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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 c A M. In 4, C B % « • f t ■^ o " i;- c 1 % u « o c t. i c * r ti *> « D •,. 'J ti , \ < T • • • ' 1 : ; 9 ' I {■i t i HUSENBETH'S, DEFENCE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: A Complete Refutation of the Calummes contained in a Work entitled THE POOR MAN'S PRESERVATIVE AGAINST POPERY, By the Rwerend JOSEPH BLAJ^CO WHITE, M A.. B. D., iB the UaiTenity of ^erilto ; Licentiate of Difinity in the Uni- ▼enitT of Otona : formeri^ CluidiAn Magittnl (Preaeher) to the Kiof of Spain, in the Royal Chapel at SeviUe ; Fellow, and ooee Bcetor of the CoUeice of St. Mary a /««tt of the saoie Town ; Synodal Eiuuniner of the Diooese of Cndiz : Member of the Royal Academy of Bellea-Lettiw of Serille, 4*0. ^. ; now a Clergyman of the Church of England. WITH A PREFACE • . BY A CATHOLIC LAYMAN OF UPPER CANADA; In which the Retur6 of the Hon. John Elmsley to the Reli- gion of our Fathers, is defended on the Grounds of Rea- son and Duty, hy the Hon. and Rev. George Spencer, Son of thb present Earl Spencer, and Brother of Lord Althorp, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the Account given by himself of his own Conversion to the Catholic raith, in a Letter to the Rev. N. Rigby of Egton Bridge, dated January 3d, 1834 ; and in which it is demonstrated, by Reference to History, that, from the very origin of Christianity, the CATHOLIC has been the Inward FAITH, and the outwardly-professed RELIGION of the ENLIGHTENED, the BRAVE, and the FREE. TBERBFORE^" 2ViAe JEUed : 1 .\ ...4J|\'U III ' r"' !!) 7i:; *M k'jffJlS.J-!!"'' ■■' '- *.'••;«/•■' »<.' !'■ >■' •" r»r. ■• ')•• , I ,■>•' / f ; ■"'/ i-ibi^ ■ ui 1 . 1 '■!!'.ii»i. ■/ ..,,<.•,. /: ■.. \ 1 ' f ' '.1 111 ;r:i.t'.j'l ;,i,; », .. Ui. ■ ..,1 , , '■ « ' ' r •i: ' t !,i<(!ii(i;f-lr;;''' '''f ^'' /m,' ■•j;^)- P;"' V; /,, -: '1'. 'li^.r,-;; , ,. . • '.ill '! .- L'i^l ":'. • 'Sr; .. ; i ;. . ■ ■ .. . ■■•■< ,i z\- i'V!'»iw u * 4 >/ LZt'^ \\ IP f >' PREFACE. / ( In a free country where every man has the right to profess the creed which he finds most congenial to his conscience, we see no reason why a Catholic should be hunted down, for availing himself of the privilege which every sectarian in the land enjoys. The desertion of the Hon. John Elmsley from the Church of England, and his embracing the doctrine of the Catholic Church, has raised such an alarm among protlstants of all denominations in this city, that it appears to be the tocsin for those, of the most jarring and discordant dogmas to rally round their divided fabric, and bring their united artillery to bear upon Mr. Elmsley ; not satisfied with the " triumphant and gentlemanlike" answer of the Venerable Archdeacon of Toronto, they must pour upon him, the most scurrilous and billingsgate abuse from the kennel of the Courier, which is, however, far beneath the notice of any man of character to answer ; and as if this were not enough, they quote in the first number of the poor man's preservative against Popery, " the excellent observations" of the Christian Guardian upon the subject of Transubstantiation, although the creed of the Ryersonians and that of the Church of England, agree only in hatred against Catholics. Their long catalogue of calumnies, so often refuted, disa- vowed, and disclaimed by Catholics, their enemies with insa- tiate rancour still continue to pour out against them. * As their principal hope however of overwhelming the in- fluence of the Catholic Religion, seems to rest in the publica- tion of that super-eminent production, Blanco White's poor a ii mana preservative against Popery, it will not, be considered foruij^u to our purpose to give sonic account of its Author. It is a well known antl acknowledged fact, that Southy the poet Laureat is the real author of the " poor man's preser- vative," althoughj^lanco White thought it an honor to avow lumself the fat'.ior of it, and thereby has obtained a fat living, with the favour and protection of a moral peer of the Realm, and a meml)er of the British House of Lords, whose immacu- Info lady, it is said, was much censured by her own sex, for ha- ving shewn the good taste of exchanging an old Baronet (poor Sir (todfrcy Webster) for a young Lord, and abandoning her worn out husband, and seven children, whom she deprived of X4000 a year, to increase thefortuneof her uxorious gallant. Mr. Blanco White was appointed Tutor and Spanish Mas- ter to Lord Holland's eldest son, immediately after his con- versiou from *' infidelity" to the Protestant religion, and was 80on afterwards endowed »vith a rich and comfortable living in the Church of England. To shew his gratitude for such favours, the least return he thought he could make, was to lend his name, and assist the invention of the poet to abuse and calumniate the religion of his ancestors, and the Church in which ho had received his early education, and so many honours and distinctions. Were the enemies of our religion to charge us only with te- nets and dogmas which we really believe, we should have no cause to complain, but when they accuse us of doctrines which are not contained in our creed, and which we abhor, and de- test, we think ourselves most unfairly and unjustly dealt with. Surely Catholics ought to know their own tenets, and every liberal and unprejudiced man, who wishes to acquire a correct ..n«i thorough knowledge of them, must apply to the Catho- lics themselves for that knowledge: thus When the late Right Hon. William Pitt, in the year 1793, came to a determination of granting relief to Catholics from the pressure of penal laws, he demanded of the Vicars Apos- tolic of Great Britain, a correct statement: or formula of their religious tenets ; but in order to satisfy himself, whether they did, or did not, hold the obnoxious and unchristian dogmas i*nputed to them by Protestants, such as not holding fdth with heretics, Absolution from their cathsof allegiance to their law- ful Sovereign by the Pope, d:c. ^c. — and apprehensive, ih^\ Ill aUhough such doctrines might have been exploded in Great' Britain under a Protestant Government they might still hei lield in Catholic countries ho sent certain queries upon this subject to different Catholic Universities in Flanders, France, Spain and Italy, viz. the Universities of Lauvain, Valladolid, Seville, Alcola, Padua and others, and the answers being en- tirely to his satisfaction, Mr. Pitt was ever after, as was also Mr. Dundas, (afterwards Lord McUville) anxious, and even solicitous, to emancipate the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland, and put them in possession of their natural rights as subjects. These great statesmen were men of honour and candour, and when perfectly convinced of the falsehood of the cruel imputations against Catholics, felt it incumbent on them to en- deavour to procure them justice ; and to mark their sincerity both resigned their situations in the Cabinet in the year 1799, because they could not prevail on his then Majesty Geo. III. to permit Catholic emancipation to be made a Cabinet Ques- tion, his Majesty thinking it contrary to his Coronation oath. In introducing to the notice of our readers the very clear, luminous, and satisfactory reply of the Rev. Mr. Husenbeth to the work which bears the name of the Rev. Joseph Blan- co White, we cannot help expressing our surprise, that the production of an individual who admits that he was an Atheist for many years, and an immoral man as well, should have been necessary to counteract the effect of an extract from the work of the pious Bishop of Strasbourg. Leaving for a moment the authority of the Church out of the question, and taking the scriptural arguments only into account, well might we be satisfied to leave the issue of the controversy to the unbiassed judgment of those, who have read the arguments of the Bishop of Strasbourg, and the re- marks of the Archdeacon of Toronto. Although the scurrilous writer in the Courier has attempted to assail the Church, and has been profuse in his calumnious vituperation regarding it ; although he may hope to annihilate the church of eighteen cen- turies, that like a second Ark has floated over the waters of j>ersecution ; although he may revile the numerous converts to it, and traduce their motives, yet he will find that even with laws, more bloody than Draco ever formed, &: carried into exe- cution, for the purpose of extinguishing it in Ireland antl Eng- IV h ' V. land, that ** the everlasting God was its refuge, & underneathi were the everlasting arms." We fear not the efforts of tho Archdeacon of Toronto, nor tho abuse of the Courier, they might as well endieavor to stay tho winds of Heaven, as strive to overthrow a Church that Christ has cemented together with his blood, and to which he has given his bond and promise. The Catholic, Church is not a church of yesterday ; it is not a novelty like protestantism, a vagary like Mormonism, nor a rhapsody like Methodism. It is the true begotten and immaculate spouse of the living God. It is impossible but to contemplate with delight the enno- bling spectacle of perfect agreement in matters op faith, through all ages, and in all nations in this one, holy, Catho- tholic and Apostolic Church. Here indeed wo discover one Faith, one Lord, one Baptism. We behold in her divine and ' most holy mysteries the most perfect adaption of religion to the necessities and morals of mankind ; philosophy without its pride, and knowledge without its guile. We believe ' to be the immaculate spouse of Christ, that requires not a dower of the mammon of this world to secure her fidelity to her be- trothed Lord. Can the Venerable Archdeacon say of th^e* Church of England, as the illustrious St. Augustine said of the Church of Rome; that she bears on her front the im- press of the Divinity ; that she was the fabric of an immor- tal hand, that her materials were immutable, and imperisha- ble. Alas ! for the Church established by acts of Parliament, instead of by the acts of the Apostles ; we too clearly recog- nize in it, the traces of human mutability ; we see it* changing with an accommodating and pliant hand, every quarter of a century through its short lived existence, according to the wishes and caprices of the people; we see that it contains within itself the elements of self destruction; and we know that sooner or later, it must yield to that moral revclution which has laid in the dust the proudest monuments of human folly. Heresy, like a noxious weed, sprung up — the Catho- lic Church like a faithful sentinel of Christ immediately de- notinced it. Nothing has eluded her vigilance ; no fraud re- mained undetected ; no imposture unexposed ; no falsehood uncontradicted ; no calumny unrefuted ; and in every attempt niade to fasten error on the Church of Rome, she has emerg- ed from the trying ordeal with spotless purity, the symbol of her tion by Ron the cd i tien( limt pra I'P- her innocence, the symbol of her truth. To suffer persecu- tion was a part of the inheritance bequeathed to the Church by its divine founder, and that in this respect the Church of Rome has suffered a full portion, is abundantly attested by the long train of holy and venerable martyrs* who have perish- ed in her hallowed cause, exhibiting the most exemplary pa- tience, bearing wrong without a murmur, breathing the sub- limest aspirations of charity, and answering tortures only by prayers." The satrap in the Courier insolently sneers at the conver- sion of the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Spencer and insinuates that a Cardinal's Cap might be the reason, but perhaps he will bo- kind enough to allow the Hon. and Rev. Gentleman the per- mission to assign the reasons of his conversion lor himself^ they are as follows: # Conversion of the Hon. and Rev. John Spencer^ (Son of the "present Lord Spencer^ and Brother of Lord Althorp.) The following account was given by the Nobleman himself to the Rev. N. Rigby of Egton Bridge, in a letter, dated Ja- nuary 3, 1834, DEAR AND REV. SIR, I was ordained Deacon in the Church of England, a- bout Christmas, 1822, being sntisfled at the time, that all was right in that Church, although I had not taken much pains to study the grounds and principles of its establishment — When I entered upon active employment as a clergyman, I was naturally led to seek information more fully ; I often used to read and admire the Church Liturgy, but often won- dered how such a beautiful work could have b^en produced in the midst of such confusion and wickedness, as I learned from Protestant histories, had accompanied all the proceed-' ings of the chief actors in the Reformation of England. I had been brought up in, the habit of looking on the Catholic Church as a mass of errors,, and little did I think at that time, that all I admired in the Church of England* Liturgy, *The advocates of^the established Church, often extol the beauty and per. fcction of their Liturgy, but they ought, at the same time, to be so kind as to inform the Public, that the greatest part of their Liturgy has been borrowed 1^- ^Tismorrly an inconsistent nbridgcment of the holy, admirir- hlo ofticos of the Roman Catholic Church. What first led to an alteration of my views in rep;ard to the soundness and ex- cellence of the Church of England, was the intercourse which I had with various dissenting Protestant Ministers. — I used to seek their conversation with the hope of leading back some of them, and their flocks, to the Church with which I was satisfied, and which, I did not think they had any good reason for leaving ; but every sect with which I became ac- quainted, seemed to liave something apparently reasonable to say in behalf of tlK.'ir own views and against the established Church. I knew of coiirse these sects could not be ail right in their contradictory doctrines and rules of practice, and I clearly saw palpable errors in their several systems, but at the same time, I learned from their conversation, that I could not defend every part of my own system, and I also found that these Ministers could bring arguments against it, which I could not satisfactorily answer. At length I found difficul- ty regarding the Thirty-nine Articles, which made me see that I could not rest as I was. In- signing these articles, my assent was required to certain declarations of doctrines, ex- pressly on the ground, that they could be proved by most cer- tain warrant of the Holy Scripture, and indeed Protesta. ,s hold it as a general principle, that the ** Holy Scripture con- taineth all things necessary for salvation, so that whatsoever is not contained therein, nor may be proved thereby, is no t to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an ar_ tide of faith, or be thought necessary as requisite forsalva. tion." Now, with the doctrines in question, 1 found no fault, but I could not draw a clear and satisfactory demonstration of them from the Scriptures alone ; in order to establish them I found myself obliged to have recourse to arguments from reason, independent of the Scriptures, or to appeal to the gen- oral consent of christians in successive ages ; in other words» from the Catholic Missal and Ritual. Oi this, anyone may be convinced, who will compare the prayers, lessons, and gospels in the Catholic Missal and Ili. tual, with those in the Book of Common Prayer. But though our service hai been thus borrowed, it has not been preserved entire, but stands in the Protes- tant prayer book, deprived of the principal ^essential worship of all the ancient churches, the Holy Mass, this true fy propitiatory sacrifice, as it stands in all the ancient Missals, has been reduced in the Bock of Common Prayer to a mere ver. bal worship in "The order for the Morning Prayer." Hence our James I. pronounced the order for the Morning Prayer to be an ill said Mass. yn to tho tradition ofthe Clmrch. I felt I could not again sign the thirty-nino articles, unless this objection woro removed. I proposed it to my superiors, but, as tho oxpl .lation given by them did not satisfy mo, aAcr what I had considered a suf- ficient pause, I declared finally my resolution of not signing them any more. I was now the more free to seek tho truth, where it might be found, but I had then no idea that it was in tho Church of Rome. My friends would havo dissuaded mo from having any communication with Roman Catholic priests, but I thought they ought not to be excluded from the general scheme of re-union which I wished to se-j set on foot ; I used therefore to speak to them frequently. At first I expected to iind them ignorant of truo spiritual religion, mere formalists, and quite unable to defend, what I thought, the absurdities of their creed, but to my surprise, every conversation with them led mo to see that I had been deceived ; I found that they both understood the tenets of their Religion well, and could explain and defend them in a most masterly manner, and I began tu see that there was more in the Catholic Religion than I knew, though I was not convinced I was wrong in being divided from it, as I still thought it was erroneous and unscriptural in many points. The first thing which changed materially my views of the Catholic faith, was a correspondence which I kept up with an unknown person for about half a year. This person stated, that he had been travelling abroad, and having frequently entered Catholic Churches, was surprised to see how devout and holy the services were, he was led to examine fur- ther, & began to entertain doubts ofthe wisdom of the English Reformation I thought I could soon set him right by pointing out to him, what I had for some time thought denunciations against the Catholic Church, in the ilpocalypse, and in other parts of the Scripture. In the course of our correspondence he forc- ibly opposed those ideas, and so far from allowing that they «ould be proved from scripture, he treated them as the mere inventions of men. I was then led to ask myself, whether I had drawn them simply from scripture, and found, that I had never entertained them, before some Protestant Commentators had put them into my head. My principle was to attend to the word of God alone ; I therefore determined no longer to pay regard to those ideas, unless I should find the scripture of it- self lead me to them. From that time, those ideas never made '• I (i ^m any impression on me. I never knew who this correspond- ent was, until I went abroad to prepare for my ordination ; I then learned that it was a young lady, who was on the point of becominor a Catholic, but who, for further satisfaction, wrote to me, and to one or two other Protestant Clergymen, to hear what we could say in defence of our religion. You may naturally suppose, that our answers instead of weaken- ing, would rather confirm her attachment to the Catholic faith. Just so : she became a Catholic, and was on the point of being professed a Nun, in the order of the Sacred Heart, when she died a holy and edifying death. Owing to this correspond- ence, I became much more willing to give Catholics a favora- ble hearing but it was yet three years before I was led to the further step of embracing the Catholic faith. This was brought about in the following manner. 1 had made acquaintance about the year 1829 with Mr. Ambrose Phillipps, eldest son of the member for Leicestershire. The conversion of this young gentleman to the Catholic Faith, at the age of fourteen years, (about seven years before I knew him,) had very much surprised me, when I first heard of it. His character and conversation interested me, and with pleasure I accepted his invitation to spend a week at his Father's house at Garrenden Park, I was in hopes, that I should thus have an opportunity of inducing him to think more correctly about religion. I had indeed no great hopes of being able to dissuade him from the Catholic Religion altogether, nor did I earnestly wish it, for I had been already convinced, that men might be'good christians in that religion. I left home for Gar- renden Park, January 24th, 1830, on Sunday night, after preaching two sermons in my Protestant Church, at Brington in Northamptonshire, of which I was Rector, and little did I think then, that those two sermons would be the last I should ever preach in a Protestant church. All the time at Garren- den was nearly devoted to religious conversation, and I soon fouud, that instead of my being able to teach Mr. Phillipps, to think more correctly about religion, I was obliged, in many points, to acknowledge, that I had to be a learner myself. I found him well able to stand his ground in defence of the Ca- tholic faith against me, and some other more experienced Protestant Divines, who occasionally joined our conversation. At last, finding that 1 was contending with obstinacy, and not . / IX r/Ji- :: with the candour I professed, I made up my mind to look in- to the affair with a new feeling, and with a real determination to follow the truth. This resolution gave me immediate com- fort, and the consequence of it was, I was soon delivered from ail my douhts. I had intended to have gone home on Satur- day, to resume my duty at Brington, but I first went with Mr. Phillipps on Friday to Leicester, where we dined and spent the evening with Mr. Caestrick, an old French Missionary, who had been stationed at Liecester for several years. The kindness, and patience, with which he met my objections, made me more willing to listen to correction ; his statements^ and reasoning, came upon me with authority and conviction, which I felt I could not, and must not resist, and before night, I declared my submission to the Church of God. The conversation of Mr. Caestrick had satisfied me, that the Roman Catholic Church was that Church which our Sa- viour had founded, and that he had promised that Hell's gatei should never prevail against his Church, and that He and his Holy Spirit should remain with it forever, teaching all truth, and had commanded it should be obeyed in words so clear, " he that will not hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen and a publican," Matt. 18, 17; I felt convinced, that in obeying it, I was doing the will of Him, on whom I had placed my firm and only dependence for peace and salvation, and in doing this, I knew I could not be led astray. Thank God ! I put aside the thought, which first offered of going;^ home and looking into the affair the week after. The step which I took the next day of professing myself a Catholic, is one on which I have never reflected with any thing but com- fort, as I do even at the present moment. The truth is so plain, that the Catholic Church was founded by our Saviour, that it has all the four marks of Christ's Church, and that it has Jesus Christ's infallible word, that it shall continue until the end of the world. The Protestants indeed tell us, that it was t^^e first true Church, but that it afterwards fell into idol- atry and damnable doctrine, but they cannot show How, when and WHERE, it fell into idolatry and damnable doctrine. I thought it therefore more prudent, (and so I now do think it,) to trust to the infallible promise of our Saviour, than to any man's assertions, and if my resolution to become a Ca- tholic on this ground, was sudden, I defy any man to prove 'f it rash. I saw that God promised me no better opportunity than the present, so I sent a messenger home that night to announce my resolution, and I made my abjuration oi' the Protestant faith, in Leicester Chapel, on Saturday morning the 30th of January. I had for a long time no thoughts but of serving God in the ministry of that Church, which ever it was, that I should find to be the true one , and so I at once offered myself to Doctor Walsh, Catholic Bishop of the mid- land district, who sent me to the English College at Rome ; where by a happy coincidence of circumstauees, I was or- dained for the English Mission, May 26, 1832, St. Augus- tine's day, in St. Gregory's Church, the very spot from which St. Augustine received his mission from that holy Pope to undertake the conversion of England, and I humbly ask your prayers, that I may be by his mercy an humble instru- ment toward's its conversion, which I trust is not far dis- tant, & which it is the dearest desire of my heart in this world to see accomplished. J , ^ I am, Dear Sir, Yours most truly, ' '^ GEORGE SPENCER. West Brunswick, January 3, 1834. That the Venerable Archdeacon of Toronto should find cause for complaint against the Honorable Mr. Elmsley, for preferring the old religion to the new, appears to the candid inquirer somewhat curious, when it is recollected that Mr. Elmsley selected a Church not bolstered up by the power and patronage of the Government, but the old fashioned one that requires fasting and numberless privations — that enjoins humiliation instead of holding out prospects of ambition or preferment : in fine, to a Church which even as it regards the subject of the present controversy, the real presence, certain- ly believes what it professes, instead of that accommodating Church which professes what it does not believe. it has been the transcendent glory of the Church of Rome, to have been the instrument of converting whole nations to Christ. The history of Christianity in every nation under heavon, attests the glorious and astounding fact. To account for which, we earnestly invite the attention of our readers to the contrast between the different modes which Catholic and Protestant Missionaries adopted in pursuit of this work. r H XI I'd I' ' 3 The history of the missions of Paraguay by Muratovi', will shew that adopted by the much persecuted and calumniated order of Jesuits, in their successful efforts to convert the sav- age and brutal Indians of Paraguay to the faith of Christ. In perusing this interesting and delightful account of these mis- sions, we shall find these zealous apostles of the new woi'ld, to have been men of the most indomitable fortitude, great humijity, intense perseverance, the utmost patience and ser- aphic piety, extensive knowledge and commanding intellect. Their intention was not to avail themselves of the ignorance and simplicity of the natives, to amass wealth, and bring the poor Indians under the iron yoke of religious tyranny, but to enlighten their minds, and instruct them in the truths of Christianity, and to meliorate their condition, and exalt them from the miserable and debased slate in which they found them, to one of comfort and respectability, and their indefat- igable and astonishing labors were blessed by Almighty God with most abundant success. / " ' • r On their first arrival at Paraguay, they found the people idle, dissolute and brutal ; filthy in their habits, unrestrained by authority, and in a total state of barbarity. In a short time they became, under the pious tuition of their excellent and indefatigable instructors, industrious, virtuous, cleanly in their persons, ol)edient and submissive to authority, exhib- iting the comforts and blessings of a civilized and christian community. Those misrepresented sons of St Ignatius, taught their converts all manner of handicraft, the building of comfortable habitations, commodious granaries, and decent churches ; agriculture in all its branches, to which the rich- ness of the soil, and mildness of the climate afforded every facility, so that the country from* the most debased state of barbarity, became comfortable and happ_, and the people from a state of precarious subsistence, and often of starvation, saw themselves surrounded with abundance of every comfort of civilized life. The population in place of decreasing had augmented ten fold, from the time the first missionaries en- tered Paraguay, till the suppression of the order of Jesuits, through the intrigues and influence of the Marquis of Pom- ball, and Count of d' Arauda. We should not omit here to mention that when the order came from the ('abinet of Madrid, for the Jesuits to quit Par- k: 'tl xu ■ III aquay, that the whole population of the country offered to de- fend their clergy against all the power that Spain could send against them, which they could easily have done, as the Jes- uits had organized a well regulated government amongst them, and upon a former occasion, had brought ten thousand men to the field in defence