Athanasius
See also Appendix

PART II.--CHAPTER I.

State of Worship at the time of the Reformation
Sec. 1. "Hours of the Virgin"
2. Service of Thomas Becket

CHAPTER II.

Council of Trent
See also Appendix

CHAPTER III.

Present Service in the Church of Rome

PART III.

WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN MARY.

CHAPTER I.

Sec. 1. Introductory Remarks
2. Evidence of Holy Scripture

CHAPTER II.

Evidence of Primitive Writers

CHAPTER III.

Assumption of the Virgin Mary

CHAPTER IV.

Councils of Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon

CHAPTER V.

Sec. 1. Present authorized Worship of the Virgin
2. Worship of the Virgin, continued
3. Bonaventura
4. Biel, Damianus, Bernardinus de Bustis, Bernardinus Senensis,&c.
See also Appendix
5. Modern Works of Devotion
See also Appendix

CONCLUSION

* * * * * {1}

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

THE DUTY OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT.

Fellow Christians,

Whilst I invite you to accompany me in a free and full investigation of
one of those tenets and practices which keep asunder the Roman and the
Anglican Church, I am conscious in how thankless an undertaking I have
engaged, and how unwelcome to some is the task in which I call upon you
to join. Many among the celebrated doctors of the Roman Church have
taught their disciples to acquiesce in a view of their religious
obligation widely different from the laborious and delicate office of
ascertaining for themselves the soundness of the principles in which
they have been brought up. It has been with many accredited teachers a
favourite maxim, that individuals will most acceptably fulfil their duty
by abstaining {2} from active and personal inquiries into the
foundations of their faith; and by giving an implicit credence to
whatever the Roman Church pronounces to be the truth[1]. Should this
book fall into the hands of any who have adopted that maxim for the rule
of their own conduct as believers, its pages will of course afford them
no help; nor can they take any interest in our pursuit, or its results.
Whilst, however, I am aware, that until the previous question (involving
the grounds on which the Church of Rome builds her claim to be the sole,
exclusive, and infallible teacher of Christians in all the doctrines of
religion,) shall have been solved, many members of her body would throw
aside, as preposterous, any treatise which professed to review the
soun