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the people of Israel.' The Catholic Church shall shortly perish, says an Ebion and a Marcion, for she defends the blasphemous error of Christ being God, whereas he is no more than a mere man. The Catholic Church shall shortly perish, says a Montanus and a Novatius, for she dares to assert that the pastors of the spouse of Christ have the power of forgiving all sins, even the sin of apostacy. That idolatrous Church shall perish, says an Arius, which makes the creature a creator, and has the boldness to assert that Word is eternal and consubstantial to the Father. The Catholic Church shall perish, says a Pelagius, for she admits that original sin is communicated to us, and that the faculties of man are weakened by inherited corruption-that of himself, without grace, he is incapable of observing the law of God. The Catholic Church shall perish, says Nestorius, for she admits only one person in Christ, and reveres the Virgin Mary as the mother of the living God. The Catholic Church, viz., the whore of Babylon, shall shortly perish, says an Eutyches, for she believes in the blasphemous doctrine of two natures in Christ, whereas there is only one, the human nature being absorbed in the divine nature, as the dewdrop disappears in the ocean. The Catholic Church shall shortly perish, says a Donatus, for she professes to believe that the children of heretics are not to be re-baptized, and that pastors in the state of sin can validly administer the sacraments. The Catholic Church shall shortly perish, says a Lucidus, for she rejects the necessary influence of grace. The Catholic Church shall shortly perish, say the Monatholites, for she admits two wills instead of one in the Redeemer. The Catholic Church, in fine, shall shortly perish, says a Gotescalus, for she admits predestination to good and not to evil; she is so nonsensical as to deny that the will of man is like to a saddle. horse, doing evil necessarily if the devil be the rider, doing good necessarily if God be seated on it. The Church shall perish, has been the language of every innovator from the days of Christ until the present day; time, however, has proved them, and shall prove my reverend friend Mr. Smyly to be links in that chain of false seers to whom an angry God hath said, 'I have not sent you, yet you ran; I have not spoken to you, yet you prophecied.' The Church has survived their fanciful predictions, and shall survive them until the end of time. The very nothingness of these near-sighted prophets has borne and shall bear testimony to her duration and stability; yea, even the he

retical cry, she shall shortly perish! has only served and will serve to convince the world, by calling its attention to the miraculous preservation of the Church; that it is an edifice which God hath built up, and which no man can throw down, against which the winds and waves may beat in vain, around which, uninjured, the elements may crash, the heavens change as a garment, and all created nature tottering on its foundation, dwindle into its original nothingness; God in the midst of her, she shall not be moved."

On the sixth day, one of the Protestant disputants introduced, in evidence of the corruption of the Church, a well known spurious work, called the Taxa Cancellariæ, in relation to which, on opening the seventh day's proceedings, Mr. Maginn said:

"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, when an agreement had been entered into to discuss the respective merits of the Churches of England and of Rome, I flattered myself that we would proceed calmly and dispassionately to the investigation of truth; I find, however, to my sorrow, that I have vainly indulged this hope, for the lowest scurrility and misrepresentation have taken the place of reason and of common sense; forgeries and calumnies have been substituted for revelation, and Religion's sacred name, with every kind of religious veneration, has been turned into a farce-has become a subject for mimickry and for mirth.

"On seeing yesterday's exhibition, methought myself at one time in a Drury Lane or in a Covent Garden, witnessing the performance of Sheridan's School for Scandal; at another time, I imagined myself in the Theatre Francaise, an amused spectator of a Talma in the Tartuffe. "It was not, however, in all its scenes a comedy, it partook rather of the nature of a melo-drama. The audience, I am sure, was forced to smile and to weep: to smile at the folly which it displayed, while the tears of sorrow, yea, and of indignation too, were shed over the low designing malice-over the wily subterfuges of the hero of the piece, to support a bad and a tottering cause.

"The impression, I am convinced, which the introduction of the Taxe Cancellariæ, that pretended Romish production, must have made on your minds, is to deep to be easily effaced. Long shall you remember

how lenient Popes were in the days of old towards parricides, how severe they have been towards priest strikers.

"So gross an imposition as this book is, were it not for the advantage of my Protestant friends, I would not even deign to notice. The abominable doctrines it contains, the abuses it appears to sanction, are too well known to Catholics not to constitute any article of their religious symbol, nor ever to have received the sanction of the Catholic Church, that they need no information on this head. For the instruction, therefore, of my dissenting friends, and for theirs only, I shall first give you a few extracts from the celebrated Doctor Lingard, bearing on this subject, and invalidating its authenticity. I shall then give you my own reasons for considering it one of the vilest fabrications ever invented by interested, designing, and faithless men."

