second commandment: but he has not told us in how many he did find them. I will, however, for once appeal to his boasted sincerity: and will venture to assert, that if he have the courage to speak the truth, he must acknowledge, that for one Catholic book in which he did not read the words in qustion, he discovered twenty in which he did. I will also tell him in what books he or any of his friends may read them. They may read them in every edition of the bible that has been printed by Catholics, in any language. They may read them in the different authorised catechisms to which I have also referred in the note below :* and they may also read them in almost every Catholic book of popular instruction.

Here I may be allowed to ask two questions. 1. By what system of casuistry can a sincere and ingenuous adversary reconcile it with his conscience, to accuse a church of suppressing a particular doctrine, because, though he has discovered it in the majority, he has not discovered it in a few of the books written by members of her communion? 2. By what laws of reasoning can a fair disputant attempt to shew that a church endeavours to conceal a doctrine from the eyes of the people, when she publishes it in almost every book, which she exhorts them to read? It must be evident that if the words of the commandment are not fully expressed in every catechism, the omission cannot be justly attributed to the cause which it has pleased the zeal of our adversaries to assign: and that they may not in future be obliged to plead their ignorance as an excuse, I hope they will have no objection to learn the true reason. It is well known, that for many

* Catechismus Romanus, part 3. Institutiones Christianæ pietatis a Petro Canisio. (To this Vaux was much indebted.) Catechismo di Napoli, par. 3. The Flemish catechisms: Christelyke leering voor de Catholycke jonkeyt, p. 30. Christelyke onderwizing, p. 167. The German catechism, Catholischer Catechismus, Hamburgh, 1769. The French catechisms, de Montpellier, des Eveques, de Meaux, or that lately published for the use of the French empire. The English catechisms, &c. If these be not sufficient to convince him, I will furnish him with fifty more.

centuries before the birth of the reformation, the Catholics were accustomed to arrange, on the authority of St. Augustine, the decalogue in such manner, that whatever regarded the worship of God should be comprised under one division. Thus, what Protestants call the first and second commandments we call the first. The relative merit of the two divisions is foreign to the present subject. I merely state the case. Now as children among Catholics are taught the catechism almost as soon as they begin to lisp, it was thought adviseable to abridge the commandments, for their use, so that each precept should be confined to one line, which generally is in rhyme. The commandment in question was expressed in these or similar words. One God alone thou shalt adore. Now it is evident, that here can be no intention of suppressing the prohibition of idolatry. 1. Because even these words prohibit it: 2. Because as the children grew up, they were compelled to learn the larger catechism, in which the commandments are repeated at full length, and the prohibition is carefully enforced in the questions and answers. It is tedious to be so diffuse upon trifles. Had the accusation been made by some obscure controversialist, I should have treated it with the neglect it deserved: but it derives importance from the dignity of its author, and from the repeated though feeble efforts of his apologists. It was therefore a duty to display our own innocence, and to remind our adversaries, that besides the prohibition of idolatry, the decalogue contains another precept: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.*

* Page 17 is beneath criticism. The Durham clergyman seems to be alarmed with the consciousness that he has undertaken a weak cause. His imagination is perpetually conjuring up spectres to affright him. At every step he fancies himself caught in a trap laid by his crafty adversary. The Bishop had said: " To disguise such repugnance to the "letter of God's commandment, an artifice was adopted, &c." To what did such repugnance refer? To the practice of Catholics. Where then was the dishonest expedient, to make the Bishop say, that the practice of Catholics was repugnant to the letter of God's commandment? The clergyman says that the Bishop does not found his censure on that ground. I am happy to learn it. Our doctrine then is now confessed not to be contrary to the letter of the commandment. But he did found

In the progress of his reasoning, the Bishop's antipathy to the Catholic faith drew from him an argument, at which candour and liberality would blush. The Remarker disdained to give it a direct answer, but hurled it back with contempt to his opponents. If it were conclusive, it would undermine the whole fabric of the established church: he therefore desired them to solve it themselves. The attempt has been made. Elijah made it, and ended by abjuring the Athanasian creed.* The clergyman endeavours to improve the argument by illustration, and his illustration has exposed it in all its nakedness. He states it in this manner: "We cannot be surprised that those who "believe bread and wine to be the real body and blood "of Christ, that is, truly God, and deserving divine "worship, as such, should likewise, without much difficulty, believe, that an image may partake of the divine nature of Christ, and may therefore deserve, "as such, the worship due to God; that if the body " and blood of Christ may subsist under the accidents "of bread and wine, they may also subsist under the "accidents of carven wood, or molten brass." To refute such empty reasoning is of itself a humiliation. Without adverting to the inaccuracy of the expression in the first part of the argument, it may be sufficient to reply:-That we believe the body and blood of Christ to subsist under the accidents or appearances of bread and wine, because he has expressly asserted that they do but that he has not asserted that they subsist under the accident or appearances of carven wood, or molten brass?

