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LETTERS

TO A MKM15KK OK IIIK WKSLEVAN MKIIIODIST CHURCH ; IN

WiUt II ( KKIAIN RKFT.r.CTIONS AGAINSr rkOTKSTAN F

ISM, AND VARIOl S ASSL'MITIOXS L\ F\\<)1 K Ol-

KOMAN'ISM, PI I FORTH \\\ AN KCCLF.SIASTIC

OK ROMK. Aki: KXAMINFH AND RKFITFD.

BY RHVI). JOHN BORLAND,

I'V'iTijR oi- THK Wksi.kvan Mkiikjuisi Cm r< ii, St Jt)iiN>. Can\i)\.

MUNTRKAI.:

••WIINKSS" l>ll(NII\>. »l «0 S K

i«73

LETTEES

TO A MEMBF:R of the WESLEYAN METHODIST CHURCH; IN
WHICH CERTAIN REFLECTIONS AGAINST PROTESTANT-
ISM, AND VARIOUS ASSUMPTIONS IN FAVOUR OF
ROMANISM, PUT FORTH BY AN ECCLESIASTIC
OF ROMK, ARE EXAMINED AND REFUTKD.

BY REVD. JOHN BORLAND,

I'AsroR oi niK Wkslkyan MKiiioDisr Church, Si. Johns, Canada.

MONTREAf, }

•'WnSKSS" FRINTIN(i HUUSK, aiH ANl> J20 ST. JAMKS STRKKT,

«873.

ADVERTISEMENT.

A member of the Methodist Church of this Town has lately been addressed by
an ecclesiastic of the Church of Rome, on the danger of his condition as a Pro-
testant, and of the great desirableness of his speedily seeking admission into that
Church.

The means employed were letters, two in number, which, when received, were
shown to the writer of this, because of the fact, doubtless, that he was pastor to
the person aihlressetl in them.

The first letter was devoted to an explanaticm of the unbecoming and danger-
ous conduct of I'rotestants in refusing to render, as was thought, the homage ami
veneration due to the Virgin Mary, and that the conduct of Romanists herein was
in striking contrast to that of the Protestant. A suitable reply was prepared and
sent to this communication, when it was soon intimated that a second letter might
be expected, in which subjects in controversy would be handled at greater length
and in greater fulness.

After several weeks the looked for epistle arrived ; and was found to be in
length at least, — extending as it did over twenty-five pages, foolscap, — all that
was promised. In it was discussed directly, the differing " Rules of Faith " of tlie
Protestant and Romanist Churches ; while, iucidcntly, a number of other jiarticu-
lars were introduced and dwelt upon of much moment in the points of controversy
between the two Churches.

The whole matter now assumed a form and dimension of ci)n>.i<lerable interest,
which induced liie conclusion that the treatment and reply to the (juestions before
us, should be put before the pulilic for its n»ore general consideration and judg-
ment.

This is now done, Vmt without any desire to reflect upon the conduct of the
ecclesiastic who has opened this discussion ; for whatever may Le thought of his
w<M(v/ of treating the subjects brought under consideration, all should unite in
commending ihc v*;/ that has sought to rescue .1 fellow being from what is thought
to be fearfully perilous error. It is thus the Romanist views the condition of the
Prt)testant ; arid therefore is he consistent with the Christianity he professes only,
when in the use of Christian means h- seeks his enlightenment and conversion;
and while I freely accord this liberty t«) the Romanist, nay, while I think that he
only acts consistently when he uses it, I, as a Protestant, rt-ho believes as strongly
in the dangerously erroneous eoiKiition of the Romanist as he can of the Pniteslant,
claim the same right to |)erfi>rm for him a soU-nui and sacred duly, as I wish hin«
to «lo for nj •. Antl sincerely do I trtist that the tinu- will yet come, when in a
spirit of Christian candour and fairness religious truth, as afl'ecting any party,
can be, and shall be, discussed and eiKpiired into by persons of all shades of dif-
ference, especially when those dirterences involve fundamental principles, until
all the chaflOf error is fully blown away, and nought shall be found to remain but
the wheat of truth which may supply to every hungry soul the bread of eternal
Ule.

LETTER I.

CONDUCT COMMENDED — PARTICULARS OBJECTIONAHLE — KNoWI.ElXih DEFEC-
TIVE — NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR SOCINIANISM — RULES OF 1 AITII STATED AND
CONSIDERED — ABSURD SUPPOSITION — NUMEROUS SECTS IN THE CHl'RCH
OF ROME — FANATICISM AND EXTRAVAGANCE — CASES REFERRED TO — REA-
SON FOR WITHHOLDING THE SCRIPTURES EXPOSED — SHOULD HE WITHHELD
FROM THE PRIESTHOOD.

My DEAR L., — In reflecting upon the professed object of your "friend," as
stated in his letters to you, viz., to induce you "to go back to your Mother
Church," I cannot but commend his zeal to do you what he doubtless believed to
be an essential service ; for, however plain and f)bvious his error in asking you
to go back to where you never had been ; and in styling the Church of Rome
your Mother Church, when to her you were never indeltled lor anything, —yet his
design evidently was to rescue you from a condition which he regards as eminently
perilous, and to introduce you where only, as he thinks, you can be forever safe.
I commend, I say, his zeal to serve you ; for it cannot in any sense be considered
Christlike to leave a fellow creature under the influence of fatal and destructive
error — for in this light Romanists regard Protestantism, and f/Vt* zr;'.r</ — without an
effort to enlighten him. Efforts of this kind are guided and encouraged by the
Apostle when he says : " Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from
the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of
sins." James v. 20.

Still, notwithstanding, my reference to that which in his conduct is commen.
datory, I cannot conceive why he should have endeavored in his correspondence
to conceal his name and person — a circumstance which has proved to be utterly
vain and futile. This is unworthy of him, for it looks as though he were ashamed
of the cause he desires to serve, or, at least, of his manner u{ doing it.

Then, again, I think he should have taken more pains to understand the .sub-
jects on which he has sought to enlighten you, than is a]iparent in his communica-
tions. For it is pretty evident that he does not understand Protestantism, against
which he lifts to you his warning voice ; whiU- even on the subject of Romanism —
his <m>n mv — assuniing that he has written on it as he understands it — his in-
formation might and ought to be very much improved. It is ensy to imagine
from the restrictive rules and regulations <>l the Roman Church, that l)ut a very
limited, and therefore a very imjierfect, knowledge of the Protestant faith tan be
acquired by any o» its members. Ihit surely no such obstacles are in the way to
a full and proper knowledge of their own faith. (^n the part of the I'^cclesinstics
o( the Church the probability is, that he tloes not say all he knows of his systen»,
but that only which on this occasion would ^uit his purpose with you. Vou should,
at any rate, have a fuller cxi)osiiion of Romanism than your *' friend '' has given
you, and that service 1 wUI render you ere I put down my pen.

Your " friend " begins his last and longest letter by a comparison of the I'ro-
testant with the Romanist rule of faith ; ami the conclusion which he reaches is
evidently most satisfactory to himself. What it would be to others, who really
understand the questions at issue, is quite another thing. This each thoughtful
reader will decide for himself.

He speaks of three rules of faith as existing amongst Protestants in the follow-
ing manner : —

"Of the three rules of faith. I. The Socinian rule of faith, they hold that
reason is the interpreter of that divine revelation" (the Bible) ; II. "Private
inspiration," which he says is "the rule of faith adopted by the Anabaptists, the
Quakers, the Moravian Brothers, and the Methodists, which consists that Clod
inspires each one of them" ; III. "The Bible, which is your third false rule
of faith."

The above, to go no farther, .shows that your "friend " needs very much to
be mlightened on that on which he seeks to enlighten you ; and that ere he
attempted to instruct a Protestant on the subject of his faith he should have
become more fully informed on that subject himself. But this is one of many
instances, ever and anon occurring, which .shows a remarkable defectiveness of
knowledge of the leading characteristics of the Protestant laith on the part of Ro-
manists ; and it forces upon us, Protestants, the conclusion that either they will
not do justice to themselves in studying it, or that they purposely misrepresent it
in order to prejudice all minds they can influence against it. But this they should
know is no way to advance the interests of truth : and he certainly must feel that
he has a bad cause to uphold who resorts to it.

Of Socinians or Unitarians, and their rule of faith, I'rotestants might well
excuse themselves from making any reference, much less a defence ; for with them,
in their faith and religious life, the Protestant proper can have no bonds of sym-
pathy or union. But as their nile of faith, as it is called, is held up as strikingly
improper, and as their condition is supposed to be confirmatory ot that conclu-
sion, I will bestow upon it a yiassing notice. And in doing so, I
observe, there are two extremes in the religious world on this very subject,
reason, in interpreting the Word of God. The Socinian is at one point,
and the Romanist at the other. The one gives too great a scope for
reason, the other too little. For instance, the Socinian presumes to bring to the
bar of his reason the nature of certain truths with which his reason, oi that of any
finite creature, is altogether incompetent to deal. Were he to employ his reason
with the stntt'fui'tits, simply, of such .ScrijUures as, for instance, those profoundly
mysterious truths of the plurality of persons in the Oodhead, the hypostatiial
imion of natures in the person of Christ, iSic, then would reason have its true and
legitimate field of action, and no exception could consistently lie against him.
For, assuredly, God Himself a])peals to the use of reason in man, and calls for its
exercise in a mnuber of instances; indirectly, in His many remonstrances and
counsels given for thoughtful consideration antl action ; and, directly, when, as in
Isaiah i : i8 He says : "Come now, and let us reason together, sailh the Lord."

Nor does the Romish hierarchy fail to recognize the existence and use of rea-
son when by argument, supported by Scriptural (juotations, they would sustain

their assumiitioiis aiul dcman is u])on the people. Then why, it surely tn.iy be
askeJ, refer to it in one instance and ignore its use in the other ? The only reply
i)f which this question is susceptible is, because they have engrafted so many
absurd and unscriptural dogmas and practices upon the faith and usages of the
primitive church, that they greatly fear detection, with its attendant and necessary
consequences.

So great and glaringly inconsistent with every office of reason is the conduct
ot the Church of Rome in many particulars, that we may not wonder at the at-
tempt it makes to stifle its voice. Yet they ought to know that they are the last
people in the world to point a finger even at the Socinian, or, by any means, to
stir up an enquiry into the office and use of reason in matters of religion ; for to
a properly enlightened mind it must ever be held as a monstrous supposition that
Gotl should cause a book to be written which even in its incomplete condition, as
under the Jewish dispensation, was found worthy of the most lavish praise, and to
be commentled to all classes of men for constant reading and application, — as by
holy men of God it was so praised and commended, — should now in its perfected
form be found to be so dangerous, yea, even so fraught with deadliest evils, that to
denounce it, to burn or otherwise to destroy it, and to punish most severely any
who should read or circulate it, should be reganled by any, as by the Church it
has long been so regarded, a solemnly imposed and imperative duty. This, I
repeat, is a monstrous supposition, and could never be entertained by any people
who had not abandoned the right use of their reason in matters so clearly within
its office and their solemn and never to be abandoned responsibilities to God,
their Redeemer and Judge.

Your " friend" objects to the Bible as a rule of faith because such a license, he
considers, begets Socinianism and multitudinous sects and parties, &c., &c. But
if even this were so, no judicious mind but would hesitate ere he took a step so
manifestly in opposition to the order of God, as seen in all ages of the past. But
is it so, as your friend asserts ? Does the proper use — I say proper use for that is
the light in which the thing is to be viewed— of God's Word lead to such a result ?
I say no — emi^hatically no ! — and demand the proof of such a charge, yea,
such a reflection, on the wisdom and goodness of God ; for if (iod has given us His
Word by which to enlighten and bless us, then to bring forward such a charge,
and to make it a reason for treating the Bible as the Church of Rome has long
been known to do, is c<miluct too audacious and wicked to receive apology from
any man professing himself to be a Christian. But, let me a.>>k you, is there any
good thing which Ciod has bestowed upon man that is not susceptible of abuse,
or that has not been abused? And yet has any sane man made the altemjit to set
aside the Divinely-bestowed blessing in onler to do away with the man-created
evil ? Many men take the grain which God has given us for our sustenance, and
convert it into alcohol ; but do we, therefore, because of this, advocate the destruc-
tion of the grain or the suppression of its growth ?

But ere your "friend " shouhl have thought of urging this |)lea, — M<- usf of the
Bible as ii rulf of fait h^ — he should have felt able to prove that no such evils have
ever attended the Romanist Rule »)f faith. Does he not know — for assuredly he
ought not to be ignorant of facts so clearly recorded in history, and that by author-

ities of his own Church— that anterior to the reformation by Luther, there were,
as since that period there have been, and still are, sects and parties in the Roman
Church as numerous and as widely divergent in principle and practice one from
another, as there are or ever have been amongst Protestants ? You have only to
look over any respectable ecclesiastical dictionary to be assured of this. As you
may not, however, have such at hand, I will give you a list which I rather hur-
riedly gather from one lying beside me. In the Church of Rome are the following
sects, or orders, as they call them : — The Augustinians, the Annunciade, the Ar-
medians, the Apostolina, the Benedictines, the Harnahites, the Hartholomites, the
Bcrengarians, the IJeguincs, the liernardines, the Ik'thlehemites, the Bogomites,
the Bollandists, the Bourignonists, the Bridgetines, the Calendarum Fraters, the
Camaldolites, the Caperolans, the Capuchins, the Caputiati, the Carmelites, the
Carthusians, the Calharists, the Celestines, the Cellites, the Cistercian Monks, the
St. Clare Nuns, the Cenobite, the Confalon, the Convolutionists, the Cordeliers,
the Dominicans, the Kocpiinians, the Eremites, the Feuillantes, the Flagellants,
the Franciscans, the Cilliertines, the Ciyrovagi, the llebdomadarie, the Henri-
cians, the Ileysichasts, the Hospitalers, the lUuminati, the Jansenists, the Jesuits,
the Jesuates, the Joachimites, the Jovinians, Leucopetrians, the Mendicants, the
Molinists, the Sarnbaites, the Sctists, the Servites, the Synodites, the Theateries,
the Thcmiists, the 'IVappists, the Urselines, &c., &.C., Sec. Now here is a string
of sects — -and I feel assured that a little industrious research wouUl very nuich en-
large it — found in the Church of Rome. And yet such men as your " friend" are
ever casting up to Protestants the number of sects into which they are split, and
the sad evils that are said to result therefrom.

I am aware that your *' friend " and his co-religionists will here lift their eyes
with affected ast(mishment at what I now say, and exclaim, with nuich real or
j>reten<le<l feeling, " Why ! these arc only so many ordrrs in the Church of Rome
and not sect s^ as ainoni^ /Votestants ! They a' all of the one Church, inasmuch as
they hold the Pope as their common head and the laws of the Church as their
common rule." Just so ; and I will add that the Protestant sects (those
that arc such in truth and reality) are all orders of the one Church
of Christ; for they hold to Christ as their ctmunon Head and to His Word
as their common law, — the only nde of their faith and practice, — their only dif-
ference from the sects of the Romish Church being that they hold to Christ as
their only Head, who is itn'isible ; while the Ronianists hold to the /\>/>eas their only
Aead, who is ~'isi/>le. A slight difference in one respect, but a great and im]M»r!:,iU
difference in another.