of their country, when invaded by the Portuguese, but they preferred following the example of their Divine Master, who declared that his kingdom was not of this world, and submitted without resistance to the unjust order of their sovereign. From the contemplation of the apostolic ministry of the Je- suits in Paraguay, how fearful is it to turn to the well authen- ticated accounts of the American Methodist missionaries in the South Sea Islands, of which we find one, in a late New York Courier and Enquirer, as follows. Missionaries in the South Sea Islands. — Our readers are perhaps not aware that an ecclesiastical empire is growing up gradually in the South Seas, in the Archipelago of Polynesia. For this empire too great parties are contesting — the English and American missionary societies. Incited, probably, by the successful example of Dr. Francia, who has established a rigid ecclesiastical despotism among the Indians of Paraguay, similar attempts appear to be making in other quarters, among the Cherokees, and in the islands of the South Pacific. As yet we have few particulars respecting the plans and success of these contending parties. All, or nearly all we know, comes from the Missionaries themselves, or from the reports of Amer- ican naval ofiicers, who have visited these remote islands. It may naturally be inferred, without impeaching the veracity of the former, that they are extremely likely to be misled ei- ther by zeal or hope, by conscientious obligations, or motives of worldly interest, into partial views of present success, and over-sanguine anticipations of the future. They have too much at stake to see clearly, or speak truly. With regard to our naval officers, we have heard of one, for whose dismissal from the service great efforts were made, a few years since, on the score of some details he made in relation to the state of morals and religion in Owhyhee and some of the neighbouring islands of the Sandwich group, which he had visited. In this state of things, it is not likely that we shall get the truth from the xtii friends of these missions, from the rais^'-^naries themselves, or from officers who may proclaim it at the risk of their rank and future prospects. From their enemies it would be unjus to take our impressions ; but the following article comes from one who was, it appears, not only a friend but a supporter of missions, one who visited these islands with high-wrought an- ticipations of seeing new Edens growing up in these lonely lands of the ocean, and bsholding the triumphs of religion and humanity in a new world. How he was disappointed, will appear from his own details, which most assuredly, if true, will afford little gratification to those who have bestowed thousands and tens of thousands to foster plans that have resulted in such deplorable conse- quences, and less encouragement to future contributions. W« had heard something of these things before, from an American naval officer, who visited these islands, ajid whose name we shall not give, lest it should subject him to persecution and slander. We think it highly probable that the details in the following statement may be tinctured with a spirit of national, if not missionary rivalry, and that they should be taken with some grains of allowance. But there is enough in them to call for a strict scrutiny into the effects resulting and likely to result from the millions of money abstracted from the pur- poses of religion and humanity at home, to expend in schemes of more than doubtful utility in a distant hemisphere. We publish the article to excite enquiry. When rogues — we mean — when honest men fall out, rogues come at the truth. AMERICAN MISSIONAEIES IN THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. It is extremely painful to be obliged to say so much against the American missionary system, as 1 found it existing in these highly favored islands. Whilst travelling in Europe, the writer had always been friendly to the cause, and had been also no mean contributor to missionaries generally to the South Seas, and therefore visited the various groups of islands quite prepossessed in favor of them ; but truth compels him to say, that his personal observation tt^on the spot, of the ef- fects produced by the conduct of the American missionaries in the Sandwich Islands, wrought on him a sad and melancholy disappointment. No doubt, among so numerous a body as the American mis- b XIV sionaries, there are many very valuable men, who would do honor to any employment they might be engaged in, and among these I have great pleasure in recollecting Mr. in Owhyhee, but " exceptio probat regulum :" and it is to be re- gretted such instances are not more numerous. The system of exacting a Spanish silver dollar from every black man and wo- man before the missionary will marry them, is certainly not one of their instructions, and is highly oppressive among a po- pulation that can hardly obtain a dollar by any exertions, cou- pled, as this priestly regulation is, by a summary denounce- ment against all those who cohabit together without the form of marriage. A sermon which I heard in the island of Woa- hoo was frightful : it was something to these words : '♦ You will go to the horrible place of torment in everlasting flames, unless you rely solely on our Lord Jesus Christ. It is no use your being honest, no use your being sober, feeding the hun- gry, and healing the sick, and leading what the world call, a virtuous and upright life one towards another ; all this, 1 say, is of no use ; you and your children will be cast into the fiery pit, which burueth for ever and ever, the bottom of which is paved with the little bones of infants not a span long !" I would ask any body if this is the way to begin with people in a com- plete state of nature! The preacher was a young man of about twenty, that had, just arrived from the establishment at Princeton in New Jersey ; but it is to be hoped that he will follow in the path so abundantly set before him by his elder brethren, and end with the same amount of discretion as he has now of zeal, and thereby accumulate, as I was informed tlie head missionary, but ci-divant chair-maker, has done, twenty-thousand dollars worth of property in his house at Ho- norura! No wonder the population is gradually falling off, when, added to this system of frightening the people, and charging them a dollar forgetting married, they are compelled to attend the church and school four davs out of seven, and the fifth day is spent in compulsoiy luhor for the chiefs ; thus leaving only two whole days for the purpose of tillage and growing their necessary food. '■ The missionaries have prohibited — fishing, bathing, jews- harps, and the surf-board, and every other description of a- li ^ XV musement among the notivc population ; besides wlucli they have introduced an old law of the Connecticut puritans, and will not allow an English or ilmerican gentleman to ride on horseback on Sunday, or drink spirituous liquors, or play at bowls or billiards on any day in the week; whilst they them- selves are driven about the town and about the country four-in hand, with their wiveg and families, Sundays and working days, not by horses, which are plentiful and cheap enough iu those islands, but by human beings, — four naked black fel- lows, their own hearers, and probably fellow-communicants ! The missionaries wanted to proclaim the ten command- ments of Moses as the supreme law of the land throughout the islands ; but some difficulties were started, and the plan v. a« abandoned. In short, civilation, as it is unfortunately going on at pre- sent in the Sandwich Islands, under the mismanagement of the American missionaries, is only another word for extinc- tion. The bulk of the people are in a state bordering on starva- tion, because the adults are taken away from their enclosures of taro and potatoes to learn to read and spell ; thus beginning at the wrong end, and the time that should be devoted to the agricultural and mechanic arts, is now fruitlessly wasted in teaching old men of seventy to spell a, J, ab ! and where one naturally looks for the outward signs of industry, the spade, the hoe, the fishing net, &c., there is nothing but a vain and idle exhibition of the palapala, or spelling book, bought ot tho missionaries at a high price. in fact, the whole system, with an honorable exception or two is nothing but a money-making fraud, and instead of tend- ing to the benefit of the wretched people, may be considered almost as a visitation of wrath, and a direct cause of the de- population before spoken of. First, by a tax on marriage, much above the means of nine- tenths of the people, which tax is not received by the king or government, such as it is, to be disbursed and circulated again, but goes directly into the pockets of the missionaries, to be hoarded by them and taken out of the country when they have sufficiently feathered their nests, and by denouncing eternal torments on those who marry according to the ancient usages, that is, without paying a dollar to the reverend fathers. k ' fi :'i XVI I Second, by starvation, employing the natives four days on of the seven, in useless school learning, or otherwise taking them from the cultivation of the soil. Third, by disease, prohibiting bathing, which, in that cli- mate is almost as essential to existence as fresh air ; the na- tives, from being the fine healthy people they were in Cook's time, are now covered with vermin and scorbutic eruptions. Fourth, by prohibiting their innocent sports ; and by fruit- lessly attempting to bind human beings to a mode of life which is contrary to their nature, their spirit is broken, and they have now become listless and enervated ; and, should the presen system continue, there will, ere long, be none but the white population for the missionaries to preach to. — James's Pamph- let, extracted in the Metropolitan. It was a trite observation of Dean Swift's, that when the Pope weeded, his garden, he generally flung the weeds over their walls, that is of the " pure Protestant Church," and Char- les the second in an equally laconic way, when congratula- ted on the accession of a new brother, viz. the conversion of a Catholic priest to that of a Protestant, used to remark, you will soon have to congratulate me on our having a sister. — Meaning that he had changed his creed for the license to marry. Thus while the Protestant Church may glory in the accessionof such converts, the one holy Catholic and Apos- tolic Church, points with exultation to the pious, learned and accomplished converts which every year and day are added to her number — Gether, Haller, Dryden, Campion, Right Rev. Doctor Hay — cum multis aliis, ornaments of literaturct models of piety, and the most ardent promoters of the happi- ness of mankind. She has no rich Archdeacottries to assist her in her efforts ; no sinecures to offer ; no emoluments to bestow: her priests are wedded to the Church, to her they must devote their energies, and if necessary, surrender their lives. The inclemency of winter, and the heat of sum- mer, must be equally endured in prosecuting the labors of their arduous missions. The terrors of pestilence must be surmounted ; the pangs of poverty must be submitted to, yea, they must count every thing as " dung and dross, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ." And here it will neither be irrelevent nor unreasonable to draw a parallel be- iween the conduct of the Catholic Archbishop of Paris, and XVll the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, during the visitation of that dreadful scourge the cholera, in their respective countries. The former, whose palace was ransacked by a revolutionary rabble in their demoniac phrenzy, and whose hoary hair and reproachless life scarcely saved him from destruction, gave up his residence to the people as a public hospital, and in conjunction with his domestics, waited upon, and attended to the sick and dying. The latter in possession of great wealth, sends a circular round to his clergy, informing them that, in such an alarming state of disease as then existed, they were released from personal attendance on thv sick, because their families might fall victims through their medium. ■To the charge of apostacy so liberally dealt out against the Honorable John Elmsley, that gentleman might with proprie- ty, reply in the words of a worthy predecessor, who on being taunted with his apostacy, by the Rector of his parish in Lon- don, replied as follows : " I anticipate the approbation of my Protestant friends while I thus proclaim aloud my attachment to that venerable' Church, which has subdued me to her tenets by the power of argument. She had no suggestion of self interest, no pros- pects of advantage, no allurements of worldly aggrandizement to tempt me to adopt them. On the contrary, past prejudices, present impediments, passions, future hopes and advantages in life, all combined to fix me with immovable firmness in the religion in which I had been educated. Every step I took in approaching toward the sacred rock on which I now stand* presented some new cause for lingering in my errors ; there was no precipitation in my resolves ; on the contrary, even when judgement was convinced, prejudice still retained its empire, still procrastinated, the contemplation of heavenly truth was still clouded by her mists ; on what side soever my thoughts turned, I was still perplexed by sonn new dilemma. I was disquieted by the importunities of friends, by my reluc- tance to displease them, and above all by the foreseen con- tempt and ridicule of those who, in the absence of all argu- ment, would call me an apostate. These were' the consider- ations which long operated in my breast against the avowal of that choice which I have not only made, but in which I glory. As to the word apostate, it may sound plausibly e- nough in the ears of men wedded to worldly interests ; but in 11. 1 xvm the oar of him who weighs the force of arguments rather than of words, it is a mere bugbear, invented by crafty politicians, to deter thought from investigating, and conscience from ad- opting truth. If it have any real determinate meaning ; if its etymology be worth unravelling, it is you, sir, who will be found the apostate, not I. Catholicity was during too many centuries enthroned m the belief, and embodied in the very history of the nation, to give the least plausibility in the ap- plication of the word apostate to any man, who, in the pres- ent age returns to the original faith, to the faith planted by St. Augustine, not by Henry the 8th, your glorious benefac- tor in this Island. Supposing, sir, for a moment, that on act of parliament, which arrogates as you well know, as much infallibility in these matters as the Church of Rome, were to declare, or rather to enact, that our blessed Saviour was not the Son of God, but a mere man, & that three centuries should pass away, during which time the whole population ofthis country should frequent unresistingly Socinian Churches, & pay as un- resistingly by tythes Socinian pastors. Would, that man, let me ask, who, upon mature deliberation should be convinced that his immediate forefathers were successively in error, and that his forefathers a little higher up were in the right faith, be called an apostate, if he shook off with indignation, what he deemed an imposture, and embraced with eagerness, and joy, what he considered as the true religion ? Would he be an apostate, I say, if he adopted the faith of fifteen centuries in prefer- ence to new fangled dogmas, though sanctioned by the exam- ple of a nation, and imposed by the authority of law ? Who then, sir, in the eye of reason, is the true apostate, you or II If there be any infamy in the name, on which of the two, in all equity, will it be more appropriately fixed ? Have I adopted the innovation in religion, or you ? God forbid, however, whilst I throw back this dart of obloquy on the cruel, rapacious, tithe exacting Rector of this parish, that I should feel conscious of the least infection of that ran- cour, or prejudice against my Protestant brethren, which is so predominant in his bosoo* against the Roman Catholics. No sir, my family, my nearest relatives are members of the Church of England. I love them with sincere and undimin- ished ardor, whilst they still continue without the least moles- tation on my part, to profess that religion which to me ap- pna No for on rish, ran- is so No the min- oles- ap- XIX pnars to have been founded in error, and to them in truth. Nor do they in their turn cease to cherish the same affection forme. In a word, we all cling to our respective churches without being dissevered from charity : the ties of nature have not boon loosed on either side by the unshaken conviction of • our consciences. we follow indeed difToront guides, but it is the ardent u ish of all of us alike, tliut we may be conducted in the end to the same mansion of eternal happiness ; my beloved, my venerated parents, repose in a Protestant Church Yard. They died in that faith to which thoy clung with sincerity — that faith which I with equal sincerity have renouncfid ; nor shall I blush as an Apostate, but meet them with all the /.cnl and gladness of a real convert, when we shall be assembled at the last day in the presence of our common redeemer. They will there learn, that unless I had renounced that faith, I should have rebelled against what I deemed the voice of truth, the dictates of unbiassed judgment, the inspirations of God, yes Sir, of that Holy Spirit, to whom we pray in the Ca- tholic Church , ,,/■ • ■ ' ** Veni Sancte Spiritus Reple tuorum corda fidelium Et tui amoris in eis ignem accende." Like the illustrious Laval, like the renowned and philoso- j)hic Ilaller and others, who have dared to read, to think, to act for themselves. I have abjured, what to my judgment ap- pears, a system of religion within recent memory carved out in the cabinets o^ men 'politically wise; 'politically propagat- ed ; and politically forced upon the conscience, from its first origin to the present day ; I have found it to be full of incon- gruities from first to last, wherefore unswayed by any tempo- ral interest, and undaunted by what the world might say, I have proclaimed myself Catholic, und in this Catholic armour the faith of nations, and of ages, I feel not the sting, nor the stigma of the charge of Apostacy ; nor do I stand in need of any other consolation to support me, than the pleasing reflec- tion, that I am in the bosom of the great Catholic Church ; in wliich, with the grace of God, I am resolved both to live and die. Id counterbalance to your censure and dispraise, I will iiierel) observe to you, that there is a sweet encomiast within ine, cuiled con$cience, that will know how to cheer my jour •4: i ' ! XX 11 ney to the tomb, aye, and that will not deBcrt me oven in tho realms beyond it." The hireling of the Courier, whoso ignorance is only o- qualled by his effrontery, has more than insinuated, that Ca- tholicism is inimical to freedom. Knows ho not, that Catho- licism was the religion of Alfred, Edward, Charlemagne, and St. Louis ; that Catholicism was the religion of the Helvetic Uarons ; of the renowned Bishop Langton, tho father of Bri- tish liberty; of those who created trial by Jury ; of those who fenced the statutes of Mortmaine round the liberties of the people ; that Catholicism was the religion of Tell, tho hero of Switzerland ; of Alapamello, tho patriot of Naples ; of Buonaparte the idol of France, and of Bolivar the liberator of South America ; that it was the religion of theCavallieros, and Ricos ilombres of Arragon ; of the States of Portugal ; of the enactors of the Sicilian Constitution ; of the Swiss Pa- triots against the despotism of Austria ; of tho Republicans of Italy, Germany, South America, and of some of the States of North America. The great Charter, tho great law of pro- munire, the Pragmatic . anction of Bourges, the resolutions of Poland and Hungary in their Diets, all were the offspring of Catholic freemen. The common law, the foundation of the whole system of our jurisprudence, was founded by the Catholic ancestors of the British nation, as was also that glory of the British Constitution, the representation of the people in Parliament — Catholicism is equally adapted to all Govern- ments, as Clement 14th said, " the power of the Church is purely spiritual." Thus it is that Geneva when a Republic, was Catholic ; Venice, before she sunk by many a blow into the depth of despotism, and while yet she flourished in glory and republicanism, was Catholic — so was Ragusa. In short, all the Italian Republics, while in the full glory of republican strength and security, were Catholics. When the Apostacy, miscalled Reformation, commenced, Sweden was the best of all governments, a free constitutional Monarchy. When the reformation commenced, Denmark was also a free and consti- tutional Monarchy. As this glorious change progressed, and the *' pure Protestant Church" was forming, these countries exchanged their constitutional Governments for the yoke of Despotism. This will surely suffice to prove that liberty is tr tl^ fif XXI not a jest where CatholiciHm prevails as tho flippant writer in the Courier would wish people to believe. Did the con- trast!" to which we have directed the mental vision of the gen- tle reader, between the conduct of the Catholic missionaries in Paraguay, and the Protestant missionaries in tho South Sea Islands, and between the Catholic Prelate of Paris and the Protestant Prelate of Dublin, need additional testimony to prove the superior efficacy of the Catholic Religion in ad- ministering to the improvement and happines^of man, it may be found in tho works of several eminent Protestant authors, who have lately written on the United States, from the most powerful of whom we take the liberty to quote the following elegant and retributive extract : ** Both Catholic and Protestant agree that all men are e- qual in the sight of God, but the former alone gives prac- tical exemplification of his creed. In the Catholic Church tho prince and the peasant, the slave and his master, kneel before the same altar, in temporary oblivion of all worldly distinctions. They come there but in one character, that of sinners, and no rank is felt or acknowledged but that connec- ted with the offices of religion; within these sacred precincts, the vanity of the rich man receives no incense, the proud are not flattered, the humble are not abased. The stamp of degradation is obliterated from the forehead of the slave, when be be- holds himself admitted to community of worship with the highest and the noblest in the land. But in Protestant Chur- ches a difierent rule prevails. People of colour are excluded altogether, or are moved up in some remote corner, separated by barriers from the body of the church. It is impossible to forget their degraded condition, even for a moment. It is brought home to their feelings in a thousand ways — no white Protestant would kneel at the same altar with a black one. He asserts his superiority every where, and the very hue of Religion, is aflected by the colour of the skin. From the hands of the Catholic priest the poor slave receives all the consolations of religion. He is visited in sickness and con- soled in affliction ; his dying lips receive the consecrated wafer, and in the very death agony, the last voice that meets his ear is that of his priest, uttering the sublime words, "de- part Christian soul." Can it be wondered, therefore, that the slaves in Louisiana are all Catholics ? tliat while the con^ f xxu gregation of the Protostant Church consists of a few ladies arranged m well cushioned pews, the whole floor of the ex- tensive Cathedral should be crowded with worshippers of aK colours and classes ? From all I could loarn, Uae zeal of the Catholic pxiests is highly exemplary. They ne ver forget, that the most degraded of human forms is animated by a soul* as precious in the eye of God as that of the sovereign Pon- tiff. The arms of the Church are never closed against the meanest oujlcast of society. Divesting themselves of all pride and. caste^ they mingle with the slaves, and certainly under- stand their character far better than any other body of relig- ious teachers. I am not a Catholic, but I cannot suffer pre- judice of any sort to prevent my doing justice to a body of Christian ministers, whose zeal can be animated by no hopes of earthly reward, and whose humble lives are passed in difiusing the Indueuce of Divine truth, communicating to the meanest and most despised of mankind, the blessed comforts of religion. These men publish no periodical enumeration of their converts. The amount and the success of their silent la- boursr is not illustrated in the blazon of Missionary Societies, nor are they theoretically set forth in the annual speeches of Lord Roden and Lord Bexley. And yet, we may surely as- sert, that not the least of their labours is foi^otten. Their re- cord is, where their reward will be."* This honest and unbi- assed testimony must effectually counteract the calumnies of the writer in the Courier, who in his attacks on the Catholics and their principles affibrds a melancholy proof that a man may be scurrilous, who has not the capacity to be severe. This compound of falsehood, flippancy, and conceit has had the effrontery also to represent Catholicism as unfavorable to learning. It would occupy a volume, instead of a preface, to c-jte the names of those members of the Catholic Church who liuve been eminentlydistinguished for science, literature, geni- us,erudition,and the acquirement of every accomplishment that could dignify or adorn mankind — Venerable Bede, Alcius, Anselm, St.Thomas Aquinas, Chaucer, Erasmus, Sir Thomas Moore, Matthew Paris, Roger Ascham, Albertus Magnus, Pe- ter Dulvo, St. Augustine, St. Basil, St- Jerome, St Cyprian, * Uamiltoo's Men and MBoonen in Ain«ifl«k XXIU La Rochefocault, Flechier, Pascal, D'Argenson, Henaull, St. Chrysostoni} Lactantius, Camocns, Ariosto, Dante, Cer- vantes, Le Sage, Metastasio, Marmontel, Bossuet, Fetielon* Butler, Descartes, Cassini, Corneille, Moliere, Gother, lial- ler, Dryden, Laval, Challoner, Milner, Hay, Lingard, Bai- nes, Doyle, De la Mennais, and England — ^but to bring our ob- servations to a close, a whole host of learned individuals havo written on the doctrine of transubstantiation,proving it to have been the uniform belief of the Christian Church from the Apos- tolic period to the present day, in vain do we bring forward the testimonies of the ancient Liturgies ; in vain do we exhi" bit the sentences of the early fathers conclusive on the point ; in vain do we point out the belief of the Greek Church and many of our separated brethren ; in vain do we ask the Pro- testants of the Church of England to account for the ditfor- ence v/hich exist3 on the subject between the Lutheran Church and their own ; in vain do we ask them to account for the ambiguity of their Catechism in which they slate tiiut the body and blood of Christ is verily and indeed taken, and demand of them how they can verily and indeed take what they afterwards tell us is verily and indeed not there ; in vain do we show them the more modest opinions of the more an- cient worthies of the English Church on this blessed Sacra- ment, Thorndike, Montague, Jeremy Taylor, Forbes, and others, and contrast them with the more modern dogmas of the less learned Divines of the Church of England of the pre- sent day, they still bring forward charges and accusations abundantly disproved, and talk of moral change and figurative change, rather than submit to the force of argument and the power of evidence. In addition to the present work of the Rev. Mr. Husenbeth which we earnestly recommend to the serious and solemn consideration of our readers, we would al- so add the works of the Rev. Drs. Poynter, Baynes, Milner, and Fletcher. The work of the first, entitled Evidences of Christianity is of such transcendant merit, and so particularly calculated to check the infidel and latitudinarian spirit of the times, as to have extorted the praise of the most celebrated the- ological review of the present d-^y ; the production of l^r. Baynes is a vindication of the Catholic doctrine of the real presence, f;om the objection of an Archdeacon of Bath ; that of the illustrious and erudite Dr. Milner, entitled " the end of I i AXIV Religious Controversy," which obtainetl him 'rtlc uppcllJitiou of the sedoftd Athiiousiws, is one of ttte nrost "powci^lil and M>tere5tiiig works that ever issued ftoitt the Pr6»^ ; aAd !astty the wodts ol'Dr. Fletcher, a oompartrtive view '«!