It dishonours Christ, by supposing that | I desire now to state upon what grounds others besides him can make satisfaction for sin. And it nourisheth spiritual pride in some, and encourageth all manner of vice in others. 91. Q. Can you name any other errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome? A. Several others might be named, but those already mentioned are abundantly sufficient to show that the Church of Rome hath, in a great measure, changed the pure and holy religion of Christ into a most wretched and dangerous superstition. 92. Q. What think you of those who live in the communion of so corrupt a church? A. That they are under a most grievous bondage; and therefore I heartily pity them, and pray for their conversion. 93. Q. What do you think then of those who separate themselves from the Church of Rome? May they do it lawfully? A. They not only may, but are indispensably obliged by God's commands to renounce all such idolatrous worship and sinful practices, and may rest assured of his favour in so doing. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (2 Cor. vi. 17.) I have selected you as the person to whom I should address these letters. I am a Roman Catholic citizen of South Carolina, and amongst a number of publications that issue from the Protestant press, which I sometimes read, is the Gospel Messenger and Southern Episcopal Register, by members of the P. E. Church, printed in this city. I observed on the last page covering the No. for this month, an enumeration of Tracts kept for sale on account of the Charleston Female Episcopal, Bible, Prayer-book, and Tract Society, by Edwin Gibbes, No. 48 Broad Street. The first book on the list was a Protestant Catechism, shewing the principal errors of the Church of Rome." I purchased a few copies, one of which now lies before me. I was shocked when I read it. I have read some of the most blasphemous publications of all sorts of unbelievers, but I do not recollect to have ever found more objectionable matter in so small a compass, as in the 16 pages of this Protestant Catechism. I next succeeded in procuring "The First Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Female Episcopal Bible, Prayer-book, and Tract Society of Charleston, made at the Anniversary, May 27th, 1828, (being Tuesday in Whitsun week,) together with the Constitution and Bylaws of the Society, and a list of the Members.Charleston, printed by E. A. Miller, No. 4, Broad Street, 1828," as the Catechism was sold for account of this Society. I found the list of members to contain the names of several of the most amiable, respectable, and benevolent ladies in our community. I looked at the Catechism, and then again at the names. I reflected whether it was possible that those ladies believed the truth of the contents of that book. If they did, how could they associate with Roman Catholics? If they did not, how could they exert themselves to disseminate what they did not believe to be true, and that most insulting and degrading to the great of the most defamatory nature, and the majority of the Christians now in the RIGHT REVEREND SIR:-The station which universe? I looked again over the pages you hold in our community, and your own of the Catechism. I found that it entered deportment, demand and receive my re-into topics of such a kind as I imagined spect. It might, however, happen that in the course of a few letters which I have thought proper to address to you, some expression would escape, that a jealous scrutiny could interpret as wanting in that deference and courtesy which you have a right to expect. Let me beseech you not to attribute such expressions, if they should appear, to any unkind or disrespectful feeling; let them be put to the account of inad 94. Q. What then is your design? A. I am resolved, with God's help, to live and die in the Protestant faith, as it is contained in the wholesome word of God. And I beseech Him to give me his grace, that I may make a public and constant profession of the true religion, and add to that profession the practice of a godly, righteous, and sober life, through Jesus Christ, our only Saviour and Redeemer. Amen. LETTER I. To the Right Rev. Doctor Bowen, Bishop of the vertence. those good ladies were not accustomed to discuss; such as the nature of the formula subscribed by Pope Liberius; the disputes between the Arminians and the strict Calvinists, and those stated to have existed between the Jesuits and the Dominicans. I looked at the list of managers, and must avow that I was perfectly astonished at the discovery of their competency to decide upon such topics. But when, on looking over the list of "members for life," I dis covered your name, together with that of two clergymen, and an honourable laygentleman who has swept through the whole literature of ancient and modern times, I was led to believe that the managers sought for more than pecuniary aid from you and your associates. I therefore looked to the Constitution, and the perusal of the first article convinced me of the modest diffidence and correct judgment of the ladies, and pointed out the individual who made himself responsible for their publications. Article 1. This Society shall be called the Female Episcopal Bible, Prayer-book, and Tract Society. Its object shall be the distribution of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and such Tracts as shall be APPROVED OF BY THE BISHOP. In the list of tracts circulated I find the twenty-first item to be "71 of the Protestant Catechism, showing the errors of the Church of Rome. pp. 16." that the church of which I am a member has been misrepresented, vilified, and insulted, and to call upon you, not as the person who has done the injury, but as the officer who can afford the redress, to heal those wounds, by arresting, as far as you have power, the progress of the evil. I shall now proceed, Right Reverend Sir, to exhibit to you some of the misrepresentations of our doctrine, which this Tract or Catechism contains. That you may the more easily discover where the propositions which I lay down are contained in the Catechism, I beg leave to inform you that I have numbered all its questions, and I shall refer to the number of the page and the number of the question, commencing at and continuing from the beginning. The whole number of questions is 94. Misrepresentations of Roman Catholic Doctrine and Practice. 