Another fact which ought to be known in this connection, is : that for wild hnn-
ticism and extravagance, no sects that have ever risen up among Protestants can
be coujpared to many in the Church of Rome. I may instance, for exaniple, the
Bollandists, the Flagellants, and the Convolutionists. Well authenticated accounts
of these, and that by autlu>rilies of their own Church —as with various other author-
ities, see Kdgar's *' Variations of Popery," (a work of profound and extensive ri-
search, in which not less than one hundred and fifty Komanisl authors of highest
standing are cpioted), can be readily given, if your •' friend" or any of hisfricMJs^
entertain any duubth as tu the corrcetiicHii of my statement.

On this subject Edgar remarks : " Arianism, Swedenborgianisni, Flagellism,
Southcottianism, and other errors have erected their pretentious and fantastic
heads. The clamor of Arianism, the nonsense of Swedenborgianism, the ravings
of Southcottianism, have blended in mingled discord and in full cry,"

" But all these or similar kinds of schism and heresy appeared, in all their
enormity, many ages before the Reformation. Division arose in the Church from
its origin, in the days of apostolic truth and purity, Irenanis, who flourished in
the second century, attacked the errors of his day, and his work on this subject
fills a full volume in folio. These errors, in the days of K})iphanius, in the
fourth cer.tury, had increased to eighty, and in the time of Philaster to an
hundred and fifty. Their number continued to augment with the progress of
time, and their systems ecjualled those of the moderns in extravagance. Schism
and heresy prevailed to a more alarming extent before than since the establish-
ment of l*roteslantism in its jiresent form. Later are Init a revival <»f former
errors and tlelusions, which flourished at a distant period, and, preserved from
oblivion by the historian, swell the folios of ecclesiastical antiquity.

"These ilhisions, however, the reformers never countenanced, but on the
contrary opposed. * * *

"The Romish priesthood and people, on the contrary, have in every age
fostered fanaticism and absurdity. Every foole.y of sectarianism, which, though
uncoimected with I'rotestantism, arose since the Reformation and disgraced re-
ligion, has nestled in the l)osom of I'opery, and been cherished by its priesthood
and people. Arianism, an afijiiateil branch (jf Socinianism, claims the hon(jr of
antit[uity, and was patronized by Liberius (Pope) and by the councils uf
Sirmium, Seleucia, and Ariminum, The extravagance of Monlanism, as 'I'cr-
tullian lelates, was patron i/.ed by the contemporary pope and rivalleilthe fanaticism
of .Swedenborgianism. The I'ontifl', says (iodeau, gave Montanus letters of
peace, which showed that he had been admitted to his conununion ((lodeau's
words are : " Le I'ajie lui avait donnC* des lettres patifi(iues, (jui moiitraient qu'il
I'avait admis a sa conunimion." His holiness, says Khenan, A/otitanhiu/. Victor,
says Uruys, approved the prophesyingof Montanus, i'riscilla, and Maximilla. The
mania of Joanna Southcott in motlern times is eclipsed by the dreams of Ik-ata
Clara, and Nativity." Edgar, V'ars., pp. 33 ^: 34.

The ravings of these Romish ladies is an astonishing conunent on the conduct
of Rome in dealing with cases of religiv»us fanaticism and madness. 'Ihat they
should have been coiniten.mced by authorities in the church is marvellous intleed,
and should forever shut their mouths against any extravagance in the shape of
religious excitements whenever ur by whomst)ever exhibited.

Your "friend's" renjarks on the "absurdity of an ignorant countryman pretend-
ing to interj>rel the Holy Scriptures," are quite beside all the f;\cts of the case.
The instances are very rare indeetl in which any such thing is atteinplcil, for the
illiterate of the Protestant churche*, generally as a rule, hmk up to their imstorn
fur expository lessons on the Word of (»<hI, so that while they do not, ntir are they
desired, blindly to follow any teaclicr, nor secure from any one a '.tatenieni that In
them appears contradictory of the general teachings of the Mcred volume, yet they

hail with thankfulness thr icachinj^s of those who for piety and learning ihey
believe qualified to instruct and guide them.

Rational and Scriptural independence, growing out of a sense of jiersonal and
individual responsibility of which none can divest himself, is inculcated upon all.

Another fact 1 will notice ere I close this letter, which is the following : The
church of Rome, in denying the use of ihe Scriptures to the laity, assign as a
reason for such, that divisions and the multiplication of sects would be certain to
follow a free and unfettered use of the holy book. lUit what is the testimony of
the past on this very subject — a testimony which sweeps away at once the plea of
the Church and the argument of your "friend" ?\Vhy that sects and divisions have
ever originated with the clergy, and not with the laity. This fact has heretofore
had but little if any place in the consideration of this (juestion. Yet so clearly is
it the fact of history, that 1 charge it home upon the Church of Rome, in order
that henceforth they may be ctmsistent and at tmce change their course of pro-
ceeding, by restricting most rigidly the use of the Scriptures to the clergy, and by
giving to the laity the fullest liberty to use them when and as they please.

But the reason for withholding the Scriptures from the laity, and in discouraging
their use very generally, is quite different from the one referred to here. 'I'he
contrast of the Church of Rome in its oJfui'Sf its spirit, and its 7i'or/:ini;\ to that of
the Church of the apostles and primitive Christians is too great to be held up to the
gaze ami consideration of intelligent people, as it 'ooii/i/ he -were the Scriptures in
constant and ^^cucral use. Hence, as there is no disjiosition on the part of the
Church to return to first principles and practices, — a thing scarcely possible ancnt
professions of infallibility so freely made, — the Scriptures must, if possible, be
suppressed, and the Church, i.e. the clergy, be saved .all such painful and dan-
gerous annoyances as would then be sure to arise.

More of tliis in my next.

Yours in Christian regard,

John H<iki \m».
April, 1873.

LETTER II.

THECmiKCII <»r KOMK KKMAKK.MIl.K I OK ASSI'MI.NC; rUF.lR Kftroi I Al Ml
DEKKCTIVK — SlU'l'l.lED 1 ROM THK COl'Nfll, (•! IKKN I' KKASONS FuK (.U'KS-
TIOMNC. "A l"R!KNt»'s" (»RTII(»I)()XY -(;RKAT NF.KD OK INKAI.MHl.K DIRKC-
TION— I'NANIMOUS CONSENT OE THE FATHERS —NEVER KNoWN lo HE CON-
FI.ICT1N<; VIEWS STATE!) -IMToK PANT (,>liESTloNS SKED EIEUMI ON
THE Kfl.E OF FArni ROMA.v»:Ts' KtM.E I NM AN ACEaIU.E AND IM I'OSSllUK
— TRorESlANT ONE SIMPLE— EASY OF .MM'I.ICA HON— SCRIl'Tl' RES IJENK-
RAI.l.Y HEFORE, AT, ANU KTC, SCH.SEgirKNT TO UltR l,ORl)*S TIME.

.\lV HEAR L., —

The Church of Koui" 1^ remarkable for its assumptions. It asMunes most
conlulenlly Itt be the trm' Chunh «tf (mmI the only tr»ie Church of (lod and as
iiuch the only source uf autliurity to settle the mvaning uf the Holy Scriptures, aiul

thus to lay before the world the absolutely certain rule of faitli ami of practice.
Nor do their assumptions end here ; for, virtually at least, they assume that Pro-
testants have neither books nor brains by which to detect the emptiness of such
assumptions, and the frail foundations on which they rest ; and, therefore, they
may as a conse<]uence present them when and as they please without any fear of
detection or of exposure. "Your friend" r pears to partake largely of this, to them,
common spirit, and he therefore presumes to take liberties with, as he doubtless
thinks, uninformed and unsophisticated I'rotestants, vainly supposing that they
have no means wherewith to meet and refute him.

IJut he shall be met, and his statements and arguments examined and sifted ;
when we shall see M'hat of them, as wheat, will remain ; and what as chafl' will be
blown away.

lie states his own nde of faith to be as follows : " All truly inspired ,-^cripture
and divine tradition interpreted, not by the ignorant, nor even by the learned, l)ut
by the pastors sent and ordained by the true Church of Clod." If he were asked
what he means by "divine tradition," his answer, I apprehend, would be amus-
ing ; especially as required to show where such tradition was formed, and how
])reserved. The term "divine" is foisted in to prepare the way for giving to tra-
ilition an equal authority with the " insjured Scri]iture." For why should the
" inspired Scripture" be put above "tradition?" If the one be divine, the other,
although insj ired, is but divine also. There is sophistry here, and therefore I call
you to note it.

Then, again, the definition is (at from being complete ; as by consulting the
decrees of the Council of Trent may at once be discovered. And, further, it
should have stnu-k your " friend " that since the last council, which declared the
Pope infallible, the whole thing is changed. Now the rule of faith should be
understood to be : " All truly inspired Scripture and divine tradition as interjireled
by the Pope ; together with all and sundry ailditions, emendati(ms, and rorrec*
tions, which he from time to time may deem it right and propertomake to them."

If, however, he prefers his own definiticm to the one that accords with the now
altered state of his Church, and which in one respect is much more simple an<l
ea.sy of application ; and if he does .so, an(i that because he is not, as many others
of his Chuich are not, a believer in the propriety of the Pope's recent leap int(»
the chaii of infallibility (thus hoping to save himself, it may be, from the task of
defcniling his Church from another instance of council decreeing against council,
and po|)e against pope, instances of which so fre(iuently occur in hisloty), yet I
musit insist upon his adding to his <lefinili(»n those portions of the <lecrce of the
Council jf Trent which he has left otit of it. They are as follows. After a list of
the l)ooks of S«.ript\ire, in wliivh those of the .\pocrypha are inserted, and after
declaring the old and Vulgate edition, i.e.,. i Latin ediiion(and not the Hebrew anil
(Ircek originals), to be held as authei.lic in all public lectures, disputntions, ser-
mons, and exp»)sitions ; and that no t>ne shall <lare or presume to reject it, under
any pretence whatever, the decree proceeds: "In order to restrain petulant
miiuls, the council further decrees, in matter^ «>f faith and morab, and whatever
relates l(» the maintenance of Christian tloetrine, no one confidijig in hi* own judg-
ment shall dare to wrest the sacred Scriptures to hik own scnhc of them, concrary

to that which hath been hehl ami slill is held by holy mother Church, whose
right it is to judge of the true meaning and interpretation ot Sucred \Vrit, contrary
to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, even though such interpretation should
never be publislied. If any disobey, let them be denounced by the ordinaries
and punished according to law."

liut here before we can proceed a step we have ar imjiortant a use, and as
urgent a call, for tlie exercise of the Pope's infallibility as any that can well be
conceived. This you will admit, I am sure, when I tell you that there is no
dogma which the Church of Rome considers essential as distinctive of her faith
from Protestantism, that has ever had the unaiiimous consent of the Fathers ! Let
your " friend " try his hand and supi:)ly us with <me, and I will venture to promise
him a list of writers — and they no mean authorities in his Clhurch — who have
written ai^rinst as well n> for the sense which the Church now desires all to hold
of it. We have had an instance of this in the recent adoption of the dogma, that
infalli])ility rested in the Pope, and not in the Pope and Council, as heretofore was
maintained by the great majc^rity of the Church. We know that there were many
who argued against the dogma as well as fo- it. A number still hold out ; but will
any sane min<l imagine for a numient that thf)se who have recently sent in their
adhesion to that dogma, have done so becau.->e they were convinced that their
argunuuts had been set aside by the rebutting ones of their opponents ? They
have yielded to save aiipearances, and that only; but then, if so, does the dopna
of tlie Pojjc's infallibility rest upon " ///(• unanimous consent of the Fathers 'f " No
more than it does upon tlie concurrence of the jiatriarch of Constantinople.

On the sul)ject of Transubstantiatit)n, which was discussed and a settlement
attempted at the Council of Trent, Dr. Kdgar shows the same want of unanimity
to exist. He says : " 'i'his statement of tiansubslantiation is couched in general
terms, in which its jiatrons seem to liold the same faith, 'i'he doctrine, expressed
in this manner, obtains the assent of every juofessor of Romanism. All these
.igree in principles, but in many respects differ in details, 'i'his agreement and
difference appeared in a striking light at the celebrated Coiuuil of Trent.

" The doctors of that assembly wrangled on this topic in tedious and non-
sensical jargon. An attempt was made, but in vain, to satisfy all in the ct)niposi-
lion of the camuis. N( me were pleased. The dogma, in conseiiuence, had, for
the sake of peace, to be prop()unde<l in few wonls and general expressions ; and
this stratagem elfected an oslensilile unanimity. Paolo, an authority, refers to
this as follows : '.Mais tiles ne purent tontenter personne, on rd^olul dans l,i
congr^'gation g6nerale d'user ile moins de paroles <|ui serait possible dans I'e.xpo-
sition tie la doctrine, et ile se servir d'expressions si gdntrales iju'elles jmsscnt
s'nccommoder nux sentinjcnts ijes deux partis.*

"The hominicans and KranciscauN dilTernl at the Council of Trent, as they
do still, ou an essential point of this theory.

•* \ third party dilTer from the Dominicans and I'ranciscans. The substance
of the bread and wii>e, in ihc theology of this f.utiun, neither renuiins, as say the
Kraiiciscaus, nor ch.ingis, .iccording to the Dominicans, but ceases to exist either
by annihilation, ruHoIuti(m or corruption. The substance of the sncramental
elements i.s rcducetl to nulhing ; or by analysis or j ml refaction, returns lo its former

principles. This opinion, says Fabcr, was held l>y Henry, Cajetan, ami many
other abettors of Catholicism."

A fourth class liiffers from the preceding ones, led by Paris, Rupert, /Egidius,
Durandusj Goffrid, Mirandula and Solo. To this a fifth class is given by Dr.
Edgar, who differ from the others as they do one from the other. So much for
the " unanimous consent of the Fathers."

Then we have, according to Dr. Edgar's cases, cited a wonderful exhibition
of differences of opinion on the proper renderingof Jolui VI., on which the doctrine
ot transubstantiation is said mainly to rest. Cardinal Cajetan and l*oj)e Pius 11.
say this passage cannot refer to the communion, for it was not then instituted.
The Cardinal is (|uite Protestant in his judgment on this passage, for he says
"Our Lord sJ>oh\' of/aith, as he Had not yet appointed the :>aerameHty Augustine,
lionavenlure, and Aquinas conteml that these words (John vi,, 50, 56) "signify
spiritual eating by faith and love." Here is Protestantism for you in earnest.
Surely your " friend " will not after this tell you, as he has done, that Protestantism
is but three centuries old. But while this is Protestantism, what shall we say of
these fatlier'iand their opponents ? Are they not a fine illustiationof the unanimity
of the Fathers ? Nor less so of the correctness of y«)ur " frieml's " statement : " We
have the whole world for us during the fifteen centuries that preceded Luther."