>f the two ChutKihcs of Rmhe aft A Br^land, a^TKl the spirit of religioiis controversy. An ^tteWive perusal of these wodts, with eftrftest siippliciition to the lioty sfpirit, that ho mig'ht with hw blessed irtifhittice, lead thci'i'i in the true way, is th«e only wish of the airthfjt of ttiis pt¥^lUcf . The iHMstriows FtechievBisl»op of Ni^mfes ^aW »* VVe know that faith may yield to persttftsron, but it iieveir xvillt/e cdntrrtl- led." Gawrdinal CAniw> said ** Remcttiber that tlie disfeaisrcs oV the soul are not to be cured by wsttaint and violence" artd lh'6 benign, ammblc aftd pioMs Feivelon in his iitnTVovtal advitij^ to the Duke xifBui-gundy, sard, "indulge every one with ci- vil toleration.'* Thus much may pertrnps siiffitie to pfbVe 'M the discriminftting people of Toronto, that (!!iatbolicism is not, that monster which they have beeh ft\Wght to believe ; but tbftt its traducers and shi*d«if6r«, whatever may be the motived which actuate them wouM do ^voll to t^onsidfer Ihie conse^tJCttC^ on that tremendous attd awftil dny, when tbfe words of troth shall bespoken by God.himself,— the Gtwl of justice^, atitlwhew mercy will be his attribute m> more. ,' ■ ■ . - ,. .' ■-; '■ ■ . ■■:■.,' i ■" ■ ' -I'M , , ,. . ^ , , "i- BRRATA. Is Page ▼, Line 16, f«r Rev. ,/bkn, Read Jieu. Qtor^t. In Page xv, Line 15, for civilation, Re«d civilixution. %■ - If it'.' 1 / ^^UB, Divine Ucdocmor declared, in confirmation of the prediction of the I'rophet, that " a man's enemies should be they of his own hou.seliold'-'' — St. Matt. x. 36. ; and his Church has, at various times, found the bitterest enemies in those whom she had nourished in her bosom. She has had reason to exclaim, " 1 have brought up children, and ex- alted them, but they have despised me," — Isaiah i. 2. An enemy of this kind has appeared of late in the person of the Rev. JosKPH Blanco VVhitk, M. A. B. D. in the University of Seville ; Liccnliate of Divinity in the University of Osuna ; former hj Cho'ii/ain Mdfri.yiral (Preacher) to the King of »S, uin, in the Royal Chapel at Seville ; bellow, and once Hector if ike College of St. Moxy u Jc^ni of the same Town; Synodal Examiner of Ike Diocese of Cadi::,; Member of the Royal Academy of Belles-Leitrcs of Seville, ^'c. S^c. ; now a Clergyman of the Church of England. Accustomed to be reviled by those who have been taught to hate our Ueligion from their infancy, who, misled by pre- judice, blinded by interest, or enslaved by party, have never correctly informed tlieinselves of our. real principles, — wc Jiave in general I'Ue fear that, from such assailants, the lii- I'll' X t '^■? HUSENBETfFS DEFENCE I- OP THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. weak should find a scandal or our friends a stumbling-block. But, when a man whom our Church has honored and che- rished, not only forsakes her fold, but does his utmost to be- tray her to her enemies, we feel with the Holy Psalmist, *' If my enemy had reviled me, 1 would verily have borne with it. And if he that hated me had spoken great things against me, I would perhaps have hid myself from him. But thou^ a man of one mind, my guide and my familiar, who didst take sweetmeats together with me, in the house of God we walked with consent."— Psalms Iv. 13, 14, 15. Our Redeemer complained in these affecting terms of the per- fidy of one of his own Apostles : He who was silent under his other sufferings, felt the treachery of his friend more deeply than the malice of his open enemies. *' Even the man of my peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, hath greatly supplanted me." — Psalm xl. 10. Though Mr. White has, too unhappily for himself, fulfilled the import of these words, and greatly laboured to supplant the faith in which he was nurtured, there is no reason to fear that his works will seduce any to imitate his apostacy. Ca- tholics know too well tlie voice of their faithful pastors to listen to the call of a hireling ; tliey are too well acquainted with the true features of their religion to be allured by the revolting' caricature under which this man would cxliibit her portrait. But there may be some, of other communions, with whom the priestly character of this writer may so far weigh as to lead them to give credit to all his statements concerning the Catholic Religion ; and we arc persuaded that the pompous enumeration of his former honours in the titlc" page of his works was not made without some idea that such an effect might be produced. It may naturally be thought ihat a priest must be a creditable witness on the subject of Catholic Faith, — and that great must be the supcrioi y of another creed which could prevail upon a man so talented and honored to give it the preference. This, in general, is quite rational ; and certainly, if a priest of holy and edifying life had If^Il the communion of the Catholic Church, embra- ced another creed in preference, and were faithfully to ex- hibit the Faith of Catholics, honestly expose his objections to it, and simw honorable motives for leaving it, — what he said might merit attention. But h will be easy to show, 3 ' ? from Mr. White's own works, that the foutiires of his case arc widely different ; and that iio is a very incompetent wit- ness against the creed of iiis forefathers. Mr. WhitT is the author of two works against our Religion. The first is entitled, " Practical and Internal Evidence against Catholicism." It is an octavo volume of nearly 300 pages: its style is laboured and obscure, a...l its whole argumen- tation so tedious, that, though many have taken it up through curiosity, few will have had patience to go through it, and much fewer can have felt satisfied with its peru- sal. It was written, as Mr. \Vhite tolls us, for the higher classes, and wo should liavc left it to have its due sopo- rific effect upon them in their library chairs, if Mr^ White had not soon after put forth his " Poor Man's Preserva- tive against Popery ; addressed to the lower classes ;" in which he throws off" the reserve of his first work, and declaims with unmeasured virulence against us, whom he styles as opprobri- ously as the worst of our enemies, Romanists and Papists. This latter work is printed in a cheap form ; the profits are to ba given to the " Society for Promoting Christian Know- ledge," and no doubt this redoubtable production will be ad- ded to their list of works against Popery.* Perhaps, thus industriously spread among those classes of the community who are already sufficiently prejudiced against Catholics, and who have not often the means of reading ob hearing any thing in our defence, this production of Mr. White's may add more animosity and increase unjust prepossession against the Faith of Catholics ; and the present work is undertaken to defend our Religion from the evil report which Mr. White's writings liave given of it, — and in order that, where his poison has reached, an antidote may be soon at hand. It will be found to contain a close examination of both the above * The writer of these pages sent some time ago to the Society above-named for all the works he had on sale against Popery. He received fifteen tracts of the most violent and calumniating character, imputing to the Catholics abomi- nable tenets which they never held, and grossly misrepresenting what they do hold. Let those attend to this who are so loud in complaining of works circu* lated by Catholics. Let them point out one which charges Protestants with doctrines which they disclaim : and let them say if it be not a disgrace to a Society which professes to promote Christian Knowledge, to lend itself thus to the propagation of calumny, misrepresentation, and bitterness against so great a proportion of the Christian world . ' ; works ; principally, however, following the text of the *' Poor Man's Preservative against Popery." It must be 'observed that the plan of both Mr. White's books is much the same, as is the order pursued in each. The latter is little else than a reduction of his larger work to a cheap form, and a more intelligible style for the unlearned ; and, as might be anticipated, it vilifies the Catholic faith in terms more undisguised and unsparing. Every thing material in both works shall be noticed in the present publication. The " Poor Man's Preservative" contains Four Dialogues between Mr. White and his Reader. The title of the First Dialogue is as follows : — " An Account of the Author ; how the Errors of the Roman Catholic Church made him an In- fidel ; and how, to avoid her tyranny, he came to England, where the Knowledge of the Protestant Religion made him again embrace Christianity." The account which the Au- thor gives of himself is extraordinary enough : The reader will do well to attend closely to its outline, and judge if the subject of it can be at all a competent exposer of Catholic Faith or Discipline. It appears, from the account in both works, that Mr. Jo- seph Blanco White was born in Spain, though of Irish ex- traction, — that, at the age of fourteen, he decided on study- ing for the Church, and was oidained priest at twenty-five. Soon after, he was made a chaplain to the King of Spain, and obtaine(f all the other honours enumerated in the title given above from his larger work. About two ypnrs after, or somewhat less, he became an absolute infidel ; and, though he had renounced Christianitjj in his heart, as hu himself tells us, he continued for 10 years to perform all the duties of a priest ; to teach, with the basest hypocrisy, what he did not believe ; to receive the confidence of numbers in the sacred tribunal of confession ; who gave it, as they thought, to a faithful minister ; and, in fine, to carry on a complete system of deception upon innumei'able unsuspecting Christians. At last, in 1810, he came to England, where he proceeded by a curious route to the ministry of the loaves and fishes. He tells us that he was first moved by hearini,' a hymn sung in a church in London ; which must have been powerful indeed to move a man who had heard and recited so many hundreds of hymns in the course of his ministry it* - ^ 9 Spain, ami was proof agairst tliom all. Then he took a very simple method, as he says, to work round to Christianity again : he said the Lord's Praijer every morning for three years ! A simple method truly, and much simpler and lighter to flcsli and blood than having to say the same Lord's Prayer more than a dozen times a-day in his Breviary ; — besides a great number of liymns, psalms, lesrons, prayers, and antiphons. In three years, then — about the year 1814 — he bGcame a Clergyman of the Church of Rngland, subscribed the Articles, and became tutor to the son of a Nobleman. What Catholic will envy the Church of Eng- land the possession of such a man ? What Catholic will not rejoice that such a deceitful shoplierd should cast off the sheep's clothing, and thereby an end bo put to his cruel imposition and devastation among the unsuspecting faithful'? The Church of England, liowcver, was near losing this precious prize ; for after professing himself a Protestant, this very consistent man tells us, that he was again strongly tempted in his faith, and inclined to Unitarianism ; and in such a degree that "ho fear- ed his Christian faith had been extinguished."' However, he settled ncraiu to the Church of England, and this is the outline of the history of ihis valuable acquisition to the estab- lishment.'- r.Ir White is very an.xioUs to make it appear, that immoral- ity and levity did not prepare the way for his renunciation of (yhristianity. "I declare," ho says, " most solemnly, that my rejection of Christianity took place at a period when my eonscicnce could not reproach me with any oipen breach of du- ty but those committed several years before.'^ What is this but an acknowledgment that vice did p'repare the way for his mfidelity ? He has told us that, at the ago of fourteen, he was v(!ry j)ious and virtuous : ho rejected Christianity about the age of twenty-seven ; so if he had committed open breaches nfduty several 3'ears before, it is clear from his own account, that during the important years of collegiate retirement and pre- paration for the sacred ministry, he was guilty o^open a'/?'.s' ; and it is easy enough to understand how so unworthy a preparation! ^:|' * What would Swift have said of sucli "a Convert from Popery!" His usual remark was ; " I wish luhen the Pope weeds his gurden, fie tcoiildnol Ihrow liis nclllcs ovir czir T;all .'" ■| # i r u might justly deserve a subtraction of divine Grace, and might cause him to fall, by little and little, into the gulf of infidelity. The most deplorable falls from Faith arc- not always immedi- ately consequent upon immorality ; but the secret judgments of God aro often working their slow but certain vengeance ; and those open breaches, which Mr. White acknowledges to have committed before his ordination (to say nothing of secret sins, which he docs not disown), may indeed have deserved, by an ordinary judgment of the Almighty, the loss of the pre- cious gift of Faith soon after it. Faith, as Mr. White knows, and declares, is a supernatural gift, and };e will never per- suade us, that the God of goodness and justice would have deprived him of that precious gift, and left him to fall into in- fidelity, if he had been as immaculate in morals us he would have us believe. His own evidence condemns him clearlv on this head, and places it beyond all doubt, that his progress to unbelief was not different from that of so many before him ; who, (as F. O'Leary used to say,) " never laughed at their catechisms till they had lost their innocent;e." lie tells us that he read the works of able French authors against infidel- ity, and other works of the same kind, and that he preached an elaborate sermon against unbelief;* yet ail in vain — he soon after bordered on Atheism. Can any one believe, that a man of sincere piety and upright moral conduct, would have been left thus to sink into the absolute denial of Christianity. At page 11 of his Preservative, Mr. White, speaking of a neighbor who boasts of being an infidel, says, that he feels (juite assured, that if the man would "abstain l\om open sin, and pray daily to his Maker to lead him into the truth, ho would soon become a sincere ChristiL^n." How comes it then that the same means did not preserve Mr. White from leav- ing Christianity? Probably he found that it is not enough to abstain from open sin ; if he even did so much. The Grace of God is too fatally lost by secret sin», Avhich do not openly * Tho occasion of tliis sermon, Mr. White tells iiSj was the conaing of a Royal Brigade to icors'iiji the body of Saint Ferdinand. Why did INIr. White employ this word which he knew is usually understood of supreme adoration due to (ifld alone, and never paid by Catholics to the Saints. This is a fair specimen of the disingenuousness and insidious misrepresentation of the Catholic Religion throughout the works. la appear to men, but arc avenged by Ilim " who searchcth the reins and the heart." To extenuate his own apostacy, Mr. White would liavo it believed that a groat portion of the S[)anish Clergy are unbe- lievers in their hearts. There was a Judas among tlie Apos- tles ; and it is no wonder if there be bad priests among th(! clergy of any country. It is in the economy of Providence to suffer tares among his corn, and to " let both grow till the harvest;" but it will not be believed on the testimony of an apostate, that a great portion of the clergy arc tainted with infidelity. The assertion only shows what sort of company Mr. Wliitc kept in Spain. But it is time to examine what were the weighty aiguments which overturned the belief of Mr. Blanco White, The Ca- tholic will be surprised and amused to find, that the grave ard important reasoning which shook this writer was the old worn-out falscliood, so often objected to Cathulicjby the name of the vicious circle. And Mr. W. pretends that it was the spontaneous suggestion of his own mind. Certainly no proof of mental vigor is exhibited in such a discovery. " I believe," says Mr. AV. " that the reasoning is not new in theological controversy." Not new, indeed ; for cvcrv cour;ie of divin- ity exposes the falsehood, and Mr. W. must have met with it many times over before he took his degrees in theulogy. '• I believed," says he, " the infallibility of the Church, because the scripture said ^hc was infallible ; while I had no better proof that .scripture said so, than the assertirai of the Churcli that she could not mistake the scripture. In vain did I en- deavor to evade the force of this argument ; indeed, 1 still believe it unanswerable." What an acknowledgment for a Licentiate in Divinity ! To be staggered by a fallacy which any student in Logic can detect. This only proves more clearly that Mr. W. did not thea possess the unclouded recti- tude of mind which ever accompanies a spotless life. Now, to reply to this unanswerahlc argument : — it is eas- dy shown that Catholics do not reason in a circle. To con- stitute a vicious circle there must be two projiositions, equally nnknmon, mutually used to prove each other against Ike same opponents, and in the same loay of demonsi ration. But the . authority of the scripture and the authority of the Church are not equally unknoton ; for we are persuaded, first of the au- I ,(«• ^;<' 8 m ihority of tlu; Clmrcli by motives of credibility ; and next, llio Cluircli thus known to iis proposes llio scripturo as the \v(jrd of (jod, nnd tiu) seriijtiiru nianifustly confirms tho au- thority of the Churcii. Nor tiro tlio uuthoiity of the scripture and that of tlic Cliurch used (igainsl ihe same opponents ; for against infidels tho scripture is proved iVom the Church, wJiicli is known to them by otlicr motives of credibility; and against heretics tho Church is piovc:d by an argument urn ad homincjH from the scripture wliicli tlioy admit Nor arc these authorities used in tho samewaij vf dcnwnstralion ; for tlui authority of scripture is proved a posteriori, ti/j cause from the effoct, by the authority of tho Church ; and the authority of the Church is proved a priori, the elfect from tho cause, 'by that of tho scripture. Such a method of proving is (juitc! common : the existence of Cod is proved from tho existence of bodies, and the existence of bodies is proved from tlie ex- istence of God. Tho skill of a physician is proved by the euro of diseases, and the cure of di^seascs by tlie skill of a good physician. If wc have to deal with one who denies both tho authority of scripture, and that of the Church ; wc first prove the authenticity of the Bible in the samo way as that of any other book ; and secondly, demonstrate that the wri- ters of it must have been inspired ; in tlie third place, we show from the scripture that Christ instituted a Church, and promised that it should not err. When tliis is done, we pro- pose the truth and canonicity of tho S(3rlj)i.ures to be believed now with divine faith, from the authority of the Church, which we have found. Where is there a vicious circle in this argumentation ?• It is somev/hal strange that Protestants should charge us with a circle, when they themselves cannot avoid falling into one by their own method. For when we ask them why they believe this or that book to be canonical, they reply, because their own private examination has convinced them of it ; and when wc further ask, how they know that their own private examination is a suro way of distinguishing between books canonical and apocryphal, they reply that the scripture ex- pressly tells tlujm that it is. Thus they believe their private judgment syjjicievt, because the scripture says it is sufficient ; while they have no better proof that it says so, than their own private judgment that they cannot mistake the scriptures. — Let Mr. White compare this with his own grand argument quoted ubove, and see where the vicious circle lies. The Catholic Church has a double authority : one as an il- lustrious society, and the Church of Christ ; another, as be- ing by his promise infallible in points of Faith. Hut if ho had not given her this privilege, she would yet have been tho most illustrious society upon earth ; because she would have had a lawful mission and succession from the Apostles, with many thousand martyrs, holy doctors, and unquestionablo miracles. Her testimony would even so have been evidence enough to make us believe what she proposed as revealed truths ; though no authority but that of God could bo the pro- per motive of divine Faith. Our Saviour gave testimony to St. John Baptist, and St. John gave testimony to our Saviour ; but such as knew Christ first, might, upon his word, believe St. John ; and such as first knew St. John, might, upon St. John's word, believe in Christ. So those who kpow tho Church by the marks it would have had, although the scrip- ture had never been written, may believe the scripture because the Church bids them; and those who believe the scripture, be- fore they know the true Church, may believe tlie Church be- cause the scripture bids them. " For," says Augustine, " there are not so many heresies against the Church as there are texts of scripture for it." Mr. White confesses that such was the powerful effect of this grand argument upon him, that from the moment he be- lieved that the Roman Catholic religion was false, he had no religion at all, and lived without God in the world. (Preser- vative, page 9.) The reader with whom he holds the sup- posed dialogue, says he might at least have tried some other Church before he became an Infidel. Mr. White's reply de- serves particular notice. "You forget," he says, " that I was in a country where the Roman Catholic religion played its accustomed game of Christ with the Pope, or no Christ. — The first thing that a true Roman Catholic teaches those who grow under his care, is cither all that the Church of Rome believes is true, or all that is contained in the scripture is false. To believe that the Church of Rome can be, or is wrong in one single article of her creed, is, according to that Church, the same as to disbelieve the whole Gospel." It ap- pears then thai ten years of infidelity have made Mr. White; k '.J 4^ 10 U rii.>'i! forget, nmong othor things, that tho groat St. Augustine said, ♦♦ For my i'Aut I would not ijklikvk tiik Gospel, wnlkss rjiE Catholic Chi ivcm iNorcLi) me to it. Ir you kordiu me to kelikve the Catholics, you take an ill (-olrhe to iihin(i mk over to your i'ersi'ahion dy the (lomi'kl j be- CAIME I IIEL1E\ED THE GoM'KL ITbELK UPON THE RECOMMEN- DATION OK THE Catholk H.-' Ill tho judginciit of St. Augus- tine, to reject thu authority oftlio Catholic ('hurch, is to over- throw Christianity. Let .Mr. W'liitu rcnieniber that thu ('hurch «»rKngiaml professes to vcnemto the wrii.inj;s of the early Fa- thers, and if he has any sincerity left, let him not talk of Ca- tholics playing tlu.'ir " accustomed game;," lest he bo found to ridicule the most illustrious doctor of the Church. I [avin^j " thrown olfall allegiance to the Christian religion, though //r/cv/," h(! says, ^^ lo enjoy mijscif and indulge my desires^ I could find neither happiness nor comfort. I lived ten years in the most wretched and distressed state of mind ; nofhing was UHinlinif to my Icing happy but the liberty of de- claring my opinions."' Whatever, then, had been his pre- vious conduct, it is avowed here that he abandoned liimself to licentiousness when he had forsaken his faith. This is all in c'haractcr ; but how comes Mr. VVhiti; to say now, — now that he professes to be a Christian and a Church of England min- ister — that in that deplorable abyss of infidelity and vicious indulgence, nothing icas loaniing to his being happy but the li- l)erty of declaring his opinions? Docs this "well for his sincerity and rectitude at present, to declar .