bribed, or its power overawed*?

Nothing but

power reveals what the Papacy really is: it can assume it is its interest and practice to assume, every disguise the appearance even of the character most opposite to itself-while impotent. But let the season of prosperity breathe upon it, and the dead lion will become a living and furious one. A great portion of its destructive strength lies, and has always lain, in what prophecy has emphatically denominated its DECEIVABLENESS OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. The great Sorceress sits upon her seven hills, dealing out her drugs and potions to the infatuated nations and sovereigns of the earth. Assisted by the wisdom of her superior teacher, she mixes the ingredients of her cup with exact accommodation to the inclinations and tastes of those whom she would seduce, intimidate, or ruin; and the records of history mournfully proclaim her extensive-her almost universal -success. We mistake if we imagine that all this has past by: that very opinion revives its existence. There is reason to question, whether the poison has not already entered the veins of some who fancy themselves most free. Nor is there anything highly absurd in the apprehension, that the papal religion may continue its progress,

* What execution will be given to the conclusion of the healing Act remains to be proved.

until it prevail again extensively in this country. In its peculiarity, it is eminently a religion of nature, armed with all those fierce energies, as well as those irresistible delusions, by which the superstitions of heathenism, both ancient and modern, have laid prostrate the souls of their victims; and recommended more artfully and effectually than in any other invented faith, by supplying the grand desideratum of vitiated humanity-a religion by proxy.

In logic, and logic is necessary in the determination of the merits of every cause, nothing is more deceptive than generalities. It is almost a proverb, Dolus latet in generalibus *. General propositions constitute the materials and instruments of Metaphysics. Some adoption of this mode of conceiving and expressing our notions is almost unavoidable; and if it be done with judgment and honesty it is highly serviceable, particularly in economizing time. But these are edged weapons, and most unsafe in the hands of either the injudicious or the designing. The reason is obvious. Every general proposition contains in itself a number, greater or less, but generally large, of particular propositions. If these latter deviate in quantity or kind from what ought to be

* Or, as it is sometimes given, Dolosus versatur in generalibus.

comprehended in the former, a fallacy ensues; and the argument or inference founded upon any combination of the general propositions, or indeed terms which imply propositions, is vitious and false. But this is not perceived without more labour or discrimination than many can, or will, employ. Hence the advantage to an artful disputant in the use of general expressions, and in proportion as the conclusion which he intends is opposed to truth or probability. And hence the reason why the advocates of Roman delusion discover so much partiality for general terms and general reasoning. What is their employment of the general terms, Tradition, Sacrament, Penance, Church, and numberless others, but instances of this kind of sophistry*? How much of the execution effected by their dialectics in the use of the last term, church, is to be ascribed to the vague and overwhelming notion of the constitution, the obligation, the advantage, or the danger and ruin, included in, or connected with, it; and which vary essentially from the particulars contained in the

* A curious confirmation of this artifice is preserved by FULLER in his catalogue of about one hundred words which Gardiner was anxious, in the New Translation of the Bible, should remain untranslated. Church Hist. under the year 1540, where he writes, ' Transcribed with my own hand out of the Records of Canterbury.' Generalization was the substance and artifice of the Method adopted by the Gallican bishops for the intended confutation and conversion of the pretended Reformed about the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

scriptural use of the term! A distinct distribution of the term into the particulars which compose it, and a deliberate contemplation of the latter, would at once dissipate the delusion, and shew, either that the disputants, where the subject is disputed, are thinking and talking about different things, or that the sophister is building without rule or line. By favour, however, of the indolence or incapacity of the world in general, his sophistry very frequently succeeds, and is received as incontrovertible truth. A directly contrary method is sometimes adopted, and with the same delusive effect: it is, when some striking feature of a subject is seized, enlarged, shaped, and coloured, in such a way as to secure a certain conclusion; although that conclusion may be, and often is, at direct variance with the main merits of the question. Partial similitude is peculiarly serviceable to the friends of the Roman, as well as

When you come to dispute of the Church with them, see that you agree first under your hands of the Definition of that Church of which you dispute. And when you call them to define it, you will find them in a wood, you will little think how many several things it is that they call [the Church,]' &c. So that if you do but force them to define and explain what they mean by the Church, you will either cause them to open their nakedness, or find them all to pieces about the very subject of the Dispute.' BAXTER'S Key for Catholicks, to open the Jugling of the Jesuits, &c. pp. 73, 4. We shall hear more from this author soon. In the mean time, and constantly, let us bear in mind the importance of Definition-Definition. It is the experimentum crucis for sophistry.

the enemies of our church, who do not always remind themselves so precisely as they might, that in many cases degree makes all the difference, and that a drunkard or glutton may essentially and morally differ from a sober man, although their meat and drink, for quality, may be exactly the same. I might add, in conjunction with these, the power, through the interminable extent of the fields of controversy, of protracting a debate to any intended length; and, with this advantage, similar to that of a suit in chancery, of concealing a defeat for any period which may be desirable *.

* MILTON, in his Tract, Of True Religion, &c. against the Growth of Popery, near the beginning, expresses his reason for limiting the range of his argument, in these analogous terms. 'I will not now enter into the labyrinth of Councils and Fathers,-an entangled wood which the papists love to fight in, not with the hope of victory, but to obscure the shame of an open overthrow.' In conformity with this is the regular and approved method, under favour of the same advantage-the extent and density of the wood-of diverting the discussion from the main point to incidental ones which may produce confusion. Mr. FABER, in his last work, Some Account of Mr. Husenbeth's Attempt to assist the Bishop of Strasbourg; with Notices of his Remarkable Adventures in the Perilous Field of Criticism, has exposed this artifice with his usual felicity. So far as my observation extends, it is the invariable plan of Latin Controvertists to draw away the attention of their readers from the main question to anything which may serve the purpose of embarrassment and perplexity,' p. 4. Mr. Faber, however, has, in his own irresistible way, demonstrated the confusion which awaits the pontificals, even in this wood itself, when the contest is pursued to an issue. Never was foe and assailant so completely routed and demolished as the Bishop, successively of Aire and Strasbourg, by the Rector of Long Newton; and the two Squires, who have flown to his succour, have fared no better than their Knight.