that have changed, added to, and taken away from, the word of God, so fearfully denounced by the Holy Ghost (Apoc. xxii. 18, 19): then you will find it easy, with the grace of God for which you have to beseech Him, to ascend the steep mountain of the Lord, until you arrive in the holy city, at the seat of St. Peter, and finally in the New Jerusalem of eternity.

A FEW WORDS ON THE CHIEF AIM OF THE GOSPELS AND EPISTLES.

Having cursorily examined each particular book of the New Testament, the truth of the reasons previously given for their ever having been written, will not less clearly have been perceived by the candid reader, than the absence therein of all and every vestige, of the Bible being a rule of faith, or its having ever been intended as such, whether the sacred writings be taken individually or collectively, will have forced itself upon his mind. He will moreover have noticed, that, excepting the gospels as simply historical accounts of our Saviour, all the epistles of the apostles have but one prominent and chief aim, namely:-to inculcate obedience to those who have the rule over the Church of Christ, and to warn the faithful against false teachers, pointing out at the same time, in the most simple manner, how these wolves in sheeps' clothing infallibly may be known, in order to shun them. St. John, the loving and beloved apostle, admonishes the faithful, "to avoid those that separate themselves." Now from the beginning there was the community of the apostles, of their successors, and the flocks committed to their care, all one united body, forming that visible" Church, to which were added daily such as should be saved." (Acts ii. 47.) It was thus easy to see, who separated from this visible communion. The Church grew up, and we continue to see, how in every age, one heretic after the other, often with multitudes in his train,

separated from this one and undivided fold. The Church, though dispersed throughout the world, was visible enough in the assemblies, in the councils of her pastors; and the voice of these councils, of the good shepherds of the fold of Christ, also loudly enough pointed out and proclaimed, "those who separated themselves, sensual men, having not the spirit." (Jude i. 18.) Thus, no one ever could, or ever can plead ignorance, down to this very day, in following to destruction any one who separated himself. Though not one only, but legions even were to fall away, they would still be those who separate themselves. In this, the Church of Christ is not unlike the kingdoms of the earth; hers is indeed a by far more extensive empire, than even that of the greatest nation; her provinces are by far more numerous; and her authority, being divine, is far superior in essence and in fact, than any, which armies and navies, wealth and earthly power can confer.

Now in the one, so in the other it is very easy to see who separates himself, who separate themselves. Do individuals, families, provinces, colonies, by quitting or rebelling against the empire of this country, separate themselves, or does the empire separate from these? Does the deserter separate from the regiment, or does the regiment separate from the deserter? Did the heretics and schismatics, did the Catholic province of England separate from the Empire of the Church? Ör did the Church separate from these? The answer is very easy; but, to make the separation of the so-called Reformers, and of several Catholic provinces of the Church, more marked, more manifest, tangible even to the meanest capacity, the providence of God had decreed: that at that time, at the misnamed Reformation, there should be universal peace; that the empire and authority of the Church should be undisputed, unquestioned; that she should be seen by all nations as the real city on the mountain, the Church on the

Rock, with the quiet ocean of the world beneath her sceptre of charity; that the powers of hell, overcome, and tired as it were, of their continual warfare against the Church, over which they are not to prevail, should lie prostrate; that in this universal calm it might be the more easy, for a child even, to know and avoid those, who would arise to make dissensions, or would separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit of Christ and His Church.

In this universal repose of Christendom it was, that seemingly prostrate in the conflict with the spouse of Christ, hell was preparing her most desperate onslaught, was transforming the fallen priests of the Church of God into seeming Apostles of Christ. (2 Cor. xi. 13.) Luther arose, and soon after him followed a host of "false apostles and deceitful workmen ;" 66 some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils;" (1 Tim. iv. 1, also 2 Peter iii. 3, Jude i. 18), and these "some" were not only manifest to all the world, but Luther himself proclaimed it, saying: “at first I stood alone:" thus forcing upon every hearer the knowledge of his apostacy from and rebellion against the Church. But he, who with his fellow Deformers, was to have been avoided as separating himself, and, according to the warning of the apostle, shunned like a pestilence; was, alas! followed by numbers who, like himself, could no longer bear the yoke of Christ; was in particular followed by those, kings and princes, who from the beginning were always the last to embrace, and the first to forsake the religion of Christ; and thus, the whirlwind raised by the powers of darkness gathered strength, and in its destructive course devastated some of the fairest fields of the Church. There you behold the manifest, the violent separation from the Church, from the body of Christ, the inundation as it were, of a part of the Catholic globe. But as weeds last only a certain number of years, so here

also; the black seed of dissension, the cockle of the enemy, the weed which the whirlwind, which the flood carried in its train and deposited in its own congenial soil, has now well nigh reached its height; and withering away upon the exhausted mud of corruption, let us hope, that it will conduce again to fertilise the land which it covered, making the soil ready for the reception of the good seed of that ever faithful husbandman, the Catholic Church. O, my dear reader! do you still want to know who they are that separate themselves?

Trusting, that with the help of God, we have satisfactorily shown to you from Scripture itself, that the sacred writings are no rule of faith, that you should avoid all dissenters and separatists, but obe the lawful authority of the Church: we will now briefly give you

PROOF FROM REASON, THAT THE BIBLE cannot BE A RULE OF FAITH,

always remembering, that religion does not come from reason, not from the will of any man, but must of necessity come from manifest divine revelation or authoritative teaching.

The child does not speak, you teach it to speak; it has no ideas, it does not understand, but you teach it to have ideas, teach it to understand; it does not understand what it reads, you teach it to do so. In this manner you speak to the child of religion, and you make it understand; it thus understands as you do, because you have taught it so to understand. If you place four different versions of the Bible before the child, point out to it that, which you think the correct, the true one: it then learns from your verbal teaching, by tradition, that the Bible is the word of God, and that such or such a translation is the true, and the others the corrupted gospel of Christ. It thus believes of Christianity, of the Bible, exactly what you believe, through your verbal traditionary

If

teaching; its knowledge does not proceed from reason. Do you believe however, that, though teaching, you yourself understand correctly? Are you infallible in construing, in understanding rightly? If you think so: where did you get your certain knowledge? Call back to your mind the years of your childhood; how did you learn? how did you learn to understand? Was it from verbal teaching? Were your teachers infallibly right in what they taught you in religion? Or, did you forsake their teaching, when you came to think for yourself; and did you then put your own construction upon what you read? Were you manifestly inspired in construing what you were reading? Or did you construe, did you understand from reason? If so is your reason infallible? not, as you must confess it to be: can you put faith in a book, in which to believe you have no other· ground save the fallible guidance of your own reason, or of fallible human authority, telling you, PREVIOUSLY even to your opening the Bible, that therein you are to read, therein to seek your salvation? Can a book save you, of which you know nothing except from human tradition; a book too, which with all your traditional knowledge of it, you are not infallible in understanding rightly? Would it not be preposterous, if a medical work, though plain its English, were put into the hands of every patient, and the doctors sent to the whereabouts? Would it not be still more preposterous, nay, exceedingly laughable if it were not too serious, to see any man or woman, learned or illiterate, attempting his or her own cure from a book, of whose contents they could not have the slightest notion, unless it were from previous teaching, and from competent teachers too? And is it not the same with the holy gospel, which in the hands of the doctors of the Church, or under their teaching, is the remedial book of the soul? Can you, my dear reader, with any claim to common sense, still cling to the Bible as your only means of salva