CONTENTS OF THE FIFTH NUMBER. PAGE What the Question is not - The Deference claimed for Antiquity The Question stated concerning the assumed FACT — Illustration The Motive of the Caution he uses as to the Monks and Clergy. VOL. II. A TO THE VENERABLE THOMAS BEWLEY MONSELL, ARCHDEACON OF DERRY, AND PRECENTOR OF CHRIST'S CHURCH, DUBLIN. MY DEAR SIR; I AM very sensible of the kindness of your late communications, and set a high value upon the expressions they contain of your continued and cordial regard. And yet, how vivid soever may be the pleasure with which I think of your steady friendship, it is with still more satisfaction that I find you declaring your confirmed conviction of the goodness of the cause which I have ventured thus actively to espouse. It has appeared to you, as to others, and I believe to some of the best informed and most intelligent of my readers, that the various criticisms of which these numbers have been the subject, have exhibited more ill feeling and vexation than solid argument; and that the writers, while evidently impelled by an earnest wish to drive me altogether from the field, have left me undisturbed in the position I at first assumed; and have done me as little damage, in their eager assault upon the details of my evidence, as could well be supposed, considering its extent and variety, the vastness of the mass whence it has been drawn, the urgent circumstances under which it has been collected; as well as PREFACE ΤΟ THE SECOND VOLUME. (THE CONSERVATIVE OPERATION OF CHURCH FORMULARIES.) QUESTIONS difficult to be determined in the abstract, and which perhaps will never be resolved in that form, are often, and with much advantage, superseded by the occurrence of events that serve to present them as simple questions of fact, concerning which a doubt can scarcely be entertained-or, at least, will not be entertained by men of a practical turn of mind. Are Creeds, Confessions, Articles of Faith, and other ecclesiastical provisions, intended for the conservation of religious principles, and the maintenance of uniformity of belief, actually availing for these ends; or is their admitted utility, in this respect, overbalanced by their tendency to obstruct the development of Truth, and to promote insincerity in the profession of belief? This question seems now as little likely as ever to be resolved in its abstract form; and well may we excuse ourselves from the attempt so to determine it. Practically, and virtually, every religious community takes for itself the affirmative side, and in one mode or in another-directly, or indirectly, gathers itself around some |