But what shall we say of the infallibility as well as the unanimity of the
Fathers of the Church <»f Rome, in the light of the following from Edgar?
" Pascasius, in the ninth century, seems to have been the father of this tle-
formity (transubstantiation), which he hatched in his melancholy cell. His claim
to the honor and improvement of this paradox is admitted by Sirmond, Hellar-
mine and btuys. 'Pascasius,' says Sirmond, ' was the first who, on this (piestion,
explained the genuine sense ot the Church.' This .Monk, according to Bellarmine,
' was the first who in an express and copious manner, wrote on the truth of the
Lord's body and blood.' Men, says Mabillon, 'were, from reading his work, led
to a more full and profound knowledge •)rthe subjec'.' Hmys candidly confesses
ihat tiansubstantiatitm was a discovery of the ninth century, and unknown in the
darker ages of antiquity. Scotus acknowledges that transubstantiation was no
nrficle of faifh before the Council of Lateran in 1215 " ! I !

Fiuther, observes Edgar, "The Pascasian innovation was opposeil by nearly
all the piety and eruditii)n of the age. A constellation ol theologians rose in
arms against the absurdity. Kaban, Walafrid, Hcrebold, Rudentius, Florus,
Scotus and Bertramn, the ablest theologians, arrayed themselves against the
novelty." Here again we sec anything raihet than unanimity among the
Kathcrn ! What then, I again ask, about your "friend's " averment of the n<holc
lOorld for fifteen i enttoies preeedifti; I.nther heinie: ^''"'^* '^'<" f^oniapt Church f

I have given the above instances of ojiposing views upon the one doctrine—
transubstantiation ; but as much might be said of the communion in one kind, of
extreme unction, of image worship, of purgat<»ry, and of the celibacy of the
clergy, vScc, &c., &c. ; but were we to go through the historical account of oppos*
ing councils ami tipposing |>o|>cs, and the many ami flagrant contradictions and
oppositions of the «»nc to the other, we would at once conclude that to talk of the
Church of Romr being able to lettle on its own authority a rul.- of fuith. much

less to make such rest on tradition and the unanimous consent of the fathers, with
that of inspired Scriptures, is not only the greatest piece of presumption, but
the most striking exhibition of folly anil arrant nonsense that it is possible to con-
ceive of.

Elliott, in his Delineations of Romanism, has the following on that which con-
stitutes the rule of faith in the Roman Church : '* The Protestant rule is the Scrip-
ture. To the Scripture the Roman Catholic adds (i.), the Apocrypha ; (2.), tra-
ditions ; (3.), Acts and discussions of the Church, embracing numerous volumes of
the Pope's Bulls ; ten folio volumes of Decretals ; thirty-one folio volumes of Acts
of Councils ; fifty-one folio volumes of the Acta-Sanctorium, or the doings and say-
ings of the saints ; (4.) add to these at least thirty-five volumes of the (Ireek and
Latin fathers, in which he says is to be found the unanimous Consent of the fathers ;
/5.), to all these one hundred and thirty-five volumes folio, add the chaos of
umvntltH traditions which have floated to us down from the apostolical limes.
lUit we must not stop here ; for the expositions of every priest and bishop must
be added. The truth is, such a rule is no rule ; unless an endless and contradic-
tory mass of uncertainties could be a rule. No Ropiinist can sol)erly Mit'rr, much
less ttv/fi, his own rule of faith." — /> rg.

Dr. Cumming, in his celebrated discussion with Mr. French, has wittily but
truthfully said, *' If you were to take one of the largest spring vans on the B. Rail-
roa<l, it would not contain one-tenth of the Romanist rule of faith.

Now place by the side of this the Protestant rule, and how simple and satis-
factory it is seen to he ! The Scriptures, containing in .sufficiently simple lan-
guage on all matters fif faith and practice, a full and clear exposition of truth to l)e
received, and a course of life in perfect acconl with that system to be pursucnl.
Having learned the principles of the failh to be l)elieved, the disciple is then led
l)y his teacher to apply its principles in the hope of receiving certain gixKl wliich
is of the greatest moment to his vveil-heing ihrough all the future of his existence.
As taught to expect, he receives, as the fruit of his faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, a sense of the divine favor in tlie forgiveness of his sins. Hence, with the
Prophet, he exclaims: "() Lord I will praise Tlu-e ; thougli 'I'hou wast angry
with me. Thine anger is turned away, and 'i'hou comfortedst me." Isaiah Xll. i.
Similar in import arc Luke .\\iv. 27 ; Acts 11. 39 ; Ml. 19 ; Mil. 38, 39 ; Kom.
V. I ; VIII. I ; l''.pli. it. 7 ; I. John II. I. Th.en, with the above blessing begets
the Holy Spirit, so fre(|uently and fully referrevl to by our Lord to His disciples :
see Luke Xl. 13 ; John IV . 10, 14 ; Vll. 38, 39 ; XVI. 7 ; Acts II. 38 ; Kom. vii.
9, 10, II, 14, 15, 16, iVc, i*tc.; I Cor. ill. 16 ; vi. 19 ; 2 Cor, vi. 16, i\:c., v^c.

Here we ?*ee is added to a knowledge of the tlieory, or principles of the salva-
tion of Ciod and the practice agreeing thereto, an experience which we are
taught to bolicve ever (lows from such. In what condition, then, is he who
because of a clear and satisfactory sense of the forgiveness of his sins, and the
renewal of his heart in righteousness not of man, but of the Holy Spirit of (mmI -
being " born not of 1)Ioim1, nor of the will of the tlesh, nor of the loill of /;/<»//, hut
of 6W." - John I. 13. r)r, sis St. Peter has it (and he surely is an authority in
the Church «»f Rome) : " Being bom again, nt>t of corruptible seed, I'Ut of incor-
ruptible, by the l\'ot\i of (JoJ, vvhich liveth and abideth ftHCvei." -Peter 1. 2}.

What but that o{ a happy and sweetly assured believer of the reality and powei'
of the grace of Clod that has brought him salvation, and of the divinely attested
character of those means which he had used so successfully thereto.

This experience is doubtless that inspiration to which your " friend " referred
as constituting what he calls the second rule of faith as held by Methodists, Sec,
&.C. Nor of this will Methodists feel ashamed, as it shows rengion in common
sense agi'eement with any of the proper professions of life in which men are mov-
ing ; for whether a man study the profession of medicine or that of ag iculture, or
indeed any other science or profession, he has first the theory to master end learn ;
then, that theory to apply in practice ; and then, as a consequence, certain results,
l)y which he tests the correctness of his theory, or the method of its application he
has followed. If the results are satisfactory, he will feel assured ; nor will any
one be able to shake his confidence in the conclusions he has reached. Inasmuch,
therefore, as the grace of Ciod in the Gospel of His .Son is designed to be a remedy
for sin, and when as such it is applied and efiects follow which we were taught to
look for and expect, then those effects sjjeak for themselves, being just such as
should arise in order to justify the claims of the (iospel upon our credence and
respect. In this instance, therefore, as in the former, no power should be per-
mitted to shake our confidence in the faith we profess, and in the application we
were induced to make ot its principles.

Kre I close this letter I will call your attention to a fact which your "friend"
and his co-religionist;» seem not to have perceived. It is the clearly .admitted cus-
tom or habit of the Jews, in our Lord's d.ays, of reading and applying the Holy
Scriptures as individuals or in conmiunities. To this practice our Lord in several
instances alludes, but never in the way of reproof, much less of condemnation.
This is the more remarkable, as He many times reprehended them for things wrcng
in their creed ati<l in their conduct ; yet when they controverted His claims to be
the .Son of (iod. He simply pointed them to the Scriptures (which they held and
which thc*y read, ami on which they exercised their private judgment), but only to
lead them to a more consistent interpretation and use of their teachings. — John v.
39. Again, when He would correct the Sadducecs of the eiror into which they
had (ixllenonthe subject of the resurrection, He remarks, " Vc lio trr nof Ji'mncini,'-
the Sa-ipturcs., nor the power of (Jod." " lUit as touching the resurrection of the
<lead, hm>c yc not rctui that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, &c." —
Matt, x.xii. 29 31. Then in another remarkable instance in the narrative of the
rich man and l.azarus, he tatight : "Aliraham saith unto him, they have Moses
and the prophets, let them hear them." . . . *' If they hear not .Moses and the
prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose frouj the dead. Mult.
•Wi. 29 31. Again, and still more striking, is the following s •' And many other
signs truly ditl Jesus in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this
h<K)k ; but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of GimI ; and that believing ye might have life through Hisi\ame." -John .XX,
30-31. And if any ([uestion remains on a«»y mind, the following should settle it,
anil forever : " l"'or whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our
learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope."
Kom, XV. 4. " All Scripture i^ given by inspiiatiun ut Gud, and h profitable fur doc-

trine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that the man of
God may be pertect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. ''2 Tim. III. i6, 17,
and then, as applying it to the most difficult book to understand in the whole
canon of Sacred Scripture — the Rev. or Apoc. i. 3, it is written : **I!!essed is he
that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy. T^d keep those
things which are written therein."

When, therefore, the import of these Scriptures is duly considered, and the
usage of the Church during its Old Testament disi)ensation, throughout that of
the Saviour's personal ministry on the earth and for several centurief. subsequent
to that time, to have been the free and personal use of these writings, and turn
round and reflect upon the conduct and spirit of the Church of Rome, in forbid-
ding theit use to the people, punishing most severely tii<)se who dared to disobey
them, and as with a horrid zeal denouncing them and destrf)ying them where-
soever they could lay hands upon them, we can have no hesitation in declaring
such to be at once antichristian, and worthy of condemnation in the most em-
phatic manner.

The conduct of the Protestant is in pleasing contrast to all this. lie is seen to
be above all fear as to the most searching investigations into his faith and practice
which the freest use of the Holy Scriptures might occasion ; ever saying,
"To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not according to this word,
it is because there is no light in them." Isa. Vlli. 20. Assured that " every t)ne that
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds sh(juld be
reproved. Jivit he that doeth tnith C(mK'th to the light, that his deeds may be
made manitest, that they arc wrought in the Lord." John iir. 20, 21.

The subject shall be continued in my next.

Yours in the Lord,

Ainil, 1873.

ToltN HoRIAND.

LETTER III.

A TEST TO hK KK.rT IN MINP- rKKTKNSIONS INVKSTlOATEt)— SKRIOIT.S DEPAR^
TURKS NOTKD— ANT.\C.ONISM I'ROVKD— ASTONISIIINC ASSUMPTIONS SHOWN

THK PERIODS OK T.RKAT CIIANOES r.IVEN— JANUS— rKKI.l.lNCER's WORK

(QUOTED -IMPORTANT STATEMENTS—CONTRADICTIONS, HKUKSI ES, tScC,
SHOWN— MANY NATIONAL CIItlRCIIES MENTIONED WHICH NEVER HAD
ANY CONNECIION WIIH ROME SCRIPTtlRES USCAI.l.Y APPLIED TO THK
POPE SIKAVN \\\ THE EXPOSITIONS OE THE FATHERS TO HAVE NO REFER-
ENCE TO HIM.

My DEAR L.,

Romanists arc never tired in ringing the changes on the statements that their
Church is the /rn/ Church, therefore the only Z;/*^ Church ; and cunnecti<m with
which by a reception of its fi\ilh, and submission tt» its pastorate and discipline,
and a participation in its ordinances, is essential to salvation. And that in all

these their statements and assumptions, so your " friend " assures you, " they have
the science of eighteen centuries" while " the Protestants liave but that of three
centuries!!!" and theielore it is "evident tliat there cannot Ik- but one
true faith, which has but one true sense, as iheie is but one Lord,
one Baptism and one Revelation. " Such statt ments ihey think shouM
silence all opposition against them, yea, and bring all opjionents ti)
their knees as most hum])le suppliants for the forgiveness of their eirors,
and for speedy induction into their communion and privileges. And it
need not be denied that in not a few instances the sophistry of these statements
and the confidence w iili which they are iterated and reiterated have shaken cer-
tain untaught Protestants in their confidence, insomuch so that if not altogellier
willing t(i abandon their own faith, yet at least to look upon that of the
Romanist as having more in its favor than they were wont to imagine. Of one
thing, however, Piuteslanis should be resolved, and that is, that while Romanism
and Pruteslanlism cannot both be true,— they being deciiledly antagonistic in
spirit and principle the one to the other — ami while the means for determining
the ([uestions between them are so ample and available, they should fully ami
faithfully use those means for that liuI, so that under no circumstances could they
be induced to alwndon truth for error, however ancient ihat error may Ik,
or however allraclively attired anil picscnte'L

Another fact which should be ever kept in mind, is that religi<jn, like every
other business or science, has, as in my previous letter 1 have stated, a regular and
unmistakable series of results, which when experienced su|)ply a perfect ilemonstra-
tion of its presence and charac'er. 'I'hus, to this end our Loiil speaks in the
following words : If any man 7oili do his iviU, he shall hmno of the doctrine,
whether it be of (uxl or wlielher I speak of myself." John vii. 17. " I am the
light of the World ; he that foUoweth me shall not 7oalk in darkness, but shall have
the lii^ht of life y J(jhn Vlll. 12. Hence, as he who sows a ])articular grain, reaps
a harvest of the same and is .satisfied, and that l)y eviilence whicii none may
gainsay, so he who has "sown to the spirit," and " of the spirit " is reaping a
continuous ilowof peace wilhdod, and power over sin, (see Isa.x.wii. 17,) knows
that he has hold not only of irulii, but of //;, triiili. because it saves him, and
makes him joyously hopeful of the future.

Of the assertions of the Romanist, I say they are assumptions and nothing
mopj. In prool u{ which we will examine some of them. They say they are the
first Church, and tlierefore the only true Church. I'.nl liow shall this be proveil?
How but by appealing to the writings which contain the dtjclrines ami the
contluct of the first and true Church. The Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul's
Kpistle to the Romans will suffice for this.

I may premise by saying thai no Protestant dcnii^ but that the ("hurch of
Rome had a //</;//<• and (/ //(/k' ann>ng ll»e churches of aiutsiolic times. Put the
<|uestions are: Is she to-day what she then was? l>oes slie maintain, in funda-
mentals at least, the faith and the Usages of the primitive Churches? l-'ur if she
has dcparled from these, then having so departed she has lost her status, and is
in wliole 01 in pari a novelty and not the primitive Church founded by St. I'.iul
and addrcsbctl by iiim in his memorable Euislk, (I >ay nothing o| St. Peter as

connected with the Church of Rome ; for it recently has been demonstrated in an
able discussion in Rome itself, what was long believed by many, that he never
was in Rome, therefore never could have been its first IJishop or Pope ; and so all
the chain fancifully linked on to this hook falls to the ground and it. broken to
pieces. )

A careful comparison of these books with the princi])lcs and doings of the
priesthood of Rome will show a marked and striking difference between them
and (lie primitive Churches. For instance, in those days a penitent seeker of
mercy was directed at once to the Saviour in faith, as thus he would receive the
forgiveness of his sins, the gift of the Holy S|)irit and adoption into Cod's family,
as see Acts ll, 37, 38 ; xvi. 31 and Rom. I IF. 24, 26, &c., &c. In those
instances we sec no confessional, or any nse for if, no insi>ting upon a full cox\-
fession of sin, under the threat that if every sin was not confessed the whole
service would be vitiate<l and rendered worse than null. No piiinpi>ii:; by the
Apostles to sound the depths of the heart and the history of the life, especially in
all its wickedness; no, nor do we sec an instance in which the aposlles assumed
th{^ authtirity to for;^i7<c ajul absolve from sin, although we n\ay believe that they
as fully and as accurately understood the import of Matthew xvui. 18, and of John
XX. 22 23, as do the priests of Rome to-day.

