deed, it is obvious that the sense of the text may depend upon the choice of a single word in the translation: nay, it sometimes depends upon the mere punctuation of a sentence, as may be seen below. Can you then, consistently, reject the authority of the great universal church, and yet build upon that of some obscure translator in the reign of James I.? No, sir; you must yourself have compared your English Bible with the originals. and have proved it to be a faithful version, before you can build your faith upon it as upon the Word of God. To say one word now of the Bibles themselves, which have been published by authority, or generally used by Protestants, in this country. Those of Tindall, Coverdale, and queen Elizabeth's bishops, were so notoriously corrupt, as to cause a general outcry against them, among learned Protestants, as well as among Catholics, in which the king (James 1.) joined himself, who accordingly ordered a new version of it to be made, being the same that is now in use, with some few alterations made after the restoration. Now, though these new translators have corrected many wilful errors of their predecessors, most of which were levelled at Catholic doctrines and discipline,§ yet they have left a sufficient number of these behind, for which I do not find that their advocates offer any excuse.

IV. I will make a further supposition, namely, that you had the certainty even of revelation, as the Calvinists used to pretend they had, that your Bible is not only canonical, authentic and faithful, in its English garb; yet what would all this avai you, towards establishing your rule of faith, unless you could be equally certain of your understanding the whole of it rightly? For. as the learned Protestant bishop Walton says, T "The Word of

* One of the strongest passages for the divinity of Christ is the follow.ng, as it is pointed out in the Vulgate Ex quibus est Christus, secundem carnem, qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in sæcula. Rom. ix. 5. But see how Grotius and Socinus deprive the text of all its strength, by merely substituting a point for a comma: Ex quibus est Christus, secundem carnem. Qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in sæcula.

+ Bishop Watson's Collect. vol. iii. p 98.

+ Ibid.

These may be found in the learned Greg. Martin's treatise on the subect, and in Ward's Errata to the Protestant Bible.

Two of these I had occasion to notice, in the Inquiry into the Char acter of the Irish Catholics, namely, 1 Cor. xi. 27, where the conjunctive and is put for the disjunctive or; and Matt. xix. 11, where cannot is put for do not; to the altering of the sense, in both instances. Now, though these corruptions stand in direct opposition to the original, as the Rev. Mr. Grier and Dr. Ryan themselves quote it, yet these writers have the confidence to deny they are corruptions, because they pretend to prove, from other texts, that the cup is necessary, and that continency is not necessary! Answer to Ward's Errata, p. 13, page 33.

In the Prolegomena to his Poliglott, cap. v.

God does not consist in mere letters, whether written or printed out in the true sense of it;* which no one can better interpre han the true church, to which Christ committed this sacred pledge." This is exactly what St. Jerom and St. Augustin had said many ages before him. "Let us be persuaded," says the former, "that the Gospel consists not in the words, but in the sense. A wrong explanation turns the Word of God into the word of man, and what is worse, into the word of the devil; for the devil himself could quote the text of Scripture." Now that there are in Scripture things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruction, is expressly affirmed in it. The same thing is proved by the frequent mistakes of the apostles themselves, with respect to the words of their divine Master. These obscurities are so numberless throughou* the sacred volumes, that the last quoted father, who was as bright and learned a divine as ever took the Bible in hand, says of it, "There are more things in Scripture that I am ignorant of than those I know." Should you prefer a modern Protestant authority to an ancient Catholic one, listen to the clear-headed Dr. Balguy. His words are these: "But what, you will reply, is all this to Christians? to those who see, by a clear and strong light, the dispensation of God to mankind? We are not as those who have no hope. The day-spring from on high hath visited us. The spirit of God shall lead us into all truth.-To this delusive dream of human folly, founded only on mistaken interpretations of Scripture; I answer, in one word: Open your Bibles : take the first-page that occurs in either Testament, and tell me without disguise; is there nothing in it too hard for your understanding? If you find all before you clear and easy, you may thank God for giving you a privilege which he has denied to many thousands of sincere believers."||

Manifold is the cause of the obscurity of Holy Writ; 1st, the ablimity of a considerable part of it, which speaks either literail or figuratively of the Deity and his attributes; of the Word incarnate; of angels, and other spiritual beings:-2dly, the mysterious nature of prophecy in general:-3dly, the peculiar idioms of the Hebrew and Greek languages :-lastly, the numerous and bold figures of speech, such as allegory, irony, hyperbole, catachresis, and antiphrasis, which are so frequent with

* This obvious truth shows the extreme absurdity of our Bible societies and modern schools, which regard nothing but the mere reading of the Bible, leaving persons to emb.ace the most opposite interpretations of the + In. Ep ad Galat contra Lucif. 2 Pet iii. 16. Dr Balguy's Discourses, p. 133.

same texts.

