The Jesuit Priest in The Family, the Church, and the Parish: In reply To a Letter by W. H. Anderdon, Sometime Vicar of St. Margaret's, Leicester-now Priest By a Layman. London: Houlston and Stoneman, Paternoster Row. Leicester: T. Chapman Browne, Bible and Crown, Market Place. mdccclii. 110.6.11. ADVERTISEMENT. ALTHOUGH an unwonted delay has taken place in the publication of the following letter, for reasons partly personal to the writer, partly otherwise, and which causes have given rise to sundry clerical errors, such as "mediation" instead of "meditation" (page 6,) the substitution of "deny" for "assert" (page 63,) and "hominum" for "hominem," and others which the reader is requested to excuse and correct; it is hoped that it may not be without its use, in opening the minds of Tractarians and intending perverts, to the idolatries, short comings, and soul seductions of the Romish system, which they are challenged by the Church of Rome to embrace. PREFACE. THAT "extremes are dangerous" is an adage the truth of which our every day's experience proves. In politics, in religion, and in everything which concerns our temporal interests and eternal destinies "extremes are dangerous," but especially is this the case in matters religious. They lead on the one hand to infidelity, on the other to fanaticism; to the vagaries of the Romanist and the presumptions of the Ranter. There is a spirit abroad at the present time, in respect of our Church which needs carefully to be watched, and not less emphatically to be repressed, because it is totally at variance with pure Protestant doctrine-a spirit which if it have leave to pursue the bent and current of its restlessness will unsettle more and more the minds of the people, and impair the usefulness of our Church. It is a spirit of innovation upon our protestant principles, to the disruption of the harmony and well-working of that holy institution which has hitherto been the light and glory of our empire: and therefore as one who loves his Church and admires her constitution and principles, I have felt it my bounden duty to raise my voice against the innovations which, doubtless, well-meaning, but most misguided men are daily practising through the length and breadth of this land. The fanaticism of the Romanists which leads them to idolatry on the one hand, and the maniacal enthusiasm of the Latter Day Saints, which drives them to intolerable blasphemy on the other, are alike reprehensible. The cant of free opinion |