In their ccmduct we see the Protestant interpretation of these passages main-
tained, and nothing more ; viz., that they, the apostles, were authorized to declare
on what terms or conditions God woulil loosen (forgive) sins, or under what circum-
stances He would bind ihcvn or hold the sinner umler their obligations and penal-
ties. In this way they preached and acted, as all may see ; but in this way the
priests of Rome do not act, as every Romanist fully knows ; and, therefore, to that
extent at least the conduct of the priest is a nor'elty, while that of the Protestant
minister, which accords with the action of the Apostles, is primitive and apostolic,
and therefore of the first and only Church.

Then as to baptism ; how was that administered by the Ajjostles? I turn to
the Acts of the Apostles, 11. 41 ; Vlii. 16 ; x. 48 ; and I see, according to our
Lord's institution, water a])plied in the name of the Lord, and that called bai)tism.
But I go to the Church of Rome, and there for baptism what a par.ade, and as
well, a tleparture from the sim])le rite of the Apostles ! First there is Chrism, or
oil mixed with water ; sect)nd, there is Exorcism, for driving the devil out of
the child ; then salt is used, and the priest blows into the face of the child, and
making the sign of the cross says, "Co out of him, Satan." Thirdly ; then the
forehead, eyes, breast, &c., are crossed to show the mystery of baptism ; ((|uery, is
it not rather to show what power the priest has?) the senses are opened to receive
(iod, and to \inderstantl His conmiatids. I'ourthly, then soujc exorcised salt is
|)Ut into the mouth, to signify a deliveianee from the putrefaction of sin, and the
savor of good wDrks, the priest saying : "Take the sail (tf wisdom, and let it be
a propitiation for thee to eternal life. Amen." Then the nose and ears are to
bi' .luoinled with spittle, and the child brought Iti the wati:r, as the bhnd man to
Siloani, t(» signify it brings light to the mind. After baptism the priest anoints
the top of the head with Chrism, anci says, " Let Him anoint thee with the Chrism
of silvniion." A whili' rninciil pnl on the child. ;nicl ;i liijhli-d ciindlt' put into

the hand, are also parts of this ceremony, accordinci; to the Church of
Rome, and the whole called by it Christian Baptism ! Add to this
the fear with which they inspire their people l)ccause of the condi-
tion of the child until it is baptized — that were it to die before tlie jiricst
had taken it throuf^h the ceremony it would never see heaven, but be shut uj) in
limbo, a place of utter darkness, forever — and you have another instance of the
great distance to which the Church of Rome has drifted away from the primitive
Church ; yes, and how much of }h'athcnish rubbish she has thrown upon a simple
and significant sacrament of the Christian dispensation!

The principal duty of the apostles was, as see Matt, xxviii. 19, 20, and I.
Cor. I, 17 — to preach the Gospel and instruct people in all things which He, the
Saviour, had commanded them ; but the principal duty of the priests of Rome
appears to be to celebrate mass, and to uphold the authority and dignity of the
Church, which in these instances always means the clcrs^y.

The celebration of the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper, by the Apostles, as see
I. Cor., XI. 23, 29, was to conmiemorate His death, in doing which they ate
bread and drank wine together ; the only mystery of which being that to the
Christian's faith the broken bread represented the broken body of the Saviour,
and the wine his shed blood. But what a novelty is the whole mass, transubstan-
tiation, and its appendages, to the simple sacrament as observed by the Apostles !
But with whom shall we say is oneness with tlie true and primitive Church ? The
Romanist priest witli his ceremony of the mass and his assumption of transul)-
stantiation, of which the Apostles and the Church until the twelfth century were
ignorant, or the Protestant Church, which now to the letter follows the usage of the
Apostles in every particular in this instance as in others ? The veriest child can
decide a question of this nature.

But perhaps in no instance is the Church of Rome seen at a distance from, yea, in
ac'.ual antagonism to the true Church of Christ, than in her assumption of infallibility,
and of the right to open or to shut heaven at her will ; and with this to change by
alteration or addition the terms or conditions of salvation. Here, truly, as accord-
ing to the startling descripticm of the Apostle Paul in 2. Thess., 11. 4., is she seen :
" Who opposetli and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or tliat is wor-
shipped ; so that he as God sittelh in the temple <>f God, showing himself that he
is (Jod." This, commencing in the changes in faith and jiractice which the clergy
(»f Rome have from time to time effected, changes tlie //('//-observance t)f which
involves the penalty of a cursr, and the observance of which is essential, according to
their teaciiing, to salvation ; the suppression of the Word of GimI, and the entire
submission to themselves which they ilemand, being a part --an important part—
of them, and which have now culminated in the investiture of the Pope with
iitjU//il>ilify ! These together put the Church of tlic Romanist before us in an
appalling light, and suggest to all thoughtful minds the most serious cfmsiderations
and consetjuences.

Nor do tliese particulars complete the picture. The a|)p!ieatii)n niaile of thnn
by the clergy of Rome conducts us to the startling conclusion that if they are right.
then must G<h1 have placed the Gospel, with all its provision of blessings and
judgments, and all its economy of conditions and services, fully and unreservenlly

into their hands ; and in doing so has given them to understand that whom they
would save shall be saved, and whom they would not save, shall not be saved.
That in all this matter, interesting as was the process of providing salvation
to Ilim, and thrilling as was the process and developments to angels, yet now
God abandoned all to the good will and pleasure of any pope who fdled the chair
in Rome ; and even to any priest who chanted a mass or sat in a confessional.
And, further, for deeper tints are needed to complete the picture, it mattered not
how vile the pope or priest's character and life might ])e, how fully tliey might
serve Satan in their life and honor him in their death ; yet when they habited
themselves in their robes of office, and essayed the performance of its duties, they,
and they only, should have the honor of dealing out salvation in any measure, to
whomsoever and howsoever they pleased. And, further, they on whom they
thundered God's judgments, no matter how good and consistent with the Word of
God the lives of such were known to be, yet on them, in virtue of their priestly
denunciations, the thunderbolt should fall, and their destruction shouUl be as
infallibly certain as that God lived and the Gospel was true.

On this assumption of invest ture and monopoly the Romanist clergy act, refer-
ring to (jod only as and when it is necessary to give splendour to their ofiice, or
to enforce deference and submission to their will. Hence it is deeply affecting to
see how perfectly every great au'l cardinal truth of Christianity is neutralized and
denuded of any gracious and savi ng effect by these assumptions and actions of the
Romanist priest. For instance : Is God admitted by him to be supremo in power
and glory ? Yet he neutralizes that admission by assuming t(j himself the higliesl
prerogatives of God, by pardoning sin ; l)y altering or mollifying the conditions of
salvatit)n ; by suppressing God's own Word and the substituting that of his own ;
by demanding to himself the most absolute submission, such as should be rendered
only to God ; and by exacting constant dependence upon his influence for every-
thing that is good and appertaining to salvation.

Does he speak of Christ as the one Mediator l)etween God and man ? Then
he destroys this confession by the addition of other lUediators, as thcjugh Christ
ilid woi possess all the qualities essential for the right performance of so important a
function of His mediatorial work. God says *' there is one God, and o'Sii Mediator-^'
but the Romanist says virtually, " there is one God, but many mediators between
God and man," «S:c. ; while in not a few instances the Virgin Mary is in this respect
exalted above " 6W her Sa^'iour" by the votaries of this novel system, called
most erroneously — Christianity.

I )o they speak of the sacrifice of the cross, — the death of Christ on Calvary forthe
sins oflhc world ? Vet they hold up the mass, an otYering of the priests simj)ly, and su
manage as that their people arc called to look, not on Calvary at what Christ diil,
but at the altar at what the priest in the mass now does, and here absurdities rich
and ripe cluster, for in the mass is a sacrifice for the sins of men — and here only —
and yet such is graduated in value not by the nature of the victim but either by
the will of the priest, or more generally by the ////j.' of the people, and so depen-
ilent is the value of the mass upon the purse, and the action of the priest upon
the amount that is in it, that if what is there is not e<[ual to the priest's demands
the suOerer, whether on earth or in purgatory (a place of which the primitive

Church knuw nothiiii;), must suffer still, and still and still,— for without shedding
of — what? of blood? no, without shedding of money, there is no redemption !
But with plenty of money there is redemption for anybody ! — even I suppose for
a Judas. Apropos Ijlood, Paul tells us that without shedding of blood there is
no remission of sins : Ileb. ix. 22, and that in the nature of vicarious sacrifice
for sin there must be sufferings and death on the part of the sacrifice, see Ileb.
IX. 25, 28, yet what is there of these essential parts of a sacrifice in the mass ?
Nothing, absolutely nothing ; hence while they arc performing the mass and the
people are worshipping and wondering, God is dishonored and insulted in the
worship due to Him being given to a pieee of bread, said to be ^^ turned into God"* Just
then, and that by the word of a man ! ! ! The sacrifice of the cross, which being
<7«a' accomplished, is never to be repeated, (see Hcb. ix. 12, 26, 2S, and x. 13.)
But if Romanism be true, then the offering of the cross is and may be offered
times without number. Thus Romanism versus th'^ Apostles.

The usages of the primitive Church had nothing of this and its associate ser-
vices of the Romanist's Church, and it were vain to attempt to seek in the New
Testament anything like them in the practices of the Apostles. Yea, we have
only to look through that book to be convinced that the Church of the Romanist has
strayed far, far indeed from the Church of those days — a reason, doubtless good
and sufficient, why a people unwilling either to reform their abuses or to abandon
their assumptions, should strive by all means to prevent its circulation nnd study.

The following statement, taken from Farrar's Ecclesiastical Dictionary, will
give you an idea of the changes in the Roman Church which have taken place at
different periods in its history : —

** The Pope Gregoiy denounced the patriarch John of Constantinople, who in the
year 594 assumed to himself the title of Universal Bishop, declaring such to be
a wicked and blasphemous title. Yet his successor to the See of Rome — Boniface
III. — -accepted the title which has since been held by his successors — although
originally bestowed l)y the vile tyrant Phocas, as a reward to the Roman Bishop
for his recognition as Emperor in the throne he had usurped. One bishop of Rome
accepts the title from the hand of the Roman Emperor, while a preceding bishop,
Gregory the Great, declared that he who should assume it would prove himself to
be Antichrist. Baronius, the Romanist Cardinal and historian, says : Baron. A.
D. 606 : " Phocas being incensed against Cerideus, Bishop of Constantinople,
who had assumed the title, granted the title Sovereign Pontiff to the Roman
Bishop."

" Invocation first taught with authority by a Council of Constantinople, A.D.

754-

" Use of images and relic, in religious worship first publicly affirmed and
sanctioned in the Council of Nic6a, A. D. 787.

" Compulsory celibacy of the clergy first enjoined publicly at the first Council
of Lateran, A. D. 1 123.

" Papal supremacy first publicly asserted and confirmed by the fourth Councjl
of Lateran, A. D. 1215.

" Auricular confession first enjoined by Innocent III. at thq fourth Council of
Lateran, A. D. 12 15.

" Prayers in a foreign tongue first deliberately sanctioned 1-y the Council ot
Trent, A. D. 1562.

" Transubstantiation was first publicly insisted on by the fourth Council of
Latcran, A. D. 1215.

" Purgatory and indulgences first set forth by the Council of Florence, A. D.
1438.

"Judicial Absolution authorized l)y the Council of Trent, A, D. 1551.

" Apocrj'pha received as canonical at the Council of Trent, A. D. 1547.

*' The number of the sacraments first settled by the Council of Trent, A.I).
1545." The number ot Articles added at this Council, the belief and reception
of which is essential to be saved from the Church's curses, is hodvi'. Since then,
has been added the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and latterly, as you
will recollect, that of the Infallibility of the Pope. How many more changes
shall yet be brought about, no ]:)erson can tell. But certainly each of the articles
enumerated, inasmuch as they are declared to be essential to salvation, is a radical
change, and the Church that has passed through these and so many of them, has
long since ceased to be what she once was, the Church which the Apostle
Paul planted in Rome.

To show you still further, the utter lack of truth in the statement of your
" friend " — and which statement is made with confidence of its supposed truth-
fulness by many others beside him — ^^ IVe have the zvhok world fin 7is during the
fifteen centuries that preceded Luther^'' — 1 will quote from "Janus," a work of the
justly celebrated Dcellinger, who when he wrote it was a high dignitary and
authority in the Catholic Church. He distinguishes, I should say with great
force and cleai^ness between the Catholic and the /"«/«/ Church . The latter he
says, has by the ambition of popes, and the intrigues of Jesuits, separated far from
true Catholicism and as he remarks has gone on from one step to another in a
doionward course utitil it has resolved upoti its last and crozvning absurdity, the
Infallibility of the Pope.'''' Against this he lifts as a tnie Catholic, his warning
voice, and " Janus " contains that warning and the reasons for enforcing it ; show-
ing as he does the steps in the downward course taken, he remarks : "It was St.
Jerome's reproach to the Pelagians that according to their theory, God had, as it
were, wound up a watch once for all, and then gone to sleep because there was
nothing for Him more to do. Here we have the Jesuit supplement to this view.
God has gone to sleep because in His place His ever wakeful and infallible
Vicar on earth rules, as Lord of the world and dispenser of grace and punishment.
St. Paul's saying * In Him we live, and move, and are,' is transferred to the
Pope. Few even of the Italian canonists of the filtcenth century could screw
themselves up to this point. * * * We owe it to Bellarmine and other Jesuits
that in some documents the Pope is expressly designated Vice-God! The Civilta,
too, after asserting that all the treasures of divine revelation, of truth, righteous-
ness, and the gifts of God are in the Pope's hand, who is their sole dispenser 'and
guardian, comes to the conclusion that the Pope carries on Christ's work on
earth, and is in relati()n to us what Christ would be if He was still visibly present
to rule His Church. It is but one step from this to declare the Pope an incarna-
tion uf Godi" The iranslatcr of Doellingcr has u note hyrc worthy of insertion.

"Compare this with Puscy's Eirenicon, p. 327, One recently returned from
Rome had the impression that some of the extreme Ultramontanes, if they do not
say so in so many words, imjily a quasi-hypostatic union of the Holy Ghost with
each successive I 'ope ! The accurate writer who reported this to me observed in
answer, * This seems to me to be Llamaism ! ! !' "

" Ultramontanism then, is essentially Papalism and its starting-point is that
the Pope is infallible in all doctrinal decisions, not only on matters of faith, but
in the domain of ethics, on the relations of religion to society, of Church to State,
and even on State institutions, and that every such decision claims un-
limited and unreserved submission in word and deed from all Catho-
lics." pp. 39, 40. "Rome on her part omits no means of confirming the
whole Catholic world in this clerico-Italian manner of thinking and feeling." p. 44.

