'
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS
CHIEFLY ON
THEOLOGY, POLITICS, AND SOCIALISM,
BT
O. A. BROWNSON, L.L. D.
NEW YORK:
D. & J. SADLIER & Co. 31 BARCLAY STREET.
BOSTON: 128 FEDERAL-STREET.
MONTREAL, C. E:
CORNER OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIKR AND NOTRE-DAMK STREETS.
1862
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1S52,
BY D. & J. SADLIER & CO.
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the
Southern District of New York.
Rc
<?
Stereotyped by VINCENT L
128 Fulton-street, N. Y
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
PREFACE, v
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH, 1
THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER VERSUS THE CHURCH, .. .. 69
THORNWELL'S ANSWER TO DR. LYNCH, (April, 1848.) .. 100
THORNWELL'S ANSWER TO DR. LYNCH, (October, 1848.) .. 168
PROTESTANTISM ENDS IN TRANSCENDENTALISM, .. .. 209
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL, .. .. .. . 234
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY, 262
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS, 293
WAR AND LOYALTY, .. .. 321
THE HIGHER LAW, 349
CATHOLICITY NECESSARY TO SUSTAIN POPULAR LIBERTY, 368
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM, 386
NATIVE AMERICANISM, .. .. 420
LABOR AND ASSOCIATION, .. .. .. .. .. 444
SOCIALISM AND THE CHURCH 479
PREFACE.
THE following essays and reviews are republished
from Brownson's Quarterly Review. They have been
subjected to a rigid revision, but are reproduced as
originally published, excepting a few verbal corrections,
the suppression of a few superfluous sentences, and the
omission of some paragraphs which have lost their
interest.
It is very possible that in selecting these articles
for republication, I have not chosen those which the
student of theology or philosophy would have recom-
mended, nor even those which I myself regard as the
least unworthy of my writings during the past seven
or eight years ; but essays of a somewhat abstruse and
metaphysical nature, though they may be tolerated in
a periodical where they appear along with others of a
less unpopular cast, will hardly find in these times read-
ers if published in a volume by themselves. I have
selected such articles as have seemed to me best adapted
to the tastes of the general reader, and the most likely
to be useful to the public at large, whether Catholic or
Protestant.
The reader must not expect too much from these
articles, and must be content to take them for what
they are, simply articles originally written for a Quar-
terly Review. They are by no means separate and
complete treatises on the several topics they discuss.
But, if read in connection, in the order in which I have
arranged them, they may, perhaps, be found to give a
VI PREFACE.
tolerably full view of the argument for the Church and
against Protestantism, of the origin and constitution of
Government, the principles of Authority and Liberty, /
the sacredness of Law, the duty of Loyalty, and the
madness and danger of modern Socialism.
If any one looks over this volume for something new,
original, or striking he will, most likely, be disappointed.
I have not labored to present novel or startling specula-
tions on theology, philosophy, ethics, or politics, but
simply to ascertain the principles and doctrines of the
Church of God, and to apply them to the great practi-
cal questions of the day. My aim has been to bring
up anew the old and too often forgotten truth, not to
bring out a novel theory. From first to last I think
and write as a man many centuries behind his age.
The articles before being printed in the Quarterly
Review were submitted to the revision of a competent
theologian, and I have no reason to suppose that they
contain anything not in accordance with Catholic faith
and morals ; but they are as a matter of course repub-
lished with submission to the proper authority, and I
shall be most happy to correct any error of any sort
they may contain the moment it is brought authorita-
tively to my notice. It is not my province to teach ;
all that I am free to do is to reproduce with scrupu-
lous fidelity what I am taught.
Religion is for me the supreme law ; it governs my
politics, not my politics it. I never suffer myself to
inquire whether such or such a religion favors or not
such or such a political order ; for if there is a conflict
the political must yield to the religious. I therefore
have not labored to show that the Church is favorable or
unfavorable to monarchy, to aristocracy, or to democ-
racy. I do not find that she erects any particular
PREFACE. Vil
form of Government into an article of faith, the mo-
narchical no more than the democratic, the democratic
no more than the monarchical. Any one of these par-
ticular forms may be legal government, and when and
where it is the good Catholic is bound to support it,
and forbidden to conspire to subvert it. The republi-
can order is the legal order here, and I owe it civil
obedience. I am the citizen of a republic, and there-
fore a republican citizen ; I am a Catholic, therefore a
loyal citizen, and no radical or revolutionist, either for
my own country or any other.
