This inflamed widow lady is then admonished in the following

manner:

"Consider, then, I beseech you, madam, the frightful consequences of the proposed marriage:

a

1

1st. it will be unlawful. 2ndly. It will therefore be infamous. 3dly. Should it produce children, they will be illegitimate. 4thly, You will put it in the power of your enemies to commence most vexatious prosecution against you in the ecclesiastical courts. 5thly. You must be expelled the church of hich you are a member. 6thly. You will sin against the precept which requires us to be subject to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake; and, having grieved the spirit of God, by sinning against him, may you not be left in darkness, weakness, and misery, during the remainder of your days, and sink at last, hopelessly siuk, into a guilty grave? "You cannot contemplate, without horror, an act which would involve you in consequences so dreadful. You must deprecate so dark and tempestuous an evening of a day, whose morning, nay, whose noon, has been so luminous and so serene. You will, there fore, pause. You will look up for strength to your Almighty Protector. You will hasten to extinguish the spark of unhallowed love, ere it become a consuming flame. You will shun the scene of temptation, ere your feet are entangled in its inextricable labyrinths. And should God so bless what I have said, that it may assist you in the conquest of a specious but dangerous passion; should your soul escape, as a bird out of the snare of a fowler; should the snare be broken, and

I should suppose, Sir, you have now had quite enough of Methodistical "Miscellanies."

"IX. Obituary." This portion has, as you may suppose, a near affinity to portions I. and VII. Flames and raptures, extasies and fights, poetry and singing, extravagancies and professions, are the sure and certain indications, in the mind of a Methodist, that the subject of them is in a state of grace. The sun of a Methodist's life, whatever the morning and noon of his day have been, seldom sets with a calm and serene aspect, If it is not overclouded, it sinks behind the hills red and glaring, and threatens to singe with its declining heat whatever escaped the intenseness of its meridian splendour. It is truly astonishing that many persons, whose whole lives have been devoted to slander and tale-bearing, to reproach and bigotry, to the indulgence, if not of the grosser and more outward indecorums of lawless passion, have nevertheless rioted on the good name of their neighbours, and have rejoiced in evil, and burnt with revenge against their real or supposed enemies, when they come to die, leave the world chaunting Hallelujahs, and exhorting all around them to follow their steps. Not one sigh of remorse for the mischief they have spread with their tongues-not a

single word of repentance escapes them for the falsehood and bigotry, the rancour and malice, in which they have long wantoned. No compunction do they manifest for the many sly arts they have practised against their neighbour's reputation, welfare, and happiness! But if they have at any time departed from the rules of the sect if they have been negligent f class, band, love-feast, watch-night, or prayer-meetings -if they have thought meanly, 2. e. justly, of the brethren-if they have affronted an impudent and obtrusive preacher-they call those things to mind with a pecu, liar pungency of feeling. Clouds and shadows intercept, for a moment, the pure rays of their ❝evidence," and they dread, or affect to dread, the final removal of the "candle of the Lord." But soon their " backslidings are healed," the light breaks forth with renewed splendour, and they are hymned into the presence of that dread Being, who requireth truth in the inward parts." These are awful considerations; would to God these Methodists would pay attention to them before they come to that state wherein the judgment being weakened by disease, is incapable of directing them, with a becoming sense of their real character, to that fountain of mercy which is opened for all those who consistently apply to its efficacious streams.

"X. Missionary Intelligence." It is not necessary to devote a dozen lines to this point. Letters from brethren, both from the Fo reign and Home Missions, make up the Intelligence of this part. They are exactly such letters as we may suppose such men would

write, who, knowing that their communications will appear in print, and that they shall be "highly honoured for their works' sake," contrive to amplify and enlarge the accounts of their services, and to make a large swelling bill of the many vile sinners they

convert.

66

XI. Poetry." Psalms, hymns, and canticles, (a very fit name, if one might be allowed to pun on these occasions, for the muse of Methodism,) occupy a closing page of this precious periodical. Taste and elegance are so entirely out of the line of a Methodist's conception, that it would be the heighth of folly to look for good poetry in the "Arminian or Methodist Magazine."

Thus, Sir, have I analyzed the contents of a publication, which never fails to encourage a spirit of persecution and intolerance against Catholics. In my next I shall attempt a vindication of the truth, against that scurrilous attack on your work, which I have already alluded to. Yours,

Jan. 2, 1813. A CATHOLIC.