In showing the inconsistency of attempting to prove the dogma of Papal
Infallibility from Church history, "nothing less is required," he says, "than a com-
plete fnlsification " of history. " The declarations of Popes which contradict the
doctrines of the Church, or contradict each other (as the same Pope sometimes
contradicts himself), will have to be twisted into agreement, so as to show
that their heterodox or mutually destx'uctive enunciations are at the bottf)m
sound doctrine, or when a little has been subtracted from one dictum and added
to the other, are not really contradictory and mean the same thing." pp. 49, 50.

"Innocent I. and Gelasius I., the former writing to the Council of Melvis, the
latter in his epistle to the Bishops of Picenum, declared it to be so indispensable
for infants to receive communion, that those who die without it go straight to
hell. A thousand years later the Council of Trent anathematized this doctrine."
p. 51. " In 769, when Constantine II., who had got possession of the Papal
Chair by force of arms, and kept it for thirteen months, was blinded and dejjosed
at a Synod, and all his ordinations pronounced invalid." p. 52.

" But the strongest case occurred at the end of the ninth century, after the
death of Pope Fomiosus, when the repeated rejection of ordinations threw the
whole Italian Church into the greatest confusion, and produced a general uncer-
tainty as to whether there were any valid sacraments in Italy. Auxilius, who was
a contemporary, said that through this universal rejection and rc])etition of orders
matters had come to such a pass in Rome, that for twenty years the Clirislian
rclii^ion had hccti interrupted at{d extinguished in Italy. Popes and vSynods decided
in glaring contradiction to one another, now for, now against, the validity t)f the
ordinations, and it was self-evident that in Rome all sure knowledge on the
doctrine of ordination was lost." p. 5-

" Celestine HI. tried to loosen the marriage tie by declaring it dihS(»lved if
either 2 >;^ity became heretical. Innocc-nt IH. annulled this decisiim. Hadrian
VI. called Celestine a heretic for giving it." (pp. S4SS-) Wonderful agreement
in the infallibles of an infallible Chu'*ch truly !

" And thus the perplexing spectacle was afforded the church of one pope une-
quivocally charging another with false doctrine. What Nicolas III. and C-leinent
V. had soloumly comnien<led as ritjit and holy, their successor bramled as sulcnm-
ly as noxious and wrong. The Franciscans repeated the charge of heresy against
John XXH., with the more enijihasis, 'since what the popes had once defingcl iu

faith and morals, througli the keys v( wisdom, their successors could not call in
question.' /. jg.

" After the papal claim to infalliljility had taken a more definite shape at
Rome, Sixtus V. himself brought it again into jeopardy by his edition of the Bible.
The Council of Trent had pronounced St. Jerome's version authentic for the West-
ern Church ; but there was no authentic edition of the Latin Bible sanctioned by
the Church. Sixtus V. undertook to provide one, which appeared garnished with
the stereotyped forms of anathema and penal enactments. His bull declared that
this edition, corrected l)y his own hand, must be received and used by everybody
as the only true and genuine one, under pain of excommunication ; every change,
even of a single word, being forbidden under anathema.

** Bui it soon appeared that it was full of blunders, some two thousand of them
introduced by the Pope himself I It was said the Bible of Sixtus V. must be pub-
licly prohibited. But Bellarmine advised that the peril Sixtus V. had brought the
Church into should be hushed up as tar as possible ; all the copies were to be
called in, and the corrected Bible printed anew, under the name of Sixtus V. ,
with a statement in the preface that the errors had crept in throui^h the fault of the
compositors ami the carelessness of others. Bellarmine himself was commissioned
to give circulation to these lies, to which the new Pope gave his name by compos-
ing the preface. ^(. ^(. * And now followed a fresh mishap. The autobiography,
which was kept in the archives of the Roman Jesuits^ got known in Rome through
several transcripts. On this Cardinal Azzolini urged that, as Bellarmine had
insulted three popes, and exhibited tiao as liars, viz., Gregory XIV. and Clement
VIII., his work should be sujipressed and burnt, and the strictest secresy incul-
cated about it." (pp. 62, 6j). In a note at the bottom of the page is the following :
" For, thought Azzolini, what shall we say if our adversaries infer the Pope can
err in expounding Scripture — nay, hath erred, not only in expounding it, but in
making many wrong changes in the text !"

VERDICT OF HISTORY.

"Some explanation is imperatively needed of the strange phenomenon that
an oi)inion according to which Christ has made the Pope of the day the one
vehicle of His inspirations, the pillar and exclusive organ of Divine truth, without
whom the Church is like a body without a soul, deprived of the power of vision,
and unable to determine any point of faith — that such an opinion, which is for
the future to be a sort of dogmatic atlas carrying the whole edifice of faith and
morals on its shoulders, should have first been certainly ascertained in the year of
grace 1 869, bui is from henceforth to be placed as a primary article of faith at the
head of every catechism.

"For thirteen centuries an incomprehensible silence on this fundamental
article reigned throughout the whole Church and her literature. None of tlie
ancient ctmfessions of faith, no catechism, none of the patristic writing?; com-
posed for the instruction of the people, contain a syllable about a Pope, still less
any hint that all certainty of faith and doctrine depends on him. For the first
thousand years of Church history not a ([uestion of doctrine was finally decided
by him." //. 6j 64, " In the Arian disputes, which engaged and disturbed the

Church beyond all others for above half a century, and were discussed in more
than fifty synods, the Roman See for a long time remained passive. Through
the long episcopate of Pope Sylvester (314-335) there is no document or sign of
doctrinal activities, any more than from all his predecessors from 269 to 314.
Julius and Liberius (337-366) were the first to take part in the course of events,
but they only increased the uncertainty. Julius pronounced Marcelius of Ancyra,
an avowed Sabellian, orthodox at his Roman Synod, and Liberius purchased his
return from exile from the Emperor by condemning Athanasius and subscribing
an Arian creed. ' Anathema to thee, Liberius ! ' was then the cry of zealous
Catholic bishops like Hilary of Poitiers, This apostasy of Liberius sufficed,
through the whole of the middle ages, for a proof that popes could fall into
heresy as well as other people." //. 6j, 68.

*' A new chapter in the dogmatic action of the popes opens with the year 430,
which was the starting-point of the controversies on the Incarnation and the re-
lation of the two natures in Christ, which lasted on to the close of the seventh
century. Pope Celestine's condemnation of Nestorius was superseded by the
Emperor's convoking a general Council at Ephcsusin43l, where it was submitted
to examination, and approved." p. 7/. This is a remarkable example of the
Church's unity, orthodoxy and submission to the Pope. Emperors in those days
seemed to have had a habit of popeing the Pope, and the popes could make the
will of the Emperor answer for them in the place of the will of God.

Another instance of the pope's heresy and subserviency, and of the Emperor's
supremacy and orthodoxy, is given as follows : "The Monotholite controversy,
growing out of the assertion that Christ had two wills, a human and a Divine,
but one Divine will only, led to the General Synod of Constantinople in 680. At
the beginning of the controversy Pope Ilonorius L, when (juestioncd by three
jiatriarchs, had spoken entirely in favor of the heretical doctrine in letters
addressed to them, and had hereby powerfully aided the new sect. Later on,
in 649, Pope Martin, with a Synod of lO!; bishojis from Southern and Central
Italy, condemned Monotholism. But the sentence of the Pope and a small
Synod had no binding authority then, and the Emperor Constantine found it
necessary to summon a General Council to settle the question. It was foreseen
that Pope Ilonorius I., who had hitherto been protected by silence, must share
the fate of the other chief authors of the heresy at this Council. He was, in tact,
condemned for heresy in the most solemn manner, and not a single voice, not
even that of the papal legates who were present, was raised in his defence. His
dogmatic writings were committed to the flames as heretical. The popes su!>-
mitted to the inevitable, they subscribed the anathema, and themselves undertook
to see that the heretic Ilonorius was condemned in the west as well as throughout
the east, and his name struck out of the Liturgy. //. 7J, 7^.

" Nobody thought of getting dispensations from Church laws from the Roman
bishops, nor was a single tax or tribute pai'l to the Roman See, for no court as yet
existed." (The fifth century) "To make laws which could be dispensed for money
would have appeared both a folly and a crime. The power of the keys, or of
binding anil loosing, was universally held to belong to the other bishops just as

much as tr) the bishoj) of Rome."/. S/. " For a lonij time nothint; was known
in Rome of defmite rights bequeathed by Peter to his successors." — //'/</.

lie further remarks, and this is important as bearing upon certain loud pre-
tensions such as your " friend " and his co-religionists are wont to make: "There
are many national Churches which were never under Rome, and never even had
any intercourse by letter with Rome, without this being considered a defect, or
causing any difficulty about Church communion. Such an autonomous Church,
always independent of Rome, was the most ancient of those founded beyond the
limits of the empire, the Armenian, wherein the primatial dignity descended for
a long time in the family of the national apostle, Gregory the Illuminator. The
great Syro-Persian Church in Mesopotamia, and the western part of the kingdom
of the Sassanide, with its thousands of martyrs, was from the first, and always
remained, equally free from any influence of Rome. In its records and its rich
literature we find no trace of the arm of Rome having reached there. The same
holds good of the Ethiopian or Abyssinian Church, which was indeed united to
the See of Alexandr' i, but wherein nothing, except perhaps a distant echo, was
heard of the claims of Rome. In the west, the Irish and the ancient British
Church remained for centuries autonomous, and under no sort of influence of
Rome." pp. S4, Sj.

"There is another fact the infallibilist will find it impossible to explain."
And to this your " friend's " attention is particularly called. " We have a copi-
ous literature on the Christian sects and heresies of the first six centuries. Ire-
neus, Ilippolytus, Ej^iphanius, Philastrius, St. Augustine, and later, Leontius
and Timotheus, have left us accounts of them to the number of eighty ; but not a
single one is reproached with rejecting the Pope's authority in matters of faith,
while Aerius, c. g., is reproached with denying the ejMscopate as a grade oi the
hierarchy. Had the mot iVordrc been given for centuries to observe a dead silence
on this, in the Ultramontane view, articidus stantis vel cadcntis Ecdesia ?

"All this is intelligible enough if we look at the patristic interpretation of the
words of Christ to St. Peter. Of all the fathers who interi)ret these passages in the
Gospels (Matt. XVI. 18, John XXI. 17.), not a single one applies them to the
Roman bishops as Peter's successors ! How many fathers have busied themselves
with these texts, yet not one of them whose commentaries we possess, Origcn,
Chrysostom, Hilary, Augustine, Cyril, Theoiloret, and those whose inter[)reta-
tions are collected in Catenas, has dropped the faintest hint that th(. jjrimacy
of Rome is the consequence of the commission and promise of Peter ! Not one
of them has explained the rock of foundation on which Chr.st would builil His
C!hurch of the oflicc given to Peter to be transmitted to his successors, l)Ut they
understood by it either Christ Himself or Peter's confession of faith in Chri.st ;
often both together. Or else they thought Peter was the foundation equally with
all the other apostles, the twelve being together the foundation-stones of the
Church. (Apoc. xxi. 14.) The fathers could the less recognize in the power of
the keys, and the power of binding and loosing, any special prerogative or lord-
ship of the Roman bishoji, inasmuch as what is obvious to any one at first sight,
they did not regard a j^ower first given to Peter, and afterwards conferred in pre-
cisely the same words on all the Apostles, as anything i)eculiar to him, or hercdi-

tar/ in the line of Roman bishops, and they held the symbol of the keys as mean-
ing just the same as the figurative expression of binding and loosing.

** P2very one knows the one classical passage of Scripture on which the edifice
of Papal Infalliljility has been reared : "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith
iail not ; and when thou art converted, confirm fhy brethren.' (Luke xxii. 32.
But these words manifestly refer only to Peter personally, to his denial of Christ,
and his conversion ; he is told that he, whose failure of faith would be only ot
short duration, is to strengthen the other Apostles, whose faith would likewise
waver." //. g2 gj. " Now, the Tridentine profession of faith, imposed on the
clergy since Pius IV., contains a vow never to interpret Holy Scriptures other-
wise than in accord with the unanimous consent of the fathers — that is, the great
Church doctors of the first six centuries ; for Gregory the Great, who died in 604,
was the last of the fathers ; every bishop and i/ieoloi;ian, therefore, breaks his oath
when he interprets the passage in question of a gift of infillibiliiy promised by Christ
to the popes." pp. gj g4. This is to the point, and applies equally against the
application of Universality to tJie See of Rome ; for against this the same Gregory
lifted up an earnest protest, declaring him Antichrist who should assume it.

Yours in the Lord,

John Borland.

LETTER IV.

EXTRACTS IN FORMER LETTER — REASONS FOR — WHAT THEY WERE— A TEST OF
FAITH — EXTRACTS FROM DR. EDGAR's WORK — FEARFUL CONDITION OF
THE CHURCH OF ROME SHOWN — OF CERTAIN POPES — HOW ELECTED — THEO-
DORA AND MAROZIA — POPE JOHN XII. — 150NIFACE VII, — GREGORY VII. —
BONIFACE VIII. — ^JOHN XXIII. — ALEXANDER VI. — ERRORS IN DOCTRINE AND
MORALS DISQUALIFY FOR GOD's SERVICE— JUDAS AN EXAMPLE— DAM A(;iN(;
TO CERTAIN PRETENSIONS — INFALLIIULITY A PREPOSTEROUS ASSUMPTION
— SCRIPTURAL TESTS — APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION AS HELD BY ROMANISTS,
&C., A FIGMENT— THE TRUE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION EXPLAINED AND
DEFENDED.

My dear L —

In my last letter I gave you lengthy extracts from "Janus," a work by the
learned Do-llinger, to disprove the statements of your "friend" when he
said that his "Church enjoyed unbroken testimony in her favor for the fifteen cen-
turies preceding Luther" — a statement which Romanists are free and bold to make,
evidently unaware of the abundant material at hand to fully disprove it. I chose
my extracts from that book not because none others were at hand that could be
employed for such a purpose, but because Dr. Doellinger is yet alive, and is still
a Catholic, although not, as he says, a Papalist ; and continues to be regarded, as
heretofore he has always been, as a man of unblemished reputation and of highest
attainmgnts as a scholar and professgr.

By liim it is seen — and my quolalions mij^^liL have been greatly extended — thra
popes have erred so as to have Ijcen denounced as heretics ; that coui\cils and
poi)es have contradicted each other with gi'eat distinctness and emphasis of deli-
verance ; that feuds have arisen from such differences and contradictions of the
most scandalizing character ; that emperors have acted the part of popes, and in
not a few instances with more dignity and truthful consistency than the popes
themselves. That the title of " Universal Bishop," (in which the Pope of Rome
now flaunts his authority over the world — yea, over the three worlds ; heaven,
earth, and hell ; or, as I should have said, the four worlds ; for was not
purgatory discovered, not by Columbus, but by Agostino Trionfo ot Ancona,
an Augustinian monk — see Dcellinger's "Janus"'/. 230) — was given him not by
Christ, the Head ot the Church, but by Phocas, the Roman Emperor, and one of
the worst that ever disgraced the purple. That the assumption of the title was in
direct opposition to the protest of a preceding pope (Gregory the Great), and as
such not having "the unanimous consent of the fathers." but rather in direct
opposition to them, was clear and palpable hei'esy, according to a decree of the
Council of Trent ; and, further, was a mark of '^ Antickrisi,^^ according to his
infallible holiness the aforesaid Gregory, And with all this, and much more
that remains to be said, what do we see when we look at the Romanist Church
if it be not a strange medley of inconsistencies and contradictions, of high assump-
tions and of grovelling passions? And here you might well ask your "friend "
how we shall estimate his boasted rule of faith, that in his estimation has done
such wonders for his Church, but which, according to the teachings of history, has
made her such a shifting, changing and worldly thing that we look in vain to find
in her any of those pure, unselfish, spiritual and heavenly characteristics so
distinctive of the Church that Christ and His Apostles planted and reared. And
yet your "friend," I doubt not, despite all that has been proved against her, will
lift up his voice and shout, " Our Church is the tioie Church, in wliich is found
catholicity, apostolicity, unity and incrrability, and I know not what, to sus-
tain her in her claims for universal recognition and submission."

