k^V 
 
 

 
 /f/p. 
 
 Af m/ H.L> 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 

 
 -0
 
 THE 
 
 END OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 
 
 IN THREE PARTS. 
 
 .1 14/.. I 
 
 enterelr at g)tat(anet;8' alU
 
 DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING THE PRINTS. 
 
 Pabt I. Toby taking leave of his Father, to face Letter i, page 1. 
 
 . ..... Christ sending the Apostles to preach, to face page 104, in Letter x. 
 
 Pakt zi. The Judgment of Solomon, to face page 1, Letter xiii. 
 
 The large print of the Apostolic Tree, to face Letter xxviii, page 152. 
 
 Part m. ^The allegorical Figure of the Church and Misrepresentation, to 
 
 face Letter xxxi, page 1. 
 Christ giving the Keys to St. Peter, to face page 168, in Letter xlvi.
 
 THE 
 
 END 
 
 OF 
 
 3Relij0[(ottS Controtiergp, 
 
 A FRIENDLY CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN 
 
 A 
 
 Religious Society of Protestants 
 
 ,-':.,. ,' AND A 
 
 Roman Catholic Divine, 
 
 Addressed to the Right Rev. Lord Bishop of St. David's, in Answer to 
 his Lordship's FrotestanVs Catechism. 
 
 PJRT L 
 ON THE RULE OF FAITH ; 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 METHOD OF FINDING OUT THE TRUE RELIGION. 
 By the Rev. J. M. D. D. F. S. A. 
 
 Hontion: 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED 
 
 By Keating, Brown and Co. No. 38, Duke-Street, Grosvenor-Square. 
 Sold also by Messrs. Todd, and by Bolland, York ; Sharrock, 
 Preston ; Craven and Co, Manchester ; Farrel, Bir- 
 mingham; R, Coyne, Parliament-Street, Dublin ; 
 Ferguson, Cork; and Phelan, Waterford. 
 
 1818.
 
 CI via 
 
 ir r^- 
 
 ' Let those treat you harshly, who are not acquainted with the dif&cultj 
 ' of attaining to truth and avoiding error. Let those treat you harshly, 
 ' who know not how hard it is to get rid of old prejudices. Let those treat 
 
 * you harshly, who have not learned how very hard it is to purify the 
 ' interior eye and render it capable of contemplating the sun of the soul, 
 
 * truth. But as to us: we are far from this disposition towards persons, 
 
 * who are separated from us, not by errors of their own invention, but by 
 ' being entangled in those of others. We are so far from this disposition, 
 
 * that we pray to God, that, in refuting the false opinions of those, whom 
 ' you follow, not from malice, but imprudence, he would bestow upon us 
 
 * that spirit of peace, which feels no other sentiment than Charity, no 
 
 * other interest than that of Jesus Christ, no other wish but for your sal- 
 
 * vation.* (S. Au$tin, Doctor of the Church, A. D. 400, contra Ep. Fund. 
 c.L c,ii.
 
 2% 
 
 ns"i 
 ADDRESS. M^^^^ 
 
 v. / 
 
 TO 
 
 THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S. 
 
 MY LORD, 
 
 The following Letters, with some 
 others belonging to the same series, were written in 
 the latter part of the year 1801, and the first months 
 of 1802, though they have since that time been re- 
 vised, and, in some respects, altered. They grew out 
 of the controversy, which the principal writer of them 
 was obliged to sustain against an eminent author, a 
 Prebendary of the Cathedral, and the Chancellor of the 
 Piocese of Winchester, who had personally challenged 
 him to the field of argument, in a book, called RefleC" 
 tions on Popery, That controversy having made some 
 noise in the public, and even in the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, particularly in the Upper House, where the 
 Lord Chancellor (l) and a predecessor of your Lord- 
 ship, then the light and glory of the Established 
 
 (1) TheRigiuHon, the Earl of Loughborougli, 
 
 a2 
 
 1490aCS
 
 IV ADDRESS. 
 
 Church (l), expressed opposite opinions on the issue 
 of it, certain powerful personages expressed an earnest 
 wish for its termination. For this purpose the usual 
 method of silencing authors was at first resolved upon 
 with respect to the writer, and a Catholic Gentleman 
 of name, still living, was commissioned to sound him 
 on the business : but, in conclusion, it was thought 
 most adviseable to employ the influence which the 
 Prelate alluded to, had so justly acquired over him. This 
 method succeeded ; and, accordingly, these Letters, 
 which, otherwise, would have been published fifteen 
 years ago, have slept in silence ever since. 
 
 I trust your Lordship will not be the person to ask 
 me, why the Letters, after having been so long sup- 
 pressed, now appear ? You are witness, my Lord, of 
 the increased and increasing virulence of the press 
 against Catholics ; and this, in many instances, di- 
 rected by no ignoble or profane hands. Abundant 
 proofs of this will be seen in the following work. For 
 the present, it is suflScient to mention, that one of 
 your most venerable colleagues publishes and re-pub- 
 lishes that we stand convicted of Idolatry^ Blasphemyy 
 and Sacrilege, Another proclaims to the clergy, as- 
 sembled in Synod, that we are enemies of all lazv, hu- 
 vian and divine. More than one of them has charged 
 
 (1) The Right Rev. Dr. llorseley, successively Bishop of St. David's, 
 Rochester, aiul St. Asaph's.
 
 ADDRESS, V 
 
 US with the guilt of that Anti-Christian conspiracy on 
 thecontinent, of which we were exclusive!}^ the victims. 
 This dignitary accuses us of Antinomianism ; that 
 maintains our reh'gion to be Jit only for persons weak 
 in body and in mind. In short, we seldom find our- 
 selves, or our Religion mentioned, in modern ser- 
 mons, or other theological works, unaccompanied with 
 the epithets of superstitious, idolatrous, impious, diS' 
 loyal, perfidious, and sanguinary. One of the theo- 
 logues alluded to, who, like many others, has gained 
 promotion by the fervour of his NO POPERY zeal, 
 has exalted his tone to the pitch of proclaiming that 
 our Religion is calculated for the meridian of hell ! ! 
 Thus solemnly, and almost continually, charged be- 
 fore the tribunal of the public, with crimes against 
 Society and our Country, no less than against Reli- 
 gion, and yet conscious, all the while, of our entire 
 innocence, it is not only lawful, but also a duty, which 
 we owe to our fellow-subjects and ourselves, to repel 
 these charges by proving that there was reason, and 
 religion, and loyalty, and good faith among Christians, 
 before Luther quarrelled with Leo X., and Henry VIIL 
 fell in love with Ann Bullen ; and that, if we ourselves 
 have not yet been persuaded by the arguments, cither 
 of the monk or the monarch, to relinquish the faith 
 originally preached in this island, above 1300 years 
 before their lime, we are, at least, possessed of
 
 VI ADDEESS. 
 
 common sense^ virtuous principles^ and untainted 
 loyalty. 
 
 The writer might assign another reason for making 
 the present publication; namely, the number and 
 acrimony of his own public opponents on subjects of 
 religion. To say nothing of the groundless charges, 
 by word of mouth, of certain privileged personages, 
 the following writers are some of those who have 
 published books, pamphlets, essays, or notes against 
 him, on subjects of a religious nature ; the Deans of 
 Winchester and Peterborough ; Chancellor Sturges; 
 Prebendary Poulter; the Doctors Hoadley, Ash, Ryan, 
 Ledwich, Le Mesurier (1), and Elrington ; Sir Rich- 
 
 (I) To one only objection of his adversaries the writer wishes here to give 
 an answer, that of having quoted falsely ; which, however, has been advanced 
 by very few of them, and is confined, as far as he knows, to two instances. 
 The first of these is that the writer in his History of Winchester, vol. i. p. 61, 
 
 quotes Gildas, for the exploits of King ArthuV, who never once mentions 
 
 * his name.' This objection was first started by Dr. O'Conor, in his 
 Columbanus, was borrowed from him by the Rev, Mr. Le Mesurier, in 
 his Bumpton Lectures, and was adopted from the latter by the Rev. Mr. 
 
 Grier, in his Answer to Ward's Errata. After all, this pretendedybrgery 
 
 of the writer will be found, on consulting the passage referred to above, to 
 be nothing else but a blunder of his critics ; since it will appear that he 
 quotes William of Malmsbury for the exploits of Arthur and Gildas, barely 
 for the year in which one of them, the battle of Mons Badonicus, took place ! 
 The second accusation of tliis nature was inserted by one of the above- 
 named writers in the Gentleman's Magazine, namely, that the writer had 
 advanced, without any historical authority, that James I. used to call 
 November 5, ' Cecil's Holiday.' In answer to this charge, he gave notice in 
 the next numbcrof the Magazine, that he had sent up to the Editor's office, as 
 he had done, there to remain, during a month, for public inspection. Lord 
 Castlemain's Culholiijue Apology, which contains the fact, and the authorities
 
 ADDRESS, Vll 
 
 ard Musgrave, John Reeves, Esq. ; the Reverend Messrs. 
 Williamson, Bazeley, Churton, Grier, and Roberts ; 
 besides numerous anonymous riflemen in the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine, the Monthly Magazine, the Anti- 
 jacobin Review, the Protestant Advocate, the Anti- 
 biblion, and other periodical works, including news- 
 papers. By some of these he has been challenged into 
 the field of controversy, and when he did not appear 
 there, he has been posted as a coward, 
 
 A still more cogent reason, my Lord, for the ap- 
 pearance of this work, which was heretofore suppressed, 
 at the desire of a former Bishop of St. David's, has 
 been furnished by his present successor, in the work 
 the latter has lately published, called THE PRO- 
 TESTANT'S CATECHISM. This is no ordinary effu- 
 sion of NO POPERY zeal. It was not called for by 
 the increase of the Ancient Religion in his Lordship's 
 diocese, which teems with Methodist Jumpers, to 
 the danger of his Cathedral and Parish Churches 
 being left quite empty ; while not one Catholic family 
 is, perhaps, to be found in it. It was not provoked by 
 any late attempt on the Established Church, or on 
 Protestantism in general ; as the Bishop does not pre- 
 tend that such thing has taken place. Nevertheless 
 
 on which it is advanced. The writer is far from claiming inerrancy ; but he 
 should despise himself, if he knowingly published any falsehood, or hesitated 
 to retract any one that he was proved to have fallen into.
 
 Vlll ADDRESS. 
 
 he comes forward in his episcopal mitre, bearing in his 
 hands a new Protestant Catechism^ to be learnt by 
 Protestants of every description, which teaches them 
 to hate and persecute their elder brethren, the authors 
 of their Christianity and civilization ! In fact, this 
 Christian Bishop begins and ends his Protestant Cate- 
 ckism, with a quotation from a Puritan Regicide, de- 
 claring, that ' Poperi/ is not to be tolerated, either in 
 
 * public or in private, and that it must be thought how 
 
 * to remove it, and hinder the growth thereof:* adding, 
 
 * If they say that by removing their idols we violate their 
 
 * consciences, we have no warrant to regard conscience 
 ' which is not grounded on Scripture (l).' This, your 
 
 (1) Milton's prose works, vol. 4. The prose writings of this Secretary' of 
 the Long Parliament are execrable, for their Regicide and Anti-prelatic prin- 
 ciples, as his poetry is super-excellent for its sublimity and sweetness. Four 
 other English authors are brought forward by the Bishop of St. David's, to 
 justify that persecution of Catholics, which he recommends. The first of 
 these is the Socinian Locke, who will not allow of Catholics being tolerated on 
 the demonstrated false pretext that they cannot tolerate other Christians. 
 The true cause was that his hands being stained by the blood of twenty in- 
 nocent Catholics, who were immolated by the sanguinary policy of his 
 master Shaftsbury, in Gates' infamous plot, he was obliged to find a pretext for 
 excluding them from the legal toleration which he stood in need of himself. 
 Bishop Hoadley, who had no religion at all of his own, would not allow the 
 Catholics to enjoy theirs, because, he says; ' No oaths and solemn assur- 
 * ances, no regard to truth, justice, or honour, can restrain them.' This 
 is the hypocritical plea for intolerance of a man, who was in the constant 
 habit of violating all his oaths and engagements to a Church which had 
 raised him to rank and fortune, and who systematically pursued its degrada- 
 tion into his own Anti-Christian Socinianism, by professed deceit and 
 treachery, as will be seen in the Letters. Blackstone, being a crown 
 lawyer, and writing when the penal laws were in force, could not but defend
 
 ADDRESS. IX 
 
 Lordship must know, is the genuine cant of a Mar- 
 Preate Independent ; the same cant which brought 
 Laud, and Charles L to the block ; the same cant 
 which overthrew the Church and State in the Grand 
 Hebellion. But what chiefly concerns my present 
 purpose in this the Bishop's twice repeated quotation 
 from Milton, is to observe that it breathes the whole 
 persecuting spirit of the sixteenth century, and calls 
 for the fines and forfeitures, dungeons and hal- 
 ters, and knives of Elizabeth's reign, against the de-r 
 voted Catholics ; since it is evident that the Idolatry 
 of Popery y as it is termed, exercised in private^ cannot 
 ^e removed without such persecuting and sanguinary 
 measures. The same thing is plain from the nature of 
 the different legal offences which the Right Reverend 
 Prelate lays to their charge. In one place he accuses 
 the Catholics of England and Ireland, that is to say, 
 more than a quarter of his Majesty's European sub- 
 jects, of * acknowledging the jurisdiction of the Pope 
 * in defiance of the lazvSy and of the allegiance due to 
 
 them : but, Judge as he was, and writing at the above-mentioned time, he 
 in the passage following that quoted by Dr. Burgess, expressed a hope, that 
 the time ' wivS not distant, when the fears of a Pretender having vanished, 
 * and the iiifluehce of the Pope becoming feeble, the rigorous edicts agaiubt 
 ' the Catiiolic^ would l>e revised,' b. iv. c. 4. ; which event accordingly soon 
 took place. As to Burke, the last author whom the Bishop quotes 
 against Catholic emaucipftion, it is evident, from his ipecch at Bristol, his 
 letter lo Lord Keumare, and the whole tenor of his conduct, that he was 
 not only a warm friond, but, in some degree, a martyr to it. 
 
 PAKT I. b
 
 X ADDRESS. 
 
 ' their rightful Sovereign ;* though he well knows, that 
 they have abjured the Pope's jurisdiction in all civil 
 and temporal cases, which is all that the King, Lords 
 and Commons required of them, in their acts of 1791 
 and 1793. Again the Prelate describes their opposi- 
 tion to the Veto (though equally opposed in the ap- 
 pointment of their respective Pastors by all Pro- 
 testant Dissenters, who constitute more than another 
 fourth part of his Majesty's subjects), as * Trea^ 
 sonable by Statute,' p. ^5. Now, every one knows 
 that the legal punishment of a subject, acting in 
 defiance of his allegiance, and contracting the guilt 
 of treason, is nothing less than death. Nay ; so 
 much bent on the persecution of Catholics is this 
 modern Bishop, as to arraign Parliament itself as 
 guilty of a bixach of the Constitution, by the latter of 
 the above mentioned tolerating Acts; where he says : 
 
 * If the elective franchise be really inconsistent with 
 ' the Constitutional Statutes of the Revolution ; it 
 
 * ought to be repealed, like all other concessions, that 
 
 * are injurious to loyalty and religion.'' He adds, 
 
 * But it does not follow that because Parliament had 
 
 * been guilty of one act of prodigality, that it sbould 
 
 * therefore, like a thoughtless and unprincipled spend- 
 
 * thrift, plunge itself into inextricable ruin,' pp. 
 53, 54. Thus, my Lord, though the Prelate alluded 
 to, after advertising, in his Table of Contents, A
 
 ADDRESS. XI 
 
 CONCLUSION, shewing, * the means of co-operating 
 
 * with the laws for preventing the danger and in- 
 
 * crease of Popery,' when he comes to the proper 
 place for inserting it, apologises for deferring its pub- 
 lication, as * being connected with the credit of the 
 
 * Ecclesiastical Establishment,' yet, we see, as clearly, 
 from the substance and drift of the Protestanfs Cate^ 
 chism, what his Conclusion is, as if he had actually 
 published it ; namely, he would have the whole code 
 of penal laws, with all their incapacities, fines, im- 
 prisonment, hanging, drawing, and quartering re- 
 enacted, to prevent even the private practice of idolatri/ ; 
 and he would have the Bishops, Clergy, Churchwar- 
 dens, and Constables employed in enforcing them, 
 according to the forms of Inquisition, prescribed by 
 the Canons of 1597, 1603, and 1640. 
 
 Before the writer passes from the present subject of 
 loyalty and the laws, to others more congenial with 
 his studies, and those of the Prelate, be wishes to sub- 
 mit to your Lordship's reflection two or three ques- 
 tions connected with it. First: is it strictly legal, 
 even for a Lord of Parliament, and is it edifying for 
 a Bishop to instruct the public, especially in these days 
 of insubordination and commotion, that the reigning 
 King, and the two Houses of Parliament, have acted 
 against the Constitutional Statutes, by affording reli- 
 gious relief to a large and loyal portion of British sub- 
 
 b2
 
 I'tll ADDRESS. 
 
 jects ; as King William, George I. and George II. had 
 afforded it to other portions of them ? We all know 
 Avhat outcries are continually raised about violating 
 the Constitution, and we know what effect these are 
 intended to produce : now if a turbulent populace are 
 made to believe, that the present Legislature has acted 
 illegally and unconstitutionally in some of its acts, is 
 there no danger that they may form the same notion 
 concerning some of its other acts, which are peculiarly 
 obnoxious to them, and that they may rank these 
 among the Fictitious Statutes, as this Prelate terms the 
 ^cts of Parliament of three former reigns ? Secondly : 
 the writer wishes to ask your Lordship, whether or no 
 you think it is for the peace and safety of the sister isle, 
 to alarm the bulk of its inhabitants with the threat of 
 their being dispossessed of the elective franchise, which 
 they have now enjoyed for a quarter of a century ? In 
 like manner, is it conducive to this important end, for a 
 person of his Lordship's character and consequence to 
 assure this people, that the Pope's jurisdiction and Eng- 
 land's dominion over them * were introduced into Ire- 
 
 * land by the mercenary compact of the Pope and Henry 
 
 * II.' p. 24, * founded on a fiction of the grossest kind, 
 ' the pretended donation of Constantine,'p. v. though, 
 by the bye, this was never once mentioned or hinted 
 at by either of the parties ? Lastly : the writer would 
 be glad to be informed by your Lordship, whether it
 
 ADDRESS. Xlil 
 
 is for the advantage of the Established Church so 
 highly to extol John Wickliffe, who maintained that 
 Clergymen ought to have no sort of temporal posses- 
 sions ? And is it for the security of the State to hold 
 up Lord Cobham as * a great and good man, and the 
 ' martyr of Protestantism,' p. vii. (l), who was con- 
 victed in the King's Bench, and in open Parliament, 
 of raising an insurrection of 20,000 men, for the pur- 
 pose of killing the King and his brother, and the Lords 
 Spiritual and Temporal, and who was executed for the 
 same, merely because he was a JVickliffite f How inno- 
 cent was Colonel Despard, compared with Sir John 
 Oldcastle, called Lord Cobham ! 
 
 The writer has spoken of the object of the publica- 
 tion which has lately appeared, under the name of a 
 Rt. Rev. Bishop of the Established Church : he now* 
 proceeds to say something of its contents. 
 
 It professes to be THE PROTESTANT'S CATE- 
 CHISM. From this title, most people will suppose it 
 to be an elementary book, for the instruction oj Pro' 
 test ants of every description in the doctrine and morality 
 taught by Jesus Christ : but not a word can the writer 
 find in it about Christ, or God, or any doctrinal matter 
 whatever ; except that, * They, who do not hold the 
 
 (1) See Walsingham's Historia Major. Knighton Leicest. Collier's Ecdes. 
 Hist. Stow, &c.
 
 XIV ADDRESS. 
 
 * worship of the Church of Rome to be idolatrous, are 
 ' not Protestants, whatever they may profess to be,' 
 p. 46. ; which is a sentence of excommunication 
 against many of the brightest hghts and chief orna- 
 ments of the Bishop's own Church. Nor does this 
 novel Catechism contain any moral or practical lesson ; 
 except that ' Every member of Parliament's con- 
 'science is pledged against the Catholic claims;' and, 
 what has been mentioned before, that as ' Popery is 
 
 * idolatrous, it is not to be tolerated, either in public or in 
 
 * private,' and that ' it must be now thought how to re- 
 ' move it,' p. 3. Had the Catechism appeared without 
 a name, it might be supposed to be a posthumous 
 work of Lord George Gordon ; but, had its origin 
 been traced to the mountains of Wales, it would cer- 
 tainly be attributed to some itinerant Jumper, rather 
 than to a successor of St. Dubritius and St. David. 
 What, however, chiefly distinguishes The Protestant 
 Catechism from other No-Popery publications, is, not 
 so much the strength of its acrimony, as the boldness of 
 its paradoxes. These, for themost part, stand in con 
 tradiction to all ancient records, and modern authors, 
 Protestant as well as Catholic, being supported by 
 the bare word of the Bishop of St. David's : and what 
 is still more extraordinary, they sometimes stand in 
 contradiction to the word of the Bishop of St. David's
 
 ADDRESS. XV 
 
 himself; resting in this case, on the word of Dr. 
 Thomas Burgess, I purpose exhibiting a few of the 
 paradoxes I refer to. 
 
 The great and fundamental paradox of the Right 
 Rev. Catechist is, that Protestantism subsisted many- 
 hundred years before Popery ; at the same time that 
 he makes its essence consist in a renunciation of and 
 opposition to Popery ! for his Lordship lectures his 
 Protestant pupils in the following manner : * Question. 
 
 * What is Protestantism ? Answer. The abjuration of 
 
 * Popery and the exclusion of Papists from all power 
 ' ecclesiastical and civil.* P. 12. * Question. What is 
 
 * Popery? Answer, The Religion of the Church of 
 ' Rome, so called because the Church of Rome is sub- 
 
 * ject to the jurisdiction of the Pope.' P. II. Q. When 
 ' was this jurisdiction assumed over the whole Church ? 
 
 *A. At the beginning of the seventh century.' P. 15. 
 The writer does not here refute the various errors of 
 the Right Rev. Bishop on these heads : this refutation 
 will be found in the following letters ; he barely exhi- 
 bits one of the Bishop's leading paradoxes. It may be 
 here stated as another very favourite parodox of the 
 Prelate, since he has maintained it in a former work, 
 that, because Venantius Fortunatus, a poet of the 
 sixth century sings that * the stylus or writings of St. 
 Paul had run East, West, North, and South, and passed 
 into Britain and the remote Thule,' and because Theo-
 
 XVI ADDRESS. 
 
 doret, an author of the fifth century, says that, ' St. 
 
 * Paul brought salvation to the islands in the sea,' 
 (namely, Malta and Sicily, Acts xxviii.) it follows that 
 the British Church wa.s founded by St. Paul ! p. 19. (!) 
 This paradox might be stated and even granted for any 
 thing it makes in favour of the Bishop's object, which 
 is to invalidate the supremacy of Saint Peter. For it 
 matters not which Apostle founded this Church or that 
 Church, while it is evident, from the words of Christ 
 in St. Matthew c. xvi. v. 18, and in other texts ; and, 
 from the concurring testimony of the Fathers and 
 all antiquity, that Christ built the whole Church on 
 the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, he him- 
 self being the chief corner stone, so as still to ground 
 it, next after himself, on the Rock, Peter (2). This 
 will be found demonstrated in the following work : 
 Letter xlvi. A third paradox of the Prelatic Catechist 
 is this : Having undertaken to prove that ' The Church 
 
 * of Rome was founded by St. Paul/ p. 13, no less than 
 
 (1) The falsity of this inference and the weakness and unfairness of the 
 Bishop's arguments on the whole subject, have been well exposed by an able 
 and learned writer, The Rev. John Lingard, in his Examination of Certain 
 Opinions advanced bt/ the Rct. Dr. Burgess, SfC. 1813. Syers, Manchester; 
 Xeating and Brown, London. 
 
 (2) The Right Rev, Prelate seems to have been forced out of his former cavil 
 concerning the difference of gender between Tlerpog and Tlerpa in the text. 
 Matt. xvi. by a learned colleagxie of his [Landaf! from remote ages was a 
 thorn in the side of Menevia] who has shewn him that Christ did not speak 
 Greek but Syriac, and on this occasion, made use of the word Cephas, Rock, 
 which admits of no variation of genders.
 
 ADDRESS. XVll 
 
 the Church of Britain, he attempts to draw an argu- 
 ment from their different discipline in the observance 
 of Easter; that the latter was 'independent' of the 
 former, p. 23. Hence it would follow that St. Paul 
 established one discipline, that which the Prelate him- 
 self now follows, at Rome, and another^ * that of the 
 
 * Church of Ephesus and the Eastern Churches, in 
 
 * Britain/ p. 17. The truth is, his Lordship has quite 
 bewildered himself in the ancient controversy about 
 the right time of keeping Easter. He will learn, how- 
 ever, from the following letters, that the British Church' 
 originally agreed with that of Rome, in this, no less 
 than in the other points, as the Emperor Constantine 
 expressly declares in his letter on that subject ( 1 ), and 
 as farther appears by the Acts of the Council of Aries, 
 which the British Bishops, there present, joined with 
 the rest in subscribing. And when, after the Saxon 
 invasion, the British Churches got into a wrong com-- 
 putation, they did not follow that of the Asiatic 
 Quarto-decimans, but always kept Easter-day on a 
 Sunday, differing from the practice of the Continent 
 only once in seven years. A fourth paradox of the 
 Catechism maker, is, that, admitting, as he does, the 
 existence of our Christian King, Lucius, in the second 
 century, he, nevertheless, rejects his conversion by the 
 missionaries of Pope Eleutherius, Fugatius and Duvi- 
 
 (1) Euseb. Vit. Constant. L. iii. c. 19. 
 PART I. C
 
 XVlll ADDRESS. 
 
 anus, as 'a mere Romish fiction and a monkish fable,' 
 p. 23 ; notwithstanding both facts rest on exactly 
 the same authority, namely, that of all the original 
 writers, British, Saxon, English, Roman, and Gal- 
 lic (l). A fifth paradox of the Bishop's is, that ' The 
 
 * British Churches were Protestant before they were 
 
 * Popish,' p. 23 ; ' six centuries elapsed before Popery 
 
 * ha I any footing in this island,' p. 28; and that * the 
 
 * British Bishops shewed their independence of the 
 
 * Pope's authority by rejecting the overtures of Aus- 
 ' tin, and by refusing to acknowledge any authority 
 
 * but that of their own metropolitan,' p. 24. And yet 
 it is demonstrated that the British Bishops were present, 
 not only at the Councils of Aries and Nice, which ac- 
 knowledged the Pope's authority, but also at that of 
 Sardica in lUyrium, held in 347 (2), where the right 
 of appeal to the Pope in all Ecclesiastical causes from 
 every part of the world was confirmed (3). It is 
 equally certain that in the former part of the following 
 century, Pope Celestine sent St. Paladius to convert 
 the Scots, St. Patrick to convert the Irish, and St. 
 Germanus to reclaim such Britons as had fallen into 
 
 (1) Nennius' Ilist. Briton, c.xviii. Girald. Cambr. De Jur. Menev. P. ii. 
 Angl.Sac. p. 541. Silvest. Girald. Camb. Descript. c. xviii. The Ancient Re- 
 gister of Landaff, quod Teilo vocatur, Angl. Sacra, vol. ii. Gildas Historicus, 
 quoted by Iliidborn. Galfrid Monumet. Ven. Bede, L. i. c 4. The Saxon 
 Chronicle. Gul. Malm. Antiq. Glasion. Martyr. Roro. Raderus, &c. &c 
 (2) St. Athan. Apolog. 2. See also Usher. (3) Can. iii.
 
 ADDRESS. XIX 
 
 the Pelagian heresy (l). Each of these facts is express- 
 ly affirmed by a contemporary author of the highest 
 character, St. Prosper ; and the last mentioned fact is 
 conformable to the British records, which represent 
 this foreign Bishop, as exercising high acts of juris- 
 diction in Britain, which he never could have exercised 
 but in virtue of the Papal Supremacy, of which he and 
 his companion, St. Lupus, Bishop of Treves, were the 
 delegates; such as consecrating Bishops in different 
 parts of the island, and constituting St. Dubritius 
 Archbishop of the Right Side of it, or of Wales (2). 
 But how many other proofs of the dependency of the 
 ancient British Church on the See of Rome has not our 
 Episcopal Antiquary met with in his own favourite 
 author and predecessor, Giraldus Cambrensis (3), es- 
 pecially where the latter gives an account of his pleading 
 before the Pope for the Archiepiscopal dignity of St. 
 
 (1) St. Prosper. ' Papa Celestinus Germanum Antisidorensem Episco- 
 * pura, VICE SUA mittit, et deturbatis hterelicis, Britannos ad Catholicam 
 'fidem dirigit.' Chron. ad An. 429. See also Arcbbish. Usher. De Brit. 
 Eccl. Prim. 
 
 (2) * Postquam prasdicti Seniores (Germanus et Lupus) Pelagianam baere- 
 ' sim extirpaverant ; Episcopos in pluribus locis Britanniae Insulas conse- 
 
 * craverunt. Super omnes autera Britannos dextrabs partis Brilannias B. 
 ' Dubritium, summum Doctoreni, a liege et ab omni parochia electum, Ar- 
 
 * chiepiscopum consecraverunt.' Ex Antiq. Eccl. Landav. Registro. Angl. 
 Sacr. P. ii. p. 667. 
 
 (3) The New Biographical Dictionary divides Silvester Giraldus Cam- 
 brensis into two diflfcrent persons, whereas, it is plain, from this author's De- 
 scription of Wales, p. 882, Edit. Cambden, that these three nameni belong to 
 one and the same author. 
 
 c 2
 
 XX ADDRESS. 
 
 David's, which the latter asserted was forinerly decorat- 
 ed even with the Pallium^ the mark of Papal legatine 
 jurisdiction; till one of his predecessors, Sampson, as 
 he asserted, flying into Britanny, transferred it to Dol? 
 He maintained, however, that, excepting the use of 
 the Pallium, the Church of St. David possessed the 
 whole Metropolitical dignity, and was * subject to no 
 
 * other Church except that of Rome, and to that im- 
 
 * mediately (1).' The modern Prelate does but add to 
 the wonder of his learned readers by appealing to the 
 conference between St. Austin, Pope Gregory's Mis- 
 sionary and Legate in England, and the Welsh Bishops, 
 A. D. 502, and to the latters 'rejecting the overtures* 
 of the former, in proof of their ' rejecting the Pope's 
 
 * authority,* p. 24. For, what were these overtures ? 
 They were these three : that they, the Welsh Bishops, 
 would keep Easter at the right time ; that they would 
 adopt the Roman Ritual in the administration of Bap- 
 tism ; and that they would join with the Roman Mis- 
 sionaries in preaching the word of God to the Pagan 
 
 (1) * Usque ad Anglorum Regem Henricum I. totam Metropoliticam dig- 
 '* nilatem, praeter usum Pallii, Ecclesia Menevensis obtinuit ; nulli Ecclesiae 
 
 * prorsus, niii Romanes tantuni, et illi immediate, sicut nee Ecclesia Scolica, 
 ' subjectionem debens.' Do Jur. Menev. Ecc. Angl. Sac, P. ii. p. 511. The 
 Rival See of LandafF bears equal testimony to the Supremacy of Rome. * Si- 
 
 * cut Romana Ecclesia cxcedit dignitatem omnium Ecclesiarum Catholicae 
 
 * fidei, ita Ecclesia ilia Landavia excedit omnes Ecclesias totius dextralis Bri- 
 
 * tanniae.' Ex Antiq. Regist. Landav. Angl. Sac. P. ii. p. 669.
 
 ADDRESS^ XXI 
 
 EtigUsh {!). Thfs last overture demonstrates, that 
 fteither ott the two former points, nor on any other 
 point, and least of all on that of the Pope's Supremacy, 
 was there, in the opinion of St. Austin, any difference, of 
 essentkl consequence, between hi doctrine and that 
 of thie Welsh Bishops. For, if there had been such :a 
 "difference, and especially if they )had denied the Su- 
 ptemacy of his master, the Pope, would he have invited 
 and even pressed them to join with him in preaching 
 the Gospel to his new and increasing flock in England? 
 As well may we believe that a faithful shepherd, would 
 collect together and turn into his fold a number of hun- 
 gry wolves ! It is true they then said, they would not 
 receive St. Augustin for their Archbishop (2) : hut 
 neither did he nor the Pope require them to do so; 
 nor is the vindication of the rights of an ancient 
 Church, at any time, a denial of the Pope's general 
 Supremacy. So far from this, within two years from 
 the holding of that conference, we find Oudoceus^ 
 Bishop of Landaff, going to Canterbury to receive 
 consecration from the same St. Austin, and we find 
 him received, on his return into Wales, by the King, 
 Princes, Clergy and People, with the highest honour (3). 
 
 (1) * Ut genti Anglorum una nobiscum praedicetis verbutn Domini.* Bed. 
 Eccl. Hist. L. ii. c. 2. 
 
 (2) Ibid. 
 
 (3) Vita Oudocei, quoted by Godwia De Praesul, and Usher,
 
 XXll ADDRESS. 
 
 We have, moreover, the testimony of the above quoted 
 British Register, that the Bishops of LandafF, from this 
 period, were always subject and obedient to the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury , who M'as at all times the 
 
 Pope's Legate. The Right Rev. Bishop's argument 
 
 to prove that the Irish Church was not, anciently, in 
 communion with the Church of Rome, namely, be- 
 cause it was in communion with the British Bishops, 
 p. 24, is as great a paradox as any. of the above-men- 
 tioned; since it has been proved that the British 
 Bishops themselves were always in communion with 
 the Church of Rome. Of che same description are the 
 assertions, that no legate was appointed by the Pope in 
 Ireland * before Gillebert in the twelfth century,' and 
 that ' the Pope's jurisdiction was first introduced into 
 
 * Ireland by the mercenary compact of the Pope and 
 
 * Henry II.' p. 25. To expose the inconsistency of 
 these assertions nothing more is necessary than to con- 
 sult the Antiquities of Usher himself, on whose au- 
 thority they are said to be grounded. This Protestant 
 Archbishop, then, testifies from ancient records, which 
 he cites, that first St. Palladius, and after him St. Pa- 
 trick, was sent into Ireland by Pope Celestine, to con- 
 vert its inhabitants from Pagan Idolatry ; the former 
 in 431, the latter in 432 ; that St. Patrick * having es- 
 
 * tablishcd the Church of Ireland and ordained Bishops 
 
 * and Priests throughout the whole island, went to
 
 ADDRESS* XXlil 
 
 * Rome, in 46% where he procured from Pope Hilary 
 ' the confirmation of whatever he had done in Ireland, 
 
 * together with the Pallium and the title of Pope's Le- 
 
 * gate (l);' that in 540 the celebrated St. Finan, of 
 Clonard, having spent seven years at Rome, and being 
 consecrated Bishop, returned into Ireland, where he 
 instituted schools and convents, one of which con- 
 tained 3000 monks (2). It appears from the same 
 annalist, that in 580 the renowned St. Columban passed 
 from Ireland to the Continent, where he was protected 
 by different Bishops and Princes, for his orthodoxy and 
 piety, and even by the Popes themselves with whom 
 he corresponded; that in 630 a deputation was sent 
 from Ireland, of learned and holy men * to the foun- 
 
 * tain of their baptism, like children to their mo- 
 
 * ther (3),' namely, to the Apostolic See of Rome, to 
 consult with it on matters of religion ; that among 
 these was St. Lasrean, who was consecrated Bishop by 
 Pope Honorius, and appointed his Legate in Ire- 
 land (4) ; that in 640 Tomianus and four other 
 Bishops, being still anxious about the right observance 
 of Easter, and about the Pelagian heresy, wrote to 
 
 (1) Usher's A ntiq. Index Chronol. (2) Usher Priniord. (3) Usher. 
 
 (4) Gillcbert was succeeded in the Legatine Office by St. Malachy,who by 
 a special authority erected the See of Tuam into an Archbishopric. After 
 his death Cardinal Papario was sent by Pope Eugenius III. into Ireland, 
 namely, in 1151, with four Palliums for the four Archbishoprics. So false 
 is the Prelate's account of the origin of the Pope's Jurisdiction in Ireland !
 
