At any

is not of my choosing, but of yours. period, and under any circumstances, I should have judged it right to expose so important a mis-statement, as I consider yours to be:-and I am not prevented from so doing by an apprehension, that I may be thought desirous of supporting one side of a great political question by the indirect influence of a theological argument. To say the truth, the connection of the political and theological questions does not appear to me so absolutely inseparable, as many wiser men than myself continue to regard it. But, at any rate, you, and those who act with you, have not a shadow of right to complain on this ground. You have sought to strengthen your political cause by mixing with it a statement of the theological dogmas of your Church. Now, let those dogmas be truly stated, (and the truth, when disputed, can only be ascertained by evidence and argument,) and then let their final bearing on the political question be that, and only that, which truth shall war

rant.

But, whatever be the cause, the effect is notorious. It is become an usual topic in all popular discourses, written or spoken, on behalf of Roman-Catholics, in the journals of criticism (so called), and even in the speeches delivered in

parliament, to represent the creed and the discipline of the Church of Rome as nearly in accordance with those of the established church. The most signal instance of this kind was afforded in a debate in the House of Lords, on the 10th of June, 1819, on which occasion I presumed to address to the noble Earl, who led the debate, and distinguished himself by the theological arguments of his speech, a letter, which is now appended to these pages. In truth, some passages of your "Book," and of his Lordship's speech, have a remarkable resemblance, especially in their apparent reliance, for the accuracy of the principal statements contained in them, on the same reverend authority, that of Dr. Milner. His "End of Controversy" is the grand storehouse, from which a main portion of the facts and evidence, adduced both by yourself and by the noble Earl, appears to have been drawn; and a nice observer might, perhaps, without much difficulty, select some six pages of this work, in which all the theological learning displayed in that memorable debate would be found to be comprised.

In short, so much of management has been successfully employed to distort or disguise the truth, that it is no longer a superfluous task to revive in the members of our own church a re

collection of the real nature of those tenets, from which our forefathers, at the Reformation, were enabled, by God's blessing, to rescue themselves and their descendants.

It is, Sir, with this purpose that I have undertaken to examine your "View of the RomanCatholic System." But before I commence that examination, permit me to say a few words on the reason assigned by you for giving it this name. Mr. Southey, in the chapter to which your 10th Letter is an answer, had called it the Papal system. But you tell us that "the words

66

popery, papal, and papist" (the only names by which your religion, and those who profess it, were known to the law of the land till a very recent period)" being particularly offensive to

Roman-Catholics, you have altered the title "of Mr. Southey's chapter, by substituting "the word Roman-Catholic' for the word "Papal':—that in the oath which the legisla"ture has prescribed to you, you are styled "Roman-Catholics :-and that on this account "it has always been a rule with you to denote, " in your publications, the religious denomina“tion of Christians to which you belong, by "the appellation of Roman-Catholics."*

Book of the Roman-Catholic Church, p. 99:

To the wish implied in this alteration of yours I am very ready to accede. Indeed, in common with most, or all, of my Protestant brethren, I am accustomed, in the courtesy of private society, to give to persons of your communion the appellation which you suggest. You will pardon me, however, if I accompany my present adoption of it, before the public, with an explanation of the sense in which alone it ought, I conceive, always to be understood. The caution is not unnecessary; for our courtesy, in this particular, has been perverted into a standing argument against us. Among others, Dr. Milner, in his "End of Controversy," thus avails himself of it. Speaking of "Catholicity" as his "third mark of the true church," " Is there not," says he, "among the rival churches, one exclusively known and distinguished by the name and title of THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, as well in England, Holland, and other countries which protest against this church, as in those which adhere to it? Does not this effulgent mark of the true religion so incontestably belong to us, in spite of every effort to obscure it by the nicknames of Papists, Romanists, &c., that the rule of St. Cyril and St. Augustin is as good and certain now as it was in their times? What I mean is this: if any stranger in London.

Edinburgh or Amsterdam, were to ask his way to the Catholic Chapel, I would risk my life for it, that no sober Protestant inhabitant would direct him to any other place of worship than

to ours.

Before I refer to the main point contended for in this passage, I must notice, by the way, a little artifice of the reverend writer, in insinuating as the reason of our being called Protestants, that we protest against the Catholic church." Dr. Milner knows perfectly well that we owe that appellation to a very different cause:† he knows that neither we nor our predecessors ever" protested against the Catholic church," nor even against that church which assumes to itself exclusively the title of Catholic. Against the latter, indeed, we have gone a good deal further than protesting. But this by the way.

On the main point here contended for by Dr. Milner, I answer by admitting the fact which he says "he means;" and I ascribe it, without hesitation, to the courtesy, the forbearance, and,

* End of Controversy, p. 192.

†The name of Protestants was adopted because of the protestation made by certain princes of the German Empire, who asserted the rights of religious liberty against the decree of the Diet of Spire, A.D. 1529.