A very superficial acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures is all tl;at is necessary
to establish the following : that faith, and every other means presented to man
for his employment, have clear and unmistakable reference to the renewal of his
mind in holiness af/d Hj^hteousness (Luke 1,75) ; for says St Paul to Timothy —
sec Ep. I : 5. — "Now the end of the commandment is charity (or love) out of a
pure heart," in other words, to make him like Christ in sjnrit and life, that he
might be fitted to lie with Christ in death. In doing this the process is to save,
consciously, from the guilt and power of sin ; to endow with the spirit of adoption
into the family of God ; and to (]ualify, by a change of heart, for so high a
position that now by all such, the will of God may be done on earth as it is
done in heaven, Lut when men are seen to be wicked- when they "drink
iniquity like water," it is vain for them to talk of faith, of holding the tj-Hc faith,
or of being members, much less ministers, of the true Church, for all such is based
in error, — serious and palpable errors— Avhich no man could fall into who consulted
the Holy Scriptures with a design to be guided thereby.

A man may hold a correct faith so far as its theory is concerned, yet, he is

in scriptural teaching an unbeliever, and void of true faith, and therefore not a
member of Christ's mystical body, the Church, unless his faith is of that practical
.Tnd influential character which having its seat in the heart works through and
in his life. For faith, loorking by Icn'e (Gal. V. 6) ^nd pufiJyiHg the heart (Acts
XV. 9) is the rule and doctrine of God's Word. With this j)rinciple of judging
the character and reality of faith, ami in furtherance of my object, I will now
call your attention to other facts as given ])y Dr. Etlgar in his great work.

"The Hood-gates of moral pollulion," which it appears from the annalists had
been steadily increasing in volume and power, "appear in the tenth century to
have been set wide open, and inuntlations of all impurity poured on the Christian
world through the channel of the Roman hierarchy. Awful and melancholy in-
deed is the picture of the popedom at this era drawn as it has been, by its
warmest friends ; such as Platina, Petavius, Luitprand, Genel)rard, Baronius,
Hermann Barday, Biuius, Giannoue, Vignier, L'Abb6, and Du Pin. Platina
calls these pontiffs, monsters. Fifty popes, says Cienebrard, in 150 years, from
[ohn the Eighth till Leo the Ninth, entirely degenerated from the sanctity of their
ancestors, and were apostatical rather than apostolical. Thirty jiontiffs resigned
in the tenth century ; and the successor, in each instance, seemed demoralizetl
even beyond his predecessor. Baronius, in his annals of the tenth century,
seems to labour for language to express the base degeneracy of the popes and the
frightful deformity of the popedom. Many shocking monsters, says the annalist,
intruded into the Pontifical Chair, who were guilty of robbery, assassination,
simony, dissipaticjn, tyranny, sacrilege, p ;rjury, and all kinds of miscreancy,
candidates destitute of every requisite qualification were promoted to the papal
chair, while all the canons and traditions of antiquity were contemned and out-
raged."

"The Church," says Giannone, "was then in a shocking disorder — in a chaos
of iniquity." " Some," says Barclay, "crept into the popedom by stealth, while
others broke in by violence, and defiled the holy chair with the filthiest immora-
lity. (L'^glise etoit plongde dans un chaos d'impi6t6s. An Eccl. 344 Giannone.)

"The electors and the elected, during this period, appear, as might be expected,
to have been kindred spirits. The electors were neither the clergy nor the people,
but two courtesans, Theodora and Marozia, mother and daughter, women dis-
tinguished by their beauty, and at the same time, though of senatorial family,
notorious for their^prostitution. These polluted patrons of licentiousness, according
to their pleasure, passion, whim, or caprice, elected popes, collated bishops,
disposed of dioceses, and indeed assumed, in a great measure, the whole adminis*
tration of the Church. The Roman See, become the prey of avarice and
ambition, was given to the highest bidder. {Le siege de Rome dtoit donni au
plus offe rant y Giannone, vii. 5, An. Eccl. 345.)

"These vile harlots, according to folly or fancy, obtruded their filthy
gallants or spurious offspring on the pontifical throne. Theodora, having con-
ceived a violent l)ut base jmssion for John the Tenth, raised her gallant to the
papacy. The Pontiff, like his patron, was an example of sensuality, and was
afterwards in 924, at the instigatifjn of Marozia, deposed, and, in all probability,
strangled by Wido, Marquis of Tuscany. Marozia was mistress to Sergius the

Third, who treated the dead bodyol Formosus with such indignity. She brought
her pontifical paramour a son, and this hopeful scion of illegitimacy and the
popedom was, by his precious mother, promoted to the vicegerency of heaven.
His comluct was worthy of his genealogy. lie was thrown, however, into prison
by Albcric, Marozia's son by Adclbert, where he died of grief, or as some say by
assassination." Spon. 929, I. ct 933 I.; Giannone, vii. 5, 6 ; Luitprand, ii. 13 ;
Petavius, I. 418, ^^ LHufdme Theodore fii clire pour Tape, Ic plus declari de ses
ainans, qui fut appclle Jean X. Baronius coil qiialors Rome elail sans Pape.
An. Eccl. 345."

John XII. ascended the papal throne in 955, in the eighteenth year of his
age. His youthful days were characterized by barbarity and pollution. He sur-
passed all his predecessors, says Platina, in debauchery. His holiness, in a
Roman synod, before Otho the Great, was found guilty of blasphemy, perjury,
profanation, impiety, simony, sacrilege, adultery, incest, constupration, and
murder." The particulars given by the annalist, are almost too atrocious for
publication. " He was deposed by the Roman Council. But he afterwards
regained the Holy See, and being caught in adultery, was killed, says Luitprand,
by the devil, or more proliably by the injured husband." "John, says Bellarmine,
was nearly the wickedest of the Popes. Some of the Vice-Gods, therefore, the
Cardinal suggests, surpassed his holiness in miscreancy."

"Boniface the Seventh, who seized the papal chair in 974, murdered his pre-
decessor and successor. Historians represent him as * the basest and wickedest
of .mankind.' Baronius calls him a thief, a miscreant, and a murderer, who is to
be reckoned, not among the Roman pontiffs, but among the notorious robbers of
the age. Gerbert and Vignier characterize him as a monster, who surpassed
all mankind in miscreancy."

"Gregory VII. who obtained the papacy in 1073, was another pontifical
patron of iniquity. The Cardinal Beno in sketching his character represents him
as having gained the pontifical dignity by simony, and stained it by assassination
and adultery. The Council of Worm and Brescia preferred n umerous imputa-
tions against him, viz., usurpation, simony, apostasy, treason, schism, heresy,
chicanery, dissimulation, fornication, adultery, and perjury. His holiness in the
sentence of the German prelacy, preferred harlots to women of character and
adultery and incest to chaste and holy matrimony." Labb. 12, 417 ; Copart, 2, 1 1 ,
48;Bruy, 2, 473.

" Boniface the VIII. was chosen Pope 1294. His character was placed in a
striking liglit by Nogaret and Du Plesis. The Pontiff had offended Philip the
Fair, King of France, by his bulls of deposition issued against that monarch. His
Majesty, in consequence, called two conventions of three estates of the French
nation. Nogaret and Du Plesis in these meetings accused Boniface of usurpation,
simony, ambition, avarice, church-robbery, extortion, tyranny, impiety, abomina-
tion, blasphemy, heresy, infidelity, murder, and the sin for which Sodom, was con-
sumed. His infallibility represented the Gospel as a metUey of truth and falscliood,
and denied the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and
the immortality of the soul. The soul of man, he affumed, was 'the same as a
beast's, and he believed no more in the Virgin Mary than in an ass, nor in her

Son than in the foal of an ass.' ' Les hommes ont les m6mes umcs que les
bfites, et I'Evangile enseigne plusieurs v6rit6s et plusieurs mensonges. La doc-
trine <le la Trinit6 est faussc ; rcnfantement d'une vierge est impossible ; I'incar-
nalion du Fils dc Dieu ridicule aussi laen que la transubstantiation. Je nc crois
pas ]ilus en clle qu'cn une ancsse, ni a son Fils qu'au ])oulain d'une finesse."
IJruy, 3, 346 ; Du Tin, 529 ; Alex. 22, 319, 327 ; Boss. i. 278.

" These accusations were not mere hearsay, but supported on authentic and un-
questi()nal)!e eviilcncc. Fourteen witnesses, men of creiUbility, deposed to their
tnith. Nogaret and Du Plesis offered to prove all these allegations before a gene-
ral council." " He entered the papacy, it has been said, like a tox, reigned bke a
lion, antl died like a dog ; for he died gnawing his fingers, and knocking his hcail
against the wall like one in desperation."

"John XXIII. seems, if possible, to have exceeded all his predecessors in
enormity. This pontiff moved in an extensive field of action, and discovered,
during his whole career, the deepest depravity. The atrocity of his life was ascer-
tained and published by the general Council of Constance after a tedious trial and
examination of many witnesses. Thirty-seven were examined on only one part
of the imputations. Many of these were Inshops and doctors in law and theology,
and all were men of pro1>ity and intelligence. His holiness, therefore, was con-
victed on the best authority, and indeed confessed his own criminality.

"The allegations against him were twofold. One respected faith and the
other morality. On the former he was convicted of schism, heresy, deism, infi-
delity, heathenism, and profanity. He fostered schism by refusing to resign the
popedom for the sake of unity. He rejected all the truths of the Gospel and all
the doctrines of Christianity. He denied the immortality of the soul, the resur-
rection of the body, and the responsibility of man. He disregarded all the institu-
tions of revealed religion.

" The other imputations on morality were seventy, twenty of which were sup-
pressed for tlie honor of the Apostolic See. ' John,' says L'Abbfe, * was convicted-
of forty crimes. The Constantian fathers found him guilty among other crimes of
piracy, robbery, murder, perjury, fornication, adultery, incest, constupration
and sodomy, and characterized his supremacy as the oppressor of the poor,
the persecutor of the just, the pillar of iniquity, the column of simony, the slave
of sensuality, the alien of virtue, the dregs of apostacy, the inventor of malevolence,
the mirror of infamy, ami, to finish the climax, an incarnated devil.' 'The
accusation,' says Nieni, 'contained all mortal sins and an infinity of abomi-
nations. '

" Alexander VI. in the common opinion, surpassed all his predecessors in
atrocity. This monster, whom humanity disowns, seems to have excelled all his rivals
in the arena of villany, and outstripped every competitor in the stadium of
miscreancy. Sannazarius compared him to Nero, Caligula, and Ileliogabalus ;
and I'opc (a Romanist let it be remembered) in his celebrated ' Essay on Man,'
likened IJorgia, his family name, to Cataline. His debauchery, perfidy, ambition,
malice, inhumanity, and irreligion, says Daniel, made him the execration of all
Europe. Rome under his administration and by his example, became the sink
of filihiness. the headquarters of atrocity, and the hotbed of prostitution, murder.

and robbery. " Les ddbordemens publics, les perfidies, I'ambition d6m6suree,
Tavarice insatiable, la cruaut6, Tirrtligion en avoient fait Tolijet de I'exdcration
de toute rEuropc." — Daniel, 7.84.

Some idea may be formed of his excesses when it is stated that the infamously
celebrated I^ucretia was at once his daughter, his 7oife and his daughter-in-law .
"He murdered the majority of the cardinals who raised him to the popedom,
and seized their estates. lie had a family of spurious sons and daughters and for
whose aggrandizement he exposed to sale all things sacred and profane, and
violated and outraged all laws of God and man. His death was from poison
which he had prepared for certain rich cardinals whose estates he had purposed
to seize."

The above extracts are taken from Dr. Edgar's work, already referred to. They
could be extended to any length, not only trom his work but from others which
abound on this and kindred subjects. And l)e it remembered that Dr. Edgar's
book contains quotations from at least one hundred and fifty Romanist loriters
of unquestionable authority.

The instances of doctrinal error and fearful immoralities given are supplied to
show : First, that theideaof ;., '-^l infiillibility, whether referring t(j the pope, or to
the pope in council, or in whatev^er method the Church of Rome chooses to settle
it, is a figment, worthless and absurd, and which no sane mind would utter that
was not blinded by presumption, or that did not imagine the world strangely
oblivious of the testimony of history. Second, that the Romanist's " rule of
faith" is seen to l)e both from its nature and its results, just as impracticable as it
is unprofitable ; and that for all good and useful purposes it might as well have
never been propounded. And third, that if it is essential to salvation — and the
Church of Rome says it is — that we should believe, first, that the Church of Rome
in its pope and council and concurring clergy ; or, secondly, now in the Pope
alone, is inlallible ; or, in other words every one who will not believe that white
is black, and that a lie is the truth, should make up his mind to sail for purgatory
or some worse place ; and be satisfied to allow all the noodles and things, in the
shape of rational beings, who will say and believe whatever is told them, how.
ever contradicted by facts and figures, by reason and common sense, to go to-
gether to the pope's paradise, and sing of a salvation, not to God and the Lamb,
but to the pope and his clergy, to whom God had long ago abandoned His power
to save and His will to bless ! ! !