 XXl^- A DDK ESS. 
 
 consult Pope Severinus, and that they received an 
 answer to their letter from his successor Pope John. 
 Numerous other testimonies, not only of the communion 
 of the Church of Ireland with that of Rome, but also 
 of its acknowledging the Pope's Supremacy, may be col- 
 lected from Usher, Ware, and other Protestant, no less 
 than from the original Catholic writers, down to the 
 very time of Gillebert, Bishop of Limerick, whom the 
 Catechist admits to have been the Pope's Legate in 
 Ireland. This happened, according to Uslier, in 1 1 30, 
 twenty-five years before the date of what the Catechist 
 calls * the mercenary compact of the Pope and Henry 
 * 11. by which,' he says, * the Pope's Jurisdiction was 
 ^ first introduced into Ireland,* and forty years before 
 the latter invaded Ireland ; which island, after all, as 
 every child knows, he invaded, not as the executor of 
 Pope Adrian's legacy, but as the ally of the dethroned 
 King, Dermot. 
 
 In speaking of the beginning and progress of the 
 Religion of our own ancestors, the English, it might 
 be expected the Right Rev. Catechist would have 
 paid more attention to truth and consistency than he 
 has done with respect to the foregoing more obscure 
 histories. This, however, is not the case. But, previ- 
 ously to the writer's entering on this particular subject, 
 he wishes to observe what is more fully demonstrated 
 in the following work, that the Catechist, totally mis-
 
 ADDRESS. XXV 
 
 represents our Apostle, Pope Gregory the Great, "ik 
 having 'reprobated the Spiritual Supremacy,* and also 
 ' his successor Boniface as being the first Pope to as- 
 ' sume it,' p. 16. In short, the question, at issue, is not 
 concerning the title, but the power of a head Bishop ; 
 which povVtr, as it will appear below, no Pope exercised 
 more frequently or extensively than * the learned and 
 
 * virtuous St. Gregory,* to use the Prelate's own epithets. 
 His Lordship does not deny that our ancestors, the 
 Anglo-Saxons, were converted to Christianity by ' the 
 
 * Pope's Missionaries,* p. 28, namely, by St. Austin 
 and his companions, sent hither by the above-men- 
 tioned Pope Gregory, in 597 ; nor does he contradict 
 the account of our venerable historian, Bede, who de- 
 scribes the whole jurisdiction and discipline of our 
 Church, as being regulated by that Pope and his suc- 
 cessors. Still the Prelate most paradoxically denies 
 that * the Pope ever exercised jurisdiction in England 
 
 * or Ireland, except during the four centuries before 
 ' the Reformation !' p. 11 ; and he maintains, in parti- 
 cular, that * the Anglo-Saxon Churches differed from 
 ' the Church of Rome in their objection to Image wor^ 
 
 * shipping, the Invocation of Saints, TransubstantiatioHj 
 
 * and other errors,' p. 28. Here are two paradoxes to 
 be refuted ; one concerning the spiritual pozver, the 
 other concerning the doctrine of the See of Rome* 
 With resj)ect to the former : is it not a fact, my Lord, 
 
 PART I. d
 
 XXVI ADDRESS. 
 
 known to every ecclesiastical antiquary, that each one 
 of our Primates, from St. Austin down to Stigand, 
 exclusively, who was deposed soon after the Conquest, 
 either went to Rome to fetch, or had transmitted to 
 him from Rome, the emblem and jurisdiction of lega- 
 tine authority, by which he held and exercised the 
 power of a Metropolitan over his suffragan Bishops ? 
 An original author, Radulph Diceto, exhibits a 
 succinct but clear demonstration of this, in a series of 
 all the Archbishops, and a list of the different Popes, 
 from whom the former respectively received the Pal- 
 lium. Did not St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, 
 appeal to the Pope from the uncanonical sequestration 
 of his diocese by the Primate Theodore ? Did not 
 Offa, the powerful Mercian King, engage Pope Adrian 
 to transfer six suffragan Bishoprics from the See of 
 Canterbury to that of Lichfield, constituting it, at the 
 same time, an Archbishopric ? A hundred other in- 
 stances of the exercise of the Pope's ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction in England, previously to the Conquest, 
 could be produced, if they were wanted. As to the 
 pretended difference between the doct7^i?te of ihe Anglo- 
 Saxons and the Church of Rome, the Catechist was 
 bound to inform his readers when it took place; and 
 who were the authors of it; that is, who first persuaded 
 the whole English nation to reject the Religion they 
 had been taught by their Apostles, Pope Gregory and
 
 ^ ADDRESS. XXVlf 
 
 his Missionaries ; and whether this change was effected 
 by slow degrees, or all of a sudden (l). If so absurd 
 a paradox, as the above-mentioned, required a serious 
 refutation, it might be stated that, in 610, Bishop 
 Melitus, who afterwards became Primate, went to 
 Rome to obtain the Pope's confirmation of certain re- 
 gulations which had been made in England, that he 
 subscribed to the Acts of an Episcopal Synod, then held 
 in that city, which Acts he brought back with him to 
 England (2), and that, in 680, St. Wilfrid, going to 
 Rome, to prosecute his appeal, was present at a Council 
 of 125 Bishops, where, * In the name of all the Churches 
 
 * in the North Part of Britain, Ireland, and the nations 
 
 * of the Scots and Picts, he made open profession of 
 
 (1) To make some brief confutation of each of the Catechist's alledged 
 differences between the Anglo-Saxon Church and that of Rome : Bade testi- 
 fies, that when St. Austin and his fellow Missionaries preached the Gospel to 
 King Ethelbert, they carried a cross for their ensign with a painted picture 
 of Christ, L. i. c. 25. Will. Malmsb. mentions that, among other pious images, 
 preserved at Glastonbury, were those of Christ and his Apostles, made of 
 silver and given by King Ina. De Antiq. Glaston. We learn from Arch- 
 bishop Cuthred's letter to Lullus, successor of St. Boniface, Bishop and 
 Martyr of Mentz, that a Synod of Anglo-Saxon Bishops had chosen this 
 Saint, and St. Gregory, and St. Austin, to be their * patrons and intercessors.' 
 Inter Episi. Bonif. That our ancestors believed in Transubstantiation, is clear,^ 
 from Osbern's relation of Archbishop Odo's rendering this visible. Angl. 
 Sac. P. ii. p. 82. One of his successors, Lanfrank, was the principal defender 
 of this doctrine against Berengarius. It may be added, that the original faith 
 concerning Purgatory, the Mass, and, perhaps, every other controverted point 
 can be proved from Bede's History alone. 
 
 (2) Bede, L. ii. c. 4. 
 
 d 2
 
 XXVUl ADPRESS. 
 
 * the true Catholic Faith, confirming it also by his 
 
 * subscription (!)' 
 
 Other paradoxes of the Right Rev. Prelate, relating 
 to matters of a later date, are these, that Pope Adrian 
 IV. grounded his right to give away Ireland on * the 
 
 * forged donation of Constantine,* though he never 
 once alluded to it, but assigned quite other grounds 
 for what he did ; and that * the Pope now owes the 
 
 * whole of his temporal and spiritual power on the 
 
 * Continent, to this gross fiction, and the Decretal 
 
 * Epistles,' p. V. Alas ! what must the learned Catho- 
 lics of the Continent, who were the first to detect these 
 literary frauds of the eighth century, and to trace them 
 to the place of their birth in Lower Germany, think of 
 the literature of this country, when they hear a Bishop, 
 and a member of our learned Societies, telling them 
 that they would not acknowledge the Pope to be Prince 
 of Rome or Head of the Church, were it not for those 
 spurious pieces ! A similar paradox is, that ' The Popish 
 
 * Bishops and Popish Clergy were the real authors of 
 
 * the Jictitious statutes (Acts of Parliament) of Richard 
 
 * II. Henry IV. and Henry V.' against the Lollards ; 
 though they neither did, nor were permitted, to inter- 
 fere in those Acts ; and though it is notorious from all 
 ppntemporary history, that these severe edicts were 
 
 (^) Bede, L. v. c. 20,
 
 ADDRES3. XXIX 
 
 occasioned by what that anarchical faction had done 
 and threatened to do. They had, under the command 
 gf Wat Tyler, and John Ball, a Wickliffite Priest, ac^ 
 tually put to death, by public execution, the Lord 
 Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, and the Lord Chief 
 Justice of England: and they had threatened to kill 
 the King, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and all 
 the pen and ink-'horn-'men, as they called the lawyers ; 
 as also to put down all the Clergy, except the begging 
 Friars, and to divide among themselves all their lands 
 and property (l). Such were the levellers of the fif- 
 teenth century, whom a modern Bishop eulogizes . 
 The following are Theological Paradoxes, being such 
 as will infallibly non-plus every regular student in 
 Divinity. 1st. * The Apostles were not Bishops,' p. 15, 
 By the same rule Bishops are not Priests. 2dly. *To 
 ' retain the obsolete language of ancient Ron)e, in 
 'prayer, is an error ^^ p. 39. 3dly. The Irish were 
 * guilty of a heresy of discipl'me !' p. 60. 
 
 But the political paradoxes, my Lord, of this new 
 Catechism are still more inexplicable than the theo- 
 logical ones. The first of them, which I shall mention, 
 is contained in the following question and answer. 
 ' Q. What is it excludes Pagans, Jews, and Mahome- 
 ' tans from our Churches, and from Parliament.? A. 
 
 (I) Hist. Major T. Walsingham. Knighton De Event. Angl. Collier's 
 Eccl. Hist,
 
 XXX ADDBSS. 
 
 * Religion,' p. 44. Your Lordship will permit the 
 writer to observe, in the first place, that it is impossible 
 either for the simple Catechumens of Wales, or even 
 for the learned Reviewers of England, to gather from 
 this passage, whether the Rt. Rev. Prelate means to 
 say, that it is the Religion of Pagans, Jews, and Turks, 
 or that of Protestants, which excludes the former from 
 Parliament, for example : nevertheless, the passage 
 taken cither way, is perfectly paradoxical. For can 
 that Prelate, or any one else, cite a precept of the Ve- 
 dam, or the Talmud, or the Koran, which prohibits 
 its respective votaries from sitting and voting in the 
 British Parliament, if they can get entrance into it ? 
 Or can he shew any thing in Protestantism (which he 
 defines to be ' The abjuration of Popery, and the ex- 
 ' elusion of Papists from all power, ecclesiastical or 
 
 * civil)' that prevents a man, who publicly proclaims 
 Mahomet, or who publicly denies Jesus Christ, or who 
 publicly worships the obscene and blood-stained idol 
 Juggernaut, from being a member of either House of the 
 Legislature ? No, my Lord, there is no one article in any 
 one of these Religions, if they may be called so, which 
 excludes them from our Parliament; the only condi- 
 tion for rendering them fit and worthy to enter into it, 
 and becoming legislators, being their calling God to 
 zvitness, that * there is no Transubstantiation in the 
 
 * Mass,' and that ' the worship of the Virgin Mary
 
 ADDRESS, , XXXI 
 
 ' and the Saints, as practised in the Church of Rome, 
 
 * (upon both which points the worshippers of 
 
 * Juggernaut and English Protestants are, for the 
 
 * most part, equally well instructed), are idola- 
 
 * trous r A second political paradox in this Ca- 
 techism is, that ' the inviolable covenants of the two 
 
 * Unions shew the injustice and unconstitutional na- 
 
 * ture of the Roman Catholic claims,' p. viii. This, 
 my Lord, is equally incomprehensible ; since the Act 
 of Union with Scotland neither mentions these claims, 
 nor alludes to them ; and since that of the Union with 
 Ireland expressly admits the principle of their being 
 conceded, and prepares the minds of men, for their 
 actual concession ; as it is therein enacted, that * Mem- 
 
 * hers of the United Parliament shall take and subscribe 
 ' the usual oaths and declarations UNTIL THE SAID 
 
 * PARLIAMENT SHALL OTHERWISE PRO- 
 
 ' VIDE/ Art. IV. The last of these paradoxes, 
 
 which the writer will extract from the incomprehensi- 
 ble Catechism, is the following. It teaches at page 
 25f that * Not to consent to the Veto^ is not to ac- 
 
 * knowledge the King's Supremacy y which it h treason- 
 ' abky by Statute, to oppose.' And immediately after, at 
 p. 36, it teaches that * the Veto^ or the King's nomina- 
 
 * tion, is unprotestant and illegal:' to which the Bishop 
 adds, in the words of his friend, Mr. Sharp ; * it is 
 
 * highly improper and even illegal for the Crown of
 
 xxxii Abii'iitss, 
 
 * England to accept the power of the proposed Veto ; 
 
 * or to have ani/ concern in the appointment of unre- 
 
 * formed Bishops^'' p. 56. Can any one^ my Lord, re- 
 concile these opposite doctrines ? To the plain sense 
 of the writer it appears, that if it be illegal for hi^ 
 Majesty to accept oj the Veto, it would be crimin<tl m 
 the Catholics to offer it to him ; so far from its beirtg 
 treasonable to refuse giving it ! oH 3fb 'io mm 
 
 MY LORD BISHOP, 
 The wise man has said, in the Sacred Text, of making 
 matiy books there is no end, Eccles* xii. 12. ; and we 
 are certain, from reason and experience, that, least of 
 all, will there be an end of making books, and disput- 
 ing on subjects of Religion, with respect to those 
 who have no fixed rule, or none but a false one, 
 for deciding on religious controversies, or who suffer 
 worldly interest, pride, or the prejudices of education, 
 to take place of the sincerity, humility and piety, 
 which ought to guide them in a matter of such infinite 
 moment. The writer trusts that, in the First Part of 
 the following Letters he has shewn the /?w/e, appointed 
 by Christ, for clearly discerning the truths he has 
 revealed, and, which conducts to the same end ; that 
 he has, in his Second Party clearly pointed out Christ's 
 True Church, which cannot but teach his True Doc- 
 trine. With men of good will, who follow either of 
 these ways in the uprightness and fervour of their
 
 ADDRESS. XXXiif 
 
 souls, a satisfactory end to their religious discus- 
 sions and doubts will quickly be found. But who 
 can subdue or soften the above-mentioned passions 
 and prejudices ? No one, certainly, but God alone ; 
 and, as the greater part of mankind is notoriously 
 under their influence, the writer is so far from expect- 
 ing to make these persons proselytes to his demonstra- 
 tions, that he has prepared his mind for the opposition 
 and obloquy, which he is sure to experience from 
 them. He is aware, that most Statesmen, and other 
 great personages, regard Religion merely as a political 
 engine, for managing the population, and therefore, 
 wish to keep one as well as the other as quiet as possi- 
 ble. On this principle, had they been counsellors to 
 King Ethelbert, they would have persuaded him to 
 banish St. Austin, and to continue the worship of 
 Thor and Woden. The multitude, in this age of in- 
 fidelity and dissipation, nauseate religious inquiries and 
 instructions ; and, when they must hear them, like the 
 Jews of old ; they say to the Seer, see not ; and to the 
 Prophet, prophesy not to us right things : speak unto 
 us smooth things; prophesy deceits, Isai. xxx. 10. The 
 Critics and Reviewers are, for the most part, as smooth^ 
 in this repect, as the prophets : if they lead the public 
 opinion in matters of less consequence, they follow it 
 in those of greater. But whatever e^vcuse there may 
 be for the inconsistency of other men, in religious 
 PART I. e
 
 XX;tlV ADDRESS. 
 
 matters, there would, evidently, be none for persons of 
 your Lordship's and the writer's profession and situa- 
 tion, should they, for their temporal advantage, or 
 their prejudices, mislead others in a matter of eternal 
 consequence. Such conduct would be hypocritical, and 
 doubly perfidious and ruinous. It would be perfidious 
 to the individuals so misguided, and to the Church 
 or Sect which they profess to serve ; since nothing can 
 injure that so much, as the appearance of insincerity 
 and human passions in its official defenders. Accord-? 
 ingly it will be seen, in the following work, that the 
 most fruitful source of conversions to the Catholic 
 Church, are the detected calumnies and misrepresenta- 
 tions of her bitterest enemies. Such conduct would 
 also be utterly ruinous : first, to its immediate victims ; 
 and, secondly, to the persons of your Lordship's and the 
 writer's profession and character. In fact, my Lord, 
 if, as Christ assures us, at the great day of universal 
 trial, some of the arraigned will rise up in judgment 
 against others, and condemn them for their peculiar 
 guilt, Matt. xii. 41. ; how heavy a condemnation will 
 poor bewildered souls call down upon those faithless 
 guides, who have led them astray ! Or rather, how 
 severe a vengeance will the Good Shepherd himself 
 (then also the Judge of the living and the dead) who 
 hath laid down his life for his sheep^ take of those hire- 
 lings, who have not only left his sheep to be caught and
 
 ADDRESS. XXXV 
 
 scattered bi/ the wolf, but have themselves, killed and 
 destj'oi/ed them ! John x. 
 
 For all these important motives, let us, my Lord, 
 dismiss every selfish interest, human respect, and pre-, 
 judice from our minds, in the discussion of religious 
 subjects, and follow Truths whithersoever she leads 
 us, with the utmost sincerity and ardour of our souls. 
 The writer of this, for his part, disgusted, as he is, at 
 seieing the most serious and sacred of all subjects be- 
 come a mere field of exercise for the talents, the learn- 
 ing, and the passions of different writers, and averse, as 
 he is, from taking a part in such contests, neverthe- 
 less holds himself* bound, not only to render an aC" 
 count of the hope that is in him^ to every one who asketh 
 it of him f in the sincerity of an upright heart, but 
 also to yield the palm to your Lordship thankfully and 
 publicly, should you be able to prove (not, however, by 
 extravagant and unsupported assertions, but by sound 
 and convincing theological arguments) that the Rule of 
 Faith, which he maintains, is not the one appointed by 
 Christ and his Apostles, for guiding Christians into all 
 truth ; or that the Church, to which he adheres, has not 
 exclusively those marks of the True Church, which 
 your Lordship ascribes to it, in the Creeds you 
 repeat, equally with the writer. Until one or other 
 of these points is proved, he will hold himself bound 
 to stick close both to the Rule and tlie Church, iu
 
 XXXVl ADDRESS. 
 
 Spite of calumny, misrepresentation, ridicule, cla- 
 mour, and persecution, and to maintain, in opposition 
 to your Lordship, that there is no just cause for either 
 making or continuing any penal laws against the pro- 
 fessors of the Original Faith. 
 
 The writer has the honour to remain. 
 My Lord, 
 
 Your Lordship's obedient Servant, 
 
 J. M. D. D. 
 W 9 Mai/ 3, 1818. V
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART. I. 
 
 LETTER I. -Introduction. 
 
 Page 
 Mr, Brown's Jpology to Dr, M. Account 
 
 of the Friendly Society of New Cottage , , 1 
 
 ESSAY I. 
 
 On the Existence of God and Natural Religion, 
 by the Rev. Samuel Carey ^ LL. D 7 
 
 ESSAY II. 
 On the Truth of the Christian Religion, by Do, 14 
 
 LETTER II To James Brown, Esq. 
 
 Dr, M 's Conditions for entering on the 
 
 Correspondence. Freedom of Speech. 
 
 Sincerity and Candour. A Conclusive Method ^5 
 
 LETTER III. From James Brown, Esq. 
 
 Agreement to the Conditions on the part of the 
 Society 29 
 
 LETTER IV. To James Brown, Esq. 
 
 Dispositions for success in Religious Inquiries. 
 
 Renunciation of prejudices, passions, and 
 
 vicious inclinations. Fervent Prayer . . 31
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER v. To Do. 
 
 Pag. 
 
 Rule or Method of finding out the True Reli- 
 gion. Christ has left a Rule. This Rule 
 
 must be sure and unerring. It must he adap' 
 
 ted to the capacity and situations of the bulk 
 
 of mankind 35 
 
 LETTER VL To Do. 
 
 First fallacious Rule ; Private Inspiration, 
 
 This has led numberless Christians into errors^ 
 impiety, and vice, in ancient and in modern times, 
 
 Account of Modern Fanatics, Anabaptists, 
 
 Quakers^ Moravians, Swedenborgians, Met ho- 
 dists, ^c 38 
 
 LETTER VIL To Do. 
 
 Objections of certain Members of the Society 
 anszvered 06 
 
 LETTER VIII. To Do. 
 
 Second fallacious Rule; the Scripture according to 
 
 each person's particular interpretation of it. 
 
 Christ did not intend that mankiiid, in general, 
 
 should learn his Religion from a Book. No 
 
 Legislator ever made Laws without providing 
 Judges and Magistrates to explain and enforce 
 them. Dissensions, divisions, immorality, and 
 infidelity xvhich have arisen from the private 
 
 interpretation of Scripture, Illusions of 
 
 Protestants in this matter. Their incow 
 
 sistency in making Articles, Catechisms, S<^c, 
 
 Acknozvledgement of learned Protestants 
 
 on this head GS
 
 CONTENTS. XXxix 
 
 LETTER IX. To Do. 
 
 Page 
 
 The subject continued. Protestants have no em- 
 
 dence of the Inspiration of Scripture : nor of 
 its authenticity : nor of the fidelity of their 
 copies : nor of its sense. Causes of the ob- 
 scurity of Scripture : Instances of this, 
 
 The Protestant Rule affords no ground for 
 Faith. Doubts in which those who follow it 
 line and also die ,*,-.. 84 
 
 LETTER X. To Do. 
 
 The True Rule, nameli/, The Whole JVord of God, 
 unwritten as well as written, subject to the inter- 
 
 pretation of the Church, In this and in every 
 
 other country y the written law is grounded upon 
 the unwritten law. Christ taught the apos- 
 tles by word of mouth, and sent them to preach it 
 
 by word of mouth. This method wasfollozved 
 
 by them and their disciples and successors. 
 Testimonies of this from the Fathers of the five 
 first centuries 100 
 
 LETTER XL To Do. 
 
 The subject continued, Frotestants forced to 
 
 have recourse to the Catholic Rule, in different 
 
 instances. Differ e7it instances of this. 
 
 Their vain attempts to adopt it in other in- 
 stances. Quibbling evasions of the Articles, 
 
 Canons, Oaths, and Laxvs respecting uni- 
 formity. Acknowledged necessity of deceiv- 
 ing the people. Bishop Hoadley the patron 
 
 of this hypocrisy, The Catholic Rule con-
 
 CONTENTS. 
 Xl 
 
 Page 
 
 fessed by Bishop Marsh to he the Original 
 Rule. Proofs that it has never been abro- 
 gated, Advantages of this Rule to the 
 
 Church at large, and to its individual members 118 
 
 LETTER XII. To Do. 
 
 Objections answered, Texts of Scripture, 
 
 Other objections, Illusory declamation of 
 
 Bishop Porteus. The advice of Tobias, when 
 
 he sent his Son into a strange country, reconi' 
 mended to the Society of New Cottage . . . 146
 
 TOBIAS SA1D_-1 XNOVf riOT. THE. WAY HIS FATHER AlS WERE D, 
 
 SEEK THt A FAITHFUL GT31DE. 
 
 ToV. C. t; V. 1.2. 5. 
 
 y*w { ; * r Ktitfym
 
 THE 
 
 END 
 
 RELIGIOUS CONTROVEKSY, 
 
 ;cr.;[ii i r LETTER I. 
 
 ' ^From JAMES BROWN, Esq. to the Rev. J, M. D.D. F. S. A. 
 
 ........ INTRODUCTION. 
 
 New Cottage, near Cressage, Salop, Oct. 13, 1801. 
 REVEREND SIR, 
 
 ' ; ' s ;f i Should need an ample apology 
 
 for the libi^rtyi' take in thus addressing you, without 
 
 having the honour of your acquaintance, and still more 
 for the heavy task I am endeavouring to impose upon 
 you, if I did not consider your public character, as a 
 Pastor of your Religion, and as a writer in defence of 
 it, and likewise your personal character for benevo- 
 lence, which has been described to me by a Gentle- 
 man of your communion, Mr. J. C ne, who is well 
 acquainted with us both. Having mentioned this, I 
 need only add, that I write to you iu the name of a 
 society of serious and worthy Christians of different 
 persuasions, to which I myself belong, who are as de- 
 
 PART. I. A
 
 2 LETTER I. 
 
 sirous as I am, to receive satisfaction from you on 
 
 certain doubts, which your late work in answer to Dr. 
 
 Sturges has suggested to us. (l) 
 However, in making this request of our Society to 
 
 you, it seems proper, Rev. Sir, that I should bring you 
 acquainted with the nature of it, by way of convincing 
 you, that it is not unworthy of the attention, which I 
 am desirous you should pay to it. We consist then of 
 above twenty persons, including the Ladies, who, liv- 
 ing at some distance from any considerable town, 
 meet together once a week, generally at my habitation 
 of New Cottage, not so much for our amusement and 
 refection, as for the improvement of our minds, by 
 reading the best publications of the day which I can 
 procure from my London Bookseller, and sometimes 
 an original essay written by one of the company. 
 
 I have signified that many of us are of different 
 religious persuasions ; this will be seen more distinctly 
 from the following account of our members. Among 
 these I must mention, in the first place, our above- 
 named learned and worthy Rector, Dr. Carey. He is, 
 of course, of the Church of England; but like most 
 others of his learned and dignified brethren, in these 
 times, he is of that free, and as it is called, liberal 
 turn of mind, as to explain away the mysteries and a 
 
 (1) Letlert to a Prebendarj/^ in answer to Refiectiont on Popery, by the 
 Rev. Dr. Sturges, Prebendary and Chancellor of Winchester.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 great many of its other articles, which, in my younger 
 days, were considered essential to it. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Topham are Methodists of the Predestinarian and 
 Antinomian class, while Mr. and Mrs. Askew are 
 mitigated Arminian Methodists of Wesley's connec- 
 tion. Mr. and Mrs. Rankin are honest Quakers. Mr. 
 Barker and his children term themselves Rational 
 Dissenters^ being of the old Presbyterian lineage, 
 which is now almost universally gone into Socinianism. 
 I, for my part, glory in being a stanch member of our 
 happy Establishment, which has kept the golden mean 
 among the contending sects, and which I am fully 
 persuaded, approaches nearer to the purity of the 
 Apostolic Church than any other which has ex- 
 isted since the age of it. Mrs. Brown professes an 
 equal attachment to the Church ; yet, being of an 
 inquisitive and ardent mind, she cannot refrain from 
 frequenting the meetings, and even supporting the mis- 
 sions of those self-created apostles, who are undermin- 
 ing this Church on every side, and who are no where 
 more active than in our sequestered valley. 
 
 With these differences among us, on the most in- 
 teresting of all subjects, we cannot help having fre- 
 quent religious controversies : but reason and charity 
 enable us to manage these without an}' breach of either 
 good manners, or good will to each other. Indeed^ 
 I believe that we are, one and all, possessed of an 
 
 A2
 
 4 LETTER I. 
 
 unfeigned respect and cordial love for Christians of 
 every description, one only excepted. Must I name it 
 on the present occasion? Yes, I must; in order to 
 fulfil my commission in a proper manner. It is then 
 the Church that you, Rev. Sir, belong to; which, if 
 any credit is due to the eminent divines, whose works 
 "we are in the habit of reading, and more particularly 
 to the illustrious Bishop Porteus in his celebrated 
 and standing work, called A BRIEF CONFUTA- 
 TION OF THE ERRORS OF THE CHURCH OF 
 ROME, extracted from Archbishop Seeker's V. SER- 
 MONS AGAINST POPERY (l), is such a mass of 
 absurdity, bigotry, superstition, idolatry, and immo- 
 rality, that, to say we respect and love those who 
 obstinately adhere to it, as we do other Christians, 
 would seem a compromise of reason, scripture, and 
 virtuous feeling. 
 
 And yet even of this Church we have formed a less 
 revolting idea, in some particulars, than we did for- 
 merly. This has happened from our having just read 
 over your controversial work against Dr. Sturges, 
 called LETTERS TO A PREBENDARY, to which 
 our attention was directed by the notice taken of it in 
 the Houses of Parliament, and particularly by the very 
 
 (1) The Norrisian Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, 
 speaking of this work says : * The Refutation of tlie Popish errors is now 
 * rednced into a small compass by Archbishop Seeker and Bishop Porteus.' 
 Jjecturei in Divinity, Vol. IV. p. 71.
 
 INTBODUCTION". 5 
 
 unexpected compliment paid to it by that ornament of 
 our Church, Bishop Horsley. We admit then (at 
 least I, for my part, admit) that you have refuted the 
 most odious of the charges brought against your reli- 
 gion, namely, that it is, necessarily, and, upon princi- 
 ple, intolerant and sanguinary, requiring its members to 
 persecute with fire and sword all persons of a different 
 creed from their own, when this is in their power. 
 You have also proved that Papists may be good sub- 
 jects to a Protestant Sovereign ; and you have shewn, 
 by an interesting historical detail, that the Roman 
 Catholics of this kingdom have been conspicuous for 
 their loyalty from the time of Elizabeth down to the 
 present time. Still most of the absurd and antiscrip- 
 tural doctrines and practices on the above, relating to 
 the worship of Saints and Images, toTransubstantiation 
 and the half Communion, to Purgatory and Shutting up 
 the Bible, with others of the same nature, you have 
 not, to my recollection, so much as attempted to de- 
 fend. In a word, I write to you, Rev. Sir, on the 
 present occasion, in the name of our respectable So- 
 ciety, to ask you whether you fairly give up these 
 doctrines and practices of Popery, as untenable, or 
 otherwise, whether you will condescend to interchange 
 a few letters with me on the subject of them, for the 
 satisfaction of me and my friends, and with the sole 
 view of mutually discovering and communicating re-
 
 6 TETTER I. V 
 
 ligious truths. "We remark that you say in your first 
 Letter to Dr. Sturges : ' Should I have occasion to 
 
 * make another reply to you, I will try if it be not 
 
 * possible to put the whole question at issue between 
 ' us into such a shape as shall remove the danger of 
 
 * irritation on both sides, and still enable us, if we are 
 
 * mutually so disposed, to agree together in the ac- 
 
 * knowlcdgement of the same religious truths.' If 
 you still think that this is possible, for God's sake 
 and your neighbours' sake, delay not to undertake it. 
 The plan embraces every advantage we wish for, and 
 excludes every evil we deprecate. You shall manage 
 the discussion in your own way, and we will give you 
 as little interruption as possible. Two of the essays 
 above alluded to, with which our worthy Rector lately 
 furnished us, I, with your permission, enclose, to con- 
 vince you that genius and sacred literature are cuU 
 tivated round the Wrekin, and on the banks of the 
 Severn. 
 
 I remain, Rev. Sir, with great respect, 
 
 Your faithful and obedient servant, 
 
 JAMES BROWN.
 
 ESSAY I. 
 
 ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, AND OF NATURAL 
 RELIGION. 
 
 By the Rev, Samuel Carey, LL, Z>. 
 
 Foreseeing that my health will not permit me, 
 for a considerable time, to meet my respected friends 
 at New Cottage, I comply with the request, which 
 several of them have made me, in sending them, in 
 writing, my ideas on the two noblest subjects which 
 can occupy the mind of man : the Existence of God, 
 and the Truth of Christianity, In doing this, I pro- 
 fess not to make new discoveries, but barely to state 
 certain arguments, which I collected, in my youth, 
 from the learned Hugo Grotius, our own judicious 
 Clark, and other advocates of Natural and Revealed 
 Religion. I offer no apology for adopting the words 
 of Scripture, in arguing with persons, who are sup- 
 posed not to admit its authority, when these express 
 my meaning as fully as any others can do. 
 
 The first argument for the existence of God is thus 
 expressed by the Royal Prophet : Know ye that the 
 Lord he is God : it is he that hath made us, and not we 
 ourselves. Ps. c. 3. In fact, when I ask myself that
 
 8 ESSAT I. 
 
 question, which every reflecting man must sometimes 
 ask himself : How came I into this state of existence ? 
 Who has bestowed upon me the being which I enjoy ? I 
 am forced to answer : It is not I that made myself; 
 and each of my forefathers, if asked the same question, 
 must have returned the same answer. In like manner, 
 if I interrogate the several beings with which I am 
 surrounded, the earth, the air, the water, the stars, 
 the moon, the sun, each of them, as an ancient Father 
 says, will answer me, in its turn : It was not I that 
 made yon ; I, like you^ am a creature of yesterday , 
 as incapable of giving existence to you as I am of giving 
 it to myself In short, however often each of us re- 
 peats the question ; How came 1 hither f Who has made 
 me what I am ? we shall never find a rational answer to 
 them, till we come to acknowledge that there is an 
 Eternal^ Necessary^ Self-existent Being, the author of 
 all contingent beings, which is no other than GOD. It 
 is this Necessity of being, this Self- existence, which 
 constitute the nature of God, and from which all his 
 other perfections flow. Hence when he deigned to 
 reveal himself on the flaming mountain of Horeb 
 to the holy legislator of his chosen people, being 
 asked by this prophet ; what was his proper name ? he 
 answered : I AM THAT I AM. Exod. iii. 14. This is 
 as much as to say : / alone exist of myself : all others 
 are created beings, which exist by my will.
 
 ESSAY I. 
 
 From this attribute of Self-existence^ all the other 
 perfections of the Deity, eternity, immensity, omni- 
 potence, omniscience, holiness, justice, mercy, and 
 bounty, each in an infinite degree, necessarily flow, 
 because there is nothing to limit his existence and at- 
 tributes, and because, whatever perfection is found in 
 any created being, must, like its existence, have been 
 derived from this universal source. 
 
 This proof of the existence of God, though demon- 
 strative and self-evident to reflecting beings, is, never- 
 theless, we have reason to fear, lost on a great pro- 
 portion of our fellow-creatures ; because they hardly 
 reflect at all ; or, at least, never consider, JVho made 
 ihetrif or, what they were made for : but that other 
 proof, which results from the magnificence, the beauty, 
 and the harmony of the creation, as it falls under the 
 senses, so it cannot be thought to escape the attention 
 of the most stupid or savage of rational beings. The 
 starry heavens, the fulminating clouds, the boundless 
 ocean, the variegated earth, the organized human body, 
 all these, and many other phaenomena of nature, must 
 strike the mind of the untutored savage, no less than 
 that of the studious philosopher, with a conviction that 
 there is an infinitely powerful, wise and bountiful Being, 
 who is the author of these things : though, doubtless, 
 the latter, in proportion as he sees more clearly and ex- 
 tensively than the former the properties and oeconomy 
 PART I. B
 
 10 ESSAY I. 
 
 of different parts of the creation, possesses a stronger 
 physical evidence, as it is called, of the existence of 
 the Great Creator. In fact, if the Pagan physician, 
 Galen (l), from the imperfect knowledge which he 
 possessed of the structure of the human body, found 
 himself compelled to acknowledge the existence of 
 an infinitely wise and beneficent being, to make it 
 such as it is, what would he not have said had he been 
 acquainted with the circulation of the blood, and the 
 uses and harmony of the arteries, veins, and lacteals ! 
 If the philosophical orator, Tully, discovered and en- 
 larged on the same truth, from the little knowledge of 
 astronomy which he possessed (2), what strains of 
 eloquence would he not have poured forth upon it, 
 had he been acquainted with the discoveries of Galileo 
 and Newton, relative to the magnitude and distances 
 of the stars, the motions of the planets and the co- 
 mets ! Yes, all nature proclaims that there is a Being 
 who is wise in heart and mighty in strength : who 
 doth great things and past finding out ; yea wonders 
 without number : who stretcheth out the North over 
 the empty places and hangeth the earth upon nothing, 
 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his 
 reproof, Lo I these are a part oj his ways; but how 
 liltte a portion is heard of him ! The thunder of his 
 power who can understand ' Job. ix. xxvi. 
 
 (1) De Usu Partium. (2) De Natura Dcorum, 1. n.
 
