councils of Politicians in almost all the kingdoms and states of the civilized world.

A subject so extensive in its objects, important in its consequences, and, withal, so remote in its origin, must necessarily be attended with considerable difficulty and obscurity. These unavoidable perplexities are increased by those clouds of superstition, ignorance, intolerance, prejudice, vindictiveness, and mistake, which for centuries have been collecting, in almost impenetrable masses, to shut out the rays of truth and darken every avenue to historical accuracy.

Another circumstance, particularly unfavourable to the early part of my undertaking, arises in the triteness of the subject. The same truths have been narrated again and again; the same falsehoods have been stated, defended, and refuted in every possible shape. Syllogisms without number have demonstrated and destroyed the same fact; sophism and argumentation have in their turns exemplified and confused the same event:

One thinks on Luther Heaven's own spirit fell,
Another deems him instrument of Hell;

and as one or other of these mistakes has predominated, the records of history have been twisted to answer any or every purpose. Yet this subject in one point of view remains, as

far as I know, untouched: I believe no protestant writer has ever yet attempted to describe the Catholic Church, as distinct from the Catholic Court of Rome; and to display the doctrines and internal discipline of that Church as they are stated and explained by accredited, and universallyacknowledged authors among the Catholics themselves. I know of no writer, who has paid sufficient attention to this obvious truth: that every well informed Christian, of whatever Church or Sect, better knows his own 'opinions, and conceives more justly of the bearings and tendency of his own faith than any other person; that every Church or Society must be the properest judges of its own doctrine and government. This then is the ground I take; this the great design of my work, to give a faithful account of the Catholic Religion, in doctrine and discipline; and to represent these points exactly as Catholics themselves understand and describe them. I am to draw a picture of a living object; and that I may not give an unfair or an improper likeness, I have placed the original before me, rather than copy any picture of the same object that has hitherto been given. But it may be asked, by those who do not discriminate between the candid statement of a fact, and the defence of its consequences, what Protestant, particularly what Protestant Dissenter, will presume to lift up his voice to advocate the cause of the "mother of harlots?" Who will venture his

reputation in the little band against the myriads of zealots, learned and unlearned, priest and layman, king and subject, to support "the beast with seven heads and ten horns?" Who, that is not himself "drunk with the wine of her abominations," will plead for "the scarlet whore of fallen Babylon?" And who, however willing, is "sufficient for these things?" Not the present writer, truly he is neither willing nor able to cope with powers so mighty; but he dare plead the cause of justice and of charity; he has sufficient courage to meet the most pointed shafts of prejudice and mistake, armed, as he feels himself, to be, with the invulnerable panoply of truth. Strictly speaking, in describing the Religion of Catholics he has nothing to do with the burning of heretics; the deposition of kings; the interdicts of Churches or of nations, though these matters shall not be overlooked by him. No one can be more willing than himself to reprobate, in the strongest possible terms, the wickedness of Popes, or the arrogance and spiritual tyranny of Priests. He is a Protestant, from long and serious conviction; but does it, therefore, follow, that he should cherish in his bosom feelings of revenge against those who still adhere to the religion of his ancestors, merely because those ancestors, in some instances, acted unworthy of their Christian calling, and fell into the common snares and common errors of their times? And he must add, that even could it enter into the design of

this work to attempt an apology for the principles, or an excuse for the practices of any part, or of any age of the Catholic Church, it would be no very difficult task to demonstrate, that the crimes by which her annals are disgraced, have in no instance originated from an adherence to any prescribed forms of religious conduct; or any sentiment enforced in her books of devotion and worship.* Much in extenuation might be offered on account of the mental darkness, the political bondage, and the mistaken policy of the ages in which those enormities were committed; while much obloquy would be removed, by distinguishing between the acts of princes and politicians, and those of the heads and ministers of religion.

To state with candour, and to delineate with faithfulness, some of the leading features of Ca- 1, tholic history, and all the great doctrines of the

"We are never to confound the weakness of the minister with the holiness of his ministry. We respect the sanctuary in which Stephen officiated,-though Nicholas profaned it: we revere the place from whence Judas fell,and to which Matthias was promoted: the Scriptures respect the chair of Moses,-though they censure several pontiffs who sat in it; and no Catholic canonizes the vices of popes, -though he respects their station and dignity. The pontifical throne is still the same, whether it be filled by a cruel Alexander VI. or a benevolent Ganganelli." See the Rev. Arthur O'Leary's Remarks on Mr. Wesley's Letter and Defence of the Protestant Association, p. 39.

Catholic faith, uninfluenced by the zeal of a partisan, or the disingenuous arts of an apologist, is the chief, if not the sole, duty incumbent on the author of this work. If in the discharge of this duty, it should appear that a great majority of our fellow Christians have been, and still are, misunderstood in regard to their tenets, and misrepresented in their history; and that from these mistakes, to give them no harsher a term, have been generated and fostered a spirit and conduct on the part of Protestants, unworthy of their principles, and impolitic and unjust in the results, a most important point will be attained, and a desirable object accomplished: for the liberal genius of the Protestant doctrines is most assuredly hostile to all acts of oppression, and all sentiments manifestly unjust.

Prejudice, the source of a thousand evils, would be much lessened against our Catholic brethren, were Protestants carefully to abstain from using terms of reproach and invidious epithets. The very name, though erroneous, by which we first designate a real or supposed enemy, so strongly prepossesses the mind, that no subsequent facts can erase the impression, as long as the first error is persisted in. On this account, a spirit of conciliation will always suggest the propriety of even making some concessions on the side of charity; and will infallibly lead to the use of such terms as the adverse party cannot properly object to; at least, such