f doctrine, either Protestant or Roman, depends
upon their reception or rejection.

In conclusion. What struck me most on the perusal of this singular
epistle, all the main points of which I believe I have tolerably well
answered, and without much trouble, was the ignorance more than childish,
the extraordinary, unaccountable ignorance, which the author displays on
the subject on which he has written, and all which relates to it,
notwithstanding that subject is a religious one, and he, an ecclesiastic
as he gives the world to know, standing forward as champion of the Church
of Rome. He is evidently as well acquainted with Scripture and the works
of the Fathers as with the Talmud and Zend-avesta, and with the ideas and
dogmas of those whom he calls heretics, as with the religious opinions of
the Mongols and the followers of the Lama of the Himalayan hills. The
miserable attack which, in his rancorous feebleness, he has just
committed on the Bible Society will redound merely to his own shame and
ridicule, and the disgrace of the sect to which he belongs. What could
persuade him to speak of the Vulgate? What could induce him to grasp
that two-edged sword? Does it not cut off his own hands? Does the
Vulgate allude to the Bible Society, or to him and his fellows, when it
cries:--

Vae vobis legisperitis, quia tulistis clavem scientiae, ipsi non
introistis: et eos, qui introibant, prohibuistis.--Lucae, cap. xi.
vers. 52.

'Ay de vosotros, Doctores de la Ley que os alzasteis con la llave de
la ciencia! vosotros no entrasteis, y habeis prohibido a los que
entraban.'

And again:--

Qui ex Deo est, verba Dei audit. Propterea vos non auditis, quia ex
Deo non estis.--Joan. cap. viii. vers. 47.

'El que es de Dios, oye las palabras de Dios. Por eso vosotros no
las ois, porque no sois de Dios.'

What could induce him to speak of Luther and his works? What does he,
what do his abettors, know of Luther and his writings, or of the ideas
which the heretics entertain respecting either? I will instruct them.
Luther was a bold inquiring man, with some learning; he read the
Scriptures in the original tongues, and found that their contents were in
entire variance with the doctrines of the Church of the Seven Hills; he
told the world so, as other men had done, with feebler voices, before,
and the best part of the world believed--not him--but the Scripture, for
he gave it to them in a