 ESSAY I. a 
 
 The proofs, however, of God's existence, which 
 can least be evaded, are those which come immediately 
 home to a man's own heart ; convincing him, with th 
 same evidence, he has of his own existence, that there 
 is an all-seeing, infinitely just, and infinitely bountiful 
 Master above, who is witness of all his actions and 
 words, and of his very thoughts. For whence arises 
 the heartfelt pleasure which the good man feels on re- 
 sisting a secret temptation to sin, or in performing an 
 act of beneficence, though in the utmost secresy ? 
 Why does he raise his countenance to heaven, with 
 devotion, and why is he then prepared to meet death 
 with cheerful hope, unless it be that his conscience 
 tells him of a munificent rewarder of virtue, the specta- 
 tor of what he does r And why does the most hardened 
 sinner tremble and faulter in his limbs and at his heart, 
 when he commits his most secret sins of theft, ven- 
 geance, or impurity ? Why, especially, does he sink 
 into agonies of horror and despair at the approach of 
 death, unless it be that he is deeply convinced of the 
 constant presence of an all-seeing witness, and o^ an 
 infinitely holy, powerful, and just Judge, into zohose 
 hands it is a terrible thing to fail ! In vain does he 
 say : Darkness encompasseth me and the walls cover 7ne : 
 no one seeth: of xvhom atn I off raid f for his con- 
 science tells him that, The eyes of the Lord are far
 
 }^ ESSAY I. 
 
 brighter than the sun, beholding round about all the 
 ways of men. Ecclus. xxiii. 2^, 28. 
 
 This last argument, in particular, is so obvious and 
 convincing, that I cannot bring myself to believe there 
 ever was a human being, of sound sense, who was 
 really an Atheist, Those persons who have tried to 
 work themselves into a persuasion that there is no 
 God, will generally be found, both in ancient and 
 modern times, to be of the most profligate manners, 
 who dreading to meet him as their Judge, try to per- 
 suade themselves that he does not exist. This has 
 been observed by St. Austin, who says : * No man 
 
 * denies the existence of God, but such a one whose 
 
 * interest it is that there should be no God.' Yet 
 even they who pretend to disbelieve the existence of a 
 Supreme Being, in the broad day-light, and among 
 their profligate companions, in the darkness and soli- 
 tude of the night ; and, still more, under the appre- 
 hension of death, fail not to confess it i as Seneca, I 
 think, has somewhere observed (j). 
 
 A son heareth his father^ and a servant his master^ 
 says the Prophet Malachi. If then I be a father, 
 
 (1) It is proper here to observe, that a large proportion of the boasting 
 Atheists who signalized their impiety during the late French Revolution, 
 when they came to die, acknowledged that their irreligion had been affected, 
 and that they never doubted, in their hearts, of the existence of God and 
 the truths of Christianity. Among these were Boulanger, La Metric, 
 CbUot d'Uerbois, Egalite Duke of Orleans, &c.
 
 ESSAY I. 18 
 
 zvhere is mine honour ? and if I be a master^ tvhere is 
 my fear ? saith the Lord ofHostSj (i. 6,) In a word : it 
 is impossible to believe in the existence of a Supreme 
 Being, our Creator, our Lord, and our Judge, with- 
 out being conscious, ^t the same time, of our obliga- 
 tion to worship him exteriorly and interiorly, to fear 
 him, to love him, and to obey him. This constitutes 
 Natural Religion ; by the observance of which the an- 
 cient Patriarchs, together with Melchisedec, Job, and, 
 we trust, very many other virtuous and religious per- 
 sons of diflferent ages and countries, have been ac- 
 ceptable to God in this hfe, and have attained %o 
 everlasting bliss in the other; still we must confess, 
 with deep sorrow, that the number of such persons 
 has been small, compared with those of every age and 
 nation, who, as St. Paul says : JVhen they knew God, 
 glorified him not as God; neither xvere they thankful, 
 but became vain in their imaginations; and their foolish 
 hearts were darkened ; who changed the truth of God 
 into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more 
 than the Creator^ xvho is blessed for ever more, 
 
 Rom. i. 21, 25. 
 
 SAMUL CAREY.
 
 ESSAY II. 
 
 ON THE TEUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 By the Rev, Samuel Careys LL. D, 
 
 Though the light of nature is abundantly sufficient, 
 as I trust I have shewn in my former essay, to prove 
 the existence of God, and the duty of worshipping 
 and serving him, yet this was not the only light that 
 was communicated to mankind in the first ages of the 
 world concerning these matters, since many things 
 relating to them were revealed by God to the Patri- 
 archs, and, through them, to their contemporaries and 
 descendants. At length this knowledge was almost 
 universally obliterated from the minds of men, and the 
 light of reason itself was so clouded by the boundless 
 indulgence of their passions, that they seemed, every 
 where, sunk almost to a level with the brute creation. 
 Even the most polished nations, the Greeks and the 
 Bomans, blushed not at unnatural lusts, and boasted 
 of the most horrid cruelties. Plutarch describes the 
 celebrated Grecian sages, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, 
 Cebes, &c. as indulging freely in the former (i), and 
 
 (1) De Isid. ct Osirid. Even the refined Cicero and Virgil did not blush 
 at these infamies.
 
 ESSAY II. 15 
 
 every one knows that the chief amusement of the Ro- 
 man people, was to behold their fellow-creatures mur- 
 dering one another in the amphitheatres, sometimes by 
 hundreds and thousands at a time. But the depravity 
 and impiety of the ancient pagans, and, I may say the 
 same of those of modern times, appears chiefly in their 
 religious doctrines and worship. What an absurd and 
 disgusting rabble of pretended Deities, marked with 
 every crime that disgraces the worst of mortals, lust, 
 envy, hatred and cruelty, did not the above-named 
 refined nations worship, and that, in several instances, 
 by the imitation of their crimes ! Plato allows of 
 drunkenness in honour of the Gods ; Aristotle admits 
 of indecent representations of them. How many temples 
 were every where erected, and prostitutes consecrated 
 to the worship of Venus (l) ? And how generally were 
 human sacrifices offered up in honour of Moloch, 
 Saturn, Thor, Diana, Woden, and other pretended 
 Gods, or rather real demons, by almost every Pagan 
 nation, Greek and barbarian, and among the rest by 
 the ancient Britons, inhabitants of this island ! It 
 is true, some few sages of antiquity, by listening to 
 the dictates of nature and reason, saw into the ab- 
 surdity of the popular religion, and discovered the 
 
 (i) Strabo tells us, that there were 1000 prostitutes attached to the 
 Temple of Venus, at Corinth. The Athenians attributed the preservation 
 of their city to the prayers of its prostitutes. ,
 
 f^ t^SAT If. 
 
 existence and attributes of the true God ; but then 
 how unsteady and imperfect was their belief, even in 
 this point ! and when tket/ knew God they did not 
 glorify him as God, nor give him thanks, hut became 
 vain in their thoughts, Rom. i. 21. In short, they were 
 so bewildered on the whole subject of religion, that 
 Socrates, the wisest of them all, declared it * impos- 
 
 * sible for men to discover this, unless the Deity him- 
 
 * self deigned to reveal it to them/ (l) Indeed it was 
 an effort of mercy, worthy the Great and Good God, 
 to make such a revelation of himself, and of his ac- 
 ceptable worship to poor, benighted, and degraded 
 man. This he did, first, in favour of a poor, afflicted, 
 captive tribe on the banks of the Nile, the Israelites, 
 whom he led from thence hitu the country of their 
 ancestors, and raised up to be a powerful nation, by a 
 series of astonishing miracles, instructing and confirm- 
 ing them in the knowledge and worship of himself by 
 his different prophets. He afterwards did the same 
 thing, in favour of all the people of the earth, and to 
 a far greater extent, by the promised Messiah, and his 
 Apostles. It is to this latter Divine Legation I shall here 
 confine my arguments : though, indeed, the one con- 
 firms the other ; since Christ and the apostles con- 
 tinually bear testimony to the mission of Moses. 
 
 (1) Plato Dialog. Akibiad.
 
 All history, then, and ffaditidii pfov^ that in ^i 
 feigii of Tiberius, the secdtid Roman tmperdr afte^ 
 Julius CiEsar, in extraordinary personage, Jesus 
 Christ, appeai-ed iri Palestine, teaching a hew system 
 6f feligidn and morality, far niore sublime and perfect 
 than any ^hich the Pagan Philosophers, or even than 
 the Hebrew Prophets had inculcated. He confirmed 
 the truths of natural Religion and of the Mosaic re- 
 velation; but then he vastly extended their sphere, 
 by the cottithnnication of many heavenly tnysteries, 
 concerning the natar6 of the one true God, his 
 ceconomy in redeehitng man by his own vicarious suf 
 ferings, the restoration and future immortality of our 
 bodies, and the final, decisive trial we are to undergo 
 bcforie him, our destined judge. He enforced the-' 
 dbligation of Ibviug our heavenly Father, above all 
 things^ of ptaying to himi cOnti-nualiy, atid of referr- 
 ing all our thoughts, words; and actions to his divine 
 honour. He insisted oa the necessity of denying, 
 not one or other of out passions, as the philosophers? 
 had done, who, as Tertullian says, dro'oe out one nail 
 i^ith an'otker ; but the whole collection of them, dis- 
 orderly and vitiated as they are, since the fall of our 
 fkst parent* In opposition to our innate avarice, 
 pride, and love of pleasure ; he opened his mission hf 
 teaching that : Blessed are the poor in spirit ; Blessed 
 aire the meek ; Blessed are they that mournj ^x\ With- 
 
 PART u C
 
 18 ESSAY II. 
 
 respect to our fellow-creatures ; teaching as he did 
 every virtue, he singled out fraternal charity for his 
 peculiar and characteristic precept ; requiring that his 
 disciples should love one another as they love them- 
 selves, and even as he himself has loved them ; he who 
 laid down his life for them ! and he extended the obli- 
 gation of this precept to our enemies, equally^ ^i^^^h ouf, 
 friends. .r.. .. .?.. 
 
 Nor was the Morality of Jesus a mere speculative 
 system of precepts, like the systems of the philosophers : 
 it was of a practical nature, and he himself confirmed, 
 by his example, every virtue which he inculcated, and 
 more particularly that hardest of all others to reduce 
 to practice, the love of our enemies. Christ had gone 
 aboutf as the sacred text expresses it, doing good to all. 
 Acts X. 38. and evil to no one. He had cured 
 the sick of Judea and the neighbouring countries, 
 had given sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, 
 and ' fsyen life to the dead ; but, above all things, 
 he had enlightened the minds of his hearers with the 
 knowledge of pure and sublime truths, capable of 
 leading them to present and future happiness : yet 
 vas he every where calumniated and persecuted, till 
 at length, his inveterate enemies fulfilled their malice 
 against him, by nailing him to a cross, thereon to 
 expire, by lengthened torments. Not content with 
 
 this, they came before his gibbet, deriding him in 
 
 -t 
 
 ,1, int'^
 
 ESSAY II. 19 
 
 his agony with insulting words and gestures. What,' 
 now, is the return which the author of Christianity 
 makes for such unexampled barbarity ? He excuses 
 the authors of it ! He prays for them ! Father ^ for" 
 give them : for they knozv not what they do I Luke 
 xxiii. 34. No wonder this proof of supernatural 
 charity should have staggered the most hardened infi- 
 dels ; one of whom confesses that, * if Socrates has 
 * died like a philosopher, Jesus alone has died like 
 'a God !' (1). The precepts and the example of 
 the master have not been lost upon his disciples. 
 These have ever been distinguished by their practice 
 of virtue, and, particularly, by their charity and 
 forgiveness of injuries. The first of them who laid 
 down his hfe for Christ, St. Stephen, while the Jews 
 were stoning him to death, prayed thus, with his last 
 voice : Lord, lay not this sin to their charge t Acts 
 vii. 59. 
 
 Having considered the several systems of paganism, . 
 which have prevailed, and that still prevail in different 
 parts of the world, both as to belief and practice, to- 
 gether with the speculations of the wisest infidel philo- 
 sophers concerning them ; and having contemplated, 
 on the other hand, the doctrine of the New Testament 
 on both of them, namely, theory and practice, I would 
 
 (1) Rousseau Emile. 
 
 C 2
 
 ^0 ESSAY II. 
 
 ask any candid unbeliever, where he thought Jesus^ 
 Christ could have acquired the idea of so sublime, so 
 pure, so efficacious, a religion as Christianity is, espe-? 
 cially when compared with the others above alluded 
 to? Could he have acquired i^ ia the workshop of ^ 
 poor artisan of Nazareth, or among the fishermen of 
 the lake of Genezareth ? Then, how could he and his^ 
 poor unlettered Apostles succeed in propagating this 
 religion, as they did throughout the world, in op- 
 position to all the talents and power of philosophers 
 and princes, and all the passions of ail mankind ? Nq 
 pther answers can be given to these questions, than 
 that the religion itself has been divinely revealed, and 
 Ijhat it has been divinely assisted, in its progress through- 
 put the world. 
 
 In addition to this internal evidence of Christianity, 
 as it is called, there are external proofs, which must not 
 be passed over. Christ, on various occasions, appealed 
 to the miracles which he v/rought, in confirmation of 
 his doctrine and mission ; miracles public and indis^ 
 putable, which, from the testimony of Pilate himself,, 
 were placed on the records of the Roman Empire (l), 
 and which were not denied by the most determined 
 enemies of Christianity, such as Celsus, Porphyrins, 
 ipd Julian, the apq^tat^^ Among these miracles, there.
 
 ESSAY II, tl 
 
 la one of so extraordinary a nature, as to render it quite 
 unnecessary to mention any others, and which there- 
 fore is always appealed to by the Apostles, as the grand 
 proof of the gospel they preached : I mean the Rcsuv" 
 rectian of Christ from the dead ; to which nittst be 
 added its; circumstances, namely, that he raised himself 
 to life by his own power, without the intervention of 
 any living person ; and that he did this in conformity 
 with his prediction, at the time, which he had appointed 
 for this event, and in defiance of the efforts of his enc^ 
 mie^, to detain his body in the sepulchre. To elude 
 the evidence resulting from this une-ampled prodigy^ 
 one or other of the following assertions must be main- 
 tained^ either that the Disciples were deceived in believ- 
 ing him to be risen from the dead, or that they combined 
 tjo deceive the world into a belief of that imposition. 
 Now it cannot be credited that they themselves were 
 deceived in this matter, being many in number, and 
 having the testimony of their eyes, in seeing their 
 Master repeatedly during forty days ; of their ears in 
 hearing his voice; and one, the most incredulous among 
 them, of his feeling in touching his person and probing 
 his wounds ; nor can it be believed that they conspired 
 to propagate an unavailing falsehood of this nature 
 throughout the nations of the earth, namely, that a 
 person, put to death in Judea, had risen again to life, 
 without any prospect to thcmselves/br this world, but
 
 .fA ESSAY II. 
 
 that of persecution, torments and a cruel death, which 
 they successively endured, as did their numerous dis- 
 ciples after them, in testimony of this fact ; or, for the 
 other world, but the vengeance of the God of truth. 
 
 Next to the miracles, wrought by Christ, is the ful- 
 filment of the aiicicut piophcclcs cuuccruiug him, in 
 proof of the religion taught by him. To mention a 
 few of these : He was born just after the sceptre had 
 departed from the tribe of Juda^ Gen. xlix. 10. ; at the 
 end of se-centy-two weeks of years from the restoration 
 of Jerusalem, Dan. ix. 24 ; while the Second Temple of 
 Jerusalem was in being, Hagg. ii. 7. He was born in 
 Bethlehem, Mic. v. 2.; worked the identical miracles 
 foretold of him, Isai xxxv. 5. He was sold by his 
 perfidious disciple for thirty pieces of silver, which were 
 laid out in the purchase of a potter's field, Zach. xi. 13. 
 He was scourged, spit upon, Isai. 1. 6. ; placed among 
 malefactors, Isai. xxxiii. 12. Yi^xs hands and feet were 
 transfixed with nails, Ps. xxii. 16.; and his side was 
 opened w'hh a spear, Zach. xii. 10. Finally, he died, was 
 buried with honour, Isai. liii. 9- ; and rose again to life 
 without experiencing corruption, Ps. xvi. 10. The 
 sworn enemies of Christ, the Jews, were, during many 
 hundred years before his coming, and still are in pos- 
 session of the Scriptures, containing these and many 
 other predictions concerning him, which were strictly 
 fulfilled.
 
 ESSAT II. 23 
 
 The very existence, and other circumstances respec- 
 ting this extraordinary people, the Jews, are so many 
 arguments in proof of Christianity. They have now 
 subsisted, as a distinct people, for more than four thou- 
 sand years, during which they have again and again 
 been subdued, harassed, and almost extirpated. Their 
 mighty conquerors, the Philistines, the Assyrians, the 
 Persians, the Macedonians, the Syrians, and the Ro- 
 mans have, in their turns, ceased to exist, and can no 
 where be found as distinct nations : while the Jews ex- 
 ist in great numbers, and are known in every part of 
 the world. How can this be accounted for? Why 
 has God preserved them alone, amongst the ancient 
 nations of the earth ? The truth is, they are still the 
 subject of prophecy, with respect to both the Old and 
 the New Testament. They exist, as monuments of 
 God's wrath against them; as witnesses to the truth of 
 the Scriptures which condemn them ; and as the de- 
 stined subjects of his final mercy before the end of the 
 world. They are to be found in every quarter of the 
 globe ; but in the condition which their great Legisla- 
 tor Moses threatened them with, if they forsook the 
 Lord, namely, that he would remove them into all the 
 kingdoms of the earth* Deut. xxviii. 25. That they 
 sliould become an astonishment^ and a by^xvord, among 
 all nations^ ibid. ^7* That they should Jind no ease, 
 neither should the sole of their foot have rest, ibid. 65,
 
 24 ESSAY II* 
 
 Finally, they are every where seen, but carrying, written 
 on their foreheads, the curse which they pronounced 
 on themselves in rejecting their Messiah : His blood be 
 upon us and upon our children^ Mat. xxvii. 25. Still 
 is this extraordinary people preserved, to be, in the end, 
 converted, and to find mercy. Rom xJ. 26, &c. 
 
 SAMUEL CAREY. 
 
 
 
 ;;.ij*
 
 25 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 To JAMES BROWN, Esq. Sfc. 
 PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 JVinton, October ^0, 1801. 
 
 I>EAR SIE, 
 
 You certainly want no apology for 
 writing to me on the subject of your letter. For if, 
 as St. Peter inculcates, each Christian ought to be 
 Ready always to give an ansxver to every man that asketh 
 him a reason of the hope that is in him, 1 Pet. iii. 15. 
 how inexcusable would a person of my ministry and 
 commission be, who am a debtor both to the Greeks and 
 to the Barbarians^ both to the wise and the unwise^ Rom. 
 i. 14., were I unwilling to give the utmost satisfaction, 
 in my power, respecting the Catholic Religion, to any 
 human being whose inquiries appear to proceed from a 
 serious and candid mind, desirous of discovering and 
 embracing religious truth, such as I must believe yours 
 to be. And yet this disposition is exceedingly rare 
 among Christians. Infinitely the greater part of them, 
 in choosing a system of religion, or in adhering to one, 
 are guided by motives of interest, worldly honour or 
 convenience. These inducements not only rouse their 
 worst passions, but also blind their judgment; so as to 
 create hideous phantoms to their intellectual eyes, and 
 to hinder them from seeing the most conspicuous ob- 
 
 D
 
 26 LETTER II, 
 
 jects which stand before them. To such inconsistent 
 Christians nothing proves so irritating as the attempt 
 to disabuse them of their errors, except the success of 
 it, by putting it out of their power to defend them 
 any longer. These are they; and O ! how infinite is 
 their number ! of whom Christ says : They love dark' 
 ness rather than light, John iii. 16.; and who say to 
 the Prophets : Prophesy not unto us right things : 
 speak unto us smooth things. Isai. xxx. 10. They 
 form to themselves a false conscience, as the Jews did 
 when the}"^ murdered their Messiah, Jets iii. 17. ; and 
 as he himself foretold many others would do, in mur- 
 dering his disciples. John xvi. 2. I cannot help 
 saying that, I myself have experienced something of 
 this spirit in my religious discussions with persons who 
 have been loudest in professing their candour and 
 charity. Hence, and I make no doubt that, if the 
 elucidation which you call for at my hands, for your 
 numerous Society, should happen, by any means to be- 
 come public, that I shall have to eat the bread of a^ic* 
 tion, and drink the water of tribulation, 1 Kings xxii. 
 27. for this discharge of my duty, perhaps for the re- 
 mainder of my life. But, as the Apostle writes, none 
 of these things move me ; neither count I my life dear 
 to me, so that I may finish my course with joy and the 
 ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus. Acts 
 XX. 24.
 
 PRELIMINARIES. 27 
 
 It remains, Sir, to settle the conditions of our cor- 
 respondence. What I propose is, that, in the first 
 place, we should mutually, and indeed all of us who are 
 concerned in this friendly controversy, be at perfect 
 liberty to speak without offence to any one of doctrines, 
 practices, and persons, as we judge best for the disco- 
 very of truth : secondly, that we should be disposed, 
 in common, as far as poor human nature will permit, 
 to investigate truth with impartiality ; to acknowledge 
 it, when discovered, with candour ; and, of course, to 
 renounce every error and unfounded prejudice that may 
 be detected, on any side, whatever it may cost us in 
 so doing. I, for my part, Dear Sir, here solemnly 
 promise, that I will publicly renounce the Religion, of 
 which I am a Minister, and will induce as many of my 
 flock, as I may have influence over, to do the same, 
 should it prove to be that * mass of absurdity, bigotry, 
 * superstition, idolatry, and immorality,' which you, 
 Sir, and most Protestants conceive it to be ; nay, even 
 if I should not succeed in clearing it of these respective 
 charges. To religious controversy, when originating 
 in its proper motives, a desire of serving God and se- 
 curing our salvation, I cannot declare myself an enemy, 
 without virtually condemning the conduct of Christ 
 himself, who, on every occasion, arraigned and refuted 
 the errors of the Pharisees : but I cannot conceive any 
 hypocrisy so detestable as that of mounting the pulpit 
 
 D2
 
 ^8 LETTER II. 
 
 or employing the pen on sacred subjects, to serve our 
 temporal interest, our resentment or our pride, under 
 pretext of promoting or defending religious truth. 
 To inquirers, in the former predicament, I hold myself 
 a debtor, as I have already said ; but the circumstances 
 must be extraordinary to induce me to hold a commu- 
 nication with persons in the latter. Lastly, as you 
 appear, Sir, to approve of the plan I spoke of in my 
 first letter to Dr. Sturges, I mean to pursue it on the 
 present occasion. This, however, will necessarily 
 throw back the examination of your charges to a con- 
 siderable distance ; as several other important inquiries 
 must precede. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 J. M. 
 
 /
 
 S9 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Prom JAMES BROWN, Esq. to the Rev. J. M. D.D. 
 PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 New Cottage, Oct. 30, 1801. 
 
 REVEREND SIR, 
 
 I HAVE been favoured, in due course, 
 with yours of the 7th instant, which I have communi- 
 cated to those persons of our Society, whom I have 
 had an opportunity of seeing. No circumstance could 
 strike us with greater sorrow, than that you should 
 suffer any inconvenience from your edifying prompt- 
 ness to comply with our well meant request, and we 
 confidently trust that nothing of the kind will take 
 place through our fault. We agree with you, as to the 
 necessity of perfect freedom of speech, where the dis- 
 covery of important truths is the real object of inquiry. 
 Hence, while we are at liberty to censure many of your 
 Popes and other clergy, Mr. Topham will not be of- 
 fended with any thing that you can prove against Cal- 
 vin, nor will Mr. Rankin quarrel with you for exposing 
 the faults of George Fox, and James Naylor, nor shall I 
 complain of you for any thing that you can make out 
 against our venerable Latimer or Cranmer ; I say the 
 same of doctrines and practices as of persons. If you 
 are guilty of idolatry, or we of heresy, we are respec-
 
 SC^ LETTEE III. 
 
 tively unfortunate, and the greatest charity we can do 
 is to point out to each other the danger of our respec- 
 tive situations to their full extent. Not to renounce 
 error and embrace truth of every kind when we clearly 
 see it, would be folly ; and to neglect doing this when 
 the question is about religious truth, would be folly and 
 wickedness combined together. Finally, we cheerfully 
 leave you to follow what course you please, and to 
 whatever extent you please, provided you only give us 
 such satisfaction as you can give, on the subjects 1 
 mentioned in my former letter. 
 I am, 
 
 Rev. Sir, &c. 
 
 JAMES BROWN.
 
 31 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 To JAMES BROWN, Esq. S^c. 
 
 DISPOSITIONS FOR RELIGIOUS INQUIRY, 
 DEAR SIR, _ 
 
 The dispositions which you profess, on ^ 
 the part of your friends, as well as yourself, I own, 
 please me and animate me to undertake the task you 
 impose upon me. Nevertheless, availing myself of ' 
 the liberty of speech which you and your friends allow 
 me, I am forced to observe that there is nothing in 
 which men are more apt to deceive themselves than in 
 thinking themselves to be free from religious prejudices, 
 and sincere in seeking after, and resolved to embrace 
 and follow the truth of religion, in opposition to their 
 preconceived opinions and worldly interests. How 
 many imitate Pilate, who, when he had asked our 
 Saviour the question ; What is truth ? presently 
 went out of his company, before he could receive an 
 answer to it. John xviii. 38. How many others resem- 
 ble the rich young man, who, having interrogated 
 Christ; What good thing shall I do that I may have 
 eternal life ? when this Divine Master answered him : 
 If thou wilt he perfect y go and sell what thou hast and 
 give to the poor; went axvay sorrowful! Mat. xix. 
 22. Finally, how many more act, like certain pre-
 
 32 LETTER IV. 
 
 sumptuous disciples of our Lord, who, when he had 
 propounded to them a mystery beyond their concep- 
 tion, that of the Real Presence, in these words : My 
 flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed ; said, 
 this is a hard saying ; who can hear it ? and went back 
 and walked no more with him ! John vi. 56. O ! if all 
 Christians, of the different sects and opinions, were but 
 possessed of the sincerity, disinterestedness and ear- 
 nestness to serve their God and save their souls, which 
 a Francis Walsingham, kinsman to the great states- 
 man of that name, a Hugh Paulin Cressy, Dean of 
 Laughlin and Prebendary of Windsor, and an Anthony 
 Ulric, Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburgh, prove 
 themselves to have been possessed of, the first in his 
 Seaixh into Matters of Religion, the second in his 
 ExomologesiSj or Motives of Conversion, &c. and the 
 last in his Fifty Reasons ; how soon would all and every 
 one of our controversies cease, and we be all united in 
 one faith, hope, and charity ! I will here transcribe, 
 from the Preface to the Fijiy Reasons, what the illus- 
 trious relative of his Majesty says concerning the dis- 
 positions, with which he set about inquiring into the 
 grounds and differences of the several systems of Chris- 
 tianity, when he began to entertain doubts concerning 
 the truth of that in which he had been educated, 
 namely, Lutheranism. He says * First, I earnestly 
 * implored the aid and grace of the Holy Ghost, and
 
 DISPOSITIONS. 33 
 
 ' with all my power begged the light of true faith, frorti 
 *God, the Father of lights,* &c. * Secondly, I made 
 
 * a strong resolution, by the grace of God, to avoid 
 
 * sin, well knowing that JVisdom will not enter into a 
 
 * corrupt mind, nor dwell in a body subject to sin,* Wisd. 
 i. 4. * and I am convinced, and was so then, that the 
 
 * reason why so many are ignorant of the true faith, 
 *and do not embrace it, is because they are plunged into 
 
 'several vices, and particularly into carnal sins.* 
 
 Then, * Thirdly, I renounced all sorts of prejudices, 
 
 * whatever they were, which incline men to one Religion 
 *more than another, which unhappily I might have 
 'formerly espoused, and I brought myself to a perfect 
 
 * indifference, so as to be ready to embrace whichsoever 
 ' the grace of the Holy Ghost and the light of reason 
 'should point out to me, without any regard to the 
 ' advantages and inconveniences that might attend it 
 
 * in this world.' * Lastly, I entered upon this deli- 
 
 ' beration and this choice in the manner I should wish 
 
 * to have done it at the hour of my death, and in a full 
 'conviction that, at the day of judgment, I must give 
 ' an account to God why I followed this Religion in 
 
 ' preference to all the rest.' The Princely inquirer 
 
 finishes this account of himself with the following 
 awful reflections : * Man has but one soul, which will 
 
 * be eternally either damned or saved. irhat doth it 
 ' avail a man to gain the whole world and to lose his own 
 
 PART I. E
 
 34 LTTE IV. 
 
 * soul f Mat. xvi. 26. Eternity knows no end. The 
 
 * course of it is perpetual. It is a desire of unlimited 
 
 * duration. There is no comparison between things 
 
 * iniinite and those which are not so. 1 the happiness 
 
 * of the eternity of the Saints 1 O ! the wretchedness 
 
 * of the eternity of the damned. One of these two 
 'eternities awaits us !* 
 
 I remain, Sir, 
 
 Yours, &c. >> 
 
 J. M. 
 
 l!
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 To JAMES BROWN, Esg. 
 
 METHOD OF FINDING OUT THE TRUE RELIGION. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 It is obvious to common sense that, in 
 order to find out any hidden thing, or to do any diffi* 
 cult thing, we must first discover and then follow the 
 proper method for such purpose. If we do not take 
 the right road to any distant place, it cannot be ex- 
 pected that we should arrive at it. If we get hold of 
 a wrong clue, we shall never extricate ourselves from a 
 labyrinth. Some persons choosfi their religion as they 
 do their clothes, by fancy. They are pleased, for ex- 
 ample, with the talents of a preacher, when presently 
 they adopt his Creed. Many adhere to their religious 
 system, merely because they were educated in it, and 
 because it was that of their parents and family ; which, 
 if it were a reasonable motive for their resolution, 
 would equally excuse Jews, Turks, and Pagans, for 
 persisting in their respective impiety, and would im- 
 peach the preaching of Christ and his Apostles,! 
 Others glory in their religion, because it is the one 
 established in this their country, so renowned for 
 science, literature, and arms : not reflecting that the 
 
 E2
 
 36 LETTER V. 
 
 polished and conquering nations of antiquity, the 
 Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, 
 were left, by the inscrutable judgments of God, in 
 darkness and the shadow of death, while a poor oppressed 
 and despised people, on the banks of the Jordan, were 
 the only depositary of Divine truth and the sole truly 
 enlightened nation. But, far the greater part even of 
 Christians, of every denomination, make the business 
 of eternity subservient to that of time, and profess the 
 religion which suits best with their interest, their repu- 
 tation, and their convenience. I trust that none of 
 your respectable society fall under any of these descrip- 
 tions. They all have, or fancy they have, a rational 
 method of discovering religious truth, in other words, 
 an adequate Ru/e of Faith. Before I enter into any 
 disquisition on this all-impcrtant controversy concern- 
 ing the Right Rule of Faith, on which the determina- 
 tion of every other depends, I will lay down three 
 fundamental maxims, the truth of which, I believe, no 
 rational Christian will dispute. 
 
 First, Our Divine Master, Christ, in establishing a 
 Religion here on earth, to which all the nations of it were 
 invited, Mat. xviii. 19. left some RULE or Method, by 
 which those persons, who sincerely seek for it, may cer- 
 tainly find it. 
 
 Secondly, This Rule or Method must be SECURE 
 (ind never failing ; so as not to be ever liable to lead a
 
 METHOD. ^ 37 
 
 rationalf sincere inquirer into error, impiety, or immo" 
 rality of any kind. 
 
 Thirdly, This Rule or Method must be UNIVER- 
 SAL, that is to say, adapted to the abilities and other 
 circumstances of all those persons for whom the Religion 
 itself was intended; namely, the great bulk of mankind. 
 
 By adhering to these undeniable maxims, we shall 
 quickly, Dear Sir, and clearly discover the Method 
 appointed by Christ for arriving at the knowledge of 
 the truths which he has taught, in other words, at 
 The Right Rule of Faith, Being possessed of this 
 Rule, we shall have nothing else, of course, to do than 
 to make use of it, for securely, and, I trust, amicably 
 settling all our controversies. This is the short and 
 satisfactory Method of composing religious differences, 
 which I alluded to in my above-mentioned letter to 
 Dr. Sturges. To discuss them all, separately, is an 
 endless task, whereas this Method reduces them to-a 
 single question. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 J. M.
 
 38 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 To JAMES BROWN, Etg. 
 
 THE FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE OF FAITH. 
 DEAR SIB, 
 
 Among serious Christians, who pro- 
 fess to make the discovery and practice of Religion 
 their first and earnest care, three different Methods or 
 Rules have been adopted for this purpose. The first 
 consists in a supposed Private Inspiration, or an im 
 mediate light and motion of God's Spirit, communi- 
 cated to the individual. This was the Rule of Faith 
 and conduct formerly professed by the Montanists, 
 the Anabaptists, the Family of Love, and is now pro- 
 fessed by the Quakers, the Moravians, and different 
 classes of the Methodists. The second of these Rules, 
 is the JVritten JVord of God, or THE BIBLE, accord- 
 ing as it is understood by each particular reader or 
 hearer of it. This is the professed Rule of the more 
 regular sects of Protestants, such as the Lutherans, 
 the Calvinists, the Socinians, the Church-of-England 
 men. The third Rule is THE WORD OF GOD, at 
 large, whether wiitten in the Bible, or handed down 
 jfrom the Apostles in continued succession by the Catholic
 
 FIEST FALLACIOUS RULE. 39 
 
 Churchy and as it is understood and explained hy this 
 Church* To speak more accurately, besid s their 
 Rule of Faith, namely, Scripture and Tradition^ Ca- 
 tholics acknowledge an unerring judge of cuntroversyy 
 or sure guide in all matters, relating to salvation, 
 namely, THE CHURCH. I shall now proceed to 
 shew that the first-mentioned Rule, namely, a sup- 
 posed Private Inspiration^ is quite fallacious, in as 
 much as it is liable to conducty and has conducted many 
 into acknowledged errors and impiety, 4 
 
 About the middle of the second age of Christianity; 
 Montanus, Maximilla and Priscilla, with their fol- 
 lowers, by adopting this enthusiastical rule, rushed 
 into the excess of folly and blasphemy. They taught 
 that the Holy Spirit, having failed to save mankind, 
 by Moses, and afterwards by Christ, had enlightened 
 and sanctified them to accomplish this great work. 
 The strictness of their precepts, and the apparent 
 sanctity of their lives, deceived many, till at length the 
 two former proved what spirit they were guided by, in 
 hanging themselves (l). Several other heretics be- 
 came dupes of the same principles in the primitive and 
 the middle ages : but it was reserved for the time 
 of religious licentiousness, improperly called the Re- 
 formation, to display the full extent of its ab- 
 surdity and impiety. In less than five years after 
 
 (1) Euseb. Eccles. Hist 1. v. c, 15.
 
 J&lf LETTER VI. 1*3 an 
 
 Luther had sounded the trumpet of evangelical 
 liberty, the sect of Anabaptists arose in Germany and 
 the Low Countries. They professed to hold immediate 
 communication with God, and to be ordered by him to 
 despoil and kill all the wicked, and to establish a king- 
 dom of the just (l), who, to become such, were all 
 to be rebaptized. Carlostad, Luther's first disciple of 
 note, embraced this Ultra- Reformation ; but its ac- 
 knowledged head, during his reign, was John Bock- 
 hold, a taylor of Leyden, who proclaimed himself 
 King of Sion, and who, during a certain time, was 
 really sovereign of Munster, in Lower Germany, 
 where he committed the greatest imaginable excesses, 
 marrying eleven wives at a time, and putting them, 
 and numberless other of his subjects to death, at the 
 motion of his supposed interior spirit (2). He de- 
 clared that God had made him a present of Amster- 
 dam and other cities, which he sent parties of his dis- 
 ciples to take possession of. These ran naked through 
 the streets, howling out, * Woe to Babylon ; woe to the 
 * wicked ;' and, when they were apprehended, and on 
 the point of being executed for their seditions and 
 
 (1) ' Cum Deo colloquium esse et mandatum habere se dicebant, iit, 
 * impiis omnibus interfectis, novum constituerent mundum, in quo pii 
 ' solum et innocentes viverent et rerum potirentur.' Sleidan. De Stat. 
 Rel. et Keip. Comment. 1. iii. p. 45. 
 
 (3) Hist. Abreg. de la Reform, par Gerard Brandt, torn, i, p. 46. Mosheiro, 
 Eccles. Hist, by Machine, vol iv. p. 453.
 
 FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 41 
 
 murders, they sung and danced on the scaffold, exult- 
 ing in the imaginary light of their spirit (l). Herman, 
 another Anabaptist, was moved by his spirit to declare 
 himself the Messiah, and thus to evangelize the people, 
 his hearers : * Kill the priests, kill all the magistrates 
 ' in the world : repent : your redemption is at hand (2).' 
 One of their chief and most accredited preachers, 
 David George, persuaded a numerous sect of them 
 that 'the doctrine both of the Old and the New Tes- 
 ' tament was imperfect, but that his own was perfect, 
 * and that he was the True Son of God (3).' I do not 
 notice these impieties and other crimes for their sin- 
 gularity or their atrociousness, but because they were 
 committed upon the principle and under a full con- 
 viction of an individual and uncontrollable inspiratioity 
 on the part of their dupes and perpetrators. 
 
 Nor has our own country been more free from this 
 enthusiastic principle than Germany and Holland. 
 Nicholas, a disciple of the above-mentioned David 
 George, came over to England with a supposed com- 
 mission from God to teach men that the essence of 
 Religion consists in the feelings of divine love, and 
 that all other things relating either to faith or worship, 
 are of no moment (4). He extended this maxim even 
 to the fundamental precepts of morality, professing to 
 
 (1) Brandt, p. 49, &c. (2) Idem. p. 51. 
 
 (3) Mosheim, vol. iv. p. 484. (4) Ibid. Brandt 
 
 PART I. F
 
 42 LETTER VI, 
 
 continue in sin that grace might abound. His fol- 
 lowers, under the name of the Familists, or The Family 
 of LovCy were very numerous at the end of the six- 
 teenth century, about which time, Hacket, a Calvinist, 
 giving way to the same spirit of delusion, became 
 deeply persuaded that the spirit of the Messiah had des 
 cended upon him ; and, having made several proselytes, 
 he sent two of them, Arthington and Coppinger, to 
 proclaim, through the streets of London, that Christ 
 was come thither with his fan in his hand. This spirit, 
 instead of being repressed, became still more un- 
 governable at the sight of the scaffold and the gibbet, 
 prepared in Cheapside for his execution. Accordingly 
 he continued, till the last, exclaiming: ' Jehova, 
 ' Jehova ; don't you see the heavens open, and Jesus 
 
 * coming to deliver me, &c.' (1). Who has not heard 
 of Venner, and his Fifth Monarchy-men, who, guided 
 by the same private spirit of inspiration, rushed from 
 their meeting-house in Coleman-street, proclaiming 
 that they would * acknowledge no Sovereign but King 
 
 * Jesus, and that they would not sheathe their swords, 
 
 * till they had made Babylon (that is monarchy) a 
 
 * hissing and a curse, not only in England, but also 
 
 * throughout foreign countries; having an assurance 
 
 * that one of them would put a thousand enemies to 
 
 * flight, and two of them ten thousand.' Venner being 
 
 . (1) Fuller's Chiufch Hist. b. ix. p. 113. Stow's Annals A. D. 1591.
 
 FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 43 
 
 * taken and led to execution, with several of his fol- 
 ' lowers, protested it was not he but Jesus, who had 
 
 * acted as their leader ( l).' I pass over the unexam- 
 pled follies, and the horrors of the- Grand Rebellion, 
 having detailed many of them elsewhere (2). It is 
 enough to remark that, while many of these were com- 
 mitted from the licentiousness of private interpretation 
 of Scripture, many others originated in the enthusiastic 
 opinion which I am now combatting, that of an im- 
 mediate individual inspiration, equal to, if not su- 
 perior, to that of the Scriptures themselves (3). 
 
 It was in the midst of these religious and civil com- 
 motions that the most extraordinary people of all 
 those who have adopted the fallacious rule of private 
 inspiration, started up at the call of George Fox, a 
 shoe-maker of Leicestershire. His fundamental pro- 
 positions, as laid down by the most able of his fol- 
 lowers (4) are, that ' The Scriptures are not the ade- 
 
 * quatCy primary Rule of Faith and Manners^ but a 
 
 * secondary Rule^ subordinate to the Spirit, from which 
 
 * they have their excellency and certainty (5) :' that 
 
 (t) Echard's Hist, of Eng. &c. (2) Letters to a Prebendary. Reign of 
 Charles I. 
 
 (3) See the remarkable history of the military preachers at Kingston. 
 Ibid. 
 
 (4) Robert Barclay's Apology for the Quakers. 
 
 (5) Propos. III. In defending this proposition, Barclay cites some of the . 
 Friends, who being unable to read the Scriptures, even in the vulgar lan- 
 guage, and being pressed by adversaries with passages from it, boldli/ denied^
 
 44 LETTER VI. 
 
 ' the testimony of the spirit is that alone by which the 
 
 * true knowledge of God hath been, is, and can be 
 ' revealed (l) :' that 'all true and acceptable worship 
 ' of God is offered in the inward and immediate mov- 
 
 * ingand drawing of his own Spirit, which is neither 
 ' limited to places, times, nor persons (2).' Such are 
 the avowed principles of the people called Quakers : 
 let us now see some of the fruits of those principles, 
 as recorded by themselves in their founder and first 
 apostles. 
 
 George Fox tells of himself, that at the beginning 
 of his mission he was * Moved to go to several Courts 
 
 * and Steeple-houses (churches) at Mansfield, and 
 ' other places, to warn them to leave off oppression 
 ' and oaths, and to turn from deceit, and to turn to 
 
 * the Lord (3).' On these occasions the language 
 and behaviour of his spirit was very far from the 
 meekness and respect for constituted authorities of 
 the Gospel Spirit, as appears from different passages 
 in his Journal (4). He tells us of one of his disciples, 
 
 fTom the manifestation of truth in their own hearts, that suck passages were 
 contained in the Scriptures, p. 82. 
 (1) Propos. II. (2) Propos. XI. 
 
 (3) See the Journal of George Fox, written b)' himself, and published by 
 his disciple Penn, son of Admiral Penn, folio, p. 17. 
 
 (4) I shall satisfy myself with citing part of his letter, written in 1660, to 
 
 Charles II. * King Charles, Thou earnest not into this nation by sword 
 
 ' nor by victory of war, but by the power of the Lord. -And if thou dost 
 
 * bear the sword in vain, and let drunkenness, oaths, plays. May-games, 
 ' with fidlers, drums, and trumpets to play at them, with such like aborai-
 
 FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 45 
 
 William Sympson, who was * moved of the Lord to 
 
 * go, at several times, for three years naked and bare- 
 
 * foot before them, as a sign unto them, in markets, 
 
 * courts, towns, cities, to Priests' houses, and to great 
 
 * men's houses, telling them : so should they be all 
 ' stripped naked. Another Friend, one Robert Hunt- 
 
 * ingdon, was moved of the Lord to go into Carlisle 
 
 * Steeple-house with a white sheet about him (1).' We 
 are told of a female Friend who went * start naked, in 
 
 * the midst of public worship, into Whitehall Chapel, 
 * when Cromwell was there,' and another woman, who 
 
 * came into the Parliament House with a trencher in 
 
 * her hand, which she broke in pieces, saying: Thus 
 
 * shall he be broke in pieces,^ One came to the door 
 
 of the Parliament House with a drawn sword, and 
 wounded several, saying : ' he was inspired by the 
 
 * Holy Spirit to kill every man that sat in that 
 
 * House (2).' But on no one occasion have the Friends, 
 with George Fox himself, been so embarrassed to save 
 their Rule of Faithf as they have been to reconcile 
 with it the conduct of James Nay lor (3). When cer- 
 
 * nations and vanities be encouraged, or go unpunished, as setting up of 
 
 * May-poles, with the image of the crown a-top of them, the nation will 
 
 * quickly turn, like Sodom and Gomorrah, and be as bad as the old world, 
 
 * who grieved the Lord, till he overthrew them : and so he will you ; if 
 ' these things be not suddenly prevented,' &c. G. F.'s Journal, p. 225. 
 
 (1) Journal, p. 239. (2) Maclaine's note on Mosheim, vol. v. p. 470. 
 (3) See History of the Quakers by William Sewel, folio, p. 138. Journal 
 of G. Fox, p. 220.
 
 kS LETTER VI. 
 
 tain low and disorderly people, in Hampshire, dis- 
 graced their society and became obnoxious to the laws, 
 G. Fox disowned them (l), but, when a Friend of 
 James Naylor's character and services (2) became the 
 laughing stock of the nation for his presumption and 
 blasphemy, there was nu other way for the Society to 
 separate his cause from their own but by abandoning 
 their fundamental principles, which leaves every man 
 to follow the spirit within him, as he himself feels it. 
 The fact is, James Naylor, like so many other dupes 
 of a supposed private spirit, fancied himself to be the 
 Messiah, and in this character rode into Bristol, his dis- 
 ciples spreading their garments before him and crying, 
 Holi/i Holy, Holy, Hosannah in the highest : and when 
 he had been scourged by order of Parliament, for his 
 impiety, he permitted the fascinated women, who fol- 
 lowed him, to kiss his feet and his wounds, and to hail 
 him * the Prince of Peace, the Rose of Sharon, the 
 * fairest of ten thousand,' &c. (3). 
 
 (1) Journal of G. Fox, p. 320, 
 
 (2) Ibid. p. 220. Sewel's Hist, of Quakers, p. 140. 
 
 (3) Echard's Hist. Maclaine's Mosheim. Neal's Hist, of Puritans. Inclos- 
 ing this account of the Quakers we may remark that there is no appearance 
 yet of the fulfilment of the confident prophecy with which Barclay concludes 
 his Apology : ' That little spark (Quakerism) that halh aj)peared, shall grow 
 
 * to the consuming of whatsoever shall stand up to oppose it. The mouth of 
 
 * the Lord hath spoken it ! Yea; he that hath risen in a small remnant, shall 
 ' arise and go on by the same arm of power in his spiritual manifestation 
 
 * until he hath conquered all his enemies : until all the kingdoms of the earth 
 
 * become tlie kincdom of Jesus Christ/
 
 FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 4^. 
 
 I pass over many sects of less note, as the Muggle- 
 tonians, the Labbadists, &c. who, by pursuing the 
 meteor of a supposed inward light, were led into the 
 most impious and immoral practices. Allied to these 
 are the Moravian Brethren, or Hernhutters, so called 
 from Hernhuth in Moravia, where their Apostle, Count 
 Zinzendorf, made an establishment for them. They 
 are now spread over England with Ministers and 
 Bishops appointed by others resident at Hernhuth. 
 Their rule of faith, as laid down by Zinzendorf, is an 
 imaginary inward light, against which the true believer 
 cannot sin. This they are taught to wait for in quiet, , 
 omitting prayer, reading the Scriptures and otherze/orA;^. 
 (1). They deny that even the moral law contained in 
 the Scriptures is a rule of life for believers. Having 
 considered this system in all its bearings, we are the 
 less surprised at the disgusting obscenity, mingled with 
 blasphemy, which is to be met with in the theological 
 tracts of the German Count (2). 
 
 (1) Wesley, in a letter which he inscribes * To the Church of God at Hern- 
 huth,' says, * There are many whom your brethren have advised, though not 
 
 * in their public preaching, not to use the Ordinances reading the Scripture, 
 
 * praying, communicating ; as the doing these things is seeking salvation by 
 
 * zvorks. Some of our English brethren (Moravians) say ; yvu will never have 
 
 * faith till you leave off the Church and the Sacraments ; as many go to hell by 
 
 * praying as by thieving.* Journal, 1740. ^John Nelson in his own Journal 
 tells us, that the Moravians call thdr Religion The Liberty, and the Poor 
 Si7inership, adding that : * they sell their prayer books and leave off reading 
 ' and praying to follow the Lamb.' 
 
 {2) See MackinCj Hist. vol. vi. p. 23, aixd Bjshop \yarburton'3 Doctrine of . 
 Grace, quoted by hiu^ ^ <-'? i-i^<^/e^',Ut'f^'if^\.M'^J vxiT^V^ , hm^^^/:"^
 
 4^ LETTER VI. 
 
 The next system af delusion which I shall mention, 
 as proceeding from the fatal principle of an Interior 
 Rule of Faith ! though framed in England, was also 
 the work of a foreign Nobleman, Baron Sweedenborg. 
 His first supposed revelation was at an Eating-house 
 in London, about the year 1745. 'After I had dined,' 
 says he, ' a man appeared to me sitting in the corner 
 ' of the room, who cried out to me, with a terrible 
 ' voice : Dont eat so much. The following night the 
 
 * same man appeared to me, shining with light, and 
 
 * said to me : / am the Lordf your Creator and iJe- 
 
 * deemer : I have chosen you to explain to men the in- 
 
 * terior and spiritual sense of the Scriptures : I will 
 
 * dictate to you what you are to write ( l).* His imagi- 
 nary communications with God and the Angels were 
 as frequent and familiar as those of Mahomed, and his 
 conceptions of heavenly things were as gross and in- 
 coherent as those of the Arabian impostor. Suffice it 
 to say that his God is a mere man, his Angels are male 
 and female, who marry together and follow various 
 trades and professions. Finally, his Nezv Jerusalem, 
 which is to be spread over the whole earth, is so little 
 different from this sublunary world that the entrance 
 into it is imperceptible (2). So far is true, that the 
 
 (1) Baruel's Hist, du Jaoobinisme, Tom. iv. ji, 1 18. 
 
 (2) Ibid.
 
 FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 49 
 
 New Jerusalemitesare spread througliout England, and 
 have Chapels in most of its principal towns (1), 
 
 I am sorry to be obliged to enter, upon the same list 
 with these enthusiasts, a numerous class, many of them 
 very respectable, of modern religionists, called Metho- 
 dists : yet, since their avowed system of Faith is, that 
 this consists in an instantaneous illapse of God*s Spirit 
 into the souls of certain pei'sons^ by which they are con- 
 vinced of their justification and salvation^ witliout re- 
 ference to Scripture or any thing else, they cannot be 
 placed, as to their Rule of Faith, under any other 
 denomination. This, according to their founder's doc- 
 trine, is the only article of Faith ; all other articles 
 he terms opinions, of which he says, 'the Methodists 
 ' do not lay any stress, on them, whether right or 
 
 (1) 3ince the above letter was written another Sect, the Joanniles, or dis- 
 ciples of Joanna Southcote, have risen to notice by their number and the 
 singularity of their tenets. This female Apostle has been led by her spirit 
 to believe herself to be the Woman of Genesis, destined to crush the head 
 of the infernal serpent, with whom she supposes herself to have had daily 
 battles, to the effusion of his blood. She believes herself to be, likewise, the 
 woman of the Revelations crowned with twelve stars, which are so many 
 Ministers of the Established Church. In fact, one of these, a richly beneficed 
 Rector and of a noble family, acts as her secretary in writing and sealing 
 passports to heaven, which she supposes herself authorized to issue, to the 
 number of 144,000, at a very moderate price. Oue of these passports in due 
 form is in the writer's possession. It is sealed witli three seals. The first 
 exhibits two stars, namely, the morning star, to represent Christ, the even- 
 ing star, to represent herself. The second seal exhibits the lion of Juda, sup- 
 posed to allude to the insane Prophet, Richard Brothers. The third shews 
 the face of .Toanna herself. Of late her inspiration has taken a new turn : 
 she believes herself to be pregnant of the Messiah, and her followers have pre- 
 pared silver vessels of various sorts for his use, when he is born, 
 
 PART I. G
 
 50 LETTER VI. 
 
 wrong (1).' He continues : ' I am sick of opinions ; 
 
 * I am weary to bear them ; my soul loaths this frothy 
 
 * food (2)'. Conformably to this latitudinarian system, 
 Wesley opens heaven indiscriminately to Churchmen, 
 Presbyterians, Independants, Quakers, and even to 
 Catholics (3). Addressing the last named he exclaims : 
 
 * O that God would write in your hearts the rules of 
 
 * self-denial and love laid down by Thomas a Kempis ; or 
 
 * that you would follow in this and in good works, the 
 
 * burning and shining Ught of your own Church, the 
 
 * Marquis of Renty (4). Then would all who know and 
 
 * love the truth rejoice to acknowledge you as the 
 ' Church of the living God (5).' 
 
 At the first rise of Methodism in Oxford, A.D. 1729, 
 John Wesley and his companions were plain, serious 
 Church-of-England-men, assiduous and methodical in 
 praying, reading, fasting and the like. What they 
 practiced themselves, they preached to others both in 
 England and in America, till becoming intimate with 
 the Moravian brethren, and particularly with Peter 
 Bohler, one of their elders; John Wesley, *becamecon- 
 
 (1) Wesley's Appeal, P. iii. p. 134. (2) Ibid. p. 135. (3) Appeal. 
 
 (4) His life is written in French, by P^re St. Jure, a Jesuit, and abridged 
 in English by J. Wesley. 
 
 (5) In his Popery Calmly Considered, p. 20. Wesley writes : * I firmly be- 
 
 * licve that many members of the Church of Rome have been holy men, 
 ' and that many are so now.' He elsewhere says, * Several of them (Papists) 
 
 * have attained to as high a pitch of sanctity as human nature is capable of 
 ' arriving at.'
 
 FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 51 
 
 * vinced, of unbelief, namely, a xcant of that faith 
 ^whereby alone we are saved (1).' Speaking of his 
 past life and ministry, he says : * I was fundamen- 
 
 * tally a Papist and knew it not (2).' Soon after this 
 persuasion, namely, on May 24, 1739; 'Going into a 
 ' Society in Aldersgate- street,' he says, ' whilst a person 
 
 * was reading Luther's Preface to the Romans, about a 
 
 * quarter before nine, I felt my heart strangely warmed : 
 
 * I felt I did trust in Christ, in Christ alone for salva- 
 
 * tion, and an assurance zvas given me that he had taken 
 
 * azvai/ my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of 
 'sin and death (3).' 
 
 What were, now, the unavoidable consequences of 
 a diffusion of this doctrine among the people at large ? 
 Let us hear them from Weslej^'s most able disciple and 
 destined successor, Fletcher of Madeley. 'Antino- 
 
 * mian principles and practices,' he says, * have spread 
 
 * like wild fire among our Societies. Many persons, 
 
 * speaking in the most glorious manner of Christ and 
 
 * their interest in his complete salvation, have been 
 ' found living in the greatest immoralities. How few 
 
 (1) Whitehead's Life of John and Charles Wesley, vol. ii. p. 68. 
 
 (2) Journal, A. D. 1739. Elsewhere Wesley says: * O what a work has 
 
 * God begun since Peter Bohler came to England ! such a one as shall never 
 
 * come to an end, till heaven and earth pass away.' 
 
 (3) Vide Whitehead, vol. ii. page 79. In a letter to his brother Samuel, 
 John Wesley says : ' by a Christian I mean one who so believes in Christ 
 ' that death hath no dominion over him, and in this obvious sense of the word 
 ' I was not a Christian till 2ith of May last year.' Ibid. 105. 
 
 G 2
 
 52 LETTER VI. 
 
 *of our Societies, where cheating, extorting, or some 
 
 * other evil hath not broke out, and given such shakes 
 
 * to the Ark of the Gospel, that, had not the Lord in- 
 
 * terposed, it must have been overset !' (1) * I have 
 
 * seen them, who pass for behevers, follow the strain of 
 ' corrupt nature ; and when they should have exclaimed 
 
 * against Antinomianism, I have heard them cry out 
 'against the legality of their wicked hearts, which, 
 
 * they said, still suggested that they were to do some- 
 
 * thing for their salvation (2)'. ' How few of our 
 
 * celebrated pulpits, where more has not been said^br 
 
 * sin than against it.' (3)' The same candid writer, lay- 
 ing open the foulness of his former system, charges 
 Sir Richard Hill, who persisted in it, with maintain- 
 ing that, ' Even adultery and murder do not hurt the 
 
 * pleasant children, but rather work for their good (4).* 
 * God sees no sin in believers, ^vhatever sin they 
 
 * commit. My sins might displease God ; my person 
 
 * is always acceptable to him. Though I should out- 
 'sin Manasses, I should not be less a pleasant child, 
 
 (1) Checks to Antinotn. vol. ii. p. 22. (2) Ibid, page 200. 
 
 (3) Ibid, page 215. 
 
 (4) Fletcher's Works, vol. iii page 50. Agricola, one of Luther's first dis- 
 ciples, is called the founder of the Antinomians. These hold that the faithful 
 are bound by no law, either of God or man, and that good works of every 
 kind, are useless to salvation ; while Amsdorf, Luther's pot-companion, taught 
 that they are an impediment to salvation. Mosheim's Eccles. Ilist. by 
 Matlaine, vol. iv. P. 35. p. 328. Eaton, a Puritan, in his Honeycomb of Jus- 
 tification, says: ' Believers ought not to mourn for sin, because it was par- 
 ' doned before it was committed.'
 
 FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 53 
 
 * because God always views me in Christ. Hence, in 
 
 * the midst of adulteries, murders and incests, he 
 
 * can address me with : Thou art all fair^ my love, 
 
 * my undefiled^ there is no spot in thee (!)' ' It is a 
 
 * most pernicious error of the schoolmen to distinguish 
 ' sins according to the fact and not according to the 
 'person.' * Though I blame those who say ; let us sin 
 
 * that grace may abound, yet adultery, incest, and mur- 
 
 * der shall, upon the whole, make me holier on earth 
 
 * and merrier in heaven{Q),' 
 
 These doctrines and practices, casting great disgrace 
 on Methodism, alarmed its founder. He therefore 
 held a synod of his chief preachers, under the title of 
 A Conference, in which he and they unanimously aban- 
 doned their pa.st fundamental principles m the follow- 
 ing confession which they made. ' Quest. 17 Have 
 
 * we not, unawares, leaned too much to Calvinism ? 
 ' Ans, We are afraid we have. Quest, 1 8. Have we 
 
 * not also leaned too much to Antinomianism ? Ans. 
 ' We are afraid we have. Quest, 20. What are the 
 
 * main pillars of it ? Ans, 1. That Christ abolished 
 
 * the moral law : 2. That Christians therefore are not 
 
 * obliged to observe it : 3. That one branch of Chris- 
 ' tian liberty is liberty from observing the Command- 
 
 (1) Fletcher, vol. jv. p. 97. 
 
 (2) Quoted by Fletcher. See also Daubeny's Guide to the Church, 
 p. 82.
 
 54 LETTER VI, 
 
 * ments of God,' &c. (1 ) The publication of this re- 
 tractation, in 1770, raised the indignation of the more 
 rigid Methodists, namely, the Whitefieldites, Jumpers, 
 &c. all of whom were under the particular patronage 
 of Lady Huntingdon : accordingly her Chaplain, the 
 Hon, and Rev. Walter Shirley, issued a circular letter 
 by her direction, calling a General Meeting of her 
 connexion, as it is called, at Bristol, to censuie this 
 
 * dreadful heresy^* which, as Shirley affirmed, ' in- 
 
 * jured the very fundamentals of Christianity (2).* 
 
 Having exhibited this imperfect sketch of the errors, 
 contradictions, absurdities, impieties, and immoralities, 
 into which numberless Christians, most of them, no 
 doubt, sincere in their belief, have fallen, by pursuing 
 phantoms of their imagination for Divine Illuminations, 
 and adopting a supposed, immediate and personal Re- 
 velation as the Rule of their Faith and Conducty I would 
 request any one of your respectable Society, who may 
 still adhere to it, to reconsider the self-evident maxim 
 laid down in the beginning of this letter; namely: 
 That cannot be the Rule of Faith and Conduct which is 
 liable to lead us, and has led rery many well meaning 
 persons into error and impiety : I would remind him of 
 his frequent mistakes and illusions respecting things of 
 
 (1) Apiul Whitehead, p, 213. Benson's Apology, p. 208. 
 
 (2) Fletcher's Works, vol. ii. p. 5. Whitehead. Nightingale's Portrait 
 of Methodism, p. <6d.
 
 FIRST FALLACIOUS RULE. 55 
 
 a temporary nature: then, painting to his mind the 
 all -importance of ETERNITY, that is of happiness or 
 misery inconceivable and everlasting, I would address 
 him in the words of St. Augustine : * What is it you 
 
 * are trusting to, poor, weak soul, and blinded with 
 
 * the mists of the flesh : what is it you are trusting 
 
 * to ?' 
 
 J. M.
 
 tau Jt" ?."To-!'56 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 To JAMES BROWN, Esq. ^c. 
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. vfrn ^fr' ' 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I HAVE just received a letter from Friend 
 Rankin of Wenlock, written much in the style of 
 George Fox, and another from Mr. Ebenezer Topham 
 of Broseley. They both consist of objections to my 
 last letter to you, which they had perused at New Cot- 
 tage, and the writers of them both request that I would 
 address whatever answer I might give them, to your 
 Villa. 
 
 Friend Rankin is sententious yet civil: he asks, 1st, 
 Whether * Friends at this day and in past times, and 
 ' even the faithful servant of Christ, George Fox, 
 
 * have not condemned the vain imaginations of James 
 
 * Naylor, Thomas Bushel, John Perot, and the sinful 
 
 * doings of many others, through whom the word of 
 
 * life was blasphemed in their day among the ungodly?' 
 He asks, 2ndly, Whether * numberless follies, blasphe- 
 
 * mies, and crimes have not risen up in the Roman Ca- 
 
 * tholic, as well as in other Churches ?' He asks, Srdly, 
 Whether * learned Robert Barclay, in his glorious 
 
 * Apology, hath not shewn forth, that ; The testimony
 
 OBJECTIONS. 57 
 
 ' of the spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge 
 
 * of God hath been, is, andean be revealed 2iud confirmed, 
 
 * and this not only by the outward testimony of Scrip- 
 
 * ture, but also by that of Tertullian, Hierom, Augus- 
 
 * tin, Gregory the Great, Bernard, yea also by Thomas 
 '^Kempis, F. Pacificus Baker (1), and many others 
 
 * of the Popish Communion who, says Robert Barclay, 
 
 * have known and tasted the love of God, and felt the 
 
 * power and virtue of God's Spirit working within them 
 ' for their salvation ?' (2) 
 
 I will first consider the arguments of Friend Rankin. 
 I grant him, then, that his Founder, George Fox, 
 does blame certain extravagances of Naylor, Perrot, 
 and others, his followers, at the same time that he 
 boasts of several committed by himself, by Simpson, 
 and others (3) : but how does he confute them, and 
 guard others against them ? Why, he calls their 
 authors RanterSy and charges them with Running 
 out (4) / Now what kind of an argument is this in the 
 mouth of G. Fox against any fanatic, however furious, 
 when he himself has taught him, that he is to listen to 
 the Spirit of God within himself in preference to the 
 
 (1) An English Benedictine Monk, author of Sancta Sophia, which is 
 quoted at length by Barclay. 
 
 (2) Apology, p. 851. (3) See Journal of G. Fox, passim. 
 (4) Speaking of James Naylor, he says : * I spake with him, for I saw he 
 
 * KJfls out and wrong he slighted what I said, and was dark and much out,^ 
 Journ. p. 220. 
 
 PART I. H
 
 ^8 ^.Ei:FTji^. v,ij[, 
 
 authority of any man and of all men^ and even of the 
 Gospel ? G. Fox was not more strongly moved to be- 
 lieve that he was the Messenger of Christ, than J. 
 Naylor was to believe that he himself was Christ : nor 
 had he a firmer conviction that the Lord forbad Hat- 
 worship, as it is called, out of prayer, than J. Perrot (1) 
 and his company had that they were forbidden to use 
 it in prayer (2). 2dly, With respect to the excesses 
 and crimes committed by many Catholics of different 
 ranks, as well as by other men, in all ages, I answer, 
 that these have been committed, not in virtue of their 
 Rule of Faith and Conduct ; but in direct opposition to 
 it, as will be more fully seen when we come to treat of 
 that Rule : whereas the extravagances of the Quakers 
 were the immediate dictates of the imaginary spirit, 
 which they followed as their guide. Lastly, when the 
 Doctors of the Catholic Church teach us, after the in- 
 spired writers, not to extinguish, but to walk in the spirit 
 of God, they tell us, at the same time, that this Holy 
 
 (1) Journ. p. 310. This and another friend, John Love, went on a mission 
 to Rome, to convert the Pope to Quakerism; but His Holiness not imder- 
 standing Enghsh, when they addressed him with some coarse English epithets 
 in St. Peter's Church, they had no better success than a female friend, Mary 
 Fisher, had, who went into Greece to convert the Great Turk. See Sewel's 
 Hist. 
 
 (2) * Now he (Fox) found also that the Lord forbad him to put oflF his hat 
 
 * to any men high or low ; and he required to Thou and Thee every man and 
 
 * woman without distinction, and not to bid people, Good Morrow, or Good 
 
 * Evening ; neither might he bow, or scrape with his leg.' Sewel's Ilist. 
 p. 18. See there a Dissertation on Hat-vorship.
 
 OBJECTIONS. 69 
 
 Spirit invariably and necessarily leads us to hear the 
 Church, and to practice that humility, obedience, and 
 those other virtues which she constantly inculcates : 
 so that, if it were possible for an Angel from heaven to 
 preach another gospel than what we have received^ he 
 ought to be rejected, as a spirit of darkness. Even 
 Luther, when the Anabaptists first broached many of 
 the leading tenets of the Quakers, required them to 
 demonstrate their pretended commission from God, 
 by incontestable miracles (l), or submit to be guided 
 by his appointed Ministers. 
 
 I have now to notice the letter of Mr. Topham (2). 
 Some of his objections have already been answered in 
 my remarks on Mr. Rankin's letter. What I find par- 
 ticular in the former is the following passage: ' Is it 
 
 * possible to go against conviction and facts ? namely, 
 
 * the experience that very many serious Christians feel, 
 
 * in this day of God's power, that they are made parta- 
 
 * kers of Christ and of the Holy Ghost ? Of very 
 
 * many that hear him saying to the melting heart, with 
 
 * his still, small, yet penetrating and renovating voice: 
 
 * Thy sins are forgiven thee : Be thou clean : Thy faith 
 
 (1) Sleidan. 
 
 (2) It was originally intended to insert these and the other letters of the 
 same description : but as this would have rendered the work too bulky ; and, 
 as the whole of the objections may be gathered from the answers to them,; 
 that intention has been abandoncil. ; ^ 
 
 H2
 
 ^0 LETTER VII. 
 
 ' hath made thee whole ? If an exterior proof \*^erc 
 
 * wanting to shew the certainty of this interior con- 
 ' viction, I might refer to the conversion and holy life 
 
 * of those who have experienced it.' To this I answer, 
 that the facts and the conviction, which your friend 
 talks of, amount to nothing more than a certain 
 strength of imagination and warmth of sentiment, 
 which may he natural or may be produced by that lying 
 spirit^ whom God sometimes permits io go forth ^ and 
 to persuade the presumptuous to their destruction. 
 1 Kings xxii. 22. I presume Mr. Topham will allow, 
 that no experience he has felt or witnessed exceeds that 
 of Bockhold, or Hacket, or Naylor, mentioned above, 
 who, nevertheless, were confessedly betrayed by it 
 into most horrible blasphemies and atrocious crimes. 
 The virtue most necessary for enthusiasts, because the 
 
 "^most remote from them, is an humble diffidence in 
 V themselves. When Oliver Cromwel was on his death- 
 bed, Dr. Godwin being present, among other Ministers, 
 prophesied that the Protector would recover : death, 
 however, almost immediately ensuing, the Puritan, 
 instead of acknowledging his error, cast the blame upon 
 Almighty God, exclaiming: ' Lord thou hast deceived 
 
 * us ; and we have been deceived !' (l) With respect 
 to the alledged purity of Antinomian Saints, I would 
 
 (J) See Birch's life of Archbishop Tillotson, p. 17.
 
 OBJECTIONS. $1 
 
 refer to the history of the lives and deaths of many of 
 our English Regicides, the gross immoralities of num- 
 berless Justified Methodists, described by Fletcher in 
 his Checks to Antinomianism (1). 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 J. M. 
 
 (1) This candid and able ^writer says : * The Puritans and first Quakers 
 
 * soon got over the edge of internal activity into the smooth and easy path 
 
 * of Laodicean formality. Most of us, called Methodists, have already fol- 
 
 * lowed them. We fall asleep under the bewitching power; we dream strange 
 
 * dreams ; our salvation is finished ; we have got above legality ; we have 
 
 * attained Christian liberty; we have nothing to do; our covenant is sure.' 
 Vol. ii. p. 233. He refers to several instances of the most flagitious conduct 
 which human nature is capable of, in persons whp had attained to what they 
 caX\,finiihed salvation. 
 
 \>j-
 
 62 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 To JAMES BROWN, Esq. 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I TAKE it for granted that my answers to 
 Messrs. Rankin and Topham have been communicated 
 to you, and I hope that they, in conjunction with my 
 preceding letters, have convinced those Gentlemen, of 
 what you, Dear Sir, have, all along, been convinced, 
 namely, of the inconsistency and fanaticism of every 
 pretension on the part of individuals, now-a-days, to a 
 new and particular inspiration, as a Rule of Faith, 
 The question which remains for our inquiry is, whether 
 the Rule or Method prescribed by the Church of Eng- 
 land and other more rational classes of Protestants, or 
 that prescribed by the Catholic Church, is the one de- 
 signed by our Saviour Christ for finding out his true 
 Religion. You say that the whole of this is comprised 
 in the JVritten JVord of God, or The Bible, and that 
 everi/ individual is a judge for himself of the sense of 
 the Bible, Hence in every religious controversy, more 
 especially since the last change of the inconstant Chil- 
 lingworth (l), Catholics have been stunned with the 
 
 (1) Chillingworth was first a Protestant, of the Establishment: he next 
 became a CathoHc, and studied in one of our Seminaries, fie then returned, 
 in j)art, to Ins former Creed : and last of all he gave into Socinianisro, which 
 his writings greatly promoted.
 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 63 
 
 cries of jarring Protestant sects and individuals, pro- 
 claiming that, The Bible, The Bible alone is their Re- 
 ligion: and hence, more particularly at the present 
 day, Bihles are distributed by hundreds of thousands, 
 throughout the Empire and the four quarters of the 
 Globe, as the adequate means of uniting and reforming 
 Christians and of converting infidels. On the other 
 hand, we Catholics hold that The TVord of God in ge- 
 neralf both written and unwritten, in other words, The 
 Bible and Tradition, taken together, constitute the Rule 
 of Faith or Method appointed by Christ for finding out 
 the true Religion : and that, besides the Rule itself, he 
 has provided in his Holy Church, a living, speaking 
 Judge to watch over it and explain it in all matters 
 of controversy* That the latter, and not the former, 
 is the True Rule, I trust I shall be able to prove as 
 clearly as I have proved that Private Inspiration does 
 not constitute it : and this I shall prove by means of 
 the two maxims I have, on that occasion, made use of; 
 namely, The Rule of Faith, appointed by Christ must 
 be CERTAIN and UNERRING, that is to say, it 
 must be one xvhieh is not liable to lead any rational and 
 sincere inquirer into inconsistency or error : Secondly, 
 this Rule must be UNIVERSAL; that is to say, it 
 must be proportioned to the abilities and circumstances 
 of the great bulk of mankind. 
 
 I. If Christ had intended that all mankind should
 
 64f LETTEB rilU 
 
 learn his Religion from a Book, namely, The New 
 - Testament^ he himself would have written that Book, 
 and would have laid it down, as the first and funda- 
 mental precept of his Religion, the obligation of 
 learning to read it: whereas, he never wrote any thing 
 j at all, unless perhaps the sins of the Pharisees with 
 1 his finger upon the dust, John viii. 6. (l). It does not 
 even appear that he gave his Apostles any command to 
 write the Gospels ; though he repeatedly and empha- 
 tically commanded them to preach it, (Matt, x.) and 
 that to all the nations of the earth, Matf. xxviii. 19. In 
 this ministry they all of them spent their lives, preach- 
 ing the Religion of Christ in every country from 
 Judea to Spain, in one direction, and to India in ano- 
 ther ; every where establishing Churches, and com- 
 mending their doctrine to faithful men who should be 
 ft to teach others also. 2 Tim. ii. 2. Only a part of them 
 wrote any thing, and what these did write was, for 
 the most part, addressed to particular persons or con- 
 gregations, and on particular occasions. The ancient 
 Fathers tell us that St. Matthew wrote his Gospel at 
 the particular request of the Christians of Palestine (2), 
 and that St. Mark composed his at the desire of those 
 
 (1) It is agreed upon among the learned, that the supposed letter of 
 Christ to Abgarus King of Edessa, quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 1. 1. is 
 spurious. 
 
