate those 
 of Italy? — Without defiling themselves with innocent 
 blood, they would have obtained the success which sover- 
 eigns expected from their vigilance.'*'' The Rector read 
 this sentence, and suppresses it! But is it defending 
 the Spanish inquisition, to reproach it as I have done 
 above? Could Mr. Faber have expressed his disap- 
 probation more forcibly than I have done by those 
 words which he has purposely suppressed; "without 
 defiling themselves with innocent blood?" After observ- 
 ing with writers worthy of credit that the number of 
 innocent victims had been much exaggerated, I add: 
 "had this not. been the case, Spain, while she re- 
 proached herself with all these cruel and unjust execu- 
 tions, would not have to regret the lot of other states, 
 where religious wars have shed a deluge of human 
 blood, &c." The Rector makes me say: "But Spain, 
 blessed with the inquisition, has been happily exempt." 
 This little interpolation is very ingeniously put in, to 
 keep in countenance the accusation, which the Bachelor 
 wishes to bring against me, and at the same time to 
 stand as evidence of his own candour. 
 
 He would have me clearly point out what I mean 
 by innocent and guilty victims. But surely I was 
 nowise obliged to do this. He may divide them as he 
 pleases; I have no objection. The discrimination is 
 no part of my concern: I am not writing the history of 
 the inquisition. I gave notice that I should defend nei- 
 ther its tribunals, nor its unjust and cruel executions; 
 that I confined myself to the consideration of its gene- 
 ral consequences relative to the condition of Spain, as 
 the English author whom I quoted had done before 
 
268 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 me. During my long residence in England, I never 
 met with any man of information and good faith, who 
 would undertake to justify the revolution of 1688 in 
 its principles and the means by which it was effected; 
 but I met many who rejoiced at its results, on account 
 of the actual prosperity of the country. While they 
 considered it unjust in its origin, they held it to be ad- 
 vantageous in its effects. This is very much the view 
 which I have taken of the inquisition, which by pre- 
 serving Spain in unity of faith, has saved it in our days 
 from certain and total ruin. 
 
 "I may be mistaken;" says Mr. Faber, p. 374, but I 
 have always understood, that the special object of the 
 inquisition was to take cognizance of what the Latin 
 Church (he means no doubt the Catholic Church) pro- 
 nounces to be heresy?'' He will be very glad, I imagine, 
 to learn what we are informed on this subject by a man 
 to whom we may all refer, the Abbe Fieury, (Instit. au 
 droit Can. v. 2, 12mo. p. 86, and 90 Paris 1763.) "The 
 origin of the inquisition is traced up to Theodosius the 
 Great, against the Manicheans. His law of the year 
 382 is addressed to the prefect of the East. In 1224, 
 the emperor Frederick 2d issued four edicts with 
 orders to the secular judges to pursue and punish by 
 tire obstinate heretics condemned by the Church .... 
 In France, it began against the Albigences at Tou- 
 louse in 1229; in Arragon, in 1233, but very feebly, 
 until Ferdinand, having expelled the Moors, and wish- 
 ing to confirm the pretended conversions of the Moors 
 and Jews, who obtained leave to remain in Spain by 
 becoming Christians, solicited of Pope Sixtus IV. in 
 1483, a bull to nominate Cardinal Turre-cremata 
 grand inquisitor and president of the council of the 
 inquisition .... It is this council which makes regula- 
 tions, decides differences between particular inquisi- 
 tions, punishes their faults and those of the inferior 
 ministers, and receives all appeals. This council is 
 exclusively dependent on the king." 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 269 
 
 Were I a member of the Spanish Church, which 
 Mr. Faber is so zealous in stigmatizing, I should ad- 
 dress him thus: u Be so good sir, as to look a little 
 more at home. Think of the pious and illustrious 
 foundress of your Church by law established, to the su- 
 preme governess in things spiritual as well as temporal: 
 think of the mild and gentle laws,' which she published 
 against such of her subjects as would not join her in 
 renouncing the religion of their fathers: think of the 
 searches, the domiciliary visits, made by her orders to 
 discover the smallest traces of the Catholic worship 
 and ministry; of the savage cruelty with which the 
 priests were pursued, of the barbarous joy even in the 
 capital when any had been discovered under their dis- 
 guise, or in their secret hiding-places. Think of the 
 instruments of torture, which awaited them in their pri- 
 sons, and the ingeniously contrived machines* employ- 
 
 * Atrociora poenaruin ingenia." Tertull. de rcsur. carnis. c. 9. 
 The following were the kinds of torture chiefly employed in 
 the Tower. 
 
