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THE

CATHOLIC SPIRIT


OF

TRUE RELIGION.

"For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of
that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ."-1 COR. xiii. 12.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR SCOTT, WEBSTER, AND GEARY,

CHARTER-HOUSE SQUARE.

MDCCCXL.

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PRINTED BY NEILL AND CO. OLD FISHMARKET, EDINBURGH.

PREFACE.

The main argument of this work is to prove, that whatever the ecclesiastical order which may prevail in the Millennium, yet, in reference to the present epoch,—not an outward uniformity over all (as the Church of Rome contends for), but an unity of spirit in variety of forms (as in the churches of the Reformation), is a constitution of the Catholic Church answerable to the light of reason, of sacred history, and of Scripture ;-that, in keeping with this state of things, religious men of every evangelical denomination are called upon as disciples of Jesus Christ, and the Redeemed of the Lord, to entertain towards each other, and the communions they severally belong to, feelings of mutual recognition and esteem; and thus to seek to arrive at truth and ultimate unity over all, through the medium of mutual love in Christ Jesus.

A friendly Churchman to whom this was stated, said, on hearing it, that he inferred, from the attempt to advocate such a theme, that the Author was a Dissenter; and that no doubt it was a work of the same order as several others which had lately appeared in this country, which, though they professed to maintain a truly catholic spirit, yet were in reality written in the interest of dissent. He also expressed himself at a loss to understand what was meant by "The Churches of the Reformation."

To this it was replied, that the Author, though he desired to keep all things personal" to himself before God," even to the suppression of his name, was no Dissenter; that it would be found, on perusal, that his work was not written in the interest of dissent; and that, with regard to the expression objected to, he spoke of the Churches of the Reformation, in contrast with the Church of Rome, for the same reasons as

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