"Granted."

"And this one church composed of many particular churches is the church and the only church our Lord founded?"

"It is."

"And it is widely different from such a church as the Roman claims to be?"

Certainly it is."

"Then you simply deny that our Lord ever founded such a church as the Roman claims to be, and merely reiterate the plea you have withdrawn."

"I do not care for that; I am not to be tied down by your arbitrary rules of special pleading. The church of Rome was once pure. She then belonged to the church of God; she is now corrupt, and has forfeited her title. I do not say her title to be such a church as she pretends to be, but to be an integral part of the church of God."

"She has degenerated from her original purity, and is now a corrupt church?"

"That is what I allege."

"But she is in possession as the pure and authoritative church of God, and the burden of proof that she is corrupt is on you."

"I accept it, and am ready to prove her corruption."

"Corruption implies a change from a former or primitive state. You must know that state, or you cannot know that she is corrupt."

"She has corrupted the word of God; she teaches the commandments of men for the pure word; and has so disfigured the original gospel of our Lord, that it can be no longer recognized in her teachings."

That is for you to prove."

"I am ready to prove it. Indeed, it needs no proof. It is notorious. The world admits it. She has become a sink of corruption; is full of all manner of uncleanness and filth."

"Words, brother; mere words. Pause a moment and take breath, and then proceed to the proof. When you tell me the Catholic Church is corrupt, has degenerated, you assume a primitive state from which she has fallen; and it is only by comparing her present state with that primitive state, that you can determine that she has fallen from it. What, then, was that primitive state?"

"I can show what it was from the Scriptures."

"They are not in your possession. You are not their legal keeper, and have no authority to expound their sense. You can therefore make no appeal to them against the church who is in possession, and has, presumptively, the sole right to interpret them. She interprets them in her favor, and you are bound to presume her interpretations to be correct, till you can prove by a competent authority to the contrary. This competent authority you are not; for, on any conceivable hypothesis, at the very worst her authority is as good as yours can be at the very best. You must get a commission, or at least a presumptive commission, from Almighty God, as the legal keeper and expounder of the Sacred Scriptures, before you can prove any thing from them but your own arrogance and impu

dence."

"I can prove from the early fathers that the primitive. church was essentially different from the present Romish Church."

"That is, you can prove it from early tradition?"

"Yes."

"But the church is in possession as the keeper and expounder of primitive tradition, as well as of the Sacred ScriptShe interprets it in her own favor, and from it proves that she conforms perfectly to the primitive model." "But she misinterprets the fathers."

ures.

"As a matter of fact, it is undeniable that the fathers may without violence be interpreted as she interprets them, and that she rightly interprets them is to be presumed, till the contrary is shown. Moreover, as her authority as the interpreter of primitive tradition, or of the fathers, is at the worst equal to yours at the best, you have and can have no sufficient authority for setting her interpretation aside. So the appeal to primitive tradition will avail you no more than the appeal to the Scriptures; and the fact that you have no authority to declare the sense of either debars you from all right to appeal to either against what she declares to be

their sense.

"But she has corrupted the primitive faith."

"You cannot say that, unless you are authorized to say what the primitive faith was. She has presumptively the right to declare that faith, and she declares that it was what she now teaches, and therefore she declares that she has not corrupted it. You are bound to presume that she has not, and must prove that she has, before you can use an argu

ment which assumes that she has. original faith which she has corrupted?"

But what was the

"There is a great number of doctrines which she has corrupted. It is not necessary to mention all. Take, for instance, the doctrine of justification. The primitive doctrine was, that man is justified by faith alone; the Romish doctrine is, that man is justified by works."

"The Catholic doctrine is, that man is justified by faith and works, meaning thereby works done through grace purchased for us by the merits of our Lord; but on what authority do you assert that the primitive doctrine was, that man is justified by faith alone?"

"The Holy Scriptures."

"On what authority do you assert that the Holy Scriptures teach it?"

"Why, they teach it.”

"You either have authority for saying so, or you have not. But you have not, as is certain from the fact that you have no authority to keep and expound the Scriptures. Then you say it without authority. An assertion made without any authority is worthless, and not to be entertained. Here is the answer to every instance of corruption of doctrine you do or can allege. In confessing the fallibility of your sect, you have confessed that you have no authority from God to teach his word. Then you have no authority for declaring what was the primitive faith, and then none for saying that the church has corrupted it."

