is doing abroad may be better known among us; and when we begin to contemplate those ages in the same true spirit, as our continental neighbours, we shall discover many misstatements relative to persons who are most deserving of our respect and admiration, even independent of religion: and consequently the objections brought against the divine authority of the papal supremacy from individual examples, will be very much. diminished. Thus have I endeavoured to give you a summary view of the arguments whereon we rest the supremacy of the successors of St. Peter. You have seen what is the ground on which we base it; clear texts of Scripture, interpreted, I am sure without violence, but simply by their own construction, and by reference to other passages in God's holy word. You have seen how this institution has been transmitted and maintained through a succession of ages and of pontiffs, until we reach the one who at present occupies the chair of St. Peter.

The sympathies of his immediate predecessors have been particularly alive to this portion of their flock, and the very Church in which we stand, bears testimony to what the Holy See has felt and thought in your regard. I allude particularly to that venerable High Priest of God, who, of all others, exemplified in himself the indestructible tenure of his dignity; inasmuch as the mighty Emperor, who endeavoured to destroy it in his person, yielded to the fate of worldly things, while he again rose, and sat in peaceful possession of the throne of his ancestors. He, Pius VII., testified his affection for this very flock, by presenting to this Church, when first erected, the splendid service of Church plate, which is yet here preserved. I was in Rome at the time; and I remember well an expression which he used, when some remonstrated with him for parting with the most valuable sacred vessels in his possession: his answer was, "The Catholics of England deserve the best thing that I can give them." And from this feeling of paternal affection, he who now sits in that chair has not degenerated. Of him it may be said, that never did any man pass through the ordeal of prosperity more un

harmed. Raised, successively and rapidly, from the humble and mortified retirement of the cloister, to be first a prince, and then the ruler, of the Church, he has changed nought of the simple habits, the cheerful piety, and the unaffected cordiality, which characterised him there. To the triple coronet which surrounds his brow, has been indeed added a thorny crown, in the political turbulence of his own dominions, and the spoliating and disobedient acts of some of his spiritual provinces. But from these painful topics, he can turn with consolation, to view the daily advances of our holy religion, in this and other distant countries, and the constant encrease of his children, where, not many years ago, his title could scarce have been whispered without danger. And the name which he bears is one of bright omen for us. Twice has it been the source of grateful recollection to Catholic England. It was the first Gregory who sent Augustine and his companions to convert our ancestors to the faith; and when a giddy spirit of error threatened to overthrow and destroy the work, the 13th of the name stood in the breach, supplied the means of education to our clergy, and cherished in his bosom the little spark, which is now once more breaking into a beautiful flame. It is from the very house of the great Gregory, and of his disciples, Augustine and Justus,* that the present Pontiff came forth to rule the Church, animated with the same zeal, and attached to the same cause. Oh! may the same results attend his desires; may he live to see all the sheep, which are not of his flock, joined unto it, that there may be only one flock and one shepherd; that when Jesus Christ, "the prince of pastors," whose vicar he is, shall appear, we may all "receive a neverfading crown of glory."+

*The Church and Monastery of St. Gregory, on the Coelian Hill, possessed by the Camaldolese Monks, were the house of that Pontiff; and on the portico of the Church is an inscription, recording, that thence went forth the first Apostles of the Anglo-Saxons. In this house, the present Pope lived many years, till created a Cardinal.

+ 1 Pet. v. 4.

RECAPITULATION OF THE LECTURES ON THE CHURCH.

JOHN iv. 20.

"Our fathers adored on this mountain, but you say that Jerusalem is the place where men should adore."

