INTO THE CATHOLIC TRUTHS HIDDEN UNDER CERTAIN ARTICLES OF THE CREED OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. BY CHARLES SMITH, B.D., FORMERLY FELLow and tutor of ST. PETER'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. PREFACE. HAVING in a former publication on National Religion been led to consider the encroachments of the Church of Rome, I ventured to suggest, that in compensation for the injuries we have received we might possibly extract some good from a patient investigation of the peculiarities of her creed. I then illustrated the mode of obtaining that good by showing that there appeared to be a truth hidden under the dogma of Supererogation. The present Work pretends to be little more than a series of the same illustrations; it will however comprise all the peculiarities of the Romish Faith as they are contained in the Twelve last Articles of Pope Pius's Creed; and as these Articles are professedly gathered from the Decrees of what is called the Council of Trent, I have made such use of the proceedings of the Council, as is necessary to explain the intent of each Article in the Creed. The plan of the Work is as follows: each Article, or where the Article consists of two or more subjects, each subject, is treated in the same manner and according to Four Divisions: the First Division contains the Article of Pope Pius's Creed and its reference to the corresponding Decree of the Council of Trent; the Second contains a suggestion of the Catholic Truth probably hidden under the Romish Article; the Third proposes an inquiry into the origin and progress of the particular error; and the Fourth points out some of the evils, which are connected with the preference of the Romish Error to the Catholic Truth. The controversy with Rome seems to have lately assumed a more desultory and morbid character, which requires some such plan as the foregoing for its correction; the present attempt pretends to be an illustration rather than a thorough execution of the plan; and its publication will be best answered, if it provoke more diligent students and more thoughtful minds to fill up the details of the plan for themselves. I am not aware that this plan has been systematically followed in the great and unanswerable writings of our Island Churches, which refute the peculiarities of the Creed of Rome; indeed the recurrence of the controversy, and latterly with a profession of philosophy, favours the opinion which I have ventured to form, that in the ruins. of Rome, which our standard controversial writings have caused, may be found some buried truths; and that it is this treasure hidden under the ruins, which accounts for that almost unconscious attachment to them manifested from time to time by persons, who are thoroughly convinced of the idols of Rome and the justice of their demolition. If those truths are sought after and really found, and gathered up, then I believe nothing will remain but the ruins in their proved worthlessness, and that the truths themselves will be found in perfect harmony, and indeed identity, with the Articles and usages of our Island Churches. It will be observed that this inquiry therefore is not into the whole Catholic Faith, but into such truths or portions of them as are hidden under Romish errors, and tend to make those errors permanent and attractive. There is one truth, which is hidden under all the additional Articles of Faith decreed at the Council of Trent, viz. the truth of the authority of the Church. This authority is misused by Rome presuming to establish and ordain corruptions, and to set them side by side with those Articles of the Faith, which were once for all delivered to the saints, and of which Rome and all other Churches are the executive keepers and witnesses. |