 1. The rack was a large open frame of oak, raised three feet 
 from the ground. The prisoner was laid under it, on his back, 
 on the floor: his wrists and ancles were attached by cords to two 
 rollers at the ends of the frame: these were moved by levers in 
 opposite directions, till the body rose to a level with the frame. 
 Questions were then put;"and, if the answers did not prove satis- 
 factory, the sufferer was stretched more and more till the bones 
 started from their sockets. 
 
 2. The scavenger's daughter was a hoop of iron, so called, con- 
 sisting of two parts, fastened to each other by a hinge. The pri- 
 soner was made to kneel on the pavement, and to contract himself 
 into as small a compass as he could. Then the executioner, 
 kneeling on his shoulders, and having introduced the hoop under 
 his legs, compressed the victim close together till he was able to 
 fasten the extremities over the small of his back. The time al- 
 lotted for this kind of torture was an hour and a half, during 
 which time it commonly happened that from excess of compres- 
 sion the blood started from the nostrils; sometimes, it was believed 
 from the extremities of the hands and feet. See Bartoli, 250. 
 
 3. Iron gauntlets, which could be contracted by the aid of a 
 screw. They served to compress the wrists, and to suspend the 
 prisoner in the air, from two distant points of a beam. He was 
 
270 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 ed with cold ferocity to punish them. Think of the 
 cries of pain, the lengthened groans of innocent and re- 
 signed victims; of the streams of blood, which gushed 
 out beneath the pressure of iron, from their dislocated 
 members; and after those horrible tortures, think of, the 
 execution which terminated their martyrdom and ffaeir 
 life; when they were dragged from prison to the place 
 of execution, and the hangman after letting them hang 
 
 placed on three pieces of wood, piled one on the other, which, 
 when his hands had been made fast, were successively withdrawn 
 from under his feet. "I felt," says F. Gerard, one of the suffer- 
 ers, "the chief pain in my breast, belly, arms and hands. I 
 thought that all the blood in my body had run into my arms, and 
 began to burst out of my finger ends. This was a mistake; but 
 the arms swelled, till the gauntlets were buried within the flesh. 
 After being thus suspended an hour, I fainted: and when I came 
 to myself, I found the executioners supporting me in their arms: 
 they replaced the pieces of wood under my feet; but as soon as I 
 was recovered, removed them again. Thus I continued hanging 
 for the space of five hours, during which I fainted eight or nine 
 times." Apud Bartoli, 418. 
 
 4. A fourth kind of torture was a cell called "little ease." It 
 was of so small dimensions, and so constructed, that the prisoner 
 could neither stand, walk, sit, or lie in it at full length. He was 
 compelled to draw himself up in a squatting posture, and so re- 
 mained during several days. 
 
 I will add a few lines from Rishton's Diary, that the reader 
 may form some notion of the proceedings in the Tower. 
 
 Dec. 5, 1580. Several Catholics were brought from different 
 prisons. 
 
 Dec. 10. Thomas Cottam and Luke Kirbye, priests (two of the 
 number,) suffered compression in the scavenger's daughter for 
 more than an hour. Cottam bled profusely from the nose. 
 
 Dec. 15. Ralph Sherwine and Robert Johnson, priests, were 
 severely tortured on the rack. 
 
 Dec. 16. Ralph Sherwine was tortured a second time on the 
 rack. 
 
 Dec. 31. John Hart, after being chained five days to the floor, 
 was led to the rack. Also, Henry Orton, a lay gentleman. 
 
 1581, Jan. 3. Christopher Thompson, an aged priest, was brought 
 to the Tower, and racked the same day. 
 
 Jan. 14. Nicholas Roscaroc, a lay gentleman, was racked. 
 
