In the present case, however, the persecution which Catholics suffer from the disabilities in question, does not consis so inuch in their being deprived of those common privileges and advanta ges, as in their being held out by the legislature, as unworthy of them, and thus being reduced to the condition of an inferior cast, in their own country, the country of freedom; this they deeply feel, and cannot help feeling.

At

V. But to return to my subject: I presume, that if the facts and reflections, which I have stated in this letter, had occurred to the R. Rev. prelates, mentioned at the beginning of it, they would have lowered, if not quite altered, their tone on the present subject: the bishop of London would not have charged Catholics with claiming a right to punish those whom they call heretics," with penalties, imprisonment, tortures, and death:" nor would the bishop of Lincoln have laid down" toleration as a mark of the true church, and as a principle, recommended by the most eminent reformers and (Protestant) divines.” all events, I promise myself, that a due consideration of the points here suggested, will efface the remaining prejudices of certain persons of your society against the Catholic church, on the score of her alleged "spirit of persecution, and of her supposed claim to punish the errors of the mind with fire and sword." They must have seen, that she does not claim, but that, in her very general councils, she has disclaimed all power of this nature; and that, in pronouncing those to be obstinate heretics, whom she finds to be such, she always pleads for mercy, in their behalf, when they are liable to severe punishment from the secular power: a conduct which many eminent Protestant Churchmen, were far from imitating, in similar circumstances They must have seen, moreover, that, .f persecuting laws have been made and acted upon by the princes and magistrates in many Catholic countries, the same conduct has been uniformly practised in every country, from the Alps to the Arctic Circle, in .which Protestants, of any description, have acquired the power of so doing. But, if, after all, the friends alluded to, should not admit of any material difference, on one side or the other, in this matter, I will here point out to them two discriminating circumstances of such weight, as must, at once, decide the question about persecution in disfavour of Protestants.

In the first place, when Catholic states and princes have perBecuted Protestants, it was done in favour of an ancient religion, which had been established in their country, perhaps, a thou sand or fifteen hundred years, and which had long preserved

he peace, order, and morality of their respective subjects, and when, at the same time, they clearly saw, that any attempt to alter this religion would, unavoidably, produced incalculable disorders, and sanguinary contests among them. On the other band, Protestants, every where, persecuted in behalf of new systems, in opposition to the established laws of the church, and of the respective states. Not content with vindicating the own freedom of worship, they endeavoured, in each country, by persecution, to force the professors of the old religion to abandon it and adopt theirs; and they acted in the same way by their fellow Protestants, who had adopted opinions different from their own. In many countries, where Calvinism got a head, as in Scotland, in Holland, at Geneva, and in France they were riotous mobs, which, under the direction of the pastors, rose in rebellion against their lawful princes, and having secured their independence, proceeded to sanguinary extremities against the Catholics.

In the second place, If Catholic states and princes have enforced submission to their church by persecution, they were fully persuaded, that there is a divine authority in this church to decide in all controversies of religion, and that those Christians who refuse to hear her voice, when she pronounces upon them, are obstinate heretics. But on what ground can Protestants persecute Christians of any description whatsoever? Their grand rule and fundamental charter is, that the Scriptures were given by God for every man to interpret them, as he judges best. If, therefore, when I hear Christ declaring, Take ye and cat, this is my body, I believe what he says; with what consistency can any Protestants require me, by pains or penalties, to swear that I do not believe it, and that to act conformably with this persuasion is idolatry? But religious persecution, which is every where odious, will not much longer find refuge in the most generous of nations: much less will the many victorious arguments which demonstrate the true church of Christ, cur common mother, who reclaimed us all from the barbarous rites of Paganism, be defeated by the calumnious outcry, that she herself is a bloody Moloch, that requires human victims.

I am, &c

J. M

336

LETTER L.

To the FRIENDLY SOCIETY of NEW COTTAGE.

CONCLUSION.

MY FRIENDS AND BRETHREN IN CHRIST,

HAVING, at length, finished the task you imposed upon me, eight months ago, in my several letters to your worthy president, Mr. Brown, and others of your society, I address this, my concluding letter, to you, in common, as a slight review of them. I observed to you, that, to succeed in any inquiry, it is necessary to know and to follow the right method of making it: hence, I entered upon the present important search after the truths of the Christian Revelation, with a discussion of the rules or methods, followed, for this purpose, by different classes of Christians. Having, then, taken for granted the following maxims, that Christ has appointed some rule or method of learning his revelation; that this rule must be an unerring one; and that it must be adapted to the capacities and situations of mankind, in general; I proceeded to show, that a supposed pri vate spirit, or particular inspiration, is not that rule; because this persuasion has led numberless fanatics, in every age, since