"But the Romish Church has forfeited her title to be considered the church of God by authorizing superstition and idolatry, for evidently no church that authorizes these can be the church of God."

"That is something to your purpose, and you will be entitled to a judgment, if the evidence sustains you. You take now the only ground from which you can legitimately frame an argument against the church. Every previous ground you have taken has been untenable, because it required the authority to maintain it which you were contesting, and which you had not, and were obliged to presume to be in the church herself. You undertook to prosecute her under the law of grace, and failed for the want of a court of competent jurisdiction. As she is presumptively the supreme court, under the law of grace, you could under that law institute no process against her; for to every allegation you could make she had only to plead want of juris

diction. The only possible way of prosecuting her is under the law of nature, and it is only by proving her to have violated some precept of that law, that you can obtain judgment against her. The law of nature falls, to some extent, under the jurisdiction of reason, and reason, to that extent, is its legal keeper and judge, and has the right to sit in judgment on its infractions. As the law of nature and that of grace both have the same origin, are enacted by the same sovereign Lawgiver, and as the latter confessedly presupposes the former and confirms it, it can never authorize what the former prohibits, any more than the former can authorize what the latter prohibits, unless we may suppose, what is not supposable, that God may be in contradiction with himself. The law of grace transcends the law of nature, but does not and cannot enjoin what it forbids. As superstition and idolatry are undeniably forbidden by the law of nature, if you prove that they are authorized, or in any sense sanctioned, by the church, you prove that she is not and cannot be the church of God. But she does not authorize or sanction them; she strictly forbids them. Thus, in her catechism for children she teaches the child to ask and answer :

"What is forbidden by this [the first] commandment?

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To worship false gods or idols; or to give any thing else whatsoever the honor which belongs to God.

What else is forbidden by this commandment?

"All false religions; all dealings with the devil; and inquiring after things to come, or secret things, by fortune-tellers or superstitious practices.

"What else?

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All charms, spells, and heathenish observation of omens, dreams, and such like fooleries.

Does this commandment forbid the making of images?

"It forbids making them so as to adore them; that is, it forbids making them our gods.

“Does this commandment forbid all honor and veneration of saints and angels?

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No, we are to honor them as God's special friends and servants; but not with the honor which belongs to God.

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And is it allowable to honor relics, crucifixes, and holy pictures? Yes; with an inferior and relative honor, as they relate to Christ and his saints, and are memorials of them.

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May we, then, pray to relics and images?

"No, by no means; for they have no life or sense to hear or help. us.'

Here is evidence enough that the church denies your charge. The burden of proof is on you, and you must prove her guilty of superstition and idolatry."

"And I am ready to prove it. The reformers charged her with idolatry, and we have never ceased from their day to reiterate the charge."

"But a lie, though a million of times repeated, is none the less a lie. Nobody disputes that Protestants have accused the church of idolatry, but that is not to the purpose. You must prove your allegation."

"Why, you might as well ask me to prove that there is a sun in the heavens. All the world knows that the church of Rome is sunk in the grossest idolatry and the foulest superstition."

"Words, words, brother; give me the proofs."

"Proofs! you need no proofs. The fact is undeniable, and nothing but the grossest impudence on the part of the Romish Church could ever dream of denying it."

"No advance in the argument, brother. Have you yet to learn that the unsupported assertions of a man who admits that he speaks without authority are not proofs? Here is the church, on the one hand, teaching her children, in the very first lessons she teaches them, to abhor idols and all superstitious practices; and here are you, on the other, accusing her of superstition, and that worst and most abominable species of superstition, idolatry, she in possession and to be presumed to be the church of God, and you presumptively a rebel against God, and a calumniator, till you make good your charge. Prove, then, the charge, or withdraw it."

"The reformers proved it, the greatest and best of our writers have asserted it; it is a question settled, res adjudicata. Has it not entered into history? Do you not read it in the very elementary books for children? Look at the great and enlightened State of Massachusetts! she prohibits by law all sectarianism in her admirable system of schools, and the introduction into them of any books which show any preference for one religious denomination over another; and yet she does not hesitate to permit the introduction of books which teach that Papists are idolaters and image-worshippers. Have we not, in every land where we have had the power, prohibited the Romish worship? Why have we, the only friends of religious liberty, why have we who have poured out our treasure and our blood to redeem the world from papal tyranny and superstition, why have we done this, but for the