My Catholic friends, who have been frequently dis-
turbed by hearing it alleged that Catholicity is anti-
republican and incompatible with popular institutions,
will find no direct attempt to refute so silly, nay, so
absurd an objection. I respect my religion, and even
the great body of my own countrymen, too much to
undertake to do that. But they will find that I have
attempted, not unsuccessfully perhaps, to prove that
without the Catholic religion it is impossible permanently
to sustain popular institutions, or to secure their free
and salutary operations. Indeed no form of govern-
ment can be secure or operate well without the Church.
Without Catholicity you can have, in principle at least,
only despotism or anarchy. All that our countrymen
find in our institutions has been adopted from England,
and inherited from Catholic ancestors.
I seldom throw a sop to Cerberus. I have made
no attempt to propitiate popular opinion by pandering
to popular prejudice. I was not born to be a courtier,
either of king or people. I seek to enlighten public
opinion, not to echo it ; and I always say, in a plain,
straight forward way, what I am convinced ought to be
said, leaving popularity or unpopularity to look out for
Vli PREFACE.
itself. But if my language is free, bold, and some-
times severe, I would fain hope that it is never incon-
siderate, rash, or gratuitously offensive.
I shall be found to have seldom indulged in frothy
declamations about liberty, the rights of man, and the
dignity of human nature. There are enough others to
do that. I assert my liberty in my practice ; I exer-
cise my rights as a man, and I aim to show my respect
for the dignity of human nature in my deportment.
Liberty is, no doubt, threatened in this country, but
the danger comes chiefly from the side of license, and
is best averted, not by common place declamations for
the largest liberty, but by asserting and maintaining
the supremacy of Law.
I have shown no sympathy with the various classes
of fanatics with which the country teems, philanthro-
pists, reformers, as they call themselves. They have
become as troublesome as the frogs of Egypt, and are
far more dangerous. They strike at the root of all indi-
vidual liberty and manly independence of character,
and are doing their best to revive the absurd and des-
potic legislation of the early Colonial times of New
England. Of Christian Charity, that supernatural virtue
which loves God supremely and its neighbor as itself
for God's sake, we cannot have too much ; but of the
whimpering sentiment of philanthropy, which an unbeliev-
ing age substitutes for it, and which is the love of all
men in general and the hatred of every man in par-
ticular, unless a criminal, we cannot have too little.
Charity redeems the world, \nd gives us a heaven on
earth ; philanthropy effects no good, and tramples down
more good by the way in going to its object, than it
could possibly effect in accomplishing it.
Whatever the imperfections of these articles, and
PREFACE. IX
no one can be more sensible of their imperfections than
I am, there is this to be said in their favor, that they
are the production of no youthful aspirant seeking
notoriety by paradox and excentricity, nor of an old
man soured by disappointment, and seeking to vent his
gf)ite upon an unoffending world. I have lived in the
world, and shared its vicissitudes, but I have no wrongs
to complain of, no sense of injustice rankling in my
bosom. I have no mortified ambition, and have attain-
ed to more than in the most ardent dreams of my youth
I ever aspired to. I am contented with my lot in the
world, and have no desire to change it. Conviction,
not desperation, led me into the Church, and I have
found a thousand times more than I expected. It is
true, in my youth and early manhood I held and pub-
lished views very different from those set forth in this
volume, and this fact will have its weight against what-
ever I may now say. But it is no crime to grow wiser
with years, and to profit by experience or by the
grace of God. The deliberate convictions of a man of
mature age are worth more than the crude speculations
of impetuous and inexperienced youth. But there is
nothing in these essays and reviews that rests on my
personal authority; they are to be taken for what they
are worth, without any reference to the much or little
respect due to their author.
Much has been said first and last in the newspapers
as to the frequent changes I have undergone, and I am
usually sneered at as a weathercock in religion and
politics. This seldom disturbs me, for I happen to
know that most of the changes alleged are purely im-
aginary. I was born in a Protestant community, of
Protestant parents, and was brought up, so far as I
was brought up at all, a Presbyterian. At the age of
PREFACE.
twenty-one I passed from Prebyterianism to what is
sometimes called Liberal Christianity, to which, I re-
mained attached, at first under the form of Universal-
ism, afterwards under that of Unitarianism, till the age
of forty-one, when I had the happiness of being received
into the Catholic Church. Here is the sum total of
my religious changes. I no doubt experienced difficul-
ties in defending the doctrines I professed, and I shifted
my ground of defence more than once, but not the doc-
trines themselves.
