which you appear to have altogether overlooked. How shall we manage, when we have found the saints and their books, to know the meaning of their writings? For instance, there is one passage in Tertullian, who perhaps is no saint, yet is a good witness, which we say teaches plainly the doctrine of the real presence, and some of your confreres quote the very passage to prove the very opposite doctrine.-You and the Presbyterians differ, you and the Baptists differ, as to the meaning of the passages from the saints and fathers. Thus, you have not as yet brought us one step in advance of the Bible, nor have you proved the Bible, nor any part of it, to have been revealed by God, nor given us a principle upon which to found that proof. Reverend Sir, I have permitted you to walk unmolested over many a miry pass, in which I could have made you sink, by merely flinging upon you the load of your own inconsistency, and depriving you of the aid of my concessions.-I come now to examine the most extraordinary passage that ever came under my eyes.

"With us, the Bible is authoritative: any other evidence admitted is but collateral, or confirmatory. This, brethren, is the ground assumed by the Church of which we are members; and it is precisely that high and vantage ground on which she can be safe from the assumptions of Papal power on one hand, and the fury of untempered innovation on the other. Let then the Church be the witness and keeper of Holy Writ; for so hath God ordained. Let her "have authority to judge and determine in controversies of faith; not that absolute authority which is predicated on the claim of infallibility; not that authority, which would fetter the minds and the consciences of her members; yea, fetter the word of God; but that authority, which, resting upon the possession of concentrated wisdom and piety, and upon the peculiar benediction of her divine founder and head, is all that she arrogates to herself, 1 inducing her not 'to go beyond the word of the Lord, to do either less or more.' Give to her less than this, and you make her a mere nullity; give to her more than this, and you then make the Bible the mere creature of her will: you magnify the ark itself above the law and the testimony, which it only enshrines."

Authority, Reverend Sir, may be defined, power properly derived to do some act. Now I am as perfectly at a loss as ever I was in my life, to know what is the meaning of your assertion, unless it is the following: "God has established the Church as the keeper of the Scriptures, and the witness of their having been kept unadulterated and entire." If this be your meaning, you are to all intents and purposes,

1 Vide Article 20th.

so far, a Roman Catholic. I suppose you would not assert, that God ordained the Church to have the high and important charge here described, without his also doing what was further necessary, and what it is clearly in his power to do, viz. to make that keeper faithful, to make that witness sufficient. Indeed, it would be arguing gross stupidity in the eternal God, to suppose he would give the sacred deposit of heavenly truth to a keeper incompetent to its preservation; to a witness who would be incapable, inefficient, useless. For, if this keeper permitted the adulteration of the deposit, how should it become purified? If this witness could testify a falsehood, where would be our security for the knowledge of truth? It inevitably results, that we can have no certainty of the identity, the integrity and the purity of the sacred books, except from our certainty of the infallible fidelity of the keeper, and the infallible accuracy and honesty of the witness. Thus, Reverend Sir, I am extremely happy to find you and I are fully agreed, that we must depend upon the infallibility of the Church for the authenticity and accuracy of the present copies of that Bible, whose authority does not spring from the high power of the trusty keeper and infallible witness, which has preserved the sacred deposit, but from the supreme power and dominion of the great God, who gave these works to the care and keeping of the infallible Church. Of course, Reverend Sir, we will also agree, that the Church so commissioned, must have been that which was originally in existence, and spread through all nations, having but one doctrine, not contradictions of opinion, and which through all ages continued her regular succession and unbroken integrity, and that the commission could not be communicated to any portion, however numerous, or respectable, which in any nation broke away from this Church, separating from her communion, opposing her authority, vilifying her officers, decrying her practices, and charging her with being a faithless and traitorous keeper of the divine records, and a lying witness, testifying that God gave to her keeping, books which he never ordained her to keep. To suppose, the great Church of all nations, which had been originally established the keeper and the witness, which you so properly point out, and to suppose that during eight hundred years and upwards, she was thus unfaithful, as your book of homilies asserts, would destroy the principle you lay down, and would establish against the eternal God, ignorance, want of power, or want of care, for the preservation of truth. Of course, Reverend Sir, you will not make such blasphemous charges; you would prefer holding to your own principles, "Let then the Church be the witness and keeper of Holy Writ; for so God hath ordained."

We now come to another, and a very important topic. We have before seen, that even when the Church gives to us the sacred volume, and by reason of her divine commission, we are infallibly certain that what we read is truly the sacred treasure of divine truth, still, even with the aid of enlightened reason, and all the other circumstances of spiritual preparation and biblical investigation, equally honest persons diligently inquiring, "What is the doctrine that God teaches," can not agree as to the fact, but actually contradict each other.

