The Sun.
London, England, 1825-01-22 00:00:00

A DEFENCE of the PROTESTANT CHURCH from
the ATTACK of the MODERN HISTORIAN of the
REFORMATION, W. COBBETT.

(No. fi.)
Mn. EDITOR-While I was writing to you
my last communication, I received two numbers of
the French Journal L'Etoile, which confirmed my
presentiment of the advantage which this profound
-Historian was eager to make of the Roman Ca-
tholic Association and all its sympathies, abroad
and at home, more especially in a neighbouring
State,
,where they seem to be bringing every
thing back as fast as they can to the old regime.
This stews his History to be what I first thought
it would prove, a piece de circonstance, according
to the language of that country, just got up to
catch the humour /as it runs, and not a standard
piece, which, being written for the sake of truth,
descends to posterity among annals almost as im-
perizhable as Truth itself. No matter—it serves
the turn of the Jesuitical writers in L'Etoile,
who seize upon it the first moment of its arrival,
and hasten to publish quotations from it, pre-
facing, in their haste, that it is one of the most
intelligent Histories of the Reformation yet pub-
lished, and that present circumstances make it
extremely important ; at the same time promising
still more quotations to serve their own good
Catholic purpose, whose interest must he highly
promoted, if this is the real History of the Re.

formation. Instead of the Reformation being
"an alteration for the better," this Historian
contends that it was " an alte ration greatly for the
worse, engendered in beastly lust, brought forth
its hypocrisy and perfidy, and cherished and fed
sty plunder, &c. ;" that it has only triumphed over
the religion of our fathers by giving that religion a
bad name, by calling it " the Beast," 44 the Man
or Sin," and the Scarlet Whore," 46 idolatrous
and damnable," when it is acknowledged to have
been the Catholic Religion which is defined the
Universal, and so called because all Christian
people, of every nation, acknowledge it to be

_ .
the only true religion, and all acknowledge one
- -

and the same Head of the Church in every part
of the world where Christianity was professed.
But there came a time when, as L'Etoile helps
the Historian out, an apostate Monk protested
against the doctrines which they do not under-
stand -of that Church, which, until now, had
peen the only Christian Church : they therefore
call themselves Protesters or Protestants.

Now to prove all this, after a long declamation

_ .
and much ribaldry,so little becoming the dignity
of History, he begins with stating the origin of
the Catholic Church, which he defines as we
have seen above.

Now this definition is perfectly right of the
word " Catholic," which every schoolboy ►oust
know to mean Universal; but this histociau is as
perfectly wrong in the application of the epithet
in this general sense to the Papal Church, be-
- cause that Church was never in its highest zenith
universal, nor was there ever a period when " all
acknowledged," wi he states, tc one and the

same Head of the Church in every part of the
world where Christianity was professed." Hence
it is called Roman Catholic, as one of their re-
ligion used to call himself English Catholic; and
the Papists, monopolizing this epithet which in
itself defies monopoly, are guilty of as great a
BA according to the remark of an eminent Pro-
testant Divine, as ever issued from the Popes,
9r from the mouths of their fellow Papists in a
si,ter country ; as if Rome and the universe
could be the same, as Paris and the world are

in- the mind of a conceited Frenchman. He ob,

serves, also, that the perpetual canting of this term
has been, in ages of superstition, one of the most
effectual charms upon the weak and credulous,
the various factions which have prevailed at dif-
ferent times assuming the magic of this name to
themselves, each one pleading in favour of his
own persuasion—l am a Catholic—that is, an
Universal, therefore all that I hold must be true,
for what every body believes, according to
the old adage, must be true; forgetting that this
would bo no argument to another who does not
'happen to be of the same opinion with this soi-
divant Catholic, unless he is one of the ideal
philosophers who has reasoned himself into the
unreasonable belief that he is nobody, and is
mad enough to deny that he is in actual exist-
ence. But, leaving these ideas and bulls to
speak so loudly against themselves, as they will
do whenever they are left to themselves, and

making no other answer thin was formerly made
to these visionaries who denied motion by ac.
.rally moving from them, we will endeavour to
-give our &finition of the Catholic Church.
In vain do we look for this term in the Holy
Scriptures. We find it, however, in the Creed,
though not even there at first, but inserted in a
following age ; so that, if we would know its
meanie;, we must refer, as in other cases, to the

sense of the Fathers who have made use of it.—
'hey called the Canonical Epistles Catholic, be-
cause, though addressed to particular Churches,
they were to be copied and sent to the different
Christian Churches in the world. These were

called the Catholic Church, comprehending all
,cof these particular Churches, just as each o►
.-the latter was called the Ckurch, and com-
prehended all the congregations of Christians
belonging to the several cities or provinces in
which it was established. As, wherever there

is such a congregation there is a Church, so
-the Catholic is the mass of those congregations,

as not only the body of Christians now living,

•but the whole that ever lived, from the beginning
to the end, " the body of Him who is given to be
the head over all things to the Church—the
-fulness of Him that ftlleth all in all." This
body has not yet arrived at that stature and ma-
t/1g which a-re predicted of it in the age when
chrislrle world is to become the theatre of
iorn. It has been hitherto stinted in its'
;growth 6`The heavy yoke of Egyptian bondage,
a" galled 6.^-the chains and •fetters -of ages of
superstition, at,
-ages to come may the
consummation of the prophecy which is to
*take the . Churc, indeed ~Catholic, when
there shall' not be , an •in the world
who is not a Christ.,ll:l; still there has
:4bresetoenotli
establishment, the spirit at all times since its.
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