1. p. 7. Q. 37 and 38. That Roman Catholics pray to angels and saints to save them by their merits, making those angels and saints mediators with Christ, or in his stead. 2. 3. As my object is to complain of that publication, Right Reverend Sir, I naturally address myself to you. And I do so in the hope, that you have never read the production of which I complain, but given to it the sanction of your name and office, and approbation, upon the general principle that it was a Protestant Catechism, or because of the report of some person upon whose judgment you placed incautious and too easy reliance. I do so in the hope that if I should 4. succeed in showing you that this Catechism contains several untruths, and a multitude of libellous charges upon innocent persons, together with the most opprobrious, injurious 5. and uncharitable expressions, illiberal in their own nature, and contumeliously insulting to a large portion of your fellow- 6. citizens, you will have the candour and magnanimity to disapprove of the publication, and thus induce those good ladies to 7. withdraw it from their agent. 9. My intention, Right Reverend Sir, is not to enter with you upon a polemical disquisition to prove the Roman Catholics in the right and Protestants in the wrong. I go 8. farther, and state, that even if you or any friend of yours should endeavour to give such an issue to my effort, I am at present disposed to leave the field without even placing my lance in its rest. I seek not controversy upon the doctrinal differences of the two churches. Neither is it my object or intention to insult or to vilify the Protestant church, or any of its institutions or members. I have so frequently felt the pain which is inflicted by similar conduct, that I should deeply regret my being its cause to another. My object is, to show 10. 11. p. 8. Q. 39. That Roman Catholics dishonour Christ our only mediator. p. 8. Q. 39. That Roman Catholics give to creatures the worship due to God alone; and are thus guilty of direct idolatry. p. 8. Q. 42. That Roman Catholics worship the blessed Virgin, mother of our Lord, in such a way as to commit downright idolatry. p. 9. Q. 44. That Roman Catholics worship the images or pictures of the Virgin Mary and of other saints. p. 9. Q. 44. That Roman Catholics violate the second of God's commandments without scruple. p. 9. Q. 45. That notwithstanding such violation without scruple, Roman Catholics seem to be sensible that their practice is contrary to the said second commandment. p. 9. Q. 45. That therefore in several of p. 9 and 10. Q. 46. That Roman Catho- or were. p. 10. Q. 48. That Roman Catholics worship the crucifix, or figure of Christ upon the cross, which is idolatrous. 12. p. 10. Q. 48. That Roman Catholics adore and pray to the cross, which of all the corruptions of the Roman Catholic worship is the most gross and intolerable. 13. p 13. Q. 66. That Roman Catholics worship bread and wine in the eucharist. 14. p. 13. Q. 66. That by such worship of the eucharist they are betrayed into the grossest idolatry. 15. p. 14. Q. 75. That Roman Catholics suppose that every sinner, by way of satisfaction to God for his sins, must suffer some temporal punishment, both in this world by penance, and in the next by purgatory, even though he has sincerely repented and forsaken his sins, and received absolution. 16. p. 14. Q. 75. That Roman Catholics found the doctrine of penance upon the aforesaid supposition. 17. p. 15. Q. 77 and 78. That the correction of the sinner, and the admonition of others, although the true end of penance, is not answered by the practice of the Church of Rome. 18. p. 15. Q. 78. That by the practice of Roman Catholics, the sinner is allowed to get another person to do the penance for him. 19. p. 15. Q. 78. That the Pope grants indulgences, whereby he sometimes remits all penances of such sins as shall be committed for a great number of years to come. 20. p. 15. Q. 78. That the Pope grants indulgences, whereby he sometimes remits all penances of such sins as shall be committed during a man's whole life. 21. p. 15. Q. 78. That those indulgences are considered by many Roman Catholics as licenses to commit sin. 22. p. 15. Q. 78. That the public sale of those licenses to commit sin is practised by the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, or of the Pope. 23. p. 16. Q. 83. That to observe days of abstinence, as the Roman Catholics do, is that mark of a departure from the faith which is given in 1 Tim. iv. 3; and is unlawful. 24. p. 16. Q. 83. That the practice of observing days of abstinence, as the Roman Catholics do, hath in fact destroyed the moral use of fasting. 25. p. 16. Q. 83. That Roman Catholics teach that luxury and drunkenness are 26. 27. 