Excerpt from A True Account of the Gunpowder Plot: Extracted From Dr. Lingrard's History of England and Dodd's Church History

There is a homage to the truth of the Catholic religion even in the assaults of its enemies there is a tribute Of acknowledg ment to the virtues and the loyalty Of its professors in the very efforts that are made to blacken their reputation. Were the former the degraded system of falsehood and superstition which it is frequently represented, a statement of its acknowledged doctrines would be sufficient to convict it: were the latter guilty of the base and criminal practices so constantly imputed to them, a simple, unimpassioned appeal to their lives and visible bearing would drive them from society and the world. Men do not combat falsehood with misrepresentation nor do they, denounce a real Offender on the evidence Of fictitious crimes. The fact that they are driven to the necessity of invention, to combat doctrines that were never held, and prac tices that were never allowed, to seek in the past for the evidences of the present, and to charge upon a body what can be traced only to the misconduct of individuals, is a sure testimony to the truth and to the purity of that which it is their object to vilify and destroy. Nor'is this all. It is the charac teristic Of error to be feeble, fluctuating, and anxious: it is the property Of truth to be constant in the unity of its perceptions, and calm in the consciousness of its own power. The assailant who is ever attacking, and ever changing the ground of his attack, may prove his anxiety, his vigilance, the hostility of his purpose, and the boldness Of his daring but he will also prove the weakness of his own resources, and the impregnable resist ance of that which he is seeking to overthrow.

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