What empty declamation! Do then the fathers, Popes, and councils, profess or attempt to build religion on any other founlation than the revelation made by God to the apostles and prophets? His lordship knows full well that they do not, and that the only questions at issue are these three: First, Whether this 1evelation has not been made and conveyed by the unwritten as well as by the written Word of God? Secondly, Whether Christ did not cominit this Word to his apostles and their successors, till the end of the world, for them to preserve and announce it? Lastly, Whether, independently of this commission, it is consistent with common sense, for each Protestant ploughman and mechanic to persuade himself that he, individually, (for he cannot, according to his rule, build on the opinion of other Protestants, though he could find any whose faith exactly tallied with his own,) that he, I say, individually, understands the Scriptures better than all the doctors and bishops of the church, who now are, or even have been since the time of the apostles !* One of your Salopian friends, in writing to me, ridicules the idea of infallibility being lodged in any mortal man, or number of men. Hence, it is fair to conclude, that he does not look upon himself to be infallible: now nothing short of a man's conviction of his own infallibility, one might think, would put him on preferring his own judgment, in matters of religion, to that of the church of all ages and all nations. Secondly, if this bjection were valid, it would prove that the apostles themselves were not infallible. Finally, I could wish your friend to form a right idea of this matter. The infallibility, then, of our church is not a power of telling all things past, present, and to come, such as the Pagans ascribed to their oracles; but merely the aid of God's holy spirit, to enable her truly to decide what her faith is, and ever has been, in such articles as have been made known to her by Scripture and tradition. This definition furnishes answers to diverse other objections and questions of Dr. P. The church does not decide the controversy concerning the conception of the Blessed Virgin, and several other disputed points, because she sees nothing absolutely clear and certain concerning them, either in the written or the unwritten Word; and therefore leaves her children to form their own opinions concerning them. She does not dictate an exposition of the whole Bible, because she has no tradition concerning a very

The great Bossuet obliged the minister, Claude, in his conference with him, openly to avow this principle; which, in fact, every consistent Protestant must avc w, who maintains his private interpretation of the Bible to be the only rule of his faith.

great proportion of it, as for example, oncerning the prophecy of Enoch quoted by Jude, 14, and the baptism for the dead, of which St. Paul makes mention, Cor xv. 29, and the chronolo gies and genealogies in Genesis. The prelate urges that the words of St. Paul, where he declares that, The church of God is the pillar and ground of truth, 1 Tim. iii. 15, may be translated a different way from that received. -True: they may, but not without altering the original Greek, as also the common Protestant version. He says, it was ordained in the Old Law that every controversy should be decided by the priests and Levites Deut. xvii. 8, and yet that these avowedly erred in rejecting Christ. True: but the Law had then run its destined course, and the divine assistance failed the priests in the very act of their rejecting the promised Messiah, who was then before them. He adds, that St. Paul in his Epistle to the church of Rome bids her not be high minded, but fear; for (he adds) if God spared not the Jews, take heed lest he also spare not thee, Rom. xi.Supposing the quotation to be accurate, and that the threat is particularly addressed to the Christians of Rome; what is that to the present purpose? We never supposed the promises of Christ to belong to them or their successors more than to the inhabitants of any other city. Indeed it is the opinion of some of our most learned commentators, that before the end of the world, Rome will relapse into its former Paganism. In a 7ord, the promises of our Saviour, that hell's gates shall not prevail against his church—that his Holy Spirit shall lead it into all truth-and that he himself will remain with it for ever, were made to the church of all nations, and all times, in communion with St. Peter and his successors, the bishops of Rome: and as these promises have been fulfilled, during a succession of eighteen centuries, contrary to the usual and natural course of events, and by the visible protection of the Almighty, so we rest assured that he will continue to fulfil them, till the church militant shall be wholly transformed into the church triumphant in the heavenly kingdoin.

་

Finally, his lordship, with other controvertists, objects against the infallibility of the Catholic church, that its advocates are not agreed where to lodge this prerogative: some ascribing it to the Pope, others to a general council, or to the bishops dispersed throughout the church. True, schoolmen discuss some such points but let me ask his lordship, whether he finds any Catholic who denies or doubts that a general council, with the Pope at its head, or that the Pope himself, issuing a loctrinal

See Cornel. a Lapid. in Apocalyp.

decision, which is received by the great body of Catholic bishops, is secure from error? Most certainly not: and hence he may gather where all Catholics agree in lodging infallibility. In like nanner, with respect to our national constitution: some lawyers hold that a royal proclamation, in such and such circumstances has the force of a law, others that a vote of the house of lords, or of the commons, or of both houses together, has the same strength; but all subjects acknowledge that an act of the king, lords, and commons, is binding upon them; and this suffices for all practical purposes.