28. consistent with fasting, provided parti- p. 16. Q. 85. That the Church of Rome p. 16. Q. 85. That the prayers of the church, by which those souls may be delivered, may be lawfully sold for money, according to the teaching of the Church of Rome. I have here, Right Reverend Sir, given to you my first list, but as I have divided the contents of the little book into various classes, I have in those twenty-eight propositions only laid down the misrepresentations of our tenets upon some points of doctrine and of practice. Of course, Right Reverend Sir, as you protest against the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, and instruct others in the reasons for your protest, it is but a reasonable supposition of mine to assume that you are very accurately informed upon the nature of those doctrines, and can easily and at once discern a doctrine which the church teaches to have been revealed by God, and the full belief of which she insists upon as absolutely necessary for being in her communion, from an opinion which, though considered as well founded by a very numerous class of her children, yet does not regard a subject upon which it was ascertained that God ever made a revelation, and regarding which her members may freely differ, since God has left them free. Now I need scarcely observe to you, that amongst the above propositions there is one which is false, because it asserts an opinion of only a portion, to be the doctrine of the whole church. Í must add what I trust is also over caution, that in stating practices which are charged against the church, I have of course added that they were sanctioned either by the doctrine or by the authority of the church, for it is obvious, and your candour will admit that no practice could be imputed to the church which she did not so sanction. I have also Rome and the Roman Catholic Church to be in the present list considered the Church of intended in the Catechism to mean the same body, and that body the Roman Catholic Church; though of course I need not inform you that they differ as much in their true meaning as do the Church of Canterbury and the Protestant Episcopal Church. I now, Right Reverend Sir, will take the liberty of asserting, that each and every one of the above twenty-eight propositions is found in the Protestant Catechism, which is published and sold and distributed as by your sanction, authority, and APPROBATION, and that no one of the said propositions is true; they are each and every one of them utterly void of truth; and yet the clergymen in your churches, the teachers of your Sunday schools, and the good ladies who form the Tract Society, disseminate them to your children as the TRUTH OF GOD, exhibiting to them, at the time of life when they are most confiding and susceptible, and from that authority which they are taught to identify with the truth of God, that not only the Roman Catholics, but also the separated Greeks, the Muscovites, and Armenians, and so many others, are all idolaters, having no better excuse than the heathens. These bodies of Christians, Right Reverend Sir, might be fairly computed at least to contain considerably upwards of two hundred millions of souls, whereas the remainder comprises in truth less than forty millions. Thus, Right Reverend Sir, you will observe what an argument you create against the Christian system, if you consent to uphold the assertion that five-sixths at least of the Christian people through the world are guilty of downright, direct, gross, and intolerable idolatry. You do not yourself believe such to be the fact; at least, I should hope you do not; it would be mortifying to me to suspect you did: and since you do not yourself believe it, I surely do not expect too much, when I hope you will vindicate your name by forbidding falsehood to be taught in the temples of the living God, and to those children for whom you must so seriously answer before the tribunal of your God and theirs. As I understand from those who have the honour of your more intimate acquaintance, that you are anxious to be considered a firm supporter of what they call the pure, sterling, orthodox doctrine of the good old Church of England, and by no means as being a new light or evangelical. And as I desire to conform to your own wishes upon this point, I suppose you have no objection to be classed with such men as the reverend prebendary of Westminster, and I expect to hear you address those good ladies in his words: "Do not lead the people by the nose, to believe you can prove the papists to be idolaters, when you cannot."* Am I in error, when I assert my conviction that the respectable Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of South Carolina * Thorndike's Just Weights and Measures. does not believe that a Roman Catholic indulgence is a license to commit sin? I think too highly of his intellect, I appreciate the extent of his reading too much, and look upon him to be too prudent and too dispassionate to allow him to fall into the egregious mistake which this little book maintains, under the apparent sanction of that prelate's authority. No, Sir! I will not easily suppose you have yielded to this unfounded delusion; and surely if you did believe that Roman Catholics could purchase those licenses, as this book asserts by your apparent authority, you are bound to exert yourself for the public welfare of the state. There can be no security in the city of Charleston for life, liberty, property, or peace, if onesixth of its inhabitants may be thus licensed to commit every crime for a trifling pecuniary compensation. Your duty would be, if you believed the statement of the book, to denounce those destroyers of society to the legislature, and to cause them to be excluded from our state; their existence amongst you would be a greater curse than a Haytien importation. Did you believe the truth of the charge, you would be a criminal for not having used more strenuous efforts, though I believe that you can not be accused of lack of industry, and more open denunciation to keep Roman Catholics out of the state. Your comparative apathy is then to me evidence of your disbelief of the charge, and leads me to