> thus to the wa- vering Christian that he may plunge intoinfidelity and immo- rality, and yet nothing will hinder liim from being happy, provided he can declare his opinions freely ? Oh, we do not envy the Church of England such a patch-up proselyte ! These are only stronger evidences against his boasted purity of mo- rals before his infidelity. Ho never learned in the bosom of the Catholic Church, that infidelity and vice could give any real happiness to their deluded victims ; or that libei'ty of de- claring their opinions is all that is required to make such men liappy. Ten years Mr. White spent, acting daily as a minister and promoter of a religion in which he did not believe ; and when the various duties of a Catholic priest are considered, a more complete instance of hypocrisy and deception can scarce be I •» • 11 BE- ' imagined than that to which Mr White pleads guilty. Dur- ing those ten years, Ik; must have often recited and sung lh(! Divine Ofhee in public at least — in private, of course, he did not wear out many breviaries, — he must have pretended ma- ny hundred times to say Mass ; deceiving thousamU of sincere Catholics, who little thought they were assisting at a diaboli- cal imposture, for most probably ho omitted or nullified the most sacred parts of the sacrifice, and could have had no se- rious intention at any time, lie must hnve preached and pre- tended to enforco what his heart atllicted to deny — he must have received the most ;acred ccjnfidence of many souls in the tribunal of conf('ssi(jn ; and how cruel was the imposition he practised upon their confidin<^ cjuulour ! I le probably wa« called to prepare the sick and dying for the most awful pas- sage to eternity ; and the mind shudders at the thought of poor souls in the straits of death bcnng at the mercy of a wolf iii sheep's clothing. Does I\Tr. W. think he can find a j)alliation for his impostures in pretending that ho was compelled to be a hypocrite'? Would any mind, with a single principle of na- tural rectitude left, with any sense of honor and sincerity re- maining, have consented to pursue a lengthened course of de- ception like this ? No : better a thousand times, and more honorable, to expose himself to ])eril, than to become the base deceiver of thousands of unsuspecting Christians. He pre- tends to have been afraid of the Inquisition, and is very loud about the tyranny of the Church of Rome ; but it comes out that another reason weighed heavier — the fcarof afflicting his parents ; for he tells us, what any one could readily see — that he could have gone to North America, but the love of his parents withhold him ; so that rather than grieve his pa- rents, lie remained a hypocrite. It is not unlikely that his clerical emoluments had a stronger hold upon an infidel than filial affection ; and wlum the French came at last, and put his revenues in jeopardy, and all things in confusion, he pro- bably moved ofl", for the best of all reasons — because he was obliged. Mr. White, in his book for the lower classes, paints in fear- ful colours the Inquisition and the tyranny of the Church of Rome. He always puts religious tyranny in italics, and illus- trates it by such strokes as the following : — " The Popes of Rome believe that they have a right to oblige all men who 12 have been baptized by their priests, to continue Roman Ca- tholic to their lives' end. A Roman Catholic loho is not pro- tected hy Protestant Imos, is all over the world a slave. The Roman Catholic religion in itself, and such as the Pope would make it all over the world, if there were no Protestant laws to resist it, is the most horrible system of tyranny that ever opposed the welfare of man.'' — Could not Mr. AVhitc content himself at least with the truth ; and not thus outrageously vi- lify and misrepresent the religion of his fathers ? He knew very well when he wrote, that the Popes of Rome believe no such thing as that Ihey have a right to oblige people to conti- nue Roman Catholics. The Popes have no separate articles of faith from those of the Catholic Church throughout the world ; and Mr. W. well knows that he can produce no sha- dow of proof that such an absurd tenet was ever believed by the Catholic Church. That Church has ever believed it obli- gatory upon her to use every means which the Gospel puts into her hands to keep her children from being seduced by false teachers ; namely, the means of exhortation, reproof, and all such correction as is consistent with personal liberty ; but it is no part of Catholic Faith, that people are to be any other way ohligcd to continuo in her communion. Mr. White knew, too, that a Catholic is not a slave all over the world, where there are no Protestant laws to protect him. He knew that l^nglish Catholics were truly free before the very name of Protestants was heard of ; and, alas ! he was not ignorant that Protestant laws, so far from protecting them, have made them slaves in their own land. There are no Protestant laws in France, nor in many otiicr countries of the globe, where Catholics are very far from being slaves. To say that the Roman Catholic religion in itself, is the most horrible system of tyranny, is saying a groat deal more than Mr. W. would be able to prove : and be docs not attempt to support it by any proof, except a vehement decbiniation against the Inquisition. This is leading his readers ialsely to imagine that the Inq .i- sition is an essential compfini'ju of Catholicity ; that we can- not be true Catholics, without approving its alleged cruelties. These ore monstrous misrepresentations, as a few plain state- ments will abundantly show. That the Inquisition is no part of our Religion, is manifest from the plain facts, that the Catliolic Religion existed 1,200 t ^ 13 Lni] .1- years in every part of the globe, without any tribunal of th« kind; that there are very many countries in which it was nev- er established, though the Catholic Faith flourished in them ; and that the Popes, with all the religious tyranny with which Mr. W. reproaches them, never refused to acknowledge tho Catholics of those countries equally with those who had an In- quisition. — Few, if any Catholics in France, or in this king- dom, will praise the Inquisition or its proceedings ; but so ma- ny falsehoods and exaiggerations have been propagated against that tribunal, that it is but just to distinguish truth from false- hood in its regard. The Inquisition, as all history testifies, was never establish- ed in any kingdom, but by the consent, and sometimes even at the request of its sovereign. It is essential to keep this point steadily in view, for declaimers against the Inquisition always conceal it ; and Mr. White, like the rest, tries to make i: believed that it is solely the Pope's Tribunal, " established," he says, " kept up, and managed by £uid under the Pope's au- thority." But if this were the case, it would be natural that in Rome, where the Pope is absolute sovereign, spiritual and temporal, the Inquisition would be the most cruel and san- guinary, whereas the contrary is a well known fact. — The Roman Inquisition is the mildest of all ; no example is record- ed of its punishing any one with death ; and if Mr. White had been sincere he would not have written a charge so triumph- antly contradicted by this striking fact. The many English that have visited Rome will testify that Protestants can enjoy perfect liberty and security there ; and even asscuible for their own worship without fear of the Inquisition. After all, when a Spaniard is reproached with the rigors of the Inquisition, he may reply that far less blood has been shod by all the In- quisitions ever established, than has flowed in Franco and Germany from wars in the causo of religion; and that the Inquisition has, at least, secured Spain from the poison of infidelity, which has infected almost every other nation of Europe. There is httle doubt but that, if once those who profess to be Atheists and Deists became our masters, they would establish an inquisition more rigorous than that of Hpuin, against those who retained any respect for religion ; witnoss the horrors of the French revolution ; witness the sentence of Kousseau, in hia Contrat Social, upon any one who would 14 )iOt act conformably with his Civic Religion : Let him be punished with death / But let us follow Mr. White to England, and see how he profited of his escape from the horrors of Popery. Ho tells us that the unmeaning ceremonies of Catholics had made him sick of Churches and Church service. If Mr. White had ever done his duty as a Priest, he would have examined the ceremonies of our Church more closely, and would have found that no one of them is without meaning. Very many have produced the jiiost striking effects upon strangers who witnessed them, and have proved the beginning of fur more valuable conversions than Addison's Hymn caased in Mr. Blanco White. Why, then, does he thus conder. n our venerable ceremonies by wholesale, when he knows that the greater part of them are of the highest antiquity, and are oi^ly unmeaning to those who have " said in their hearts, there is no God.^" He uiTects to have been moved with the "beautiful simplicity" and "warm heartedness" of the book of Common Prayer. — Did ho not know that whatever beauty thai Book contains, be- longs to the Catholic Missal, Ritual, and Breviary, from which it is often literally translated ? Yes, he knew all this, hut his ctudied malevolence against the Catholic Church prompted him to conceal it. After saying the Lord's Prayer every morning for three years, and reading Paley's Evidences, Mr. White tells us that lie was enabled " with humble sincerity to receive the Sacra- ment according to the manner of the Church of England, ivhich appeared to him to he, of all human establishments, the most suited, in her disci[)line, to promote the ends of the Gos- pel, and in her doctrines, as pure and orthodox as those which were founded by ilie Apostles themselves." This s^ jitehce owns a great deal more, probably, than Mr. White meant to acknowledge. The Chiu h of England may be the best of human establishments ; and if Mr. White was in search of no- hing higher, he did well to turn in there. The Catholic ' 'hurch is no lunran estul)!islinunt ; it claims a dixrinc fouhda- 'ion, and was bni!i: by the Apostles themselves, which Mr. White here adm!:s that the Church of England was not, as indeed all the v,(Mld iaiows. When Mr. Wl.i;. soon after, was wavering between the (Muuch of Englaiid Doctrines and Unitarianisni, he tells us him be 15 that, in the midst of all his doubts, he presented himself at the Sacramental table. We should be glad to know what disposi- tions he possessed for receiving ihaf, which, whatever the Church of England believe it to be, she considers faith at least quite necessary to receive. In fact faith is the whole of a Protestant's Communion: for if ho expects to receive Christ at all in his Sacrament, it is only by faith that he considers himself to partake of his body and blood — so that Mr. White, in the judgment of a Protestant, must have had glorious dispo- sitions for communion, with his mind full of doubts about the Divinity of the Son of God. However, this communion wrought wonders, if we arc to believe Mr. White, for after it ho found himself stronger than ever in the creed of the Church of England. After detailing his various fluctuations in religion, Mr. White is forced to give testimony to the truth in these remark- able words ; "Happy, indeed, are those millions of humble (yhristians, who from the pul)lication of the gospel to our own times, have received the doctrines of the Bible by the simple means of their Catechism, and the instruntions imparted by their Christian Pastors, and so ordered their lives as not, to wish those doctrines to be false ! Hjio infinilehj more happy is the lot of these humhle Christians than mine /" This is a true (Catholic sentence. Our Church has ever proceeded upon die simple method here commended: and if Mr. White still thinks well of it, why has he joined a communion, which, by extolling private interpretation, and making every man independent of pastoral instruction, acts completely at variance with the plan, which Mr. White here pronounces to be best calculated to make millions ha[)py ? iJut let the candid reader mark well the avowal contained in the words we have put in italics, and say if they do not refute his whole book, and if it bo not just to exclaim — " Dc ore tuo Ic judicoV^ Towards the close of the first dialogue in Mr. White's '' Preservative," he is asked this (piestion : " Do you be- lieve then, sir, that the Roman Catholics are not Ch 'istians '*" He answers, that, though he has known most sincere fol- lowers of Christ amongst them, he is convinced that Catho- licism, by laying another foundation than Christ, — by ma- king the Pope, with his Church, if not the author, certainly :he finisher of their faith, — exposes its members to the most 10 ill imminent danger from the arguments of infidelity. If Mr. White has known most sincere followers of Christ amongst Catholics, our religion cannot be so bad as he otherwise la- bours hard to represent it : if it were possible for him to have been a sincere follower of Christ in our communion, he need not have left : nor is there any room for the exulta- tion he affects to feel at his change from it. There cannot be anything radically bad in a communion which is capable of forming sincere followers of Christ ; and therefore the charge of making the Pope the finisher of our faith, and building upon another foundation than Christ, is as contra- dictory and incon? uent as it is false and malevolent.* How will Mr. White ; 'mpi to prove so odious an accusation against the Cathol Church ? In what book of Divinity, or in what profession of Faith, did he ever find Catholics hold- ing doctrines which, by any perversion but his own, could be construed into a blasphemous opposition to the words of r, Il« l,ii iUi lit '.''W * Thia question, which Mr. White puts to himself in the Dialogue, in at •mbarrassing as the celebrated one which St. Francis, of Sales, put to Theo- dore Beza; and Mr. White will find it as difficult as that reformer did to SToid its overwhelming consequence. St. Francis, of Sales, asked Beza, Whether salration was attainable in the Catholic Church 1 — Beza left the room to consider ; and, after walking about in an agitated manner for a quarter «f an hour, he returned to St. Francis, and said : " We are alone ; I can ex- pose my real sentiments to you ; I believe salvation to be there attainable." St. Francis, availing himself of an answer which gave him such a manifest advantage over Beza, observed, that he must then believe that the Catholic Church was the true Church ; because, if it were not the Church established by Christ, salvation could no more be attainable in it than security from de- •tructiou could be found out of the ark in the Deluge. Beza made no reply ; and St. Francis asked, Why then he had left the Catholic Church— for he ob- served nothing but the absolute impossibility of being saved in the Catholic Church could justify such a separation from its communion 1 Beza was ex- tremely embarrassed by this and other questions of the hjly prelate, and be- came towards the end very violent and even insolent. But the immovable meekness of St. Francis made him ashamed of his violence, and he at last mad* r. handsome apology. Libertinism contributed not a litUe to the apostacy of this unhappy man. When be was asked in confidence by Deshayes what was the leading reason which connected him with the Calvinists, Beza called in a beautiful young woman who lived with him, and said—" That is the principal reason which convinces me of the excellence of ray religion." — Deshayes was struck with horror at vuch an answer, especially as Beza was then advanced in years. — Met a Full Account of kt. Francises Cor\ference with Beza, in tht Lift e;f' 1h9 aaint, by Martollier, Vol. I, Book 3d. w 17 ir*? I the great Apostle, who directs us ever to look '* on Jesus, the author and finisher of (liitli T' Mr. White knows very well thiit wo have ever believed Christ Jesus our Loru to bo tiic .supremo head of our Church: that we only obey and reverence the Pope as his vicar and representative on earth : that in subinittinir to the authority ol' the Church, wo believe ourselves submitting to Divine author- ity delegated to the Church by those; memorable words to the latter part of which Mr. White would do well to attend : " lie that heareth you, heareth irie ; and lie lliat despiscth ytm, des- piseth meJ^ How, then, can the monstrous charge be sub- stantiated that wo blasphemously make the Pope with his Church the finisher of our Faith! Our Cluirch proposes no- thing to our Faith but what she received from the Apostles, and was taught from the beginning. Every article of our creed comes down to us, hallowed by the concurrent testimo- ny of eighteen centuries ; sanctioned by Fathers, councils, and holy writers, attested by the blood of martyrs, and illus- trated by the spotless lives of innumerable " most sincere fol- loweis of Christ." — But how is it with our adversaries ? And how does Mr. White attempt to show that Catholics rrf-e more exposed than Protestants to danger from the arguments of in- fidelity ? "The Romanist,'' he says, "groundsills belief of the Bi- ble on his belief in the Church of Rome : the Protestant, on the contrary, grounds his respect for the Church to which he belongs, on his belief of the Bible." We must stop here to remark, that if by the " Church of Rome," Mr. White means the Catholic Church in communion with Rome, we shall not deny, that we believe the Bible upon the authority of that illus- trious church. St. Augustine, as we have seen above, was not ashamed to believe it from the same authority, and we shall not blush to follow his great example. Let Mr. White show how he himself came to believe in it; how he would ever luive possessed it, if the Catholie Church had not preserved it for him ; or how he could have ..nown what parts to believe; as Scripture, and what to reject as not Scripture, but from the-^ testimony of that Church against whom he ungratefully re- bels. Ho may talk, like other Protestants, about the internal testimonies of Scripture, its force and eflicacy to convince (iur minds, (Sec. ; but all these were the same in the fourth 15 2 \H i>vled<;e temporal authority in the Pope. — His attack on the Catholic clergy. — His erroneous account of the doctrine of exclusive salvation. — That doctrine properly stated and explained. — True account of the Albigenie*. and Vaudois, or Waldcnses. Mr. White professes, in the beginning of his second Dia- iogue, togivctiie origin and true principles of Protestantism. The origin would be easy enough to give ; but tlu; second part of the undertaking is no easy task. Who can give the tru«.': principles of Protestantism, which has no fixed principle, ex- cept enmity to the Catholic Church, in which all the many sects of Protestants devoutly agree 1 They allow every one the boasted liberty of forming his own principles as he pleases, of speaking what he believes, and believing what he pleases. A man may make out whatever he chooses from his Bible, provided he does not find the doctrines of the Catholic Church there, and be a very good Protestant. It is absurd then to talk of pointing out the true principles of those, who boast of havingHiberty to adopt any that they imagine to be taught by the Bible. But let us examine how Mr. White proceeds to his Uisk. *' The Roman Catliolics," he says, " would fain persuade the world that Luther is the author of our religion. But such iis are learned amongst them cannot but know that Protes- tants acknowledge no master, on religious points, but Christ.'' Mr. White is very sore that it should be thought that Protes- tants should follow Luther ; and yet, a short time before, he was loud in accusing Catholics of laying another foundation than Christ, and making the Pope, if not the author, at least the finisher of our faith. However, the truth comes out a little further on, at page 48, where he says, Lu^')er and the Re- formers, loho established our Church. No C itholic ever char- ged Protestants with exalting Luther above Christ ; but they regard him as the instrument of God in reforming Religion, and they are obliged to own that he established their Church. — 'I'his is enough for us ; Luther's own writings testify his cha- • actor, and it is easy to show that the Almighty would never 21 ■( ■ ' 4 ^ ■;a have chosen such an instrument to reform his Church ; if w« could for a moment suppose thnt his Cliurch could need any re- form in faith, after he had expressly promised that his Holy Spirit should guide it into all truth. Mr. White professes to liavc carefully examined the works of Luther, and assures his reader that the well-known confer- ence of Luther with the Devil is a calumny. It may be that he examined them in a library where the memorable seventh volume is kept out of sight : is is known to be the case in cer- tain libraries in England, but if he did examine the seventh volume, with what face can he jjrctend to deny, that Luther acknowledges having had this conference with the Devil ? — Let Mr. White look again ; and in the seventh volume, and in the treatise de Unet. et Missa Privata, fol. 228, 229, 230, of the Wirtemborg edition, in 1558, he wi'l find the whole ac- count, of the first part of which the following is a faithful trahs- lation. "It happened tome," says Luther, "once at mid- night, to awake on a sudden. Then ?atan began tins sort of disputation with me. * Hear Luther,' he said, * most learned doctor, dost thou know that even for fifteen years thou hast celebrated private masses almost every day? What if such private masses should prove to be horrible idolatry V To whom I replied, ' I am an anointed priest. I have done all these things by the command of my superiors, and in obedi- ence to them : this thou knowest.' * That,' he said, * is all true^ but the Turks and Gentiles also do all things in their temples out of obedience.' In these straits, in this combat against the Devil, I wished to overthrow the enemy with the arms to which I was accustomed under the papacy, &c. But Satan, on the other hand, urging me more strongly and vehe- mently, said, * Come, then, show me where it is written, that a wicked man can consecrate, &c.' And Satan pressed me further; ' Therefore, thou hast not consecrated, &c. What is this unheard-of abomination in heaven and in earth?'" — Besides this, Luther has published to the world, that he held frequent communications with the Devil ; and the writer* of his life speak of many other apparitions of the Devil to him. Now, for Mr. White, after these well-known passages, to at- tempt to persuade his readers, that Luther's conference with the Devil had no other foundation than "the spite of the Ro- man Catholic chrgy," is monstrous and disgraceful. It only I ■ I .1 I.. -I "ill i, >;i'i' ^■Wr ll- aa shows how much Mr. White ilroaded the clear inlbronco to bo ♦Irawn from Luther's own aekiiowledgment ; namely, that iic, who, by Mr. White's own admission, csljihlished the Protestant Church, learned the most material part of his Jleformation, the abolition of the mass, from the Devil! " It is nothing to us," says Mr. White, "by what instru- ments God was pleased tu deliver us from the impostures and tyranny of the church of Rome. If Luthtn- had really been the worst of men (which is the reverse of the truth,)" «fec. — Does then Air. White mean to make his readers believe that I>ul!ier was a good man 1 The contrary i,> evident, even from bis own account of himself. lie acknowledged that while he was a Catholic, he spent his lite in austerities, in watehings, in fasts, in prayer, with poverty, chastity, and f)bedience: but after \u) bfjgan his reformation, he declares, " ho could no more bo without a woman, than he could cease to be a man." (Sermon, Do Mat., tom. v. p. 119.) To prove wliichhe broke bis solemn vow of contlnency, and married a nun, bound by the same solemn obligation; for wiiich even Henry VIII. tells him tliat he has committeil a horrible sin, for which even in ancient days he would have been whipped to death, and his wife buried alive. In iiis answer to Henry VIII. he says, " lie yields not in pride either to himperor, King, Prince, or De- vil; not to tlio imiverso itseh".'' If this, and much more that could easily be ([uoted from his own writings of himself, do not prove him to have been the worst of men, Mr. W. can ne- ver prove any thing like the reverse of it, viz. that he was the best of men, or any thing api^roaehing to a good man. Mr. Wiiite appears to bo sensible of this, when he aflecls tave been very wicked Popes ; but let it be well observed, that it is a very dillhront thing for ordinary ministers of wicked l\ character, to be permitted to carry on a religion otherwise firmly established ; and for extraordinary men to appear, of dissolute lives, and give themselves out to be special Apostles commissioned from the God of Holiness, to reform his Church and purify it from corrnption. We are ready to allow that perhaps a tenth part of the Popes have been wicked men ; but even these always fulfdled the public duties of the Church, and maintained the Apostolic doctrine^ order and mission ; so that their personal vices did not esi^cntially affect the Church. The inscrutable Providence of God has permitted that bad men should sometimes be invested with the ordinary mission and ministry in his Church ; and this is not lost by any persona crimes, nor does their wickedness justify the faithful in refu- sing to obey them : the Scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses. All therefore whatsoever t key shall say to yoUf olscrv?. and do : hut according to their toorks do ye not. — Matt, xxiii. 2, ?u The great Protestant Philosopher, Leibnitz, thought very differently of the Poptjs from Mr. Blanco White. " It must be acknowledged," ho says, " that the vigilance of the Popes for the observance of the canons, and the suj-,port of Church discipline, has produced from time to time very excellent ef- fects, and that exercising an influence with Kings, in season uudout of season, either by remonstrances, which the author- t' Uf 34 I! K'l ily of their charge entitled them to make, or by the fear of ecclesiastical censures, they prevented many disorders."* We repeat, then, that if the Church of Christ had needed a reform in faith, such men as Luther and his brother reform- ers would never have been chosen for its reformation. But the very idea of reforming the fuith of the Church, is an insult to its divine Founder, Jesus Christ. He had pro- mised to be with his Church to the end of time ; he declared it built upon a rock, and proof against the gates of hell : he promised that the Holy Spirit should guide it into all truth; who then will say that ho did not fulfil his promises 1 What are we to think of men pretending to reform the Church of Christ, and loudly proclaiming that it had become corrupt in faith and discipline, that its doctrine was erroneous, its wor- ship superstitious, and its discipline full of abuses? Far be from us the blasphemous idea that the promises of. Eternal Truth should have failed, or that the increated wisdom of God should have founded a Church liable to become corrupt and erroneous 1 Against the empty boasts about the glorious work of the pretended Reformation, we shall show that this Reformation was unlawful in its principle, criminal in its means, and fatal in its effects ; it was the work of human passions and not of divine grace. The pretended reformers were, in the first place, men with- out mission, ordinary or extraordinary ; they could show no proofs of a supernatural commission ; though so great a work as that 'if reforming the Church of God would have demand- ed no less powerful signs than those given by Moses, by Christ ©ur Lord, and his Apostles. When Luther and Calvin arose, there was already in the Church a public ministry appointed to teach, a body of pastors claiming an ordinary mission, which came down to them in regular succession from Jesus Christ and his Apostles. When the Sacramentarians and Anabaptists preached contrary to Luther, he haughtily re- quired them to show supernatural proofs of their mission, as if he had been able to exhibit any such of his own. When Servetus and others taught against Calvin, he drove them out * S«e the admirable work ofa Protestant Minister, the Baron'de Starck, en* titled, '* Entretiena Philoiophiqaes sttr la Reuniou dea differentcs Conunu- ■i«M Chretieiuief ," page 39!^. 26 of Gnnovii; or piiniMlipd thmn by tlio mm of tlio secular pow- er. This was lint actiir^ liko thn ApoNtlpH ; thoy pniploycd nc;'iinst those wIk) opposod thnrii, only the girts "f tho Holy (ihosf, and tho ascpiitlatiry oC tlicir otniiKMit virtiir?. Tho rc- fornifrs rlainio 1 llic right of proa{'hirij» against the faith of tho whole Christian worM, ^.V ihcy refused every one the hht^rty of preaehini; ajj-'i'i^f ihem. As the reformation proceeded, con- fnsion and(Nssention daily increased ; there was soon a swarm of seets, Lntheran-^, Aiiahaptists, ('alvinists, Znitiirhans, Ciuireh of I'ln.'^l iiid, tVr. cVc. Calvin i)e;>-;in to t-ee the dis- jrraeefnl consc(|nene( m, :\nt\ wrole iluis to Melanethon, a bro- ther-reformer : — " It is of fh'? jjjreatest importance that no nrcoiinf of th(? divisions I hat nre amoncrst tis should "o down V.J n to future aijes ; Inr it is worse than ridiculous, that, al'tor breaking off iVoni all tl;e world, wt; slioidd have agreed so ii!ll(,' among ourseKc:, e\er siii('(! th(! beginning of the Re- formation." Another leading Protestant says : — *♦ Our people nre carried away by every wind of doctrine. If you know what their heli'f is lo-dav, vou cannot tell wliat it will bo to-morrow. Is there fine article of leliin'on in uiiich tho Churches that are at war wit!i tlie I'np'^ agree together'? It* you run over all tlie artir'les, from tho first to the last, you will not find (kv) which is not held by some of them as an article of faith, ami r(>jected hy others as an imniety."' — (Diitil/t inter Epi~'u'. Lrifd.) Nothing t'aen could Le n.oro contrary to ;;!1 1 iw, and order than the assumption of LiUher and his f)llowers to be divinely commissioned to reform a Church founded and pj'cserv(M| by the I'Uernal Truth. Let us i:ext examine the mnins ado|)led by the Ileformers. Their conduct conti'iidicted tla^ir principles. They laid down, as a fundariental maxim, that tho Hiblc was the sole rule of faith and nutrality ; and that cvcm'v one could inter[)rct it as he pdeased, : inf;e it was clear in all things necessary for .sal- vation. Yet they themselves disi'uted eternally about the meaning of the Scriptures: They did not hcgin to study the Pibhi coolly and impartially ; but mey boldly contradicted tho ('atholic dcctrincs, and then looked out texts and accom- modated ihem to their own dogmas. After promising tl.o people the great evangelical liberty of reading and judging for themselves, Uiey drew up various Conlbssions ol" I'ailh and Catechisms ; und, as the Protcbtant Rlosheim acknow- c 26 lOBSUIilllSIJ' ledgeit obliged people to follow them, under pain of exeonv municatioot prison, exile, and even the sword — (Sect. 37, 38, 39.) Thus, in professing to free the people from the duthority of the Catholic Church, they laid upon them a yoke, a hundred times more insupportable. In this kingdom Queen Elizabeth was not behind them with her Act of Uniformity and High Commission Court, which was a real Inquisition. sThe historian Hume declares that this Court was an inquisi- torial tribunal, with all its terrors and iniquities.