inferred the probability of his living fifty years? and how was a false prophet to be known from a true one? This will appear very ridiculous; but it is precisely the manner in which this correspondent writes away from the subject, and attempts to draw me away from it.

I insert the following letter, not because I intend to enter at present upon the subject of " Catholic emancipation," but because it proves that certain facts and features of the character of popery, which I have been honoured to bring to view, have altered the opinion of some, and I believe not a few, on that very important subject.

"Glasgow, September 11th, 1820. "SIR-I am a Protestant dissenter, and a hearty friend to religious liberty, as I understand it. I have been for thirty years a friend also to Catholic emancipation in Ireland, and sincerely hoped it would be attained. However, from the recent conduct of the heads of the popish church, I begin to doubt if this object be desirable. The popish clergy are now exhibiting themselves in an attitude the most hostile to religious liberty. Common sense would say that no person has a right to molest or interrupt another in the exercise of religion, and in obeying his conscience. But if a person's conscience shall dictate to him that he is to violate the person, or property, or civil good name of others; or to debar them from the peaceable exercise of their industry, or of their religion, and if he shall call this religion-in a word, if he do to others, in those matters, what he would reckon an outrage if done to himself or his friends, he must be restrained. He, and his conscience, and his religion, must be all shut up in some bedlam or prison, or put into safe custody of some sort, which will prevent violent aggressions on others, and tumults in society.

"If popery be indeed what it is represented to be by the titular archbishop of Dublin, in his letter inserted in Chap. CXIII. of the Protestant, it is obviously a religion which requires restraint, and cannot safely be allowed to go at large. On Sunday, August 2d, 1819, a school in Samson's Lane, Moore street, Dublin, was peaceably employed in the usual exercises of teaching, and learning to read the Bible, when a popish priest entered, interrupted the business, forced the books out of the hands of several of the children, and forced the children out of the school.-Now surely this conduct of this priest was highly outrageous. He had a right, which no person could justly forbid, to persuade parents not to send their children to such schools. No person had any right to hinder him from visiting all the parents who submitted to his authority, at their homes, and there charging them not to suffer their children to attend such schools, or to recall them instantly. In such visitations, none might prohibit him from using all his influence with parents and children, in support of such charges and commands. Nay, he might publicly denounce in his own chapel, all such schools, and curse, if he pleased, three times a day all such schools, teachers, scholars, and all who should give them any countenance. But to go into another man's school-house, to interrupt the exercises, to seize the books, and to force away the pupils, was conduct to be restrained by the police.

"If this conduct is permitted with impunity, then, as often as a

popish priest thinks any of the young folks of his congregation are attending a parish church, or a dissenting meeting, he has a right to enter, to interrupt the public exercises, to force the Bibles, prayer-books, and hymn-books, out of the people's hands, and to drive such as he calls Catholics out of the place. If he cannot do this single handed, he has a right to employ help. Nay, if such conduct is permitted, it will be equally right to make similar invasions on popish chapels, as often as professed Protestants are suspected of being present. Every man must see how insufferable and destructive of peace such conduct would be. Yet, in the judgment of the archbishop of Dublin, (from his residence the most important popish authority in Ireland,) the conduct of this priest was right, and exhibited a true practical view of popery. "He writes:-Conformably to these maxims, and to the uniform discipline of the Catholic church, Rev. Mr. S. went to your school to withdraw the Catholic children from it, at the very time when religious and moral instruction were given, particularly to children, in Liffey street parish chapel. He cannot, on this account, be justly accused of opposition to the constituted authorities, which allow the free exercise of the Catholic religion, and the authority of its ministers to instruct the ignorant of their communion.'

"If such conduct be conformable to the uniform' discipline of the popish church, and if liberty to act so be what popish priests and others are urging after as the free exercise of their religion, it is obvious that this free exercise is totally inconsistent with the civil peace of society.When, allured by the novel charms of the organ, and of chanting in an unknown language; and by the glare of sacerdotal paraphernalia and trappings, many of the Presbyterians, and others of Glasgow, attended the popish chapel in Clyde street; how would Mr. S. and his adherents have felt, if all the other pastors in the city had bolted in, interrupted the service, and driven away every one his own adherents, or attempted to drive them away. This would justly have been reckoned persecution; but it would have been a piece of conduct quite parallel to that which the archbishop of popery in Dublin calls the free exercise of the Catholic religion. Papists have a right, before men, to inculcate certain of their principles, by all means of moral suasion, and religious motives; but such a right must be used by them, 'salvo jure cujusque, reserving to all others a similar right. They have a right to consider their own tenets true, and the only true tenets; but they must leave, and magistrates must leave to others the right to think them false. These principles the archbishop does not recognise. He blames Protestants for inviting Catholic children to their schools; but he would glory in proselyting others, children or adults. He would not treat others as he would be treated, but would urge on others the paramount authority of his church. Yours,

"AN IRISHMAN."

