ONE church, which our Redeemer was to protect and support to the end of time.

IV. If we advert to the means employed by the members of the Roman Catholic church, in disseminating the light of the gospel, we shall find that the exercises of piety, religion, Christian mortification, and apostolical labour, accompanied the work; and that the divine sanction was afforded by the gift of miracles. Our Redeemer had promised this pre-eminence to his church': the privilege was displayed by the apostles in the conversion of Jews and pagans; and no reason whatever can be adduced, as Grotius owns, why this prerogative should be confined to the apostolic age. From the most authentic testimony, that can be produced to support any fact, we can shew, that the hand of God has not been shortened; that he has generally drawn unbelievers to his church, by the same means which were used by his apostles, and that to the doctrines taught by his authority, he has affixed a broad and authentic seal, by the signs and wonders with which he has honoured his servants. To call this in question, would be to deny the most authentic testimony of all ages and all nations: and accordingly the centuriators of Magdeburgh, speaking of the

Mark xvi. 17.

2 Grot. Not. in hunc loc.

conversion of the Irish by St. Patrick, candidly acknowledge that apostle to have been distinguished by sanctity and miracles, and even to have raised the dead to life; whilst they at the same time accuse him of being the instrument of popery1. What is this but a frank avowal on the part of the enemies of the Catholic church, that the extension of the Roman Catholic religion, commonly nicknamed popery, is connected with the divine sanction of miracles; a privilege which protestantism never professed to enjoy? Precisely in the same manner, the miracles performed by the Roman Catholic missionary, St. Augustine, in converting this country, are acknowledged by Protestants, while they never pretend, that any miraculous work accompanied their "reformation 2." A series of these signs and (wonders, in every age of the church, might easily be exhibited to the reader from the most authentic sources of historical information, admitted by our adversaries, as freely as the Protestant centuriators of Magdeburgh acknowledge the miracles of St. Patrick, or the Protestants of England admit those of St. Augustine. The existence of miraculous operations, performed in the Catholic church, is

1 Vid. Cent. 5 Col. 1426. Cent. 6. Col. 754, 755. 2 See Epitaph. apud Bede, edit. Smith. 1722, c. iii. p. 82. -Fox, book ii. p. 116, 118. Hollings. Deser. Brit. 602.-Stow, 66.-Collier. Pref. to Hist. p.

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therefore to be deemed an unquestionable fact; and surely it requires but little penetration to see, that the divine approbation of that mode of faith, in favour of which miracles are performed, is a direct and inevitable consequence. The fact and the reasoning on it I leave to your Lordship's calm and deliberate consideration.

V. Does it not occur to your Lordship, that the very name of Catholic, which belongs to the true church of Christ, and which has never been given to any but those in communion with the see of Rome, is a clear and decided test, by which the mother-church is distinguished. This is the name by which the church of Christ is designated in the creed; and, as we before stated, it implies universality of time and place, which the Scriptures attribute to the body of the true believers. Those, therefore, who possess this name as their sole and exclusive right, are to be considered members of that grand and splendid establishment which our Redeemer formed. But it will be asked, is this celebrated name the sole and exclusive right of the mother-church? Yes, unquestionably it is, by the unanimous consent of mankind, both friends and foes. Though the most odious nick-names have been profusedly heaped upon the professors of the old faith, by the heat of passion and the virulence of religious rage, yet the attempt to wrest from them the noble and

distinctive name of Catholic, has ever proved unsuccessful. This argument has not escaped the notice of the fathers of the church; St. Augustine adverts to it with triumph on several occasions1; and St. Jerom has, on the subject, a passage which deserves insertion. "To tell you briefly and plainly the sentiments of my soul, we must live and die in that church which having been founded by the apostles, subsists to this day but if in any place you hear that some are called Christians, taking a name not from our Lord Jesus Christ, but from some other, as Marcionites, Valentinians, Mountaineers, Fieldconventiclers2, know that such form not the church of Christ, but a synagogue of Antichrist

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...... Let them not flatter themselves, that they quote the Scriptures for their tenets, since the devil also quoted Scripture; which consists not in the reading, but in the right understanding3." This testimony of the great St. Jerom overthrows the pretensions of those who, having enlisted under the banners of a favourite sect, imagine that with a bible in their hands, they can discover the true religion in all its purity; whilst the very name betrays the novelty of their

'Contra Epist. Fund, c. iv. de Verâ Relig. c. vii. de Utilitate Credendi, c. vii.

• Montenses, Campenses.

St. Hier. contra Luciferian.