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which they had withdrawn themselves. We find accordingly that Chillingworth, Stillingfleet, and other eminent fathers of the Reformation, far from being ashamed of the name of "Protestant," appear to have exulted in its adoption. For nearly three centuries, the universal consent of nations has, under that word, included all those denominations of the Christian world which, rejecting the authority of St. Peter's chair, are content to abide by the innovations of some one or other of the reformers of the sixteenth century; and in England, so lately as during the present session of parliament, the member for Oxford University, and of course in that capacity the acknowledged champion of English church orthodoxy, declared from his place in the House of Commons that "he gloried in the name of Protestant." Yet in the teeth of such facts, it is become notorious that a considerable body of respectable members of the Anglican establishment, discontented with a designation that has now stuck to them so long, are now not only anxious to make good their claims to be called " Catholics," but would rob of that name those who during centuries of persecution preserved it as their dearest birthright! This hankering after what may be called the muniments of others' property, is in great measure traceable to the lucubrations of the new school which has of late sprung up in the very bosom of Protestantism, and which, under the name of Puseyism, however eagerly its professors reject the notion of any assimilation with the faith and principles of Rome, is a system that obviously inclines the hearts and minds of men in that direction. Of the Tractarians,-for so, it seems, are the disciples of this Oxford sect to be denominated,— one favourite theory is the assumption of the appellation Catholic. Now into any grave argumentation upon their alleged and our contravened right to the name, we are not disposed to enter at present, but will be content to try the question by two or three homely tests, grounded on the meaning of words, statistical facts, and popular parlance and estimation. Assuming then the word "Catholic" to betoken "Universal," let us then in the first instance enquire of an Oxford theologian how far he considers that he is entitled to so call himself, and how far he expects to be recognized under that name in Austria, France, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Bohemia, Saxony, Ireland, Germany, or Switzerland? Is it in Russia or Greece that his Catholicity will be acknowledged? Differing but upon one or two points from the faith of Rome, the schismatic Churches of those countries will certainly not be found ready to accord the name and character of Catholicity to the sectaries of a pretended reformation

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in religion, which took place many centuries subsequently to their own secession from ancient orthodoxy. In the Calvinistic cantons of Switzerland, the Lutheran states of Germany, among the Huguenots of France, the Presbyterians of Scotland, the Dissenters of England, and the Protestant nations of Northern Europe, we suspect that the Oxford divine would find it equally difficult to establish his claim to be called a Catholic;" so unanimous, on the Continent at least of Europe, is the concurrence with which that name is ceded to the Latin Church by her bitterest antagonists. Where then is our Anglo soi-disant Catholic to take refuge?—in the bosom of the Church of England? Why even there, more than half his brethren practically disclaim the appellation; the very university of Oxford, through the mouthpiece of its accredited representative, "glorying in the name of Protestant." Now, if words have any meaning at all, it does appear to us that a "Protestant" can no more at one and the same time be styled a Catholic," than an Englishman can be called a Frenchman, or a Jew a Mussulman. We confidently assert indeed that the great bulk of the community are well satisfied to abide by the designation of Protestants. Let us suppose a clergyman of the new Tractarian school dropping in unawares one Sunday afternoon upon a high-church Devonshire farmer, and, finding him deeply engaged in the study of the Sacred Scriptures, to address him as follows: "I am glad to find you are such a good Catholic." We question much whether the worthy agriculturist, upon hearing himself so accosted, would not let the Bible fall to the ground out of sheer astonishment, and then hasten to rescue his character for Protestant orthodoxy from any such implied connexion with the abominations of Popery.

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The test of popular estimation is alike available to establish the exclusive claim of Catholics to the possession of their own name, however much their sole right to it may be contested by a section of modern casuists. For a bet, the winning of which should be sufficient to cover the expense of postage stamps that the experiment might require, we would engage to despatch circulars, by post, to every town and village in Great Britain, where we have a mission, the superscription of which should simply be "The Catholic Clergyman of * * "The letters

should merely contain a request to the incumbents to acknowledge their receipt ipso facto," by returning their covers; and our wager should be, assuming of course that our reverend correspondents were aware of the object of the application made to them, that to every letter we had so sent, an answer would be in due time obtained.

Such

a result would of course prove that the address on the circulars had quite sufficed to ensure their safe delivery; and, therefore, that in the estimation, at least, of all the Post-office subordinates throughout the country, selected as they are at hap-hazard from a respectable class of tradesmen, and therefore fairly representing the general opinion of the great "middle" community, the word "Catholic" was alone applicable to the clergy of the Church of Rome. If, in a solitary instance, a letter addressed to the "Catholic Clergyman of * * *" were carried to the rector, or vicar, or curate, or dissenting minister of the place, we would consent to forfeit ten times the amount of our bet, so staunch is our confidence of obtaining the unconscious tribute of our provincial neighbours to the supreme claims possessed by the clergy of our religion, to the designation of Catholic. To refute the numerous, and grave, and often wilful misrepresentations of our doctrines, habitually indulged in by writers and believed by the uninformed members of the English Church establishment, has been the successful labour of many an able theologian, but vain becomes the exposition of the most obvious matters of fact, when addressed to ears which dogged prejudice has rendered impervious to the access of truth!

