THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMAN IS M. BY GEORGE STANLEY FABER, B.D. RECTOR OF LONG-NEWTON. "Peræque adversus universas hæreses jam hinc LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. MDCCCXXVI. ΤΟ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE NICHOLAS, LORD BEXLEY, AS A TOKEN OF SINCERE RESPECT BOTH FOR HIS PUBLIC SERVICES AND HIS PRIVATE VIRTUES, THIS MANUAL IS INSCRIBED, BY HIS OBLIGED AND OBEDIENT HUMBLE SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. JUN 25 (30) 150007 PREFACE. AT various intervals, during the course of some years past, my attention has been turned to that part of the Latin controversy, which respects the evidence afforded by the early ecclesiastical writers. I. It appeared to me, that, on all the great leading points of divinity, those who conversed with the apostles, and those who lived nearest to the times of the apostles, must best have known the mind of the apostles. Whence it seemed to follow, that, if the Latin church really possessed that immutability of character which is so constantly claimed on her behalf, all those various doctrines and practices, which many persons are wont to deem corruptions of the truth, must have subsisted from the apostolic age itself, and might therefore be clearly discovered in the productions of all the early ecclesiastics. Such a testimony as this in favour of the Roman system of theology, should it actually exist, would be so powerful, that it is difficult to conceive how it could be reasonably set aside: for, if all the ancient writers, |