I was during many years, no doubt, a radical and
a socialist, but both after a fashion of my own. I held
two sets of principles, the one set the same that I hold
now, the other the set I have rejected. I supposed
the two sets could be held consistently together, that
there must be some way, though I never pretended to
be able to discover it, of reconciling them with each
other. Fifteen years' trial and experience convinced
me to the contrary, and that I must choose which set
I would retain, and which cast off. My natural tend-
ency was always to conservatism, and democracy, in
the sense I now reject it, I never held. In politics, I
always advocated, as I advocate now, a limited govern-
ment indeed, but a strong and efficient government.
Here is the sum total of my political changes. I never
acknowledged allegiance to any party. From 1838 to
1843, I acted with the Democratic party, because dur-
ring those years it contended for the public policy I
approved ; since then I have adhered to no party. No
party as such ever had any right to count on me, and
most likely none ever will have. I do not believe in
the infallibility of political parties, and I always did
and probably always shall hold myself free to support
the men and measures of any party, or to oppose
PREFACE. XI
them, according to my own independent convictions of
what is or is not for the common good of my country.
But after all, this is not a matter worth taking any
notice of. I am not anxious to prove that I have al-
ways acted consistently, and have never changed my
opinions. Charges may be alleged against me that are
not true, but the public is not likely to believe any-
thing worse of my life before I became a Catholic than I
do myself. I was a Protestant, and had the virtues and
the vices of Protestants, and probably was not much
better nor much worse than the average of my class.
I was, of course, all unworthy to be a Catholic, and
in myself am now all unworthy of the confidence of
Catholics. There is no question of that ; and if the
truth or falsity of my writings depended on my own
merits or demerits, they would deserve not a moment's
consideration. I have referred to the subject only as
an act of justice to my Catholic friends, who have so
generously given me their hearts. But I certainly had
errors, gross and inexcusable errors, and I beg the
public to accept this volume as a slight token of my
sincere repentance, and of my earnest wish to do all
in my power to atone for them.
I respectfully lay this humble volume at the feet
of the Venerable Prelates and Clergy of the United
States, not as worthy of their patronage, or even of
their notice, but as a mark of filial reverence and sub-
mission, and of profound and lively gratitude for their
kind encouragement, and generous and uniform support
of my humble labors in the cause of Catholic truth.
I would also inscribe it to my Protestant country-
men. They will find in it many resons why I have
ceased to be a Protestant, but none I hope, for believ-
ing that I have lost any of my former interest in them,
x PREFACE.
or that their welfare here or hereafter is less dear to
me than ever it was. My sympathies with my fellow
men, which, perhaps, are livelier and deeper than some
suppose, have been quickened and expanded, not dead-
ened and contracted, by my conversion to Catholicity.
I have said nothing in the following pages in wrath ;
I have spoken only in love.
Placing this volume, though all unworthy, with de-
vout gratitude, and tender love, under the protection
of Our Blessed Lady, as I do myself and all my labors
and interests, I send it forth to the public, hoping that
it may contain a fit word fitly spoken for some earnest
mind struggling to emancipate itself from error, and to
burst into " the glorious liberty of the children of God."
THE AUTHOR.
MOUNT BELLINGHAM,
Maunday Thursday, 1852.
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH*
APRIL, 1845.
THE Journal, the title of which we have here quoted, is the
ably conducted organ of the American Unitarians. As a peri-
odical, it is one in which we take no slight interest ; for it is
conducted by our personal friends, and through its pages, which
were liberally opened to us, we were at one time accustomed
to give circulation to our own crude speculations and pestilen-
tial heresies. We introduce it to our readers, however, not
for the purpose of expressing any general opinion of its charac-
ter, or the peculiar tenets of the denomination of which it is the
organ ; but solely for the purpose of using the article which ap-
peared in the January number, headed The Church, as a text
for some remarks in defence of the Church against No-Church-
ism, or the doctrine which admits the Church in name, but
denies it in fact, so prevalent in our age and community.
All Protestant sects, just in proportion as they depart from
Catholic unity, tend to No-Churchism ; and the Unitarians, who
* The Christian Examiner and Religious Miscellany, January, 1845.
