He says: "to such a man, Gregory VII., could it alone belong to subject the Church to the See of Rome, and then to compel temporal Princes to submit to the Church. We know, gigantic as the enterprize was, how successfully it was executed. By emancipating the Church from the temporal power, this haughty Pontiff was enabled to destroy the dependence of the ecclesiastics on their respective Sovereigns. To no purpose did the German and French Bishops denounce the Papal decree, as requiring what was repugnant to the word of God and the doctrine of the Apostles. In vain did they urge their liability to the same temptations and infirmities as other men: Gregory was inflexible, &c."* What a mass of groundless imaginations have we here! William the Conqueror, who reigned at this time, was so far from finding his power infringed by the observance of clerical celibacy, that he strongly supported it, as appears by the acts of different Councils in his dominions, both in England and on the Continent, and by the testimony of the Pope himself. The Emperor Henry IV., though he strongly contested with Gregory the decree of the Roman Council against simony, did not object to that respecting the continence of the superior Clergy. On the other hand, the Pope, in his letters on this subject, to

the Emperor, and the different Bishops, so far from professing to introduce an innovation in this matter, every where appeals to the decrees of the ancient Councils and Fathers, and to the known laws of the Church concerning it.* Nor is there more truth in what the Vicar says about the German and French Bishops denouncing the Papal decree to be contrary to the word of God, &c.;" so far from this, those Bishops held Synods at Erford, Poictiers, Winchester, and other places, to enforce the decree of that held in Rome in 1074, on this matter, against the concubinary Priests in their respective Dioceses.

I am yours, &c.

J. M., D.D.

LETTER XXVI.

CONCLUSIO N.

DEAR SIR-Here the Vicar concludes what he calls, A Reply to the End of Religious Controversy; and here I fiuish my Vindication of that

* Writing to the Emperor Henry IV. concerning the Council he had held at Rome against Simony and Incontinency in Clergymen, the Pope says, "Nihil novi, nihil ad inventione nostra statuentes, sed primam et unicam Ecclesiasticæ disciplinæ regulam et tritam Sanctorum viam, relicto errore, repetendam et sectandam esse censuimus.” Labbe, t. x. p. 138.

work. Which of us has succeeded, and which of us has failed in his undertaking, it does not most decidedly belong to either of us to pronounce. I trust, then, that in case my Reverend opponent is encouraged by his Right Hon. patrons to take up again the polemic quill against me, he will not be encouraged to resume that unparalleled style of boasting, in which he concluded the Prefatory Remarks to his present performance;* as such a style is not less ridiculous than it is insulting. To me, indeed, this Gentleman does not appear to have proved a single point he has taken in hand : at all events, it is evident that his book is no answer to mine, as he quite overlooks the scope and principal contents of it. To refute this, the Vicar ought to have proved that written laws, of any kind, can have force without the admission of previous unwritten laws, or that they can produce their intended effect; the peace and order of the society for which they are made, without Judges to interpret their meaning, and Magistrates to enforce their observance. Until this be proved, the Vicar must necessarily admit that Tradition is a Rule of Faith, no less than

The Rev. Mr. Grier, speaking generally of the Catholic writers, and alluding particularly to Dr. M., says: "Levity, fallacy, and folly, minutely characterize them, and while they seem to forget the humiliating defeats, which Popery, in all its forms, has sustained since the era of the Reformation, they daily appear to court fresh disaster and multiplied disgrace." Reply, Pref. Rem. p. 46.

Scripture, and that the Pastors of the Church have authority, at all times, to pronounce on the sense of both these Rules; which implies that an opposition to her doctrine, or a pretended Reformation of her Faith, can never be lawful, or practicable. He was bound, moreover, to shew, that, upon his principle, the Divine Founder of the Christian Religion wrote his law, and sent his Apostles to the ends of the earth, loaded with copies of the New Testament, for the instruction of the converts they were to make, and of their successors till the end of time; in which case, as the Vicar is not less convinced than the Bishop of St. David's is, that the Church of Britain was founded by St. Paul, we should have a right to call upon him for the production of an Apostolical Welsh Testament, or, at least, for an account of its disappearance and being supplanted by the Latin Vulgate. A no less difficult task remained for him to prove, namely, that the great bulk of men and women, in different times and different countries, when they have learnt to read the Scriptures, are capable of understanding them, and of making some consistent system or Creed from them: nay, that the most learned and best intentioned Christians themselves have been, and are able to agree in any one system or principle of Protestantism, during these three hundred years of its existence, except in their common disobedience and opposition to their real

Mother, the Holy Catholic Church. And yet, without proving all this, the arguments in The End of Controversy, against admitting each man's private interpretation of Scripture, as the true Rule of Faith, and the necessity of recurring to the tradition and authority of that Church remain in full force. Among other arguments there stated, in support of this conclusion, there is an obvious and striking one, which therefore called for the Vicar's particular notice, I mean the peace of mind and security of conscience which Catholics experience during life, and at the approach of death, by relying on the faith of the Church, while the contrary, as might be expected, is the case with those who, rejecting that Rule, trust to their own uncertain and varying opinions. This, as I said, and as many respectable authors have said before me, is most observable in the latter of these states. In fact, I called upon Dr. Porteus and his fellow polemics, to name a Catholic who, on his death-bed, expressed a doubt of the truth of his Religion, or a wish to die in any other than the Catholic communion: while instances of free and uninfluenced conversion to the Catholic faith, in that situation, have constantly occurred, and are constantly occurring.* To all this, which forms the first part of my work, the Vicar makes no answer; except that

* End of Controv. Let. xi. p. 115.