66

Adhering to those principles of misrepresentations for which the sect has long been conspicuous, Dr. Buchanan tells us, that between the Chinese empire and the Church of Rome there has been a long and ineffectual contest, because," he adds, "the Church would never give the people the good and perfect gift, the Bible ;" and that "it (meaning the Church) further degraded the doctrine of the cross by blending it with pagan rites." In this, I venture to assert, Dr. B. has said the thing that is not. Catholic Missioners, it is true, have not, in the first instance, thrown the good and perfect gift, as a thing of no value, among an ignorant and prejudiced multitude of heathens. They would have been unworthy of their sacred office if they had: but that they never gave this precious gift to their converts it is false to assert; neither is it true that the Chinese empire and the Church of Rome have ever had any contests on this account; and still less that Catholic Missioners have ever mixed with the doctrine of the Cross any pagan rites. The religion of the Catholics, whether preached in China or elsewhere, has ever been the same; and this Protestant. Doctor might as well affirm that the doctrine of the

at the Tabernacle and at the City Road Chapel; and he has acquired a sort of license to abuse the Catholics, who are always deemed fair game by these modern Evangelists. And now, while I am upon this subject, permit me to add, that the No-Popery cry is again about to be raised, for the sole purpose of giving vigour to the ministerial Anti-Catholics. Tottenham-court-road chapel, the Tabernacle, and others of these Calvinistic seminaries, have already sounded the tocsin of intolerance, and the sound will shortly reach the ends of this Protestant free land, even to the very barus and licensed cock-lofts of the meanest villages. Rowland Hill, the

"violent and intolerant joker of Surry Chapel," as ant able and liberal Protestant author has justly denominated him, has begun to "lift up his voice like a trumpet."-The "House of God," as Johanna's first floor tabernacle is blasphemously called, has caught the blessed sound : from thence it has reverberated even to "the mad mansions of Moorfields ;" and Brother Benson has squeaked an echo to it— yea, even the Class Leaders of St. Giles's, and the Exhorters of Saffron-hill, have come to a noble determination to "support the Government" against the bloody Papists of Ireland, and the wicked priests of England. They have all forgotten and forgiven Lord Sidmouth and bis bill, and are returned, "like the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire," to their wonted exercise of damning one another, slandering their neighbours, and crying “No Popery!"

Trusting these hasty and care

the general Baptist as a heretic and a worldling the Wesleyan Methodist charges the Whitfieldian Methodist with maintaining opinions injurious to sound morals, and derogatory to the honour of God; the Whitfieldian, in his turn, terms the Wesleyan a "work-monger," dangerously trusting to his own virtues for salvation, and despising the meritorious sacrifices of the cross : The one is a Solifidian, the other Plagian. The one will be damned for having too much faith, the other for having none at all. Such are the consequences of a departure from the common principles of the Church of Christ-such the effects of having no fixed rule of faith, no common rallying point of Catholic union!

THE EDITOR.

shall be saved, but he that be lieveth not shall be condemned.' St. Mark, c. xviii. v. 16. There is, there can be, no alternative.

There does exist no "species of Heretics," who, in the sense of the church, can be considered as entitled to eternal life for they who employ not the means, can never attain the end.

Your correspondent is desirous of some information on the subsequent curious, though perhaps interesting question, "Whether all those are to be considered condemned Heretics, who do not belong to the present Roman Catholic Church?" With some degree of propriety I might answer this question, by asking the following: Are the immoral, the libertine, the violater of oaths, the drunkard, the liar, condemned," by the moral, the tem

retics.

To the Editor of the Catholic Magazine.

SIR,

IN reply to a "Sincerely inquiring Protestant," I have to remark, that the Catholic Church defines heresy to be an obstinate error in matters of Faith. A Heretic is therefore, one who obstinately adheres to any error relative to the known faith and doctrine of the Catholic Church.

The question, whether a person of this description can be considered to be in a state of Salvation, is answered by the Son of God himself, who, empowering his Apostles to go into the whole world, and to preach the gospel to every creature, immediately subjoins this important truth: "He that believeth and is baptized

tuous ?" The principles, Sir, the actions, are condemned, but you pronounce not the condemnation of the man: him you leave to the unerring justice of his God. In the same manner the Catholic Church may be said to condemn the errors of whatever sect or denomination, from the days of Simon Magus to those of John Wesley. But be it remembered, she pronounces not the eternal doom of the authors and abettors of those errors, unless they refuse a reconciliation, and ultimately expire separated from her communion.

To conclude, sir: the Protestant Bishop, Dr. Pearson, has long since declared in his exposition of the Creed, that “none shall ever escape the eternal wrath of God, which belong not to the Church of God." This doctrine is in union