hope that you will vindicate your name and fame from what I must call a libel upon more than twothirds of Christendom. It is generally, and I would say correctly, thought that a gentleman of your rank, station, character, and information would upon the discovery of a single falsehood in a book for the instruction of children in the truth of God and the way to Heaven, have the error corrected or withdraw his sanction, and endeavour to repair the injury that had been done. I am led to hope that you think thus also. But if there be a case which above all others calls for such conduct it is the present, in which a number of the most amiable, virtuous, and dignified ladies of one of our most polished states, have, through reliance upon your judgment and integrity and honour and delicacy of feeling, given their names to the public as the disseminators of the book which in the places referred to contains, I would say, twenty-eight distinct untruths, which are not only offensive to five-sixths of the Christian world, but injurious to the cause of Christianity. Suppose, Right Reverend Sir, that my enumeration were fastidious or incorrect, you will at least I trust acknowledge that the little book contains more untruths than one, where I LETTER II. B. C. To the Right Reverend Doctor Bowen, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of South Carolina, &c. &c. &c. of Christ, dethrones Christ, sets himself above God, and a variety of such phrases; teaching Protestant children in their Catechism, that Roman Catholics acknowledge the Pope to be the supreme head of the church, without any qualification or explanation, is greatly misleading them: and if done with the intention of causing them to believe that Roman Catholics substitute the headship of the Pope for that of Christ, is an artifice to which I trust nothing could induce you to stoop. The Catechism obviously imputes this substitution of headship to Roman Catholics, and therefore I note it a RIGHT REV. SIR:-In my former letter I brought under your observation twenty- son was to insinuate that your flock demisrepresentation, equally great as if a pereight propositions from the Protestant Cate-throned Christ by calling you the head of chism, which are so many misrepresenta- the Protestant Episcopal Church of South tions of the belief and practice of the Roman Carolina. Catholic Church. I shall now exhibit some of a similar description, but whose phrase- 2. ology is generally so constructed in the little work itself as to render occasional explanation proper, in order to have a distinct and accurate notion of each proposition. I am one of those persons who think that we cannot be too precise in our modes of expression regarding science or religion, if we desire to have a knowledge of things and not merely a show of words; hence you will, I trust, excuse me if I sometimes dwell perhaps tediously and with apparent fastidiousness upon what, though plain to you, might require some farther development for persons not so well accustomed to theological inquiries, and several of whom will read these letters. I shall proceed to refer to the book upon the system laid down by me already. Misrepresentations of Roman Catholic Doctrine and Practices. 1. p. 2. Q. 5. That Roman Catholics acknowledge the Pope to be supreme head of the church. It is a principle amongst Christians to which the Roman Catholics have at all times most religiously adhered, that Christ, and he alone is the supreme head of the church, which consists of the whole body of faithful believers, whether in Heaven, on earth, or in Purgatory; that is, whether triumphant, militant, or suffering: as they believe the church divided. Now Christ is not only according to them the supreme head of the entire, but of each portion: that portion on earth is to us a visible society duly organized, and having a visible head on earth, besides its invisible head in Heaven. And, since the charge generally urged by many Protestant writers against Roman Catholics is, that the Pope usurps the place p. 2. Q. 5. Roman Catholics teach that besides the Scriptures, they are bound to receive as the rule of Faith whatever the Church of Rome directs. I might at once without any explanation state this to be plainly untrue; but since in my former letter I admitted that I looked upon the phrases "Church of Rome," and Roman Catholic Church," to have been indiscriminately used in the little book, it might be urged here, that by the phrase used, the Roman Catholic Church was intended. You know, Right Reverend Sir, that, properly speaking, the Church of Rome is only the Diocess of that city, and does not cover onetwentieth as large a space as does the Dio"Roman Catholic Church" is spread through cess over which you preside, whereas the all the civilized nations of the earth, as also through a majority of the barbarous tribes: the Church of Rome does not contain one million of souls; the Roman Catholic Church contains upwards of one hundred and fifty millions of souls; however high the place of that principal church might be, it is a particular Church, it is not the entire church; Roman Catholics look upon the Church of Rome to be the See of the Chief Bishop, they consider the Roman Catholic Church, to be the universal Church. This notorious and palpable distinction is generally evaded by those who wish to create a confusion of ideas by which both expressions would appear to mean the same thing, and thus give rise to the notion that when we say, we learn anything from the universal church, or from the Roman Catholic Church, we mean that we leam it from the particular church of Rome, which would be an evident misrepresentation of our meaning. This proposition is then untrue, inasmuch as it insinuates that the authority of the |