Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Congratulatory Letter to the Rev. Herbert Marsh, D. D. F. R. S., Margaret Professor of Divinity in Cambridge: On His Judicious Inquiry Into the Consequences of Neglecting to Give the Prayer-Book With the Bible
Popery. The danger of the perversion of Scripture, on which you so much insist, is the very argument used by the Papists in defence of the denial of the Bible to the Laity. And indeed to such a length do you carry your ar gument, thati know not what answer you could give to a Catholic Doctor, who should justify the practice of his Church by your authority. This is truly, Sir, the confirmation of all I have ad vanced; and you may therefore Observe, why I conceive myself justified in writing to you a congratulatory letter. To be candid with you, I have no doubt, if you are only consistent with yourself, but you will perceive, in the end, that the Catholic Liturgy is better founded than that of your established Church. Your Liturgy, Sir, is what in our Church we generally term tradition - doctrina tradita. Now, as you well know, every thing must rest upon some foundation - in argument, you must either have, or assume a principle - You then derive your Litur gy from the reformers.-vvhat does it rest upon? On their Opinions and judgment - Some may say, on their interpretation of the Scriptures, -and the interpretation of the Scriptures upon their Opinions, - but this would be a circulars vitiosus.-you perceive, Sir, that you are in the dilemma of the man, who fixed the world upon the back of a huge tortoise - the tortoise he raised on the back of an immense elephant - but he was absolutely at a loss to discover what he could make the elephant stand upon. Thus, Sir, I think you will be under the necessity of car rying up the Liturgy, with the Catholics, beyond the period of the Reformation, and until it rest upon the au thority of the apostles, or their immediate disciples. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