66

66

The clergyman proceeds to shew that the argument, as retorted by the Remarker, does not apply to the right reverend Prelate. I must acknowledge, that in this part of his pamphlet I should have more admired, not only his powers of reasoning, but also his sincerity, had he not adopted an artifice, proscribed by the

66

his censure on that ground: and if he did not think it repugnant to the letter of the commandment, why did he assert that we had suppressed the commandment in order to conceal its repugnance to the letter? * A Protestant's Reply, p. 10.

"laws of literary warfare." The three whole pages which he devotes to the solution of the difficulty, do not even remotely refer to it. They indeed prove, that the belief of the divinity of Christ is no superstition, which the Remarker did not dispute; but they do not prove that any answer can be given to the Unitarian by the Protestant, which, in the mouth of a Catholic, will not be equally powerful against the Bishop. I shall therefore, take the liberty briefly to restate the argument of the Remarker, and to solicit an answer from some of the admirers of the charge. If to believe that the body and blood of Christ can subsist under the appearances of bread and wine, necessarily dispose the Catholic to worship the creature image instead of the Creator; it follows that to believe the Divinity existed on earth with a body made of the same flesh, and subject to the same infirmities as our own, must also dispose the Protestant to worship the creature image instead of the Creator. If the Bishop or his apologist reply by proving the divinity of Christ, I hope they will also approve of the answer which I have given in the preceding paragraph. If they prefer any other mode of reasoning, I will pledge myself to shew that it will equally furnish a solution of the argument employed by the Prelate against the Catholics.*

* The Clergyman denies that the scripture is as clear for transubstantiation as for the divinity of Christ. This is, I fear, a shuffle. What the Remarker contended for was the real presence of the body of Christ in the eucharist: when once that is settled, it will be time enough to decide whether it be there by transubstantiation or by any other means. Till this be done, I will, with his permission, undertake to produce texts as evident in favour of the real presence, as he shall produce in favour of the divinity of Christ. As to the assertion that the belief of the divinity of Christ is very different from a tenet, which is contradicted by the evidence of the senses, and can be proved to be true, only by destroying the foundation of our assent to all truth, I ask whether the divinity of our Saviour was not contradictory to the evidence of the senses? The clergyman proves that he was God, not from the immediate testimony of sense, but by arguing from his actions and declarations, that though in appearance he was man, yet he also was God. In like manner, do we not argue from the words of our Saviour, that though the eucharist be in appearance bread and wine, yet in reality it is the body and blood of Christ? If I perfectly understand my opponent, I should not doubt

G

With a light and indulgent hand, the author of the Remarks had ventured to touch an ancient sore, the established doctrine on the subject of the Lord's supper. His sacrilegious temerity has alarmed the piety, and provoked the indignation of my opponent That learned clerk seems to fancy that the Catholic tenets alone are fair and open game. At them every hungry or ill-natured divine, every hunter after favour and preferment, may direct the shafts of ridicule and misrepresentation. It is one of the graces of the reformation; an appendage to the liberty of the children of God. But the doctrines approved in the thirty-nine articles are sacred things. If a Catholic writer presume to enter the veil of the sanctuary, to draw them out of their obscurity, and exhibit them in their native colours, a thousand arms are raised to lash his arrogance and impiety. The Remarker had observed that the Protestant doctrine on the Lord's supper, appeared to his judgment something like nonsense. It was indeed a harsh expression; but I do not conceive that could offend the ears of those, who so liberally bestow the terms of absurdity, superstition, and idolatry, on their adversaries. Neither do I think that it was very difficult to vindicate the propriety of his language. Let us go to the catechism, which the Durham clergyman is supposed to teach, and to the thirty-nine articles, which he has subscribed. The catechism is meant for the use of children; we may, therefore, conclude that it is accommodated to the weakness of their capacity, and drawn up in plain and perspicuous language. Now in this catechism we are taught "that the body "and blood of Christ are verily and indeed received by "the faithful in the Lord's supper." May I then ask, whether the body and blood of Christ be there, or not? They are not, replies my opponent; nothing more is received than the graces, which Christ's sacrificed

that had he been present at the baptism of Jesus, he would not have believed in the descent of the Holy Ghost over his sacred person, lest he should destroy the foundations of our assent to all truth. He perhaps never learned that "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."-Rom. x. 17.