 (2) Euseb. 1. 3. Hist Eccl. Chrysos. in Mat. Horn. 1. Iron. 1. 3. c. 1. 
 Hieron. de Vir lUust.
 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 65 
 
 at Rome (1). St. Luke addressed his Gospel to an 
 individual, Theophilus, having written it, says the 
 holy Evangelist, because it seemed good to him to do so. 
 Luke i. 3. St. John wrote the last of the Gospels in 
 compliance with the petition of the Clergy and people 
 of Lesser Asia (2), to prove, in particular, the Divinity 
 of Jesus Christ, which Cerinthus, Ebion, and other 
 heretics began then to deny. No doubt the Evange- 
 lists were moved by the Holy Ghost to listen to the 
 requests of the faithful in writing their respective 
 Gospels; nevertheless there is nothing in these occa- 
 sions, nor in the Gospels themselves, which indicates 
 that any one of them, or all of them together, contain 
 an entire, detailed, and clear exposition of the whole 
 Religion of Jesus Christ. The Canonical Epistles in 
 the New Testament shew the particular occasions on 
 which they were written, and prove, as the Bishop of 
 Lincoln observes, that * They are not to be consi- 
 ' dered as regular treatises on the Christian Reli- 
 'gion(3).' . ^ _- : 
 
 IL In supposing our Slvi6tif t6 nave appoihxed 
 his bare written word for the Rule of our Faith, with- 
 out any authorized judge to decide on the unavoidable 
 controversies growing out of it, you would suppose 
 
 (1) Euseb. 1. 2, c. 15. Hist. Eccl. Epiph. Hieron. de Vir Illust. 
 
 (2) Euseb. 1. 6. Hist. Eccl. Hieron. 
 
 (3) Elera. of Chris. Rel. vol. i. p. VT, 
 
 PART I. -I
 
 6^ ' LETTER VIII. 
 
 that he has acted differently from what common sense 
 has dictated to all other legislators. For where do we 
 read of a legislator, who, after dictating a code of 
 laws, neglected to appoint judges and magistrates to 
 decide their meaning, and to enforce obedience to such 
 decisions. You, Dear Sir, have the means of knowing 
 what would be the consequence of leaving any Act of 
 Parliament concerning taxes, or inclosures, or any other 
 temporal concerns to the interpretation of the indi- 
 viduals whom it regards. Alluding to the Protestant 
 Rule, the illustrious Fenelonhas said : ' It is better to 
 
 * live without any law, than to have laws which all 
 
 * men are left to interpret according to their several 
 'opinions and interests (l).' The Bishop of London 
 appears sensible of this truth, as far as regards tem- 
 poral affairs, where he writes ; * In matters of property 
 
 * indeed, some decision, right or wrong, must be 
 
 * made : society could not subsist without it (2):' 
 just as if peace and unity were less necessary in the 
 one Sheep/old of the one Shepherd, the Church of 
 Christ, than they are in civil society ! 
 
 III. The fact is : this method of determining reli- 
 gious questions by Scripture only, according to each 
 individual's interpretation, whenever and wherever it 
 has been adopted, has always produced endless and in- 
 
 (1) Life of Archbp. Fenelon, by Rarasaj. 
 
 (2) Brief Confut. p. 18.
 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 6? 
 
 curable dissensions, and of course errors ; because 
 truth is one, while errors are numberless. The ancient 
 Fathers of the Church reproached the sects of heretics 
 and schismatics with their endless internal divisions, 
 ' See,* says St. Augustin, * into how many morsels, 
 
 * those are divided, who have divided themselves from 
 
 * the unity of the Church !' (l). Another Father writes : 
 
 * It is natural for error to be ever changing (2). 
 ' The disciples have the same right in this matter 
 
 * that their masters had.' 
 
 To speak now of the Protestant Reformers. No 
 sooner had their progenitor, Martin Luther, set up the 
 tribunal of his private judgment on the sense of Scrip- 
 ture, in opposition to the authority of the Church, 
 ancient and modern (3), than his disciples, proceeding 
 on his principle, undertook to prove from plain texts of 
 the Bible that his own doctrine was erroneous, and that 
 the Reformation itself wanted reforming. Carlostad(4), 
 Zuinglius (5), (Ecolompadius, Muncer(6), and a hun- 
 
 (1) S. Aug. 
 
 (2) Tertul. de Praescrip. 
 
 (3) This happened in June 1520, on his doctrine being censured by the 
 Pope. Till this time he had submitted it to the judgment of the Holy See. 
 
 (4) He was Luther's first disciple of distinction, being Archdeacon of 
 Wittemberg. He declared against Luther in 1521. 
 
 (6) Zuinglius began the Reformation in Switzerland some time after 
 Luther began it in Germany, but taught such doctrine that the latter termed 
 him a Pagan, and said, he despaired of his salvation. 
 
 (6) He was the disciple of Luther, and foimder of the Anabaptists, who in 
 quality of The Just, maintained that the property of Thi Wicked belonged 
 
 13
 
 68 LETTER VlII,(j:,r03^g 
 
 dred more of his followers wrote and preached against 
 him and against each other, with the utmost virulence, 
 still each of them, professing to ground his doctrine and 
 conduct on the written word of God alone. In vain 
 did Luther claim a superiority over them ; in vain did 
 he denounce hell-fire against thera(l); in vain did he 
 threaten to return back to the Catholic Religion (2) : 
 he had put the Bible into each man's hand to explain 
 it for himself: this his followers continued to do in 
 open defiance of him (3) ; till their mutual contradic- 
 tions and discords became so numerous and scandal- 
 ous, as to overwhelm the thinking part of them with 
 grief and confusion (4). 
 
 to them, quoting the second Beatitude : Blessed are the meek, for they shall 
 possess t/ie land. Muncer wrote to the several Princes of Germany to give 
 up their possessions to him, and, at the head of 40,000 of his followers, 
 marched to enforce this requisition. 
 
 (1) He says to tliem -. * I raa defend you against the Pope, but when 
 ' the devil shall urge against you (the heads of these changes) at your death, 
 ' these passages of Scripture : they ran and I did not send them, how shall 
 ' you withstand him ! lie will plunge you headlong into hell.' Oper. torn vii.. 
 fol. 274. 
 
 (2) * If you continue in these measures of your common deliberations, I 
 
 * will recant whatever I have written or said, and leave you. Mind what 
 
 * I say.' Oper. tom. vii, fol. 276. edit. Wittemb. 
 
 (S) See the curious challenge of Luther to Carlostad to write a book 
 against the Real Presence, when one wishes the other to break his neckf 
 and the other retorts : may I see thee broken on the wheel. Variat. b. iL n. 18. 
 
 (4) Capito, minister of Strasburg, writing to Farel, pastor of Geneva, thus 
 complains to him: * God lias given me to understand the mischief we have 
 4 done by our precipitancy in breaking with the Pope, &c. The people say 
 
 * to us : I know enough of the Gospel. I can read it for myself. I have no 
 
 * need of you.' Inter Epist. Calviui. In the same tone Dudith writes to 
 Jiis friend Beza: ' Our people are carried away with every wind of doctrine.
 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 69 
 
 To point Out some few of the particular variations 
 alluded to ; for to lenumerate thetn all would require a 
 work vastly more voluminous than that Of Bossuet on 
 this subject : it is well known that Luther's funda- 
 mental principle was that of imputed justice, to 
 the exclusion of all acts of virtue and good works 
 whatsoever. His favourite disciple and bottle*com- 
 panion, Auisdorf, carried this principle so far as to 
 maintain that Good works are a hinder ance to saha'^ 
 tion{\). In vindication of his fundamental tenet, 
 Luther vaunts as follows : * This article shall remain, 
 ' in spite of all the world : it is I, Martin Luther, 
 
 * Evangelist, who say it; let no one therefore attempt 
 
 * to infringe it, neither the Emperor of the Romans, 
 
 * nor of the Turks, nor of the Tartars ; neither the 
 
 * Pope, nor the Monks, nor the Nuns, nor the Kings, 
 
 * nor the Princes, nor all the Devils in hell. If they 
 
 * attempt it, may the infernal flames be their recom- 
 
 * pense. What I say here is to be taken for an in- 
 
 < If you know what tlieir religion is to-day, you cannot tell what it will be 
 
 < to-morrow. In what single point are those churches which have declared 
 
 * war against the Pope agreed among themselves ? There is not one point 
 
 < which is not held by some of them as an article of faith, and by others as 
 
 * an impiety.' In the same sentiment, Calvin writing to Melancthon, says, 
 
 * It is of great importance that the divisions, which subsist among us, 
 
 * should not be known to future ages : for nothing can be more ridiculous 
 
 * than that we, who have broken off from the whole world, should have 
 ' agreed so ill among ourselves from the very beginning of the Reformation,' 
 
 (1) Mosheim Hist, by Maclaine, vol, iv. p. 328. ea. 1790.
 
 70 LETTER VIII. 
 
 * spiration of the Holy Ghost' Notwithstanding, 
 however, these terrible threats and imprecations of 
 their master, Melancthon, with the rest of the Lu- 
 therans, immediately after his death, abandoned this 
 article, and went over to the opposite extreme of 
 Semipelagianism ; namely, they not only admitted the 
 necessity of good works, but they also taught that these 
 are prior to God's grace. Still ou this single subject 
 Osiander, a Lutheran, says, ' there are twenty several 
 
 * opinions, all drawn from the Scripture^ and held by 
 
 * different members of the Augsburg, or Lutheran, 
 
 * Confession (1).' 
 
 Nor has the unbounded licence of explaining Scrip- 
 ture, each one in his own way, which Protestants 
 claim, been confined to mere errors and dissensions : 
 it has also caused mutual persecution and blood- 
 shed (2) : it has produced tumults, rebellions, and 
 anarchy beyond recounting. Dr. Hey asserts, that 
 
 * The misinterpretation of Scripture brought on the 
 'miseries of the Civil War (3); and Lord Claren- 
 don, Madox, and other writers shew that there was 
 
 (!) Archdeacon Blackburn's Confessional, p. 16. 
 
 (2) See Letters to a Prebendary, chapter, Persecution. Numberless other 
 proofs of Protestants persecuting, not only Catholics, but also their fellow 
 Protestants to death, on account of their religious opinions, can be ad* 
 duced. 
 
 (3) Dr. Key's Theological Lectures, vol. i. p. 77,
 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 71 
 
 not a crime committed by the Puritan rebels, in the 
 course of it, which they did not profess to justify by 
 texts and instances drawn from the sacred volumes (l). 
 Leland, Bergier, Baruel, Robison, and Kett, abundant- 
 
 ly prove that the poisonous plant of infidelity, which .^^tc^r/tj^-a^ief^M 
 has produced such dreadful effects of late years on the 
 continent, was transplanted thither from this Pro- 
 testant island, and that it was produced, nourished, 
 and increased to its enormous growth by that princi- 
 ple of private judgment in matters of religion, which 
 is the very foundation of the Reformation. Let us 
 hear the two last-mentioned authors, both of them 
 Protestant Clergymen, on this important subject. 
 
 * The spirit of free inquiry,' says Kett, quoting Ro- 
 bison, * was the great boast of the Protestants, and 
 'their only support against the Catholics; securing 
 
 * them, both in their civil and religious rights. It 
 ' was therefore encouraged by their governments, and 
 
 * sometimes indulged to excess. In the progress of 
 
 * this contest their own Confessions did not escape cen- 
 *sure; and it was asserted, that the Reformation, 
 
 * which these Confessions express, was not complete. 
 
 * Further Reformation was proposed. The Scriptures, 
 
 * the foundation of their faith, were examined by 
 ' clergymen of very different capacities, dispositions, 
 
 (1) Hist, of Civ. War. Examia. of Ncal's Hist, of Puritans.
 
 78 LETTER VIII. 
 
 and views, till, by explaining, correcting, allegorizing, 
 and otherwise twisting the Bible, men's minds had 
 hardly any thing to rest on, as a doctrine of Revealed 
 Religion. This encouraged others to go further, and 
 to say that Revelation was a solecism, as plainly ap- 
 pears by the irreconcileable differences among the 
 enlighteners of the public, so they were called ; and 
 that man had nothing to trust to, but the dictates of 
 natural reason. Another set of writers, proceeding 
 from this as from a point settled, proscribed all Re 
 ligion whatever, and openly taught the doctrines of 
 Materialism aud Atheism. Most of these innovations 
 were the work of Protestant Divi?2es, frotn the causes 
 that 1 have mentioned. But the progress of infidelity 
 was much accelerated by the establishment of a 
 Philanthr opine, or Academy of general Education in 
 the principality of Anhalt-Dessau. The professed 
 object of this institution was to unite the three 
 Christian communions of Germany, and to make it 
 possible for the members of them all not only to live 
 amicably and to worship God in the same Church, 
 but even to communicate together. This attempt 
 gave rise to much speculation and refinement ; and 
 the proposal for the amendment of the Formulas and 
 the instructions from the pulpit were prosecuted with 
 so much keenness, that the ground-work of Chris- 
 tianity, was refined and refined till it vanished alto-
 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. T^ 
 
 * getber, leaving Deism, or natural, or, as it was called, 
 
 * Philosophical Religion in its place. The Lutherans and 
 
 * CalvinisiSj prepared by the causes before-mentioned, to 
 
 * become dupes to tbis masterpiece of art, were en- 
 
 * ticed by tbe specious liberality of tbe scheme, and 
 ' the particular attention which it promised to the 
 
 * morals of youth : but not one Roman Catholic could 
 
 * Basedoxv allure to his seminary of practical Ethics (f)* 
 
 IV. You have seen, Dear Sir, to what endless 
 errors and impieties the principle of private interpre- 
 tation of Scripture, no less than that of private in- 
 spiration of faith, has conducted men, and of course 
 is ever liable to conduct them ; which circumstance, 
 therefore, proves, that it cannot be the Rule for 
 bringing us to religious truths, according to the self- 
 evident maxim stated above. Nor is it to be ima-""") 
 gined that, previously to the formation of the different j 
 National Churches and other religious associations, i 
 which took place in several parts of Europe at what 
 is called " The Reformation," the Scriptures were 
 diligently consulted by the founders of them, and that 
 the ancient system of Religion was exploded, and the 
 new systems adopted, conformably with their apparent 
 sense, as Protestant controvertists would have you 
 believe. No, Sir, Princes and Statesmen had a great 
 
 (1) Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy against all Religions, &c. Kelt's 
 History the Interpreter of Prophecy, Vol. ii. p. 158. 
 
 PART I. K
 
 74 LETTER VIII. , 
 
 deal more to do with these changes, than Theologi- 
 ans ; and most of the parties concerned in them were 
 evidently pushed on by very diflferent motives from 
 those of Religion. As to Martin Luther, he testifies, 
 and calls God to witness the truth of his testimo- 
 ny, that it was not willingly (that is, not from a 
 previous discovery of the falsehood of his religion) 
 h\it from accident (namely, a quarrel with the Domi- 
 nican Friars, and afterwards with the Pope) that he 
 fell into his broils about religion (l). With respect to 
 the Reformation in our own country, we all know that 
 Henry VIII. who took the first step towards it, was, 
 at the beginning of his reign, so zealous against it, 
 that he wrote a book, which he dedicated to Pope 
 
 (1) ' Casu non voluntate in has turmas incidi: Dum tester.' ^The Pro- 
 testant historian, Mosheiin, with whom Hume agrees, admits that several 
 
 * of the principal agents in tliis revolution were actuated, more by the 
 ' impulse of passions, and views of interest, than by a zeal for true reli- 
 ' gion.' Maclaine, vol. iv. p. 135. He had before acknowledged that King 
 Gustavus introduced Lutheranism into Sweden, in opposition to the clergy 
 and bishops, * not only as agreeable to the genius and spirit of the gospel, 
 
 * but also as favourable to the temporal state and political constitution of the 
 
 * Swedish dominions,' pp. 79, 80. He adds, that Christiern, who introduced 
 the Reformation into Denmark, was animated by no other motives than 
 those of ambition and avarice, p. 82. Grotius, another Protestant, testifies 
 that it was * sedition and violence which gave birth to the Reformation in 
 
 * his country,' Holland. Append.de A ntichristo. The same was the case in 
 France, Geneva, and Scotland. It is to be observed, that in all these coun- 
 tries the reformers, as soon as they got the upper hand, became violent 
 jierseculors of the Catholics. Berger defies Protestants to name so much 
 as a town or village in which, when they became masters of it, they tolerated 
 a biii^'lc Catholic.
 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. ' 75 
 
 Leo X. in opposition to it, and in return obtained 
 for himself and his successors, from this Pontiff, the 
 title of Defender of the Faith. Becoming afterwards 
 enamoured of one of his Queen's maids of honour, 
 Ann Bullen, and the reigning Pope refusing to sanc- 
 tion an adulterous marriage with her, he caused a 
 statute to be passed, abrogating the Pope's Supremacy, 
 and declaring himself Supreme Head of the Church of 
 England (^\). Thus he plunged the nation into 
 schism, and opened a way for every kind of heresy and 
 impiety. In short, nothing is more evident than that 
 the King's inordinate passion, and not the word of 
 God, was the rule followed in this first important 
 change of our National Religion. The unprincipled 
 Duke of Somerset, who next succeeded to supreme 
 power in the church and state, under the shadow of 
 his youthful nephew Edward VI. for his own ambiti- 
 ous and avaricious purposes, pushed on the reforma- 
 tion, so called, much further than it had yet been car-* 
 ried. He suppressed the remaining colleges and hospi- 
 tals, which the profligacy of Henry had spared, con- 
 
 (1) Archbishop Parker records, that the Bishops assembled in Synod in 
 1531 offered to sign this new title, with the following salvo : * In quantum 
 per Christi leges licet ;' but that the King would admit of no such modifi- 
 cation. Antiq. Brit, p, 3?3. In the end, they surrendered the whole of their 
 siiiritual jurisdiction to him (all except the religious Bishop of Rochester, 
 Fisher, who was put to death for his refusal) and were cgptpnt to publish 
 uirticles of Religion devised by the King's Highness. Ileylin Hist, of lleform. 
 Collier, ^c. 
 
 K2
 
 76 LETTER VIII, 
 
 verting their revenues to his own and his associates' 
 uses. He forced Cranmer and the other bishops to 
 take out fresh commissions for governing their dio- 
 ceses during his nephew's, that is to say, his own good 
 pleasure (l). He made a great number of important 
 changes in the public worship by his own authority or 
 that of his visitors (2) ; and when he employed cer- 
 tain bishops and divines in forming fresh Articles and 
 a new Liturgy, he punished them with imprisonment if 
 they were not obsequious to his orders (3). He even 
 took upon himself to alter their work, when sanction- 
 ed by Parliament, in compliment to the Church's 
 
 greatest enemy, Calvin (4). Afterwards, when 
 
 Elizabeth came to the throne, a new Reformation, 
 different in its Articles and Liturgy from that of Ed- 
 
 (1) ' Licentiam cuncedimus ad nostrum beneplacitum dumtaxat duraturam.' 
 Burnet Hist. Ref. Rec. P. II. B. i. N. 2. 
 
 (2) See the Injunctions of the Council to Preachers, published before the 
 Parliament met, concerning the Mass in the Latin language, Prayers for 
 the Dead, &c. See also the order sent to the Primate against Palms, 
 Ashes, &c. in Heylin, Burnet, and Collier. The boy Edward VI. just thir- 
 teen years old, was taught by his uncle to proclaim as follows : * We would 
 
 * not have our subjects so much to mistake our judgment, &c. as though 
 
 * we could not discern what is to be done, &c. God be praised, we know 
 ' what, by his word, is fit to be redressed,' &c. Collier, vol. ii. p. 246. 
 
 (S) The Bishops Heath and Gardiner were both imprisoned for non- 
 compliance. 
 
 (4) Heylin complains bitterly of Calvin's pragmatical spirit, in quarrelling 
 with the English Liturgy, and soliciting the Protector to alter it. Preface to 
 Hist, of Reform. His letters to Somerset on the subject may be seen in 
 Fex's Acts and Monum.
 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 77 
 
 ward VI. was set on foot and moulded, not accord- 
 ing to Scripture, but to her orders. She deposed 
 all the bishops except one, * the calamity of his see^' as 
 he was called (1); and she required the new ones, 
 whom she appointed, to renounce certain exercises, 
 which they declared to be agreeable to the JVord of 
 God (2), but which she found not to agree with her 
 system of politics. She even in full Parliament threat- 
 ened to depose them all, if they did not act conform- 
 ably to her views (3). 
 
 V. The more strictly the subject is examined, the 
 more clearly it will appear, that it was not in con- 
 sequence of any investigation of the Scriptures, either 
 public or private, that the ancient Catholic Religion 
 was abolished, and one or other of the new Protestant 
 Religions set up in the different northern kingdoms 
 and states of Europe, but in consequence of the poli- 
 tics of princes and statesmen, the avarice of the nobi- 
 lity and gentry, and the irreligion and licentiousness 
 of the people. I will even advance a step further, 
 and affirm that there is no appearance of any indi- 
 
 (1) Anthony Kitchin, so called by Godwin, De Praesul, and Camden. 
 
 (2) This took place with respect to what was termed prophesying, then 
 practised by many Protestants, and defended by Archbishop Grindal and the 
 other bishops, as agreeable to God's word : nevertheless, the Queen obliged 
 them to suppress it. Col. Eccl. Hist. P. II. p. 554, &c. 
 
 (3) See her curious speech in Parliament, March 25, 1585, in Stow's 
 Annals.
 
 78 ^ LE'rii Viii.' 
 
 vidual Protestant, to whatever sect he belongs, hav- 
 ing formed his creed by the rule of Scripture alone,' 
 For do you. Sir, really believe that those persons of 
 your communion whom you see the most diligent and 
 devout in turning over their Bibles, have really found 
 out in them the Thirty-nine Articles, or any other 
 creed which they happen to profess? To judge more 
 certainly of this matter, I wish those gentlemen who' 
 are the most zealous and active iu distributing Bibles 
 among the Indians and Africans in their different 
 countries, would procure from some half dozen of the 
 most intelligent and serious of their proselytes, who 
 have heard nothing of the Christian faith by any other 
 means than their Bibles, a summary of what they re-^ 
 spectively understand to be the doctrine and the mo- 
 rality taught in that sacred volume. What inconsis- 
 tent and nonsensical symbols should we not witness ! 
 The truth is, Protestants are tutored from their infan* 
 cy, by the help of catechisms and creeds, in the sys- 
 tems of their respective sects ; they are guided by their 
 parents and masters, and are influenced by the opini- 
 ons and example of those with whom they live and 
 converse ; some particular texts of Scripture are 
 strongly impressed upon their minds, and others of an 
 apparent different meaning are kept out of their view 
 or glossed over ; and above all, it is constantly incul- 
 cated to them, that their religion is built upon Scrip-
 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 7p 
 
 ture alone : hence, when they actually read the Scrip- 
 tures, they fancy they see there what they have been 
 otherwise taught to believe; the Lutheran, for exam- 
 ple, that Christ is really present in the Sacrament; the 
 Calvinist, that he is as far distant from * it, as heaven 
 * is from earth ;' the Churchman, that Baptism is ne- 
 cessary for infants ; the Baptist that it is an impiety to 
 confer it upon them ; and so of all the other forty 
 sects of Protestants enumerated by Evans in his 
 Sketch of the different Denominations of Christians^ 
 and of twice forty other sects whom he omits to 
 mention. 
 
 When I remarked that our blessed Master Jesus 
 Christ wrote no part of the New Testament himself, 
 and gave no orders to his Apostles to write it, I ought 
 to have added that, if he had intended it, together 
 with the Old Testament, to be the sole Rule of Religi- 
 on, he would have provided means for their being able 
 to follow it; knowing, as he certainly did, that 99 in 
 every 100, or rather 999 in every 1000, in different 
 ages and countries, would not be able to read at all, 
 and much less to comprehend a page of the sacred 
 writings : yet no such means were provided by him : 
 nor has he so much as enjoined it to his followers in 
 general to study letters. 
 
 Another observation on this subject, and a very 
 obvious one is, that among those Christians, who pro-
 
 80 LETTER VIII. 
 
 fess that the Bible alone is the Rule of their Religion, 
 there ought to be no Articles, no Catechisms, no Ser- 
 mons, nor other instructions. True it is, that the 
 abolition of these, however incompatible they are with 
 the Rule itself, would quickly undermine the Esta- 
 blished Church, as its Clergy now begin to under- 
 stand, and, if universally carried into effect, would, 
 in the end, efface the whole doctrine and morality of 
 the Gospel (l): but this consequence only shews more 
 clearly the falsehood of that exclusive rule. In fact, 
 the most enlightened Protestants find themselves here 
 in a dilemma, and are obliged to say and unsay, to the 
 amusement of some persons and the pity of others (2). 
 They cannot abandon the Rule of the Bible alone^ as 
 explained by each one for himself, M'ithout proclaiming 
 their guilt in refusing to hear the Catholic Church, and 
 they cannot adhere to it, without opening the flood 
 
 (1) The Protestant writers, Kelt and Robison, have shewn, in the pas- 
 sage above quoted, how the principle of private judgment tends to under- 
 mine Christianity at large; and Archdeacon Hook, in his late Charge 
 shews, by an exact statement of capital convictions in different years, that 
 the increase of immorality has kept pace with that of the Bible Societies. 
 
 (2) One of the latest instances of the distress in question was exhibited 
 by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Marsh. In his publication, The Inquiry^ p. 4. he said 
 very truly, that * the poor (who constitute the bulk of mankind) cannot 
 * without assistance understand the Scriptures :' Being congratulated on this 
 important, yet unavoidable concession, by the Rev. Mr. Gandolphy, he 
 tacks about in a public letter to that Gentleman, and says, that what he 
 wrote in his Inquiry concerning the necessity of a further rule than mere 
 Scripture only regards the establishment of religion, not the truth of it : just 
 as if that rule were sufficient to conduct the people to the truth of Keligion, 
 while he expressly says they cannot understand it,
 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 81 
 
 gates to all the impiety and immorality of the age upon 
 their own communion, I shall have occasion hereafter 
 to notice the claims of the Estahlished Church to au- 
 thority, in determining the sense of Scripture, as well 
 as in other religious controversies : in the mean time I 
 cannot but observe that her most able defenders are fre- 
 quently obliged to abandon their own, and adopt the 
 Catholic Rule of Faith. The judicious Hooker, in his 
 defence of the Church of England, writes thus: ' Of this 
 
 * we are right sure that nature. Scripture, and experience 
 ' itself have taught the world to seek for the ending of 
 
 * contentions by submitting to some judicial and de- 
 
 * finite sentence, whereunto neither parties that con- 
 
 * tendeth, may, under any pretence or colour, refuse 
 
 * to stand. This must needs be effectual and strong. As 
 
 * for other means, without this, they seldom prevail(l).' 
 Another most clear-headed writer, and renowned de- 
 fender of the Establishment, whom I had the happiness 
 of being acquainted with. Dr. Ba]guy(2), thus ex- 
 presses himself in a Charge to the Clergy of his Arch- 
 deaconry : * The opinions of the people are and must be 
 
 * founded more on authority than reason. Their parents, 
 
 (1) Hooker's Eccles. Politic. Pref. art. 6. 
 
 (2) Discourses on various Subjects, by T. Balguy, D. D. Archdeacon and 
 Prebendary of Winchester. Some of these Discourses were preached at the 
 consecration of Bishops, and published by order of the Archbishop ; some in 
 Charges to the Clergy. The whole of them is dedicated to the King, whom 
 the writer thanks for naming him to a high dignity (the Bishopric of Glou- 
 cester), and for permitting him to decline accepting of it. 
 
 PART I. L
 
 82 LETTER VIII. 
 
 their teachers, their governors, in a great measure, 
 ' determine for them, what they are to believe and 
 
 * what to practise. The same doctrines, uniformly 
 
 * taught, the same rites constantly performed, make 
 
 * such an impression on their minds, that they hesitate 
 
 * as little in admitting the articles of their faith, as in 
 
 * receiving the most established maxims of common 
 ' life(l).' With such testimonies before your eyes, can 
 you, Dear Sir, imagine that the bulk of Protestants 
 have formed their religion by the standard of Scrip- 
 ture? He goes on to say, speaking of controverted 
 points: * Would you have them (the people) think for 
 
 * themselves ? Would you have them hear and decide 
 
 * the controversies of the learned ? Would you have 
 
 * them enter into the depths of criticism, of logic, of 
 
 * scholastic divinity ? You might as well expect 
 ' them to compute an eclipse, or decide between the 
 
 * Cartesian and Newtonian philosophy. Nay, I will 
 ' go farther : for I take upon mj/self to say, there are 
 
 * more men capable, in some competent degree, of 
 
 * understanding Newton's philosophy, than of forming 
 
 * any judgment at all concerning the abstruser ques- 
 
 * tions in metaphysics and theology.' Yet the persons, 
 of whom the doctor particularly speaks, were all fur- 
 nished with Bibles ; and the abstruse questions, which 
 he refers to, are: * Whether Christ did or did not come 
 
 (1) Discourses on various Subjects, by T. Balguy, D. D. p. ?57.
 
 SECOND FALLACIOUS RULE. 83 
 
 * down from heaven ?' whether * he died or did not 
 
 * die for the sins of the world ?' whether *he sent his 
 
 * Holj Spirit to assist and comfort us, or whether he 
 
 * did not send him(l)?* The learned Doctor else- 
 where expresses himself still more explicitly on the 
 subject of Scripture, without Church authority. He 
 is combatting the Dissenters, but bis weapons are 
 evidently as fatal to his own Church as to theirs. 
 
 * It has long been held among them that Scripture only 
 
 * is the rule and test of all religious ordinances; and 
 
 * that human authority is to be altogether excluded. 
 
 * Their ancestors, I believe, would have been not a 
 
 * little embarrassed with their own maxim, if they had 
 
 * not possessed a singular talent of seeing every thing 
 
 * in Scripture which they had a mind to see. Almost 
 
 * every sect could find there its own peculiar form of 
 
 * church-government ; and while they inforced only 
 
 * their own imaginationSf they believed themselves to be 
 ' executing the decrees of heaven (2).* 
 
 I conclude this long letter with a passage to the 
 present purpose from our admired theological poet : 
 
 * As long as words a different sense will bear, 
 
 * And each may be his own interpreter, 
 ' Our airy faith will no foundation find : 
 
 * The words a weathercock for every wind (3).' 
 
 I am, Dear Sir, &c. 
 
 J. M. 
 
 (1) Discourses on various Subjects, by T. Balguy, D. D. p. 257. 
 
 (2) Discourse VII. p. 126. (3) Dryden's Hind and Panther, Part II. 
 
 L2
 
 84 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 To JAMES BROWN, Esg. Sfc. 
 
 SECOND FALSE RULE. j^ 
 
 DEAR SIR, j^(5 
 
 After all that I have written concerning 
 the Rule of Faith, adopted by yourself and other more 
 rational Protestants, I have only yet treated of the ex- 
 trinsic arguments against it. I now therefore proceed 
 to investigate its intrinsic nature, in order to shew more 
 fully the inadequacy, or rather the falsehood of it. 
 
 When an English Protestant gets possession of an 
 English Bible, printed by Thomas Basket, or other 
 * Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty,' he 
 takes it in hand with the same confidence, as if he had 
 immediately received it from the Almighty himself, as 
 Moses received the Tables of the Law on Mount Sina, 
 amidst thunder and lightning. But how vain is this 
 confidence, whilst he adheres to the foregoing Rule of 
 faith ! How many questionable points does he assume, 
 as proved, which cannot be proved, without relinquish- 
 ing his own principles and adopting ours ! 
 
 I, Supposing then you, Dear Sir, to be the Protes- 
 tant I have been speaking of; I begin with asking 
 you : by what means have you learnt the Canon of 
 Scripture, that is to say, which are the books that have
 
 SECOITD FALSE RULE. 85 
 
 been written by Divine Inspiration; or indeed that 
 any books at all, have been so written ? You cannot 
 discover either of these things by your Rule, because the 
 Scripture, as your great authority Hooker shews (l) 
 and Chillingworth allows, cannot bear testimony 
 to itself. You will say that the Old Testament was 
 written by Moses and the Prophets, and the New 
 Testament by the Apostles of Christ and the Evange- 
 lists. But admitting all this ; it does not of itself 
 prove that they always wrote, or indeed that they ever 
 wrote under the influence of inspiration. They were, 
 by nature, fallible men : how have you learnt that the^ 
 were infallible writers. In the next place you receive 
 books, as canonical parts of the Testament which were 
 not written by Apostles at all ; namely, the Gospels of 
 St. Mark and St. Luke, whilst you reject an authentic 
 work of great excellence (2), written by one who is term- 
 ed in Scripture an Apostle (3) and declared to be full 
 of the Holy Ghost (4), I speak of St. Barnaby . Lastly, 
 you have no sufficient authority for asserting that t).3 
 sacred volumes are the genuine composition of the 
 holy personages whose names they bear, except the 
 tradition and living voice of the Catholic Church, 
 since numerous apochryphal Prophecies and spurious 
 
 (1) Eccles. Polit. b. iii. sec. 8. 
 
 (2) St. Barnaby. See Grabe's Spicileg. and Cotlerus's Collect. 
 
 (3) Acts xiv. 24. (4) Acts xi. 24.
 
 ^ *^ ' LETTER iXi ' ' 
 
 Gospels and Epistles, under the same or equal venera- 
 ble names, were circulated in the Church, during its 
 early ages, and accredited by different learned writers 
 and holy Fathers : while some of the really canonical 
 books were rejected or doubted of by them. In short, 
 it was not until the end of the fourth century that the 
 genuine Canon of Holy Scripture was fixed : and 
 then it was fixed by the tradition and authority oftht 
 Church, declared in the Third Council of Carthage 
 and a Decretal of P. Innocent I. Indeed it is so clear 
 that the Canon of Scripture is built on the Tradition 
 of the Church, that most learned Protestants (1), with 
 Luther himself, have (2) been forced to acknowledge 
 it, in terms almost as strong as those in the well-known 
 declaration of St. Augustine (3). 
 
 II. Again ; supposing the Divine authority of the 
 Sacred Books themselves to be established; how do 
 you know that the copies of them translated and 
 printed in your Bible are authentic ? It is agreed upon 
 amongst the learned that the original text of Moses 
 and the ancient prophets was destroyed with the Tem- 
 ple and city of Jerusalem by the Assyrians under Ne- 
 
 (1) Hooker, Eccl. Polit. C. iii. S. 8. Dr. Lardner, in Bishop Watson's 
 Col. vol. ii, p. 80. 
 (8) * We are obliged to yield many things to the Papists that with them 
 
 * is the Word of God, which we received from them ; otherwise we should 
 
 * have known nothing at all about it' Comment, on John c. 16. 
 
 (3) ' I should not believe the Gospel itself, if the authority of the Catholic 
 
 * Church did not obUge me to do so.' Contra Epist. Fundam.
 
 SECOND FALSE RULE. 87 
 
 buchadnezzar ( 1 ) ; and, though they were replaced by 
 authentic copies, at the end of the Babylonish captivity, 
 through the pious care of the Prophet Esdras or Ezra, 
 yet that these also perished in the subsequent persecu- 
 tion of Antiochus (2) ; from which time we have no 
 evidence of the authenticity of the Old Testament till 
 this was supplied by Christ and his Apostles, who 
 transmitted it to the Church. In like manner, granting, 
 for example, that St. Paul wrote an inspired Epistle to 
 the Romans and another to the Ephesians ; yet as the 
 former was entrusted to an individual, the Deaconess 
 Phebe, to be conveyed by her to its destination (3), 
 and the latter to his disciple, Tychicus (4), for the same 
 purpose, it is impossible for you to entertain a rational 
 conviction that these Epistles as they stand in your 
 Testament, are exactly in the state in which they issued 
 from the Apostle's pen, or that they are his genuine 
 Epistles at all, without recurring to the tradition and 
 authority of the Catholic Church concerning them. 
 To make short of this matter, I will not lead you into 
 the labyrinth of Biblical criticism, nor will I shew you 
 the endless varieties of readings with respect to words 
 and whole passages, which occur in different copies of 
 the Sacred Text, but will here content myself with re- 
 ferring you to your own Bible Book, as printed by 
 
 (1) Brett's Dissert, in Bishop Watson's Collect, vol. iii. p. 5. 
 
 (2) Ibid. (3)Rom. xvi. See Calmet, &c. (4) Ephcs. vi. 21.
 
