one man. And even now, as I write these lines, the evidence of the influence that Roman Catholics can bring to bear upon the young and upon the old is instanced in two reports in the Times newspaper the one that of MISS TALBOT, the other that of poor MATHURIN CARRÉ. Let us be warned in time, and submit to no such tyrannical domination! "And now, since no wise man will ever suspect us, that we will ever grow to that height of madness as to run perfidiously from the standard of God to the tents of the Roman Antichrist,-is there any hope that the Papists will ever be drawn back to the sound and pure judgment of the Primitive Antiquity? Oh! that God would vouchsafe this grace to world, that we could but comfort the Christian selves with the hope of so great piness!" Bp. HALL, our- "No Peace with hap- Rome," vol. i. 683. Folio. As an instance of our regard for that reverend antiquity which the Papists appeal to and abuse, I have given numerous extracts from the Fathers as introductions to each Sermon. It will not detract from the value of my own collections to state, that Jewel has used very many of them. I detected this in recently going over his works, when preparing the Life of that worthy, inserted in a recent number of the English Review, and in which I have spoken of his fair fame in terms of deserved veneration, respect, and admiration. I will only add in words from Bishop Croft's "Legacy "-" No man is such a stranger in our Jerusalem as not to know what is daily discoursed in all places. Many timorous zealots cannot hold in their fears; many insulting Papists cannot hold in their hopes that Popery will again bear rule in this nation. For my own part, weighing things according to reason, I mean such reason as God hath given one, I cannot see any great probability of it." VICARAGE, WEST TARRING, SUSSEX, Ed. 1679, 4to, p. 68. "In ipsâ item Catholicâ Ecclesiâ magnoperè curandum est, ut id teneamus, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ub omnibus, creditum est: (Hoc est etenim verè proprièque Catholicum, quod, ipsa vis nominis ratioque declarat, quæ omnia ferè universaliter comprehendit,) sed hoc ita demum fiet; si sequamur Universitatem, Antiquitatem, Consensionem. Sequemur autem Universitatem hoc modo, si hanc unam fidem veram esse fateamur, quam tota per orbem terrarum confitetur Ecclesia: Antiquitatem verò ita, si ab his sensibus nullatenus recedamus, quos sanctos majores ac Patres nostros celebrâsse manifestum est: Consensionem quoque itidem : si in ipsâ vetustate, omnium vel certè pene omnium Sacerdotum pariter et Magistrorum definitiones sententiasque sectemur." - VINCENT. LIRIN. adv. Hæreses, c. ii. "Ille est verus, et germanus Catholicus, qui veritatem Dei, qui Ecclesiam, qui Christi corpus diligit, qui divinæ religioni, qui Catholicæ fidei nihil præponit; non hominis cujuspiam auctoritatem, non amorem, non ingenium, non eloquentiam, non philosophiam; sed hæc cuncta despiciens, et in fide fixus, et stabilis permanens, quidquid universaliter antiquitùs Ecclesiam Catholicam tenuisse cognoverit, id solum tibi tenendum credendumque decernit: quidquid vero ab aliquo deinceps uno, præter omnes, vel contra omnes Sanctos novum et inauditum subinduci senserit, id non ad religionem, sed ad tentationem potius intelligat pertinere.”—IBID. c. XX. |