Reasons for subscribing to the exlusive teaching and authority of the Holy Catholic Church

Abstract

Reasons, &c.

At a mature period of life (the age of thirty-six) I experienced the happiness of hearing, and afterwards attentively reading, the lectures delivered by Dr. Wiseman, at St. Mary's, in Moorfields, on the doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church, and it was in a very early stage of the examination of these doctrines into which those lectures led me, that I became convinced of the gross misrepresentations concerning Catholic tenets which prevail among Protestants; such, for instance, as that indulgences can be granted as licences to excuse sins to be committed; that absolution for sins committed, or to be committed, can be purchased with money; that the angels and saints are worshipped with supreme or divine honour; and that the images of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and the saints, are adored by Catholics, as possessing an innate and divine power. I discovered that Dr. Wiseman's lectures embodied a clear, distinct, and complete refutation of these calumnies and a disclaimer of these absurdities; and they proved that the Catholic Church never did so hold or teach; but that, on the contrary, what the Catholic Church teaches on these subjects, is, that no indulgence can be granted for any such purpose as is pretended by Protestants, and that even past sins are not pardoned by an indulgence... [Excerpt]