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SERIES OF LETTERS

ADDRESSED TO

364.

THE REV. WALTER FARQUHAR HOOK, M.A.

PROVING THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF

PLACING ANY BELIEF IN SCRIPTURE,

EXCEPT UPON

THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH.

WITH

APPENDIX AND NOTES.

BY VERAX,

A CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

LONDON:

BOOKER AND DOLMAN, 61, NEW BOND STREET;

AND

KEATING AND BROWN, 38, DUKE STREET, GROSVENOR SQUARE,
AND 63, PATERNOSTER Row.

1837.

1000.0.4.

WM. DAVY, PRInter, 8, gilbert street, oxfoRD STREET.

INTRODUCTION.

I Now redeem the promise I made in my late Reply to the Tract of the Rev. W. F. Hook, M.A., (Chaplain in Ordinary to his late Majesty, William IV., of blessed memory,) and in which I pledged myself to prove to a demonstration, the utter impossibility of placing any belief in the Scriptures except upon the authority of the Catholic Church. My Readers will therefore see, in the following letters, the strength of the arguments, and of the proofs which I have. produced, and which I consider will completely bear me out in what I have asserted, that the Church is our only infallible judge; neither is there the least chance left of finding any other judge sufficient to direct us in all things necessary to salvation, to put an end to our controversies, and at the same time sufficient to contain us all in the unity of one interior faith and exterior profession of the same, with all the other qualities requisite in our judge. Human reason (so adored by the Socinians) cannot be this judge, because it is fallible; this, I confess, they easily get over, by denying that any faith is infallible. But let me ask them, was there ever known throughout the whole world, even one solitary parish to be of this their opinion? is it then likely to be true in the eyes of any rational man? What folly in the extreme to make reason our judge in things known to be above reason. Can any creature with any pretensions to common sense, believe that the world was so taught to act by our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles, or that the universe did ever so proceed in any one age? What record mentions it? Is this "to bring into captivity all understandings to the obedience of Christ?" (2 Cor. x. 5.) The sacred Scriptures were confided by the Apostles to the Church; they were deposited with it; they charged it to make known their contents to all the world. The Son of God gave to it full powers, with a promise

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