An antagonist of a complex bad system,--a system, however,
notwithstanding--and such is Popery,--should take heed above all things
not to disperse himself. Let him keep to the sticking place. But the
majority of our Protestant polemics seem to have taken for granted that
they could not attack Romanism in too many places, or on too many
points;--forgetting that in some they will be less strong than in
others, and that if in any one or two they are repelled from the
assault, the feeling of this will extend itself over the whole. Besides,
what is the use of alleging thirteen reasons for a witness's not
appearing in Court, when the first is that the man had died since his
'subpoena'? It is as if a party employed to root up a tree were to set
one or two at that work, while others were hacking the branches, and
others sawing the trunk at different heights from the ground.
N. B. The point of attack suggested above in disputes with the Romanists
is of special expediency in the present day: because a number of pious
and reasonable Roman Catholics are not aware of the dependency of their
other tenets on this of the infallibility of their Church decisions, as
they call them, but are themselves shaken and disposed to explain it
away. This once fixed, the Scriptures rise uppermost, and the man is
already a Protestant, rather a genuine Catholic, though his opinions
should remain nearer to the Roman than the Reformed Church.
Ib.
_But methinks yet I should have hope of reviving your charity.
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