W. D. has favoured me with another letter, a great deal longer than either of his former ones; and has put me to the expense of double postage. I request him to publish it in a separate pamphlet, and I shall answer it when I come to treat the question, How we know the Bible to be the word of God, independently of the authority of the church of Rome? In my reply to his last, I called upon him to inform me from

what pulpits he had heard the doctrine asserted, that God revealed one religion to one country, and a contrary one to another, which he said he had often heard from men of good education, even from the pulpits;" and the following is his answer:-" Well, sir, I shall do more than you require, to convince you of what I said. If you take the trouble to go into the Presbyterian church of Scotland, you may depend upon it that the reverend minister will tell you, that his is one of the true religion; next be pleased to step into the Episcopal church of England, and you may rely upon it you will hear the same," &c. &c. In this manner W. D. makes a tour of a number of sects: and because every one maintains the truth of its own distinguishing peculiarity, he asserts that he hears from their pulpits, that God has revealed one religion to one people, and a contrary one to another! A man who can shuffle in this manner, has no right to expect that I shall hereafter respect his communications as I have done.

CHAPTER CXIX.

LETTER FROM JUVENIS. REMARKS UPON IT.

SATURDAY, October 21st, 1820.

THE following letter is written in a better spirit than most of those which I have received from adherents of the church of Rome. It has, besides, the advantage of having a defined object; and that object is one of the principal points of the controversy. Therefore, though it be very long, as the writer himself acknowledges, I shall give it entire :

"TO THE PROTESTANT.

46

4th July, 1820. SIR:-Being a reader of your papers, and at present a member of that church, against which they are directed, I have at times thought of laying before you, some of the defences usually made by Catholics, in reply to their Protestant opponents, with my occasional remarks; in order that I might request the favour of your opinion upon them, as they might not be within the plan which you have adopted, but which you may perhaps have no objections to notice for the instruction of one, who, according to your belief, is not at present in the right road: yet, he is one who is not inclined to remain with any particular church, if he see sufficient grounds for forsaking it.

"Therefore, seeing you have lately commenced a subject, upon which, according to your correspondent J. C., the whole popish system is built:' viz. 'on that supposed supremacy bestowed exclusively on Peter,' I have now ventured to trouble you with a few observations on this foundation of the papal system, with the hope, that if you think them worth your notice, you will with your convenience spare a page or two, for a few remarks thereon.

"In the first place, then, Christ promised to build his church upon a rock. Commenting on this, you say that this rock on which Christ promised to build his church, was not Peter, but himself:-on the other hand, St. Peter is, by Catholics and even by learned Protestants, said to

be this rock; for that Christ, as a reward to Simon for the ardour of his love, strength of his faith, and the ready confession of his divinity, said to him, Thou art Peter, (that is, thou art a rock;) and upon this rock I will build my church.' And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' &c. Here, under the metaphor of the keys, Catholics say, that Christ declares his making Peter the chief governor of his church; in the same way, as when the keys of a city are delivered to a man, he is made ruler or governor of that city. When 'on the subject of the rock, in giving your definition of the Greek noun Petros, you say it signifies a stone,' viz. 'such a stone as we can handle, move, or turn over,' and that Christ, in giving him that name, meant to signify his mobility or fickleness. Now, from what I can see from the Greek lexicons which are commonly used in our Protestant schools, it seems to me that Petros could as easily be rendered English, a rock, as a stone, and much easier than that of a loose moveable stone,' as your number has it. So that I must still consider Peter to be the rock on which the church was to be built, until I see a reasonable account why this name was conferred upon him. As for your saying that it was to signify his versatility, it seems to me rather paradoxical; for 'when names were given to men as recorded in scripture, whether compounded or not with the names of animals or inanimate things, it was done in allusion to the natures and qualities of these animals or things.' (PROTESTANT, Chap. XCIX.) This I consider to be perfectly applicable; so that Christ, in giving to Simon the name of Peter, or rock, thereby signified the firmness of his faith, and the eminent station he was to hold.

