D DIFFICULTIES OF PROTESTANTISM. BY THE REV. JOHN FLETCHER, D.D. "What is Protestantism?" "It is the abjuration of Popery." DR. BURGESS'S CATECHISM. "Nihil, enim, interest illis, licet diversa tractantibus, dum ad unius veritatis expug- TERTULLIAN. LONDON: PRINTED BY A. J. VALPY, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. SOLD BY KEATING AND BOOKER, 1829. DEDICATION. TO THE RIGHT REV. JAMES YORKE BRAMSTON, D. D. BISHOP OF USULA, AND VICAR APOSTOLIC OF THE LONDON DISTRICT. MY LORD, I have taken the liberty to dedicate the few following pages to your Lordship. They present, not a regular treatise upon the subject, which I have undertaken to discuss, but merely an imperfect etching. They present, however, an etching, which, if viewed attentively, will be found to exhibit a variety of striking attitudes, and important truths,-truths which, I conceive, are sufficiently awful to awaken the solicitude of the thoughtful, and more prudent, enemies of our religion, and to engage them to weigh well those principles upon which,-when consistent,-they build the fabric of their belief, and the presumed security of their salvation. For the force, and excellence, of many of the observations, as well as for many portions of the work, I am indebted to the eloquent Essays of the celebrated Abbé De La Mennais. The object of the work is to point out, as its title expresses, some of those innumerable difficulties, which surround, and perplex, the religion of Protestantism. To your Lordship a work of this description is addressed with peculiar propriety; because it was |