 Thu9 he continues till June 21, 1585, when he was discharged. 
 See his Diarium,at the end of his edition of Sanders. Rev. Dr. 
 LingariTs History of England, vol. viii. 8vo. Note U. p. 521. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 271 
 
 a moment on the gallows, cut them down while still 
 alive, opened their bodies, tore out their palpitating 
 bowels and threw them into a cauldron in the sight and 
 amid the furious acclamations of an exulting populace. 
 Read the history of this period so faithfully written by 
 your immortal Lingard, whom you have reason to 
 place at the head of your historians; or in the Memoirs 
 of Missionary priests by the venerable Challoner. 
 Come, sir, read these works, and be in future at least a 
 little more reserved in your declarations against for- 
 eigners. But no; rather unite with me in drawing a 
 veil over these scenes of horror; let us sigh over our 
 ages of barbarism, and the errors of human nature. 
 Where is the nation that has not had to lament her own 
 share of them? The inquisition of France after being 
 softened down for a long time, disappeared altogether. 
 Your own has much relaxed in rigour of late years: let 
 it then disappear entirely; and restore to repose, to 
 happiness and to their country eight millions of your 
 fellow-subjects, whom you have deprived of these 
 blessings for near three centuries, for no other crime 
 than their unshaken devotedness to the religion of your 
 fore-fathers. 
 
 INTOLERANCE. 
 
 LV. — In the last article, and in twenty others before 
 it, you must, sir, have admired the dexterity with 
 which Mr. Faber changes, turns and distorts my ex- 
 pressions, gives them any sense he pleases, and sub- 
 stitutes for what I say, what he wishes to make me say. 
 He possesses this art in a superior degree: I cannot 
 cease to wonder at it, for never should I have looked 
 for such a talent in England; and I am willing to believe 
 that you could not find such another specimen in your 
 country. In the concluding pages of his book par- 
 ticularly he quite surpasses himself. For instance, he 
 has chosen to exhibit me to his countrymen as intole- 
 
272 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 rant; and you shall see how he proceeds; p. 378. "The 
 bishop having thus censured the reformation and vin- 
 dicated the inquisition, nothing more was wanting to the 
 rotundity of his system than that he should bear his 
 testimony against freedom of religious worship." And 
 then he goes on with an air of great seriousness and in 
 a very angry manner to refute an opinion which he at- 
 tributes to me without the least reason upon earth. For 
 he well knows in soul and conscience, that I do not 
 say a syllable about "freedom of religious worship;" 
 so far am I from imputing it as a "crying abomination" 
 to his Church.* 
 
 He has too mnch penetration not to perceive the 
 difference between this sentence: "The adder, which 
 the Church thus warms only for the purpose of sting- 
 ing herself to death, is freedom of religious wor- 
 ship:" and the following: " I see that the Established 
 Church carries in her bosom the principle of her de- 
 struction in that liberty of making a religion and 
 form of worship for themselves, which she can- 
 not now deny to any, after claiming it herself." The 
 latter sentence is mine; the former belongs to Mr. 
 Faber, who artfully substitutes it for mine, that he may 
 ground an accusation against me. But let me beg of 
 him to take back his own; I have certainly no wish to 
 deprive him of his property. I much doubt however, 
 if his cunning will do him any honour in your eyes, and 
 before a nation so universally upright and generous as 
 his own. 
 
 Mr. Faber very loudly proclaims the tolerance of 
 his Church. It is true that it extends far to those 
 sects which like that Church herself have proceeded 
 from the fundamental principle of preferring private 
 interpretation to the authority of the universal Church; 
 a principle, which I have designated as the cause of 
 
 • See Discussion Amkule, vol. ii. pp. 409, 410, and vol. i. pp. 
 149, 150, 162, 163. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 273 
 
 inevitable destruction to your Church. But even to 
 the present day her tolerance has been little better 
 than a name towards Catholics, that heroic race of 
 confessors of the faith, who for three centuries have 
 suffered so many evils from father to son, and still en- 
 dure so many privations for having constantly refused 
 to sacrifice unity to the anti-christian principle of 
 schism and divisions. Even when in 1791 the Eng- 
 lish government was willing to allow them to celebrate 
 their worship with open doors, it took care to punish 
 them another way, by a refusal indefinitely prolonged 
 to restore their ancient civil and political rights. Has 
 my own country, France, though represented as so 
 intolerant by Mr. Faber, thus treated, or does it thus 
 treat its Protestant subjects? Call to mind Sully, Tu- 
 renne, Marshal Saxe; and in our own days you will 
 find Protestants of various communions admitted to 
 every post in her army, navy, and administration; sit- 
 ting in both chambers of parliament and even in the 
 king's privy-council. If Mr. Faber would see com- 
 plete toleration, let him come over to France. Truly 
 it is something more than logical unskiifulness to exalt 
 his own country at the expense of ours, on the score 
 of toleration. 
 
