ciently clear and certain in them, to oppose to the luminous and sure principles on which the Catholic method is placed? Do they afford you a sure footing, to support you against all doubts and fears on the score of your Religion, especially under the apprehension of approaching dissolution? If you answer affirmatively; I have nothing more to say but if you cannot so answer; and, if you justly dread undertaking your voyage to eternity on the presumption of your private judgment, a presumption which you have clearly seen has led so many other rash Christians to certain shipwreck, follow the example of those who have happily arrived at the port which you are in quest of. In other words, listen to the advice of the Holy Patriarch to his son: Then Tobias answered his FatherI know not the way, &c.;-then his Father said— Seek thee a faithful guide. Tob. v. You will no sooner have sacrificed your own wavering judgment, and have submitted to follow the guide, whom your Heavenly Father has provided for you, than you will feel a deep conviction that you are in the right and secure way; and very soon you will be enabled to join with the happy converts of ancient and modern times, (1) in this hymn of praise: I give thee thanks, O God, my Enlightener and Deliverer, for that thou has opened the eyes of my soul to know thee. Alas! too late have I known thee, O ancient and eternal Truth! too late have I known thee.'

I am, dear Sir, yours, &c.

J. M. (1) St. Austin's Soliloquies, c. 33, quoted by Dean Cressy, Exomol. p. 655.

THE END OF PART I.

THE

END OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY.

PART II.

There are many other things which keep me in the bosom of the Catholic Church.-The agreement of different people and nations keeps me there. The authority established by Miracles, nourished by hope, encreased by charity, and confirmed by antiquity, keeps me there.-The succession of Bishops in the See of St. Peter, the Apostle, (to whom our Lord, after his Resurrection, committed his sheep, to be fed,) down to the present Bishop, keeps me there.-Finally, the very name of CATHOLIC, which, among so many heresies, this Church alone possesses, keeps me there.-St. Augustin, Doctor of the Church, A. D. 400, contra Epist. Fundam. c. 4.

THE Letters which I have received from you, and some others of your Religious Society, satisfy me that I have not altogether lost my labour, in endeavouring to prove to you, that the Private Interpretation of Holy Scripture is not a more certain Rule of Faith, than an imaginary Private Inspiration is; and, in short, that the Church of Christ is the only sure expounder of the doctrine of Christ. Thus much you, Sir, in particular, candidly acknowledge: but you ask me, on the part of some your friends, as well as yourself, why, in case

of

6

you must rely on authority,' as Bishop Porteus confesses the unlearned must,' that is to say, the great bulk of mankind, why, I say, you should not, as he advises you, rely on the authority of that Church, which God's Providence hath placed you under, rather than on that of another which you have nothing to do with,' (1) and why you may not trust to the Church of England, in particular, to guide you in your road to heaven, with equal security as to the Church of Rome?Before I answer you Sir, permit me to congratulate with you on your advance, towards the clear sight of the whole truth of revelation. As long as you professed to hunt out the several articles of divine revelation, one by one, through the several books of Scripture, and under all the difficulties and uncertainties which, as I have clearly shown, attend this study, your task was interminable, and your success hopeless; whereas, now, by taking the Church of God for your guide, you have but one simple inquiry to make: Which is this Church? a question that admits of being solved by men of good will, with equal certainty and facility. I say, there is but one inquiry to be made: namely, Which is the true Church? because if there is any one religious truth more evident than the others from reason, from the Scriptures, both Old (2) and New,

(1) Confutation of Errors of Popery, p. 20.

(2) Speaking of the future Church of the Gentiles, the Almighty thus promises, by Isaiah: Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear, &c.: as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, &c. liv. See also lix. Ix. lxiii. Jerem. xxxiii, Dan. ii. Psalm, lxxxix.

Exech. xxxvii,

(1) from the Apostles' Creed, (2) and from constant tradition, it is this, that the Catholic Church preserves the true worship of the Deity; she being the fountain of truth, the house of faith, and the temple of God,' as an ancient Father of the Church expresses it. (3) Hence it is as clear as the noonday light, that by solving this one question: Which is the true Church? you will at once solve every question of religious controversy that ever has been, or that ever can be agitated. You will not need to spend your life in studying the Sacred Scriptures in their original languages, and their authentic copies, and in confronting passages with each other, from Genesis to Revelations,-a task by no means calculated, as is evident, for the bulk of mankind; -you will only have to hear what the Church teaches upon the several articles of her faith, in order to know with certainty what God has revealed concerning them. Neither need you hearken to contending sects, and doctors of the present or of past times; you will need only to hear the Church, which

(1) Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matt. xvi. 18. I am with you all days even until THE END OF THE WORLD. Matt. xxviii. 20. I will pray the Father, and he will give you another comforter, that he may abide with you FOR EVER, even the Spirit of Truth-he will teach you ALL TRUTH. John, xiv. 16, &c. The House of God, which is the Church of the living God, THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF TRUTH. 1 Tim. iii. 14.

(2) I BELIEVE THE HOLY CATHOLIC

CHURCH; or, I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. Art. ix. The article is read differently by different Holy Fathers; but, either way, it means the same thing.

(3) Lactan. De Divin. Inst. 1. 4.

indeed Christ commands you to hear, under pain of being treated as a heathen or a publican.

xviii. 17.

Matt.

I now proceed, dear Sir, to your question: why, admitting the necessity of being guided by the Church you and your friend may not submit to be guided by the Church of England, or any other Protestant Church to which you respectively belong?-My answer is; because no such Church professes, or, consistently with the fundamental Protestant Rule of private judgment, can profess to be a guide in matters of Religion. If you admit, but for an instant, Church-authority, then Luther, Calvin, and Cranmer, with all the other founders of Protestantism, were evidently heretics, in rebelling against it. In short, no other Church but the Catholie, can claim to be a religious Guide, because evidently she alone is the True Church of Christ. This assertion leads me to the proof of what I asserted above, respecting the facility and certainty with which persons of good will may solve that most important question: Which is the true Church?

Luther, (1) Calvin, (2) and the Church of England, (3) assign as the characteristics or marks of the true Church of Christ, Truth of Doctrine, and the right Administration of the Sacraments. But to follow this method of finding out the true Church, would be to throw ourselves back into those endless controversies concerning the true doctrine, and the right discipline, which it is my present object to put an end to, by demonstrating, at once, Which is the

(1) De Concil. Eccles. (3) Art. 19.

(2) Instit. 1. 41.