mere human institutions this is invariably the case; parliament, for example, frames the law, the judges define it, and the jury pronounces upon its application. Were every one to interpret the law for himself, what confusion would it not create! How impossible would it not be to solve difficulties, to allay doubts and contentions, and to execute justice between man and man! As it is in the body politic, so it is, in a much stronger degree, amongst mankind, considered as a community of Christians, bound to believe the same faith, to obey the same pastors, to observe the same precepts, to be actuated by one soul and one spirit, and, in all things essential to salvation, to do and to think alike. The diversity of temperament, talent, and disposition, would create so great a variety of judgment and opinion, and we have the lamentable proof of it daily before our eyes,-as to set all law and reason at defiance, had not the Almighty wisely instituted a decisive and infallible expounder of his law, at the same time that he revealed it, and imposed an obligation on us to believe and to obey it. Man having fallen from the original perfection of his creation, his omnipotent Maker, instead of restoring him to his former excellence, in which he might have been capable of judging of all things for himself, adapted his new order of things to the altered state of his existence, and supplied the weakness and imperfection of his na

ture, by his own supernatural direction and assis

tance.

That this law has always received the same interpretation from this divinely appointed tribunal; that the same articles of faith have always been proposed to our belief, and the same precepts held out for our observance-is a truth, to which there is the strongest and most perfect chain of evidence to conduct us; a truth, which Protestants deny in vain; a truth, which most incontestably establishes the triumph and the indefectibility of the Roman Catholic Church.

From all that has been advanced, it follows as a matter of course, that I cannot conform to Protestantism. I cannot, if it were only for this reason: that, when I read in Scripture, that he that believeth not shall be condemned, I cannot trust so important a concern as my religious belief to a Church which may deceive me. We know that the ways of God are so straight, that even fools shall not err therein.() We also know, that, in Scripture, there are things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and

(8) St. Mark xvi. 16.

(h) Isai. xxxv. 8.

(i) In Boswell's Life of Johnson, we find the following passage: "Mrs. Knowles.-She had the New Testament before her. Johnson.-Madam, she could not understand the New Testament, the most difficult book in the world; for which the study of a life is required. Mrs. Knowles. -It is clear as to essentials. Johnson.-But not as to

the unstable wrest to their own destruction;(*)

controversial points." (Vol. iii. p. 324.) Are not all points, even the most essential, controverted by the dif ferent denominations of Christians?

"St. Augustine observes, (Lib. I. contra Cress. 33.) that it is only by the Church we know what is the sense of Scripture, or what is not. His words are: The truth of the Scripture is held by us, or we possess the true meaning of them, when we do that which is approved of in the whole Church, which church the authority of the Scriptures themselves commends:'-so far removed was he from the opinion of those who would undertake to determine religious doubts, by the very book, from the misunderstanding of which they all arise. This the holy doctor, (Tract. 18, in Johan. Cap. 5.) expressly attests, in the following words: 'Heresies have arisen, and certain perverse doctrines, ensnaring souls, and precipitating them into the abyss, have been broached, only when the good Scriptures have been badly understood, and when that which was badly understood, was rashly and boldly attested."--Reply to Dr. Magee, p. 12.

(*) 2 Ep. St. Peter iii. 10.-From infancy to age, amongst the poor and the rich, the learned and the ignorant, the savage and the civilized,-the bible is still administered to all as the sole and sovereign specific for the salvation of man; and while the bible is thrust into the hand, this motto is dinned into the head: "The bible without note or comment, the bible ALONE, is the religion of Protestants." And so it is;-for there is not a truth which is not contradicted; an absurdity, which is not attested; an impiety, which is not grounded upon some

that false prophets come in the clothing of sheep

pretended interpretation of the sacred text. Yet, in spite of this, (and of which it would be needless to cite examples, so notorious is the fact,) each individual is invited to search the Scriptures, (and which, by the bye, was said of the Old, and not of the New Testament, and was applied to the discovery of the signs and prophecies relative to the coming of Christ,) and to select his religion therefrom. But then, (strange inconsistency! and so circumscribed in their operation are the principles of Protestantism!) if in this kingdom a man should read that declaration of Christ to his ministers; "He that heareth you, heareth me: he that despiseth you, despiseth me....He that will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen or a publican....We are of God: he that knoweth God, heareth us...I am with you always, even to the consummation of the world....He that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, &c. &c.-and should discover therein a divine command to obey the mandates of the Church, in all that concerns the object for which Christ came upon earth :—if in this kingdom of evangelical liberty and of religious slavery, a Christian in his researches in the sacred volume, should chance to perceive a promise from the God of Truth, to grant to feeble man a preservative from error, upon matters upon which he was to be judged by the justice of heaven; and if on beholding an injunction to believe upon pain of eternal condemnation, together with a divine assurance of the difficulties and dangers with which he was encompassed he should convince himself that there was but one, true, holy, catholic, and apostolical Church, which had subsisted, and which would sub

to ensnare us; that there are never wanting those who would make dissensions and offences contrary

sist, uninjured, and uncorrupted, as the guide and instructor of mankind;-and seeing all this, should he be bold enough to fancy that this Church was any other than that established by the law of the land; that, for example, these promises, this authority, these characteristics, belonged to that great assemblage of Christians who had ever formed one compact and united body, one fold under one shepherd, being, and professing to be, the depository of the law of God, and the promulgator of the revelations of heaven; in fine, the ancient, Catholic, and universal Church, and not a modern, isolated society of separatists:-then is his bible become a traitor; then does the whole wisdom of the legislature step in to interpret for him; then are pains and penalties put in requisition to undeceive him of his errors, to quicken his understanding, and point to the full blaze and glory of the Reformed Church of England. Then is he taunted with obstinacy and stupidity if he cannot find reason enough to subscribe to the thirty-nine articles; then it is said to him, "Impious blockhead, does not thy bible show thee that the doctrine of transubstantiation is all a fable? Dost not thou see the idolatry of the Mass, and of the invocation of saints? Dost thou not perceive that no pre-eminence was given to Peter,—that though his succession has been perpetuated through persecution and revolution for 1800 years; though those successors have ever been acknowledged to have inherited the divine commission of their predecessor, by the great majority of (St. Matt. vii. 15.

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