 #i LETTER IX. 
 
 authority. Look then at Psalm xiv, as it occurs in 
 The Book of Common Prayer, to which your Clergy 
 swear their * consent and assent ;* then look at the 
 same Psalm in your Bible : you will find four whole 
 verses in the former, which are left out of the latter ! 
 What will you here say, Dear Sir ? You must say that 
 your Church has added to, or else that she has taken 
 itJoayfrCa the words of this Prophecy (l) ! 
 
 III. But your pains and perplexities concerning 
 your jclule of Faith must not stop even at this point : 
 for though you iiad demonstrative evidence, that the 
 several books in your Bible are Canonical and authentic, 
 in the originals, it would still remain for you to in- 
 quire whether or no they are faithfully translated in 
 your Ejiglish copy* In fact you are aware that they 
 were written, some of them in Hebrew and some of 
 them in Greek, out of which languages they were 
 translated, for the last time, by about fifty difi^erent 
 men, of various capacities, learning, judgment, opi- 
 nions, and prejudices (2). In this inquiry the Catholic 
 Church herself can afford you no security to build 
 your faith upon; much less can any private individuals 
 
 (1) The verses in question being quoted by St. Paul, Rora. iii. 13, &:c. there is 
 no doubt but the Common Bible is defective in this passage. On the other 
 hand, the Bishop of Lincoln has published his conviction that the most im- 
 portant passage in the New Testament, 1 John v. f, for establishing the 
 Divinity of Jesus Christ ' is spurious.' Elem. of Theo. vol. ii, p. 90. 
 
 (2) See a list of them in Ant, Johnson's Hist. Account. Theo. Collect, 
 p. 95.
 
 SECOND FALSE RULE. 89 
 
 whosoever. The celebrated Protestant Divine, Epis- 
 copius, was so convinced of the fallibility of modern 
 translations, that he wanted all sorts of persons, la- 
 bourers, sailors, women, &c. to learn Hebrew and 
 Greek. Indeed it is obvious that the sense of a text 
 may depend upon the choice of a single word in the 
 translation : nay, it sometimes depends upon the mere 
 punctuation of a sentence, as may be seen below (l). 
 Can you then, consistently, reject the authority of the 
 great Universal Church, and yet build upon that of 
 some obscure translator in the reign of James I. ? No, 
 Sir, you must yourself have compared your English 
 Bible with the originals, and have proved it to be a 
 faithful version, before you can build your faith upon 
 it as upon The Word of God. To say one word now of 
 the Bibles themselves, which have been published by 
 authority, or generally used by Protestants in this 
 country : Those of Tindal, Coverdale and Queen 
 Elizabeth's Bishops, were so notoriously corrupt, as to 
 cause a general outcry against them among learned Pro- 
 testants, as well as among Catholics, in which the King 
 (James I.) joined himself (2), who accordingly ordered 
 
 (1) One of the strongest passages for the Divinity of Christ is the follow- 
 ing, as it is pointed in the Vulgate : Ex quibus est Christus, secundum carneni, 
 qui est super omnia Dens benedictus in smcula. Rom. ix. 5. But see how Grotius 
 and Socinus deprive the text of ail its strength by merely substituting a point 
 for a comma -. Ex quibus est Christus, secundum carncm. Qui est super omnia 
 Deus benedictus in soccula. 
 
 (2) Bishop Watson's Collect, vol. iii. p. 98. 
 
 PART I. M
 
 1 
 
 ^- LETTER IX. 
 
 a new version of it to be made, being the same that is 
 now in use, with some few alterations made after the 
 Restoration (l). Now though these new translators 
 1 have corrected many wilful errors of their predecessors, 
 most of which were levelled at Catholic doctrines and 
 discipline (2) ; yet they have left a sufficient number 
 "^^^^ of these behind, for which I do not find that their ad- 
 vocates offer any excuse (3). 
 
 IV. I will make a further supposition, namely, that 
 you had the certainty even of Revelation, as the Cal- 
 vinists used to pretend they had, that your Bible is not 
 only Canonical^ authentic^ and faithful ^ in its English 
 garb; yet what would all this avail you, towards esta- 
 blishing your Rule of Faith, unless you could be 
 equally certain of your understanding the whole of it 
 rightly ? For, as the learned Protestant Bishop 
 Walton says (4) : ' The Word of God does not consist 
 * in mere letters, whether written or printed, but in 
 
 (1) Ibid. 
 
 (2) These may be found in the learned Greg. Martin's Treatise on the 
 subject, and in Ward's Errata to the Protestant Bible. 
 
 (3) Two of these I had occasion to notice in the Inquiry into the Charatter 
 of the Irish Catholia, namely, 1 Cor. xi. 27, where the conjunctive and is 
 
 j put for the disjunctive or, and Mat. xix. 11, where cannot is put for do not, 
 
 J to the altering of the sense in both instances. Now, though these corruptions 
 
 "S stand in direct opposition to the original, as the Rev. Mr. Grier and Dr. Ryan 
 
 I' themselves quote it ; yet these writers have the confidence to deny they arc 
 
 ! corruptions, because they pretend to prove from other texts that the cup it 
 
 necestary, and thai continency is not necessary ! ! Answer to Ward's Errata, 
 
 p. 13, page 33. ' 
 
 (4) In the Prolegomena to his Poliglott, cap. v. 
 
 . . ^ . . "> .. ^
 
 SECOND FALS? RULE. Pl 
 
 * the true sense of it (l); which no one can better 
 
 * interpret than the true Church, to which Christ 
 'committed this sacred pledge.' This is exactly what 
 St, Jerom and St. Augustin had said many ages be- 
 fore him. * Let us be persuaded,' says the former, 
 
 * that the Gospel consists not in the words, but in the 
 
 * sense. A wrong explanation turns the Word of God 
 
 * into the word of man, and what is worse, into the 
 ' word of the Devil ; for the Devil himself could quote 
 
 * the text of Scripture (2).' Now that there are in 
 Scripture things hard to be understood^ which the ww- 
 learned and unstable zvrest unto their ozvn destructiony 
 is expressly affirmed in it (3). The same thing is 
 proved by the frequent mistakes of the Apostles them- 
 selves, with respect to the words of their Divine Mas- 
 ter. These obscurities are so numberless throughout 
 the sacred volumes, that the last quoted Father, who 
 was as bright and learned a Divine, as ever took the 
 Bible in hand, says of it : * There are more things in 
 
 * Scripture that I am ignorant of than those I know (4).* 
 Should you prefer a modern Protestant authority to an 
 ancient Catholic one ; listen to the clear-headed Dr. 
 Balguy. His words are these : ' But what, you will 
 
 (1) This obvious truth shews the extreme absurdity of our Bible Societies 
 and modern schools which regard nothing but the mere reading of the Bible, 
 leaving persons to embrace the most opposite interpretations of the same texts. 
 
 (2) In. Ep. ad Galat. contra Lucif. (3) 2 Pet. iii. 16. 
 (4) St. Aug. Ep. ad Januar. 
 
 M 2
 
 92 LETTER IX. ^^ J ^^ ^ 
 
 * reply, is all this to Christians ? to those who see by a 
 '*cl6af and strong light, the dispensation of God to 
 
 * mankind ? We are not as those who have no hope. 
 
 * The Day-spring from on high hath visited us. The 
 
 * spirit of God shall lead us into all truth, To this de- 
 ' lusive dream of human folly, founded only on mista- 
 ' ken interpretations of Scripture; I answer, in one 
 
 * word : Open your Bibles: take the first page that 
 
 * occurs in either Testament, and tell me, without dis- 
 
 * guise ; is their nothing in it too hard for your under- 
 
 * standing ? If you find all before you clear and easy^ 
 ' you may thank God for giving you a privilege which 
 ' he has denied to many thousands of sincere be- 
 
 * lievers (1).' '^ 
 
 Manifold is the cause of the obscurity of Holy Writ ; 
 1st, the sublimity of a considerable part of it, which 
 speaks either literally or figuratively of the Deity and 
 his attributes; of the Word Incarnate ; of Angels and 
 other spiritual beings: 2dly, the mysterious nature of 
 prophecy in general: 3dly, the peculiar idioms of the 
 Hebrew and Greek languages: lastly, the numerous 
 and bold figures of speech, such as allegory, irony, 
 hyperbole, catachresis, antiphrasis, which are so fre- 
 quent with the sacred penmen, particularly the ancient 
 prophets (2). I should like to hear any one of those, 
 
 (1) Dr. Balguy's Discourses, p. 133. 
 
 (2) See examples of these in Bonfrerius's Prceloquia and in the Appendixes 
 to them, %t the end ofMcnuchius.
 
 SECOND FALSE RULE. 53 
 
 who pretend to find the Scripture so easy, attempting 
 to give a clear explanation of the 67th, alias the 68th, 
 Psalm ; or the last chapter of Ecclesiastes. Is it an 
 easy matter to reconcile certain well-known speeches 
 of each of the Holy Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob, with the incommutable precept of truth ? I may 
 here notice, among a thousand other such difficulties, 
 that when our Saviour sent his twelve Apostles to 
 preach the Gospel to the lost sheep of the house of 
 Israel, he told them, according to St. Mathew x. 10, to 
 Provide neither gold 7ior silver neither shoes nor yet 
 staves : whereas St. Mark vi. says : He commanded 
 them that they should take nothing for their journey, 
 save a staff only. You may indeed answer, with Chil- 
 lingworth and Bishop Porteus, that whatever obscuri- 
 ties there may be in certain parts of Scripture, it is clear 
 in all that is necessary to be known. But on what au- 
 thor! ty do these writers ground this maxim ? They have 
 none at all ; but they beg the question, as logicians 
 express it, to extricate themselves from an absurdity, 
 and in so doing they overturn their fundamental Rule. 
 They profess to gather their articles of faith and mo- 
 rals from mere Scripture: nevertheless, confessing that 
 they understand only a part of it ; they presume to 
 make a distinction in it, and to say this part is neces- 
 sary to be known, the other part is not necessary. But 
 to place this matter in a clearer light, it is obvious that
 
 94- *S r J LETTER IX 
 
 if any articles are particularly necessary to be known 
 and believed, they are those which point to the God 
 whom we are to adore, and the moral precepts which 
 we are to observe. Now, is it demonstratively evident, 
 from mere Scripture^ that Christ is God, and to be 
 adored as such ? Most modern Protestants of eminence 
 answer NO ; and, in defence of their assertion, quote 
 the following among other texts : The Father is greater 
 than If John xiv. 28 ; to which the orthodox Divines 
 oppose those texts of the same Evangelist, / and the 
 Father are one, x. 30. The Word was God, &c. i. 1. 
 Again, we find the following among the moral precepts 
 of the Old Testament : Go thy way ; eat thy bread with 
 joyy and drink thy wine with a merry heart : for God now 
 accept eth thy works. Let thy garments be always rvhite, 
 and let thy head lack no ointment. Live joyfully with 
 the wife whom thou lovest, &c. Eccles. ix. 7, 8, 9. In 
 the New Testament we meet with the following seem- 
 ingly practical commands. Swear not at all, Mat. v. 
 34. Call no man Father upon earth neither be you 
 called Masters, for one is your Master, Christ, Mat. 
 xxiii. 9t 10. If any man sue thee at law, to take away 
 thy coat, let him have thy cloak also, v. 46. Give to 
 every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away 
 thy goods ask him not again, Luke vi. 33 When thou 
 makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends nor thy 
 brethren, xiv. 12. These are a few among hundreds
 
 SECOND FALSE RULE. Q5 
 
 of other difficulties, regarding our moral duties, which, 
 though confronted by other texts, seemingly of a con- 
 trary meaning, nevertheless shew that the Scripture is 
 not, of itself, demonstratively clear in points of first 
 rate importance, and that the Divine Law, like human 
 laws, without an authorised interpreter, must ever be a 
 source of doubt and contention, 
 
 V. I have said enough concerning the contentions 
 among Protestants, I will now, by way of concluding 
 this letter, say a word or two of their doubts. In the 
 first place, it is certain, as a learned Catholic contro- 
 vertist argues (1), that a person who follows your Rule 
 cannot make an act of faith, this being, according to 
 your great authority. Bishop Pearson, an assent to the 
 revealed articles, with a certain and full persuasion of 
 their revealed truth (2) : or, to use the words of your 
 Primate, Wake : * When I give my assent to what God 
 * has revealed, I do it, not only with a certain assurance 
 ' that what I believe is true, but with an absolute se- 
 ' curity that it cannot be false (3).* Now the Protestant, 
 who has nothing to trust to but his own talents in 
 interpreting the Books of Scripture, especially with 
 all the difficulties and uncertainties which he labours 
 under, according to what I have shewn above, never 
 
 (1) Sheffmacher Letlres d'un Bocteur Cat. a un Gentil/iommeJ'rot.voL 
 i. p. 48. 
 
 (2) Ou tlie Creed, p. 15. (3) Priiicip. of Clirist. llcl, p. 27.
 
 gQ LETTER IX. 
 
 can rise to this certain assurance and absolute security, 
 as to what is revealed in Scripture: the utmost he can 
 say is : such and such appears to me, at the present mo- 
 ment, to be the sense of the texts before me : and, if he 
 is candid, he will add : but perhaps, upon further con- 
 sideration, and upon comparing these with other tea:ts, I 
 may alter my opinion. How far short. Dear Sir, is such 
 mere opinion from the certainty of faith ! I may 
 here refer you, to your own experience : are you ac- 
 customed in reading your Bible to conclude, in your 
 own mind, with respect to those points which appear 
 to you most clear : / believe in these, with a certain as' 
 surafice of their truth, and an absolute security that 
 they cannot be false ; especially when you reflect that 
 other learned, intelligent, and sincere Christians have 
 understood those passages in quite a different sense 
 from what you do. For my part, having sometimes 
 lived and conversed familiarly with Protestants of this 
 description, and noticed their controversial discourses, 
 I never found one of them absolutely fixed for any long- 
 time together, in his mind, as to the whole of his belief. 
 I invite you to make the experiment on the most in- 
 telligent and religious Protestant of your acquaintance. 
 Ask him a considerable number of questions, on the 
 most important points of his religion : note down his 
 answers, while they are fresh in your memory. Ask 
 him the same questions, but in a different order, u
 
 SECOND FALSE RULE. ^7 
 
 mouth afterwards, when, I can almost venture to say, 
 you will be surprised at the difference you will find, 
 between his former and his latter creed* After all, we 
 need not use any other means to discover the state of 
 doubt and uncertainty in which many of your greatest 
 Divines and most profound Scriptural Students have 
 passed their days, than to look into their publications. 
 I shall satisfy myself with citing the Pastoral Charge 
 of one of them, a living Bishop to his Clergy. Speak- 
 ing of the Christian doctrines he says : * I think it safer 
 ' to tell you, where they are contained^ than, what they 
 
 * are. They are contained in the Bible, and if, in reading 
 ^ that book, your sentiments concerning the doctrines 
 
 * of Christianity should be different from those of your 
 
 * neighbour, or from those of the Churchy be persuaded 
 ' on your part, that infaUibility appertains as little to 
 
 * you as it does to the Church (l).' Can you read this, 
 my Dear Sir, without shuddering ? If a most learned 
 and intelligent Bishop and Professor of Divinity, as 
 Dr. Watson certainly is, after studying all the Scrip- 
 tures and all the Commentators upon them, is forced 
 publicly to confess to his assembled clergy, that he 
 cannot tell them what the doctrines of Christianity are, 
 how unsettled must his mind have been ! and of course, 
 how far removed from the assurance of faith ! In the 
 next place, how fallacious must that Rule of the mere 
 
 (1) Bishop Watson's Charge to his Clergy, in 1795. 
 PART I. N
 
 P8 LETTER IX. 
 
 Bible be, which, while he recommends it to them, he 
 plainly signifies, will not lead them to a uniformity 
 of sentiments, one with another, nor even with their 
 Church ! 
 
 There can be no doubt, Sir, but those who enter- 
 tain doubts concerning the truth of their religion, in 
 the course of their lives, must experience the same, 
 with redoubled anxiety, at the approach of death. 
 Accordingly there are, I believe, few of our Catholic 
 priests in an extensive ministry, who have not been 
 frequently called in to receive dying Protestants into 
 the Catholic Church (1), while not a single instance 
 of a Catholic wishing to die in any other com.munion 
 than his own can be produced (2). O death, thou 
 great enlightener ! O truth- telling death, how power- 
 ful art thou in confuting the blasphemies, and dissipat- 
 ing the prejudices of the enemies of God's Church ! 
 
 (1) A large proportion of those Grandees who were the most forward in 
 promoting the Reformation, so called, and among the rest Cromwell, Earl 
 of Essex, the King's Ecclesiastical Vicar, when they came to die, returned 
 to the Catholic Church. This was the case also with Luther's chief pro- 
 tector, the Elector of Saxony, the persecuting Queen of Navarre, and many 
 other foreign Protestant Princes. Some Bishops of the Established Church; 
 for instance, Goodman and Cheyney of Gloucester, and Gordon of Glas- 
 gow, probably also Halifax of St. Asaph's, died Catholics. A long list of 
 titled or otherwise distinguished personages, who have either returned to 
 the Catholic faith, or, for the first time, embraced it on their death-beds, 
 in modern times, might be named here, if it were prudent to do so. 
 
 (2) This is remarked by Sir Toby Mathews, son of the Archbishop of 
 York, Hugh Cressy, Canon of Windsor and Dean of Laughlin, F. Walsing- 
 ham, and Ant. Ulric Duke of Brunswick, all illustrious converts. Also 
 by Bcuricr in liis Conferences, p. 400.
 
 SECOND FALSF. RULE. 99 
 
 Taking it for granted, that you, Dear Sir, have not 
 been without your doubts and fears about the safety 
 of the road in which you are walking to eternity, more 
 particularly in the course of the present controversy, 
 and being anxious, beyond expression, that you should 
 be free from these when you arrive at the brink of that 
 vast ocean, I cannot do better than address you in the 
 words of the great St. Augustin, to one in your situa- 
 tion : * If you think you have been sufficiently 
 
 * tossed about, and wish to see an end to your an- 
 
 * xieties, follow the rule of Catholic discipline, which 
 
 * came down to us through the apostles from Christ 
 
 * himself, and which shall descend from us to the 
 'latest posterity (1).* Yes, renounce the fatal and 
 foolish presumption of fancying that you can interpret 
 the Scripture better than the Catholic Church, aided, 
 as she is, by the tradition of all ages, and the Spirit of 
 all truth (2). But I mean to treat this latter subject 
 at due length in my next letter, 
 
 I am. 
 
 Dear Sir, &c., 
 
 J. M. 
 
 (1) De Utilit. Cred. c. 8. 
 
 (2) Bossuet in his celebrated Conference with Claude, which produced the 
 conversion of Mile. Duras, obliged him to confess that, by the Protestant 
 Rule, ' every artisan and husbandman may and ought to believe that he can 
 
 * understand the Scriptures belter than all the Fathers and Doctors of the 
 
 * Church, ancient and modern, put together.' 
 
 N2
 
 ^;^> 100 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 To JAMES BROWN, Esq. ^c. 
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I HAVE received your letter, and 
 also two others from gentlemen of your Society, on 
 what I have written to you concerning the insuffi- 
 ciency of Scripture, interpreted by individuals, to 
 constitute a secure Rule of Faith. From these it is 
 plain that my arguments have produced a considerable 
 sensation in the Society ; insomuch that I find myself 
 obliged to remind them of the terms on which we 
 mutually entered upon this correspondence, namely, 
 that each one should be at perfect liberty to express 
 his sentiments on the important subject under consi- 
 deration, without complaint or offence of the other. 
 The strength of my arguments is admitted by you all ; 
 yet you all bring invincible objections, as you con- 
 sider them, from Scripture and other sources against 
 them. I think it will render our controversy more 
 simple and clear if, with your permission, I defer 
 answering these, till after I have said all that I have 
 to say concerning the CathoHc Rule of Faith.
 
 THE fRU RULE. 101 
 
 The Catholic Rule of Faith, as I stated before, is 
 not merely The Written Word of Gody but The Whole 
 WordofGody both Written and Unwritten ; iii other 
 words Scripture and Tradition, and these propounded 
 and explained by the Catholic Church* This implies 
 that we have a two-fold Rule, or Law, and that we 
 have an Interpreter, or Judge, to explain it, and to 
 decide upon it in all doubtful points. 
 
 I. I enter upon this subject with observing that all 
 written lazvs, necessarily suppose the existence of un* 
 written laws, and indeed depend upon them for their 
 force and authority. Not to run into the depths of 
 ethics and metaphysics on this subject ; you know. 
 Dear Sir, that, in this kingdom, we have Common or 
 Unwritten Law, and Statute or Written Law, both of 
 them binding ; but that the former necessarily pre- 
 cedes the latter. The Legislature, for example, makes 
 a written statute, but we must learn before hand, frofti 
 the common law, what constitutes the Legislature, and 
 we must also have learnt from the Natural and the Di- 
 vine Laws, that the Legislature is to be obeyed in all 
 things which these do not render unlaxvfuL * The mu- 
 nicipal law, of England,' says Judge Blackstone, 
 
 * may be divided unto Lex Non Scripta, the Unwritten 
 
 * or Common Law, and the Lex Scripta, or Statute 
 
 * Law(l).' He afterwards calls the Common Law, 
 
 (1) Comment, on the Laws, Introduct. sect. 3.
 
 102 LETTER X. 
 
 * the first ground and chief corner-stone of the Laws 
 
 * of England (l).' If, continues he, *The question 
 
 * arises : hoxv these customs or maxims are to he known, 
 
 * and bi/ whom their *oaUdity are to be determined ? The 
 'answer is: by the Judges in the several courts of 
 ^justice. They are the depositaries of the laws, the 
 
 * living oracles, who must decide in all cases oj doubt, 
 
 * and who are bound by oath to decide according to 
 ' the law of the land (2).* So absurd is the idea of 
 binding mankind by written laws, without laying an 
 adequate foundation for the authority of those laws, 
 and without constituting living judges to decide upon 
 them ! 
 
 Neither has the Divine Wisdom, in founding the 
 spiritual kingdom of his Church, acted in that in- 
 consistent manner. The Almighty did not send a 
 Book, the New Testament, to Christians, and, with- 
 out so much as establishing the authority of that Book, 
 leave them to interpret it, till the end of time, each 
 one according to his own opinions or prejudices. 
 But our Blessed Master and Legislator, Jesus Christ, 
 having first demonstrated his own divine legation from 
 his heavenly Father by undeniable miracles, commis- 
 sioned his chosen Apostles, by word of mouth, to pro- 
 claim and explain, by word of mouth, his doctrines and 
 
 (1) Comment, on the Laws, Introduct. sect. iii. p. 73. 8lh edit. 
 
 (2) Ibid. p. 69.
 
 THE TRUE RULE, 103 
 
 precepts to all nations, promising to be with them in 
 the execution of this office of his heralds and judges, 
 even to the end of the world. This implies the power, 
 he had given them, of ordaining successors in this 
 office, as they themselves were only to live the or- 
 dinary term of human life. True it is that, during the 
 execution of their commission, he inspired some of 
 them and their disciples to write certain parts of these 
 doctrines and precepts, namely, the Canonical Gospels 
 and Epistles, which they addressed, for the most part, 
 to particular persons and on particular occasions : 
 but these inspired writings, by no means, rendered 
 void Christ's commission to the Apostles and their 
 successors, o^ preaching and explaining his word to the 
 nations, or his promise of being with them till the end 
 of time. On the contrary, the inspiration of these 
 very writings is not otherwise known than by the mva 
 voce evidence of these depositaries and judges of the 
 revealed truths. This Analysis of Revealed Religion, 
 so conformable to Reason and the Civil Constitution 
 of our country, is proved to be true, by The JVritten 
 Word itself by the Tradition and conduct of the Apos- 
 tles and by the constant testimony and practice of 
 the Fathers and Doctors of the Church in all ages. 
 
 II. Nothing then, Dear Sir, is further from the 
 doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church than to 
 slight the Holy Scriptures. So far from this, she had
 
 104 LETTER X. 
 
 religiously preserved and perpetuated them from age 
 to age, during almost 1500 years, before Protestants 
 ei^isted. iShe has consulted them, and Gonfirmed her 
 decrees from them in her several councils. She enjoins 
 her Pastors, whose business it is to instruct the faithful, 
 to read and study them without intermission, know- 
 ing, that All Scripture i0 given by inspiration of God, 
 andis projitablefor doctrine^ for reproof for correction, 
 for instruction in righteousness. 2 Tim. tii. 16, 
 Finally, she proves her perpetual right to announce 
 and explain the truths and precepts of her Divine 
 Founder, by several of the strongest and clearest pasr 
 sages contained in Holy Writ (1). Such, for example, 
 is the last commission of Christ, alluded to above : 
 Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in 
 the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost : teaching them to observe all the things whatso* 
 ever I have commanded you. And lo ! I am with you 
 all days, even to the end of the world. Matt, xxviii. 
 49, 20. And again : Go ye into all the world and 
 preach the Gospel to every creature. Mark xvi. 15. It 
 is preaching and teaching then, that is to say the Un- 
 written fVord, which Christ has appointed to be the 
 general method of propagating his divine truths; and, 
 whereas he promises to be with his Apostles to the end 
 
 (1) St. Austin uses this argument against the Donatists, * In Scripturis 
 * discimus Christum in scripturis discimus Ecclesiam. Si Christum teneali?, 
 ' quare Ecclesiam nou tenetis/
 
 GO YE INTO THE 'WHOLE T^ORLD AND PKEACH' 
 THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE, 
 
 Mark XVI. yV. 
 
 Th>aed Ij WSTJUdd^ffi.
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 105 
 
 of the world : this proves their authority in expounding, 
 and that the same was to descend to their legitimate 
 successors in the sacred ministry, since they them- 
 selves were only to live the ordinary term of human 
 life. In like manner the following clear texts prove 
 the authority of the Apostles and their successors jTor 
 eoer ; that is to say, of the everliving and speaking 
 tribunal of the Church, in expounding our Saviour's 
 doctrine : I will pray the Father, and he shall give you 
 another Comforter, that he may abide with you for 
 ever. The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom 
 the Father will send in my name ; he shall teach you all 
 things, and bring all things to your remembrance, zvhat' 
 soever I have said unto you. John xiv. 16, 9,6. St. Paul, 
 speaking of both the Unwritten and the Written Word, 
 puts them upon a level, where he says : Therefore, 
 Brethren, stand fost and hold the tradition ye have been 
 taught, whether by word or our epistle. 2 Thess. v. 13. 
 Finally, St. Peter pronounces that : No prophecy of 
 Scripture is of any private interpretation. 2 Pet. i. 20. 
 
 III. That the Apostles and the Apostolical men, 
 whom they formed, followed this method prescribed by 
 their Master, is unquestionable ; and we have positive 
 proofs from Scripture, as well as from ecclesiastical 
 history, that they did so. St. Mark, after recording 
 the above-cited admonition of preach mg the Gospel, 
 Avhlch Christ left to his Apostlos, adds : And they wenf 
 
 PART I. O ,
 
 106 LETTER X. 
 
 forth and preached every where ; the Lord working with 
 theniy and confirming the word with signs following, 
 Mark xvi. 20. St. Peter preached throughout Judea, 
 and Syria, and last of all in Italy and at Rome; St. 
 Paul throughout Lesser Asia, Greece, and as far as 
 Spain; St. Andrew penetrated into Scythia ; St. Tho- 
 mas and St, Bartholomew into Parthia and India, 
 and so of the others ; every where converting and 
 instructing thousands, by word of mouth ; founding 
 Churches, and ordaining Bishops and Priests to 
 do the same(l). If any of them wrote, it was 
 on some particular occasion, and, for the most part, 
 to a particular person, or congregation, without 
 cither giving directions, or providing means of com- 
 municating their Epistles or their Gospels to the rest 
 of the Christians throughout the world. Hence it 
 happened, as I have before remarked, that it was not 
 till the end of the fourth century, that the Canon of 
 Holy Scriptures was absolutely settled as it now stands. 
 True it is, that the Apostles, before they separated 
 to preach the Gospel to different nations, agreed upon 
 a short symbol or profession of Faith, called, The 
 Jpostles* Creed ; but even this they did not commit 
 
 (1) They ordained them Priests in every Church. Acts xiv. 22. For this 
 cause I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are 
 wanting, and shouldest ordain I'riests in every city, as I had appointed thee. 
 Tit. L 5. The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same 
 commit thou to those faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. 
 t Tim. ii. 2.
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 107 
 
 to writing (l) : and whereas they made this, among 
 other articles of it, I believe in the Holy Church (2), 
 they made no mention at all of the Holy Scriptures. 
 This circumstance confirms what their example proves, 
 that the Christian doctrine and discipline might have 
 been propagated and preserved by the Unwritten Word, 
 or Tradition, joined with the authority of the Church, 
 though the Scriptures had not been composed ; how- 
 ever pro^^a^/e these most certainly are for doctrine, for 
 reproof, for correction, and for instruction in right e- 
 ousness. Q Tim. iii. 16. I have already quoted one of 
 the ornaments of your Church, who says, that ' the 
 
 * Canonical Epistles' (and he might have added the 
 Gospels) * are not regular treatises upon the Christian 
 
 * Religion (3),' and I shall have occasion to shew from 
 an ancient Father, that this religion did prevail and 
 flourish soon after the age of the Apostles, among na- 
 tions which did not even know the use of letters. 
 
 IV. However light Protestants of this age may make 
 of the ancient Fathers, as theological authorities (4), 
 
 (1) Ruffin. inter Opera Hieron. 
 
 ^2) The title Catholic was afterwards added, when heresies increased. 
 
 (3) Elements of Theology, vol. ii. 
 
 (4) Jewel, Andrews, Hooker, Morton, Pearson, and other Protestant 
 divines of the 16th and inh centuries, laboured hard to press the Fathers 
 into their service, but with such bad success, that the succeeding contro-. 
 ersialists gave them up in despair. The learned Protestant, Causabon, 
 confessed that the Fathers were all on the Catholic side ; the equally 
 learned Obrecht testifies that, in reading their works, * he was frequently 
 
 * provoked to throw them on the ground, finding them so full of Popery * 
 while Middleton heaps every kind of obloquy upon them. 
 
 02
 
 103 LETTER X. 
 
 they cannot object to them b.^ faithful witnesses of the 
 doctrine and discipline of the Church in their respective 
 times. It is chiefly in the latter character that I am go- 
 ing to bring a certain number of them forward, namely, 
 to prove that during the five first ages of the Church, no 
 less than in the subsequent ages, the Unwritten Word, 
 or Tradition, was held in equal estimation by her with 
 the Scripture itself, and that she claimed a divine 
 right of propounding and explaining them both. j^y 
 I begin with the disciple of the Apostles, St. Igna- 
 tius, Bishop of Antioch: it is recorded of hirn^that, in 
 his passage to Rome, where he was sentenced to be 
 devoured by wild beasts, he exhorted the Christians, 
 who got access to him, * to guard themselves against 
 
 * the rising heresies, and to adhere with the utmost 
 
 * firmness to the tradition of the Apostles ( 1 ).' The 
 ame sentiments appear in this Saint's epistles, and 
 also in those of his fellow martyr, St. Polycarp, the 
 angel of the Church of Smyrna (2). 
 
 One of the disciples of the last-mentioned holy Bi- 
 shop was St. Irenasus, who passing into Gaul became. 
 Bishop of Lyons. He has left twelve books against 
 the heresies of his time, which abound with testimo- 
 nies to the present purpose; some few of which I shall 
 here insert. He writes : * Nothing is easier to those 
 
 * who seek for the truth than to remark in every 
 
 (1) Euseb. Hist. 1. iii. c, 30, () Revel, ii, 8,
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 109 
 
 ' Church the tradition^ which the Apostles have mani- 
 
 * fested to all the world. We can name the Bishops 
 
 * appointed by the Apostles in the several Churches, 
 
 * and the successors of those Bishops down to our own 
 
 * time, none of whom ever taught, or heard of such 
 
 * doctrines as these heretics dream of (l).' This holy 
 Father emphatically affirms that, * In explaining the 
 
 * Scriptures, Christians are to attend to the Pastors of 
 
 * the Church J who, by the ordinance of God, have re- 
 
 * ceived the inheritance of truth, with the succession 
 
 * of their Sees (2).' He adds, * The tongues of na- 
 
 * tions vary, but the virtue of tradition is one and the 
 .* same every where: nor do the Churches in Germany 
 
 * believe or teach differently from those in Spain, 
 
 * Gaul, the East, Egypt, or Lybia (3).' * Since it 
 
 * would be tedious to enumerate the succession of all 
 
 * the Churches, we appeal to the faith and tradition of 
 
 * the greatest, most ancient, and best known Church, 
 
 * that of Rome, founded by the Apostles, SS. Peter 
 
 * and Paul ; for with this Church all others agree, in 
 ' as much as in her is preserved the tradition which 
 
 * comes down from the Apostles (4).' SUPPOSING 
 *THE APOSTLES HAD NOT LEFT US THE 
 ' SCRIPTURES, OUGHT NOT WE STILL TO 
 *HAVE FOLLOWED THE ORDINANCE OF 
 
 (1) Advers. Hastes. 1. iii. c. 5. <2) L. iv. c. 43. (3) L. i. c. 3. 
 (4) L. iii. c. 2.
 
 110 '' 'LT^tnk,''^ " 
 
 'TRADITION, which they consigned to those to 
 
 * whom they committed the Churches ? It is this 
 
 * ordinance of tradition which many nations of bar- 
 
 * barians, beHeving in Christ, follow, without the use 
 
 * of letters or ink (l).' 
 
 Tertullian, who flourished 200 years after the 
 Christian iEra, among his other works, has left us one 
 of the same nature, and almost the same title with that 
 last cited. In this, speaking of the contemporary here- 
 tics, he says : * They meddle with the Scriptures, and 
 
 * adduce arguments from them : for, in treating of 
 ' faith, they pretend that they ought not to argue 
 
 * upon any other ground than the written documents 
 
 * of faith : thus they weary the firm, catch the weak, 
 ' and fill the middle sort with doubt. We begin, 
 
 * therefore, with laying it down as a maxim, that these 
 
 * men ought not to be allowed to argue at all from 
 
 * Scripture. In fact, these disputes about the sense of 
 
 * Scripture have generally no other effect than to dis- 
 
 * order either the stomach or the brain. It is, there- 
 
 * fore, the wrong method to appeal to the Scriptures, 
 
 * since these afford either no decision, or, at most, 
 
 * only a doubtful one. And even, if this were not the 
 
 * case, still, in appealing to Scripture, the natural 
 
 * order of things requires that we should first inquire 
 
 * to whom the Scriptures belong ? From whom, and 
 
 (1) Advers. Hasrcs. 1. iv. c. 04..
 
 THE TRUE RULE. Ill 
 
 * by whom, and on what occasion, and to whom that 
 ' tradition was delivered by which we became Chris- 
 
 * tians ? For where the truth of Christian discipline 
 
 * and faith is found, there is the truth of Scripture, 
 
 * and of the interpretation of it, and of all Christian 
 
 * traditions (1).' He elsewhere says: 'That doctrine 
 
 * is evidently true which was first delivered : on the 
 
 * contrary, that is false which is of a later date. This 
 
 * maxim stands immoveable against the attempts of all 
 ' late heresies. Let such then produce the origin of 
 ' their Churches : let them shew the succession of 
 
 * their Bishops from the Apostles, or their disciples. 
 
 * If you live near Italy, you see before your eyes the 
 
 * Roman Church : happy Church ! to which the Apos- 
 
 * ties have left the inheritance of their doctrine with 
 
 * their blood ! Where Peter was crucified, like his 
 
 * Master ; where Paul was beheaded, like the Baptist ! 
 
 * If this be so, it is plain, as we have said, that heretics 
 
 * are not to be allowed to appeal to Scripture, since they 
 
 * have no claim to it. Hence it is proper to address 
 
 * them as follows : JVho are you ? Whence do you 
 
 * come ? What business have you strangers with my 
 
 * property ? By what right are you, Marcion, felling 
 
 * my trees ? By what authority are you, Valentine, 
 
 * turning the course of my streams ? Under what pre- 
 ' tence are you, Apelles, removing my land-marks ? The 
 
 (1) Priescrip. Advers. Ilicres. edit. Rhenan, pp. 3(5, 37.
 
 Il9f LETTER X. 
 
