PART II.—­CHAPTER I.

State of Worship at the time of the Reformation
Sec. 1.  “Hours of the Virgin”
  2.  Service of Thomas Becket

CHAPTER II.

Council of Trent
    See also Appendix

CHAPTER III.

Present Service in the Church of Rome

PART III.

Worship of the virgin Mary.

CHAPTER I.

Sec. 1.  Introductory Remarks
  2.  Evidence of Holy Scripture

CHAPTER II.

Evidence of Primitive Writers

CHAPTER III.

Assumption of the Virgin Mary

CHAPTER IV.

Councils of Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon

CHAPTER V.

Sec. 1.  Present authorized Worship of the Virgin
  2.  Worship of the Virgin, continued
  3.  Bonaventura
  4.  Biel, Damianus, Bernardinus de Bustis, Bernardinus Senensis,&c. 
      See also Appendix
5.  Modern Works of Devotion
    See also Appendix

CONCLUSION

       * * * * * {1}

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

The duty of private judgment.

Fellow Christians,

Whilst I invite you to accompany me in a free and full investigation of one of those tenets and practices which keep asunder the Roman and the Anglican Church, I am conscious in how thankless an undertaking I have engaged, and how unwelcome to some is the task in which I call upon you to join.  Many among the celebrated doctors of the Roman Church have taught their disciples to acquiesce in a view of their religious obligation widely different from the laborious and delicate office of ascertaining for themselves the soundness of the principles in which they have been brought up.  It has been with many accredited teachers a favourite maxim, that individuals will most acceptably fulfil their duty by abstaining {2} from active and personal inquiries into the foundations of their faith; and by giving an implicit credence to whatever the Roman Church pronounces to be the truth[1].  Should this book fall into the hands of any who have adopted that maxim for the rule of their own conduct as believers, its pages will of course afford them no help; nor can they take any interest in our pursuit, or its results.  Whilst, however, I am aware, that until the previous question (involving the grounds on which the Church