in all past ages. True, there have been heretics and schismatics of one kind or other during all that time, from Simon Magus down to Martin Luther; many sects of whom, such as the Arians, the Nestorians, the Eutychians, the Monotholites, the Albigenses, the Wickliffites, and the Hussites, have been exceedingly numerous and powerful in their turns, though most of them have now dwindled away to nothing: but observe, that none of the ancient heretics held the doctrines of any description of modern Protestants, and all of them maintained doctrines and practices which modern Protestants reprobate, as much as Catholics do. Thus the Albigenses were real Manicheans, holding two First Principles or Deities, attributing the Old Testament, the propagation of the human species, to Satan, and acting up to these diabolical maxims. (1) The Wickliffites and Hussites, were the levelling and sanguinary Jacobins of the times and countries in which they lived; (2) in other respects these two sects were Catholics, professing their belief in the Seven Sacraments, the Mass, the Invocation of Saints, Purgatory, &c. If, then, your Reverend Visitor is disposed to admit such company into his religious communion, merely because they protested against the Supremacy of the Pope, and some other Catholic tenets, he must equally admit Jews, Mahometans, and Pagans into it, and acknowledge them to be equally Protestants with himself.

Your Reverend Visitor concludes his letter with a long dissertation, in which he endeavours to show

(1) See an account of them, and the authorities on whic! this rests, in Letters to a Prebendary. Letter IV. (2) Ibid.

that however we Catholics may boast of the antiquity and perpetuity of our Church in past times, our triumphs must soon cease by the extinction of this Church, in consequence of the persecution now carrying on against it in France, and other parts of the continent; (1) and also from the preponderance of the Protestant power in Europe; particularly that of our own country, which, he says, is nearly as much interested in the extirpation of Popery as of Jacobinism. My answer is this: I see and bewail the Anti-catholic persecution which has been, and is carried on in France and its dependent states; where to decatholicize is the avowed order of the day. This was preceded by the less sanguinary, though equally anti-catholic persecution of the Emperor Joseph II., and his relatives in Germany and Italy. I hear the exultations and menaces on this score, of the Wranghams, De Coetlegons, Towsons, Bichenos, Ketts, Fabers, Daubenys, and a crowd of other declamatory preachers and writers, some of whom proclaim that the Romish Babylon is on the point of falling, and others that she is actually fallen. In the mean time, though more living branches of the mystical Vine should be cut off by the sword, and though more rotten branches should fall off, from their own decay, (2) I am not at all. fearful for the

(1) Namely, in 1802.

(2) Since the present letter was written many circumstances have occurred to show the mistaken politics of our Rulers, in endeavouring to weaken and supplant the Religion of their truly loyal and conscientious Catholic subjects. Among other measures for this purpose, may be mentioned the late instructions sent to the Governor of Canada, which Catholic province alone remained faithful at the time of trial,

life of the Tree itself; since the Divine veracity is pledged for its safety, as long as the sun and moon shall endure, Ps. lxxxix., and since the experience of eighteen centuries has confirmed our faith in these divine promises. During this long interval, kingdoms and empires have risen and fallen, the inhabitants of every country have been repeatedly changed; in short, every thing has changed except the doctrine and jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, which are precisely the same now that Christ and his Apostles left them. In vain did Pagan Rome, during three centuries, exert its force to drown her in her own blood; in vain did Arianism and the other contemporary heresies sap her foundations, during two centuries more; in vain did hordes of barbarians when all the Protestant provinces abjured their allegiance. To the same intent may be cited the letter of Dr. Kerr, Senior Chaplain of Fort St. George, quoted in the late Parliamentary Report. By this it appears that the Catholics in that province generally converted about 300 infidels to Christianity every year, and that there was a prospect of their converting many of the Hindoo Chiefs, but that our Government set its face against these conversions. Thus is the obscene and barbarous worship of Jaggernaut himself preferred to the Religion which converted and civilized our ancestors. Jaggernaut, as Dr. Buchanan informs us, is a huge idol, carved with the most obscene figures round it, and publicly worshipped before hundreds of thousands, with obscene songs and unnatural rites, too gross to be described. It is placed on a carriage, under the wheels of which great numbers of its votaries are encouraged to throw themselves in order to be crushed to death by them. Now this infernal worship is not barely permitted, but even supported by our Government in India, as it takes a tribute from each individual who is present at it, and likewise defrays the expense of it, to the amount, says Dr. Buchanan, of £8700, annually, including the keep of prostitutes, &c.

from the north, and of Mahometans from the south, rush forward to overwhelm her; in vain did Luther swear that he himself would be her death: (1) she has survived these, and numerous other enemies equally redoubtable; and she will survive even the fury and machinations of anti-christian Philosophy, though directed against her exclusively; for not a drop of Protestant blood has been shed in this impious persecution. Nor is that Church which, in a single kingdom, the very head quarters of infidelity, could at once furnish 24,000 Martyrs and 60,000 voluntary exiles, in defence of her faith, so likely to sink under external violence, or internal weakness, as your Rev. Visitor supposes.-Alluding to the then recent attempt of the Emperor Julian to falsify the prophecy of Daniel by rebuilding the Jewish Temple, St. John Chrysostom exclaimed: Behold the Temple of Jerusalem; God has destroyed it: have men been able to restore it? Behold the Church of Christ; God has built it: have men been able to destroy it ?'-Should the Almighty permit such a persecution to befal any of the Protestant communions, as we have beheld raging against the Catholic Church on the continent, does your Visitor really believe that its clergy and other members will exhibit the same constancy in suffering for their respective tenets, that our clergy and people have shown in defence of hers? In fact; for what tenets should the former suffer exile and death, since, without persecution, they have all, in manner, abandoned their original creeds, from the ncertainty of their rule of faith, and their own atural mutability? Human laws and premiums may reserve the exterior appearance, or mere carcass of a

(1) Luther ordered this epitaph to be engraved on his omb: Pestis eram vivens, moriens ero mors tua, Papa.

Church, as one of your Divines expresses it; but, while the Pastors and Doctors of it demonstrate by their publications, that they no longer maintain her fundamental articles, can we avoid subscribing to the opinion, expressed by a late dignitary of it, that the Church of England, properly so called, is not in existence?' (1)

LETTER XXVIII.

To JAMES BROWN, Esq. &c.

ON THE APOSTOLICITY OF THE CATHOLIC

DEAR SIR,

CHURCH.

THE last of the four marks of the Church, mentioned in our common Creed, is APOSTOLICITY. We each of us declare, in our solemn worship: I believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and APOSTOLICAL Church. Christ's last commission to his Apostles was this: Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: and, lo! I am with you always, even unto THE END OF THE WORLD. Matt. xxviii. 20. Now the event has proved, as I have already observed, that the Apostles themselves, were only to live the ordinary term of man's life; therefore, the commission of preaching and ministering, together with the promise of the divine assistance, regards the successors of the Apostles, no less than the Apostles themselves.

(1) Confessional, p. 244.