Art. VI. The Church.
2 THE CHURCH AGAIN'ST NO-CHURCH.
are the Protestants of Protestants, and who afford us a practical
exemplification of what Protestantism is and must be, when and
where it has the sense, the honesty, or the courage to be con-
sequent, have already reached this important point. They can-
not be said, in the proper sense of the word, to believe in any
church at all. They see clearly enough, that, if they once ad-
mit a church at all, in any sense in which it is distinguishable
from no-church, they can neither justify the Reformers in se-
ceding from the Catholic Church, nor themselves in remaining
aliens from its communion. They have, therefore, the honesty
and boldness to deny the Church altogether, and to admit in
its place only a voluntary association of individuals for pious and
religious purposes ; in which sense it is on a par with a Bible,
Missionary, Temperance, or Abolition society, with scarcely any-
thing more holy in its objects, or more binding on its members
The Christian Examiner, in the article we have referred to
fully authorizes this statement ; and though it by no means dis-
cards the sacred name of Church, it leaves us nothing venerable
or worth contending for to be signified by it. The controversies,
for the next few year, it thinks, will, not improbably, revolve
around the question of the Church. " What, then," it asks, " is
the Church ? what is its authority ? what its importance ? what
its true place among Christian ideas or influences ? " These are
the questions ; and its purpose in the article under consideration
is to offer a few remarks which may indicate a true answer to
them, especially the last.
In answer to the question, What is the Church ? the writer
replies, " It is the whole company of believers, the uncounted
and wide-spread congregation of all those who receive the Gos-
pel as the law of Ife. It is coextensive with Christianity; it is
the living Christianity of the time, be that more or less, be it
expressed in one mode of worship or another, in one or another
variety of internal discipline. The Church of Christ compre-
hends and is composed of all his followers." pp. 78, 79.
The answer to the question, What is the importance of the
Church ? is not very clearly set forth. Perhaps this is a point
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 3
on which the writer has not yet obtained clear and distinct
views. It is, probably, one of those points on which "rrore
light is to break forth." The place of the Church amon^'
Christian ideas and influences also is not very definitely deter-
mined; but it would appear that the sacred writers had two
ideas, for they were not, like our modern reformers, men of
only one idea, and these two ideas were, one the Church, the
other the individual soul. We do not mean to say that the
writer really intends to teach that the Church is an idea, for a
" company of believers " can hardly be called an idea, nor can
the individual soul ; but he probably means to teach that the
sacred writers had two ideas, or rather two points of view, from
which they contemplated this company of believers, the one
collective, the other individual.
" They loved to collect in idea the members of Christ, as
they styled them, under one idea, and present them in this rela-
tion of unity to their readers. Thus viewed, the Church became
the emblem of Christian influences and Christian benefits. It
expressed all Christ had lived for, or died for. He had loved it,
and given himself for it. It was ' the pillar and ground of the
truth.' It was the 'body' of which he was the head." p. 79.
This unity, however, is purely ideal ; that is, imaginary. The
only unity really existing consists merely in the similar senti-
ments, hopes, and aims of the individual members. But
" There was another idea ^n which the Apostles insisted still
more strenuously, that of the individual soul. They taught the
importance of the individual soul. Around this, as the one ob-
ject of interest, were gathered the revelations and command-
ments of the Gospel. Personal responsibleness in view of
privileges, duties, sins, temptations was their great theme.
They preached the Gospel to the soul in its individual exposure
and want. It is the peculiarity of our religion, its vital pecu-
liarity, that it makes the individual the object of its address, its
immediate and its final action. Christianity divested of this
distinction becomes powerless, and void of meaning. It contra-
dicts and subverts itself." Ib.
4 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
Here, then, are two ideas, the idea of the company, and the
idea of the individual ; and the first idea is to be held subordi-
nate to the second ; which, we suppose, means that the end of
Christianity is the redemption and sanctification of the individ-
ual soul, and that the Church is to be valued only in so far as
it is a means to this end, a doctrine which we do not recol-
lect to have ever heard questioned. The place of the Church
is, therefore, below the individual, and being only the effect of
the operation of Christianity in the hearts of individuals, as the
writer tells us farther on, its importance must consist solely in
the reaction of the example of Christians on those not yet con-
verted, and in the aid and encouragement union among pro-
fessed Christians gives to one another in their strivings after the
Christian life. This, as near as we can come at it, is the Chris-
tian Examiner's doctrine.
