in awe of any authority, except that of the civil power. Upon a review of the whole matter of Protestant Disunion and Catholic Unity, I am forced to repeat with Tertullian : It is the character of error to vary; but when a tenet is found to be one and the same amongst a great variety of people, it is to be considered not as an error but as a Divine Tradition.' (1).

I am, dear Sir, &c.

J. M.

of

LETTER XVII.

From JAMES BROWN, Esq.

OBJECTIONS TO THE CLAIM OF EXCLUSIVE

REVEREND SIR,

SALVATION.

I AM too much taken up myself with the present subject of your letters, willingly to interrupt the continuation of them: but some of the which he so pointedly objects to, are interwoven with much industry into her forms of public worship.' I have not met with a Protestant Bishop, or other eminent divine, from Archbishop Tillotson down to the present Bishop of Lincoln, who approves altogether of the Athanasian Creed, which, however, is appointed to be said or sung on thirteen chief festivals in the year.

(1) De Præscrip. contra Hær.-The famous Bishop Jewel, in excuse for the acknowledged variations of his own Church, objects to Catholics, that there are varieties in theirs; namely, some of the Friars are dressed in black, and some in white, and some in blue; that some of them live on meat, and some on fish, and some on herbs: they have also disputes in their schools, as Dr. Porteus also remarks; but they both omit to mention, that these disputes are not about articles of

Gentlemen who frequent New Cottage, having communicated your three last to a learned dignitary, who is upon a visit in our neighbourhood, and he having made certain remarks upon them, I have been solicited by those Gentlemen to forward them to you. The terms of our Correspondence render an apology from me unnecessary, and still more the conviction that I believe you entertain of my being, with sincere respect and regard,

Rev. Sir, &c.

JAMES BROwne.

Extract of a Letter from the Rev. N. N., Prebendary of N., to Mr. N.

It is well known to many Roman Catholic Gentlemen, with whom I have lived in habits of social intercourse, that I was always a warm advocate for their Emancipation, and, that so far from having any objections to their religion, I considered their hopes of future bliss as well founded as my own. In return, I thought I saw in them a corresponding liberality and charity. But these letters which you have sent me from the correspondent of your Society at Winchester, have quite disgusted me with their bigotry and uncharitableness. In opposition to the Chrysostomes and Augustins, whom he quotes so copiously, for his doctrine of exclusive salvation, I will place a modern Bishop of my Church, no way inferior to them, Dr. Watson, who says: 'Shall we never be freed from the narrow-minded contentions of bigots, and from the insults of men who know not what

spirit they are of, when they stint the Omnipotent in the exercise of his mercy, and bar the doors of heaven against every sect but their own? Shall we never learn to think more humbly of ourselves and less despicably of others; to believe that the Father of the Universe accommodates not his judgments to the wretched wranglings of pedantic theologues; but that every one, who, with an honest intention, and to the best of his abilities, seeketh truth, whether he findeth it or not, and worketh righteousness, will be accepted of by him :'(1) These, Sir, are exactly my sentiments, as they were those of the illustrious Hoadley in his celebrated Sermon, which had the effect of stifling most of the remaining bigotry in the Established Church. (2) There is not any prayer which I more frequently or fervently repeat, than that of the liberal-minded Poet, who himself passed for a Roman Catholic, particularly the following stanza

of it:

Let not this weak and erring hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,

And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foe.' (3)

I hope your Society will require its Popish correspondent, before he writes any more letters to it on other

(1) Bishop Watson's Theolog. Tracts, Pref p. 17.

(2) Bishop Hoadley's Sermons On the Kingdom of Christ. This made the choice of religion a thing indifferent, and subjected the whole business of Religion to the Civil Power. Hence sprung the famous Bangorian Controversy, which was on the point of ending in a censure upon Hoadley from the Convocation, when the latter was interdicted by Ministry, and has never since, in the course of a hundred years, been allowed to meet again.

(3) Pope's Universal Prayer.

subjects, to answer what our Prelate and his own Poet have advanced against the bigotry and uncharitableness, of excluding Christians, of any denomination, from the mercies of God and everlasting happiness. He may assign whatever marks he pleases of the True Church, but I, for my part, shall ever consider charity as the only sure mark of this, conformably with what Christ says: By this shall all know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John, xiii, 35.

LETTER XVIII.

To JAMES BROWN, Esq. &c.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

DEAR SIR,

IN answer to the objections of the Reverend Prebendary, to my letters on the mark of Unity in the True Church, and the necessity of being incorporated in this Church, I must observe, in the first place, that nothing disgusts a reasoning Divine more than vague charges of bigotry and intolerance; inasmuch as they have no distinct meaning, and are equally applied to all sects and individuals, by others, whose religious opinions are more lax than their own. These odious accusations which your Churchmen bring against Catholics, the Dissenters bring against you, who are equally loaded with them by the Deists, as these are, in their turn,

by the Atheists and Materialists. Let us then, dear Sir, in the serious discussions of Religion, contine ourselves to language of a defined meaning, leaving vague and tinsel terms to poets and novelists.

It seems then, that Bishop Watson, with the Rev. N. N. and other fashionable Latitudinarians of the day, are indignant at the idea of stinting the Omnipotent in the exercise of his mercy, and barring the doors of heaven against any sect,' however heterodox or impious. Nevertheless, in the very passage which I have quoted, they themselves stint this mercy to those who work righteousness,' which implies a restraint on men's passions. Methinks I now hear some epicure Dives or elegant libertine, retorting on these liberal, charitable Divines, in their own words: 'Pedantic Theologues, narrow-minded bigots, who stint the Omnipotent in the exercise of his mercy, and bar the doors of heaven, against me, for following the impulse which he himself has planted in me!'—The same language might, with equal justice, be put into the mouth of Nero, Judas Iscariot, and of the very demons themselves. Thus, in pretending to magnify God's mercy, these men would annihilate his justice, his sanctity, and his veracity!

Our business then is, not to form arbitrary theories concerning the Divine attributes, but to attend to what God himself has revealed concerning them and the exercise of them. What words can be more express than those of Christ on this point: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned! Mark, xvi. 16., or than those of St. Paul: Without faith it is impossible to please God, Heb. xi. 6. Conformably with this doctrine, the same Apostle classes heresies with