that of Christ, into the depths of error, folly, and wickedness of every kind. I proved, in the second place, that the written Word or Scripture, according to each one's conception of its meaning, is not that rule; because it is not adopted to the capacity and situation of the bulk of mankind; a great propor tion of them not being able to read the Scripture, and much less to form a connected sense of a single chapter of it; and, because innumerable Christians, at all times, by following this presumptuous method, have given into heresies, impieties, contradictions, and crimes, almost as numerous and flagrant as those of the above mentioned fanatics. Finally, I demonstrated, that there is a two-fold word of God, the unwritten, and the written; that the former was appointed by Christ, and made use of by the apostles, for converting nations; and that it was not made void by the inspired Epistles and Gospels, which some of the apostles, and the evangelists, addressed, for the most part, to particular churches or individuals; that the Catholic church is the divinely commissioned guardian and interpreter of the word of God, in both its parts; and that, therefore, the method, appointed by Christ for learning what he has taught, on the various articles of his religion, is to

HEAR THE CHURCH propounding .hem to us from the whole of his rule. This method, I have shown, continued to be pointed out by the fathers and doctors of the church, in con stant succession, and that it is the only one which is adapted the circumstances of mankind, in general; the only one, hichs to the peace and unity of the Christian church; and the only one, which affords tranquility and security to individua Christians during life, and at the trying hour of their dissol

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At this int, my labours might have ended; as the Catholic church alone follows the right rule, and the right rule infallibly leads to the Catholic church: but since bishop Porteus, and other Protestant controvertists, raise cavils, as to which is tha true church; and whereas this is a question, that admits of a still more easy and more triumphant answer, than that concerning the right rule of faith, I have made this the subject of a second eries of letters, with which, I flatter myself, the greater part you are unacquainted. In fact, no inquiry is so easy, to an attentive and upright Christian, as to discover which is the true church of Christ; because, on one hand, all Christians agree, their common creeds, concerning the characters or marks, which she bears; and because, on the other hand, these marks are of an exterior and splendid kind, such as require no extensive learning or abilities, and little more than the use of our senses and common reason, to discern them. In short, to ascertain which, among the numerous and jarring societies of Christians, all pretending to have found out the truths of Revelation, is the true church of Christ, that necessarily possesses them, we have only to observe which among them is distinctively, ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, and APOSTOLICAL, and the discovery is made. In treating of these characters, or marks, I said it was obvious to every beholder, that there is no bond of union whatever among the different societies of Protestants; and that no articles, canons, oaths, or laws, had the force of confining the members of any one of them, as experience shows, to a uniformity of helief, or even profession, in a single kingdom or island; while the great Catholic church, spread

is over the face of the globe, and consisting, as it does, of au nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, is strictly uned together, in the same faith, the same sacraments, and the same church-government; in short, that it demonstratively exhibits the first mark of the true church, unity With respect to the second mark, sanctity, I showed, that she, alone teaches and enforces the whole doctrine of the gospel; that she is the mother

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of all the saints, acknowledged as sucn by Protes.ants them selves; that she possesses many means of attaining sanctity which the latter disclaim; and that God himself attests the ruth of this church, by the miracles with which, from time to me, he illustrates her exclusively and, whereas mary eminent Protestant writers have charged the Catholics with deception and forgery on this head, I have unanswerably retorted the charge upon themselves. No words were wanting to show that the Catholic church bears the glorious name of CATHOLIC, and very few to demonstrate, that she is Catholic or universal, with respect both to place and time, and that she is also apostolical. The latter point, however, I exhibited in a more evident and sensible manner, by means of the sketch of an apostolical tree, or genealogical table of the church, which I sent you; showing the succession of her pontiffs, her most eminent bishops, doctors and saints, as also, of the most notorious heretics and schismatics, who have been lopped off from this ree, in every age from that of the apostles down to the present age. "No church, but the Catholic, can exhibit any thing of this kind," as Tertullian reproached the seceders of his time. Under this head, you must have observed, in particular, the want of an apostolical succession of ministry, which, I showed, all Protestant societies labour under, and their want of success in attempting the work of the apostles, the conversion of Pagan nations.

The third series of my letters has been employed in tearing off the hideous mask, with which calumny and misrepresentation had disfigured the fair face of Christ's true spouse, the Catholic church. In this endeavour, I trust, I have been successiul, and that there is not one of your society who will any more re proach Catholics with being Idolaters, on account of their re spect for the memorials of Christ and his saints, or of their desiring the prayers of the latter; or on account of the adoration they pay to the divine Jesus, hidden behind the Sacramental veils nor will they, hereafter, accuse us of purchasing, or otherwise procuring leave to commit sin, or the previous pardon of sins, to be committed; or, in short, of perfidy, sedition, cruelty, or systematic wickedness of any kind. So far from his, I have reason to hope, that the view of the church, herself which I have exhibited to your society, instead of the caricasure of her, which Dr. Porteus, and other bigoted controvertists have held up to the public, has produced a desire in severai o hem to return to the communion of this original church; bear ing as she clearly does, all the marks of the true church