* Maclaine shows that the High Commission Court " was empowered to make inquiry, not only by legal methods, but also by rack» torture, inquisition, and imprisonment ; that the finea and imprisonments to which it condemned persons weie limited by no rule but its own pleasuie."t Thus the Reformers never adhered in practice to their leading principle of th$ Bible and every man his oion interpreter. A second means, equally criminal, which the Reformers adopted, wuc that of misrepresenting the Catholic doctrines. To instance one in which Mr. Blanco White closely treads in the steps of those who founded his adopted Church : — ^Tho Cuthulic Church has ever taught that the rule of faith is the whole word of God, unwritten, as well as written ; that the Bible is not the sole rule of faith, but the Bible explained and understood by the tradition and belief of the Church; that, though any point be not formally and evidently taught in the Scripture, we are still obliged to believe it, if it be taught by the constant and uniform tradition of the Church. But the Protestants have always accused us of taking for our rule of faith — not tlio Bible, but tradition ; of exalting the word of man, above the word of God ; of following traditions contra- fy to the Scripture. These are egregious misrepresentations «nd calumnies. ' A third means to establish the Reformation was — Revolts against all authority, seditions, wars, massacres, and especi- ally pillage of churches and monasteries. The o.iginal do- sign of the Hefortners was to abolish the Catholic Religion altogether, an ' to employ for this end all possible means. the I'V i>r England, James I., Chnp, vi. ^ 1)11 \l(i4heint, Vol. vi. i». 3i)> > 27 This fanaticism prevailed in much the same manner in Qer- many, Switzerland, France, England, and Scotland. Thui were the means of the Reformers criminal. How could the effects of such a Reformation be otherwise than fatal ? This blessed and glorious work, as it is called, produced furious and interminable disputes, national and in- testine hatreds, and new schisms, constantly arising. There were twelve sects of the Reformed, in the first fifty years ; and they are now mnltiplied to a prodigious extent. If any one imagines that this pretended Reformation contributed to establish purity of morals, he is much deceived. From the testimonies of the Reformers themselves,— of Luther, Calvin, Musculus, and other leading Protestants, as well as of Era«- mus, — it is acknowledged that the Reformed were generally much more dissolute than the Catholics. Luther's own testi- mony is in these words : — " The world grows every day worse, and worse. It is plain that men are much more cove- tous, malicious, and resentful, much more unruly, shameless, and full of vice, than they were in the time of Popery." — ** Formerly, when we were seduced by the Pope, men wil- lingly followed good works ; but now all their study is to get every thing to themselves, by exactions, pillrCge, theft, lying, usury." — '* It is a wonderful thing, and full of scandal, that, from the time when the pure doctrine was first called to light, the world should daily grow worse, and worse." Bucer, an immediate disciple of Luther, says : — " The greater part of the people seem only to have embraced the Gosi)el in order to shake off the yoke of discipline, and the obligation of fast- ing, penance, «Sic. which lay upon them in the time of Pope- ry ; and to live at their pleasure, enjoying their lust and law- less appetites without control. They therefore lend a willing ear to the doctrine that we are justified by faith alone, and not by good works, having no relish for them." Calvin complains the same : — ♦♦ Of so many thousands, seemingly eager in embracing the Gospel, how few have since amend* ed their lives! Nay, to what el.^e does the greater part pre- tend, except, by shaking off the yoke of superstition, to launch out more freely into every kind of lasciviouanessl" The conclusion to be drawn from all this is, thtit this pro- tended Reformation, unlawful in its principle, criminal 'n\ its means, and fatal in its effects, bears every mark of a false M 28 religion ; and could never have been approved, much less in- spired by AlmiglUy God. *i,w«'5f: .vivy .' The next portion of Mr. White's second Dialogue of the Preservative, prolesscs to give ihu *' origin and progress of the spiritual tyranny of tiie Pope." In his larger work of *' Evidences against Catholicit-m,"'"' he has a long and confus- ed Dissertation about the Pope, wiiich is entitled '* Real and practical extent of the authority of the Pope, according to the Roman Catholic Faith." A few plain observations will suffice to expose the fallacy of both his productions on this subject. •• Mr. White would persuade the readers of his Preservative, that " Christianity had been long established before the Po[)es bethought themselves of claiming spiritual dominion over all Christendom ;" that tiie Dishops of Uomo only began to claim authority over the Church when the Pagan persecutions ceas- ed in the beginning of the fourth century ; and that the belief that St. Peter had been Bishop of Rome was an idle and un- grounded report, it is deplorable to sec u Licentiate in Di- vinity attempt thus to impose upon such humble readers as have no means of examining history by such worn-out falla- cies and vile fabrications as these. The constant testimony of all ecclesiastical writers, without one exception, for fifteen centuries, proves that St. Peicr fixed his See at Rome, and di» ed there bv rnartvrdom. In the first century it is testified by- Papias, a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, and by Saint Ig-. natius. Martyr, in his Kpistle to the Romans. In the second century, by St. Irenccus, by DionysiLis of Corinth, Caius and Clement of Alexandria. In the third century by Origen, TertuUian, and St. Cyprian, la the fourth and fifth ci iituri<;s by St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, Eusebius Lactan^ tius, Thcodorct, Sulpicius Severus, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Chrysostom, St. Athanasius, and many others followed throughevery century up to the pretended Reformation. Even a Pagan writer in the fourth century, Ammianus Marcellimm (Hist. 1. XV, c, 7,) says, that the chief authority among the Chribtians is placed in the Bishop of Rome : many illustrious Protestants hiivo. ;icl:iiowledged the sani(\ With what face then can Mr. White attempt to delude his readers with tho groundless assertion, that St. Peter's having been bishop of iiuro the Pone, they arc good Protestants! He would not like to stand to such inferences; for he knows, though he conceals it from his re.ulers, thai the Greeks and Armenians and I'Uhiopiansbold most tenets which the Catholic Church does. They hold- transuhstantiation, the seven sacraments, purgatory, invocation of saints, tVc. ; and us to their not acknowledging the Pope, it proves at least, that people may hold all tl.'o above doctrines without beinfj: en- slaved to Poperv ; and then wh tt becomes of Mr. Planco While's fine th(!ory about (^ur making i'.ie Pope \\\o,fniishr.rcf our faith, iim\ the eternal reproach that we build our filth up- ■f! 'M ao 'i;n a long round-about way by Mr. Blanco White. This author complains, that our doctrine concerning the Pope's supremacy is involved in vagueness, obscurity, and doubt. It may appear so to those who are determined not to understand it ; but to all Catholics it is very evident : and the Catholics of this country have given the clearest proofs of their understanding it, by repeated oaths and protestations that they disclaim all temporal power in the Pope out of his own dominions, that they " do not believe that the Pope hath, or ought to have, any civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm." If the Pope's deposing power be still a tolerated opinion, let Mr. W. point out, if he can, any Catholics in any part of the world who believe it ; he will find few, if any : and if many believ- ed it, they would not believe it as of faith, but as a private opinion. How will Mr. White make out that the interference of the Pope with the civil "allegiance of his spiritual subjects, is a fair consequence of our doctrines? Our doctrine is, that he has no right to interfere with our civil allegiance ; that we only owe him obedience in spiritual concerns. How unjust is the attempt to infer a consequenoe for us, which we have loudly and repeatedly disclaimed! It is no use to tell us, that Popes ;.k ■■ ii^ Ml' 32 have claimed temporal power beyond their own dominions : Mr. W. should show loho acknoidcdged that poioer. It avails nothing to tell U3 that tho Pope absolved the FiHglish from their Allegiance to Queen Elizabeth; he should show us any Catholics who refused to ackno"vled"e her as their sovereign in consequence. Why docs Mr. White rake up this old grie- vance, acknowlodginir all the while that " the days are no more, when the Pojje might endeavor to remove a Protestant King from the throne?" It is needless to add more, than that the days never were, when Cat-liolics were bound by any article of their faith, to forward any such endeavor of the Pope. l?ut Mr. Wliite would have it believed of us, that in conse- quence of our holding the Pope's spiritual author'ty, we are hound to obey hi.n in any means he may command us to use, for checking tho progress ol" heresy. This would be acknow- ledging an indirect temporal power in the Pope, which we have so often disclaimed. We protest again, and again, that we should not olx^y the Pope were he to command the use of Tiny other means (or checking heresy, than such as were strict- ly consistent with our civil allegiance to our sovereign. W^e acknowledge no authority in the Pope to enforce his spiritual power by any temporal means ; he may command us to as- 1 sist in checking the progress of heresy by spiritual means, by preaching, and teaching, but by no other means : and we are not bound to obey him if he commands the use of any other means. The following passage is so admirable a defence of the Catholic Clergy, whom Mr ^V'llitL• lias been ungenerous enough to insult, that we t;d.' intt^rests of tho Catholic Church, before it admitted them to a commun- ity of political privilv'g(3s'? They would say "you may as well ask us to alijuro our religion, and become CatholiCs at once; for how can wo believe one religion conscientiously, and yet swear to encourage the interasts of another'?" We "say the same; it is quite enough for us to swear, that we will never use any oilier moans against the csiablishcd Church, than those of p- ..aching and tctuihiiig, and fullilling our ministry accord- ing to th::; Co.i;)e!. This v/e are ready to sv/ear ; and truly the Church of England must stand upon a iVail foundation, iC it is so far afraid of us as to rcfu'ie u^:, a community of civil pri f. ■ 34 -I ▼ilcges, unlesA wc swear to " protect nnd encourage its inter- ests!" But our "doctrine of exclusive salvation is an obstacle to mutual benevolence : cancel but that one article from vour creed," says Mr. White, ♦♦ and all liberal men in Europe will offer you the right hand of fellowship." So far, Mr White in his »* Evidence." In his ** Preservative," he tells us, in plain terms, what he means by our doctrine of exclu- sive salvation. The reader is supposed to ask him; (| age 40.) ♦* Is it not a doctrine of the Pope, that all men who are not of his opinion must be lost to eternity ?" And Mr. White devoutly replies ; ♦* It is indeed It is an express u.. tide of their creed, which it is not in their power to deny, without be- ing accursed by their own Church," Sfc, Mr. W. talked just now of the vagueness and obscurity, in which our doc- trines are involved ; they would be vugue indeed, if they were put forth as he has here represented them. We shall not stop to point out the inconsistency of those parts we have put in Italics, where "doctrines of the Pope," "opinions of the Pope," and " article of our creed," are all gloriously jumbled up together by a man who beasts forever of his know- ledge of divinity. We shall simply strtc what we hold, and what others hold, on this alarming subject, as ii is always mis- represented to ima^'inations easily prejudiced and affrighted. There is nothing so revolting in our doctrine concerning salvation, when it is properly understood : nothing but what all other communions ought to hold to be consistent, if they do not hold it in reality. It is important in this matter to sepa- rate doctrines from persons. It is very far from being the doctrine of our Church that "all men who are not of our op- inion must be lost to eternity. ' Mr. B. White, a priest, whose *' lips should have kept knowledge," ought to blush at so false an assertion as that above quoted. We believe that there is no salvation out "f the Church of Christ. Every Christian of whatever denomination ought to believe thesame. Christ himselfexpressly taught it in the parables of the good sheep, and the true vine and its branches. And speak- ing " no longer in parable," he said manifestly that *' he thai will not hear the church is to be held by its members as a heathen & apublioan." This was held by the Reformers equally with the Catholics. Calvin says, " out of the bosom of the Church *'4\ 85 there is no remission of sins, or salvation to be hoped for." The same doctrine is expressed in all the confessions of Faith of the Reformed Churches. The question then only remains, lohich is the true Church of C/irist'i We believe most firmly that the Catholic Church, in Communion with Rome, is the true Church of Christ. If another believes the Lutheran, another the Genevan, another the English Church to he the true Church of Christ, all of these, to be consistent, must believe that salvation cannot bo had out of their respective communions. The moment they adhere to them as Irue^ they mu^'t r.ject every other aa false They could not value their respective systems, if they did not consider them rignt, and preferable to all others. Hence, to be consistent, they must hold, not indeed that *' all men not of their faith must be lost to eternity," bui that though men may be saved by other pleas, their false religion icill never gave them. This, and no more, is the doctrine of the Catho- lic Church on salvation out of her communion. We condemn doctrines^ but noi Tpeuons indiscriminately; resigning all judg- ment to God, we subscribe to the sentiment of a great doctor and saint : '* They who, without passionate obstinacy, defend their opinion, how false soever ; who solicitously seek for the truth, ready to own their error as soon as the truth is discov- ered, are no wise to be numb.ned among heretics-" (St. Au- gustine, Ep. 43. It is strange, however, that the doctrine of exclusive salvation should be so often objected to us, by those whose church express- ly teaches it: — that we should bo told by Mr. Blanco White that the rejection of it would procure us civil privileges, when the entrance to most important civil privileges is obtained for others, by acting upon the very objected principle, (Excluding us from salvation, by swearing that our doctrine i"- damnable idolatry! The Church of England in those Articles which Mr. White has signed, says expressly (Article 18tl>): '*They also rre to be haeld accursed, that presume to say, that every man shall be saved according to the Law or Sect which ho professeth ; so that ho be diligent to frame his life according to that Law, and the light cf nature." She also obiiLjos her ministers to read publicly, thirteen days in the year, the an- cient Creed, called the *'Creed of St. Athanasius," which seta forth the Catholic faith, and contains these words : ** WhooO t' li'ili 00 ever will bo snvful, before all tlilncrs It is necessary, that ho hold the Catholic Faith--'IMiis is tlr- Catholic Fnith : which except a in-in hcliMvo failliCully, hov-rniiot ho snvfd." Surely no innu who siihsciihes to llie ArticI'vs ol'iI;o ('hiireh of Eng- land, whi<,'h retains thi-; Creed, may reproach ('athoh'cs with holdinfj a dofifmi " which is ac obstacle to mutual benevo- lonce, ai.d per(l:ct commutiity jf political j)rivilc;L;es-" Let Martin Lutlicr, whom Mr. White nek nowledffcs to havcfound- ed his Church, put a powerful finish to thi^s question : — "I know n:any were of opinion firieui years ijuice, that every one miffht he .^aved in lii.sowu pcrsuasiuu — and wliat is this, but to rnako one C/luirch out of all the enemies of Christ? From whence it, W');ild also tollow, that there was no need of Christ an 1 his Gospel, and there will be no diirercncc between Tuiks, Papist'^ Jews, an! us who have the Gospel. Strange then is the boldness, aud imnudrnice of the Zuiiiglians, who dure advance such doctrine, and cover it with my authority nnd example.'' O'l ; rv(^ how snui^ly Martin puts poor Papists in, bntwcch Ti.rk'!, aed Jews, and how civilly he insinuates that we have not (!ven the (JJospel ! VVe arc very easy upon all such accusati )iis : Cc»nscious of adhering to the truth, wo are only disposr^d lo smile at those who would consign us to damnation, if others felt as firm a conviction of the truth of their religion, as we do of the truth of ours, they would not be troubled al)out (vvclusivc salvation being held by any one. Mr. WhitT had done betfer if he had not m )ve;i this que; tion : he has by criminating the Catholic Church, condemned the Church of l^-nglaiid, in which he profcsi^es now to believe — he has verified that passage of the P.-aimi ;t, whicli he used to recite in his office book : '■'•S/i. iiion; than Dr. I'lirifcss, to constitute a j)crfect Protestant; but how riv'iciiloiis is liiis attempt to claim these sects, as Prot(;stants, who, it is very (u.-rtfiin, would never have sinrned the fjiithoran, or Cnlvieistic Drofi.'ssion of faith l)oforo the U(>rormation ; nor would fn- sincere Protestant be willing to adopt all the reveries ol ihese dillerent sects. There were, about those times, two sects of people whose origin is quite (h'stinct, and whose doctrines were for a long time very diflerent from each ofjier, and essentially diiFerfrnt, from any of the many forms of Protestantism. These were the Alhip uses and the Vnudois. A book lately published by an English Protestant Clergyman has excited a great feeling in favour of the Vaudois, ns they now exist in the valleys of Piedmont. It is nothing in the present question, what they arc now. Mr. White takes care to tell us that they are •* most excelkmt Protestants ;" that ♦' they have Bis/wpSy Priests, and Deacons /" — So we may suppose the Scotch and the Dutch, and ethers, fall short of being most excellent Protestants ; and there must be another clause added to Dr. Burgess's definition of Protestantism. Our business is to show that these people taught few doc- trines before the Reformation, which Protestants would be willing to subscribe to; and, therefore, th;\t it is worse than ridiculous for Protestants to claim them for their ancestors. The Alhigenses were Manicheans, and arose about the be- ginning of the 12th century. They were a confused collec- tion of sects; generally very ignorant, and very unable to give any regular acrouniof their belicf,---hut they all agreed in condemning the use of all Sacraments, and the exterior worship of the Church ; they wished to destroy the Hierarchy^ and change the established discipline. They held the mon- strous doctrine of the Manichces, that there were two Crea- tors — one good, the other had ; two Christs, an error of the Gnostics ; no resurrection ; our souls ore devils y no purga- tory ; no Hell; marriage unlawful ; and uiauy other abomi- nations. Protestantism must bo wide indeed if it include such as these ! Mr. AVhitc did well to say that he could not answor for any doctrine they held. ^ii w li.' Hut lot tis examine tho history of tho Vaudois, — •♦ simple shepherds," os Mr. VVhito very simply calls them. *♦ By menus of their poverty and simplicity," he adds, ♦♦ these happy rustics preserved the doctrines of Christ, such as they had received them from the er.ly Christian Missionaries," d'c. lie calls them, moreover, ♦* truly primitive Chrisli- uns." What n pity it is that truth compels us to spoil this simple, rural picture of primitive Christianity ! Tho\au- dois bogan, in 1160, with Peter Valdo, or Waldo, a trades- man of Lyons. He persuaded some ignorant people that po- rcrly was necessary Jor salvaUon ; that, if priests and minis- ters of the Church did not practise apostolic poverty, tfiey were no longer ministers of Christ, and had no powers to ad- minister sacraments ; that any layman who practised poverty had more power than priests ; that oaths, war, and the pun- ishment of death were nover lawful. How would Protestants relish these tenets ? VVJiat are wo to think of simple, •' pri- mitive Christians" like these 1 They taught many other errors equally revolting ; and, concerning llic Eucharist, they did not deny Transiibstantia- tioHj but maintained that a bad priest could not consecrate, though transiibstantiation was effected in tho mouth of a *rorthy receiver. They continued to teach these errors till, in 15t36, they were induced by Favel to embrace Calvinism, —but obliged I'lrst to reject several of their former errors, and to renounce all belief in the real presence and necessity of confession of sins. Tlius they became a great deal more like Protci^tants than thoy were in their ** happy rustic and primitive state," and we dare say thoy are still " most ex- cellent Protestaui^." All we contend for is, that they were very little like Pr tcstants before the era of the Reformation, rind held doctiin( < before that time, which were most mon- •^frnus and rcvoltin ;'. Mr. White rctur.is to the A.lbigenses, and gives a moving nceounl of their be, i; persecuted by order of Innocent III. ill 1193; and ''on; who mjide most havoc among them," lie, s:iys, " is know, an.l ivorshi^ijvd by the Roman Catho- lics by the mum of t* iiit Dominic. He was the founder of t!i(! Inquisi'ioii." IL o he insidiofjsly uses tho word ivur' shipped to r.Kiko poop: think that Catholics pay divine ado- r»uon to tho t.a.ius, v ,.ich, he well knew, is not the case. * simple "By " these as they maries," Chrisli- spoil this no \ au- tradcs- thnt po- minis- they to ttd- a nd • ty, urs poverty he pun- rotestants pri- e. ing; and, ubstantia- onsecrate, outh of a errors till, Calvinism, rrors, and jcessity of deal more rustic and * most ex- Ihey were formation, most mon- a moving loccnt III. ig them," an Catho- rounder of word wor- ivine ado- the case. 30 How basn is such an insinuation! St. Dominic was not the founder of the Inquisition, nor did ho make any hai'oc among the Albigenses ; for Ecliard, Touron, and the Bollandistv prove that ho never was an inqumlor^ nor ever opposed those heretics in any other way than by preaching, instruc- tion, prayer, and patience. No Dominican was an inquisitor till the year ri83, and Saint Dominic had died in 1221. So much for the correctness and good faith of Mr. Blanco White! As for the persecution of the Albigenses, wn can never approve of any persecution on the score of religion; but let it be remembered that many doctrines of the Albigen- ses were such, as led to the most dangerous disordcri in civil society, and many enormities which called for the interfe- rence of the secular power; and we all know that, when once the sword is drawn, barbarities and injustice are sure to follow on both sides. These heretics, protected by Raymond, Count of Toulouse, had been guilty of seditions and violence. Jn armed troops they expelled the bishops, clergy, and religi- ous, demolished monasteries, and plundered churches. They were not persecuted by order of Innocent III. ; ho only or- dered the Cistercian monks to preach against them. Several princes protected the Albigenses and opposed the monks, and one of the religious was assassinated by the heretics in 1208. Then tho Pope exhorted the King of France, Philip Augus- tus, to raise a crusade against these seditious disturbers of the public peace, and tiie assault of the town of Beziers fol- lowed ; but far be it from us to defend the cruel massacre of its inhabitants, though they are proved to have been robbers and plunderers, and guilty of all kinds of enormities. It was done, however, by authority of the secular power, and not, as Mr. White would insinuate, by order of Pope Innocent III. Now let the reader decide whether Mr. Blanco White has gained any thing for Protestants by claiming these men for their ancestors ; — wh'. ther ho has shown any candour, in his representation of their history, and whether a sincere Protest- ant has any reason to be glad of such a convert as Mr. Blanco White. .^ , ^i 40 [mi Mr. White'i Absurd Explanations of the Words Chnich and Catholic— So- phistry about the Pope's Supremacy,— 'rradition.— Transubstuntiatiou.— Mr. W.'s Misrepresentations of the Doctrine of Catholics on Transnbsfaiiti- ation and on Purgatory.— Indulgences — Confession, Relics, and Images. The concluding part of Mr. Vv'iiito's Second Dialogue in the ** Preservative" is so nearly connected with the whole substance of Letter III. in the " Evidence," tiiat it will he best to begin with the notice of both. The first treats of the Churchy the second of the Pope. The first is a paltry effort to explain away the meaning of that article of the creed in which we profess our belief in the Holy Catholic Church. Mr. White was well aware how in consistent it is in a Protestant to profess belief in the Catho- lic Churchf — when he cannot show that his Church is Ca- tholic — that i?, universal — in any sense, either as to time, or place. Hence he endeavours to do away with the difficulty by confusing the real meaning of both the words, Church and Catholic. Church he would have to mean " Christianittj in general;" and when our Saviour promised that Satan should not prevail against his Church, he merely meant that " the Devil should never succeed in abolishing the faith in Cod through Christ — not, tliat the Pope must always be in the right," &c. But i^ Church, means no more than Christianity in general, it must follow that ail those who call themselves Christians are members of the Church of Christ, let their er- rors be what they may ; and, if that be Mr. White's idea, how came he to subscribe to the Articles of tin? Church of Eng- land, the nineteenth of which gives a vci y dilferent definition of the Church ? " The visible Church of Christ is a covgre- gation rf faithful men, in which the pure word of C!od is preached," &c. Mr. Thorndike, a learned Protestant, un- derstood the matter much better. He says, in his Letter concerning the Present State of Religion, that " when we say, we believe the Holy Catholic Church, as part of that n 41 1 1 faith, wliereby we hope to bo saved, we do not profess to Ins- lie ve that there is a compciivj of men professing diristianity, but that there is a corporation of true C/irisfinns^ excluding here- tics and schismatics, — and that we hope to be saved by being members of it." Wliat becomes now of Mr, Whitcs's absunl notion of tiic Church? He has evidently not learnt yet, what ho ought to hold as a member of the Church of Eng- land ; he is too raw a convert from infidelity ; ho may learn, from the Article of the Church of England, and this testi- mony of a Protestant writer, to correct his ideas about the Church, and salvation out of it. Mr. White gives an explanation of the word Catholic, v- qually removed from its real meaning and application. C«- ihoUc means universal. So far Mr. VV. tells the truth ; but, he says, that, as soon as errors arose, they were ♦' called heresies, which means separations ; because those who set up their own conceits as the doctrine of the Gospel, separa- ted themselves from the universal belief." It may be humi- liating to such a scholar as Mr. White to be reminded thiit heresy docs not mean separation, but choosing for onci's self, as any Greek lexicon would have informed him. It comes from the verb aireo, to choose ; and hence those who despi- sed the authority of the Catholic Church, and would choose for themselves, were always called, from the same word, heretics, that is, choosers. According to Mr. VV.'s account, heresies became " so numerous thai the true (christian be- lief could no longer be called Catholic or universal; so that, to say — I believe in the Holy Catholic Church — was not tho same as if one said, I believe in the true Church.*' He goes on to state, llicrefore, that, in the course of about three C(;n- turies, it became necessary to add the word Apostolic, as it stands in the Nicenc Creed. Then he accuses us, whom ho insultingly calls " Romanists,'' of artfully contriving to bo called Catholic ■;, and cautious Protestants to bo aware ol'this trick, and never call us Cj/hnlics, but Roman Catholics, Jlo- manists, or Papists. Very good advice, no doubt ; but why then did Mr. White say, in the first page of his book, that he had been ordained a Catholic priest '\ Why? — but that " great is the power of truth, and it will prevail !" Now, to demolish all the sophi.'