The writer throws in one or two remarks, in connexion with
his general statement, to which we cannot assent. " It has been
maintained," he says, " that the Church is the principal idea in
the Gospel. It has been generally supposed that the individual
exists for the Church. Ecclesiastical writers have contended,
and the people have admitted, that the rights of the Church
were stronger than the rights of the members, that the pros-
perity of the Church must be secured at the expense of the be-
liever's peace and independence ; that, in a word everything
must be made to yield to the Church." p. 80. The writer
must have drawn on his imagination for his facts. Ecclesiastical
writers have never contended, nor have the people admitted,
any such thing. The doctors of the Church have always and
uniformly taught that the Church exists for the individual, not
the individual for the Church, and that she is to be submitted
to solely as the means in the hands of God of redeeming and
sanctifying the individual soul. This is wherefore Catholics so
earnestly contend for the Church, so willingly obey her com-
mands, and so cheerfully lay down their lives in her defence.
The question of a conflict of rights between the Church and
the individual, which the Christian Examiner regards as the
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. \j
great question of the age, is no question at all ; for there never
is and never can be a conflict of rights. It has never been held
by any one of any authority in the ecclesiastical world, that the
rights of the Church are stronger than the rights of the mem-
bers, and that the rights of the members must yield to those of
the Church. Rights never yield ; claims may yield, but not
rights. Establish the fact that this or that is the right of the
member, and the Church both respects and guaranties it ; but
where she has the right to teach and command, she does not
come in conflict with individual rights by demanding submis-
sion, for there the individual has no rights. To hold him,
within the province of the Church, to obedience, is only holding
him to obedience to the rightful authority. When the law
says to the individual, " Thou shalt not steal," it infringes no
right ; because the individual has not, and never had, any right
to steal.
But passing over this, we may say, the Christian Examiner
holds, that, in the usual sense of the term, our blessed Saviour
founded no church ; he merely taught the truth, and, by his
teaching, life, sufferings, death, and resurrection, deposited in
the minds and hearts of men certain great seminal principles of
truth and goodness, to be by their own free thought and affec-
tions developed and matured. The Church is nothing but the
mere effect of the development and growth of these principles.
" It is but a consequence " of the effect of Christianity upon
those who are " separately brought under its influence." These,
taken collectively, are the Church. These organize themselves
in one way or another, adopt for their social regulation and mu-
tual progress such forms of worship or internal discipline as are
suggested by the measure of Christian truth and virtue realized
in their hearts. This is all the church there is. If you ask,
What is its authority ? the answer is, " A fiction, a fiction which
has cheated millions and ruined multitudes, but a fiction still."
p. 83. This, in brief, is the church theory of Liberal Chris-
tians, in fact, the theory virtually adopted by the great body of
O THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
the Protestant world, and the only theory a consistent Protestant
can adopt, if not even more than he can consistently adopt.
The insufficiency of this theory it is our purpose in the fol-
lowing essay to point out, by showing that with it alone it is
impossible to elicit an act of faith. We shall begin what we
have to offer by defining what it is we mean by the Church,
and what are the precise questions at issue between us and
No-Churchmen. We do this, because the Christian Ex-
aminer and its associates do not seem to have any clear or
definite notions of what it is we contend for, when we con-
tend for the authority, infallibility, and indefectibility of the
Church, or what it is of which we really predicate these impor-
tant attributes.
The word church, it is well known, is used in a variety of
senses. The Greek txxhrjala, ecclesia, rendered by the word
church, taken in a general way, means an assembly, or congre-
gation, whether good or bad, for one purpose or another ; but
is for the most part taken in the Scriptures and the Fathers in a
good sense, for the Church of Christ. The English word church,
said to be derived from KVQIOC, and oi'xof, the Lord's house
would seem to designate primarily the place of worship ; but as
ot'xoc, like our English word house, may mean the family as
well as the dwelling or habitation, the word church may not im-
properly be used to designate the Lord's family, the worship-
pers as well as the place of worship ; in which sense it is a suf-
ficiently accurate translation of the Greek ixxlijaia, as generally
used by ecclesiastical writers.