Then as the Church of Rome is seen to have been wrong, fearfully and
unmistakably wrong, in the past, may she not be wrong in certain instances in the
present ? And is not such a strong and sufficient reason why each one should
take a Bible and prayerfully read it for himself? In this course he should re-
solve to act :

1. Because the Bible was given by God for this very purpose.

2. Because, while Protestants have followed this plan, they neither have, nor
have had, so many and reprehensible differences and conflicts among them as
have been, and are now, among the Romanists, and

3. Because that while the Roman Church supplies nothing that can be ])ro-
perly cimsidered a rule of faith nothing but a lilind and unreasoning, and

lheref()rc an unmanly, submission to men proved to he fallible and iinrdiabh,
and liecause the Protestant Rule of Faith is i)()th practicable and safe, and ujion all
fundamental particulars when properly used incrrabh', it should be adopted by all
persons, with an earnest purpose of seeking aid from Him who has promised
"wisdom to all who ask," see James i. 5 ; as then having "an unction from the
Holy One" (the Holy Spirit) they "shall know all things,"— (all things essential
to salvation, I John 2, 2o.). and then practicing those truths in a sincere anil
believing spirit, the gracious fruit, see Gal. v. 22, 23 and vi. 8, 9, which is
sure to follow, will furnish an unerring, an ////??///7V(.' evidence that they " havt not
believed in vain,^^ nor ^'^ folhnoed cunningly dez'ised fables. ''''

Here is infallibility in man, and here only, fust as he who having sown his
field with wheat, and now sees it growing and ripening to its natural perfection,
is infallibly sure of the correctness of his action and anticipated conclusion,
so is he infallibly sure of his present and hopeful future, who has sown to the
spirit, and is now reaping life and peace, and that as an earnest of richer life to
come. And does not the Saviour call us to the exercise of this course when He
addresses us in the following words : " Beware of false prophets, which come to
you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know
them by their fruits. Do men gather graj)es of thorns, or figs of thistles ? Even
so every good tree l^ringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil
fnait. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring
forth good fruit, therefore by their fruit ye shall know them." Matt. vii. 16, 20.
"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God.
bediuse many false prophets are gone out into the world. I lereby know ye the spirit
of God : Every spirit that confesseth that. Jesub Christ is come in the flesh is of God. "
" Hereby know ye the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." " If we love one
another, God dwelleth in us, and his love isjierfected in us." John iv. i, 2, 6, 12,
and then as to our own state we exclaim if real Christians, with St. John,
I John, 2,3 : " Beloved now are we the sons of Ciod, and it doth not yet appear
what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him
purifieth himself, as he is pure" ; with which the doctrine by St. Paul is equally
clear and satisfactory : "In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of
truth, the Gospel of your salvation, in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were
sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest rjf our inheritance
until the redemption of the purchased possession ' unto the praise of his gloiy."
Eph. I. 13, 14.

Nor should I forget to mention here that the sail and lamentable cases of
defection which have been given of the popes, — and the same may be said of the
great body of the clergy, bishops, <.\:c., go to disprove the dogma of ajjostolical
succession, as held by the Church of Rome and by a portion of the Protestant
Church — if it be right to call such in the proper sense of the vord Protestants.

To supix)se that God would keep up a chain of ministerial succession through
wicked and Christless men,- but especially though such monsters of error and wicked-
ness as were many of the popes and their leading clergy, — is itself a monstrosity
in belief only fit to be placed alongside <jf the Mormon ideas of the character and

status of the New Jerusalem Church. Judas by transgression fell from his
apostlcship and was cast out of the office he had disgraced ; but in view of this
fact, shall wc say that men to whom in character Judas might be considered a
saint, have held office in the Church and been honoured of God as the medium
for transmitting that office to others ? The thing is preposterous almost beyond
comparison, and could be entertained only by men labouring under a judicial blind-
ness.

That there is an apostolical succession, but of a very different character from
the one above referred to, is a fact for which I as earnestly contend as against the
other I earnestly protest. It is the succession of men who in the truly apostolical
spirit and faith — whether in this or that church organization I am not concerned
to prove or maintain — who have laboured or are labouring, as did the apostles,
not to build up a sect or party, but to bring men " from darkness to light, and
from the power of Satan unto God ; that they might receive forgiveness of sins,
and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith which is in Christ
Jesus." Acts 26 : 18.

To this work they are called, not by man, but by the Spirit of God ; and that
not because they have received a special or collegiate education, but because
they have learned the nature and power of the Gospel by its saving influence,
in and upon their own hearts ; and because of this knowledge, which can be
obtained by experience only, and because of gifts with which God has qualified
them to preach his Gospel (for God no more sends totigudcss men to preach I lis
Gospel than he does brainless or heartless ones) they, as St. Paul constrained by
"the love of Christ," and sensible that a dispensation of the Gospel is committed
unto them, go forth to preach, — not the wonderful properties of their office or
Church, but rather the unsearchable riches of the Gospel of Christ, and thus become
instrumental in the hand of the Lord in saving their fellow men " from the wrath

to come."

The first step in this order is the conversion and regeneration of the person to
God, and that not by human, but by divine power, even that of the Holy Spirit.
See John i. 13, and Rom. viii. 1-17.

The second step is the call by the Holy Spirit producing deep and stirring
impressions that a dispensation of the Gospel is committed unto them ; and woe
is unto them if they preach it not. I. Cor. ix. 16-17.

The third is the bestowment of the requisite gifts and gy-accs for the work,
which fact is to be apprehended and certified by godly and competent men — minis,
ters or laymen — by which authentication he may have good report and proper
recognition of those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and by the world
at large. Then will follow as a necessary consequence the ordination or formal
induction into the office (for everything, the induction of a minister especially,
should be done decently and in order in the Church of God) for the work assigned
to him. Nor will such, we may rest assured, "labor in vain or sj^end their
strength for naught," for the promise of the Lord, " Lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world," will be fulfilled, and good and gracious fruit will
follow through the attending blessing of the Lord. He may have had more or
less literary training,— the more the better; he may or he may not have had the

highest clerical recognition or sanction, as such are regarded among men of this
world ; but having had the training which the Holy Spirit gives, and by which a
knowledge of salvation only is acquired, and having had gifts from above and
indispensable for the performance of ministerial duties, he goes out in the truly
apostolical line or succession, stamped by heaven's own signet, and impelled by
Jesu's own spirit, and is at once recognized by the spiritually minded, who only
,ire the true body or Church of Christ, as an ambassador of the Lord Christ, a
minister of the New Testament of the world's Redeemer.

Such men have ever been in the world since the days of the apostles to the
present. They have not always been seen and known by the world, because it
has looked in the wrong place and direction to find them; nor has the world ever
been without a spiritually minded Church, though many times but small and
weak, to welcome them, to hold up their hands, and to rejoice in their labours.
Neither have been fully kn nvn ; nay, neither have been but very imperfectly if at
all known by the world, because they have long abode in comparative obscurity
to be screened from their ene:pies and persecutors (as see Rev. I2 : 6), being built
upon the tme faith, — on the rock of Peter's confession, — the gates of hell, though
many times assailing, in terrible persecutions, — those of the fallen church of
Rome especially, — yet they have never prevailed against it so as utterly to destroy it.
And now as, according to prophecy, the church is coming up out of the wilderness
leaning on the beloved ; and as now her beauty (the beauty of holiness) begins
to shine forth before the world we may expect that those who have long de-
frauded her of her name and of her hold upon the hearts and fninds, the affection
and intelligence of the world — will be seen ere long despoiled ot their borrowed
— nay stolen — plumes ; while the world will wonder how for so long a time it was
misled, misled so as to call her the true Church of Christ which centuries ago was
described as the very opposite by the apocalyptic seer; some of whose descriptive
and telling words are as follows : "And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured
beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns, and the
woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and
precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations
and filthiness of her fornication ; and upon her head was an^me written. Mystery,
Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth; and I saw
the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the
Martyrs of Jesus ; and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration." Rev.
17 : 1-6 " Here is wisdom," let all study it.

Yours truly in the Lord,

John Borland.

LETTER V.

IMPORTANT MATTERS MET— MINOR t)NES ATTENDED TO— THE TESTIMONY OF
THE WISE, &C., CONSIDERED — CAN PROTESTANTS TELL WHICH ARE THE
SCRIPTURES — DR. DfELLINGER ON NATIONAL AND OTHER CHURCHES —
POPE CLEMENT XIV. — HIS PROTESTANT TESTIMONY — DR. MANNING'S ALSO
— R(JMANIST MISTAKES — A KNOWLEDGE OF THE WHOLE BIIU.E NOT INDIS-
PENSABLE — TREATMENT OF THE HOLY VIRGIN — I5Y PROTESTANTS COM-
PLAINED OF — BY ROMANIST'S CONDEMNED — GOTIIER's MISTAKE AND CON-
DEMNATION — THE ROMAN CHURCH IDOLATROUS — NUTS TO CRACK.

My DEAR L

^*''' In looking again over the last lengthy communication of yom" "friend,"
I do not see anything of moment in it that is not more than met in my previous
letters ; but lest he should think differently, and imagine that one or two minor
particulars are passed by on the supposition of their being unanswerable, I will
give to them a notice they scarcely deserve.

He says, "each Catholic has the Scripture explained by all that was ever
wise, learned and good in the Church of God." This is merest assumption, which
will be shown at once by your " friend" giving his authorities for any out' point,
for instance in the doctrine of transubstantiation, for I pledge myself to give as
many names of "the wise, learned and good," and reckoned such by his own
Church, ai^ainsi the views which he would maintain as he can for them.
Let him begin with the leading article, transubstantiation itself, and if he or any
of his coreligionists will liy their hand at the worl;, the question shall be quickly
ami fully tested and settled.

"If the liible is the only 'rule of Faith' can the Protestants tell us with
certainty what are the books of which it is composed ?" A variety of Remarks are
suggested by this question which, if I mistake not, would make your "friend''
look a little ridiculous. I'ut I will forbear, and confine niyself to a simple and
straightforward reply. Here we have the assumption that the Church of Rome,
and as she now is, is the only Christian Church that has existed since the days of
the Apostles until the rise of that called "Protestant." Now here again is
assumption rrrs/fs facts. And in order to establish this statement I need only
refer you to my quotation from Dr. Dfellinger in my third letter. And I refer to
him (I repeat my former statement,) because he yet h'z't's a Catholic, and 70ns in
full communion luiih the Church of Rome when he i^ave the facts Ino^iujuotefrotn him,

lie says, you will recollect (p. 26), " There are many national Churches whicli
wore never under Rome/' i)\:c., iS:c., among which were the ancient British Church,
which did not merge into that of Rome until the end of the sixth cewtury. And
then that in Ireland. It remained independent until the latter half of ihc t7oelvth
century. It was theti that the I'jiglish Pope, Adrian, granted permission to
Henry, the King of Englaml, to conquer and .subdue Ireland. The King promised
the Pope he woulil '^^ exterminate the seeds of immorality, and turn the brutal Irish,

who 7ucrc Christiana only in name, to the faith and to the ii<ay of truth.'' And the
Pope bestowing his benediction on the King, did so, saying, on account of his re-
solution to conquer Ireland, "he would obtain gloiy on earth ami felicity 'n
heaven." Then, as to the ancient Church of Rome itself, it was sufficiently
Christian up to the latter part of the ninth century, so as not to interfere with, but
rather to encourage the circulation and reading of God's holy Word. Hence, what
with the Jewish Church which held, as it now holds faithfully, the canon of the
Old Testament Scriptures (in which canon by the way, be it observed, there is
not, n<3 more than in that of the Protestant, the books of the Apocrj'pha), the
Scriptures were to be obtained without any reference to the degenerated Church
of Rome, as it now is. Therefore, when any one asks such questions as this one
I now answer of your " friend," he either shows his own ignorance of ecclesias-
tical history, or presumes most disingenuously on that of the person he interrogates.

Your "friend" next gives you a string of difficulties (which doubtless he
regards as insurmountable) which he sees lying in the way of the Protestant rule of
faith. l>ut suppose all he says of difficulty were fully admitted, would such mnke his
rule of faith less impracticable and impossible ? I have shown his rale of fiiitli
to be altogether impracticable, that it never has been applied and never can be, so
that, if he were to succeed, as he thinks he has, in proving as much of the Protes-
tant's, what then ? Why, that either there was no such thing as a rule of faith
at all and it was God's purpose that mankind should do \vithout any, and l)e like
the ship sent to navigate the sea without compass or chart, or that neither the
Romanist nor the Protestant had yet found what that rule was.

I maintain that in my previous letters I have shown that we Protest-
ants have the true and infallible rule of faith ; whilst Romanism, in her great
changes since the ninth century, has gone drifting over the sea of doubt and uncer-
tainty, and Ijcing completely in a fog thinks every one else is as badly off as herself.
But these objections of your " friend " against the use of the Scriptures as a rule of
faith are met even by Pope Clement 14, who '\nvol. i. xix. letter 40, says : "The
Gospels contain the religion of Christ, and are so plain that the meanest capacity can
comprehend them. '''' And Dr. Manning in his "Moral Entertainment " observes:
' ' The answer of Christ to the young man who w ished to know from him the way of
salvation, saying, 'How readest thou?' teacheth us that if we will be rightly
instructed in the ways of salvation, we must go to the divinely inspired •ivritin;^s.
The Gospel is that which we must follow ; by it we must be judged, and l)y it
stand or fall in that day ; and happy is he that shall be found able to meet that awful
(juestion c,f the great Judge, IFoTiU readest thou ? "

Taking now the reasonings of your "friend" against the reading and sub-
mission to the teaching of Holy Scriptures, what a nice instance of unanimitv
between him and the authorities he 7urites under (and they are many) and the adot'e
authorities 7i'liose words I i^ive !

Hi error, real or apparent, is in supjiosing that because Protestants contend
for the use, — free, frequent, and individual — of the Holy Scriptures, that there-
fore we set aside, or in any way undervalue, the preaching of the Word, and our
duty in hearing it. Preaching we regard as the leadiui^ instrumentality (didering
thereby fnmi the i)rcsent Church of Rome, who think the performance of Mass

to be such), appointed by God for the conversion and salvation of the world.
But inasmuch as by such words as those of^^St. Paul, Gal. i : 8, " Though we or
an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel to you than that which we have
preached unto you, let him be accursed," we are exhorted to the exercise ot per"
so nal judgment, — and that as to the doctrinal preaching, — not of popes, bishops,
or priests, but of those immeasurably above them, even apostles or angels, — we
need something to guide our judgment by, we take as the next best to the
Saviour himself OJ his divinely inspired apostles, the word which they have left
us. And as in compliance with their express or clearly implied commands we were
rendering the required obedience, should we not be more than a little surprised in
being met by men assuming to be the only authoriz-^d exponents of the divine
will, who forbade our act, and threatened us with imprisonment and pains, even
unto death, if we dared by obeying God to disobey them ? We doubtless would
have many surmisings under such circumstances, but not certrinly of such a
character as would redound to the honor or ci'edit of these obstructionists.

One more misapprehension your "friend" evidently labors imder, I will re-
move and then pass on. He writes you, as though it were if the whole Bible was
not possessed, and that with a certain knowledge of its divine character and
import, saving faith could not by any one be attained or exercised. To this it would
be a sufficient reply to ask. Did our Lord or His apostles propound and establish the
w//c;/t' truth of each book of the Holy Scriptures ere they demanded the hearty
reception of and faith in the Saviour's divine character and mission? We believe
the 7oholc Bible valuable, and important " for doctrine, for reproof, for correcti. ..,
and for instruction in righteousness; " but even as it is not essential to the main-
tenance of natural life that we should eat of every kind of fruit, grain, vegetable,
and (lesh, which God in His gracious providence has given to us ; that a
chemist or naturalist should demonstrate to us the life-giving properties of each
article of food ere we partook of it, so is it not absolutely necessary to possess the
whole Bible ,and have demonstrated to us beyond a (juestion that it is God's book,
and therefore truly divine, ere we attain to saving iaith in Christ.

It is enough that the sinner learn the leading truths of his condition, relation
to God, redemption by Christ Jesus, with the conditions and duties of religion ;
nor, indeed, is even the whole of this essential, absolutely, as see Acts i6 : 31.
All this, we are thankful to say, maybe obtained fivmmuch less than a whole
Bible; therefore, while prizing as an invaluable boon the whole of the sacred
Scrii)tures, we nevertheless would content ourselves with a part, or that part of
them which our Heavenly Master sa\kr it right to bestow upon us.

