6 PREFACE, ,;d..q,-?t:,res?a ?,'A?/,.,e..,, and impose on the public. One object, then, of this work is, to spread before the people true popery, and to strip it of its Protestant garb, which it has for the time beh?g assumed. - Popery is truly irreformable, and it cannot change essentially without destruction. Hence it professes to be unchangeable. Pope Pius's creed affirms that the ch.urch hath held her doctrines as she now holds them. Infallibility and unchangeableness are their boast. Pope Gregory XVI. in his encyclical letter of August 15th, 1832, says, "Ever bearing in mind ' that the universal church suffers from every novelty,'* as well as the admonition of the pope, St. Agatho, ' That from what has been regularly defined, nothing can be taken away, no innovation introduced there, no addition made; but that it must be preserved untouched as to words and meaning.' "t Again, he says, concerning the Church of Rome, "It is no less absurd than injurious to her, that any thing by way of restoration, or regeneration, should be forced upon her as necessary for her soundness or increase, as if she could be thought obnoxious to decay, to obscurities, or to any other such incon- veniences." And Mr. Charles Buffer, .Esq., in his Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 11, says, "It is most true, that the Roman Catholics believe the doctrines of their church to be un- changeable; and that it is a tenet of their creed, that what their faith ever has been, such it now is, and such it ever will be." And as Roman Catholics profess this iramutability, Protestants cannot be charged with uncharitableness in ascribing great unfairness to them, when they vary so glaringly from the accredited standards of their church. Thirdly. An additional reason for writing these pages is, to inform Protestants concerning the true nature, tendency, and design of popery. On account of the sound Scriptural truths in which the great body of American Protestants have been educated, they think it impossible that any men called Christian can seriously hold to the principles charged on Roman Catholics as pans of their creed and religion. They have taken advantage of this, and pro- fess to Protestants an adherence to many of the leading truths of our Protestant religion. Hence many Protestants think Roman Catholics are misrepresented, when their real system is delineated. o St. Csl?t. p. Epic. hi, to fl?s bishops o1' C?ul. t; 8?. Ag?tho, P. EpiC., to t!? ? Apud.--?., tom. ii, p. Sail. 1
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