 The established Church, who in despite of her 
 thirty-nine articles, royal proclamations and acts of 
 parliament, cannot prevent sects from swarming around 
 her to her own cost, can claim no merit for leaving 
 them freedom of religious worship. They have 
 sprung, like herself, from one and the same principle, 
 though at various periods. They form together one 
 same family, and are all sisters. It is true that they 
 wage deadly war against her who is the most favoured 
 and exalted, for which I cannot commend them; for I 
 dislike hostilities, and above all intestine hostilities. 
 Yet I cannot lose sight of the rights and titles, which 
 they all derive from one common origin; they are such 
 as cannot be justly contested by the Church by law estab- 
 *24 
 
274 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 lished. They exercise them, and will exercise them; 
 — they undermine her, and they will undermine her, 
 as I see great reason to fear; until they see her expire 
 in the midst of them through exhaustion and ina- 
 nition. 
 
 This freedom of religious worship, which "the 
 bishop censures in the Church of England," continues 
 Mr. Faber, "is a principle, which the Church of Rome 
 has ever abhorred." It is written then that the Rector 
 of Long Newton shall be wrong even to the end. Let 
 him attend to the following: "above all things, never 
 force your subjects to change their religion. No 
 human power can force the impenetrable intrenchment 
 of liberty of heart. Compulsion can never persuade 
 men; it only makes hypocrites. When kings interfere 
 with religion, instead of protecting, they enslave it. 
 Grant to all civil toleration; not approving all as indif- 
 ferent, but suffering with patience what God permits, 
 and endeavouring to bring men back by gentle persua- 
 sion." This advice given by an illustrious Catholic 
 bishop to the Pretender, son of James II. would be 
 given at this day by the bishops of France, if -any oc- 
 casion required the expression of their sentiments. I 
 know not one among them who would not feel it an 
 honour to subscribe to such an advice. But were Mr. 
 Faber called to discuss the Catholic question on the 
 episcopal bench, would he adopt the decision you have 
 just read? Would he express himself in such terms 
 in favour of his oppressed countrymen, the Catholics 
 of the three kingdoms? Or if he were consulted by 
 the bench of bishops at the next session, would he 
 counsel them to hold such language fearlessly in the 
 house of peers? Let his readers judge by his Difficul- 
 ties of Romanism. Then let him no longer raise a 
 trophy with his pretended toleration: but let him 
 openly confess that Protestants have found, and still 
 find from our bishops that ample toleration, which the 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 275 
 
 Catholics have never yet obtained from the olergy of 
 the Church of England.* 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 LVI. — At length Mr. Faber proceeds to sum up at 
 the end of his work. But in what terms? My pen 
 transcribes them with horror and indignation. The 
 bishop, says he, p. 382, ''calls upon us to unite, or 
 rather to submit, to his Church: and as the consistent 
 advocate of that Church, he vindicates idolatry, stig- 
 matizes the reformation,! patronises the eve of St. 
 Bartholomew,]; lays the blame of persecution upon the 
 persecuted, .... and censures freedom of religious 
 worship." There is not one of these lines which does 
 not contain a most splendid falsehood. Every one of 
 these accusations is diametrically opposite to my prin- 
 ciples, sentiments and expressions. In truth it is a 
 cruel thing to be thus depicted in such odious colours 
 before a nation which I honour, and from which I 
 ever received marks of esteem, protection, and bounty. 
 
 * Many affect to apprehend what the Catholics would do, if 
 they were once emancipated. Independent of their protestations 
 so often and solemnly repeated on this head, it is difficult to con- 
 ceive what great influence or authority they could derive from 
 emancipation. But if you really wish to be more secure from 
 their future dispositions, I say, prove yourselves just towards them 
 in the first place; restore their rights which you have so long with- 
 held. Then be generous, and make them some amends for the 
 past. You will have a far better hold on them by kindness than 
 by cruelty; you will bind them in the bonds of gratitude. It is of 
 sovereign efficacy in noble hearts, born in privation, and long fed 
 with humiliation and bitterness. 
 
 f She has stigmatized herself, I had only to let her speak her 
 own language. 
 
 I Speaking of calamities which Europe would never have known 
 but for the reformation, I said, vol. ii. p. 414: "Nor would France 
 have had the shame of that frightful night of the St. Bartholo- 
 mew;" and the charitable Rector of Long Newton purposely puts 
 a misconstruction on these words, to change an expression of hor- 
 ror into an apology for a massacre executed under favour of 
 darkness. 
 
