294 Catholic and Protestant Faith compared. 



the same channel, to ask you, or your 

 correspondent, if it can be used with 

 success as a representative of stone 

 for fountains; for useful and orna- 

 mental vases, in pleasure grounds ; 

 and ill conservatories ; for busts or 

 statues, or indeed for any ornamental 

 embellishments, suiting the rural re- 

 treats of a man of taste? If those 

 objects formed of the Roman stone, 

 and constantly exposed to the wet and 

 frost, are injured by the changes of 

 weather ; and for a rough estimate of 

 the price, in comparison with the same 

 in stone? From one residing the 

 greater part of the year in a remote 

 part of the countiy, and whose first 

 knowledge of inventions and improve- 

 ments in science is usually derived 

 from the Monthly Magazine, perhaps 

 no apology will be needful for tlie 

 intrusion of a desire for an extension 

 of information. W. H. Graystoke. 

 Havel ford West, April 1824. 



To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 

 SIR, 



AWOKK is in some degree of for- 

 wardivess, though at present in 

 manuscript, on the Catholic religion, 

 entitled, " Sketch of the History and 

 Nature of the Catholic Faith ; showing 

 the tendency of every heretical de- 

 viation from that faitb to atheism, and 

 the atomic philosophy, particularly the 

 heresies of Socinianism, Quakerism, 

 Arianism, Kirk-of-Seotlaud-ism, Free- 

 thinking-Christian-ism, Deism, and 

 the Schismatical Somatopsyctonoology 

 of the Chirurgical Theologians of Lei- 

 cester-fields. By an humble labourer 

 in the Vineyard." In this work it 

 •will be shown, that Christianity is 

 totally misunderstood by heretics and 

 halfway-house- men. That faith im- 

 plies the subjugation of the will and 

 the reason to an authority supported 

 on a specific kind of evidence. That 

 a succession of miraculous proofs 

 (vulgarly called Catholic miracles) 

 are necessary to the cortinuation of 

 Christianity. That the Catholic re- 

 ligion is the only one perfectly con- 

 sistent, and that its proofs rest on the 

 same foundation as the Newtonian 

 philosophy. In order to make the 

 reader clearly understand this novel 

 comparison, it will be explained, that 

 the whole of this boasted philosophy 

 depends on the apparent sufficiency of 

 an assumption purely hypothetical, 

 (namely, attraction and repulsion,) to 



[May I, 



solve a vast series of observed pheno- 

 mena in natural philosophy. Now, 

 the Catholic religion mainly depends 

 (though this is only a part of its proof) 

 on the suiliciency of its doctrines to 

 explain and account for the whole of 

 the phenomena of history, both in re- 

 ligion and morals, to which it is the 

 real key. Now, even were it only an 

 hypothesis, unsupported by miracles, 

 it would stand on tlie same basis as the 

 Newtonian piiilosophy. For it has 

 never been denied, t!mt, if the data of 

 the Catholic faith were granted, the 

 superstructure would follow. Now, 

 if it can be shown that the Catholic 

 faith and the Newloniau philosophy 

 arc supported on the same grounds, 

 viz. the sufficiency of their respective 

 hypotheses to solve existing pheno- 

 mena, then it must follow that the 

 Catholic faith is the best proved of the 

 two, because Catholics have the po- 

 sitive testimony of miracles, in addi- 

 tion to the natural probability of the 

 hypothesis. To put this on a point of 

 view familiar to the algebraists, let 

 C F = the Catholic faith ; N P the 

 Newtonian philosophy ; CM Catholic 

 miracles; and let X stand for their 

 number, being unknown. Let P' 

 stand for probability ; then we may say, 

 P'CF= P'NP -1-CM-X. Now Ca- 

 tholics are every year increasing this 

 variable quantity C M X, by adding 

 to the number of Catholic miracles; 

 whereas the Protestants, admitting 

 only the miracles of Jesus Christ, are 

 every year diminishing the positive 

 proofs of the hypothesis of Christi- 

 anity, because the probability of every 

 event varies inversely as the distance 

 of time and place. Let PM be the 

 value of the Protestant miracles at the 

 time of J. C. and let Y = the number 

 of years since that time, and P F the 

 Protestant Faith; then we shall get 



PM 

 P'CF:P'PF::CMX:-i^. Now 



C M X is an tncreasins 



and — a de- 

 Y 



creasing quantity, therefore the greater 

 probability of the Catholic faith in- 

 creases every year, wliile the Protes- 

 tant diminishes. The work will be 

 full of anecdotes of the 'persecutions 

 sustained by Catholics from Protes- 

 tants ; and a catalogue of the astrono- 

 mical discoveries of the Jesuits, in 

 order to refute the idea that the Ca- 

 tholic religion was hostile to natural 

 philosophy and history. F. 



