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, could say, unblamed, "We and the Socinians are said to differ; "but about what? not about morality or about na"tural 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.

LETTER I.

EXTENSIVE DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY.

Your vindication and adoption of Doctor Southey's expression, that the Roman Catholic Religion is " a prodigious "structure of imposture and wickedness."

I. 1.

IN my first letter to Doctor Southey, after describing the extent of the Roman Catholic religion, and observing that Doctor Southey, in the last line of his tenth chapter, describes it, "as a prodigious "structure of imposture and wickedness;" I ask that gentleman, whether "it be decorous to apply this "opprobrious language to a religion professed in "such extensive territories, several of which are "in the highest state of intellectual advancement, "and abound, as Dr. Southey must acknowledge, "with persons, from the very highest to the very "lowest condition of life, of the greatest honour, "endowments and worth?" I then inquire, if the religion of this large proportion of the Christian world really be, "this prodigious structure of im

દ

posture and wickedness," the gates of hell have not, contrary to the solemn promise of the Son of God, prevailed against this church?

To the first of these questions, you give no answer, and therefore your sentiments upon it can only be inferred from your own pages.

To the second, You reply, (p. 24), that "the "promise of God has not failed, because his pure "church is reduced to the smaller number."

Permit me to suggest, that "smaller” is not, in this place, the proper word. You should have said "a number incalculably small." For, what is the proportion of the Lutherans—the most numerous of all Protestant denomination of Christians, compared to that of all other Christians? Is it not incalculably small? Has not the promise of God failed, if it has only been kept to this, or to any other incalculably small proportion of individuals?

To make the proportion of Christians such, as will save the promise, must not the Roman Catholics be taken into account? Then, can the Roman Catholic church be that "prodigious struc"ture of imposture and wickedness," described by Doctor Southey, and by You?

I. 2.

You intimate (p. 25), "that if the adherents "to Rome are as numerous as I represent, your vigilance must be proportioned to your danger."

If, by the words, " adherents to Rome," you mean to describe the English, Irish and Scottish