276 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 Yet I shall make but one reply to the calumnies of Mr. 
 Faber; it shall be briefly this: I beseech his readers 
 and mine to forgive him, as I freely forgive him my- 
 self before men, and before God. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 LVII. — And now, sir, I have finished the task 
 which I undertook at your solicitation. You are now 
 enabled to form a judgment of my antagonist, in whom 
 you had placed confidence. He stands before you, 
 not, I feel assured, such as he at first appeared in your 
 estimation, but such as he is in reality. You will now 
 know how to appreciate his merit in theological know- 
 ledge, his veracity in quotation, his accuracy in reason- 
 ing, his love of truth, his inclination for peace, his 
 desire of re-union, his sincerity in praising, and his 
 fidelity in accusing. Grant him, if you will, ease and 
 address in the use of his pen; allow him, with all my 
 heart, the skill to mutilate a passage, to substitute his 
 own ideas for those of his opponent, and by this hon- 
 ourable process to bring odium against his person, and 
 deprive him of the estimation of the public; and in fine, 
 the art of colouring falsehood and decorating error 
 with the ornaments of truth. Add to these, if you 
 will an affectation of candour even at the moment when 
 he himself disregards it; a habit of disguising a pre- 
 meditated insult by empty compliment; assurance in 
 his pretensions, and a tone of decision in assertions 
 of the most palpable mendacity. This judgment 
 will result from the answer you have now read; and 
 I do not conceive it possible to allow him any other 
 merit, without attributing what does not belong to him.* 
 
 Nevertheless I beseech you to bear in mind that I 
 only speak of the writer, and not of the person: it is only 
 my province to judge of the author of the Difficulties of 
 
 * I am sometimes tempted to think that he has served an ap- 
 prenticeship in the school of Voltaire. 
 
iDIFFICULTIBS OF ROMANISM. 277 
 
 Romanism, and by no means of the reverend pastor of 
 Long Newton, to whom I am far from wishing to deny 
 pastoral and affectionate zeal, and every amiable and 
 social quality. But why have I not the same happiness 
 as his parishioners, that of finding these in his book, as 
 they may enjoy them in his discourses, and to observe 
 that sincere and tender interest for the Mother-Church, 
 which he, no doubt, testifies for his Church at Long 
 Newton! Perhaps in writing for his cause, he may 
 have thought it a duty to dissemble his real sentiments 
 on the solidity of my proofs. Can he have so far 
 honoured the Discussion Amicale, as to consider it 
 dangerous to his party, and therefore conclude that it 
 was necessary to discredit the work and its author in 
 public opinion? 
 
 However this may be, I found myself compelled in 
 my reply to defend the Catholic doctrine against his 
 unjuSt attacks:and this could not be done without pro- 
 ducing his false allegations, unfaithful quotations, false 
 reasoning, cunning and unworthy artifices. Why did 
 he stoop to employ them? I have been obliged, against 
 my inclination, to exhibit them in open day. But I 
 have discharged this painful duty without passion or 
 animosity; rather indeed with an uniform feeling of 
 pity. How much has my patience been tried? — the 
 whole task appeared to me ungrateful and revolting? 
 I have endured it once, disgusting as it was; but I 
 could not support it a second time. And I declare be- 
 forehand that let him write henceforth what he pleases, 
 I shall not read a line of his production. I have taken 
 advantage of the opportunity which he has afforded 
 me, and have proved the errors of his creed, and the 
 apostolicity of ours. I have insisted more plainly and 
 forcibly upon our Eucharistic dogmas, because, he 
 represented them as the principal subject of division 
 between us. From the conformity of our faith with 
 that of the primitive ages you must have concluded 
 the doctrine of your Church is essentially opposed to 
 ♦24 
 
278 ANSWER TO THE 
 
 that of the primitive Church, to that of the apostles, 
 and of Jesus Christ. 
 