 ' estate is mine : I have the ancient y the prior possession 
 
 * of if, I have the title deeds delivered to me by the 
 ^ original proprietors. I am the heir of the Apostles; 
 
 * they have made their will in my favour ; while they 
 
 * disinherited and cast you off, as strangers and ene- 
 
 * mies (1).' In another of his works (2) this eloquent 
 Father proves, at great length, the ahsohite necessity 
 of admitting Tradition no less than Scripture as the 
 Rule of Faith, in as much as many important points, 
 which he mentions, cannot be proved without it. 
 
 I pass by other shining lights of the third century, 
 such as St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Cyprian, Ori- 
 gen, &c. all of whom place Apostolical Tradition on a 
 level with Scripture, and describe the Church as the 
 expounder of them both: I must however give the 
 following words from the last-named great biblical 
 scholar. He says: * We are not to credit those, who, 
 
 * by citing real canonical Scripture, seem to say : be- 
 ' hold the word is in your houses : for we are not to 
 
 * desert owx first ecclesiastical Tradition, nor to believe 
 
 * otherwise than as the Churches of God have, in 
 
 * their perpetual succession, delivered to us.* 
 
 Among the numerous and ilkistrious witnesses of 
 the fourth age, I shall be content with citing St. Basil 
 
 (1) PrjBscrip. Advcrs. Haeres. edit. Rhenan, pp. SO, 37. 
 {1) De Corona Milit.
 
 THE TRUE RULE. i]3 
 
 and St. Epiphanius. The former says : * There are many 
 
 * doctrines preserved and preached in the Church, de- 
 
 * rived partly from written documents, partly from 
 
 * Apostolical Tradition^ which have equally the same 
 ^ force in Religion, and which no one contradicts who 
 *has the least knowledge of the Christian laws (l).' 
 
 The latter of these Fathers says, with equal brevity 
 and force : * We must make use of Tradition : for all 
 
 * things are not to be found in Scripture (2).' 
 
 St. John Chrysostom flourished at the beginning of 
 the fifth century, who, though he strongly recommends 
 the reading of the Holy Scriptures, yet, expound- 
 ing the text, 2 Thess, ii. 14. says : * Hence it is plain 
 
 * that the Apostles did not deliver to us every thing 
 
 * by their Epistles, but many things without writing. 
 
 * These are equally worthy of belief. Hence let us 
 
 * regard the Tradition of the Church, as the subject of 
 
 * our belief. Such and such a thing is a tradition : 
 
 * seek no farther (3).' It would fill a large volume to 
 transcribe all the passages which occur in the works of 
 the great St. Austin, in proof of the Catholic Rule, and 
 the authority of the Church in making use of it: let 
 therefore two or three of them speak for the rest. 
 ' To attain to the truth of the Scriptures,' he says, 
 
 (1) In Lib. de Spir. Sane. (2) De Haeres, N. 61. 
 (3) Ucioeihgtg ia-rt, (xvi^ev 'xhiov K^rei. 
 
 PART I. P
 
 114 LETTER X. 
 
 ' we must follow the sense of them entertained by the 
 
 * Universal Church, to which the Scriptures themselves 
 ' bear testimony. True it is, the Scripures themselves 
 
 * cannot deceive us, nevertheless, to prevent our being 
 
 * deceived in the question we examine by them, it is 
 ' necessary we should advise with that Church, which 
 
 * these certainly and evidently point out to us (l). 
 
 * This (the unlawfulness of rebaptizing heretics) is not 
 
 * evidently read either by you or by me ; nevertheless, 
 
 * if there were any wise man, to whom Christ had 
 ' borne testimony, and whom he had appointed to be 
 
 * consulted on the question, we could not fail to do 
 
 * so : now Christ bears this testimony to his Church. 
 
 * Whoever, therefore, refuses to follow the practice 
 
 * of the Church resists Christ himself, who by his 
 
 * testimony recommends this Church (2).' Treating 
 elsewhere on the same subject, he says : * The Apostles, 
 
 * indeed, have prescribed nothing about this ; but the 
 
 * custom must be considered as derived from their 
 
 * Tradition, since there are many things, observed by 
 
 * the Universal Church, which are justly held to have 
 
 * been appointed by the Apostles, though they are not 
 
 * written (3).' It seems doing an injury to St, Vin- 
 cent of Lerins, who lived at the end of the fifth cen- 
 
 (1) L. i. contra Crcscon. (2) De Util. Credend. 
 (3) Dc Bapt. contra Donat. 1. v.
 
 THE TEUE RULE. 115 
 
 tury, to quote a part of his celebrated Commonitoriuniy 
 when the whole of it is so admirably calculated to 
 refute the false Rule of heretics, condemned in the 
 foregoing testimonies, and to prove the Catholic Rule, 
 here laid down : still I can only transcribe a very 
 small portion of it.-' It is asked,' says this Fa- 
 ther, ' as the Scripture is perfect, what need is there of 
 
 * the authority of Church doctrine ? The reason is 
 
 * becausie the Scripture, being so profoundly deep, is 
 
 * not understood by all persons in the same sense, but 
 ' different persons explain it different ways, so that 
 ' there are almost as many meanings as there are 
 
 * readers of it. Novation interprets it in one sense, 
 
 * Photinas in another, Arius, &c. in another. There- 
 *^fore it is requisite that the true road of expounding 
 
 * the Prophets and Apostles must be marked out, ac- 
 ' cording to the ecclesiastical Catholic line. 
 
 * It never was, is, or will be lawful for Catholic 
 
 * Christians to teach any doctrine, except that which 
 
 * they once received ; and it ever was, is, and will be 
 
 * their duty to condemn those who do so. Do the here- 
 
 * tics then appeal to the Scriptures? Certainly they do, 
 
 * and this with the utmost confidence. You will see 
 ' them running hastily through the different books of 
 
 * Holy "Writ, those of Moses, Kings, the Psalms, the 
 
 * Gospels, &c. At home and abroad, in their discourses 
 
 P2
 
 116 LETTER X. 
 
 * and in their writings, they hardly produce a sen- 
 
 * tence which is not larded with the words of Scripture, 
 
 * &c. ; but they are so much the more to be dreaded, as 
 
 * they conceal themselves under the veil of the Divine 
 
 * laws. Let us, however, remember, that Satan trans- 
 
 * formed himself into an angel of light. If he could 
 
 * turn the Scriptures against the Lord of Majesty, 
 
 * what use may he not make of them against us poor 
 'mortals! If then Satan and his disciples, the 
 
 * heretics, are capable of thus perverting Holy Scripture, 
 
 * how are Catholics, the children of the Church, to 
 
 * make use of them, so as to discern truth from false- 
 
 * hood ? They must carefully observe the rule, laid 
 
 * down at the beginning of this treatise by the holy 
 < and learned men I referred to : THEY ARE TO 
 
 * INTERPRET THE DIVINE TEXT ACCORD- 
 ' ING TO THE TRADITION OF THE CATHOLIC 
 
 * CHURCH (1)/ 
 
 It would be as easy to prove this Rule of Faith 
 from the Fathers of the sixth as of the former cen- 
 turies, particularly from St. Gregory the Great, that 
 holy Pope, who at the close of this century, sent 
 missionaries from Rome to convert our Pagan ances- 
 tors : but, I am sure, you will think that evidence 
 enough has been brought to shew that the ancient 
 
 (1) Vincent Lerins Commonit. Advers* Haer. edit. Baluz, An English 
 translation of this httle work has lately been published.
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 117 
 
 Fathers of the Church, from the very time of the 
 Apostles, held this whole Rule of Faith, namely, the 
 Word of God unwritten as well as written, together 
 with the living, speaking tribunal of the Church to 
 preserve and interpret both of them. 
 
 I am, &c 
 
 J. M.
 
 U8 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 To JAMES BROWN, JEsq. ^c. 
 
 THE TEUE RULE. 
 PEAR SIR, 
 
 The all-importance of determining 
 with ourselves which is the right Rule or Method of 
 discovering Religious Truth must be admitted by all 
 thinking Christians ; as it is evident that this Rule 
 alone can conduct them to it, and that a false Rule 
 is capable of conducting them into all sorts of 
 errors. It is equally clear why all those who are bent 
 upon deserting the Catholic Church, reject her Rule, 
 that of the whole word of God ; together with her living 
 authority in explaining it : for, while this Rule and this 
 authority are acknowledged, there can be no heresy or 
 schism among Christians, as whatever points of Reli- 
 gion are not clear from Scripture are supplied and 
 illustrated by Tradition; and as the Pastors of the 
 Church, who possess that authority, are always living 
 and ready to declare what is the sense of Scripture and 
 what the Tradition on each contested point which they 
 have received in succession from the Apostles. The 
 only resource, therefore, of persons resolved to follow 
 their own or their forefithers's particular opinions or
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 119 
 
 practices, in matters of religion, with the exception of 
 the enthusiast, has been in all times, both ancient and 
 modern, to appeal to mere Scripture, which being a 
 dead letter, leaves them at liberty to explain it as they 
 will. 
 
 I. And yet, with all their repugnance to Tradition 
 and Church authority, Protestants have found them- 
 selves absolutely obliged, in many instances, to admit 
 of them both. It has been demonstrated above that 
 they are obliged to admit of Tradition, in order to ad- 
 mit of Scripture itself. Without this, they can neither 
 know that there are any writings at all dictated by 
 God's inspiration, nor which these writings are in par- 
 ticular (l), nor what versions, or publications of them 
 are genuine. But as this matter has been sufficiently 
 elucidated, I proceed to other points of Religion, which 
 Protestants receive, either without the authority of 
 Scripture, or in opposition to the letter of it. 
 
 The first precept in the Bible is that of sanctifying 
 the seventh day : God blessed the SEVENTH DAY, 
 and sanctified it. Gen, ii, 3. This precept was con- 
 firmed by God in the Ten Commandments : Remember 
 
 (1) Amongst all the learned Protestants of this age, Dr. Porteus is the 
 only one who pretends to discern Scripture, * partly on account of its own 
 * reasonableness, and the characters of divine wisdom in it.' Brief Confut. p. 0. 
 I could have wished to ask his Lordship, whether it is by these cha- 
 racters that he has discovered the Canticle or Song of Solomon to be inspired 
 Scripture ?
 
 ]j20 L'rTR XI. 
 
 the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. The SEVENTH DAY 
 is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, Exod. xx. On 
 the other hand Christ declares that he is not come to 
 destroy the law^ but to fulfil it. Mat. v. 1 7. He him- 
 self observed the Sabbath : and, as his custom was^ he 
 went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day : Luke iv. 
 \6, His disciples likewise observed it, after his death : 
 They rested on the Sabbath-day^ according to the com- 
 mandment. Luke xxiii. 56. Yet with all this weight 
 of Scripture-authority for keeping the Sabbath or Se-^ 
 venth-day holy, Protestants of all denominations make 
 this a prophane day, and transfer the obligation of it to 
 the frst day of the week, or the Sunday. Now what 
 authority have they for doing this ? None at all : but 
 the Unzvr it ten IVord, orTraditionofthe Catholic Church, 
 which declares that the Apostles made the change in 
 honour of Christ's Resurrection and the descent of the 
 Holy Ghost on that day of the week. Then, with 
 respect to the manner of keeping that day holy, their 
 universal doctrine and practice are no less at variance 
 with the Sacred Text. The Almighty says : From 
 even unto even shall you celebrate your Sabbath, Levit. 
 xxiii. 32, which is the practice of the Jews down to the 
 present time; but not of any Protestants that ever I 
 heard of. Again it is declared in Scripture to be un- 
 lawful to dress victuals on that day, Exod. xvi. 23, or 
 even to make a fire, Exod. xxxv. 3, Again, where is
 
 THE TRUE RULE. Hi 
 
 there a precept in the whole Scripture more express 
 than that against eating blood ? God said to Noah : 
 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat to yoti-^ 
 hut flesh with the life thereof ^ which is the blood thereof 
 shall you not eat* Gen. ix. 4. This prohibition we 
 know was confirmed by Moses, Levit. xvii. 11, Deut. 
 xii. 23, and by the Apostles, and was imposed upon the 
 Gentiles who were converted to the Faith, Acts xv. 20. 
 Nevertheless, where is the religious Protestant who 
 scruples to eat gravy with his meat, or puddings made 
 of blood ? At the same time if he be asked : Upon xvhat 
 authority do you act in contradiction to the express 
 words of both the Old and the New Testament ? he 
 can find no other answer than that he has learned 
 from The Tradition of the Church ihdit the prohibition 
 was only temporary. I will confine myself to one 
 more instance of Protestants abandoning their own 
 Rule, that of Scripture alone, to follow ours, of Scrip- 
 ture explained by Tradition. If an intelligent Pagan 
 who had carefully perused the New Testament were 
 asked; which of the ordinances, mentioned in it, is most 
 explicitly and strictly enjoined? I make no doubt but 
 he would answer that it is ; The washing of feet. To 
 convince yourself of this, be pleased to read the first 
 seventeen verses of St. John, c. xiii. Observe the mo- 
 tive assigned for Christ's performing the ceremony 
 
 PART I. Q
 
 1^2 LETTER XI., 
 
 there recorded ; namely, his * love for his disciples :' 
 next the time pf his performing it; namely, when be 
 was about to depart out of this world : then the stress 
 he lays upon it, in what he said to Peter : if I wash thee 
 not thou hast no part xcith me : finally, his injunction^ 
 at the conclusion of it: If I, your Lord an4 Mastery 
 have washed your feet, ye also ought to zvash one another's 
 feet. I now ask, on what pretence can those who pro- 
 fess to make Scripture alone the Rule of their Religion 
 totally disregard this institution and precept ? Had 
 this ceremony been observed in the Church when Lu- 
 ther and the other first Protestants began to dogmatize, 
 there is no doubt but they would have retained it : but, 
 having learnt from her that it was only figurative, they 
 acquiesced in this decision, contrary to what appears to 
 be the plain sense of Scripture. 
 
 II. But I asserted that Protestants find themselves 
 obliged not only^to adopt the Rule of our Church, on 
 many the most important subjects, but also to claim 
 her authority. It is true, as a late Dignitary pf the 
 Establishment observes (l), that, * When Protestants 
 
 * first withdrew from the communion of the Church of 
 ' Rome, the principles they went upon were such as 
 
 * these: Christ, by his gospel, hath called all men to 
 
 * the liberty^ the glorious liberty, of the sons of God, 
 
 (1) Archdeacon Blackburn in his celebrated Confessional, p. 1.
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 123 
 
 * and restored them to the privilege of working out 
 
 * their own salvation by their own understanding and 
 'endeavours. For this work sufficient means are 
 
 * afforded in the Scriptures, without having recourse to 
 
 * the doctrines and commandments of men. Conse- 
 
 * quently faith and conscience, having no dependence 
 
 * upon man's laws, are not to be compelled by man's 
 
 * authority.' What now was the consequence of this 
 fundamental Rule of Protestantism ? Why, that 
 endless variety of Doctrines, errors, and impieties, 
 mentioned above, followed by those tumults, wars, 
 rebellions, and anarchy, with which the history of every 
 country is filled, which embraced the new Religion. 
 It is readily supposed that the Princes, and other 
 Rulers of those countries, ecclesiastical as well as civil, 
 however hostile they might be to the ancient Church, 
 would wish to restrain these disorders and make their 
 subjects adopt the same sentiments with themselves, 
 Henc^, in every Protestant State, Articles of Religion, 
 and Confessions of Faith, differing from one another, 
 but each one agreeing with the opinion, for the time 
 being, of those Princes and Rulers, were enacted by 
 law, and enforced by excommunication, deprivation, 
 exile, imprisonment, torture, and death. These latter 
 punishments indeed, however frequently they were 
 exercised by Protestants against Protestants, as well as 
 against Catholics, during the l6th and 17tU centu-
 
 124f LETTER XI. 
 
 ries (1), have not been resorted to during the last 
 hundred years; but the terrible sentence of excom- 
 munication, which includes outlawry, even now hangs 
 over the head of every Protestant Bishop, as well as 
 other Clergyman in this country (2), who interpret 
 those passages of the Gospel concerning Jesus Christ 
 in the sense which it appears from their writings a 
 number of them entertain; and none of them can take 
 possession of a living without subscribing the 39 Art 
 tides, and publicly declaring his unfeigned assent and 
 consent to them and to every thing contained in the 
 Book of Common Prayer (3). Thus, by adopting a 
 false Rule of Religion, thinking Protestants are re- 
 duced to the cruel extremity of palpable contradiction ! 
 They cannot give up ' the glorious liberty,' as it is 
 called above, of explaining the Bible each oneforhim-(_i 
 self, without, at once, giving up their cause to theCa-; 
 tholics ; and they cannot adhere to it without many 
 of the above-mentioned fatal consequences, and with^i- 
 out the speedy dissolution of their respective churches. 
 Impatient of the constraint in being obliged to sign 
 articles of faith which they do not believe, many able 
 
 (1) See the Letter on The "Reformation and on Persecution in Letters to a 
 Prebendary. See also Neal's History of tlie Puritans, Delanne's Narrative, 
 Sewel's History of the Quakers, he. 
 
 (2) See many excommunicating Canons, ami particularly one A. D. 1640, 
 against ' the damnable and cursed heresy of Socinianism,' as it is termed, 
 \a Bishop Sparrow's Collection. 
 
 (3) l8t Eliz. cap. 2.- 14 Car. ii. c. 4. Item Can;.n 86 et 38,
 
 THE TRaE RULE. 125 
 
 clergymen of the establishment have written strongly 
 against them, and have even petitioned Parliament to 
 be relieved from the alledged grievance of subscribing 
 the professed doctrine of their own Church (l). On the 
 other hand, the Legislature foreseeing the consequences, 
 which would result from the removal of the obligation^; 
 have always rejected their prayer : and the Judges have 
 even refused to admit the following Salvo in addition 
 to the Subscription : * I assent and consent to the 
 
 * Articles and the Book, as far as these are agreeable to 
 
 * the word of God (2).' In these straits many of the most 
 able as well as the most respectable of the Established' 
 Clergy have been reduced to such sophistry and casu-' 
 istry, as to move the pity of their very opponents. 
 One of these, the Norrisian Professor of Divinity at 
 Cambridge (3), as one way of excusing his brethren 
 for subscribing articles which they do not believe. in, , 
 cites the example of the Divines at Geneva, where, he 
 says, ' a complete tacit Reformation seems to have 
 
 ' taken place. The Genevese have now, in fact, quit- 
 ' ted their Calvinistic doctrines, though, inform^ they 
 
 * retain them. When the Minister is admitted, he 
 
 * takes an oath of assent to the Scriptures, and pro- 
 
 (1) There was such a Petition signed by a great number of Clergjmen, 
 and supported by many others in 1779. ' ' - '' ' i >'- ' \ .",1' r'.''^. 
 
 (2) See Confessional, p. 183. -' '^ '' ^''' '' *" 
 
 <3) Lectures in Divinity, delivered in the University of Cambridge, by 
 J. Hey, D.D. as Norrisian Professor, 1797, vol. ii. p. 57.
 
 %aS LETTER XI. 
 
 * fesses to teach them according to the CatechhTnof Cal- 
 *wirt/. but this last clause about Calvin, he makes a 
 ' separate business ; speaking lower, or altering his pos- 
 
 * ture, or speaking after a considerable interval (l).' 
 Such a change of posture or tone of voice in the swearer, 
 our learned Professor considers as sufficient to excuse 
 him from the guilt of prevarication, in swearing coti-' 
 trary to the plain meaning of his oath ! -'Iii is not', 
 however, intimated that the Professor himself has re- 
 course to this expedient : his particular system is, that 
 ' the Church of England, like that of Geneva, has, of 
 
 * late, undergone a complete tacit Refoi^mation (2)-**- 
 
 * and hence that the sense of its Articles of Faith is to 
 
 * be determined by circumstances (3).* Thus he adds 
 (referring, I presume, to the Statutes of King's College 
 Cambridge) the oath : ' I will say so many masses 
 
 * for the soul of Henry VI, may come to mean, I will 
 
 * perform the religious duties required of me (4) ! !' 
 The celebrated moralist. Dr. Paley, justifies a departure 
 from the original sense of the Articles of Religion sub- 
 scribed by an INCONVENIENCE, which is mani- 
 fest and beyond all doubt (5) // Archdeacon Powell, 
 
 (1) Ibid. 
 
 (2) Ibid. p. 48, (particularly in its approach to Socinianism, from which he 
 signifies it is divided only by a few ' unmeaning words.') 
 
 (3) Ibid. p. 49. (4) P. 62. 
 
 (5) Moral and Polit. Philos. Not having this work, or Dr. Powell's Ser- 
 mon at hand, I here quote from Overton's True Churchman, p. 3ST.
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 127 
 
 Master of St, John's College, defends the Englisli 
 Clergy from the charge of subscribing what they do 
 not believe, because, he says, * The crime is impossible : 
 
 * as that cannot be the sense of the Declaration which 
 
 * no one imagines to be its sense j nor can that inter- 
 
 * pretation be erroneous which all have received (I) V 
 And yet such Prelates as Seeker, Horseley, Cleaver, 
 Pretyman, with all the Judges, strongly maintain that 
 the literal meaning of the Articles must be strictly ad- 
 here<l to ! 
 
 I could cite many other dignitaries or other leading 
 Clergymen of the Establishment, and nearly the whole 
 host of the Dissenters, who have recourse to such quib- 
 bles and evasions, in order to get rid of the plain sense 
 of the Articles and Creeds, to which they have solemnly- 
 engaged themselves before the Creator, as, I am con- 
 vinced, they would not make use of in any contract 
 with a fellow creature: but I hasten to take in hand 
 the admired Discourses of my friend, Dr. Balguy. He 
 was the champion, the very Achilles, of those who 
 defended the subscription of the 39 Articles, against 
 the petitioners for the abrogation of it, in 1772, And 
 how think you, Dear Sir, did he defend it ? Not by 
 vindicating the truth of the Articles themselves; much 
 less by any of the quibbles mentioned or alluded to 
 above; but upon the principle, that an exterior shew 
 
 (1) Senu. onSubscrii).
 
 158 LETTER XI. 
 
 of uniformity in the Ministers of Religion is necessary 
 for the support of it ; and that, therefore, they ought 
 to subscribe and teach the doctrine prescribed to them 
 by the law, whatever they may inwardly think of it. 
 Thus it was that he and many of his friends imagined 
 it possible to unite religious liberty with ecclesiastical 
 restrictions. But I will give you the Archdeacon's own 
 M'ords in one of his Charges to his Clergy. * The Ar- 
 
 * tides, we will say, are not exactly what we might wish 
 
 * them to be. Some of them are expressed in doubtful 
 
 * terms ; others are inaccurate, perhaps, unphilosophical : 
 ' others again may chance to mislead nn ignorant reader 
 
 * into some erroneous opinions (l) : but is there any one 
 
 * among them that leads to immorality ? Is there one 
 
 * in the number that will make us revengeful or cruel ?' 
 &c. (2). On this principle, you might in the Eastern 
 world conscientiously swear your assent and consent 
 to the fables of the Koran or the Vedam ! ! But, to 
 proceed, he says : * Nothing is clearer than that the 
 
 * uniform appearance of Religion is the cause of its ge- 
 ' neral and easy reception. Destroy this uniformity, 
 
 * and you cannot but introduce doubt and perplexity 
 
 * into the minds of the people (3).' Again, he says : 
 
 (1) Which articles they are that the Doctor particularly objects to, we can 
 easily gather from his general language concerning Mysteries, the Sacraments, 
 and our Redemption by Christ- On this last head he seriously cautions us 
 against ' censuring or persecuting our brethren because their nonsenie and 
 ' our's wears a different dress.' Charge ii. p. 192. 
 
 (2) Charge vi. p. 29S. (3) Charge v. p. 257. .
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 129 
 
 * I am far from wishing to discourage the Clergy of 
 
 * the Established Church from thinking for themselves, 
 
 * or from speaking what they think, nor even from 
 'writing. I say nothing against the right of private 
 'judgment or speech, I only contend that men ought 
 
 * not to attack the Church from those very pulpits, in 
 
 * which they were placed for her defence (l)-' What 
 is this doctrine of the subscription-champion, Dear 
 Sir, I appeal to you, but a defence of the most vile and 
 sacrilegious hypocrisy that can possibly be imagined ? 
 He leaves the Clergy at liberty to disbelieve in, to talk 
 and even to write against the doctrine of their Church ; 
 but requires them in the pulpit to defend it ! I agree 
 with him that contradictory doctrines publicly main- 
 tained by Ministers of the same Religion, is the way to 
 make the adherents of it renounce it entirely : but will 
 not that effect more certainly follow from the people's 
 discovering, as they must in the case supposed discover, 
 that their Clergy do not themselves believe in the doc-' 
 trines which they preach ! 
 
 But this system of deceiving the people is not pecu- 
 liar to Dr. Balguy : it is avowed by his friend and 
 master. Bishop Hoadley, and represented by Arch- 
 deacon Blackburn, from whom I take the following 
 
 (1) Disc, vii, p. 120. Discourses by Thomas Balguy, D D. Archdeacon 
 and Prebendary of Winchester, &c. dedicated to the King. Lockyer Davies, 
 1785. 
 
 PART I, R
 
 ISO . LETTER XI. 
 
 passage, as being very generally adopted (l). ' In all 
 
 * proposals and schemes to be reduced to practice,' the 
 Bishop says, ' we must suppose the world to be what it 
 
 * is, and not what it ought to be. We must propose, 
 
 * not merely what is absolutely good in itself, but what 
 
 * is so with respect to the prejudices, tempers, and con- 
 
 * stitutions, we know and are sure to be among us. It 
 
 * is represented that the world was never less disposed 
 
 * to be serious and reasonable than at this period. Re- 
 
 * ligious reflection, we are informed, is not the humour 
 
 * of the times. We are therefore advised to keep our 
 
 * prudence and our patience a little longer ; to wait till 
 
 * our people are in a better temper, and, in the mean 
 
 * time, to bear with their manners and dispositions ; 
 
 * gently and gradually correcting their foolish notions 
 * and habits; but still taking care not to throw in more 
 ' light upon thetUj at once^ than the weak optics of men, 
 
 * so long used to sit in darkness are able to bear.'' His 
 Lordship's words are guarded, but perfectly iitel- 
 ligible. Bishop Hoadley had undermined the Church, 
 he professed to support, in her doctrine and dis- 
 cipline, as has been elsewhere demonstrated (2), and he 
 wished all the Clergy to co-operate in diffusing his 
 Socinian system ; but he advised them to attempt this 
 gently and gradually, bearing with the people's foolish 
 
 (1) Confessional, p. 375, p. 385. 
 
 (2) Letters to a Prebendary, Art. Iloadlyism.
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 131 
 
 notions, and not throwing too much light upon them at 
 once : in other words, continuing to subscribe the arti- 
 cles and to preach them from the pulpit, being inwardly' 
 persuaded at the same time, that they are not only false, 
 but also foolish ! Thus, Dear Sir, you have seen the 
 necessity to which the different Protestant Societies 
 have found themselves reduced, of occasionally appeal- 
 ing to tradition, and of assuming authority to dictate 
 Confessions and Articles of Religion, in direct violation 
 of their boasted charter of private judgment : and you 
 have seen that this inconsistency has rendered the 
 remedy worse than the disease. These weapons, not 
 being natural to them, have been turned against 
 them, and have mortally wounded them : and * the 
 
 * Church of England in particular,' as one of its prin- 
 cipal defenders complains, * is like an oak, cleft to 
 
 * shivers with wedges made out of its own body (1).* 
 You will now see with what ease and success the Ca- 
 tholic Church wields these weapons ; but, first, I think 
 it best to add something by way of confirming and 
 elucidating this Catholic Rule. 
 
 III. What has been said above in proof of the Catho* 
 lie Rule, namely, that Christ established it when he 
 sent his Apostles to preach the Gospel, and that the 
 Apostles followed it, when they established Churches 
 throughout different nations, is sa incontestable as not 
 (1) Daubeny's Guide to the Church, Append,. 
 
 R2
 
 132 LETTER XI. 
 
 to be denied by any of our learned opponents : still 
 less will they deny, that the ancient Fathers and 
 the Doctors of the Church, in every age, maintained 
 this Rule. Accordingly, one of the latest and most 
 learned Protestant controvertists writes thus : * No one 
 
 * will deny that Jesus Christ laid the foundation of 
 
 * his Church by preaching : nor can we deny that the 
 
 * unwritten word was thejirst Rule of Christianity (l).' 
 This being granted, it was incumbent on his Lordship 
 to demonstrate, and this by no less an authority than 
 that which established the Rule, at what precise period 
 it was abrogated. Was it when this Gospel or that 
 Gospel, when this Epistle or that Epistle was written, 
 though known only to particular congregations or 
 persons, that the Pastors of the Church lost their au- 
 thority of proclaiming : So we have received from the 
 Apostles, or the disciples of the Apostles : so all the 
 other Pastors of the Catholic Church believe and teach. 
 Or was this abrogation of the First Rule of Chris-' 
 tianity, deferred till the Canon of Scripture was fixed 
 at the end of the fourth century ? So far from there 
 being Divine authority, there is not even a hint in Ec- 
 clesiastical History on which to ground this pretended 
 alteration in the Rule of Faith. His Lordship's only 
 foundation is his own conjecture : * It is extremely im- 
 
 * probable,' he says, * that an all-wise Providence, in im- 
 
 (J) Comparative View of the Churches, p. 61, by Dr. (now Bishop) Marsh,
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 133 
 
 * parting a new revelation to mankind, would suffer any 
 
 * doctrine or Article of Faith to be transmitted to pos- 
 ' terity by so precarious a vehicle as that of Oral Tra- 
 *dition (1).' The Bishop of London (2) had before 
 said nearly the same thing, as well with respect to Tra- 
 dition being the original Rule, as to the improbability of 
 its continuing to be so, * considering,' as he says, * how 
 
 * liable the easiest story, transmitted by word of mouth, 
 ' is to be essentially altered in the course of one or two 
 
 * hundred years.' But, to the opinions of these learned 
 Prelates, I oppose, in the first place, undeniableyc/^'. 
 It is, then, certain, that the whole doctrine and prac- 
 tice of Religion, including the rites of sacrifice, and, 
 indeed, the whole Sacred History, was preserved by 
 the Patriarchs, in succession, from Adam down to 
 Moses, during the space of 2400 years, by means of 
 Tradition : and, when the law was written, many most 
 important truths, regarding a future life, the emblem 
 and prophecies concerning the Messiah, and the in- 
 spiration and authenticity of the sacred books them- 
 selves, were preserved in the same way. Secondly, it 
 is unwarrantable in these Prelates to compare the es- 
 sential Traditions of Religion, with ordinary stories: 
 in the truth of these no one has an interest, and no* 
 means have been provided to preserve it from corrup- 
 tion ; whereas, the Faith once delivered to the Saints, 
 
 (1) p. er. (2) Dr. Porteus, Brief Confut.
 
 134 LETTER XI. 
 
 the Church has ever guarded as the apple of her eye, 
 and all Ecclesiastical History witnesses the extreme 
 care and pains which were taken in ancient times by 
 the Pastors to instruct the faithful in the tenets and 
 practices of their Religion, previously to their being 
 baptized ( 1 ) : the same are generally taken by their suc- 
 cessors previously to the Confirmation and first Commu- 
 nion of their neophytes at the present day. Thirdly, 
 when any fresh controversy arises in the Church the fun- 
 damental maxim of the Bishops and Popes, to whom it 
 belongs todecide upon it, is, not to consult their own pri- 
 vate opinion or interpretation of Scripture, but to inquire 
 what is and eve?' has been the doctrine of the Church, 
 concerning it. Hence, their cry is and ever has been, 
 on such occasions, as well in council as out of it : So we 
 have received: so the Universal Church believes : let there 
 be no new doctrine : none but what has been delivered 
 down to us by Tradition (2). Fourthly, the Tradition 
 of which we now treat, is not a local but a universal Tra- 
 dition, as widely spread as the Catholic Church itself 
 is, and being found every where the same. The maxim 
 of the sententious Tertullian must be admitted : * Er- 
 
 * ror,' he says, * of course, varies, but that doctrine 
 
 * which is one and the same among many, is not an 
 
 (1) Sec Fleury's Mceurs des Chret. Hartley in B. Watson's CoL vol. v. 
 page 91. 
 (^) ' Nil ianovctur : nil nisi quod traditum est.' Stepb* Papa I.
 
 THE TRUE EULE. }$$ 
 
 * error but a Tradition (1).' However liable men, and 
 particularly illiterate men are to believe in fables ; yet 
 if, on the discovery of America, the inhabitants of it, 
 from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn, had been found to 
 agree in the same account of their origin and general 
 history, we should certainly give credit to them. But, 
 fifthly, in the present case, they are not the Catholics 
 of different ages and nations alone who vouch for the 
 Traditions in question, I mean those rejected by Pro- 
 testants, but all the subsisting heretics and schismatics 
 of former ages without exception. The Nestorians 
 and Eutychians, for example, deserted the Catholic 
 Church, in defence of opposite errors, near 1400 years 
 ago, and still form regular Churches under Bishops and 
 Patriarchs throughout the East : in like manner the 
 Greek schismatics, properly so called, broke off from 
 the Latin Church, for the last time, in the eleventh 
 century. Theirs is well-known to be the prevailing 
 Religion of Christians throughout the Turkish and 
 Russian Empires. Nevertheless, these and all the other 
 Christian sectaries of ancient date, agree upon every 
 article in dispute between Catholics and Protestants 
 (except that of the Pope's Supremacy) with the former 
 and condemn the latter (2). Let Dr. Porteus and the 
 
 (1) * Variasse deberet error, sed quod unum apud multos invenitur, non 
 ' est erratum, sed traditum.' Praescrip. advers. Haeret. 
 
 (2) See the proofs of this in the Perpetuite de la Foi, copied from the ori- 
 ginal docuraents in the French King's Library.
 
 136 LETTER XI. 
 
 other controvertists/vvho declaim against the alledged 
 ignorance and vices of the Cathohc clergy and laity 
 during the five or six ages preceding the Reformation, 
 and pretend to shew how the tenets which they object to 
 might have been introduced into our Church, explain 
 how precisely the same could have been quietly re- 
 ceived by the Nestorians at Bagdad, the Eutychi- 
 ans at Alexandria, and the Greeks at Moscow ! All 
 these, and particularly the last named, were ever ready 
 to find fault with us upon subjects of comparatively 
 small consequence, such as the use of unleavened bread 
 in the Sacrament, the days and manner of our fasting, 
 and even the mode of shaving our beards ; and yet, so 
 far from objecting to the pretended novelties of prayers 
 for the Dead, addresses to the Saints, the Mass, the Real 
 Presence, Sec. they have always professed, and continue 
 to profess, these doctrines and practices as zealously as 
 we do. 
 
 Finally, by way of farther answer to his Lordship's 
 shameful calumny, that the ancient ' clergy and laity 
 
 * were so universally and monstrously ignorant and 
 ' vicious, that nothing was too bad for them to do or 
 
 * too absurd for them to believe,' thereby insinuat- 
 ing that the former invented and the latter were duped 
 into the belief of the articles on which the Catholic 
 Church and the Church of England are divided ; as 
 also by way of farther confirming the certainty of Tra-
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 137 
 
 dition, I maintain that it would have been much easier 
 for the ancient clergy to corrupt the Scriptures than 
 the religious belief of the people. For, it is well known 
 that the Scriptures were chiefly in the hands of the 
 clergy, and that, before the use of printing, in the 
 fifteenth century, the copies of it were renewed and 
 multiplied in the Monasteries by the labour of the 
 Monks, who, if they had been so wicked, might with 
 some prospect of success, have attempted to alter the 
 New Testament, in particular, as they pleased : whereas, 
 the doctrines and practices of the Church were in the 
 hands of the people of all civilized nations, and, there- 
 fore, could not be altered without their knowledge and 
 consent. Hence, wherever religious novelties were in- 
 troduced, a violent opposition to them, and, of course, 
 tumults and schisms would have ensued. If they had 
 been generally received in one country, as for example, 
 in France, this would have been the occasion, of their 
 being rejected with redoubled antipathy in a neigh- 
 bouring hostile nation, as, for instance, England. Yet 
 none of these disturbances or schisms do we read of, 
 respecting any of the doctrines or practices of our 
 Religion, objected to by Protestants, either in the 
 same kingdom, or among the different states of Chris- 
 tianity. I said that the doctrines and practices of 
 Religion were in the hands of all * the people,' in fact 
 they were all, in every part of the Church, obliged to 
 TART I. S
 
 138 lETTER XI. 
 
 receive the Holy Sacrament at Easter; now they could 
 not do this without knowing whether they had been 
 previously taught to consider this as bread and wine 
 taken in memory of Christy or as the Real Body and 
 Blood of Christ himself. If they had originally held 
 the former opinion, could they have been persuaded or 
 dragooned into the latter, without violent opposition on 
 their part, and violent persecution on that of their 
 clergy ? Again, they could not assist at the religi- 
 ous services performed at the funerals of their rela- 
 tions, or on the festivals of the Saints, without recol- 
 lecting whether they had previously been instructed 
 to pray for the former and to invoke the prayers of the 
 latter. If they had not been so instructed, would they, 
 one and all, at the same time, and in every country, 
 have quietly yielded to the first impostors who preached 
 up such supposed superstitions to them ; as, in this case, 
 we are sure they must have done ? In a word, there 
 is but one way of accounting for the alledged altera- 
 tions in the doctrine of the Church, that mentioned by 
 the learned Dr. Bailey (1); which is to suppose that, on 
 some one night, all the Christians of the world went to 
 sleep sound Protestants and awoke the next morning 
 rank Papists ! 
 
