On these and similar principles, we maintain that it well becomes Christians, when the soundness of their faith, and the rectitude of their acts of worship, are called in question, “to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.”  Thus, when the unbeliever charges us with credulity in receiving as a divine revelation what he scornfully rejects, it behoves us all (every one to the extent of his means and opportunities) to possess ourselves of the accumulated evidences of our holy faith, so that we may be able to give to our own minds, and to those who ask it of us, a reason for our hope.  The result can assuredly be only the comfort of a still more unshaken conviction.  Thus, too, when the misbeliever charges us with an undue and an unauthorized ascription of the Divine attributes to our Redeemer and to our Sanctifier, which he would confine to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, exclusively of the Eternal Son and the Blessed Spirit, it well becomes every Catholic Christian to assure himself of the evidence borne by the Scriptures to the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, together with the inseparable doctrines of redemption by the blood of Christ, and sanctification by the Spirit of grace; appealing also in this investigation to the tradition of the Church, and the testimony of her individual members from the earliest times, as under God his surest and best guides.  In both these cases, I can say for myself that I have acted upon my own principles, and to the very utmost of my faculties have scrutinized the foundations {10} of my faith, and from each of those inquiries and researches I have risen with a satisfaction increased far beyond my first anticipations.  What I had taken up in my youth on authority, I have been long assured of by a moral demonstration, which nothing can shake; and I cling to it with an affection, which, guarded by God’s good providence, nothing in this world can dissolve or weaken.

It is to engage in a similar investigation that I now most earnestly but affectionately invite the members of the Church of Rome, in order to ascertain for themselves the ground of their faith and practice in a matter of vast moment, and which, with other points, involves the principle of separation between the Roman and Anglican branches of the universal Church.  Were the subjects of minor importance, or what the ancient writers were wont to call “things indifferent,” reason and charity would prescribe that we should bear with each other, allowing a free and large discretion in any body of Christians, and not severing ourselves from them because we deemed our views preferable to theirs.  In such a case we might well walk in the house of God as friends, without any interruption of the harmony which should exist between those who worship the true God with one heart and one mind, ever striving to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  But when the points at issue are of so vast moment; when two persons agreeing in the general