tholic Archbishops of Ireland expressly says 66 no one can be saved out of it." *

And although the absurdity of all this has been repeatedly demonstrated, and the second "middle wall of Partition," within the narrow limits of which they would include Universality itself, has been often triumphantly "broken down;" yet Mr. Butler writes and makes assertions on these subjects, enough to lead his uninformed readers to imagine, that no one ever even questioned these exclusive claims. Where however the artifices of Mr. Butler's book appear is in his leading his readers to suppose that such miracles were really wrought; and yet eluding the question as to any particular miracle. He He professes his belief; but in such a manner that it can yield before the scrutinizing eye of an inquisitive age and country, or be adapted to the degrees of assent, which may be safely given in an ignorant and unenlightened one. He gives up the miracles of St. Dunstan, but does not make himself answerable for any other: and thinks to claim indulgence for such gross impieties by politely

* Bishop Marsh's Comparative View, p. 184.

appealing to our feelings about the darkness of the times which favoured, and the credulity of the people which invited such tampering with the awful truths of Christianity. Let Mr. Butler be pressed upon other narratives of this kind, and we doubt not, but the Calendar will be considerably lessened! This concession however is of importance.

If Mr. Butler complains of the manner in which the Church of Rome has been treated, we may also justly complain of the manner in which the Church of England is treated throughout these Pages. A continued sneer upon this Establishment is kept up; the failings and faults of the Early Supporters of our Church are paraded forth, as if the cause rested on their individual sanctity, the justice of their proceedings, and the purity of their motives; and not on its own internal evidence of conformity to Scripture and Primitive Catholicism. If these men were persecutors, if the age in which they lived was a persecuting age, the Religion they taught is certainly not answerable for it, but the Religion in which they had been brought up. It was from that Religion that the tone of feeling and opinion

was derived to that and succeeding times. Neither is it fair to look for the opinions and practices of Protestants from the age of the Reformation: the state of society, the nature of the times, the conflicting and jarring interests which would naturally be all exerted in crushing the incipient Revolution, necessarily rendered its success a matter rather of contention and violence, than of calm discussion.

Religion was then so totally implicated with matters of state Policy, that the Reformation depended on the intrigues of Statesmen, and the will of Princes; but to suppose that these were always, or even generally conformable to the Spirit of Christianity, would be to show a total ignorance of that profligacy of manners and sentiments which prevailed in that age, and which the Reformation already found in being: and to which it only gave perhaps (like all great changes) a wider range; but is not in the least accountable for its existence. But can this same excuse be made on behalf of the Religion then established? We must remember that it was then in all its vigour and perfection; and notwithstanding the continued sneer with which

the Reformation is always treated by Mr. Butler, we have no reason to believe that the Church of Rome would ever have descended from her lofty claims and pretensions, or abated one iota of her acknowledged abuses, had it not been for the necessity of these things to which she was subjected by the Reformation; and whatever may be said about the impropriety of charging the present members of the Church of Rome with the persecuting character of the days of Queen Mary, this one reflection must be made, that whilst the Reformed Religion is without the least justice charged with the persecutions of the Reformers, those persons of that Communion by whom those terrible persecutions were carried on, lived in an age when the Church of Rome had arrived at the maturity of perfection; in that age, when the last of her Councils, (that of Trent,) gave her the present standard of her Faith, and made her what they intended she should for ever be; not contemplating that change in the sentiments of her modern members, which they so loudly assert has taken place.

The Spirit of Persecution has happily died away: but surely the Church of Rome cannot

e

be asserted to have wrought this great change, if we look to the state of some foreign countries. These reflections would not have been made, had not such importance been thrown over them by Mr. B.'s publication; had he not seemed to have forgotten that whilst he is responsible for the Infallibility of Bulls, and the decrees of Councils; we are responsible for the Infallibility of Scripture alone, and the propriety of that Interpretation which the Church of England, as by law established, has put upon it; had he not confounded that Church with other Protestant Churches, when he unfairly and sarcastically calls Calvin * our own, and spoken of and quoted Luther and other Divines (from whom we widely differ even in matters of importance) †-as if there were no difference between the Church of England, and the opinions of private individuals of other Churches.

And here it may be thought that we are placed in precisely the same situation as the Papists are by Protestants, when they are charged with the opinions and practices of former ages: but there is this great difference, that such men * Page 126. † Page 238.