 (1) Ue was son of the Bishop of Bangor, and becoming a convert to tlie 
 Catholic Church, wrote several works in her defence : and among the rest, one 
 ynderthe title of these letters, and another called A Challenge,
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 139 
 
 IV. I now come to consider the benefits derived 
 from the Catholic Rule or Method of Religion. The 
 first part of this Rule conducts us to the second part ; 
 that is to say, Tradition conducts us to Scripture. We 
 have seen that Protestants, by their own confession, 
 are obliged to build the latter upon the former ; in 
 doing which they act most inconsistently : whereas Ca- 
 tholics, in doing the same thing, act with perfect 
 consistency. Again, Protestants in building Scrip* 
 ture, as they do, upon Tradition, as a mere human 
 testimony, not as a Rule of Faith, can only form an act 
 of human faithy that is to say, an opinion of its being 
 inspired (l); whereas Catholics, believing in the Tradi- 
 tion of the Church, as a Divine Rule, are enabled to 
 believe, and do believe in the Scriptures with a Jirm 
 faith, as the certain word of God. Hence the Catholic 
 Church requires her Pastors, who are to preach and 
 expound the Avord of God, to study this second part 
 of her Rule no less than the first part, with unre* 
 mitting diligence, and she encourages those of her 
 flock, who are properly qualified and disposed, to read 
 it for their edification. 
 
 In perusing the books of the Old Testament, some 
 of the most striking passages are those which regard 
 
 (1) Chillingworth, in his Religion of Protestants, chap. ii. expressly 
 teaches, that 'The books of Scripture are not the objects of our faith,' and 
 that * a man may be saved, who should not believe them to be the word 
 * of God.' 
 
 32
 
 140 LETTER XI. 
 
 the prerogatives of the future kingdom of the Messiah, 
 namely, the extent, the visibility, and indefectibility of 
 the Church : in examining the New Testament, we find 
 in several of its clearest passages, the strongest proofs 
 of its being an infallible Guide m the way of salva- 
 tion. The texts alluded to have been already cited. 
 Hence we look upon the Church with increased vene- 
 ration, and listen to her decisions with redoubled con- 
 fidence. But here I think it necessary to refute an 
 objection which, I believe, was first started by Dr. 
 Stillingfleet, and has since been adopted by many 
 other controvertists. They say to us : you argue^ in 
 what logicians call, a vicious circle: for you prove 
 Scripture by your Church, and then your Church by 
 Scripture. This is like John giving a character to 
 
 Thomas, and Thomas a character to John. True it 
 
 is, that I prove the inspiration of Scripture by the 
 Tradition of the Church, and that I prove the infalli- 
 bility of the Church by the testimony of Scripture ; 
 but you must take notice, that independently of, and 
 prior to, the testimony of Scripture, I knew from Tra- 
 dition, and the general arguments of the credibility 
 of Christianity, that the Church is an illustrious So- 
 ciety, instituted by Christ, and that its Pastors have 
 been appointed by him to guide me in the way of sal- 
 vation. In a word, it is not every kind of mutual 
 testimony which runs in a vicious circle : for the
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 141 
 
 Baptist bore testimony to Christ, and Christ bore tes- 
 timony to the Baptist. 
 
 V. The advantage, and even necessity, of having a 
 living, speaking authority for preserving peace and 
 order in every Society is too obvious to be called in 
 question. The Catholic Church has such an autho- 
 rity; the different societies of Protestants, though 
 they claim it, cannot effectually exercise it, as we have 
 shewn, on account of their opposite fundamental prin- 
 ciple of private judgment. Hence when debates arise 
 among Catholics concerning points of faith (for as to 
 scholastic and other questions, each one is left to de- 
 fend his own opinion), the Pastors of the Church, like 
 Judges in regard of civil contentions, fail not to exa- 
 mine them by the received Rule of Faith, and to pro- 
 nounce an authoritative sentence upon them. The dispute 
 is thus quashed, and peace is restored : for if any party 
 will not hear the Churchy he is, of course, regarded 
 as a heathen and a publican. On the other hand, dis- 
 sensions in any Protestant society, which adheres to its 
 fundamental Rule of Religious liberty, must be irre- 
 mediable and endless. 
 
 VI. The same method which God has appointed to 
 keep peace in his Church, he has also appointed to 
 preserve it in the breasts of her several children. Heiice 
 while other Christians, who have no Rule of Faith but 
 tlieir own fluctuating opinions, are carried about by
 
 142 LETTER XI. 
 
 eoery wind of doctrine^ and are agitated by dreadful 
 doubts and fears, as to the safety of the road they are 
 in ; Catholics, being moored to the rock of Christ's 
 Church, never experience any apprehension whatso- 
 ever on this head. The truth of this may be ascer- 
 tained by questioning pious Catholics, and particu- 
 larly those who have been seriously converted from 
 any species of Protestantism : such persons are generally 
 found to speak in raptures of the peace and security 
 they enjoy in the communion of the Catholic Church, 
 compared with their doubts and fears before they em- 
 braced it. Still the death-bed is evidently the best 
 situation for making this inquiry. I have mentioned, 
 in my former letter, that great numbers of Protestants, 
 at the approach of death, seek to be reconciled to the 
 Catholic Church, many instances of this are notorious, 
 though many more, for obvious reasons, are concealed 
 from public notice: on the other hand, a challenge 
 has frequenly been made by Catholics (among the rest 
 by Sir Toby Mathews, Dean Cressy, F. Walsingham, 
 Molines dit Flechiere, and Ulric Duke of Brunswick, 
 all of them converts) to the whole world, to name a 
 single Catholic, who, at the hour of death, expressed 
 a wish to die in any other communion than his own ! 
 
 I have now. Dear Sir, fully proved what I under- 
 took to prove, that the Rule of Faith professed by 
 rational Protestants, that o^ Scripture as interpreted b\/
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 143 
 
 each person's private judgment^ is no less fallacious 
 than the Rule of Fanatics, who imagine themselves to 
 be directed by an individual, private inspiration. I have 
 shewn that this rule is evidently unserviceable to infinitely 
 the greater part of, mankind; that it is liable to lead 
 men into error, and that it has actually led vast numbers 
 of them into endless errors and shocking impieties. The 
 proof of these points was sufficient, according to the 
 principles I laid down at the beginning of our contro- 
 versy, to disprove the Rule itself: but I have, more- 
 over, demonstrated that our Divine Master, Christ, did 
 not establish this rule, nor his Apostles follow it : that 
 the Protestant Churches, and that of England, in par- 
 ticular, were not founded according to this rule : and 
 that individual Protestants have not been guided by 
 it in the choice of their Religion : finally, that the 
 adoption of it leads to uncertainty and uneasiness of 
 mind in life, and more particularly at the hour of 
 
 death. On the other hand, I have shewn that the 
 
 Catholic Rule, that of the entire Word of God, un- 
 written as well as written, together with the au- 
 thority of the living Pastors of the Church in explain- 
 ing it, was appointed by Christ : was followed by 
 the Apostles : was maintained by the Holy Fathers : 
 has been resorted to from necessity, in both particulars, 
 by the Protestant congregations, though with the
 
 144 LETTER XI. 
 
 worst success, from the impossibility of uniting pri- 
 vate judgment with it : that Tradition lays a firm 
 ground for Divine Faith in Scripture : that these two 
 united together as one Rule, and each bearing testi- 
 mony to the living-speaking authority of the Church 
 in expounding that Rule, the latter is preserved in 
 peace and union through all ages and nations (1) : 
 and, in short, that Catholics, by adhering to this 
 rule and authority, live and die in peace and security, 
 as far as regards the truth of their religion. 
 
 It remains for you. Dear Sir, and your religious 
 friends, who have called me into this field of contro- 
 versy, to determine Avhich of the two methods you 
 will follow, in settling your religious concerns for 
 time and FOR ETERNITY ! Were it possible for 
 me to err in following the Catholic method, with such 
 a mass of evidence in its favour, methinks I could an- 
 swer at the judgment-seat of Eternal Truth, with a 
 pious writer of the middle ages : * Lord, if I have been 
 * deceived, thou art the author of my error (2).* 
 Whereas should you be found to have mistaken the 
 right way, by depending upon your own private 
 opinion, contrary to the directions of your authorized 
 guides, what would you be able to alledge in excuse 
 
 (1) * Domicillium pacis et unitatis/ S. Cyp. Ep. 46. 
 
 (2) Hugh of St. Victor.
 
 THE TRUE RULE. 145 
 
 for such presumption ? Think of this while you have 
 
 time, and pray humbly and earnestly for God's holy 
 
 grace to enlighten and strengthen you. 
 
 I am, 
 
 Dear Sir, &c. 
 
 J. M. 
 
 PART I.
 
 146 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 To JAMES BROWN, Esq. ^c. 
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I AM not forgetful of the promise I 
 made in my last letter but one, to answer the contents 
 of those which I had then received from yourself, Mr. 
 Topham, and Mr. Askew. Within these few days I 
 have received other letters from yourself and Mr. Top- 
 ham, which, equally with the former, call for my at- 
 tention to their substance. However, as it would take 
 up a great deal of time to write separate answers to 
 each of these letters, and, as I know, that they are 
 arguments, and not formalities, which you expect from 
 me, I shall make this letter a general reply to the 
 several objections contained in them all, with the ex- 
 ception of such as have been answered in my last to 
 you. Conceiving, also, that it will contribute to the 
 brevity and perspicuity of my letter, if I arrange the 
 several objections, from whomsoever they came, under 
 their proper heads ; and if, on this occasion, I make 
 use of the scholastic instead of the epistolary style. I
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. H7 
 
 shall adopt both these methods. 1 must, however, 
 
 remark, before I enter upon my task, that most of the 
 objections appear to have been borrowed from the 
 Bishop of London's book, called a Brief Confutation 
 of the Errors of Popery. This was extracted from 
 Archbishop Seeker's Sermons on the same subject; 
 which, themselves, were culled out of his predecessor 
 Tillotson's pulpit controversy. Hence you may justly 
 consider your arguments as the strongest which can 
 be brought against the Catholic Rule and Religion. 
 Under this persuasion the work in question has been 
 selected for gratuitous distribution by your Tract So- 
 cieties, wherever they particularly wish to restrain 
 or suppress Catholicity. -vv -vv 
 
 Against the Catholic Rule it is objected that Christ 
 referred the Jews to the Scriptures : Search the Scrip-' 
 tures ; for in them ye think ye ha*oe eternal life : and 
 they are they which testify of me. John v. 35. Again, 
 the Jews of Berea are commended by the sacred pen- 
 man, in that they search the Scriptures daily^ whether 
 these things were so. Acts xvii. 11. 
 
 Before I enter on the discussion of any part of Scrip- 
 ture, with you or your friends, I am bound. Dear Sii", 
 in conformity with my Rule of Faith, as explained by 
 the Fathers, and particularly by Tertullian, to protest 
 against your and their right to argue from Scripture, 
 and, of course, to deny any need there is of my re-
 
 148 LETTER XII. 
 
 plying to any objection which you may draw from it. 
 For I have reminded you that : No prophecy of Scrip- 
 ^^ ^f iure is of any private interpretation ; and I have 
 proved to you that the whole business of the Scrip- 
 tures belongs to the Church : she has preserved them, 
 she vouches for them, and, she alone, by confronting 
 them, and by the help of Tradition, authoritatively 
 explains them. Hence it is impossible that the real 
 sense of Scripture should ever be against her and 
 her doctrine; and hence, of course, I might quash 
 every objection which you can draw from any 
 passage in it by this short reply ; The Church under- 
 stands the passage differently from you ; therefore you 
 mistake its meaning. Nevertheless, as Charity beareth 
 all things and never faileth^ I will, for the better sa- 
 tisfying of you and your friends, quit my vantage 
 ground for the present, and answer distinctly to every 
 text not yet answered by me, which any of you. Gen- 
 tlemen, or which Dr. Porteus himself, has brought 
 against the Catholic method of Religion. 
 
 By way of answering your first objection, let me 
 ask you, whether Christ, by telling the Jews to search 
 the Scriptures^ intimated that they were not to believe 
 in his unwritten word, which he was then preaching, 
 nor to hear, his Apostles and their successorsy with 
 whom he promised to remain for ever ? I ask, secondly, 
 on what particular question Christ referred to the
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 14,9 
 
 Scripture, namely, the Old Scripture ? (for no part of 
 the New was then written) was it on any question 
 that has been or might be agitated among Christians, 
 No, certainly : the sole question between him and the 
 infidel Jews, was, whether he was or was not the Mes- 
 siah : in proof that he was the Messiah, he adduced 
 the ordinary motives of credibility, as they have been 
 detailed by your late worthy Rector, Mr. Carey, the 
 miracles he wrought, and the prophecies in the Old 
 Testament that were fulfilled in him, as likewise th6 
 testimony of St. John the Baptist. The same is lo be said 
 of the commendations bestowed by St. Luke on the 
 Bereans; they searched the ancient prophecies to 
 verify that the Messiah was to be born at such a time 
 and in such a place, and that his life and his death were 
 to be marked by such and such circumstances. We stiil 
 refer Jews and other infidels to the same proofs of 
 Christianity, without saying any thing yet to them 
 about our Rule or Judge of controversies. 
 
 Dr. Porteus objects what St. Luke says at the be- 
 ginning of his Gospel ; It seemed good to me also, having 
 had perfect understanding of all things from the very 
 first, to, write unto thee in order ^ Most Excellent Theo- 
 pkilus, that thou mightest knozv the certainty oj those 
 things wherein thou hast been instructed. Again St. 
 John says, c. xx. ; These things are written that ye 
 might believe that Jesus is the Christy the Son of God ;
 
 150 LETTER XII. 
 
 and that believing, ye might have life through his 
 name 
 
 Answer. It is difficult to conceive how his Lordship 
 can draw an argument from these texts against the Ca- 
 tholic Rule. Surely he does not gather from the 
 words of St. Luke, that Theophilus did not believe the 
 articles in which he had been instructed by word of 
 mouth till he read this Gospel ! or that the Evangelist 
 gainsaid the authority given by Christ to his disciples: 
 He that heareth you heareth me, which he himself re- 
 cords, Lukex. \6. In like manner the Prelate cannot 
 suppose that this testimony of St. John sets aside other 
 testimonies of Christ's Divinity, or that our belief in 
 this single article without other conditions, will insure 
 t ternal life. 
 
 Having quoted these texts, which to me appear so 
 inconclusive ; the Bishop adds, by Avay of proving 
 that Scripture is sufficiently intelligible : * Surely the 
 ' Apostles were not worse writers, with divine assistance, 
 * than others commonly are without it (iV^iiuH 
 
 I will not here repeat the arguments and testi- 
 monies already brought (2) to shew the great obscurity 
 of a considerable portion of the Bible, particularly 
 with respect to the bulk of mankind, because it is 
 sufficient to refer to the clear words of St. Peter, de- 
 claring that there are in the Epistles of St. Paul, So?7ie 
 
 (1) P. 4. (2) Letter ix.
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 151 
 
 things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and 
 unstable wrest, as they do all the other Scriptures, unto ^^s?= "" 
 their oion destruction, (2 Peter iii. 16), and to the in- ^^^^^^^^ 
 stances, which occur in the Gospels, of the very 
 Apostles frequently misunderstanding the meaning of 
 their Divine Master. 
 The learned Prelate says elsewhere (1) : 'The New 
 
 * Testament supposes them (the generality of people) 
 ' capable of judging for themselves, and accordingly, 
 
 * requires them not only, to try the Spirits whether they 
 ' be of God, (1 John iv. 1.) ; but to prove all things, and 
 ' holdfast that which is good.' 1 Thess. v. 21. 
 
 Answer. True : St. John tells the Christians, to 
 whom he writes, to try the spirits zvhether they are of 
 God : because, he adds, many false prophets are gone 
 out into the world : but then he gives them tzvo rules 
 for making trial : Hereby ye knozv the Spirit of God. 
 Every spiint that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come 
 in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesseth 
 not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (which was 
 denied by the Heretics of that time, the disciples of 
 Simon and Cerinthus) is not of God. In this the 
 Apostle tells the Christians to see whether the doctrine 
 of these spirits was, or was not conformable to that 
 which they had learnt from the Church. The second 
 rule was : He that knoweth God heareih us; he that is 
 
 (1) P. 19.
 
 tSS, LETTER XII. 
 
 not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit 
 of truth and the spirit of error : namely, he bid them 
 observe, whether these teachers did or did not listen 
 to the divinely-constituted Pastors of the Church. 
 Dr. P. is evidently here quoting Scripture for our 
 rule, not against it. The same is to be said of the 
 other text. Propiiecy was exceedingly common at the 
 beginning of the Church, but as we have just seen, 
 there were false prophets as well as true prophets: 
 hence, while the Apostle defends this supernatural gift 
 in general : Despise not prophesyings^ he admonishes 
 the Thessalonians to pro'oe them; not certainly by 
 their private opinions, which would be the source 
 of endless discord ; but by the established rules of the 
 Church, and particularly by that which he tells them 
 to hold fast f (2 Thess. ii, 15.) namely, Tradition. 
 
 Dr. P. in another place (l), urges the exhortation 
 of St. Paul to Timothy : Continue thou in the things 
 which thou hast learned and hast been assured of know- 
 ing of whom thou hast learned them : and that from 
 a child thou hast known the holy ScriptureSy which are 
 able to make thee wise to salvation, through faith in 
 Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of 
 God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, S^c. 
 2 Tim. iii. 
 
 Answer. Does, then, the Prelate mean to say, 
 
 (9) P,69.
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 153 
 
 that the form of sound words which Timothy had heard 
 from St. Paul, and which he was commanded to hold 
 fast, 2 Tim. i. 13., was all contained in the Old 
 Testament, the only Scripture which he could have 
 read in his childhood ? Or that, in this he could have 
 learned the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarna- 
 tion, or the ordinances of Baptism, and the Eucha- 
 rist? The first part of the question is a general com- 
 mendation of Tradition, the latter of Scripture, (ri^g 
 Against Tradition, Dr. P. and yourself quote^ (l) 
 Mark vii., where the Pharisees and Scribes asked 
 Christ: Why walk not thy disciples according to the 
 tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed 
 hands ? He answered and said to them : in vain do they 
 worship me, teaching FOR (2) doctrines the command- 
 
 9 
 
 mentsqf men. For, laying aside the commandment of 
 God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of 
 pots and cups, 8sc. .k>.v;^s :r ,.i^v> .. jv\i 
 
 Answer. Among the traditions which prevailed at 
 the time of our Saviour, some were divine, such as the 
 inspiration of the Books of Moses and the other pro- 
 phets, the resurrection of the body, and the last judg- 
 ment, which assuredly Christ did not condemn but 
 
 (1) P. 11. 
 
 (2) This particle FOR, which in some degree effects the sense, is a corrupt 
 interpolation, as appears from the original Greek. N.B. The texts whlcix 
 Dr. P. refers to I quote from the common Bible, bis citations of it are fre^? 
 
 quently inaccurate ^ /;, ,.-. ; '^ '^ .JUji^iimJ ^ v/i,-^ - -riyu^Pfi^i'-j/JtU .<^ '/'- ;V;7^^ 
 
 - - J / ^,^ C V'.^-. '- ^'/--^"^/'vw-^.t.-y. /57.*>^^"'^--
 
 154 LETTER XII, 
 
 confirm. There were others merely humariy and of 
 a recent date, introduced, as St. Jerom informs us, 
 by Sammai, Killel, Achiba, and other Pharisees, from 
 which the Talmud is chiefly gathered. These, of 
 course, were never obligatory. In like manner there 
 are among Catholics Divine Traditions, such as the 
 inspiration of the Gospels, the observation of the Lord's 
 Day, the lawfulness of invoking the prayers of the 
 Saints, and other things not clearly contained in Scrip- 
 ture; and there are among many Catholics, historical 
 and even fabulous traditions (1). Now it is to the 
 former, as avowed to be Divine by the Church, that we 
 appeal : of the others every one may judge as he 
 thinks best. 
 
 You both, likewise, quote Coloss, ii. 8. Beware lesi 
 any man spoil (cheat) you through philosophy and vain 
 deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of 
 the world, and not after Christ, 
 
 Answer. The Apostle himself informs the Colos- 
 sians what kind of traditions he here speaks of, where 
 he says : Let no man therefore judge you in meat or 
 drink, or in respect of any holiday, or of the new -moon, 
 or of the Sabbath-days. The ancient Fathers and eccle- 
 siastical historians inform us that, in the age of the 
 Apostles, many Jews and Pagan Philosophers professed 
 
 (1) Such are the Acts of several Saints condemned by Pope Gelasius ; 
 such also was the opinion of Christ's reign upon earth for a thousand 
 years.
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED, 15^1 
 
 Christianity, but endeavoured to ally with it their re- 
 spective superstitions, and vain speculations, abso- 
 lutely inconsistent with the doctrine of the Gospel. 
 It was against these St. Paul wrote, not against those 
 traditions which he commanded his converts to hold 
 fast to, mhether they had been taught by word or by 
 epistle, 2 Thess. ii. 15. ; nor those Traditions which he 
 commended his other converts^or keepings 1 Cor. xi. 
 2.(1). Finally, the Apostle in that passage did not 
 abrogate this his awful sentence : Now we command you, 
 brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye 
 withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh 
 disorderly, and not after the Tradition which he received 
 of us. 2 Thess. iii. 6. 
 
 Against the infallibility of the Church in deciding 
 questions of faith, I am referred to various other argu- 
 ments made use of by Dr. Porteus ; and, in the first 
 place, to the following : * Romanists themselves own 
 
 * that men must use their eyes to find this guide ; why 
 
 * then must they put them out to follow him (2) ?' I 
 answer by the following comparisons. Every prudent 
 man makes use of his reason to find out an able ph^^si- 
 cian to take care of his health, and an able lawyer to 
 secure his property ; but having found these to his full 
 
 (1) The English Testament puts the word Ordinances here for Traditions, 
 contrary to the s^se of the original Greek, and even to the autho/rity o^ 
 
 (2) P. ig.^/f^i'i/^ 
 
 U2
 
 \56 ^^^- LETTER XII. -^ 
 
 satisfaction, does he dispute with the former about the 
 quality of medicines, or with the latter about forms of 
 law ? Thus the Catholic makes use of his reason to ob- 
 serve which, among the rival communions, is the Church 
 that Christ established and promised to remain with : 
 having ascertained that by the plain acknowledged 
 marks which this Church bears, he trusts his soul to 
 her unerring judgment, in preference to his own fluc- 
 tuating opinion. 
 
 Dr. Porteus adds : * Ninety-nine parts in every 
 
 * hundred of their (the Catholic) communion, have no 
 
 * other Rule to follow but what a few priests and pri- 
 f vate writers tell them (1).' According to this mode 
 of reasoning, a loyal subject does not make any act of 
 the Legislature the rule of his civil conduct, because, 
 perhaps, he learns it only from a printed paper, or the 
 proclamation of the bell-man. Most likely the Catholic 
 peasant learns the doctrine of the Church from his Pa- 
 rish. priest; but then he knows that the doctrine of 
 this Priest must be conformable to that of his Bishop, 
 and that otherwise he will soon be called to an account 
 for it : he knows also that the doctrine of the Bishop 
 himself must be conformable to that of the other 
 Bishops and the Pope, and that it is a fundamental 
 maxim with them all, never to admit of any tenet but 
 such as is believed by all the Bishops, and was believed 
 by their predecessors up to the Apostles themselves. 
 
 (1) P. IQ,
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 157 
 
 The Prelate gives a * Rule for the unlearned and 
 
 * ignorant in Religion (that is to say of ninety-nine in 
 
 * every hundred of them), which is this : Let each man 
 
 * improve his own judgment and encrease his own 
 
 * knowledge as much as he can : and be fully assured 
 - that God will expect no more.* What ? If Christ 
 has given some Apostles^ and some Prophets^ and 
 some Evangelists^ and some Pastors and Teachers ; 
 for the perfecting the Saints, for the work of the 
 ministry f Ephes. iv. 11, does he not expect that 
 Christians should hearken to them, and obey them? 
 The Prelate goes on : * In matters, for which he 
 
 * must rely on authority,' (mere Scripture then and 
 private judgment, according to the Bishop himself, 
 are not always a sufficient rule even for Protestants, 
 but they must in some matters rely on Church au- 
 thority) * let him rely on the authority of that Church 
 
 * which God's Providence has placed him under,' (that 
 is to say, whether Catholic, Protestant, Socinian, An- 
 tinomian, Jewish, &c.) * rather than another which he 
 hath nothing to do with,' (every Christian has, or ought 
 to have, something to do with Christ's true Church) 
 and trust to those, who, by encouraging free inquiry, 
 ' appear to love truth; rather than such as, by requiring 
 
 * all their doctrines to be implicitly obeyed, seen) con- 
 
 * scions that they will not bear to be fairly tiied.' 
 
 What, My Lord, would you have me trust those men
 
 158 LETTER XII. 
 
 who have just now deceived me by assuring me that I 
 should not stand in need of guides at all, rather than 
 those who told me, from the first, of the perplexities 
 in which I find myself entangled ! Again, do you ad- 
 vise me to prefer these conductors, who are forced to 
 confess that they may mislead me, to those others who 
 assure me, and this upon such strong grounds, that 
 they will conduct me with perfect safety ! 
 
 Our Episcopal controvertist finishes his admonition 
 
 * To the ignorant and unlearned* with an address cal- 
 culated for the stupid and bigotted. He says : ' Let 
 
 * others build on Fathers and Popes, on traditions and 
 
 * councils, what they will : let us continue firm, as we are, 
 
 * on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus 
 'Christhimself being the chief cornerstone.' Ephes. ii. 
 What empty declamation ! Do then the Fathers, Popes, 
 and Councils profess or attempt to build religion on 
 any other foundation than the Revelation made by 
 God to the Apostles and Prophets? His Lordship 
 knows full well that they do not, and that the only 
 questions at issue are these three : 1st, Whether this 
 Revelation has not been made and conveyed by the 
 unwritten as well as by the written word of God ? 
 Sdly, Whether Christ did not commit this word to his 
 Apostles and their successors, till the end of the world, 
 for them to preserve and announce it? Lastly, whether, 
 independently of this commission, it is consistent with
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 159 
 
 common sense, for each Protestant ploughman and 
 mechanic to persuade himself that he, individually, 
 (for he cannot, according to his rule, build on the opi- 
 nion of other Protestants, though he could find any 
 whose faith exactly tallied with his own) that he, I say, 
 individually, understands the Scriptures better than all 
 the Doctors and Bishops of the Church, who now are, 
 or ever have been since the time of the Apostles (1) ! 
 One of your Salopian friends, in writing to me, ridi- 
 cules the idea of infallibility being lodged in an}^ mor- 
 tal man, or number of men. Hence it is fair to con- 
 clude that he does not look upon himself to be infalli- 
 ble: now nothing short of a man's conviction of his 
 own infallibility, one might think, would put him on 
 preferring his own judgment, in matters of religion, to 
 that of the Church of all ages and all nations. Second ly, 
 if this objection were valid, it would prove that the 
 Apostles themselves were not infallible. Finally, I 
 could wish your friend to form a right idea of this 
 matter. The infallibility, then, of our Church is not a 
 power of telling all things past, present and to come, 
 such as the Pagans ascribed to their oracles ; but merely 
 the aid of God's Holy Spirit, to enable her truly to de- 
 
 (1) The Great Bossuet obliged the Minister, Claude, in his conference 
 with him, openly to avow this principle ; which, in fact, every consistent 
 Trotestant must avow, who maintains his private interpretation of the Bible 
 to be the only rule of his faith.
 
 160 LETTER XII. 
 
 cide what her faith is and ever has been in such articles 
 as have been made known to her by Scripture and Tra- 
 dition. This definition furnishes answers to diverse 
 
 other objections and questions of Dr. P. The 
 
 Church does not decide the controversy concerning the 
 conception of the Blessed Virgin, and several other dis- 
 puted points, because she sees nothing absolutely clear 
 and certain concerning them, either in the written or the 
 unwritten word ; and therefore leaves her children to 
 form their own opinions concerning them. She docs 
 not dictate an exposition of the whole Bible, because 
 she has no tradition concerning a very great propor- 
 tion of it, as for example, concerning the prophecy of 
 Enochf quoted hy Jude 14, and the Baptism for the 
 dead, of which St. Paul makes mention, 1 Cor. xv. 29, 
 and the chronologies and genealogies in Genesis. 
 The Prelate urges that the words of St. Paul, where he 
 declares that ; The Church of God is the pillar and 
 ground of truth, 1 Tim.iii. 15, may be translated a dif- 
 ferent way from that received. True : they may, but 
 not without altering the original Greek, as also the 
 common Protestant version. He says : it was ordained 
 in the Old Law that every controversy should be de- 
 cided by the Priests and Levites, Deut. xvii. 8, and yet 
 that these avowedly erred in rejecting Christ. True: 
 but the Law had then run its destined course, and the 
 divine assistance failed the Priests in the very act of
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. l6t 
 
 their rejecting. the promised Messiah who was then 
 before them. He adds, that St. Paul in his Epistle to 
 the Church of Rome, bids her not be high minded, but 
 Jear : for (he adds) if God spared not the Jervs, take 
 heed lest he also spare not thee, Rom. xi. Supposing 
 the quotation to be accurate, and that the threat is par- 
 ticularly addressed to the Christians of Rome; what is 
 that to the present purpose ? We never supposed the 
 promises of Christ to belong to them or their succes- 
 sors more than to the inhabitants of any other city. 
 Indeed it is the opinion of some of our most learned 
 commentators, that before the end of the world, Rom6 
 will relapse into its former Paganism (l). In a word, 
 the promises of our Saviour, that Hell's gates shall not 
 prevail against his Church that his Holi/ Spirit shall 
 lead it into all truth and that he himself zvill remain 
 with it for ever, were made to the Church of all nations 
 and aH times, in communion v/ith St. Peter and his suc- 
 cessors, the Bishops of Rome : and as these promises 
 have been fulfilled, during a succession of eighteen 
 centuries, contrary to the usual and natural course of 
 events, and by the visible protection of the Almighty^ 
 so we rest assured that he will continue to fulfil 
 them, 'till the Church Militant shall be wholly trans- 
 formed into the Church Triumphant in the heavenly 
 kingdom. 
 
 ( 1) See Cornel, a Lapid. in Apocalyp* u4ia.f m^-f " 
 PART I. X
 
 l6g . t LETTER XII 
 
 Finally, his Lordship, with other controvertists, 
 objects against the infallibility of the Catholic Church,! 
 that its advocates are not agreed where to lodge this 
 prerogative ; some ascribing it to the Pope, others to 
 a General Council, or to the Bishops dispersed 
 throughout the Church. True, schoolmen discuss 
 some such points : but let me ask his Lordship, whe-f 
 ther he finds any Catholic who denies or doubts that a 
 General Council, with the Pope at its head, or that 
 the Pope himself, issuing a doctrinal decision, which is 
 received by the great body of Catholic Bishops, is 
 secure from error ? Most certainly not : and hence he 
 may gather where all Catholics agree in lodging infalli- 
 bihty. In like manner, with respect to our national 
 constitution ; some lawyers hold that a Royal procla- 
 mation, in such and such circumstances, has the force 
 of a law, others that a vote of the House of Lords, 
 or of the Commons, or of both Houses together, has 
 the same strength ; but all subjects acknowledge that 
 an Act of the King, Lords and Commons, is binding 
 upon them ; and this suffices for all practical pur- 
 poses. 
 
 But when, Dear Sir, will there be an end of the 
 objections and cavils of men, whose pride, ambition, 
 or interest leads them to deny the plainest truths ! 
 You have seen those which the ingenuity and learning 
 pf the Porteus's, Seekers, and Tillotsons have raised
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. l&$ 
 
 against the unchangeable Catholic Rule and interpreter 
 of Faith : say, is there. any thing sufficiently clear and 
 certain in thera to oppose to the luminous and sure 
 principles, on which the Catholic method is placed ? 
 Do they afford you a sure footing, to support you 
 against all doubts and fears on the score of your Re- 
 ligion, especially under the apprehension of approach- 
 ing dissolution? If you auswer affirmatively ; I have 
 nothing more to say : but if you cannot so an- 
 swer ; and, if you justly dread undertaking your 
 voyage to eternity on the presumption of your pri- 
 vate judgment, a presumption which you have clearly 
 seen has led so many other rash Christians to cer- 
 tain shipwreck, follow the example of those who have 
 happily arrived at the port which you are in quest 
 of: in other words, listen to the advice of the Holy 
 Patriarch to his son : Then Tobias answered his Father-^ 
 I know not the xcay^ S^c, : then his Father said Seek 
 thee a faithful guide. Tob. v. You will no sooner have 
 sacrificed your own wavering judgment, and have sub- 
 mitted to follow the guide, whom your Heavenly Fa- 
 ther has provided for you, than you will feel a deep 
 conviction that you are in the right and secure way ; 
 and very soon you will be enabled to join with the 
 happy converts of ancient and modern times (l), in 
 this hymn of praise : * I give thee thanks, O God, my 
 
 (1) St. Austin's Soliloquies, c 33, quoted by Dean Cressy, Exoraol. p. 655.
 
 164 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 * enlightener and deliverer ; for that thou has opened 
 
 * the eyes of my soul to know thee. Alas ! too late 
 
 * have I known thee, O ancient and eternal Truth ! 
 
 * too late have I known thee.' 
 
 I am, Dear Sir, yours, &c. 
 
 J. M. 
 
 THE END OF PART I. 
 
 >iiiiriiiiiiii^lllliiiiiiii( 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page viii, line 2, Note, Jot are execrable read are as execrable. 
 5, 15, for on the above read alluded to above. 
 26, 17, dele and. 
 
 29, 2, for 7th read 20th. 
 
 i}4, 2, for a desire read a series. 
 
 45, 9, for start read stark. 
 
 61. 2, afler Regicides, add and to. 
 
 70, 1, after Holy Ghost add a reference, and in a corresponding 
 
 note in the margin, add Visit. Saxon. 
 138, 18, for emblem read emblems. 
 
 Ibid. 25, for it read them. 
 
 Keating, Brown and Co. Printers, 38, Duke-Street, 
 Grosvenor-Square, X/>ndon.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form L9-Serie8 4939
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 092 935 6 
 
 J 
 
 BX 
 
 1751 
 M656e 
 I8l8 
 v.l 
 
 t 
 
 i: 
 
 s 
 
 Si 
 3 
 St 
 
 s 
 d ' 
 
 X 
 
 a 
 
 at 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 s 
 
 ft 
 
 ft -J 
 
 c 
 
 ft 
 
 a J 
 
 
 S I 
 
 e 
 
 PLEA*?: DO NOT REMOVE 
 THIS BOOK CARD J 
 
 
 University Research Library 
 
 sr 
 
 'J) 
 
 ID 
 
 GD 
 
 -^ 
 
 
 o 
 
 "1
 
 -rJ^:^ 
 
 -^^ 
 
 i ^ 
 
 .J^VOI 
 
 't/^H