·

"In Chap. C. you say, 'it is the avowed doctrine of St. Augustine, one of Rome's greatest oracles, that Christ did not promise to build his church upon Peter, but upon himself, the rock which Peter had confessed.' In opposition to the quotation you make from St. Augustine, I will lay one before you from that divine's Psalm against the Donatists: in it he says, 'reckon up the prelates in the very see of Peter, and in that order of fathers, see which has succeeded him. This is the rock over which the proud gates of hell prevail not.' These words carry with them a very different meaning from what you give, as the avowed doctrine of this father. And one of his cotemporaries, in writing on this subject, uses words that plainer cannot be, to show the belief of the age in which they lived. Christ predicts that not Simon, but Peter shall be his name; by the word opportunely, signifying, that on him, as on a firm rock, he was about to build his church.' St. Cyril of Alex. L. II. in Joan. c. 12th. Thus far the opinion of the fathers of the beginning of the fifth century, to which you refer; let us, however, see what those of a still older date say upon this subject, as their testimony must have still greater weight. In the third century we find Origen saying, 'Consider what was said by the Lord, to that great foundation of the church, and that most firm rock, on which Christ built his church, O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt? Matt. xiv. 31.' Home. V. in Exod. About the same time St. Cyprian writes, 'For the Lord in the first place gave to Peter, on whom he built his church,' &c. Ep. lxxiii. Again, Peter whom the Lord chose the first, and on whom he built his church,' &c. Ep. lxxi. In the fourth century St. Gregory of Nazianzen writes, 'You see how Peter, among the disciples of Christ, all great, and all

worthy of choice, is called a rock, and receives, on the profession of his faith, the foundations of the church; while John is particularly beloved, and rests on the breast of Christ; and the other disciples bear this preference without repining.' Orat. XXVI. The memory of Peter, the head of the apostles, is celebrated, and with him, that of the other members of the church. But the church of God is firmly built on him. For he, according to the prerogative granted to him by the Lord, is that firm and solid rock upon which the Saviour built his church.' St. Gregory of Nyssa, Orat. II. Add to these St. Chrysostom, St. Epiphanius, St. Basil, &c., who all use words equally strong with those above noticed.

"In addition to these venerable names, I will now bring forward one or two respectable Protestant writers in favour of this subject; for example, Whitaker writes,We do not deny Peter to have been the foundation and the governor of the church, neither shall we at all hesitate (if required) to acknowledge its having been promised to him in the words,' &c. Whit. Cont. 4. q. 2. ch. 2d. In another place he says, Who doth not confess that Peter is the rock and foundation of the church ?' Contra Dureum, L. V. Sect. 4th. To Whitaker's declarations, join those of a celebrated dignitary of the English church in the present age; viz. the celebrated Dr. Marsh; a writer whose anticatholic principles are well known. Yet he, in his "Comparative View of the churches of England and Rome," p. 213, (in which work he wishes to show that the conduct of the church of Rome, is in general, repugnant to the inspired word of God,) has candidly shown that the words Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,' must mean 'Thou art rock by name, and shall be rock indeed; for on thee,' &c. When noticing those who hold a contrary opinion, he says, they ' have taken such unsuccessful pains to show, that our Saviour, under the word rock, did not understand St. Peter.'

"It was my intention that this letter should have been principally occupied by the subject of the supremacy; but that of the rock has filled more of my paper than I expected, so that I must confine myself chiefly to what you advance in regard to St. Augustine.

66

You say 'It must be admitted this divine was not a thoroughbred Papist. It was some ages after his time, that the man of sin came to maturity, or that the pope was declared universal bishop. Augustine was not fully initiated in the doctrine of Peter's supremacy.'-PROTESTANT, Chap. C. p. 393. With regard to these points, I am at present of a different opinion. In the first place, I find Pope Victor so early as the second century exercising his power as universal bishop, when he threatened to excommunicate the bishops of Asia Minor, for keeping Easter at an undue time; and none of them charged him with usurping a power which did not belong to him.-Euseb. L. V. Hist. Eccles. c. 24. In the third century, St. Cyprian, Ep. 67, wrote to Pope Stephen, desiring him to despatch his letters into the province and to the people of Arles, by which they might be authorized to depose Marcianus the bishop of Arles, and substitute another in his place. In the fourth century, Pope Julius cited St. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, the second patriarch of the church, to his council at Rome, to answer the accusations of his adversaries; he accordingly did appear and was there cleared.-Vide St. Athan. Apol. ag. the Arians. The same pope, about the same time, restored, by his authority, to their respective sees,