^try of this most * artful con- trivance,' of Mr. Blanco White's ; all history testifies that the D 2 '^1 I ;:i ;• in mil 'if iff W Ills 42 true Church always bore the honourablo and distinguishing ti' tie of Catholic : and let Mr. VViiitc be well assured that with all his good advice, and those of man} before liiin who labour- ed hard to give us opprobr'ous names, v.e slmll ever be desig- nated, by the glorious and original name of CalhoUcs. He cannot prevent our having a title which has descended to us through the unbroken course of eighteen centuries : he can- not demolish the triumphant proof established in our favour, by our uniform possession of that honourablo distinction. " Cinia- tian is my name, Catholic my surrran)e,'"' snid St. Pacian, who lived towards the end of the fourth century. Thai saint says, the name of Catholic comes tVom God, and is necessary to distinguish the dove, the undiviilnl Virgin Cfinrch, from all sects, which^ are called I'rom their particular founders. Ob- serve that this was in a letter to Sympronian, a Donatisr and Novation heretic, who had found finilt with the true Church for taking the title of Catholic. This makes powerfully against Mr. Blnnco's aecoiuil; and di.-,f.lnct]y proves that the name of Catholic was the distinclion from heresies, after the period when Apostolical, was inserted in the Niccne Creed. Now let us hear what St. Augustine said in the same centu- ry: We must hold the communion of that Church, which is Catholic, and is not crJij called so bij her cion children, hut by all her enemies. For heretics, and schismatics, whether thej will, or not, when the}?' rporJc not to their own ])eoplo but to strangers, call Catholics CaihoUcs onhj. For they cannot be understood, if they give ihem not that name, 7i-hichjill ths world gives them." And this very circumstance, which Mr. White has the efTronterv to contest, was one of the four im- portant considerations whicli kept St. Augustine in the Catho- lic Church ; that Church whicli Mr. While has been so un- happy nsto forsake with all thcFC arguments before his face, thus gtrongly urged by f.o groat a doctor as St. Augustine: " TIkm'O nre manv other ihinr^s v.hich most iustlv hold me in the communion of the Catholic Church. 1st. — 'V\\o. aureo- mcnt of people and nations holds me. 2d!y. — Authority, be- gun with miroclos, nourished with hope, incvcased w ith cha- rity, confirmed by antiquity, holds me. Sdly. — A succession of Bisliops (k.'scending from the Sec of St. Peter, t ) whom Christ after his resurrection committed his Hock, to the })ro- fi«nt «j)iti>copncy, Jiolds mo. 4tiiJy. — The ir ry name of C a- ^ -A If IS 01 43 i^t ling ti- |at with labour- dcsig- is. He (1 to us 'le can- our, by ' CiiJ'iii- |an, who nl says, ^sary to from all •s. Ob- atist and ' Church iwcrililly that the after the e Creed, ne centu- whlch is n, hut hy ihor they lo but to lannot he hall ths liiuh Mr. four im- 10 Critho- :i so un- hia face, jTustino : hi mu ifi [? uifr'-o )rity, be- ith chn- icccssioii to whom the pro- IP of Ca- rnohxc holds mp^ of whifih this Church alone, has, not without reason, so kept tlic possession, that thoir^h all heretics dcnirg to be called Catholics ; y(!tifa stranger ask them where Ca- thohcs meet, none of tiic heretics iJare point out his own liouse, or his Church." Now which are we to believe, those holy and learned Fr- thers, or Mr. I'danco White? Wiiat reasonable man does not Bee that his account of the title Catholic, is totally incorrect and unfoun led? The Church of God in communion widi the Pope, preserved that title in every century down to the pre- sent; and Mr. White knows that he cannot prove the contia- ry. His attempt to do so, is the weakest we have ever seen- Protestants have always been jealous of our sole possession of this title : they have often tried to call themi^clves Catholics, and to distint^uish us, as Roman Catholics', but in tins they have never succeeded. To be Catholics they must provo themselves to he universal as to //'wr, and pLtcf^, which a sys- tem, or ralher a confused heap of systems, none older than three hundred years, and confined to very few parts of tho globe, can never do. " Thou art not yet four hundred ycaru old, and hast thou seen the Apostles?" But loe can readily and triumjihantly shew that our Church is Catholic^ and the " holy Cafliulic Church," in v/hich we profess to believe in the creed. Our Church is Catholic as to time. It has existed in every ri^^o since the time of Christ. We can point out the oria'iii of evcrv sect and division of Chvistians ; but no one can assign any other beginning to our Church, than tlir.t of Christ and ins Apostles. It is Catholic as to doctrine. W'lmt it teaches j:ow, it has taught in every age ; and though our adversaries are fund of accusing us of adding new doctrines to tlioseof the primitive Church, such u charge is more easily made than proved, Tiic testimonies of tho e-'irly P"'athers abundantly shev/ that every single article of our fail!) was taught from the beginning. It is Catholic as to place. It is spread thvoiighoulthe wniid, and h;;s ever reck- oned by far tlie greatest ntmiber of m?mbers in its eon)munion ; as every book of Geography will testify. In tine it is Catholic by the universal con -ciit cfall people, in all ages, friends and enemies, have always called its mem- bers Catholics, f^ume have sneeringiy called us llomai)ists, PRpistfi, mud oti names, but thsy have never generally ob- 44 tained : we still are, and ever shall be distinguished by the glorious surname of Catholics. ^'• Mr. White's invention about the term AposfoUcal is as ri- diculous as it is original. No one, surely, before him, pre- tended to believe that Apostolical was inserted in the Nicene Creed, because the Catholics could no longer be distinguished from heretics. If they had separated from the Church, sure- ly they could tell what Church they hac' left ; and all the world knew Catholics from others then, as well as they do now, though heretics are now much more multiplied. The word Apostolical was inserted as one essential mark of the true Church, as well as the other marks of Unity, Ho- liness,, and Cotholidty. It signified that our Church had its origin, its mission, and its doctrine, from t.ie Apostles. The protestants have often boasted that their doctrine is apostoli- tal, because they colloctod it, they say, from the writings of the Apostles ; and Mr. White attempts the same argument, though in a very bungling manner. But how do Protestants know that they, alone understand the writings of the Apostles in their true sense, while the whole body of the successors of the Apostles maintain, that they understand them wrong, that these writings have, in all ages been understood differently'? Mr. White, after these luminous discoveries, proceeds to condemn us as follows. *' The members of that heretical, that is, particular Church of the Pope, — that Church of the individual city of Rome, cannot be Catholic or universal, ex- cept as far as they are Apostolic,^' And again : "We are bound to declare her a corrupt and heretical Church" «^c What absurdities are crowded together in these few lines .' Who can value Mr. Blanco White's divinity a straw after such » display? He tells us that " the Church of liie individual city of Rome cannot be univcrsnl ;*'* which is about as wise as flaying that London cannot bo Europe.. Who ever said that the particular diocese of Rome was the Universal Cli.irch? ^Vc maintain, indcrrl, that the Church in communion with the See of Rome, is Cdlholic, as all the world knows : wo main- tain, that it is also Apostolic; but it is not its Apostolicity that makes its Catholicity, as Mr. White confusedly pretends; and it is utter absurdity ;o say that the Church in communion with the See of Ivon.cis only Catholic as far as it is Apostolical. Mr. White suddenly claims authority to pronounce us hervii- ■ ' 45 by the |s as ri- pre- [Niccne juished 1, sure- fe world ilo now. ealy by which, according to his former acvount, he moans that yvc arc ficpnralcd (vom — from whrit — Mr. Blanco White? It is anew idea truly, that, that cluircli i^houUl havo separated from which all others separ/ifrd. "Ifslio fell hy heresy, from what church did she i"ail ? \\liat church reproved her? what council condeiruicd her? what Fatliers wroti; against her? where were lier accusers? did no church condemn her? No Ciiurch ! 7'hen she is not an luu-etica' Church" Before Mr. White assumed autiiority to pronounce thus of the Church he has d;!sert(;{I, Ik; should have exliil)ited some claim for the Church of vvhich lie now ])rofess(.'.s to be a member. Tcrtuilian would have deinaui'e I hi:; warrant in those terms ; *' Let them produce llie origiiuji'tbeir Cliurch, lot them j^ivc us a list of their bishops, deducod by succossiou from the he- ginning, so that this first bishop had either an Apostle, or an Apostolical nran for his pnxleoessor. Let heretics counter- feit any thing like this if they can." Having thus "destroyed the so|)histry" of Mr. White with regard to the Catholic Church, v/o shall find him "•' at his dir- tv workayain" in that Lellorinliis " l-ividenco" which treats of the Head of that Church on earth, the Pope; as well as in the third Dialogue of his "Preservative" The substance of his Letter, as far as it regards the Pope is this : Mr. White professos to examine the title by which our ('htirch, with thr- Pope at its head, claii:ns infallible au- thority, He sliit(!s, as the gnjUiiJ, of it, the momortildo text : "Thou art Peter," cV,c. t:^i. Matt. xvi. 18. Ho iirmies, that if those words contain what Catholics teach about the Pope, it is only in an indirect and obscure manner ; " that Saint Peter never alludes to his privilege;' in his I'ipistlcs: that our system "w/r/iy iiid-^od be; contained in that passage, but il'so, it is contained like a diamond in a mountain;" that it folii^ws that the claim of t!u! Pope and his Church "Inning no other than an obscure ami doiihtrul foundaticjn, f'ae btdiefof it can- not be obligatory (Ml all Christir.ns ;" that if they have the ];owci- which tliciy claim, it i.; "one of the least obvious trulh.'i in the Gos[;cl," that the force of his arguments rests upon {\w doiih/fn/wss of the meaning of the text in question; that chher Christ did not mean w hat Catholics claim ; or if he did, he concealed his meaning, and iheroi'on;, obedience to the Roman Church cannot be necessary. This is really the -I ;■*• I ' l\ m\ I 46 substance of Mr. Whlte*s grand argument, which he has mud- dily carried along through seven octavo pages ! Our task then, in rcr^ly, is sulliciently easy; it only rests with us to shew that the claims of our Church and Pope, do not rest on a doubtful foundation. Allowing, for argument sake, that our only pro.vf of tlic authority of tur Cburch and Pope, is the passage, ♦* Thou art P(!ter,'' &:c. which is by no means the case, wc contend that even so, our claim does not rest upon a doubtful, but a very sure foundation. How can that passage bo of doubtful mcauiug which for so many hundred years, by so many millions of peoijie, by all the Holy Fathers and Doctors, by all the Councils, and by the most learned and pious men in tho world in every age down to the Reformation, was uniformly understood as Catliolics now understand it; and since the Reformation has been understood the same by the greater part of the Christian world? A line idea for a passage to be called doubtful, because a handful of men choose to dis- pute its meaning, in opposition to the rest of Christendom, and 1500 years after the passage was written, its meaning Ivaving been agreed to, all that time throughout the Christian world ! Was not St. Augustine qualified to pronounce on such a pas- sage? was not St. Jerome biblical scbolar enough to deter- mine its meaning? Was that like a diamond hid in a mountain, which was found &:used jy the primitive Fathers, &; has been preserved in all its lirilliancy ever since? What does Mr. White mean by a passage with a doubtful meaning ? Does he mean a text which no one lias been eve. 'bund to dispute ? He will find few such indeed in the scriptures. If so many discordant meanings have been assigned to these four vvori iii! <;■!' very disgraceful in a man of his multiplied titles, he has con- fusedly mixt up the soparato subjects of the Aufhoritif of the Churchy the Head of the Church, and the hfaUibility of the Church. All these important points we prove from various weighty argumenta ; which as the nature and limits of this little work neither require nor admit of our stntinjr nt any length, wo refer the reader to the masterly exjiosilion ofthem in that incomparable work, " The (mkI of lieligious Contro- versy," by bish'^p Milne-, o. in the " Discussion Amicaic" of the Abbe Trevc ■. n-- exalted to the Kpiscoiacy in France. We confine oun iii!!- {<■:■ "^o sophistry of Mr. Blanco White* and shall now sho.v h<:v, lie continues it in his '♦ Preserva- tive," dialogue third. What will the reader think of Afr. White's refTard for truth and charity, when he finds him accusing Catholics of holding such monstrous doctrines, as that the Pope has received the power " of adding to the Scrip/ nrrs several ar licks of FaithJ'' Perhaps this is as gross and absurd a calumny as was ever put forth against the Catholic Church ; and it is broufrht against her by one of her own ministers! his abroad insinua- tion that the Pope claims the power of making articles of Faith, when it suits his pleasure or profit ; and that we are bound to re- •eive such articles equally with those in the Scri|)tures. It was known to Mr. White that no Catholics ever held such a doctrine ; and what could it avail him to be guilty of such misrepresentation ? Catholics do not hold that f he Pope can invent, or propose articles at his pleasure ; nor is any consti- tution of the Pope binding upon us unless received and appro- ved, by the open or tacit consent of the Church throughout this world. •♦ The Church," says the illustrious Bossuet, ** openly professes that she says nothing from herself; that she invents no new doctrine ; she only declares the Divine Revelation by the interior direction of the Holy Ghost, who is given to her as her teacher-" With equal disregard to truth and charih/, Mr. White states that the Pope *' grounds his claims on his own authority and flupports his authority by the sword; that he objects to the free circulation of the scriptures because they arc unfavoura- ble to him ; and because he has added articles to them, decid- edly to his own profit." Such is the contemptible fallacy with wh'uili h« introduces several of our doctrines, in order to per- 40 simdo his readers that they are the inventions of Popory, and additions to the word of God, for tho profit of tho Catholic Church. Tiic clearest arguments in reply may bo thrown away upon a mind so dishonourable, and so determined to misrepresent. It may bo in vain to shew that the authority of the Church and tho supremacy of the Pope arc clearly taught in the Holy Scriptures : to protest, that we totally dis- approve of and condemn perse:?ution in every shape for reli- gious opinions ; that wo do not object to tho free reading of tho Scriptures, from any fear tliat any part of our doctrine will be disproved by them, and that our Church or Pope has* never proposed any new articles of Faith, any contrary to the word of God, or in addition to the word of Godj orany not delivered to the Church by Christ, immediately or through his Apostles. But though we have little expectation of con' vincing u man so bent upon calumniating the creed of his fa- thers, it will be right to examine the doctrines which he call inventions of the Pope, and prove them to be all divino reve iations, lest any be imposed upon by Mr. White's gricvcr mis-statement. The points which he charges us with invent- ing are Tradition, Transubstantiation, Confession, Relics, and Images. Mr. White's larger work does not profess to enter into ar- guments upon these doctrines, but only to show their tenden- cy to increase the power of the Pope and his Church, and thence to infer tlis motive the Pojjo had in inventing them. The smaller work, " Tho Poor Man's Presorvative," which is the more inunediately under notice, is by no means so ro served; it follows the usual train of first misrepresentii^g our doctrines, and then ridiculing them and drawing the must un- warranted consequences fiom them. The " Evidence" mere- ly speaks of our placing tradillon on the same footing with the scriptires ; the " Preservative" unblushingly charges ua with making tradition or hearsay superior to the word uf God in loriling ; and declares, that, " by placing Scripture under the control of these hearsays, the Pope and his Church havo been able to build up the monstrous system of their power and ascendancy." All this will be best confuted, bv a conc.cw statement of the real doctrine of Catholics concerning Tradi tion. The Rule of our Fbith id tho Pvevealcd Word of iWl The . III 60 'i ti' word of God is hvo-fold, written und unwritten. Tho written is called Scripture, the unwritten, Tradilion. Tho unwritten word, was the first rule of Christianity; tlie Church was esta- blished before the New Testament was written ; Tradition was already in possession ; anil when the New Testament was added to it, it.} authority was not forfeited on tliat account. Tho written word is not tho ic/wle icord of God, but only a part It is not alone a sutlicient rule of faith, without tradi- tional authority ; for if It were, thero would have l)oen no he- resies, and the gospel should have been so clear and explicit In every point of faith, as to preclude all doubt. Tho written word itself was delivered down by Tradilion ; and its authen- ticity is therefore traditional or dependent on Catholic tradi- tion. By traditional authority the Church is empowered, both to attest the authenticit} of Scripture and to determine its ori- ginal, genuine', and orthodox interpretation. The earliest Fathers, to whom no Protestant can object, re- fer in striking terms to tho authority of Tradition. Tcrtul- lian, in the third century, says, speaking of controversy: ** Wherefore tho Scriptures cannot be the test, nor can they decide the conflict ; since, wit!i relation to them, the victory must remain pendulous." St. Ircna-us in the same century, ■peaking of heretics, says: "They are averse from Tradi- tion, saying that they are more jicnetrating, not than the Pas- tors only, but than tho Apostles tluiinselves — that they have discovered the general truth — tho hidden mystery." How applicable to Luther and his associates, "who founded Mr. White's Church ;" and to him who devoutly treads ia their footsteps ! Sometimes, however, they themselves were com- pelled to give glory to truth, as Melancthon does in the fol- lowing remarkable words : " L(;t us learn to love, reverence, and venerate the teaching Church ; — as it was most agreea- bly signified in Samson's uliegovy ; had ye not ploughed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle, that is : had yo not heard the CInirch — which is the depositary of the word of God — the word of God itself had been utterly unknown to you." With this explanation and these testimonies, who will credit Mr. White that Tradition was invented by tho Pope? Mr. White next attacks Transubslantlatlon. He sets out as usual with false assertions. He says it would be searched for in vain in the Scriptures — that the Apostles could not un- 01 ritton ritten 8 C8ta- iditiun aincnt count, tnly a tradi- no hc- xplicil vrlttun utlien- tradi- d, both its ori- i * I* I i fterstand the words of Christ in a corporeal sense — that S*. Paul did not bclicvo in the real presence, — that in order to so- curo vencrntioti for the priests, the people were taught the real presence — and that It was so material a presence that if a mouse eat up part of the host, it certainly cat the body of Christ, dic. Ilcrc for once, Mr. White has not the small merit of having invented false accusations. These are all old attacks, a tliousand times made against us, and a thousand times repelled. There is no truth in any one of them. We certainly believe the doctrine of Transubstantiation to have been handed down to us by divine Tradition, as a re- vealed truth received from Christ himself, but not to the ex- clusion of testimony in its favour in the So/iptures. It would not te searched/or in vuin in the Scriptures. They contain the memorable words, *♦ This is my body," &c. : and novr Luther and Calvin shall prove for us, by condemning each other, that Transubstantiation is the only true Scriptural doc- trine of the real presence. Luther tried har^ to disbelieve the real presence, but declared that the words were too strong for him, and that ho was forced to believe that Christ was truly and corporeally present after the consecration. How- ever, he taught that the body of Christ was present in the bread, and with the bread, which mode was called consubstan- tiation. Calvin, however, denied any real presence, and ac- cused Luther of doing violence to the words of Christ, for he did not say, ♦♦ Tliis bread is my body," or, »* My body is in this;" but, " This is my body." Therefore, said Calvin, you must either admit no real presence at all, or admit Transuh- stantiation with the Catholics. Luther replied that Calvin's figurative sense did equal violence to the words of ovir Sa- viour; for he did not say, *' This is the figure of my body ;" nor, " This contains the virtue and efficacy of my body ;" but simply, '* This is my body ;" therefore, concluded Lu- ther, his body was there really present. Thus the enemies of the Catholic Church, by refuting one another proved unin- tentionally the truth of her doctrine ; and this alone will suf- ficiently shew that Transubstantiation will not be searched for in vain in the Scriptures. The Apostk's could understand the words of our Lord in a corporeal sense : they knew him to be the omnipotent Son of God, and the truth itself; hence they must believe him able to change bread into his body, and •k\ thoy mustbollcvo that ho gave them his body, when ho ex- pressly declared that ho did to. l^ut, snys Mr. White, it would have been "us if Ci)rist had said to thcni that lie wan holding himself in his own hands." Exactly so, Mr. Blanco White: the consctiuence is iigorou.sly true. Does Mr. While mean to claim this paltry objection ns his own ! No, even thia M an old quibble, and perhaps while he was an infidel, ho learnt it from the works of J. J. Rousseau. That writer ex- claimed in u tone of triumph : '♦ \V(; must believe then that Jesus Christ put his body into his m )uth !" Let Mr. Whitu and all such, be assured that this was after all no more ou original idea of Rousseau's llian of his own. This with every other dilliculty and conscquoneo of par belief, was long ago seen and solved by venerable antiquity. The holy fathers weighed all tliese things before God, & solv- ed them by recurring to the Divine OmuipolcncCf as they did in all other mysteries of religion. St. Augustine saw no ab- surdity in the consequence thus objected. Ho has the very words: " Jesus Christ held himself in his hands, when giving his body, he said; this is my body, since he then held that »amc body in his oion hands." Si. John Chrysostom sayc to the same efi'ect: " He drank himself of his ownhhody In fact the body which Christ gave, was by anticipation, his glo- rified body . which was capable of being in many places at once^ and had other qualities, which our bodies will also possess, when they have j)Ut on incorruption and immortality. It was the same body as to the matter^ but different as to tho manner : and hence, there is no absurdity in tho consequence, that Christ held his body in his hands. From the false assumption, that the Apostles could not un- derstand tho words in a corporeal sense, Mr. W. draws a con- sequence equally false. It is not true to say, that St. Paul did not believe the real presence ; he did believe iff not- withstanding Mr. White's mighty proof, from St. Paul's cal- ling the elements irc^ri and cup. And observe, St. Paul's belief no way follows from that of the other Apostles ; for ho tells us, that what he taught of the Eucharist, he had learned by express revelation from Christ himself: *' I have received of the Lord, that which also I have delivered to you," &c. — He delivered an exact account of the institution of this mys- tery | and what heeaysof the use and effects of it, evidently / li, -4l 68 proves that he believed in the real presence of Christ's triM body and blood. He declares that the unworthy receiver is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. How could that be» if the body and blood were not there 1 He requires a person to provo himself, bf^'bro he receives ; lest ho eat and drink his own damnation, not discerning the body of the Lord, How could a man bo guilty of not discerning the Lord's body if it were not there present 1 St. Paul uses the words bread and cu/), it is true ; buMhis makes nothing against his belief or ours, in the real presence. Cup merely means, the contents of the cup, be they what they may; the container, for the thing contained, by a very common figure of speech, as Mr. White knew very well. The blessed Sacrament may be cal- led breadf for many reasons : 1st, — because it is consecrated from bread. 2d, — Because it still retains the form and taste of bread. 3d, — Because it is the bread or food of the soul. 4th, — Because it is the body of Him, who is the tri> . bread of life, our daily and supersubstantial bread. But it may still contin- ue to be in reality the true body of Christ ; and therefore St Paul's words prove his belief of the real presence. Mr. White's note, telling his readers that Catholics use a white wafer, instead of common bread, in order to remove the ap- pearance, of bread, which would be too visible an argument against their doctrine, is too visibly false, and ridiculous, to merit serious refutation, tie knew that it was not done for any such reason ; and he would have hard work to prove that a white, wafer looks any more like the body of Christ than common bread. i . If Transubstantiation were invented by the Pope, how comes it that the Greek Church teaches it? For Mr. Whil« took care to tell us long ago, that the Greeks never acknow- ledged the Pope, and lerefore he cannot suppose that th«v would adopt h.'s invent, ms. We hr.ve shown that the Greeks did acknowledge the Pope up to the ninth century ; and if Mr. White means to pretend that Transubstantiation is of later introduction ; it rests with him to show how the Greek church came to em- brace it ; and also how the Ethiopians, Armenians and oth- ers, should profess it, who separated from the Pope much ear- lier. The well-known fact that these early Separatists harv «f w believed m Tnuisubstantiatioa, invincibly proves Waxx. i\ « 8 i' ?i n n^ 64 is no doctrine invented by any Pope, but taught from the bo- ginning from no other source than Divir e revelation. Mr. White's last attack is the most dishonorable, and with- al the weakest he has made against Transubstantiation. "The presence," he says, ♦♦ is so material, that if a mouse eats up part of the consecrated bread, it certainly eats the body of Christ," and this he calls our " most irreverent language." — Let his readers be well assured that the irreverence is all his own, and that of the poor objectors from whom he has copied it. No Catholic ever thought so irreverently ; it is an old objection which Mr. White has seen refuted over and over again, in all ourbooks of divinity. He has been dishonorable enough to bring forth the objection and suppress the answer ; to charge us with the irreverent language of our opponents, and to withhold our own reply. " Sec," said St. Augustine, " by what arguments human weakness seeks to contradict Divine Omnipotence." " We should not believe in Christ himself, if we were to be moved by the scofls of Paganism." We answer then to all such objectors: "You err, not know- ing the Sciiptures, nor the power of God :" we deny that the body of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament can suffer any in- dignity, such as being devoured by mice or turned to corrup- tion. It was liable to these things while in a state of mortali- ty ; but being now risen from the dead, it cannot suffer any more ; it is in a glorified state, impassible and incorruptible. Hence, no kind of indignity affects the body of Christ in the Eucharist, but only falls upon the species or outward accidents under which it is concealed. Thus vanish all Mr. White's groundless assertions about the Catholic belief in Transub- stantiation. The next point of our Faith whicli Mr. White attacks in Piirgotorij. His lr.rj[.'cr work says little about it. He has a flonrisli about those five sacraments which the Catholic Church has ever held from the beginning, and which Protes- tants have rejected, and he amuses himself with calling them i?omf/n sacrament.'', l^nliickily for Mr. Wliilo's witty desig- nation, it is weil known to him that they are not Roman sa- craments alone, but hold now, as they ever have been, by the Greeks, Armenians, Ethiopians, and Coptic Christians ; and this puts an end at once to his attempt to call thmi in deri- sion, Roman sacraments. ■ The " Preservative,'' as usual. I the bo- ld with- "The ■eats up pody of ige."