1. By the Church we understand, then, when taken in its
widest sense, without any limitation of space or time, the whole
of the Lord's family, the whole congregation of the faithful,
united in the true worship of God under Christ the head. In
this sense it comprehends the faithful of the Old Testament,
not only those belonging to the Synagogue, but also those oiu
of it, as Job, Melchisedech, <fec., the blest, even the angels, in
heaven, the suffering in purgatory, and those on the way. As
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 7
comprehending the blest in heaven, it is called the Church Tri-
umphant ; the souls in purgatory, the Church Suffering ; believ-
ers on the way, the Church Militant ; not that these are three
different Churches, but different parts, or rather states, of one
and the same Church. But with the Church in this compre-
hensive sense we have in our present dscussion nothing to do.
The question obviously turns on the Church Militant.
2. The Church Militant is defined by Catholic writers to be
" The society of the faithful, baptized in the profession of the
same faith, united in the participation of the same sacraments,
and in the same worship, under one head, Christ in heaven, and
Iris Vicar, the Sovereign Pontiff, on earth." But even this is too
comprehensive for our present purpose, to indicate at once the
precise points in the controversy between us and No-Church-
men.
3. We must distinguish, in the Church Militant, between the
Ecclesia credens, the congregation of the faithful, and the Eccle-
sia docens, or congregation of pastors and teachers.
The Church, as the simple congregation of believers, taken
exclusively as believers, is not a visible organization, nor an au-
thoritative or an infallible body. On this point we have no con-
troversy with the Christian Examiner ; for we are no Congre-
gation alists, and by no means disposed to maintain that the su-
preme authority in the Church, under Christ, is vested in the
body of the faithful. The authority of the Church in this sense
we cheerfully admit is " a fiction," " a mischievous fiction," as
the history of Protestantism for these three hundred years of
its existence sufficiently establishes.
When we contend for the Church as a visible, authoritative,
infallible, and indefectible body or corporation, we take the word
church in a restricted sense, to mean simply the body of pastors
and teachers, or, in other words, the bishops in communion
with their chief. We mean what Protestants would, perhaps,
better understand by the word ministry than by the word
church, although this word ministry is far from being exact,
as it designates functions rather than functionaries, and, when
8 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
used to designate functionaries, includes the several orders of
the Christian priesthood, not merely the bishops or pastors,
who alone, according to the Catholic view, constitute the Eccle-
sia docens. Nevertheless, to avoid the confusion the word
church is apt to generate in Protestant minds, we shall some-
times use it, merely premising that we use it to express only the
body of pastors and teachers, by whom we understand exclu-
sively the bishops, in communion with their chief, the Pope.
Now, the question between us and No-Churchmen turns
precisely on this Ecclesia docens. Has our blessed Saviour es-
tablished a body of teachers for his Church, that is, for the con-
gregation of the faithful ? Has he given them authority to teach
and govern ? Has he given to this body the promise of infalli-
bility and indefectibility ? If so, which of the pretended Chris-
tian ministries now extant is this body ? These are the questions
between us and No-Churchmen, and they cover the whole
ground in controversy. There is now no mistaking the points
to be discussed.
I. We take it for granted that the writer in the Christian
Examiner admits, or intends to admit, the divine origin and
authority of the Christian religion, and that the name of Jesus
is the only name " given under heaven among men whereby we
must be saved." We shall take it for granted that he holds
the Christian religion to be, not merely preferable to all other
religions or pretended religions, but the only true religion and
way of salvation. We are bound to do so, for he is a Doctor
of Divinity, a professedly Christian pastor of a professedly Chris-
tian congregation, and it would be discourteous on our part to
reason with him as we would with a Jew, Pagan, Mahometan,
or Infidel. We are bound to assume that he holds, or at least
intends to hold, that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the
only law of life, without obedience to which no one can be
saved ; and, since he makes Christianity and the Church coex-
tensive, that out of the pale of the Church as he defines it,
there is no salvation. The Church, he says, comprehends and
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 9
is composed of all the followers of Christ. No one, then, who
is not in the Church is a follower of Christ. If the Gospel of
Christ be the only law of life, no one not a follower of Christ
can be saved. Consequently, no one not a member of the
Church of Christ can be saved.
To deny this is to reject Christianity altogether, or to fall into
complete indifferency/ If men can be saved, or be acceptable to
their Maker, in one religion as well as in another, wherein is one
preferable to another ? If the Christian revelation was not
necessary to our salvation, why was it given us, and why are
we called upon to believe and obey it ? why did God send his
only begotten Son to make it, and why was it declared to be
of such inestimable value to us ? If Jesus Christ taught that
salvation is attainable in all religions, or in any religion but his
own, why were the Apostles so enraptured with the Gospel, and
why did they make such painful sacrifices for its promulgation ?
