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Lord made the pass word of deception in the mouth of these fanatics, these disgusting intruders who throw off all the natural reșerve and delicacy of the sex, quit the bosom of their families to prowl our streets, and contrary to to the express prohibition of the Apostle, seize on the Scriptures, and turn preachers of the word. The two engaged on this occasion, with the exception of a large sprinkling of evangelical slang, had the address, manWas of respectability ners, and appearance it not then a melancholy exhibition to see them canting in alternate verse the psalms of David, dealing out sublime hints, and mysterious axioms about the blessedness of having experience of Christ, grace of righteousness, liberty of the Gospel, &c. &c.;" whining over the misfortunes of a highly accomplished and virtuous Catholic in refusing to admit ba the Bible as the sole and infallible rule of faith; groaning in Spirit, and with affected piety, pharisaical rigour, and evangelical liberty, declaring that salvation under such circumstances was more than doubtful!

Of all this mischievous slang, their fling at the Church by law established, appeared to me "There is no such the most extraordinary;

thing as a Catholic Church, or any other Church existing on earth, neither did Christ

nor his Apostles establish a Church!" Here ́ is a Sweeper which carries away at once the whole Establishment. Glebes, Parsons, Tithes, and all. We are come then to a new era, or rather an old era, has been renewed in the Biblical

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world. These These women do not speak from themselves. They are the dupes and mouthpieces of designing knaves. This matter I shall leave, to these whose interests it more immediately involves, and merely observe, that the Reformers of the sixteenth century who proposed to reform, and not to destroy, and who built a Church of the composite order, on the ruins of the Catholic Church which they found established, and from which they had all departed, have given the hint to their Biblical children of the nineteenth century, not to reform but to destroy the Purified Fabric, and erect their own Conventicle on the wreck of a Church, which does not claim antiquity, which has no pretensions to universality, and which seems to have very little chance of perpetuity.

It is very absurd, and very useless for her Ministers to waste their strength in declaiming against the errors of Popery, crying down miracles, and endeavouring to tie up the arm of God, while a fanatical brood sprung from her bosom threatens with destruction, the de

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crepid parent seems determined to renew the drama of the renovating age, to devour the devourer, to destroy the "Scarlet Whore," the Protestant "Beast," to make her desolate

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and naked, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." The enlightened Rector of St. George's may continue to weave his thorny propositions for infidels and papists, until the Biblical train has fired the Bush, and blown up the esta+ blishment. Perhaps such is the decree of retributive justice. It is a consummation, however, which as a Catholic, I should deprecate, for many, and obvious reasons. !

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Having plundered the Catholics, and fattened on their spoils, the old dame of the Reformation sat down to enjoy the good things which the gods and the fortune of war had given her. Filled even to saturation, somewhat advanced in years, and rather unwieldy, she wisely determined to consolidate her power, to divide, weaken, and finally neutralize the efforts of the desultory, but still powerful Hordes that menaced her borders. She determined at length to try a conciliatory experiment, carried her liberality so far as to permit them to rent some of the lands which their fathers possessed, connived at their religious and national customs, sometimes invited their Chiefs to a banquet, and by a skilful

dispensation of little presents and large promises, had almost completely extinguished their ancient, animosities.

One of these Clans, by far the most powerful and respectable, had even courted her friendship on terms at once secure and honorable; had proposed to fight her battles and maintain her integrity on the simple condition of being ranked as citizens, and allowed a participation in the trophies which should be won by their united arms. Her Sovereign Magistrate benignantly smiled on the frank proposal; matters assumed a more pleasing aspect, when the horizon suddenly began to lower: the embers of religious intolerance were seen to sparkle, were fanned into open flame by the breath of a Religico-Political trading speculation. The cry of the Church in Danger, was raised by the knave who pretended to fear while he sighed for her destruction, and who, in the perfidious and equivocal cry "danger," would fortify the impression of her real fallibility. I shall carry this painful allegory no farther, and will conclude. dissertation already too long, by expressing my astonishment at the wisdom which prefers the precarious and dangerous friendship of a fanatical conventicle and conditional loyalty, to the manly, the steady, the tried, and invulnerable allegiance of a Catholic people..

Dublin, Feb. 1821.

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CLEROPHILOS.

LETTER II.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE REGISTER.

SIR,

In a former communication I adduced some of the many reasons which prove that the Bible could not be the only and exclusive rule of faith. This proposition I grounded on the principle, that God, in giving a religion to man, intended to give him a Religion suited to his nature; but if he has given him a Religion exclusively adapted to the educated part of our species, he has not given him one adapted to his nature; therefore, as the scripture is an authority suited only to the educated portion of mankind, it could not be the design of God to make it the sole foundation of that Religion, which in his divine wisdom, he was pleased to prescribe to man. adverted to the time which should necessarily elapse before the Bible could have been translated into the various languages, and distributed over the various countries to which the light of the Gospel was carried by the

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