other parts similarly treated, and thereby be made contradictory just as passages in the writings of St. Paul may be made to oppose others in those of St. James. On such subjects few persons are in search of truth: men are born Romanists or Protestants, Tories or Whigs; and seek only for justification of the religious or political sect to which they belong: their minds are made up, and they fear to be unsettled. Nor is the fear unwise. It is doubtful, however, whether this fear be not rather caused by a secret conviction that they have no very strong foundation for the things they most firmly believe, and an apprehension of meeting with difficulties which they would not be able to answer.

Be this as it may, the time is come when nothing that will not bear the most rigid examination will be able to abide; and every individual must share the fate of the system of which he is a member.

The Roman Catholic Church is the only ecclesiastical body in Christendom in which the life of the body can be manifested, because she alone possesses both the will and the power of action. This character is claimed for her by her sons as a ground of admiration, and confessed by her enemies as a cause of apprehension. In whichever way her ability is considered, the fact remains the

same; and whether her energies be employed for good or for evil, her living power cannot be denied.

The cause of this vitality is not that the individual members of her communion are more filled with spiritual life than the members of any other communion: they may or they may not be; and let it be granted that they are, still the energy of the Roman Church does not depend upon the condition of any or of all the individuals of which she is composed, but upon her possessing a centre of unity, by which all her members are directed as one body, to which they submit all their differences of opinion, by the decisions of which they willingly abide, and according to which they obediently walk without this unity, no corporate body can act, or give forth signs of life. Moreover, within her pale alone is to be found every Christian doctrine and every holy rite: wherever she can operate freely, all charitable and benevolent institutions abound, as in Rome, Genoa, &c. &c.: the power of her guides over the rest of the community is absolute, so that if Roman Catholic countries have not been patterns of virtue and morality to the rest of the world, the cause must be sought in the wickedness of the men who have neglected to use aright so efficacious an engine, and not

in the want of power in the instrument at their command. When she is charged by Protestants with abounding in superstitions, it is unconsciously conceded by the charge itself that her children abound in faith. If it be urged that she has over-loaded the worship of God with idle ceremonies, it is admitted that her heads have sought to render His service worthy of His glory; if her rites are too gorgeous, it is at least implied that she has laboured to instil into the spirits of the worshippers sentiments of reverence, devotion, and adoration.

If every allegation made by Protestants against the rites of the Roman Catholic Church were wellfounded; if every charge against the conduct of the Bishops and Priests could be sustained so far as the general practice and discipline, though not so far as the conduct of particular individuals is concerned; if all the censure which has been heaped upon Popish superstition were justifiable, it is contrary to historical truth to deny that every one of these practices was introduced by men as holy as were any of their accusers, and whose sole motive in what they did was God's glory and the welfare of their fellow-creatures. It is not possible for the spirit of malignity and falsehood to have produced any thing more iniquitous than the perversions of facts that are

found in Protestant writers against Popery; and they continue to this day, abounding in almost all the published tracts of those who call themselves κατ' εξοχην religious people:" whilst at the same time it must be acknowledged, that in the application of principles in themselves good, the very worst things are made to follow in the hands of those who now use them; and that they are become very different from what their founders intended.

In the government of mankind, whether in secular or ecclesiastical affairs, the question that occurs most frequently for the rulers to solve is,— What is practicable with the materials with which they have to work? rather than,-What is absolutely right, and would be practicable, under other circumstances? The propriety or impropriety of a measure depends upon whether it is one which tends to the attainment of, and is in progress towards, the perfect idea; or whether it is a departure from the true idea, altogether incompatible with its developement, and tending towards the substitution of another for it: yet, although, that which is eternally and abstractedly wrong, never can be temporarily or practically right, on sudden emergencies it may be wise to act in a way that is opposed to a course which is right in ordinary circumstances, as Dictatorships of old were found

occasionally necessary to preserve the most jealous democratic republics.

It is much to be regretted that the defenders of the Supremacy of the Patriarch of Rome have taken their stand upon premises which are wholly untrue, and not upon others which are undeniable. After the death of St. Peter, St. John survived many years, and he was the sole governor of the Church. St. Peter could leave no successor to the government of the Church, even if he had ever possessed it, because at his death it would have devolved naturally upon his coequal, St. John. The Scriptures positively and undeniably declare that Apostles are first in the Church; and, therefore, at St. Peter's death, St. John was first, and not St. Peter's successor. All the historical arguments which pretend to shew any deference given to St. Peter's successor by other Bishops, are false; and it is an unfounded assumption that St. Peter was ever Bishop of Rome: if he were, St. Paul treats him with unjustifiable disrespect, for he wrote an epistle to his flock without asking his leave so to do, or making any allusion to him. But let it be granted that St. Peter was primus inter pares of the Apostles to the Jews, which, doubtless, he was; still this gave him no jurisdiction whatever over St. Paul, whose mission was not to the Jews but to the Gentiles. If Rome were in