If they had not been taught to regard it as the only way of sal-
vation, their conduct is unaccountable ; and if it be not the only
way of salvation, they and their Master can be regarded only as
a company of deluded fanatics, whose labors, sacrifices, and cruel
deaths may indeed excite our pity, but cannot command our
respect. We shall presume the writer in the Christian Ex-
aminer sees all this as well as we, and therefore shall presume
that he holds with us, that all mankind are bound to worship
God, that there is but one true way of worshipping God, and
therefore but one true religion, and that this true religion is the
Christian religion. He who does not admit this much can
by no allowable stretch of courtesy be called a Christian. This
premised, we proceed.
In order to be saved, to enter into life, or to become ac-
ceptable to God, one must be a Christian. To be a Christian,
one must be a believer. No one is a Christian who is not a
follower of Christ. Every follower of Christ, according to the
Christian Examiner, is a member of the Church of Christ.
But, according to the same authority, the Church is a company
of believers. Therefore a Christian must be a believer. He
10 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
who is a believer is a believer because he believes something.
Therefore, in order to be a Christian, it is necessary to believe
something.
The Christian Examiner must admit this conclusion; yet
some Unitarians have the appearance of denying it. A short
time since, we read an article in 'a Unitarian newspaper, writ-
ten by a distinguished Unitarian clergyman, in which the writer
maintains, that, although faith is indispensable to the Christian
character, belief is not ; yet he fails to define what that faith is
which excludes or does not include belief. The late Dr. Chan-
ning, in his Discourse on the Church, objects to all forms,
creeds, and churches, and declares that the essence of all religion
is in supreme love to God and universal justice and charity
towards our neighbour. Yet we presume he wishes this fact, to
wit, that this is the essence of all religion, should be assented to
both by the will and the understanding. But this is not a fact
of science, evident in and of itself. It depends on other facts
which are matters of belief, and therefore must itself be an object
of belief. Not a few Unitarian clergymen of our acquaintance
understand by faith trust or confidence (fiducia), and contend,
that, when we are commanded to believe in Christ, in God, &c.,
the meaning is, that we should trust or confide in him. To be-
lieve in the Son is to confide in him as the Son of God. But I
cannot confide in him as the Son of God, unless I believe that
he is the Son of God ; I cannot confide in God, unless I believe
that he is, and that he is the protector of them that trust him.
Where there is no belief, there is and can be no confidence.
Confidence always presupposes faith ; for where there is no be-
lief that the trust reposed will be responded to, there is no
trust ; and the fact, that the one trusted will preserve and not
betray the trust, is necessarily a matter of faith, of belief, not
of knowledge. Faith begets confidence, but is not it; confi-
dence is the effect or concomitant of faith, but can never exist
without it. So, however these may seem to deny the necessity
of belief, they all in reality imply it, presuppose it.
Moreover, all Unitarians hold, that, to be a Christian, one
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 11
must be a follower of Christ. Their radical conception of Christ
is that of a teacher, of a person specially raised up and commis-
sioned by Almighty God to teach, and to teach the truth. But
one cannot be said to be the follower of a teacher, unless he
believes what the teacher teaches. Therefore, to be a Christian,
one must be a believer.
This, again, is evident from the Holy Scriptures. " For
without faith," says the blessed Apostle Paul, " it is impossible
to please God." Heb. xi. 6. So our blessed Saviour : " He
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that be-
lieveth not shall be condemned." St. Mark, xvi. 16. " He that
believeth in the Son hath eternal life ; but he that believeth not
the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on
him." St. John, iii. 36. This is sufficient to establish our first
position, namely, that, in order to be a Christian, it is necessary
to be a believer, w that is, to believe somewhat.
This somewhat, which it is necessary to believe, is not
falsehood, but truth. What we are required to believe is that
for not believing which we shall be condemned. But God is a
God of truth, nay, truth itself, and it is repugnant to reason to
assume that he will condemn us for not believing falsehood.
The belief demanded is also essential to our salvation ; for it is
said, " He that believeth not shall be condemned." But it is
equally repugnant to reason to maintain that a God of truth,
who is truth, can make belief in falsehood essential to salvation.