— mswer ; jonents, gustine, jntradict Christ janism." ot know- that the any in- 3 corrup- mortali- iffer any rruptible. st in the accidents White's Fransub- ;tacks is He has Catholic 1 Protcs- ng them ty dcsig- rnan sa- 1, by the ns ; and in dcri- 3 usaul. )■ I 'A \ first gives an erroneous account of the Catholic doctrine of purgatory and then derides it. Catholics are taught, if we are to take Mr. White's account, that the Pope has the power to relieve or release the souls in Purgatory, by means of indulgences. He calls Purgatory " the offspring of Roman Catholic tradition;'* and says that ** tradition alone must have been brought to the aid of Purga- tory." Also that the idea of Purgatory was first produced by the notion that pain and suffering have the power of plea- sing God. Would it not have been far more creditable in Mr. White to state our doctrine fairly, and to oppose it with honorable arguments ? There is some excuse for their mis- stating our doctrines, who have never heard them but from prejudiced and illiberal repoitcrs, but we can find nothing to extenuate misrepresentation in a man whose profession oblig- ed him to know them thoroughly. Our belief concerning purgatory is simply this : " That there is a purgatory : und that the souls therein detained arc helped by the sufiTragutt of the faithful." The belief is not the offspring of tradition alone : Wo find it asserted even in the Old Testament that it is "a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins." 2 Macch. ch. xii. and though Protestants reject the book of Macchabees (perhaps on this very account) they are still obliged to admit, that this passage proves thattho Jcw» were accustomed to offer sacrifices and prayers for the dead, and that Judas Macchabcus, of the priestly race, would not have ordered such sacrifices, if it had not been a roociived doctrine that they were beneficial to the departed. In St Matt. ch. xii. our Saviour speaks of a sin which shall not bo forgiven in this world, nor in the next. This clearly indlcatOB that there are some sins forgiven in the next world : and If so, there must bo a purgatory. In St. Matt. ch. v. and HL Luke ch. xii. mention is made of a prison, whence llioro shall be no deliverance, till the prisoner has paid the last farthing. This prison Tcrtullian and others understood to be purgatory; and the well known passage (1 Cor. ch. iii.) where it is prom- ised that a man '* shall be saved, ijct so as hij fire,''' has boon understood of Purgatory by St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, i'li Jercmo, and many other venerable authorities. Purgatory IS also proved by reason itself : God is infinitely just, uud \i ; i m 66 ',''i ft. V i must render to each according to his works. Now as sonM men die in mortal sins, there is hell to punish them ; as some few die without any sin, there is heaven for their immediate reward ; but as others die in small sins, or under the guilt of neglected satisfactions, there must be a middle place of pun- ishment for a time, for such souls. They are too good to bo condemned to hell, and yet too defiled to enter heaven. The middle place in which they must be purified, we call Purga- tory. Hence, Mr. White has not truly said that " Tradition alone must have been brought to the aid of Purgatory." But if it rested solely on tradition, that tradition which supports it, is of too venerable antiquity to be overlooked by any consist- ent mind. Luther and Calvin, who "founded Mr. White's Church," both acknowledge that it was the common doctrine of the Fathers. We need only add, that TertuUian mentions the custom of praying for the dead as an ancient usage, even in his time, that is, in the third century. St. Cyprian, St. Am- brose, and also the Gr^ek Fathers, as St. Epiphanius, St. Chrysostom, and innumerable other authorities, bear testimo- ny to it. As to the assertion that Purgatory is grounded on the no- tion of pain and suffering being pleasing to God, it only need be observed, that if sullering inflicted for sin has not the power of turning away the anger of God, and procuring his pardon and favour, Mr. White must show how it was that Ahab's punishment was averted, when he humbled himself in sackcloth aud fasting ; how the Ninevites were spared, when they did penance in fasting and suffering : and how, if volun- tary austerities are not pleasing to God, St. John the Baptist made so grievous a mistake as to lead such an austere and penitential life in the desert. But it is very natural for those to preach against voluntary suffering who have no relish for it. But Mr. White says we are taught that the Pope can '* to- lieve or release souls in Purgatory by means of indulgences." If by this he means to insinuate that the Pope claims jurisdio- tion in the other world, and can relieve or release souls in purgatory at pleasure, he knows that Catholics never held such a belief. They believe that indulgences only profit the souls in purgatory in the way of suffrage, that is, in much the same way as prayers and other good works performed ac 07 rfr- offered for the benefit of those souls ; and hence they do not consider that any indulgence granted even by the Pope, is in- fallible in its effects, but that it always depends upon the free accej)tancc of God's mercy. Mr. White's derision of Purga- tory is beneath nclice. The wisest of men has said : Qui erudit dcrisorem, ipse injur iam sibi facit : ct qui arguit im- pium, sibi maculam general. The next subject with Mr. White is, naturally, ** Indulg- ences," It is a bad way of reasoning, to argue from the par- ticular abuse of any practice, against its general utility ; and we are sorry, though not surprised, to find Mr. White falling in with former revilers of tiie Catholic Ciiurch, and ground- ing his chief arguments against Indulgences upon certain al- ledged abuses of them, lie treats us to a strange account in his *' Evidence" of the sale of Indulgences in Spain, and the profits of them being divided between the Pope and the King, and so forth. In his "Preservative," he tells us that the Pope has the key of an infinite treasure of merits, by which, if a man has been condemned to lie in Purgatory millions ol" years, he could send him at once to heaven by a plenary in- dulgence! And he absolutely asserts that his reader has only to look into our Lally's Directory, and he will find the ap- pointed days, when any one of us *' is empowered by the Pope to liberate one s»>ul out of Purgatory, by means of a. plenary indulgence." How foul and monstrous are such as- sertions, in the mouth of a man ordained a Catholic Priest ! So far from every individual being empowered to release a soul, we do not believe that all the Catholics on earth, Pope and all, have any direct poiorr to release a suffering soul, by any indulgence, or any number of indulgences ; but only that we can, as above explained, apply certain indulgences for their intention, in the loay of aitij'rage, devoutly hoping thai God, in his mercy, will be moved to accept such suffrages for their relief, as far as it shall bo his blessed will. Mr. White's readers might look through our Directories a long time be- fore they would find a word about releasing souls by indulg- ences; and if they v/ere invented, as Mr. White insinuates, for the profit of the Pope, how came the Greeks to hold them, as tliiiy undoubtedly do, and ever have done'? (See Perpetuite de la Foi, tome iii, ' page 724.) It has been already stated, that we do not believe the Pope to have any jurisdiction ovoy i Purgatory, and therefore the idea of his enabling a soul to fly to heaven by a plenary indulgence is widely remvwed from our doctrine, which only teaches that indulgences may profit the dead in the way of suffrage, offering to God in their be- half, the infinite merits of his divine Son and those of his Saints through Him. As to the sale of indulgences and other abuses, the Council of Trent expressly urges, that all such profanations be I'emedied and abolished, and commands all Bishops diligently to correct them in their respective Churcli- es. On this subject the venerable Dr. Milner thus expressed himself: " I am far from denying that indulgences have ever been sold : — alas ! what is so sacred, that the avarice of man has not put up to sale ! Christ himself was sold, and that by an Apostle, for thirty pieces of silver. 1 do not retort upon you the advertisements I frequently see in the newspapers about buying and selling benefices, with the cure of souls an- nexed to them, in your Church ; but this I contend for, that the Catholic Church, so far from sanctioning this detestable simony, has used her utmost pains, particularly in the gener- al Councils of Lateran, Lyons, Vienna, and Trent, to pre- vent it." Setting out, as usual, with a false assertion, — that the ol> ject of the Catholic Church is "to deprive men both of their understanding and their will, and make them blind toolsofher own," Mr. White next speaks of confession. He misrepre- sents its nature nn<\ effects, and of course its origin. He says, erroneously and insultingly : " the Romanist Church makes the confession of every sin, by thought, tcord, and deed, ne- cessary to receive absolution from a ])riest." This he knew to be a wrong assertion in two respects, for 1st. We are not obliged to confess any sins which are not mortal, and 2dly, we are only obliged to confess such, as we can remember af- ter a diligent examination ; whereas Mr. White's proposition would mean, that we could not be absolved unless we confess- ed all our sins, and would leave no hope of forgiveness for hose we have forgotten. We believe tl at bias inculpably forgotion are forgiven as well as those confessed. Mr. White no'it declares that confession " has changed the repentance of ihe G;- pel, into u ceremony which silences remorse at the wiighl expense ofa doubtful, temporary sorrow." — Mr. White knovAs on the contrary, that we only believe confession pro- 60 il to fly from profit leir be- e of his 1(1 other all such nds all ^hurcli- pressed ve ever of man that by ort upon /spapers souls an- for, that etestable le gener- t, to pre- it the ob- of their olsof her misrepre- He says, ch makes deed, ne- i he knew e are not and 2dly, lember af- roposition 3 confess- roness for nculpably ,{t. Whito epentance rse at the Mr. White ssion pro- fitable, as far as it is joined to a true contrition or repentance for sin, accompanied with a firm resolution to sin no more, and to make satisfaction to God and our neighbour. As con- fession is diflicult, and humiliating, a sinner will seldom be brought lo it, unless ho has already conceived some sentiments of repentance, and desires to be reconciled to God; and, so ftu- from confession, "changing the repentance of the Gos- pel," wo uniformly find that those who are abandoned to vice desert the tribunal of confession, while those who are moved to repentance always return to it. Many Protestants have wished for the rc-establishmcnt of confession, and have ad- mitted the depravity of morals which followed from its aboli- tion among tliem : a proof that they did not consider it as *' changing tho repentance of the Gospel." Having thus misrepresented the nature ofconfession, it was to be expected that Mr. White would be equally unsparing as to its etrocts. Accordingly we find him aflccting indignation at what ho tor.n.s " the paltry plea" that confession often cau- ses the restitution of ill-gotten goods. *' The truth is," he adds, *' that restitution is not a whit more probable among Roman Catholics," than other Christians : and he sj)Iendidly f confirms this by saying, that in the course of fifteen years that he has lived in Lngland, he has known one restitution by a poor person of a sum of money, without confession! To this question we might answer, that where confession is in use, theft is less likely to prevail, and restitutions are not so often to be made : but \\\ ^ are content with observing, that Catholics have all the motives to urge them to make restitu- tion which others have, sucli as repentance, remorse, &c. ; and In addition to them, they hav(! the serious remonstrances and exhortations of every Confessor who does his duty, as also to the delay or refusal of absolutions in cases of ne- glect or unwillingness on the part of the sinner to restore. Where then is the greater {)robability of restiluiion being duly made ? In tho one case the sinner has no human being to admonish him, but is left to his own conscience : in the oth- ther, besides his conscience, he has tl;o exhortations and threats of his Church, to urge him to his duty still more pow- erfully. An instance was published in the newspapers not very long ago, of a gentleman in London receiving a box of valuable jewelry from Italy ; restored to him, through tbo m '■}) 60 '"./ i hands of a priest, by a servant maid who had robbed him of it in England ; and this was eflected by the ministry of con- fession. There is no Cixtholic Confessor who could not fur- nish many instances of restitutions which he has known and been instrumental in procuring ; but it will readily be conceiv- ed that there are many imperious reasons which forbid the disclosure(»f such examples. Mr. White, however, makes a curious confession himself. He says ho can assure his read- ers as Penitent, as well as Confessor, that " confession is ex- ceedingly injurious to purity of mind."' This is rather an awkward acknowledgement for a man who was vse upon earth, should be bound or loosed also in heaven. In St. John, xx, '22, !i ;. 'vo F m ?]' them tho Holy Spirit, and declared that whose sins they should forgive, should bo forgiven ; and whoso sins they should re- tain, should bo retained. Now, how could the Apostles ex- ercis* this power, unless Ihey know what the sins were which they were to forgive or retain? And how could they como to this knowledge, except by the confession of those who had committed them? The power granted by Christ was clearly a judiciary [)Owcr, which could only bo exercised to ith full knowledge of the cause; such knowledge could only be obtain- ed by the criminal's own confession. And thus the obligation of confession is clearly founded upon Iho scriptures, no less tJinn on tho uninterrupted tradition of tho Catholic Church, in every age from the Apostles. Protestants have often repented of the abolition of confes- sion, and earnestly desired its rc-cstablisliir.cnt. This can never be among those who have taught thut Sacramental Con- fession was not instituted by the Divine Founder of Christian- ity. They will no more submit to such a yoke than the first Christians would have done, if they had not believed it of di- Tino appointment. It is a curious fact, that Mr. White's difficulties about Con- feasion were very ably treated by a celebrated royal theolo- gian, no loss a personage than King Henry VIII, who wrote aa follows, in his " Defence of the Seven Sacraments, against Luthc' " — ** But as to Confession, if not a vvord was said or read in figure, or spoken by the Holy Fathers ; yet when I see every one for so many centuries confessing his sins to the Priests, when from that very practice I behold so much good oome, and no evil, I can neither believe nor think but that the practice was appointed and preserved, not by any human •oun^el, but by divine command. For neither could the peo- ple have been ever brought, by any human authority, to pour out in the ear of another, who could divulge them if he pleas- 9^, their most secret sins, of which their conscience gave them a horror, and which it was so much their interest to •onceal, with so much confusion, and yet so readily: nor oould it happen, that whi'rcas so many Priests, good and bad, titi^ pronu'scuously employed in hearing Confessions, even fthoae iihould keep them secret who keep nothing else ; unless Cod, who instituted this Sacrament, protected by a special £ra«« ••> ^lutary an institution. ) am porsuaded, therefore. jJF w €3 Ishould luld re- lies ex- which como Jho had Iclearly p full lobtain- ligatioD no less ircli, in whatever Luther may say, that Confession comes not from any popular custom or institution of the Fathers, but owen ita establishment and preservation to God himself." Thus wrotu our royal " Defender of the Faith" against the patriarch of the Reformation. From Confession, Mr. White, after a sentence or two about ihe unscriptural encroachments of Romanists, passes on toth« subject of Relics and Images. He thus questions his reader : " Did you ever find mention of Relics in the Bible?" Th» reader is made to answer — "Certainly not." We su'ppose, then, that the obsequious reader never looked into the Fourth, or, as it is called in the Protestant's Tr-'inslation, the Second Book of Kings, ch. xiii, v. 21, where it is mentioned that a dead body was raised to life hy having iouched the hones of the Prophet Eliseus, or Elisha : and that he never saw, in the se- cond chapter of the same Book, that the same Prophet had used a Relic, namely, ihe cloak of Elias or Elijah^ to divide the waters of the Jordan. He never read, we presume, the 19th chapter of the Acts, where it is stated that diseases and wicked spirits were driven out by the application of Jiand" kerchiefs and a'prons from the body of St. Paul. Who can say, with these passages before him, that the Bible never men- tions Relics ? Mr. White next amuses his reader with assuring him that Rome has long "carried on a trade in bones," and recount- ing numerous abuses and impostures, with false relics, &c 10 bone* ; Paul, Impious Tho fith tho 3use in Kir. 'VThite't tbtord ciriratnre nf Calhntie practice!.— Trae neinUfr *f sufm: fUtioti. — Tlii misrepresentation (>( llio nature, nf repentance, and of fitiliBf>. — i«f«f>o« of oultbacy utid reii^'iout vowi.— CoDcluiion. Mr. White having atJvanced, in the conclusion of his third dtalogue, that every Catholic " must become a weak, super- stitious being," if not a violent and bigotted persecutor — pro- ceeds in tho beginning of the fourth to attempt some proof of his assertion. For this purpose he collects together a num- ber of pious practices of Catholics, and some which probably no Catholic ever thought of; and mixes them up in one mon- strous caricature of a " Romanist retiring to bed at night." He falsely asserts that the Catholic Church encourages a sw |)er«^i7iou5 state of mind similar to that which makes people afraid of witches, charms, omens, and such things ; and we must say that if Mr. White's account of Catholic practice^ were any thing like truth, there would be some ground for the assertion. But what are the practices he describes, and what does he wish his reader to infer? We cannot afford space for a copy of his picture, though it would be highly amusing to a Catholic to see how Mr. White has ridiculously worked it up. These, however, arc the leading features ; The Romanist lights up two candles near his crucifix, beats his breast till it rings again — takes a skull out of a cupboard and kisses it ! gives himself a discipline, mutters several prayers, turning to every picture in his room, sprinkles tho bed and room with holy water to keep the devil off, and to wash away his own venial sins, which, according l» Mr. White, holy water has the power of clearing F 2 ^. 'f*.t^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 [f B- ^ I.I 1.25 1^ Ui III 2.2 " l£ IIIIIM 1.4 1.6 V] /] 'c^y '/ -<^ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716)873-4503 »\ ■'■pi I • away : then he has an Agnus Dei made in a mould, •ays Mr. While, " not unlike a large butter-pot ,•" what he does with this, Mr. White omits to tell us, but he says that every kiss impressed upon it strikes off the amount of fifty or an hundred days from the debt he has to pay in Purgatory. — Then he feels for his rosary and scapular about his neck, says a prayer to his good angel, and makes the sign of the cross the last thing. These are some of the strokes in Mr. VVhite^s labored caricature ; upon which we shall briefly remark : 1st, — That many of the practices may be done with a proper intention, and assist a person to rest in a Christian manner ; particularly begging the prayers and protection of our Guardian angel, and the holy sign of the cross, which has been in use from the very days of tho Apostles. 2d, — That the use of holy water is very ancient in the Church, as a means of drawing down a blessing of God, which we hope to obtain through the prayers which the Church has appointed to be used in blessing ''.': ; but that we do not believe, as Mr. White falsely asserts, that the holy water has any power in itself or spiritual virtue to wash away even venial sins. 3d, — That no pious Catholic considers that any outward ceremonies pr practices can avail him, without true repentance for his sins, "without faith, hope, charity, and careful keeping of all tho commandments : so that he will not neglect prayer, self-ex- amination, meditation and spiritual reading, which Mr. White takes care not to mention ; and that if to these he joins out- ward mortifications or ceremoiiies, th?y are only adopted as helps to interior devotion, or expressions of it. 4th, — That kis- sing an Agnus Dei will not free us from purgatory ; and that kissing a skull is a new way of cherishing the remembrance of death, which we never heard of before. / And from the above ridiculous caricature of religious prac- tices, scarce one of which is held by any Catholic as essential to religion ; and all of which, we feel confident, are not prac- ticed by any one Catholic in the world, Mr. White attempts to infer, thiit " we must become weak, superstitious beings !" 6»m- perstition properly defined, is " an excessive and superfluoui worship, by which cither sovereign honour is given to the crea- ture, or in an unduo manner to the Creator." Our adversaries have the word superstition so continually in their mouths against our religious practices, without knowing what they imark really mean by the term, that it is necessary to lay down it ■II |iji-. Hi works tliat have been wrought in you, they would have dona penance long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes/' Repent" ance then imports much more than merely changing our mind; it signifies three things : sorrow for the past, punishment and flatisfaction for the past, and a new life. These are the v>or^ thy fruits of penance which St. John exhorted sinners to bring forth. And yet, in defiance of these, and many, very many more proofs which could be adduced, and of which we cannot suppose even an ex-priest ignorant, Mr. White declares that the word repent cannot by any possibility mean any thing but a change of mind ! Having taken up this unwarranted idea of repentance, Mr- White finds himself obliged shortly after, on the subject of fasting, to deny altogether that fasting is recommended by the Church of England as an act of penance ; and contends that it is ** a mere check upon indulgence, left to the discretion of every individual." But is not a check upon indulgence pain- ful f And is not what is painful a penanr^ ? Surely the Church of England, in recommending fasting, did not intend to recommend it in any other way than we find it practised and recommended both r-^ the Old ds New Testament But there we find David, Achab, Tobias, Judith, Esther, Daniel, and the whole Jewish nation, humbling their souls and fasting for sin, to obtain, the favour and mercy of God by ** self-inflicted pun- ishment.'' Jesus Christ fasted for our example, and declared that, afler his ascension, his disciples should fast. The Apos- tles fasted, as we read in the Acts, and St. Paul exhorts us to fasting (2 Cor. ch. vi, 5.) There can be no doubt that the Church of England, though she may not have commanded fasting, which is by no means clear, recommended it as prac- tised and taught in the Scriptures. Any other kind of fast would be widely inconsistent, in a Church which professes to be so scriptural in her ordinances. Therefore Mr. White's idea of fasting, if not his own invention, does not appear to be that of his Church, and the zealous members of that church will not thank him for thus representing its exhortations to fasting. We have to make one remark more : he would have it that the Church of England has great merit in not enjoin- ing fasting ; but in whatever view it be regarded, whether as a work of penance, or a " check upon indulgence," it will prove of little use unless it is commanded. Experience shewa t I wor- )ring lany inot that but that what 18 only recommended, is sure to be neglected if k be disagreeable to flesh and blood ; and the universal disre- gard of fasting among Protestants, proves that the recom- mendation of their Church has been of no practical benefit The Catholic Church has made fasting a precept, and thereby preserved its practice in every ago from the Apostles. Had she only recommended it, the consequence would have been, that by those good Christians who had least need of it, it would have been observed; and by sinners to whom it was most ne- cessary, in great measure, if not wholly, neglected. The most insidious attack which !VIr. White has made upoa Catholics, is perhaps his account of the Breviary, or Divine Office of our clergy and religious, and his artful attempt to prove that the tendency of that Prayer-book is to " cherish credulity, and adulterate Christian virtue." This is all in character however, in a man who has shaken offa yoke which was probably never ** sweet and light" to him ; and who per- haps, in his best days, never exclaimed with the fervent Ca- tholic ecclesiastic ; sic psalmum dicam nomini tuo in saculum taculi ; ut reddam tibi vota mea de die in diem. Indeed he speaks of it as a task book, a tedious duty to be done every day ; a proof that he was a stranger to that holy alacrity with which the pious priest goes to the performance of an exercise which affords him sweet relief from the vain pursuits of this world, and happily recals him from time to time from the dissi- pation of life, to a holy converse with God. How far was he from the spirit of our holy Bishop Challoner, who spoke of his office to be said, as a " pleasure to come !" He little knew how dear to the fervent priest is his office-book ; how unwilling, in fact, he would be to be released from the duty of •aying his daily office. He says : " the scrupulous exactness with which this duty is performed is quite surprising j" but why did he not honestly conclude, from this well-known fact, that it must be a dear duty, instead of a painful task? Why, but because to him it must always have been a task ; and he •onfesses as much when he tells us, that in spite of a rapid mmneiation, it took him an hour and a half daily ; dilexisti omnia verba pracipitationiSf lingua dolosa / According to Mr. White's account, the Breviary was cono- piled by order of Pope Pious V, and commanded to be used by Uuk in 1666. This would make it appear that no such book or 78 m ii; p. 