Let the cautious inquirer never suffer himself to be diverted by such subterfuges from the real question of debate: let him never for a moment forget, that, under the pain of their Church sinking into the character of a rank vender of gross imposture, the Latins stand pledged to demonstrate, from competent historical testimony, the naked FACT; that All the doctrines and all the practices of modern Romanism were divinely communicated by Christ, were authoritatively inculcated by his Apostles, and were from them directly and immediately received by the individual members of the strictly primitive Church Catholic'.

population. See Scott's Hist. of the Church of Christ. vol. i. p. 546-551. On comparing dates, I incline to think, though I speak under correction, that the illuminating Tract, alluded to by Mr. Scott, is Mr. Husenbeth's production, entitled A Defence of the Creed and Principles of the Catholic Church. Happily, such Creed and such Principles are the property, not of the Catholic Church at large, but only of a particular branch.

1 In cheap assertion of alleged historical FACTS, few persons are more lavishly prodigal than Mr. Husenbeth: and doubtless, with the ignorant or the careless, his unblenching intrepidity may occasionally produce its desired effect.

EVERY article of our creed, says he, comes down to us, hallowed by the concurrent testimony of eighteen centuries—The testimonies of the early Fathers abundantly shew, that EVERY SINGLE article of our faith was taught FROM THE BEGINNING.

b

2. Should any gentleman of the Latin Communion deem this statement too severe, in so far as it regards the full amount of the FACT to be substantiated: he has my free consent to lower it even to the very utmost extent of his wishes.

But, in that case, he must recollect, that, if he once admits the non-inculcation of any particular doctrine or practice by Christ and his Apostles; he forthwith concedes its origin to be purely

Defence of the Creed and Discipline of the Catholic Church. p. 25, 65.

My simple reply is: PROVE IT.

We are ready to shew, says he, that our religious practices are grounded upon Scripture and the UNIVERSAL practice of Antiquity. Ibid. p. 101.

Again I reply: SHEW IT.

In the third century, says he, St. Cyprian speaks of secret sins confessed to the Priests and of remission granted by them. St. Ireneus, Tertullian, and others, testify to the practice of SECRET confession to the ministers of the Church. Ibid. p. 93. Once more I reply: PROVE IT.

On the matter of secret confession to a Priest, for Mr. Husenbeth makes his word secret designedly emphatic by printing it in Italics, I incline to believe, that he has never consulted the author to whom he so boldly refers, but that he has implicitly rested at second hand upon the intrepid assertion of the not very scrupulous Bishop of Strasbourg: periculosæ plenum opus aleæ. See below, Append. numb. ii. § I. (2.) (3.) (5.).

Other specimens of Mr. Husenbeth's rapidity of assertion will hereafter be exhibited. As a foretaste, these, for the present, may suffice.

human: and, if he thus concedes its origin to be purely human; he simultaneously admits the mere unauthoritative novelty of the doctrine or practice in question.

IX. It may peradventure be proper, that I should say a word on the nomenclature systematically and advisedly adopted throughout the whole of the present Work.

1. In the legitimate use of the term, I am far from denying to any individual in communion with the Church of Rome the appellation of CATHOLIC: for I believe his particular limited Church to be a branch, though a very corrupt branch, of the Catholic Church of Christ.

Hence, as a Greek, or an Armenian, or a Syrian, or an Anglican, or a Scot, is severally a Catholic; because, though individually belonging to a particular national Church, he is generally a member of Christ's Church Catholic: so, in the self-same sense and on the self-same principle, a Latin, or a member of some one of the particular Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome, is indisputably a Catholic also.

2. But, after the restless humour of Ishmael whose hand was against every man that every man's hand might be against him, the gentlemen

of the romish persuasion are not content to share the name of CATHOLIC with the members of other Churches which are quite as independent as the Church of Rome can be: they, on all occasions, affect to assume it, as being, what in truth it is not, their own proper distinguishing appellation; they claim it, in short, as being their own, not in joint tenancy, but absolutely and specially and exclusively.

3. Now this most absurd and arrogant assumption, which puts them in a posture of schismatical hostility against every other branch of Christ's Universal Church, can never be allowed by any Christian, who for a single moment gives himself the trouble to consider its obvious and inevitable tendency.

(1.) If he concede to the Latin the title of CATHOLIC as his own proper exclusive and distinguishing appellation: he of course virtually excommunicates himself and commits a sort of ecclesiastical suicide, by acknowledging, that he has no right to the name of CATHOLIC, and consequently that he is not a member of the Catholic or Universal Church of Christ our common Lord and Saviour.

(2.) Such being evidently the case, it follows:

that, while the spiritual subject of the Pope is a Catholic, precisely as, and not an atom more than, a Greek or a Syrian or an Anglican or a Scot is a Catholic; the distinctive appellation of that papal subject, whereby we mark him out among the general collective body of Catholics, must plainly be some other appellation which he can vindicate to himself exclusively.

4. On this principle, the papal subject in question may be fitly called (for I am no way curious about the precise name of distinction, provided only, for convenience sake, we have a name of distinction), either a Romanist as a member of the Roman Church taken in its largest sense, or a Papist as one who acknowledges the duty of spiritual submission to the Pope, or a Latin as one who is in communion with the Latin Church of the Western Patriarchate of the Roman Empire.

5. Our Legislature has, I believe, conceded to religionists of this description the name of RomanCatholics

In this compound title there is nothing to censure, save its manifest and prolix superfluity. No doubt, a Roman is a Catholic: whence, by a palpable truism, every Roman is a Roman-Catholic; for, while he is a Roman as a member of the