transmitted either by the Scriptures or uninterrupted traditions; and thirdly, that the church should propound that it was thus revealed, and has been thus transmitted.

After this explanation of the doctrine of the church upon this head, I call upon you to declare, whether there be the slightest ground for insinuating that I wished to induce my readers, by an ambiguous expression, to believe what I knew to be untrue, and deserved, on this or any other account, a harsh name, for what I have said in the passage which You have thought proper to criminate?

If I have mistaken your meaning, I beg you will excuse me; I have taken great pains to discover it.

III.

Your assertions respecting Bossuet's " Exposition

of Faith."

I AGREE with you that "the catechism of the "Council of Trent, is the best exposition of the "Roman Catholic creed." But, as I have observed in my introductory letter to Doctor Southey, a proper perusal of that document requires attentive study. I have, therefore, recommended to those who are unable to give it such a perusal, Bossuet's "Exposition of Faith," and the other works I have specified. You say, that "Bossuet's Expo"sition, contains only the sentiments of a pious "individual." Bossuet was certainly a pious individual; but he was much more. Eloquence, power of argument, and erudition, were united in him in

so high a degree, as to render it very doubtful whether the Christian or Pagan world can produce even one person, in whom they have all been united in the same degree. Nor is the " Exposition of "Faith" to be considered merely as the work of an individual. The formal approbation of the archbishops of Rheims and Tours, and the bishops of Châlons, Uséz, Meaux, Grenoble, Tulle, Auxerre, Tarbes, Beziéres and Autun, are prefixed to it. Cardinal Bona, Cardinal Chigi, Hyacinthe Libelli, master of the sacred palace, also approved it. Pope Innocent XI. sanctioned it by two briefs. The clergy of France, in their assembly of 1682, signified their approbation of it, and declared it to contain the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church. It has been translated into the language of every country, in which the Roman Catholic religion is either dominant or tolerated. Roman Catholics have but one opinion of it all, without exception, acknowledge it to be a full and faultless exposition of the doctrines of their church.* I could not, therefore, have referred Protestants to a more authentic exposition of the Roman Catholic creed.

You tell me that Bishop Stillingfleet answered Mr. Gother's" Papist Misrepresented and Repre

* Permit me to refer you to my Life of Bossuet, chap. VI. or rather to "Histoire de J. B. Bossuet, Evéque de Meaux, composé sur les manuscrits originaux par M. L. B. de Bausset, ancien Evéque d'Alais, vol. I. livre premier, sect. xxxix. M. De Bausset was afterwards raised to the archiepis copal See of Toulouse, and honoured with the Roman purple."

sented:"--Mr. Gother triumphantly replied to Stillingfleet's answer.

Doctor Challoner's "Garden of the Soul" having been mentioned by me, as the most popular prayer book of the English Roman Catholics, you ask me, (p. 21), "Whether, if I am a father, "a brother, or a husband, I would place in the "hands of any woman, the contents of pages 213,

214," meaning, I suppose, that part of the Examination of Conscience which contains the sins against the Sixth Commandment? If you ask, whether I should place those very pages in the hands of a woman; I answer, that such an act would be abominable. If you ask, whether I should place the book in her hands, and recommend it as an excellent manual of prayer; I answer, without hesitation, that I should. Notwithstanding the loves, and something worse than the loves of the patriarchs, the story of Judith, and the song of Solomon, You place the Bible in the hands of children and adults of each sex, and recommend it as an excellent book for their perusal. You trust that they will only read it in moments of seriousness, and pass over the noxious passages, when the perusal of them is improper: -We do the same.

IV.

Your assertion, that Arminianism, Calvinism, Quakerism and Socinianism, may be found in the writings of the Romanist divines.

AT the end of your letter, (p. 23), You inform me that, "You could have selected from the

"writings of the Romanist divines, nearly every "doctrinal opinion which is advocated by the jar

ring sectaries of your church." "Arminianism," you tell us, "was the doctrine of the Jesuits; "Calvinism, of the Jansenists; Quakerism, of the "Franciscans; Socinianism, in all its gradations, "from Arianism to Belshamism, was taught by "the authors enumerated in the Roma Raco"viana." Here, You do the Roman Catholic church, and her communities,-You even do the unhappy Jansenists,-great injustice. No Roman Catholic can advocate any of the jarring doctrines You mention, without incurring, in the opinion of their church, the guilt of heresy. The Jesuits are not Arminians, the Jansenists are not Calvinists,-(but what they are is of no consequence to the Catholic church, as she has rejected them from her communion);-nothing can be more unlike to another than the Franciscans are to the Quakers; and if any Roman Catholic held Socinian doctrines, in any of the gradations You mention, he would be thought, by all Roman Catholics, to have abandoned the Roman Catholic faith. Nothing, except Atheism, or Deism, is so much opposed to the Roman Catholic religion as Socinianism. The late Dr. Hey, the Norisian professor, instructing the English youth from a theological chair at Cambridge, (Lect. Vol. II. p. 41), could say, unblamed, "We and "the Socinians are said to differ; but about what? "not about morality or about natural religion. "We differ only about what we do not understand,

"and about what is to be done on the part of "God; and if we allowed one another to use

expressions at will, (and what great matter "could that be, in what might be called unmeaning "expressions?) we need never be on our guard "against each other." Permit me, Sir, to assure you, that if in any part of Christendom, in which the Roman Catholic religion prevails, a professor had uttered these, or similar words, he would have been instantly expelled from his professor's chair; and no explanation, no retractation, no penance, would have restored him to it.

V.

Your assertion, that all the new orders of the Romanists appeal to Popery, and protest against the Scripture.

YOU then say to me (p. 23), "the fanaticism of new sects among us, was the same with that of

new orders among you; yet all these appeal to popery, and protest against the Scriptures." Here, for want no doubt of proper information, You do us an injustice, that cries to heaven. All the orders of the Church of Rome receive-all bow to the Scriptures-all would consider a protest against them to be blasphemy. Traditions contradictory of the Scriptures, or derogatory from them, are held by all Roman Catholics to be impieties.