§ St Aug. Ep. ad Januar.

he sacred penmen, particularly the ancient prophets.* I shou like to hear any one of those, who pretend to find the Scripture so easy, attempting to give a clear explanation of the 67th, alias the 68th Psalm; or the last chapter of Ecclesiastes. Is it any easy matter to reconcile certain well-known speeches of each of the holy patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with the incommutable precept of truth? 1 may here notice, among a thousand other such difficulties, that when our Saviour sent his twelve apostles to preach the Gospel to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he told them, according to St. Matthew x. 10, Provide neither gold nor silver-neither shoes nor yet staves : whereas St. Mark vi. says, He commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only. You may indeed answer, with Chillingworth and bishop Porteus, that whatever obscurities there may be in certain parts of Scripture, it is clear in all that is necessary to be known. But on what authority do these writers ground this maxim? They have none at all; but they beg the question, as logicians express it, to extricate themselves from an absurdity, and in so doing they overturn their fundamental rule. They profess to gather their articles of faith and morals from mere Scripture: nevertheless, confessing that they understand only a part of it; they presume to make a distinction in it, and to say this part is necessary to be known, the other part is not necessary. But to place this matter in a clearer light, it is obvious that if any articles are particularly necessary to be known and believed, they are those which point to the God whom we are to adore, and the moral precepts which we are to observe. Now, is it demonstratively evident, from mere Scripture, that Christ is God, and to be adored as such? Most modern Protestants of eminence answer NO; and, in defence of their assertion, quote the following among other texts: The Father is greater than I, John xiv. 28, to which the orthodox divines oppose those texts of the same evangelist, I and the Father are one, x. 30. The Word was God, &c. i. 1. Again we find the following among the moral precepts of the Old Testament: Go thy way; eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart: for God now accepteth thy works. Let thy gar ments be alwaye white, and let thy head lack no ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest, &c. Eccls. ix. 7, 8, 9. In the New Testament, we meet with the following seemingly practical commands. Swear not at all, Matt. v. 34. Call no man futher upon earth—neither be you called masters, for one is

* See examples of these, in Bonfrerius's Præloquia, and n the Appen dixes to them, at the end of Menochius.

your master, Christ, Matt. xxiii, 9. 10. If any man sue thee as law, to take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also, v. 40. Give to every man that asketh of thee and of him that taketh away thy goods ask him not again, Luke vi. 30. When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends nor thy brethren, xiv. 12. These are a few among hundreds of other difficulties, regarding our moral duties, which, though confronted by other texts, seemingly of a contrary meaning, nevertheless show that the Scripture is not, of itself, demonstratively clear in points of first rate importance, and that the divine law, like human laws, without ar authorized interpreter, must ever be a source of doubt and con tention.

V. I have said enough concerning the contentions among Pro testants; I will now, by way of concluding this letter, say a word or two of their doubts. In the first place, it is certain, as a learned Catholic controvertist argues,* that a person who follows your rule cannot make an act of faith, this being, according to your great authority, bishop Pearson, an assent to the revealed articles, with a certain and full persuasion of their revealed truth; or, to use the words of your primate, Wake, “ When I give my assent to what God has revealed, I do it, not only with a certain assurance that what I believe is true, but with an absolute security that it cannot be false."‡ Now the Protestant, who has nothing to trust to but his own talents, in interpreting of the books of Scripture, especially with all the difficulties and uncertainties which he labours under, according to what I have shown above, never can rise to this certain assurance and absolute security, as to what is revealed in Scripture: the utmost he can say is, Such and such appears to me, at the present moment, to be the sense of the texts before me: and, if he is candid, he will add, but perhaps, upon further consideration, and upon comparing these with other texts, I may alter my opinion. How far short, dear sir, is such mere opinion from the certainty of faith! may here refer you to your own experience. Are you accustomed, in reading your Bible, to conclude, in your own mind, with respect to those points which appear to you most clear I believe in these, with a certain assurance of their truth, and an absolute security that they cannot be false; especially when you reflect that other learned, intelligent, and sincere Christians have understood those passages in quite a different sense from what you do? For my part, having sometimes lived and conversed

I

*Sheffmacher Lettres d'un l'octeur Cat. a un Gentilhomme Prot. vol p. 48. On the Creed, p. 15. + Princip. of Christ Rel. p. 27.

familiarly with Protestants of this description, and noticed then controversial discourses, I never found one of them absolutely fixed, for any long time together, in his mind, as to the whole of his belief. I invite you to make the experiment on the most intelligent and religious Protestant of your acquaintance. Ask him a considerable number of questions, on the most important points of his religion: note down his answers, while they are fresh in your memory. Ask him the same questions, but in a different order, a month afterwards, when I can almost venture to say, you will be surprised at the difference you will find between his former and his latter creed. After all, we need not use any other means to discover the state of doubt and uncertainty in which many of your greatest divines and most profound Scriptul students have passed their days, than to look into their publications I shall satisfy myself with citing the pastoral Charge of one of them, a living bishop, to his clergy. Speaking of the Christian doctrines, he says, I think it safer to tell you where they are contained, than what they are. They are contained in the Bible; and if, in reading that Book, your sentiments concerning the doctrines of Christianity should be different from those of your neighbour, or from those of the church, be persuaded, on your part, that infallibility appertains as little to you as it does to the church." Can you read this, my dear sir, without shuddering? If a most learned and intelligent bishop and professor of divinity, as Dr. Watson certainly is, after studying all the Scriptures, and all the commentators upon them, is forced publicly to confess to his assembled clergy, that he cannot tell them what the doctrines of Christianity are, how unsettled nust his mind have been! and, of course, how far removed from the assurance of faith! In the next place, how fallacious must that rule of the mere Bible be, which, while he recommends it to them, he plainly signifies, will not lead them to a uniformity of sentiments one with another, not even with their church!

There can be no doubt, sir, but those who entertain doubts concerning the truth of their religion, in the course of their lives, must experience the same, with redoubled anxiety, at the approach of death. Accordingly there are, I believe, few of our Catholic priests, in an extensive ministry, who have not been frequently called in to receive dying Protestants into the Catholic church, while not a single instance of a Catholic wish

* Bishop Watson's Charge to his Clergy, in 1795.

+ A large proportion of those grandees who were the most forward 1 promoting the Reformation, so called, and, among the rest, Cromwell, ear of Essex, the king's ecclesiastical vicar. when they came to die, returne