times the same Holy Doctrine, heretofore abetted an acknowledged impious and immoral system, namely, Calvinism, which they have since been constrained to reject; and that they have now compromised with impieties, which formerly they condemned as damnable heresies,' and punished with fire and faggot.

But it is time to speak of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church. If this was once Holy, namely, in the Apostolic age, it is Holy still; because the Church never changes her doctrine, nor suffers any persons in her communion to change it, or to question any part of it. Hence the adorable mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, &c. taught by Christ and his Apostles, and defined by the four first General Councils, are now as firmly believed by every real Catholic, throughout her whole. communion, as they were when those Councils were held. Concerning the article of man's justification, so far from holding the impious and absurd doctrines imputed to her by her unnatural children, (who sought for a pretext to desert her,) she rejects, she condemns, she anathematizes them! It is then false and notoriously false, that Catholics believe, or in any age did believe, that they could justify themselves by their own proper merits;-or that they can do the least good, in the order of salvation, without the grace of God, merited for them by Jesus Christ; or that we can deserve this grace, by any thing we have the natural power of doing; -or that leave to commit sin, or even the pardon of any sin which has been committed, can be purchased of any person whomsoever;- —or that the essence of Religion and our hopes of salvation consist in form

and ceremonies, or in other exterior things. These and other calumnies, or rather blasphemies of a similar nature, however frequently or confidently repeated in popular sermons and controversial tracts, there is reason to think are not really believed by any Protestant of learning. (1) In fact, what ground is there for maintaining them? Have they been defined by our Councils? No: they have been condemned by them, and particularly by that of Trent. Are they taught in our Catechisms, such as the Catechismus ad Parochos, the General Catechism of Ireland, the Doway Catechism; or in our Books of Devotion; for example, in those written by an a Kempis, a Sales, a Granada, and a Challoner? No: the contrary doctrine is, in these, and in our other books, uniformly maintained.-In a word, the Catholic Church teaches, and ever has taught, her children to trust for mercy, grace, and salvation, to the merits of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, she asserts that we have free-will, and that this, being prevented by divine grace, can and must co-operate to our justification by faith, sorrow for our sins, and other corresponding acts of virtue, which God will not fail to bestow upon us, if we

(1) The Norrisian Professor, Dr. Hey, says: 'The Reformed have departed so much from the rigour of their doctrine about faith, and the Romanists from theirs about good works, that there seems very little difference between them.' Lect. vol. iii. p. 262. True, most of the Reformers, after building their Religion on Faith alone, have now gone into the opposite heresy of Pelagianism, or at least Semi-Pelagianism; but Catholics hold exactly the same tenets regarding good works which they ever held, and which were always very different from what Dr. Hey describes them to have been. Vol. iii, p. 261.

do not throw obstacles in the way of them. Thus is all honour and merit ascribed to the Creator, and every defect and sin attributed to the creature. The Catholic Church inculcates moreover, the indispensable necessity of humility, as the groundwork of all virtues, by which, says St. Bernard, 'from a thorough knowledge of ourselves we become little in our own estimation.' I mention this Catholic lesson, in particular, because, however strongly it is enforced by Christ and his disciples, it seems to be entirely overlooked by Protestants; insomuch that they are perpetually boasting in their speeches and writings of the opposite vice, pride. In like manner, it appears from the above-mentioned Catechisms and spiritual works, what pains our Church bestows, in regulating the interior no less than the exterior, of her children, by repressing every thought or idea contrary to Religion or Morality; of which matter, I perceive little or no notice is taken in the Catechisms and Tracts of Protestants. Finally, the Catholic Church insists upon the necessity of being perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect, Matt. v. 48, by such an entire subjugation of our passions, and a conformity of our will with that of God, that our conversation may be in heaven, while we are yet living here on earth. Philip. v. 20.

I am, &c.

J. M.

POSTSCRIPT TO LETTER XIX.

[THE Life of the late Rev. John Wesley, founder of the Methodists, which has been written by D

Whitehead, Dr. Coke, and others of his disciples, shows, in the clearest light, the errors and contradictions to which even a sincere and religious mind is subject, that is destitute of the clue to revealed truth, the living authority of the Catholic Church; as also the impiety and immorality of Calvinism. At first, that is to say, in the year 1729, Wesley was a modern Church-of-England-man, distinguished from other students at Oxford by nothing but a more strict and methodical form of life. Of course his doctrine then, was the prevailing doctrine of that Church; this he preached in England and carried with him to America, whither he sailed to convert the Indians. Returning, however, to England in 1738, he writes as follows: For many years I have been tossed about by various winds of doctrine,' the particulars of which, and of the different schemes of salvation which he was inclined to trust in, he details. Falling, however, at last, into the hands of Peter Bohler and his Moravian brethren, who met in Fetter-lane, he became a warm proselyte to their system; declaring at the same time, with respect to his past religion, that, hitherto he had been a Papist without knowing it. We may judge of his ardour by his exclamation when Peter Bohler left England: O what a work hath God begun since his (Bohler's) coming to England; such a one as shall never come to an end till heaven and earth shall pass away.' To cement his union with this society, and to instruct himself more fully in its mysteries, he made a journey to Hernhuth in Moravia, which is the chief seat of the United Brethren. It was whilst he was a Moravian, namely, on the 24th of May, 1738, a quarter of an hour before nine in

the evening,' that John Wesley, by his own account, was saved from the law of sin and death.' This all-important event happened at a Meeting-house, in Aldersgate-street, while a person was reading Luther's Preface to the Galatians.' Nevertheless, though he had professed such deep obligations to the Moravians, he soon found out and declared that theirs was not the right way to heaven. In fact, he found them, and nine parts in ten of the Methodists' who adhered to them, 'swallowed up in the dead sea of stillness, opposing the ordinances, namely, prayer, reading the Scripture, frequenting the Sacrament and public Worship, selling their Bibles, &c. in order to rely more fully "on the blood of the Lamb." In short, Wesley abandoned the Moravian connexion, and set up that which is properly his own Religion, as it is detailed by Nightingale in his Portraiture of Methodism. This happened in 1740, soon after which he broke off from his rival Whitfield. In fact, they maintained quite opposite doctrines on several essential points: still the tenet of instantaneous justification, without repentance, charity, or other good works, and the actual feeling and certainty of this and of everlasting happiness, continued to be the essential and vital principles of Wesley's system, as they are of the Calvinistic sects in general; till having witnessed the horrible impieties and crimes to which it conducts, he, at a conference or Synod of his preachers, in 1744, declared that he and they had leaned too much to Calvinism and Antinomianism.'

In

answer to the question: What is Antinomianism ?* Wesley, in the same conference, answers: The doctrine which makes void the law through faith.