to be religiously held or believed by the people, except that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old or New Testament; and which the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have collected from that very doctrine.'" Now, unless it may be proved that any "provincial Synod and the Queen" or King for the time being, are the Church of England, or that a Synod and Queen who were in being two hundred and fifty years ago, are to be regarded, till their declarations shall be formally repealed (nobody knows by whom) as constituting the Church of England in the present day and for ever; it is quite incomprehensible how such a declaration can be adduced as an argument for or against any theological opinion. Whether some individuals qualified by law to call themselves members of the Church of England, have admitted the authority of the ancient Fathers, and what period of time they have expressed by the word ancient, is a matter ad mitting of proof or disproof. If the law had incorporated a body of men to act in the name of all the individual members of the Church of England, the decisions of that body might be called the opinions of every individual who continued to call himself a member of that Church. But, without this, it is idle to attribute to the Church of England, i. e. to the mass of those individuals who profess to be members of that Church, any opinion or practice which is not required by law in order to enjoy the privileges of such members. It may be a fact, not only that Queen Elizabeth and the English Bishops then living, but also every clergyman and layman of the Church of England at that time, held the above declaration as their own. Yet, how could this prove that the present members of the Church of England hold the same opinion? When did such members declare this, or bind themselves to break off from communion with each other in case they should believe otherwise? It is the same in regard to the Canon about the first four General Councils. The authors of that Canon wished those Councils to be a rule of faith. But are the authors of those Canons the Church of England for ever? What the present individual members of the Church of England think of those Councils, is their own private concern. One of the most eminent members of the English Church, Burnet, in his work on the Thirty Nine Articles, openly denies, and undertakes to disprove that there ever was any one General Council. But, what the Church of England thinks, at present, of the Councils in question cannot be known unless some one attempts to collect the votes of its members. Some suggestions will be found in the following work, respecting the necessity of such an organization of the individual Christians, who col lectively and abstractedly, are called the Church of England, as might afford means of ascertaining the existing views of their majority; or of those to whom the majority might be willing to entrust the settling of the terms of communion. While things remain in their present state, nothing but what is literally contained in the legal formularies of the Church of England, can be fairly taken as the opinion of every one of its members. The Editor must now take leave of the Reader by declaring that, the work which is here laid before the public has RELIGIOUS TRUTH, and nothing else for its object. Every one knows that to fight the battles of one particular Church or denomination, is the best means of recommending a book of controversy. But success or failure, not connected with the interests of pure Christianity, is in the present case a matter of comparative indifference. CONTENTS OF Preliminary Statement.-Retrospect on the former Work.- Avowal of Prejudices.-Fashionable Opinions on the first Travels. True state of the Author's mind when writing the former account of himself.-Introduction to a Catholic Family.-Father Sohan and his means of annoyance.— Infallibility, Magnetism, and Fashion.-Hopeless Love.- Preparatory Visit to London.—Decline of Theological zeal.— Arrival of a Manuscript.-Manuscript transcribed: its Con- tents. *The One Argument of the Traveller fairly stated.- Not even the Truth of the Peculiar Doctrines of Rome could prove her Claims.-Logical Value of the Traveller's Argument Illustrated.-True Notion of Protestantism.— Unity of Protestantism.-Means by which the Unity of Orthodoxy was Established, and ancient Protestantism sup- pressed. The Infallible Church not known to the Writers of the New Testament.-An Infallible Judge if not clearly * The following Contents belong to Chapter III. |