Excerpt from Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church: Viewed Relatively to Romanism and Popullar Protestantism It stands to reason that these Volumes must contain various statements, which I am sorry to have made, and which I reproduce at the present time not without pain. Gladly would I obliterate them, but that cannot be; and I have only the alternative of publishing them afresh with what I consider a refutation, or leaving them unanswered to the chance of publication by others at some future time. I have chosen to republish them myself, and perhaps it would be some want of faith in the Truth, or some over-appreciation of my own controversial powers, if I had any dread lest my present explanations in behalf of the Catholic Religion could be inferior in cogency to the charges which I once brought against it. As I said in 1871 in the Advertisement to my Essays, "The author cannot destroy what he has once put into print: 'Litera scripta manet.' He might suppress it for a time; but, sooner or later, his power over it will cease. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.