PROLEGOMENA. Xxix. 



tirst doubt, (from duo, J by which the faith of man 

 was made two with, or separated by presumption 

 of private judgment, from the owe truth, spoken 

 by God. To this pandemonium of iiorrors, is 

 contrasted the animating picture of the Catliolic 

 Communion of Saints. Heresy began by at- 

 tacking the greatest comforts of religion, by 

 robbing men of the belief in the continuing power 

 of those who are still on earth to assist their de- 

 parted relatives in Purgatory by their prayers ; 

 it then attacked the confessional ; at last made 

 religion odious, and changed a service of love 

 into a service of fear. 



It is notoriously the remote consequence of 

 the protestant heresy, that the bulk of the men 

 of science and learning in protestant countries 

 are become infidels, and many of them have 

 openly professed deism ; the Christian faith was 

 shaken at the " Reformation," and in time ex- 

 ploded in the great convulsive shock of the French 

 Revolution. The sins of the fathers have been 

 visited on the children even unto the fourth 

 generation. The marauders, who in their heresy 

 said there was no visible church, have in time 

 generated the fools who have said in their hearts 

 there is no God : — truly a mon strous thought 

 but not more horrible than the practical atheism, 

 which prevails among many who profess and 

 blaspheme his name. 



c 