But when, dear sir, will there be an end of the objections and cavils of men, whose pride, ambition, or interest, leads them to deny the plainest truths! You have seen those which the ingenuity and learning of the Porteus's, Seckers, and Tillotsons have raised against the unchangeable Catholic rule and interpreter of faith say, is there any thing sufficiently clear and certain in them to oppose to the luminous and sure principles, on which the Catholic method is placed? Do they afford you a sure footing, to support you against all doubts and fears on the score of your religion, especially under the apprehension of approaching dissolution? If you answer affirmatively, I have nothing more to say; but if you cannot so answer, and, if you justly dread undertaking your voyage to eternity on the presumption of your private judgment, a presumption which you have clearly seen has led so many other rash Christians to certain shipwreck, follow the example of those who have happily arrived at the port which you are in quest of: in other words, listen to the advice of the holy patriarch to his son: Tobias answered his father- I know not the way, &c. :— then his father said Seek thee a faithful guide. Tob. v. You will ne sooner have sacrificed your own wavering judgment, and have submitted to follow the guide, whom your heavenly Father has provided for you, than you will feel a deep conviction that are in the right and secure way; and very soon you will be enabled to join with the happy converts of ancient and modern times, in this hymn of praise: I give thee thanks O God, my enlightener and deliverer; for that thou hast opened the eyes of my soul to know thee. Alas! too late have I known thee, O ancient and eternal truth! too late have I known thee."

*

66

I am, Dear Sir, yours, &c.

Then

you

J. M.

• St. Austin's Soliloquios, c. 33, quoted by Dean Cressy, Exomol. p 655

THE END

OF

RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY.

PART II.

DEAR SIR,

66

LETTER XIII.

To JAMES BROWN, Esq. &c.

ON THE TRUE CHURCH.

THE Letters which I have received from you, and some others of your religious society, satisfy me that I have not altogether lost my labours in endeavouring to prove to you, that the private interpretation of holy Scripture is not a more certain rule of faith, than an imaginary private inspiration is; and, in short, that the church of Christ is the only sure expounder of the doctrine of Christ. Thus much you, sir, in particular, candidly acknowledge: but you ask me, on the part of some of your friends as well as yourself, why, in case you "must rely on authority," as bishop Porteus confesses "the unlearned must," that is to say, the great bulk of mankind, you should not, as he advises you, rely on the authority of that church, which God's providence hath placed you under, rather than that of another which you have nothing to do with."* and why you may not trust to the church of England, in particular, to guide you in your road to heaven, with equal security as to the church of Rome ?--Before I answer you, permit me to congratulate with you on your ad· vance towards the clear sight of the whole truth of revelation. As long as you professed to hunt out the several articles of this, one by one, through the several books of Scripture, and under all the difficulties and uncertainties which I have clearly shown to attend this study, your task was interminable, and your success hopeless whereas, now, by taking the church of God for your guide, you have but one simple inquiry to make: Which is this church? a question that admits of being solved by men of

• Confutation of Errors of Popery, p. 20.

good will with equal certainty and facility. I say, there is but one inquiry to be made: Which is the true church? because if there is any one religious truth more evident than the rest from reason, from the Scriptures, both Old* and New,† from the apostles' creed, and from constant tradition, it is this, that “the Catholic church preserves the true worship of the Deity; she being the fountain of truth, the house of faith, and the temple of God," as an ancient father of the church expresses it. Hence it is as clear as the noon-day light, that by solving this one ques tion: Which is the true church? you will at once solve every question of religious controversy that ever has, or that ever can be agitated. You will not need to spend your life in studying the sacred Scriptures in their originai languages, and their authentic copies, and in confronting passages with each other, from Genesis to Revelation, a task by no means calculated, as is evident, for the bulk of mankind: you will only have to hear what he church teaches upon the several articles of her faith, in order to know with certainty what God revealed concerning them. Neither need you hearken to contending sects, and doctors of the present, or of past times you will need only to hear the church, which, indeed, Christ commands you to hear under pain of being treated as a heathen or a publican, Matt. xviii. 17.

I now proceed, dear sir, to your question; why, admitting the necessity of being guided by the church, may not you and your friends submit to be guided by the church of England, or any other Protestant church to which you respectively belong?-My answer is; because no such church professes, nor, consistently with the fundamental Protestant rule of private judgment, can profess to be a guide in mattters of religion. If you admit, but for an instant, church authority, then Luther, Calvin, and Cranmer, with all the other founders of Protestantism, were evidently

Speaking of the future church of the Gentiles, the Almighty promises, by Isaiah Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear, &c.: as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, &c. liv. See also lix. lx. lxiii. Jerem xxxiii. Ezech. xxxvii. ii. Psalm lxxxix.

Dan.

+ Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matt. xvi. 18. I am with you all days even until THE END OF THE WORLD. Matt. xxviii. 20. I will pray the Father and he will give you another comforter, that he may abide with you FOR EVER. even the Spirit of Truth-he will teach you ALL TRUTH, John xiv. 16. &c, The House of God, which is the Church of the living God, THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF TRUTH. 1 Tim iii. 14.

I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH.
Lactan, De Divin. Instit. 4.

Art. ix