'ST, 'l practiee existed till that period. But though St. Pious V wat the first who brought the office into the form of the present Roman Breviary, the same office had been recited from the earliest times in substance ; and many ancient councils de- creed against those ecclesiastics who neglected it. Indeed in the very Bull quoted by Mr. White, Quod a nobiSf the holy Pope exempts certain chapters and monasteries, who had their own Breviary two hundred years before this decree, from the obligation of exchanging it for the Roman : and he there speaks of other Roman Breviaries previously in use, and sig- nifies the cause of drawing up n new one for the whole church was chiefly to enforce uniformity in the form of the Divine office. Mr. White represents the Breviary as "the true standard to which the Church of Rosie wis»hes to reduce the minds and hearts of her clergy : Rome," he says, " evidently gives it the preference over all other works ; — and should a Roman Catholic Clergyinan be unable to devote more than an hour and a half a day to reading, his Church places him under the necessity ofdevivinghis whole knowledge from the Breviary." These observations led Mr. White as he says, " to take his old task-book in hand," in order to give an account of it, and extract from it. They will lead us also to analyse it ; and when the reader is put in possession of the true nature of the Breviary, it will be easy for him to judge of the above declar- ations. Any one unacquainted with the Breviary would imagine, from Mr. White's account of it, that it is principally made up of legends of the Uaints ; and that all which those legendg contain, is proposed for the exercise of the pious belief of the elergy to its full extent. But let any one take the pains to examine the Breviary, and they will find the case very dif- ferent. To promote his insidious pur])ose, Mr. White dis- patches, in half a page, his account of 'ho other parts of the book; while he fills out his volume with near fifty pages of extracts from the lessons which contain "compendious lives of the Saints." Now the truth is, that the Breviary consists of the whole Book of Psulms, portions of the Pentateuch, such as leiate to the Fall of Man, the Historic, of the Patriarchs & of Moses, very considerable portions of tlie Books of Kings 9x4 Cbronicles, aa well as Job, the greater and lesser Proph> P ti a \ . 7« le '» V was present om the tcils jie- deed in holy ad their from there and sig- church Divine standard inds and ^ gives I Roman an hour nder the eviary." take his f it, and ! it ; and re of the 3 declar- imagine, made up legends Bfoftho pains to ^ery dif- hite dis- ts of the pages of us lives consists 3h, such irchs & Kings rProoh- phets, and in fact, some portions of each book of the Old Tes^ taroent, and abundant extracts from the New. Indeed, there are three Lessons from the Scripture in the office of every day, besides a part of the Gospel almost every day, and three Lessons from the Homilies of the Holy Fathers upon the Gospel. Then there are recited every day at least five and twenty Psalms, including the 118th Beuti immuculatit the length of which is nearly equal to a dozen ordinary Psalms ; and oflen the number of Psalms is greater, as in the Sunday office, where it amounts to six-and-thirty. Besides thin very great proportion of Scripture ; the Lord's Prayer is repeated each day, in the office on an average a dozen times, and tlie Cxeed always three times and often more. Then there are recited each day lour or five Canticles, chiefly those in the Scriptures ; eight Hymns; eight or ten Collects at least, and a greatnumber of Versicles, responses, and Benedictions. As to the lessons containing the lives of the Saints, thuy do not occur every day, by any meaiiS : and when they are read there are never more than three lessons, and often no more than one. The proportion they bear in length to the rest of the office, one day with anctlier, is not the twentieth part ; they will occupy three columns in a Breviary, in which the remainder of the office will fill between seventy and eighty columns, for one day. Any one may verify this analysis by referring to the Brevi- ary ; and he will then learn how to estimate Mr. White's statements of *Hhe great and never-ending variety of the lives of the liaints." It will thus be seen that the Breviary is composed almost entirely of the Holy Scriptures ; and that the lives of the Saints form not a twentieth part of it. And now it may be confidently asked, if the Catholic Church did make the Bre- viary "the standard for the minds and hearts of her Clergy," where would be her error in so doing 'i Would ^e be wrong in obliging her ministers to employ an hour and a-half each day, in reading a portion of the bible ? Is this charge to be brought against her by those whose eternal cry is, '*The Bi- ble I the bible is the religion of protestants !" If she gave it "the preference over*all other works," surely she should not ho blamed, since it is little else than a compendiuni of the Bi- Me. If a **Catholic Priest can devote only an hour and a o I i: ;t '^' half in the day to readtngt'' how can that hour and a half be spent better than in reading extracts from the Bible, with hymns, canticles and prayers ? If his "whole knowledge must thus of necessity bo derived from the Breviary," whence can he derive better knowledge than from portions of the written word of God ? Where can he study better, than in the pure fountain of eternal truth, in the inspired writings of the prophets, in the holy treasure of the Gospell But in what supposition is it "oHten the case,'' that a priest can onlj read for an hour and a-half in the day 1 If his time has been taken up with parochial duties, he has been acquirinfg the most useful knowledge and experience ; and he must have possessed a fund of knowledge before he could be quali- fied for the care of souls. If ho has been employed in other concerns, what business or occupation ought he to pursue^ before those of prayer, meditatiou, and the study of the divine oracles ; and where are they better followed than in reciting the Divine OfRce 1 Mr. White complains of its recitation be- ing commanded ; but is it not a chief duty of the Clergy to pray for the whole Church, to pray in the name of the Church, and to pray for those whose necessary dutic in the world leave them less time to pray for themselves ? If this be a duty of the Clergy why not enjoin it ? Why not secure its performance, by makin«; it of strict obligation ? We beg Mr. White to attend to a remark of an able German writer on this question; "If the Breviery were not of obligation, if the reading of the holy scriptures and the prayers of each priest were left to his own discretion by the Church, O how many would be found neglecting both ! If I might here re- ferto experience, how continually do we find that the enemies of the Breviary are no friends to any other kind of prayer f And how evident is it, that such men hurry over every other spiritual duty, while they often and readily go into assemblies of pleasure, and by their tepidity, indifference, and scanda^ lous deportment, ruin sou^s, rather than edify them !" When the reader has duly attended to the account just gir- en of the contents of the Breviary, he will at least think Mr. White very bold in asserting that "there was a time when he knew it by heart." And when he has considered what has been said of the Saints' Lessons, he will not find Mr. W. cor- rect in saying in his "Preservative," that legends of the 7ft the n ia of It in nljF hM img nust Saints are read, *«day by day, tlie whole year through/' There are more than tixty fcriat in the year, when no Saints lives are read at all ; there are about twenty Sundays when no Saints are honored ; besides at least twenty days witMn octaves of various feasts, making together about one hundred days out of three hundred and sixty^five, on which no ** com- pendious lives of the Saints are read at all !'' Yet Mr. W. knowing how few will trouble to examine, boldly says, that the Saints' lives are read, *'day by day, the whole year through." But it is time to examine his grand argument It is drawn from the nature of those lessons we read of the lives of the Saints. Mr. W. has collected a great number of curious his- tories related in them, of extraordinary miracles, of austeri- ties, singular visions, revelations and other astonishing nar- ratives ; from which hoving copied them at great length, and falsely insinuated that they are the principal part of the Bre. viary, and read every day, he endeavours to draw the con- clusion, that the tendency of our 06Rce-book is to * 'cherish credulity, and adulterate Christian virtue." But even if such were the tendency of those lessons, it would not be a fair inference that such was the tendency of the Breviary altogether ; since as it has been shewn, those lessons form not a twentiteh part of the book, and they are only recited two thirds of the year. It is a fi l^e inference, however, that such is their tendency, for, in the first place, we are under no obligation of belie- ving all that is recounted of the Saints in those Lessons ; ma- ny of them are very ancient, and, as well as most of the mo- dern ones, well authenticated ; but others are known to be of doubtful authority, and the Church does not oblige any one to believe all that they contain ; and, in the second place, the fact of several doubtful histories having been expunged from many Breviaries in France, and that it is the wish of ma- ny ecclesiastics in various countries, that the proper authori- ties should suppress whatever has found its way into the lessons through imprudent zeal and credulity, abundantly shews that we are in little danger from those legends. But we shall not submit them to the censorship of such a person as Mr. Blanco White. We should fear from him, as from others who have risen up against legend before him, that, in his fury against 'if; ■■: 1 I fkfio and doubtrul nnrrativcf, he would become ra^h and hyp^ oeriticnl, and r tfuMo all crndit to thoHo nctn, of which the truth and authenticity have bcun proved and acknowludgod. Nor is their tendency t with all their doubtful or ovon falue narrations, to adulterate Christian virtue. Mr. VVhito it compelled to say thi8 in order to prop up his new theory of the virtue of penance ; and his ideas, which will soon come under review, ofseclui^ioi: and celibacy. But since it in ho readily and triumphantly proved against his orroueous no- tions, that self-inflictud pain, when sutlurod from the proper motives of sitisfving the divine justice, and supplying, in the sense of St Patil, for what is wanting in us, of the sufferings of Christ, of being thereby made memUrs conformed to our sufTering Head, and partakers of his passion, that by sutier- ing with Him, we may hereailer be glorified with Him, und ofdenying ourselves und taking up our cross, as our Lord himself has admonished us, is a truly Christian and merito- rious duty ; we miintain that the austerities recounted of the Saints do not tand to adulterate, but to cherish and promote christian virtue. Mr. White compares the Saints to Indian fanatics, lot the Venerable Alhan Butler speak to this point. *^I^he extraordinary austerities of certain eminent servants of Oodf are not undertaken by them without a particular caK, examined with maturity and prudence, and without a fervor equal to such a state. Neither do they place sanctitv in any practices of mortificotion, or measure virtue by them, as a dervise or brachman might do ; but choose such as have the greatest tendency to facilitate the subjection of their passions, and regard them only as helps to virtue, and means to ac- quire it, and to punish sin in themselves. Nor do they im- agine God to be delighted with their pain, but with the cure of their spiritual maladies. A mother rejoices in the health of her child, not in the bitterness of the potion which she gives him to procure it. The doctrine of Christ, and the exam- ples of St. John the Baptist, St. Paul, St. Matthias, St. James and the other Apostles, and many ancient Prophets and oth- er Saints; from the first uges of our holy religion, are a stand- ing apology «jid commendation of this spirit in so many serv- ants of God." This extract so ably replies to every objection iraised by Mr. White against the mortification of the Saints* t^Hil there is no need of further observation on the sul^ecU. Hyp- tliO 1. t altie • of unie » 80 no- )|>er tho i . Mr. White suppresMs the innumerable other edifjioK traits recorded of the Saints in these lessons. Were it our wiwh to swell out this work* it would be easy to do so with co* pious extracts, illustrating the solid virtue oftlieite holy ser> vants of God : their fervour and assiduity in prayer { their di- ligence in the service of God ; their humility, meekness, con- tempt of worldly greatness ; their union with God ; their in- flamed charity, or Love of God, and of their neighbor ; their care of the sick ; the humiliating service they of\en rendered them ; ministering to Jesus Christ m the person of his saf-. fering members ; their abundant charities to the poor^ and kind offices to^all around them* These are brilliants in their holy Crowns which Mr. White has enviously concealed ; and the tendency of these is indisputably to animate us to every Gospel virtue. Who can deny, that to read these virtues, is of the greatest edification 1 Such are read in the lessons of our Saints, and who then in common candour can venture to assert, that the tendency of such lessons is to adulterate chris* tian virtue. Much as we have seen of Mr. White's misrepresentation of our Faith, we really did not expect to see so gross a misstate^- ment of Catholic doctrine as is contained in the following passa*. ges of his "Preservative" (Pages 112— 114): ,'* Roman Catho- lics are not taught that good works are the fruit oCtrue faith, but that they bear a true share with Christ in tho work of our salva- tion. They are thus forced by their doctrine to look to them, selves for the hope of Heaven — The Roman Catholic believes that his good works are, in part at least, the means of 'his justification ; — the true Protestant feels assured that through Christ's blood his sins are pardoned without reserve." ) How far this is from the true faith of the Catholic church, let the following simple exposition she -/, which is gathered from the decrees of the last general Council of Trent. First, . however, let the reader be assured that there is no Catholic who will not heartily say amen to the following anathema against the doctrine imputed to us by Mr. Blanco White, which we extract from Mr. Gother's " Papist misrepresented and represented." ** Cursed is he who believes that, independent of the merits and passion of Christ, he can obtain salvation through his own good wovks, or make condign satisfaction for the guilts. I to them. — Amen." . i pains eternally u3 78 CaCholict are not taught ** that good works bear a true •hare ivith Christ in the work of our salvation/' Our doc- trine is thus defined by the Council of Trent : — ♦♦ To those vho do good even unto the end, and hope in God, eternal life is to be proposed, both as a grace mercifully •promised to the sons of Crod through Jesus Christy and as a reward to be faith* fully rendered to their good works on account of the promise of Grod himself. — Christ Jesus always influences the just by his virtue ; which virtue ever precedes and accompanies and follows their good works, and without which they could not by any means t3 pleasing and meritorious in the sight of God.-—'* Thus neither is our own justice established as our own, coming from ourselves, lor is the justice of God un- known or repudiated ; for that which is called our justice- be- cause we are justified by it, being inherent in us ; the same ia of God, because it is infused into us by God, through the me- rit of Christ. Far be it, however, from a Christian to confide in himself, or to glory in himself, and not in the Lord, whose goodness towards all men is so great, that he is willing thai what are his own gifts should be their merits."— We are not taught that good works are only the fruit of true faith — thiB doctrine the Council has condemned in the following canon — ** If any one ishall say, that justice when received, is not pre- served, and even increased before God by good works, but that works themselves are only fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathe- ma." These are our doctrines, and knowing them to bo suohp how could Mr. White impute to us the abominable presumption of holding that ** our works bear a share with Christ in the work of our Salvation 1" We ask for every thing, we hope for every thing, we give thanks for every thing, through our liord Jesus Christ. How then does Mr. White say, that we ♦*are forced by our doctrines to look to ourselves for the hcpe of heaven ?" And since we firmly believe, as the Council of Trent declares, that we are justified freely, because none of those things which go before justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification. With what face can Mr. White proclaim to the world the foul calumny, that "the Roman Catholic hclioves that his good works are, in part at .l«ait, the meantj of his justification ?'' Well may the much \ w injured Catholic exclaim, under imputations like these, with the indignation of Bossuet : Will the Church never be able to persuade her children, who are now become her adversaries, neither by the explanation of her faith, nor by the decisions of her councils, nor by the prayers of her sacrifice, that she does not consider herself as having life or hope, but in Jesus Christ alone ?" Not while they are determined to misrepre» sent us ; we fear, not while there are men still to be found, who will adopt in these days the ravings of Martin Luther, who Mr. White tells us, calling our system of justification *% plain tyranny, a racking and crucifying of consciences/' And since Mr. White so often commends Luther, acknowled* ges that Luther and Co. founded his Church, and has been so loud against our doctrine of justification, as well as in accu- sing us of believing that God delights in the sufrerin|;s of his creatures, we may do ourselves some justice by quoting a few passages from Luther, that the reader may see how edifying are-both his language and his doctrines on these subjects Luther teaches "that God works the evil in us as well as the good," and ** that the great perfection of Faith, consists in believing God to be just, although by his own will, he neces* sarily renders us worthy of damnation, so as to seem to take pleasure in the torments of the miserable." Even Mr. White never laid to our charge a doctrine so abominable as this I Luther says again ; "I am delighted when I see my doctrino give occasion to these disturbances and tumults." He at- tached such importance to his doctrine of the inutility and im- possibility of good works, that he declares it shall stand io spite of all the Emperors, Popes, Kings, and Devils, and con* eludes thus, "If they attempt to weaken this article, may hell fire be their reward, let this be taken for an inspiration of the Holy Ghost, made to me, Martin Luther." And whereas Mr. White very boldly accused us of altering the text of St Luke, and substituting do penance for a word which he pre- tends means only change your mind, let him take this speci- men of Luther's art of false translating, and even impiously lamenting that he had not done worse : In Romans iii, 28, the text says, " a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law." Luther put in after Faith the word alone, to sup- port his favorite doctrine against good works ; and he thus audaciously glories in his infidelity in translating : " So I will 80 80 I command it to be. Let my will be the reason, Luther wills it so, and says he is a doctor above all the doctors a« mong all the Papists. Therefore the word alone shall remaio in my New Testament— even if all the Pope asses should be driven mad by it, still they shall not take it way. I am sor^ ry that I did not add further the word aAy twice over, so that it might be, without any works of any laws." With these no- tions of faith and good works, it is no wonder if Luther call- ed the Catholic system of justification a ^*plain tyranny » racking and crucifying of consciences." Mr. White goes on to exemplify the tyranny of Rome, by speaking with unmeasured violence against the discipline of our Church with regard to celibacy and religious vows. Id his ^'Evidence'' he has a letter on these subjects, which we shall now notice, along with whatever new matter he has con- densed on the same, in his "Preservative." ' He begins in his favorite manner by false assertions : Tho principle of religious tyranny, he says, *' supported by perse- cution, is a necessary condition of true Catholicism." He talks of tho inexcusable obstinacy of Rome, in not altering her discipline on celibacy, "for the benefit of public morals." This is assuming boldly enough, that the celibacy of our cler- gy and religious, tends to promote immorality, and this indeed appears to be Mr. White's aim, in his invectives throughout, against our discipline in this respect. For this end, he makes the basest insinuations, and charges of the most rcvoltiug na- ture, against both clergy and religious. Let the truth of what he advances be tried by Scripture, reason, and experience. Mr. White tells us that he does "not believe that virginity, by its own intrinsic merit, and without reff ifb' out any attempt at proof against even one individualrthat of "six hundred bishops, few could have cast the first stone at the adultress." Nor can we read without indignation the broad asser tion that most priests wade through the miry slough of a vicious ^ife ; having the happiness to know from personal acquaint- ance, with so many ornaments of the Catholic Priesthood^ and so many other respectable sources of conviction, how far from truth is such a charge, or even from probability. The in- nocent are not here to suffer for the guilty. The venerable body of Catholic clergy is not thus to be impeached, because Mr. White's friends, some Spanish ecclesiastics, sacrilegious ly broke their solemn vows. Mr. White is an admirer of Erasmus. Has he forgotten that great man's satirical condemnation of the eagerness with which the Reformer's flew to matrimony 1 This is the way then that they crucify themselves! **The reforma- tion seems to have no other end but to transform monks and nuns into husbands and wives ; and this grand tragedy will end like the comedies, where all are married in the last act'' It does not appear that Mr. White has married ; but in his first dialogue of his preservative, page 24, he signifies that he should have had no scruple about it. St. Paul, however, an- nexes the guilt of damnation to a breach of a vow of chastity. And St. Augustine declares his opinion thus ; " I am not afraid to say, that falling from the chastity vowed to God, is worse than adiiltery." On this subject we shall make but one more observation . In making only a general use of knowledge acquired as a (Jonfessor, which Mr. White has done according to his own acknowledgement, in pages 130, 133 and 135 of hie "Evi- dence," he has acted as dishonorably as man is capable v^f act. ing. Though he might cease to consider the obligation sa- cramentally, he could not, as a gentleman and a man of hon- or, consider the trust so reposed in him, but as most sacred & eternally inviolable ; and though he has not betrayed individ. wals, he has reflected upon whole bodies, in a manner which renders him forever unworthy of confidence As the great object of Mr. White, in both his books, was evidently' to fix upon Catholics, the odious, the uncharitable, jlie often refuted charge, of making persecution a part of their creed, he winds up his " Poor Man's Preservative again&t liU 87 iser iPopery," with repeating in the most unmeasured term», this insulting calumny against so many millions of his fellow christians. To this charge we have already spoken, and shall add no more in this place than indignantly to declare that the accusation is totally false. How much more hon- orable and christian like is the conduct of another clergyman of the Church of England, who, instead of calling in calumny and misrepresentation, to keep alive the prejudices already too fatally enkindled against us, eloquently exhorts those who differ from us, to examine our tenets accurately, and expose them in such spirit and temper as may convince us, that their heart's desire is to convert us if we were in error. *' If," says he, ** this mode does not su ;eed, our own personal ex- perience, and the history of our own country, might serve to convince us of the futility of any other. It is- in vain thatour statute books have been disgraced by edicts more ingeniously Cruel and absurdly oppressive than ever disgraced the codes of Imperial or Papal Rome. It is in vain that parents were compelled to surrender the nurture and education of their children, and the child bribed to rebel against his parents, to expel them from their homes, and consign them and their helpiess families to beggary and famine. In vain have we attainted as a traitor the minister for performing at the altar the established offices of his religion, and branded as a felon the pious devotee who assisted at the service. You have bea- ten them down to the earth indeed, but they have risen up from it with Antcean energy, and hydra-like fecundity. They sprung up from your ungenerous oppression, and multiplied numbers to shame and amaze you. But^there is no particular in which we do so much injustice to our brethren of the Romish com- munion, and eventually to ourselves, as by misrepresentation of their tenets and principles." How much more honorable, we repeat, is the recommenda- tion of Mr. Bird, than the whole design of Mr. Blanco White, in the works which we have now r'^viewed ! Their whole end and object appears to have been to keep open, if not to widen these unhappy breaches, .which every charitable chris- tian would gladly see closed up forever. And this end has been pursued throughout, as it has been our unpleasant task to show, by misrepresentations, calumnies and base insinua- lions, not to be equalled upon the whole, by any work that i r 88 overcame before us from the pen of our most prejudiced ad- versaries. ' Wo have now done with Mr. Blanco White. But in part- ing we would entreat him to reflect how grievously his pages have insulted the Church which nurtured him, and opened to him the gates of her sanctuary. We would beg of him ser- iously to consider how far he has ** impugned the known truth," by the many revolting charges he has propagated a- gainst the creed of his fathers. We have little hope that any remonstrances of ours will lead him to return, as he has deeply revolted ; we shudder when we read the extreme dif- ficulty which the Apostles speak of, "for those who have been once* enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly giil, and have fallen away, to be renewed again to penance." But we earnestly assure both him and his readers, that much cause OS we have for resentment, we have not been moved to op- pose him from that feeling, but from a sacred regard for truth ; from a fear that some might be taught to think evil of us, and others might be confirmed in their animosity against us, by statements coming from a priest once of our commun- ion ; and from^n earnest desire to vindicate our venerated Church from the bitter enemy she has found in one formerly of her own household. To us owr faith \a "far more precious than gold," our religion dearer than any earthly prospects or re- wards : our ancestors clung to it in the darkness of persecu< tion, and we shall eagerly defend it against those who would make our days of comparative " peace most bitter." Our prayer is with the holy Psalmist : " Thou hast taitght me, O Godyfrom my youth and till now I will declare thy wonderful works. And unto old age and grey hairSf Gody forsake mt not /"—Psalm Ixx, 17, 18. ed ad< 1 part- ) pagci 3ned to im ser- known ;ated a' tat anj e has me dif- 3 have il, and But we cause to op- ird for evil of Eigainst i' mmun- * leratcd erlyof as than , I or re- ^raecu- would ' Our mCt O xderful fak€ mt i i