I will now come to the concluding portijn of your '• friend's " long epistle. It
is, you will recollect, on the differing views and actions of Protestants ami Roman-
ists towanls the Virgin Mary. Romanists afTcet to regard Protestants as guilty of
great sin in not treating the Virgin Mary with due honor ; while Protestants
regard Romanists as guilty of idolatry towards that holy woman, and of gross dis-
honoi to the Saviour in the coarse they jnusue towards her.

His first letter on this subject was much more full and argumentative than is
this his second one. Here he looks like a bird that had bgen winged in its flight,
and could now do little more tlian flutter.

Protestants are said not to honor the Virgin aright, because they do not regard
her as "the mother of God" and *' the Queen of Heaven;" and further, because
they do not worship and }iray to her. This, we are told, cannot but be very offen-
sive to the divine Son especially, and for which, doubtless, we may expect His
heaviest judgments.

But let us again, and at greater length than before, examine this subject.

Protestants cannot regard the Virgin Mary as '* the mother of God," because
such is an absurdity. God hr had no beginning, therefore could not have, as a
consequence, a mother. The human nature of Christ had a beguining, and had
that beginning in the womb of Mary. She was the exalted and honored mother
of the human nature of our Lord, and therefore in that sense may be called the
mother of our Lord. But when, because of the union ot the human nature with
the divine, and because that jierson of mysteriously complex nature was called,
and properly, God as well as man, Mary is called the mother of God, we draw
back shocked at the unauthorized and in a marked sense blasphemous utterance.
To call her the Queen of Heaven is equally without Scriptural warrant, and eciually
without any becoming sense of propriety.

Romanists worship Mary, paying her divine honors, and take exception
against Protestants for not doing the same. In this, I may remark, we have an
instance of Protestant consistency with the ancient faith, and of Romanist
novelty and departure in another and striking instance from '^'^ the faith oucc delh'ered
to the saints." The apostles and primitive Christians knew nothing of this
worship. Who, then, belong to their faith and j^ractice, and of consequence to their
Church ?

The Saviour, evidently foreseeing that improper worship and service would be
paid to His honored mother, gave a note of warning on the subject in the following
language ; and here we have another one of many notable instances of the im-
portance of the Word of God for the guidance of our faith and practice. Look at
and ponder the following passages :

" While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethern
stood without desiring to speak with him . Then one said unto him, Behold, thy
mother and thy bret'iren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. But he
answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my
brethern? and he stretched forth his hand to^oard his disciples, and said, lu-hold my
tnother and my brethern ! For lohosez'er shall do the loill of my Father 'which is in
heaTcn, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.''^ Matt 12: 46-50. "And
it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted
up her voice, and said unto him. Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps
which thou hast sucked. But he said, yea rather, blessed are they that hear the ivord
of God, and keep it.'' Luke II : 27-28. These Scriptures show most distinctly
that a spiritual relation to Christ, brought about by a readiness to hear, and a
cox\'^\'>\.{incy in doitii^ the 7oill of God, is greatly before the merely natural relation
of Mary as his mother, geal, uncpicstionably great, in honor and distinction as
that relation must be admitted to be.

Hence we believe that Mary's honor in being selected to be the natural
mother of our Lord was based upon her spiritual or truly religious character ; and

that she "magnified the Lord and that her spirit rejoiced in God her Saviour," Luke
1 : 46-4J, shows that her true spiritual greatness and distinction arose from the
earnestness and heartiness of her faith in God her Saviour, \vho in His human
nature was to be born of her by the power of the Holy Ghost, rather than by the
fact of that conception and birth thus effected.

Let Romanists leave the Virgin Mary — whom we all unite in saying was blessed
among women — where the Iloly Scriptures have put her, and then there will be
no difference between Protestants and Romanists herein, nor, in this instance at
least, between the Romanists of the present and those of the ancient Church of
Rome. Your "friend" propounds and then answers the following question : "Do
Catholics render the Most Blessed Virgin Mary the same worship and adoration
as to Christ himself? Answ^cr : No, for it would be an idolatry ; but Catholics
honor her eminent prerogatives with a degree of veneration intimtkly inferior
to that which is due to God."

Using the words of your "friend," I say "attention here." If Catholics are
convicted of rendering to ^Lary the same worship and adoration as to Christ him-
self, such ^^ would be an idolatry ^ ^'■Attention here" I again say, for we must
look into this matter closely.

In an encyclical letter of Gregory XVI, , dated Aug. 15, 1832, and address-
ed "to all patriarchs, primates, archbishops and bishops," he says : "We select
for the date of our letter this most joyful day, on which we celebrate the solemn
festival of the most blessed Virgin's triumphant assumption into heaven, that she
who has been, through every great calamity, our patroness and protectress, may
watch over us writing to you, and lead your mind, by her heavenly influence, to
those counsels which may prove most salutary to Christ's flock.

" But that all may have a successful and happy issue, let us raise our eyes to
the most blessed Virgin Mary, who alone destroys heresies, who is our CREATEST

HOPE, YEA, THE ENTIRE (GROUND OF OUR HOPE."

Now what is all this, pray, if it l)enot giving to Mary, not only the same wor-
ship and adoration, but really more than is paid to the Fathei , the Son, or the Holy
Spirit? For she is, observe, spoken of, as *^our greatest hope f yea, '■'■ the entij-e
•ground of our hope !" Could anything more than this be said of Christ ? But this
is said of Mary, and thus is she lifted above Christ, and herein worshipped not only
with the same but even with greater worship and veneration. What is this, then,
if not idolatry, even on your " friend's " authorities; and yet how these Romanist
authorities contradict one another — as see " Gother in his Papist Misrepresented."
He says: " Cursed is i'7>erv goddess-7iJorsAipper iha.t believes the Blessed Virgin
Mary to be any more than a creature ; that worships her, or puts his trust in her
more than in (lod ; that l)clieves her above her Son, or that she can in anything
cimimand Him. Amen."

And yet with such language on his lips or expressed by his pen, he 'knew that
the following was in the Roman Breviary : "If the winds of temptation arise, if
thou run upon the rocks of tribulation, lo(^k to the star, call upon Mary. If thou
art tossed upon the waves of pride, of ambition, of detraction, of envy, look to the
star, call upon Mary. If anger, or avarice, or the temptations of the flesh toss the
bark of ihy minil, look to Mary. If(listurl)cd with ihe greatness of thy sins,

troubled at thy defilement of the conscience, affrighted at the horrors of the judg-
ment, thou beginnest to be swallowed up in the gulf of sadness, the abyss of des-
pair, think upon Mary — in dangers, in difficulties, in doubts, think upon Mary,
invoke Mary. Let her not depart from thy mouth, let her not depart from thy
heart, " &c., &c.

Now if such language does not imply the /lighcst trust in Maiy that it is pos-
sible to exercise in Jesus, the Saviour ; in God, the Father ; and in the Holy
Ghost, the Sanctifier, then I confess I have lost the knowledge of some of the
plainest tei-ms in our language. But this is not all. Seymour in his "Mornings
among the Jesuits at Rome " (which as in j^arjnthesis I would recommend to gen-
eral reading and reflection), in a conversation on this veiy subject with certain
leading Jesuits in Rome, referred to a well-known prayer, to the saying of which,
in the year 1817, was attached an indulgence of 300 days ; it was in these words :
" Jesus, Joseph, Mary, I give you my heart and soul ; Jesus, Joseph, Mary, assist
me in my last agony ; Jesus, Joseph, Mary, I breathe my soul to you in peace."
Here again we have the same worship and adoration to the creature as to Christ
himself. But still more striking is the following, in a work by St. Alphonso de
Liguori. It is entitled " The Glories of Mary." In it among other things is des-
cri])ed the vision of St. Bernard, in which he beheld two ladders extending from
earth to heaven — two ways by which the sinner could have access to heaven.
At the top of one ladder appeared Jesus Chrst ; at the top of the other
ladder appeared the Virgin Mary ; and that, while those who endeavoured
to enter into heaven by the way of Christ's ladder fell constantly back and
utterly failed; those, on the other hand, who tried to enter by the ladder of Mary,
all succeeded, because she jnit forth her hands to assist and encourage them." Mr.
Seymoui says that he saw this as an altar piece in a church in Milan, where the
two ladders were represented reaching from earth to heaven ; "Jesus Christ at
the head of one, and Mary at the head of the other, and while none were succeed-
ing by the ladder of Christ, all were succeeding l)y the ladder of the Virgin."
These statements were admitted and even defended by the Jesuits with whom Mr.
Seymour conversed, while they assured him that " God hears our prayers mart
uiiekly i^^hen they are offered fhrou^^h the Blessed Vir^^hi than tchen offerred throitt^h
any one else, or than to, or through Christ ! ! ! "

Now what does all this amount to ? Why, 1st, that when Gother says : "eursedf
is every goddess-7^vrs/ii/>/>er," he jironounces a curse upon his whole Church, and
when he inveighs against a Protestant for charging his Church with such, he does
so to deceive whom he addresses, most assuredly. What a character, then, is his.

2nd. That the Virgin Mary not only receives the same worship and adoration
with Christ, but in some — in many — instances is actually placed above Him ; there-
fore, according to your *' friend," his Church arc idolators !

3rd. That even were she worshipped in the subordinate worship ^){ hypei douliay
as it is pretended she is l)y the Romanist, they would siiU he chargeable with
not only grievous errors, but with gravest idolatry.

That the Church of Rome in offering even subordinate worship to Mary is
chargeable with gravest errors, for it supposes her invested with the attriljutes of
omnipresenee and onntiscience, — attributes which l)eliing to deity alone. Forof these

she must be possessed if she hears prayers addressed to her at the same time and
in different parts of the world. Yes, the Church of Rome is guilty of idolatry ; for
the worship which the Israelites ofifered to the golden calf when Moses was on the
Mount with God, was of this very subordinate character. They did not ignore
Jehovah's existence, or imagine that supreme worship should not be ofifered Him ;
but as Moses the servant of God had left them, and they knew not, or affected not to
know, that he would ever return, they made a god of gold like unto a calf, and
worshipped it. But for this Jehovah was very angry ; nor less so Moses himself.
The whole aspect and condition of their affairs were affected by this act ; nor
■was it till three thousand of them were slain as a punishment, and Moses had
^pcnt much time in most earnest intercession in their behalf, that God con-
sented to again become their leader to the promised land. With a knowletlge
which they had of God's supremacy and glory, as attested by His many miracles
in their favour, they could not, nor did they, by ignoring such refuse Him worship
and adoration. But like the Romanists of our day, they wanted an inferior deity
— the one a calf in the place of Moses, and the other the Virgin Mary in the place
of Christ ; — they, therefore, made to themselves a calf and worshipped it, —
with hyperdidian worship, doubtless. —

The steps by which the Church of Rome has receded from the position of
primitive Christianity, is a striking lesson as to the folly and danger of abandon-
ing the Word of God ; and as well for any one to give up the use of his reason
and understanding to follow implicitly erring, and in not a few instances, as
sufficiently proved, designing and wicked men — men who have not hesitated to
make merchandise of the souls and bodies ot their fellows, while forbidding
the existence of a doubt or question at all affecting thtir wisdom or goodness, or
right and authority for doing what they deemed it right for themselves or others
to do.

Their introduction and use of the dogma of purgatory is another striking
illustration of this. Of this discovery and use. Dr. Doellinger, the Catholic, writes
as follows : (see his work Janus," /. 230.) : " Agostino Trionfo of Ancona, an
Augustinian Monk, who wrote his Summa on the Church by command of John
XXH. had already discovered a new kingdom for the Pope to nile over. It had
been said before that the power of God's Vicar extended over two realms, the
earthly and the heavenly, meaning by the letter that the Pope could open or close
heaven at his pleasure. From the end of the thirteenth century a third realm
was added, the empire over which was assigned to the Pope by the theologians
of the Curia — Purgatory. Trionfo, commissioned by John XXII. to expound the
rights of the Pope, showed that, as the dispenser of the merits of Christ, he could
empty purgatory at a stroke, by his indulgences, of all the souls detained there,
on the sole conditiun that somebody fulfilled the rules laid down for gaining those
indulgences ; he advises the Pope, however, not to do this." {Summa Je Pot.
Eccl, Rimae 1SS4, p. /pj).

Now here is a fact : this changing, shifting Church of Rome about the close
of the thirteenth century discovers purgatory, and see what use since then she
has made of it ! \\\\o.i marvellous sums of money it has brought her ! What
marvellous power it has enabled her to wield over her people ! And yet how well

she has managed to keep the people from detecting and denounciiig this imposi-
tion ! All because she succeeded in putting the Bible out of sight and out of use ;
so that now, blindfolded, she leads her people at her pleasure.

I trust that these letters to you may induce some Romanist to ponder and think
for himself ; and that many with him may yet follow no man, or men, but as they
follow Christ and walk before them in the light of the revealed will of God, the
inspired and Holy Scriptures, given to all for this very purpose.

I will ere I close give your " friend" a nut or two to crack ; a couple of syllo-
•gisms on which he may try his logic.

FIRST.

The rule of faith which God has given His Church for its guidance is consist-
ent with itself, and with the character and relations ot the Church.

But the rule of faith held by the Church of Rome is not consistent with itself,
nor with the character and relations of the Church :

Therefore, the rule of faith held by the Church of Rome is not that which
God has given the Church for guidance.

SECOND.

The true Church of God, guided as it must be by the Word and Spirit of God,
is ever consistent with herself and with God's Word and Spirit.

But the Church of Rome is not consistent with herself nor with the Word and
Spirit of God :

Therefore, the Church of Rome is not the true Church of God.

To the merits of these syllogisms I call ^^ attention."

1st. The rule of faith held by the Church of Rome is not consistent with itself,
nor with the character and relations of the Church.

This rule of faith is inconsistent with the Church because it is impracticable,
because contradictory : Pope vs. Pope ; Council vs. Council ; Council against the
Pope, and the Pope against the Council ; and all very trequently and strikingly
against the Word of God : — Therefore, &c., &c.

2. The Church of Rome is not consistent with herself, nor with the Word and
Spirit ot God. In her primitive days she was in accord with those principles of
faith and love to God and all mankind propounded in the Word of God and illus-
trated in 'the life of the Saviour. Since then she has lost the doctrine of justifica-
tion by faith, regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Further, she has become worldly,
ambitious of secular power, and of an intolerant and persecuting spirit. She
sells the gifts of God for money, making merchandise of men's souls, and com-
passes sea and land to make proselytes — not to God but to /ler faith and service.
Therefore, iS:c., &c.

When your " frtjnd" has succeeded in cracking these nuts, I shall be i)re-
pared with others on which he may still further try his skill.

I am, my dear young friend,

Vour servant and Pastor,

John Buklanu

ERRATA.

Page 7, line 19 — After the word " Church," read of Rome.
" 9, second last line — For the word " secure " read receive.
" 10, line 4 — For " can divest himself," read should, &c.

,«r*'