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tains the fight against a portion at least of her adversaries on something like equal terms?

74. But it may be said there is a violent and inexplicable contrariety in the application of phrases of such different import to the Church of Rome, as have been employed respecting her in the several parts of this discussion. We have found in her the undoubted existence of eminent sanctity; a watchful care for the maintenance of the Catholic creeds, and the most conspicuous assertion of their immutability; and finally, a more comprehensive view of the destination of the whole human nature to be renewed and glorified in the Redeemer, than is sometimes exhibited by the professors of a faith less incumbered by positive untruth. And with all this, error in the subtlest intermixture creeping along every vein and every artery of her system, indistinguishably, at least inexplicably, blended with the vital current, and exhibiting itself by the most unequivocal and malignant symptoms. Soberminded persons will be ready to revolt from so strange a paradox as is presented by this mysterious combination of elements necessarily and always in irreconcileable conflict; elements, of which one should think that the one or the other class must long ago have expelled its rival. But in truth no man can faithfully describe the Church of Rome without dealing in such paradox as this; nor indeed any other Church which is yet militant; nor so much as the life of the individual Christian.

75. And that coindwelling of good and evil which

passes our understanding in each of these cases, is most of all profound and awe-striking in the picture of the Church of Rome; not because the seeds of the most pestilential evil may not be found elsewhere, but because elsewhere their apparent contiguity to what is good is not so close, nor their simulation of truth such a masterpiece of art. It is this intermixture of evil with good in all the subjective forms of religion which gives a dangerous and fearful scope to uncharitableness in theological controversy; and it is the presence of good amidst the evil which may indeed open in an opposite direction the danger of confounding true and false by equating them all, but which if that peril be escaped, presents in the task of their careful discrimination at once an exercise of faith and a labour of love. I well know it might be possible by partial extracts from these pages to fix upon them the charge of leaning either to Romanism, or to a bigoted hatred of Romanism, or perhaps to infidelity; yet I do not fear any serious misrepresentation of their general effect. I know so much of their correspondence with the inward and real convictions of my mind, that I am sure if there be in it a spirit of candour, it will be represented and made manifest in them, and owned by those who may peruse them: while if there be not, no verbal professions could adequately cover the dark and hollow void, and the severest censure would be not more certain than deserved.

SECTION III.-SECOND OBJECTION.

76. Second Objection stated, and Counter-propositions. 77-80. Counter-propositions I. II. 81-3. Counter-proposition III. 84-106. Counter-proposition IV. 107-10. Unconscious admissions from the opponents.

76. The second head of charge against Church principles is, that they place the Church of England in a false and uncharitable relation with other Protestants not possessing Episcopal succession; as denying their orders and sacraments, and consequently the claim of the bodies to which they belong to be considered as true Christian Churches. The objectors who draw this inference from the doctrines then proceed to complain that they are arrogant, and denominate the assertion of them a provocation to themselves; and contend that to "unchurch" so many Christian communities is contrary to charity. To which it may be easily replied (1), that the matter of the doctrines cannot possibly be arrogant if they be true: (2), that the manner of their assertion, if it be arrogant, is in eminent and peculiar contradiction to the consequences which the doctrines themselves ought to produce; in other words, that their proper tendency is to produce not arrogance but humility; (3), that at least they purport to invest with Church privileges six for one whom they are untruly alleged to "unchurch:" (4), that they "unchurch" (if this uncouth term may be employed in order to avoid a periphrasis) no human being.

77. The first proposition may be dismissed as selfevident: let us proceed, then, to consider of the second. There is something that indicates a feeble tone of mind, a dependence on secondary circumstances, and a want of genuine and ardent thirst in the soul for truth, wherever in momentous controversies men leave the great issue of true or false unexamined, and prematurely grasp at some consequence, which, following according to their judgment from the establishment of the contested proposition, is also as they think likely to raise a prejudice against it. Or when, instead of inquiring into that main issue, they inquire into the manner in which it may affect themselves, and the uncomfortable sentiments which it has aroused and may arouse in them: as if their own feelings were to govern and determine the essence of Divine Truth, instead of being submitted to and determined by it. All persons zealous for the peculiar doctrines of Christianity must at once see of how fatal effect will be any countenance given by them to such a method of procedure. Its scope is very wide. It coincides with that kind of argument which is employed by men hostile to the whole Christian scheme, in order to excite our lower nature against it. They represent, that the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation are transcendental and mysterious, and that it is an insult to rational beings to require of them, as essential to salvation, the belief of tenets which are allowed by their advocates to be beyond our comprehension; and that the doctrine of the general corruption of mankind is

degrading to mankind, and tends to lower their selfrespect and blunt the moral sense. For so arguing they are rebuked by all persons of serious minds; and it may well be urged and hoped that such persons should not employ, against other tenets, modes of controversy which they themselves know to be so dangerous and illegitimate.

78. The Roman Catholic Church teaches to this day, that communion with the See of St. Peter is an essential condition of the being of a Church; thus excluding the entire Russian and Greek Church, the great body of Eastern Christians, and of course the whole of those who in any form have adhered to the Reformation. Now it is much more sensible to set about showing that this claim has no sufficient foundation, than to denounce it as arrogant. For if it be false, we shall thus relieve our consciences from its pressure; and on the other hand, if it be true, we are infinitely indebted to those who perseveringly urge it upon our attention; and we are miserably unwise if we deter the assertors from a labour intended and calculated for our good, by heaping upon them the charge of an offensive assumption. I have often heard the argument stated by Roman Catholics, never once with arrogance, but commonly with earnestness and affection, and with a sense (as it were) of individual depression under its weight and solemnity. But again was not this claim the identical one, under which the genuine Puritans, and the whole PresbyThese are said to a mount together to not less than 100,000,000 souls.

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