calumny into their cause.

That religion must,

indeed, be in itself invulnerable, which obliges her opponents to forge a new creed for her adoption, before they can hope to make any impression upon her; which, having no blemish of its own, compels malice to seek her gratification at the expence of truth, to surround her with ideal forms, and then, with hypocritical knavery, to exert all her might to destroy the wicked phantoms of her own creation. But so it was, from the commencement of Christianity, and so it will be, to the end. The primitive Christians, and the Catholics of the present day, are severally accused of the same crimes, and subject to the same calumnies. The reverential honour in which the primitive Christians held the cross, was divine worship to images; their miracles, were magical enchantments; their loyalty to Christ, was treason to the state; their adoration of the One Eternal Author of all things, was atheism and infidelity to the gods. To such an extent has misre

Both in pagan and in christian times, the cry of disloyalty and treason has ever been the signal for the most atrocious crimes, the war-whoop against virtue and religion. Socrates, perhaps the most virtuous Athenian that ever lived, was condemned to death, for teaching that immortal truth, the unity of the Godhead: and his crime was called disloyalty to the state, because it was treason to its religion. It was disloyalty, always imputed, but never proved, that raised the cry of ad Leones, against the primitive Chris

presentation been carried, that it would be no very bold defiance to stand pledged to discover a false

tians, and that has continued to shed the blood of prophets and of saints, in every age, and in every nation, that has been darkened with the spirit of bigotry, and stained with the horrors of persecution. "It was the imputation of disloyalty to Cæsar, which led St. Paul to prison, and condemned our Saviour to the cross! It is a proud and honorable distinction, that our loyalty to God, the King of kings, our eternal prince, and supreme ruler, should bear the dishonorable title of disloyalty to our temporal sovereign, and treason to the constitution." Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake. ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you, UNTRULY, for my sake. It is enough for the disciple to be as his master; if they have called the master of the house, Beelzebub, how much more them of his household!

Blessed are

The Almighty has said, through the mouth of an inspired teacher: Let every soul be subject to the higher powers: for there is no power but from God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist purchase to themselves damnation. And again, Thou shalt not speak evil of the prince of thy people. Hence, in serving and honoring our king, we serve and honor our God; and it is a most extraordinary expedient to make us more faithful to our prince, by endeavouring to make us unfaithful to our Creator: which, most undoubtedly, we should be, did we subscribe to the Test now required of us. We must ever remember that while 'we give to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's,' we must also 'give to God the things that are God's.'

hood in the very first argument of every book that has come from the pen of our adversaries. They stand about us objecting many and grievous accusations, which they cannot prove.<) As far as

(8) Acts, xxv. 7. Unless it were to shew the furious extremities to which our enemies allow themselves to be carried, it would be beneath a Catholic to notice that crowd of abominable and impious tracts, which, at this moment, are so widely and so industriously circulated amongst the poor and the ignorant of this country, and that, too, by members of the established church, with the absurd intent of proving that the pope is Antichrist. I allude to them principally for the purpose of replying to them, in the eloquent words of Dr. Doyle: "To such extremities did these men proceed, as not only to confound the power claimed by some few popes of Rome, over the temporal interests or rights of kings and kingdoms, with the spiritual jurisdiction of St. Peter's successor, but, in addition to this misrepresentation, they actually designated, not one or other, but a whole series of those successors, as Antichrists, and excited the deluded multitude to hate them, and curse them, as the capital enemies of our Lord and Saviour. Yes, the very men, who maintained from the beginning, and still maintain, against an infidel or Arian world, the divinity of the son of God, the very men who designate themselves as the last of his servants, and who, without any doubt, have caused his name to be published and adored throughout nearly the whole Christian world, these men, who never ask anything of the Father except through the Son, and identify him in their daily prayers with the King of ages, the immortal and invisible

regards us, it is bad policy, for it does but confirm the Catholic in his faith, to find it so invulnerable; and to those who are sincere in the pursuit of truth, the exposure of such deception frequently forms a strong inducement to their conversion. But, among the weak and the timid, among those who have little leisure, and perhaps less opportunity for examining the question, it does much mischief. It blackens us in the eyes of many, who are otherwise inclined to look favourably upon us, and makes them turn away in disgust from that investigation, which, in justice to themselves, they are bound to go through an investigation which would terminate so much to our honour and to their satisfaction. To what other possible circumstances can the following rebuke of our Saviour to the Pharisees be more applicable? Woe to you, doctors of the law, for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves have not entered in, and those that were entering in you have hindered,

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God to whom alone all are due, and given, all honor and glory, these very men have been called, by the ferocious leaders of the revolt, Antichrists and the Church in which they have always presided, and whose faith was from the beginning, and is still spoken of throughout the entire world,—this Church they called ' Babylon,' and the great apostacy,' with all manner of opprobrious and insulting names."-Reply to Magee, p. 42.

(h) St. Luke, xi. 52.

N

..That no one into whose hands these pages may chance to fall, may henceforward unknowingly subject himself to a similar denunciation, and that none may in future plead ignorance for their errors or their prejudices, I have annexed to this volume a copious list of Catholic controversial writings. Almost any one of them is sufficient to satisfy an impartial mind, a mind seriously and sincerely engaged in the pursuit of truth. Let them be considered as counterparts to the writings of our adversaries; let them be consulted as mirrors, in which our principles and our doctrines are reflected in their true light. They will remove that dismal mask from the fair face of our religion, first imposed upon it by the malice of it's enemies, and afterwards continued by the ignorance and credulity of mankind. They will exhibit it as it really is, pure, holy, spotless, and undefiled.

There is another point on which we feel particularly jealous, because we are particularly innocent; namely, BIGOTRY. If by bigotry is meant a blind and ignorant attachment to our tenets, we plead not guilty, upon the credit of this single fact, that for one Protestant who can give any sort of plausible reason for the hope which is in him," there are at least ten Catholics, who will produce strong and solid arguments in defence of their

i) See APPENDIX. No. VI.

(*) 1 St. Pet. iii. 15.