new version of it to be made; being the same that is now in use, with some alterations introduced after the Restoration. (1) Now, though these new translators have corrected many wilful errors of their predecessors, most of which were levelled at the Catholic doctrines and discipline; (2) yet they have left a sufficient number of them behind, for which I do not find that their advocates offer any excuse whatsoever. (3)

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, but authentic and faithful, in its English garb; yet what would all this avail 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: (4) • The word of God does not consist in mere letters,

(1) Bishop Watson's Collect. vol. iii. p. 98.

(2) These may be found in the learned Greg. Martin's Treatise on the subject, and in Ward's Errata to the Protestant Bible.

(3) Two of these I had occasion to notice in my Inquiry into the Character 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.

(4) In the Prolegomena to his Poliglott, cap. v.

whether written or printed, but in the true sense of it; (1) which no one can better interpret than 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.' (2) 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 the Scripture itself. (3) The same thing is proved by the frequent mistakes of the Apostles, with respect to the words of their Divine Master. These obscurities are so numberless throughout 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 which I am ignorant of, than those that I know.' (4) 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

(1) This obvious truth shows the extreme absurdities of our Bible Societies and modern schools, which regard nothing but the mere reading of the Bible, leaving persons to embrace the most opposite interpretations of the same

texts.

(2) In Ep. ad Galat, contra Lucif. (3) 2 Pet. iii. 16. (4) St. Aug. Ep. ad Januar.

ersib

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 representations 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.' (1) ́

Manifold is the cause of the obscurity of Holy Writ; 1st, the sublimity of a considerable part of it, which speaks either literally 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, antiphrasis, which are so frequent with the sacred penmen, particularly the ancient prophets. (2) I should 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 an easy matter to reconcile certain well-known speeches of each of the Holy Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with the incommutable precept of truth? here notice, among a thousand other such

I

may

(1) Dr. Balguy's Discourses, p. 133.

(2) See examples of these in Bonfrerius's Præloquia and in the Appendixes to them, at the end of Menochius.

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., to 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 clear 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 garments be always white, and let thy head lack no ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest, &c. Eccles. 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 Father upon earth neither be you called Masters, for one is your Master, Christ, Matt. xxiii. 9, 10. If any man sue thee at law, to take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also, v. 46. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask him not again, Luke, vi. 33. 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 an authorized interpreter, must ever be a source of doubt and contention.

V. I have said enough concerning the contentions among Protestants; 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, (1) that a person who follows your Rule cannot make an act of faith; this being, according to your great authority, Bishop Pearson,

(1) Sheffmacher, Lettres d'un Docteur Cat. à un Gentilhomme Prot. vol. i. p. 48.