is it safe to build doctrines on the foundation of reason, apart from Revelation? And where is the doctrine of Purgatory revealed in Scripture?"

"In the second book of Maccabees 4."

"But that book is not Canonical. Nor does it follow that, even if it were good to pray for the dead, we ought therefore to accept the doctrine of Purgatory; the prayer there mentioned was for holy persons, that they might have a joyful resurrection "."

"But the Fathers who lived in the next age to the Apostles taught this doctrine of Purgatory.'

"Pardon me: they may have written some passages which speak of a purgatorial fire at the last day, supposed to be described by St. Paul, but none of them ever taught the Roman doctrine of Purgatory as a state of departed souls."

Supplicia expendunt; aliæ panduntur inanes
Suspensæ ad ventos, aliis sub gurgite vasto

Infectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igni.

Quisque suos patimur Manes; exinde per amplum

"But the Catholic Church now teaches it." "No: the Roman Church does; but not the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is the Church of all time, as well as of all place, and if the doctrine of Purgatory was not taught by the Church in the time of the Apostles and of the primitive Fathers (as, assuredly, it was not), it cannot be said to be taught by the Catholic Church. And, since the Church of Rome imposes upon all persons this doctrine, and many others, which were never taught by the ancient Church, therefore it is evident that she is not the Catholic Church; nor even a Catholic Church, so far as those doctrines are concerned; but that in these respects she is a schismatical and heretical opponent of the Catholic Church. And this she has done in a remarkable manner by her new dogma of the Immaculate Conception."

"But," said he, "our Lord promised to St. Peter His perpetual presence and support, and founded His Church upon him; and therefore we may be sure that when the successor of St. Peter takes counsel with the Bishops of the Catholic world, as he did in the promulgation of that doctrine of the Immacu

late Conception in 1854, Christ Himself speaks by the mouth of His Vicar, the Bishop of Rome."

"How then was it, that, when the question of this same doctrine was brought before the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century which she calls a general Council, and asserts to have been guided by the Holy Spirit, the Bishop of Rome did not then determine the controversy which divided the Franciscans and Dominicans on this very subject? If this doctrine is true now, surely it was true then; if it is necessary to salvation now, it was necessary then; and if our blessed Lord has appointed the Bishop of Rome to be His Vicar

:

"At the fifth session of the Council of Trent in A.D. 1546 in the Bull of Pope Sixtus IV., A.D. 1483, it is candidly owned that the doctrine had not yet been decided by the Pope ("nondum a Romanâ Ecclesiâ et Apostolicâ sede decisam"). And even in our own days the present Pope, Pius IX., said in his letter dated from Gaeta, Feb. 2, 1849, that " a vehement desire had arisen in the Catholic world, that it should at length be decided by a solemn decree of the Apostolic See, that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without original sin;" and he made this dogma to become "an Article of Faith " on the 8th of December, 1854.

on earth, would He not have declared the truth of the doctrine then, and have put an end to their angry debates ?"

66 But," said he, "the time had not then arrived for the declaration of the doctrine. Do you not know what Vincentius Lirinensis says, that the Church teaches 'non nova, sed novè ?" "

"But this dogma is novum: it was never made an Article of Faith before, as it is now by the Church of Rome."

"It is only a development of what was old." "Pardon me, it is a new heresy, opposed to the old faith. The old faith is, that Christ alone was conceived and born without sin; and this new dogma is a contradiction of the old faith and this your theory of development, as you are aware, though patronized in modern times by some of your learned divines, especially in England (who perceive that Rome teaches much that is new, and that they must devise some theory to account for it), was strongly censured by one of your greatest theologians, Bossuet, writing against the Calvinist Jurieu, who had broached that same theory of Development."

"But Bossuet is not an authority with us now."

"No: though unity of teaching is professed by the Church of Rome, yet her doctrines and opinions change from time to time. Bossuet was honoured once, and the theory of Development was proscribed: but now the theory of Development is adopted, and Bossuet is in disgrace."

you

"Well, but what principle of belief have Protestants? Where is your norma fidei? The Bible, and the Bible only, I suppose, interpreted by every man, woman, and child as they like best."

"Yes, the Bible is our rule of Faith; but not the Bible interpreted by every man according to his own caprice: the Church of England declares in her sixth Article that the Holy Scriptures are her Rule of Faith, but she also says in her twentieth Article that 'the Church, i. e. the Universal Church, not the Roman, has authority in controversies of faith;' and, in fact, she sets before her people in her Liturgy the three Creeds as her doctrinal standard, and as an authoritative interpretation of the Bible, in matters of Faith."