We consulted

the Saints of the early ages, but as they were not infallible, though their opinions deserved respect, we are not bound to be led by them. In all this, Reverend Sir, you and I are perfectly agreed. I agree with you in your assertions: "Their testimony to facts, we deem it reasonable to receive." "We must suffer the Saints of the first ages, to declare what form of doctrine had been delivered to them; what was generally believed and practised in their day; and the natural presumption will be, that this belief and this practice were derived from the Apostles." "Their testimony as to facts, rests upon the basis of their unimpeached honesty and actual observation, and consequently may not be consistently rejected." In all this I agree fully with you; I find them testify, that controversies of faith arose, that is, that several persons interpreted the Scripture, so as to say, that it contained a special doctrine, whilst others, equally honest, contradicted them and said, that it did not contain that doctrine, but that it contained exactly what contradicted it. Thus you, I suppose would say, that the holy Scripture contained the doctrine of the divinity of our blessed Saviour, [while] your confrere in the ministry, the Reverend Mr. Whitaker, with equally honest purpose asserted, that it contained the doctrine, that our blessed Lord was not God. You said, it plainly contained the doctrine, that bishops and priests are different orders, and your confrere, Rev. Mr. Moderwell said, it contained the very contradictory doctrine. Such differences have occurred in the early ages; controversies arose were all those contradictions contained in the Book? Impossible! How shall we know its meaning? You tell us, Reverend Sir, "Let her, that is, the Church, have authority to judge and determine in controversies of faith." Had you stopped here, we would still be fully agreed, but I cannot agree with you in what you have added; for I do not like to add glaring inconsistencies and palpable contradictions to my other faults.

As these, Reverend Sir, are strong expressions, and such as ought not to be used without very good cause, I feel myself bound to justify them. It is impossible for me to do so in the compass of this letter, but I shall make some preparation for my next, by giving here what I

conceive to be the plain meaning of that phrase, in the use of which we are agreed.

We found that God bestowed upon the Church authority to be the keeper and the witness of Holy Writ. This Writ contains His doctrine, which He requires man to believe; the firm conscientious belief of this doctrine is faith; faith is a mental act, not a mere oral declaration; a declaration of belief, contrary to mental conviction, is an act of hypocrisy, which is irreligious and displeasing to God, and can not therefore ever be pleasing to Him, or received by Him; and no man who makes such a profession can be honest, because, in making it he solemnly asserts what is not the fact.

Faith is the belief of what God has revealed; what the Bible contains has been revealed by Him; two persons differ as to the doctrine which it contains; this is a controversy of faith. How is it to be terminated? That is, in other words, how are we to know what is the contained doctrine? You tell us, "let the Church have authority to judge and to determine." Authority is power properly derived to do some act: the act in this place is, after examination to form a judgment; the judgment is, to assert and to testify which is the doctrine revealed by God, or contained in the Book; and to determine that, is to put an end to the controversy, by removing the doubt which existed: that doubt can not be removed, but by giving certainty; certainty can be given only by creating evidence of truth; evidence of truth, in this case, is clear, infallible, certain evidence, as to what doctrine revealed by God is contained in that passage or in that book. Thus, if the Church is to have. such authority, she must have power properly derived to her, to do those acts; such power can be properly derived to her only from one source, which is the Diety himself. Therefore, unless God himself has given to her power to decide with infallible certainty what is the doctrine which God has revealed in that book, or that passage, she can have no authority to judge and to determine in controversies of faith. And if she has no such power, we have no mode of knowing with certainty what God has taught; because, no other body or individual lays claim to this authority except herself, and if her claim is unfounded, we have no ground of certainty, because all are liable to error: and God requires us to believe with a firm faith what He teaches, and yet leaves us without any certain mode of ascertaining what we are to believe. Of course, it would be preposterous to assert, that he requires of us to be hypocrites, by professing to believe, what we may or may not believe; and it would be equally preposterous to assert that his Church could have a power to judge and to determine what he has taught, and yet we not be bound in

conscience mentally to believe what the tribunal to which he gave the authority had proposed to us as being revealed by him.

I am, Reverend Sir, yours, and so forth,

A ROMAN CATHOLIC.

LETTER VI.

To the Rev. Hugh Smith, A.M.,

CHARLESTON, S. C., Aug. 28, 1826.

Rev. Sir-In my last I agreed with you in saying, "Let then the Church be the witness and keeper of Holy Writ; for so God hath ordained. Let her have authority to judge and determine in controversies of faith." We saw, Reverend Sir, if she had such authority, it must have been derived from God, and must bind the conscience of man; because it would be folly to say that a controversy had been determined, when the parties were left at liberty to profess what they pleased; and it would be irreligious to assert that God could bind man to be a hypocrite, by requiring of him to profess the belief of what he did not conscientiously assent to be truth. The Church can therefore have no authority to judge and to determine controversies of faith, unless her decisions will bind the consciences of her members: and God cannot bind any person to receive and to obey a judgment and determination of a tribunal which might as easily lead man to error as to truth; if God then binds man to obedience he must himself lead the tribunal to give an infallibly true judgment; his command of obedience is a pledge that he will so direct; therefore it was, that in my last I wrote that you must ultimately come to maintain the infallibility of the Church. But no; you will not for you immediately add, "not that absolute authority which is predicated upon the claim of infallibility." Really, Reverend Sir, you appear to me to wax worse in your contradictions, because you now deny what you before asserted. You asserted that the Church has authority; now you say she is not to have that authority "absolute.” Good Sir, between the absolute possession of just power, and the absolute want of just power, there is no medium: for if a tribunal has power to decide, it absolutely has the power of decision: and if the tribunal has not absolute power of decision, it has no power to judge and to determine. I will allow that in some cases, and under certain conditions, a tribunal might have power, and in all other cases, and when those conditions do not exist, be without any power. In this case, however, there is an absolute power, so far as it goes, or there is none. For instance, the Governor of Georgia has power, in case he thinks a man unjustly