ADVERTISEMENT. The following performance has been occasioned by the indiscreet zeal of the Vicar of a neighbouring parish ; who, on finding that some of his parishioners frequented the chapel of the writer, thought proper to present them with a collection of small pamphlets and tracts, in which the Catholic religion is distorted and disfigured, by the usual mode of misrepresentation and calumny. The most moderate, or rather the least exceptionable, of these tracts, the writer has deemed it a duty critically to examine, and to review at full length. He has accordingly reprinted the whole performance in separate portions, and appended his own observations at the close of each subject thus brought under discussion. Such a plan even bigotry itself must deem both fair and manly; as it exhibits both sides of the question, and furnishes an opportunity of procuring for each party an impartial hearing. On this candid and legitimate principle of natural equity, this mode has been adopted,-a principle which was familiar even to the Greek and the Roman ; as we learn from their favourite axioms : Το ομοίως αμφόιν ακροάσθαι. Audi alteram partem. If these pages should elicit any reply, the writer begs to declare his deliberate purpose, that nothing but fair argument and real learning shall induce him to notice the performance of any opponent. Should the ordinary, the disingenuous, and the ignoble arts of misrepresentation and slander be brought into action, he intends to regulate his conduct by the sentiment of Menander, who has elegantly observed, that in many instances silence becomes an appropriate reply. Πολλοίς απόκρισις η σιωπή τυγχάνει. CONTENTS. Page Discussion on the difference between the two churches .. 1 on the charge of framing new articles on the summary of Catholic doctrine.... on the number of the sacraments on transubstantiation and the real presence 57 on the veneration of relics .... whether the church of Rome be the Catholic whether the church of Rome be the mistress 203 on other differences between the two churches 230 on the use of an unknown tongue in the public on the infallibility of the church.... on the indiscriminate reading of the Scriptures 310 on the canonical books of Scripture |