 LVIII. — Well then, you may say then, what am I to 
 do, and all those of my communion, who value, above 
 every thing else, the salvation of their souls? I will 
 answer you candidly and with perfect conviction. 
 Had there existed a single reason to justify the sepa- 
 tion in the sixteenth century, or did there exist one to 
 justify the actual separation and schism of the various 
 societies of Protestants, I should say to you — remain 
 in your own. But I say — not only do I know of none, 
 but I see most clearly there could have existed none. 
 Bring together all the writings published by the re- 
 formed communions for these three centuries; congre- 
 gate all the enlightened men who exist in these com- 
 munions; you will never extract from either any one 
 available and peremptory cause, to authorize at the 
 time the original schism, or its continuation in our Tlays. 
 Therefore, sir, go out from it. You are now too well 
 admonished, and too enlightened to be excusable if 
 you continue therein. With great reason do you at- 
 tach the highest importance to the salvation of your 
 soul. Well, sir, I declare to you distinctly, that you 
 must secure its salvation in unity, in the Mother Church, 
 the faithful guardian of the primitive faith, the sole 
 heiress of the promises, ever pure in her doctrine, in- 
 corruptible in her dogmas, and pious in her worship. 
 If you have detected some abuses in her children; — 
 and where will not some abuses be found? — be assured 
 that if they were pernicious, she herself would be 
 the first to condemn them; if not pernicious, she 
 tolerates them for the sake of peace. Do you in 
 like manner, and do not imagine it obligatory to ob- 
 serve certain minute practices, which she never com- 
 manded, but which she suffers without either approv- 
 ing or prohibiting them. Do not suffer yourself to 
 be withheld by such unimportant matters; look to 
 what is essential. Return to unity: for without that 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 279 
 
 even martyrdom would not save you. — Believe me, 
 sir, vou have no room for hesitation. Were I to 
 hold a different language, I should belie my own con- 
 science, and deceive yours. 
 
 LIX. But, sir, I am far from requiring you to de- 
 pend solely on my opinion. I am prepared to offer 
 you, if you please, authorities more worthy of your 
 regard and better calculated to bring you to a determi- 
 nation. I will choose them from the very bosom of the 
 Reformation. I know of none that can be opposed, 
 on the questions of which we treat, to Grotius and 
 Leibnitz, the honour and admiration of their age, as 
 they are of our own, and will be of posterity. You 
 may absolutely consider them as the two wisest heads 
 of Protestantism. Educated in the prejudices of their 
 Communions, attached for a length of years, the for- 
 mer to Calvanistic oppinions, the latter to those of the 
 Lutherans, they emancipated themselves by the force 
 of genius. The one was long engaged in the warmth 
 of religious disputation, the other in grave theological 
 discussions; both made controverted points their pro- 
 found study, looking with a curious and penetrating 
 eye into Christian antiquity; and both ended by erect- 
 ing immortal monuments to the truth of our doctrines. 
 In his Votum pro pace , the last of his polemic produc- 
 tions, the incomparable Grotius concludes on every 
 article which divides us, in favour of the Catholic 
 doctrine: and Leibnitz in his admirable Systema Theo- 
 logies, the fruit of thirty years of research and reflec- 
 tion as he himself wrote to his intimate friends, proves 
 and establishes the Catholic faith on the same subjects, 
 with a degree of erudition, depth, and accuracy which 
 could only have belonged to himself or Bossuet. Af- 
 ter these illustrious defenders furnished even by the 
 Reformation to the Catholic Church, no more human 
 authorities need be investigated. Where could you 
 find any to outbalance these two men of transcendant 
 genius? Go then and stand by their side: think as they 
 
280 ANSWER, &c. 
 
 thought; believe as they believed; and more happy 
 than either of them, begin to practise before death 
 overtakes you. 
 
 This is not my counsel alone, though in perfect con- 
 formity with mv principles. It comes to you even 
 from another Protestant, very celebrated in these 
 latter times, and worthy to walk, though at a great 
 distance, in the train of the two preceding. "Since it 
 is impossible," says the Baron de Starck, "to extricate 
 Protestantism from its ruins, as I have demonstrated, 
 what will remain for those, who have preserved any 
 attachment to Christianity .... but to re-unite with the 
 Catholic Church, which, as even Protestants acknow- 
 ledge, is the preserver of the principal and fundamen- 
 tal truths of Christianity? This Christianity being 
 totally destroyed among Protestants, those who still 
 love and desire it, are absolutely obliged to seek it in 
 the only asylum where they are still sure of finding it."* 
 
 * Entretiens Philosophiques sur la Reunion des differentes Commu- 
 nions Chreliennes; p. 286, of De Kentz' French Translation, and 
 p. 220, of the Original German. 
 
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