be incumbent on the catholics, either to show that the writer, in whose work the passage is found, was mistaken, (which, from the acknowledged character of all the works, will, in all probability, never happen), or to admit that it is an article of their faith: the roman-catholics will then be justly chargeable with it, and with the consequences justly deducible from it. Whatever other opinions can be adduced, though they be the opinions of their most respectable writers, though they be the opinions of the fathers of their church, still they are but matters of opinion, and a catholic may disbelieve them, without ceasing to be a catholic. Would it not be both a fair and short way of ending the controversy between the protestants and catholics, that every person, who charges the general body of catholics with any religious tenet, should be obliged to cite, from the catechism of the council of Trent, or from one or other of the works which have been mentioned, the passage in which such tenet is contained and propounded as an article of faith?

IV.

Application of the preceding Suggestion to the charge of corrupt Doctrine and unjustifiable Practices, repeatedly brought against the Roman-catholic Body in "the "Book of the Church."

I REQUEST you to consider with attention the rule which I have suggested: then to ascertain whether any doctrine, which you have imputed to the roman

catholics, or the sanction of any practice which you have charged upon them, is to be found in the creed of Pius IV, the council of Trent, in its catechism, or in any of the works which I have mentioned, or in any other work of similar authority. If you find it in the council, in its catechism, or in any of the works which I have mentioned, the roman-catholics must abide the consequences. If you do not find it; you may abuse the doctrine and those who maintain it, in any terms you think proper; but you are not entitled to charge it upon the roman-catholics: it is merely the imagination of an individual; it is no part of the catholic creed.

If any of the ridiculous doctrines which are maintained by any of the sectaries mentioned in a publication not unknown to you,-The Letters of Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella*,—all of whom appeal to the scriptures, and protest against popery,

Espriella's list of them is curious: "Arminians, So"cinians, Baxterians, Presbyterians, New-Americans, Sa"bellians, Lutherans, Unitarians, Millenarians, Necessa "rians, Sublapsarians, Supralapsarians, Muggletonians, An"tinomians, Hutchinsonians, Sandemonians, Baptists, Ana"baptists, Podobaptists, Methodists, Universalists, Cal"vinists, Materialists, Destructionists, Brownists, Inde"pendants, Protestants, Hugonots, Non-jurors, Seceders, "Hernhutters, Dunkers, Jumpers, Shakers, and Quakers, "&c. &c. &c." A precious nomenclature! An interesting account of many of these sectaries is given in the "Histoire "des Sectes Religieuses, par M. Gregoire, 2 vols. 8vo. 1810." From this work Espriella might have considerably augmented his own list.

and are therefore, according to the protestant catechism, published by the learned bishop of St. David's, to be deemed protestants-should be charged by a roman-catholic on a protestant of the church of England, as a tenet of his religious creed, might not the protestant justly require the roman-catholic to point out the doctrine or the practice thus charged upon him, either in the Bible, or at least in the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Liturgy? and, if it should not be found in any of these, would not the protestant be justly acquitted of all responsibility for it? By parity of reason,-in all the cases, in which you charge the roman-catholics with corrupt doctrine, is not the roman-catholic entitled to require that you should point it out in the council, or in some or other of the works I have referred to? and if you should not find it, will not the roman-catholics be similarly entitled to an acquittal from all responsibility for it?

It is the same with respect to the practices, for which, in a multitude of instances, you have criminated the roman-catholics, sometimes individually, but oftener collectively: May you not be justly required to show, that the council, or some of the works which have been referred to, contains the doctrine which prescribes, or sanctions, or excuses, the practice thus charged on the roman-catholics? and, if no such doctrine should be found in them, will you not be bound to retract the charge?

Here then I confidently take my stand.—I acknowledge that individual catholics have maintained

unjustifiable doctrines, and been guilty of unjustifiable practices; but I insist on the production of the tenet, justly ascribable to the catholic creed, to which any such doctrine or practice can fairly be attributed. I aver, that no such tenet can be produced if it cannot, I claim for my church an acquittal from your charges.

Does not this alone answer every charge in “the "Book of the Church?" I admire the elegance, the energy of its style, and the many other beauties of composition with which it abounds; but I find nowhere in it a citation from any work, or any document, like those I have mentioned, which prescribes, or sanctions, or excuses any corrupt doctrine, or any unjustifiable practice. Till such a passage is found, much may be said about our creed, and about our practices. We ourselves should join in much of what may be so said; but every charge, not substantiated in the manner I have mentioned,

"Is but leather and prunella!"

POPE.

LETTER I.

A GEOGRAPHICAL VIEW OF THE

ROMAN-CATHOLIC CHURCH.

15

SIR,

THE smallness of the number of the romancatholics in England, compared to that of its general population, is always before the eyes of protestants; and too often prevents them from sufficiently attending to the general diffusion of the roman-catholic religion over the habitable globe; or to the immense numerical superiority of its members over those of any protestant church, and even over those of all protestant churches in the aggregate.

"The catholic," says doctor Milner, "is still "the religion of the states of Italy, of most of the "Swiss cantons, of Piedmont, of France, of Spain, "of Portugal, and of the islands of the Medi"terranean; in three parts in four of the Irish, of "far the greater part of the Netherlands, Poland,

Bohemia, Germany, Hungary, and the neighbouring provinces; and in those kingdoms and states "in which it is not the established religion, its fol"lowers are very numerous, as in Holland, Russia, Turkey, the Lutheran and Calvinistic states of Germany and England. Even in Sweden and Denmark, several catholic congregations, with "their respective pastors, are to be found. The "whole vast continent of South America, inhabited