What shall it avail us to assert over and over again that such is our belief, and such our practice, in any particular matter of religion, if not content to receive our own exposition of our own faith, adversaries insist upon being better acquainted with the purport of those doctrines than we are ourselves, and arguing upon their interpretation of them, demolish the fallacies they had themselves invented?

Thus the stale and flimsy accusation brought against the Catholics of omitting and falsifying, to suit a particular purpose, one of the articles of the Decalogue, is revived every year in the writings of some zealous controversialist, or the speech of some rabid Exeter Hall fanatic; the fact being easily ascertainable too, that in our version of the Scriptures, and our catechisms, the ten commandments are set forth just as they are in the Protestant prayer-book, without the omission or the addition of a single word!

We are over and over again taunted with purchasing, as it were, impunity for our past offences by confession, and priestly absolution, although it is well-known that the Church regards the words of priestly absolution as of no avail, unless accompanied, on the part of the penitent, by so hearty a sorrow for all his sins, and so sincere and determined a purpose of amendment, as should be tantamount to that very frame of mind in which every Christian reasonably hopes that GOD

may have ratified in Heaven, the pardon which, among us, his minister pronounces on earth.

We were charged for upwards of a century with disregarding the sanctity of oaths: our accusers on this score never recollecting that during the long period of our exclusion from civil rights, it was the conscientious refusal to take an oath which alone debarred the Catholics of Great Britain from taking their seat in Parliament, or exercising office of any kind.

We are accused of purchasing pardons for and permissions to commit sin, under the name of indulgences, that word simply denoting the substitution of certain devotional exercises and almsdeeds for those more practical and severe canonical penances which under the discipline of the primitive Church were imposed upon notorious sinners.

The veneration and respect with which we regard the images of Christ crucified, the representations of his Virgin Mother, and the relics of his Saints, are stigmatised as idolatrous, and all the while our · feelings in regard of such pious objects are only akin to those with which men are in the habit of regarding the portraits that recall to their minds the lineaments of those whom they have best loved and honoured.

We are reproached with substituting the worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the invocation of Saints for the adoration due to the Divinity, the truth being, that while reverencing with all the faculties of our soul the divine Mother of our Redeemer, and having recourse on all occasions to her intercession, we offer divine honours to GOD alone, and acknowledge the Lord JESUS Christ as our only Mediator.

We are supposed to regard it as sinful "per se" to eat certain meats on particular days, whereas our abstinence from them on such occasions is simply to mark our obedience to a law of the Church enacted to test the submission of her faithful children.

And so of many other points of doctrine and practice, wilfully or ignorantly falsified or misrepresented.

One delusion, extensively current in our courts of justice, deserves to be noticed. An impression prevails among Protestants, sanctioned, as we have had an opportunity of observing, by the judges of the land, that to render the accustomed oath taken by persons who come forward to give evidence in a civil or criminal case, binding upon a Catholic witness, it is necessary that there should be a Cross graven upon the outside of the Testament upon which he is sworn. Accordingly, upon some of the books of the Gospels kept in our courts of judicature for the

purpose of administering oaths, are inlaid iron crosses for the purpose of meeting such supposed prejudices as are above referred to. Now every Catholic will readily allow that the figure of the Cross, wherever met with, excites in his mind responsive feelings of reverence and solemnity; to suppose, however, that its presence on the cover of a book will be an additional guarantee to the security of his oath, is a fallacy.

The ordinary words of the oath administered in our courts of justice are these." You, A. B. do swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help your GOD;" to which the witness replies, "I do," and in confirmation of such solemn engagement, kisses the testament. Now to imagine that after the above deliberate invocation of GOD's name to the truth of the evidence he is about to give, a Catholic witness does not consider himself effectually sworn, because a mere external, however sublime and glorious emblem, does not happen to be graven on the book he holds in his hand, is a kind of insult to his understanding, as well as an utterly groundless assumption of fact.

Ignorance or carelessness occasionally give rise to the most absurd enquiries. We have more than once been asked by persons either labouring under some strange obscuration of intellect, or affecting to believe that because Latin is the language of our liturgy, it must needs be the ordinary medium of intercourse between the Catholic clergy and their flocks, whether "our priests did not preach in Latin." Did such numsculls ever happen to hear of the names of Bossuet, Massillon, Bourdaloue, and Fléchier, whose immortal works repose on the library shelves of every well-informed Protestant divine, to be referred to as very text books and fountainheads of pulpit eloquence by all who aspire to any excellence in that department of the clerical profession? Of one of the acute querists above referred to, himself a candidate for the Anglican ministry, we had a mind to have enquired whether the preachers of the university of Cambridge delivered their sermons in High Dutch?

C.

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