After quoting Lingard, and exposing the forgery of this book from internal evidence, Mr. Maginn proceeded to defend the doctrine of purgatory as taught by the Church, and expressly laid down in the Old and New Testaments. On the eighth day Mr. Henderson attempted an answer to that argument, but certainly failed to shake it in the least. He was followed by Mr. Maginn, the first part of whose address was devoted to an explanation of Luther's conduct, in permitting polygamy to Philip of Hesse, and the conclusion of which was a rejoinder to the attempted answer of the opponents of the doctrine of purgatory. On this day he excited a good deal of merriment, by referring the Rev. Mr. Smyly to his Rev. Bro. Henderson for "the self-evident distinction which exists between miracles and mysteries." On the ninth day he continued the same subject-purgatory and prayers for the dead.

On the eleventh day Mr. Maginn, with his accustomed readiness and humor, detected an argument on the wall of the old Cathedral in which the discussion was had. The authentic report thus relates the scene:

"Again; I gladly congratulate my reverend opponents on their adopted image worship. [Here the Rev. Mr. Maginn espying behind the communion table, a Gloria having a small cross in the centre, with an inscription I. H. S., pointed to it.] There, Gentlemen, is an Idol which you have raised in the house of the living God,' with an inscription on it too in an unknown tongue. You also have violated the second commandment; you have made to yourselves the figures of things which are in the heavens above and in the earth below. You are accustomed in like manner to bow down before them. The idol, it is true, before which you worship, is void of proportion and coloring. Were you to adopt the motto, 'fas est ab hoste doceri,' I would feel happy to recommend one to you, which, while it would evince your good taste, would tend at the same time to ornament your Church and to instruct your people. I would then advise you to place above your communion table, a picture representing a Jesus crucified, with the forefinger of his right hand pointing towards the Church depicted in the back ground, with this appropriate inscription. this is my beloved spouse, the Church, for whose sake I bleed, that I may render her without spot or wrinkle; lo, I am with her all days, even to the consummation of the world.' In his left hand you may place, if you please, the keys of the kingdom of heaven; hard-by, St. Peter kneeling on his right knee and receiving them from him, while the Saviour will seemingly address him, as he has done really, in these words: 'Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatsoever thou wilt bind in earth will be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.' In the same tablet, by enlarging it somewhat, you may have the Virgin Mary and the twelve Apostles, with appropriate inscriptions. Opposite the blessed Virgin, Behold your mother;' opposite the Apostles,' Behold your children.' Should the remaining parts of this Chapel of Ease require further useful ornament, I would recom

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mend to you to borrow a few saints from us, and have these side wall embellished by their representations. The amiable St. Francis of Sales, the zealous and apostolic Xavier, and the charitable St. Vincent of Paul, would be mighty lessons of practical virtue for the Sunday-sainted visitors of this house of prayer. They would remind them, that not only a Man-God, but weak mortals, like to themselves, scaled the rugged heights of a Calvary, drank of the bitter chalice deeply, yet patiently, made their works shine before men, were, in fine, the true disciples of the Just One, by taking up their cross and following him.'

6

At the close of his remarks, he related the following anecdote:

"A French general was induced through curiosity to come to the metropolis of Great Britain; being invited by a certain nobleman of his acquaintance to visit St. Paul's Cathedral, as he was admiring the various perfections of that noble and majestic edifice, he was asked by his companion what he thought of it, and if he considered it superior to Notre Dame, at Paris. He answered that the shell of the building did honor to its projectors, that it was in many respects superior to Notre Dame, but that the religious embellishments of the latter much surpassed those of the former. When you enter, said he, into Notre Dame, at every step almost a crucified Saviour or his disciples meet your eye here, said he, I see nothing but the vestiges of those devastators of the human race. Here indeed, said he, I see everything emblematic of the god of war; there nothing is to be seen but the trophy of the God of virtue. Here I see the statues of those who conquered by the effusion of the blood of their brethren; there is to be seen the representations of those who triumphed through the blood of the Lamb, and died the victims of their benevolence. Here, said he, I see those worldlings who prevailed by terror, by cunning, yea, perhaps by treachery too, and the violation of the sacred principles of faith, honor and justice over their less designing, more upright, and more virtuous neighbors. There you may see those saints who only vied in doing good; who gained a victory, it is true, but it was with the sword of patience, with the helmet of salvation, and with the allprotecting shield of fraternal charity."

On the twelfth and last day, he made his ninth argu

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