There are some of us who say,

SUCH, my brethren, was the question which divided men, and men who believed in only one God, at the time of our Saviour's mission; and precisely similar is the question which may be said to divide us now. that only what we follow is the true path of salvation-that only where we adore, is true sacrifice offered to the living God; and on the other hand, there are those who reply, "this is the place where our fathers have worshipped-this is the religion which we have been taught by our ancestors: why, therefore, should we be expected to abandon it, on account of the claims of another and a more exclusive system?" Happy would it be for us, if we, like the Samaritan woman in this day's gospel, had one to whom we could refer all our disputes, to whose judgment we all should submissively bow! Happy should we be, could we, in the presence of our blessed Redeemer, visible amongst us, examine the respective claims which we have to be considered the true Church of Christ; and that we could be sure, through his personal decision, that the conclusions we have come to, are such as God hath sanctioned !

But, unfortunately I may say for us, although, no doubt in the decrees of eternal Providence most righteously, it is not given us to have such an absolute and final award pronounced in our differences; and hence it is our duty, with all good offices of charity, to bring forward our respective claims— and more especially is this our duty, who feel sure that we possess them, on the most solemn, the most dignified, and the most highly sanctioned ground: if so, haply we may bring to some conclusion, the endless disputes touching religion, which have too long divided us, and those who have gone before us

VOL. I.

U

in the land. I have, so far as my small abilities allowed me, endeavoured to present you with a simple, unvarnished exposition of the Catholic doctrine regarding the rule of faith. I have explained to you the grounds on which we base it— on the authority, that is, of God's unerring word; so that we hold ourselves bound to submit to the decisions, and obey the authority, of that power which we conceive, and are intimately convinced, has been established by him. And, after having carried my subject through so many succeeding evenings, and having consequently some reason to fear, that by being thus diluted, the arguments may have lost somewhat of their force, I propose, before entering on Sunday next upon a new and more important topic, this evening to recapitulate some of the arguments which I have endeavoured to present in so many succesive discourses, that so their strength may be more condensedly and compactly pressed upon your consideration.

I need not state to you again, what is the great and important difference between us and more modern creeds; it is that difference of which an eminent divine of the Protestant Church, and one who has written the most strongly, perhaps, in favour of its grounds of faith, observes, that "the whole of modern religion may be said to differ essentially on this one point what is the ground work whereon faith is to be built?"* I rehearsed to you, in my preliminary discourses, what are the respective opinions of the two Churches, and I fully developed the principle of the Catholic rule of faith, consisting in the belief that there was constituted by God, a compact body, or society of teachers, to whom he gave a promise that he should always assist them, so as ever to instruct, through them, till the end of time. The conclusion was, that the Church, or organized society which he had made the depository of his truth, should not be liable to the smallest

error.

This Catholic doctrine I propounded to you, and placed in

* Leslie.

opposition to that principle of faith which constitutes each individual the judge for himself of what he must believe; which, putting the sacred volume of God's inspired word into his hand, tells him, that it is his duty to discover, and when discovered, to believe, that which may seem there to have been taught by God. Now, it may be observed, that the truest and best proof of any hypothesis, simply considered as such, is to ascertain that it answers every part of the difficulty which it is intended to meet. For it is with it, as with the solution of a problem, where, if the result answer to all the data or suppositions it contains, and answers so, that on trying one portion by another, all are found to agree together, we are satisfied that the solution is correct. It is only on this principle, that the best grounded and most universally adopted theories of philosophy are based; it is on such reasoning as this, that the whole system of the heavens, according to the Newtonion philosophy, can be said to depend. We can have no means of arriving at an intuitive or direct knowledge of the constitution or construction of things; but where we find that laws hypothetically laid, uniformly correspond with all phenomena, and leave nothing vague, but on the contrary, satisfactorily account for all their parts, such a result is the strongest proof that the system devised accords exactly with the truth of things.

It is on this form of argumentation that I have endeavoured to proceed. First of all, I considered the outward form and inward constitution of the Church of Christ to which he confided his religion, as a state foreshown, constituted, and actually existing. As a state foreshown; inasmuch as I explained to you, how God had ever worked in a certain course or order of his providence for the preservation of truth among mankind; how a certain provision was made of old, whereby doctrines and hopes revealed to mankind, but lost, to most of the world, in the corruption which ensued, were preserved, in the constitution of a certain establishment dedicated to that purpose. I showed you that this system was merely figurative