the Latin liturgy of the Church of Rome is sufficiently interpreted and thoroughly explained to all Catholics, so that those who understand not Latin are well versed in every part of the public service, and not only he that supplies the place of the idiot, but the idiot himself in the Catholic Church is sufficiently instructed to say Amen to the prayers and thanksgivings of the priest: then the unanswerable argument of Protestants from this chapter of St. Paul to the Corinthians against our Latin liturgy, is no argument at all: nay, rather we are licensed by the Apostle in this very place to have our liturgy in Latin or any other learned language, provided it be sufficiently interpreted for the edification of the people, as no one can deny that ours is, in many excellent writings 'published for that purpose; so that, for the substance of things which are done and said, the vulgar among Catholics understand much more of their Latin liturgy than the vulgar of Protestants do of their English one.

But why so loudly do Protestants exclaim against a Latin liturgy? I appeal to themselves if the following sentences, when read in English, are not the same as if they heard them in Hebrew or Arabic? Moab is my wash pot, over Edom will I cast out my shoe. Ps. lx. 8. Also this: Though you have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold. Ps. lxviii. 13. And this, in the same Psalm Rebuke the company of spearmen. Ver. 30. Or, as it is in the margin: The beasts of the reeds, and the multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the people. Also this, as it is in their service book: Or ever your pots be made hot with thorns, so let indignation vex him, even as a thing

that is raw. Ps. lviii. 8. When these and such other things are read in English to the vulgar, are their understandings much edified?

In a word, it is nowhere determined by any command of God in what language the public service of the Church shall be performed; and where God has interposed no command on either side, the Church is left at discretion to weigh the reasons on both sides. This the Catholic Church has done, and upon mature deliberation has passed judgment that the inconveniences attending a translation of the liturgy into the vulgar tongues of all nations are insuperable: that such translations must unavoidably be full of mistakes which must bring great confusion into the Church: that the conveniency, if any, in such translations would be only to the most ignorant part of the people, and is now very well compensated by other means, by prayerbooks and instructions in abundance in the vulgar tongue. Therefore most prudently did this Church decree to keep the liturgy for all these western parts of the world in one language, which, though not known to every person, is the most universally known in all nations of any one language whatsoever, there being scarce a market-town throughout Europe where it is not publicly taught. Indeed, the reformed Church, not being Catholic, or universal, every sect being confined to narrow limits, seldom extending beyond one country, province, or canton, is under no necessity of having their public service-books in a language that is known in all countries. But the Catholic Church comprising in her communion all nations and tongues, makes choice of that language for the liturgy which in all nations is most universally spoken and understood.

Now, let Protestants maturely consider whether this mighty stumbling block of a Latin liturgy, this great stone of offence and rock of scandal, can justify what they have done in making the most fatal schism from the universal Church that ever happened—a schism which has been the cause of so many mischiefs to the whole world, to kingdoms, to commonwealths, to private families; by dethroning kings; by disinheriting children; by seditions, treasons, civil wars, massacres; by penal laws and sanguinary persecutions; in a word, by all imaginable calamities, both in church and state, in body and soul, in life and goods, spreading desolation everywhere; and all this because the Catholic Church, to preserve uniformity in the public worship of God, and to avoid the inconveniences of a multiplicity of translations of the liturgy, determined to keep it in the Latin tongue in these western parts of the world, in which from the apostles' time it ever was. I say no other language but the Latin was used for Europe and Africa, though Latin was not the vulgar tongue of all the different nations of those parts, even when the Roman eagles were everywhere spread in them; nor was any other language but Greek for most parts of Asia, though it is well known from the Acts (Acts ii. 6, 8, 9) that Greek was not the vulgar tongue of all nations in the East, and that the Parthians, Medes, Mesopotamians, Phrygians, Egyptians, as also many others, had each a vulgar tongue of their own. So that this demand for a liturgy in the vulgar tongue is, in reality, a mere singularity and a particular humour of Protestants.

POINT XXXIII.

MANY Protestants hold, That to be joined in com

munion with the true Church is not necessary to salvation; and that all, whatsoever sect they follow, provided they believe in Christ and lead a good moral life, will be saved.

Contrary to the written word of God:

1. "And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved." Acts ii. 47.

These remarkable words might, I think, open the eyes of Protestants, and convince them that, to be saved, it is necessary to be joined in communion with the Apostolical Church. Cornelius, the Centurion, led a moral good life: He was a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, and gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway, as the word of God witnesses (Acts x. 2), yet, after the establishment of the Church of Christ on earth, all this was not sufficient for his salvation; on which account an angel is sent to bring St. Peter to him, that he might be not only instructed in the faith of Christ, but also brought into the communion of the Apostolical Church. For the holy Scripture in one place teaching that without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. xi. 6), and in another place that this faith is but one; these two places put together prove that, unless we hold one true faith, we cannot be saved. Ephes. iv. 5. And this one true faith being only taught in the one true Church of Christ, therefore all are commanded to hear the Church (which is only done by those who are joined to its communion) under pain of having their portion with heathens and publicans. Matt. xviii. 17. 2. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, &c., of

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the which I foretell you, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Gal. v. 19, 20, &c.

Here let Protestants remark, that heresy is, by the Apostle, numbered among those things which exclude from the kingdom of heaven, and is put in the same catalogue of crimes with idolatry and witchcraft. The same thing is proved from other parts of Scripture, where heretics, and especially heresiarchs, are stigmatized by our Saviour Christ and his apostles with the name of false prophets, grievous wolves, false apostles, deceitful workers, which argues that the sin of those that teach heresy is very grievous; and as their followers more or less partake of their sin, have they not reason to fear they will be involved in their punishment? Matt. vii. 15; Acts xx. 29; 2 Cor. xi. 13; Titus iii. 11, 12.

3. "And it came to pass as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them: and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appeared unto Korah, and all their goods. They and all that appertained to them went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them; and they perished from among the congregation." Numb. xvi. 31... "Now they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, beside them that died about the matter of Korah." Ver. 49.

Here we read of the three famous schismatics, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who out of jealousy to the authority which God had given to Moses and Aaron over the children of Israel, drew into their party two hundred and fifty more peers of the syna