Therefore the belief demanded, as to its object, is truth, not
falsehood.
The truth we are required to believe is the revelation
which Almighty God has made us through his Son, Jesus
Christ, or in other words, the truth which Jesus Christ taught
or revealed. The belief in question is Christian belief, that
which makes one a Christian believer, a follower of Jesus, a
member of the " uncounted and wide-spread congregation of all
those who receive the Gospel as the law of life." But one can
be a Christian believer only by believing Christian truth ; and
Christian truth can be no other truth, if different truths there be,
12 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
than that taught by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, according to
the confession of Unitarians themselves, was a teacher of truth,
and a teacher of nothing but truth. Then all he taught was
truth. Therefore, to be truly a Christian believer, truly a fol-
lower of Christ, it is necessary to believe, explicitly or implicitly,
all the truth he taught. Hence, the commission to the Apos-
tles was to teach all nations, and to teach them to observe all
things whatsoever their Master had commanded them. St. Matt,
xxviii. 20.
The truth which Jesus Christ taught or revealed apper-
tains, in part, at least, to the supernatural order. By the su-
pernatural order we understand the order above nature, that is,
above the order of creation. All creatures, whether brute matter,
vegetables, animals, men, or angels, are in God, and without
him could neither be, live, nor move. But God has created
them all " after their kinds," and each with a specific nature.
What is included in this nature, or promised by it, although
having its origin and first motion in God, is what is meant by
natural. Supernatural is something above this, and superadded.
God transcends nature, and is supernatural ; but regarded solely
as the author, upholder, and governor of nature, he is natural,
and hence the knowledge of him as such is always termed
natural theology. But as the author of grace, he is strictly
supernatural ; because grace, though having the same origin, is
above the order of creation, is not included in it, nor promised
by it. It is, so to speak, an excess of the Divine Fulness not ex-
hausted in creation, but reserved to be superadded to it accord-
ing to the Divine will and pleasure. Thus God may be said
to be both natural and supernatural. As natural, that is, as the
author, sustainer, and governor of nature, he is naturally intelli-
gible, according to what Saint Paul tells us, Rom. i. 20. Invis-
ibilia enim ipsius, a creatura mundi, per ea quce facia sunt
intellecta, conspiciuntur ; sempiterna quoque ejus virtus, et
divinitas : " For the invisible things of God, even his eternal
power and divinity, from the creation of the world, are clearly
seen, being understood by the things that are made." But as
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 13
supernatural, that is, as the author of grace, he is not naturally
intelligible, and can be known only as supernaturally revealed.
The fact that he is the author of grace, or that there is grace,
is not a fact of natural reason, or intrinsically evident to natural
reason. It, therefore, is not and cannot be a matter of science,
but must be a matter of faith. . Hence, the Apostle says again,
Heb. xi. 6, Credere enim, oportet accedentem ad Deum quia cst,
et inquirentibus se remunerator sit : " He that cometh to God
must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
seek him." That he is as author of nature, we know, but that
he is as author of grace, or that he is a rewarder of them that
seek him, we believe.
Now, the revelation of Jesus Christ is preeminently the reve-
lation of God as the author and dispenser of grace, and there-
fore preeminently the revelation of the supernatural. " The law
was given by Moses, but grace and truth by Jesus Christ." St.
John, i. IV. Hence, to believe the truth and all the truth
which Jesus Christ taught is to believe truth pertaining to the
supernatural order.
Unitarians, it is true, eliminate from the Gospel a great part
of the mysteries, and reduce it, so to speak, to a mere repub-
lication of the law of nature ; their theology is in the main na-
tural theology ; their faith in God is in him as the author of
nature, and the immortality they look for is merely a natural
immortality ; but the sounder part of them, do, nevertheless, to
some extent, admit that Jesus Christ revealed truths not natu-
rally intelligible, and which pertain to the supernatural order.
They admit that the Gospel is itself, in some sense, a revelation
of grace, and therefore a revelation of the supernatural. They
also admit the necesssity, in order to be Christian believers, of
believing in several particular things which pertain to the super-
natural order. Among these we may instance remission of sins,
the resurrection of the dead, and final beatitude, or the heavenly
reward. We are not aware that they question these ; and we
are sure no one can question them without losing all right to the
Christian name. But these all pertain to the supernatural order.
14 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
Remission of sin, whatever else it may mean, means at least,
remission of the penalty which God has annexed to transgres-
sion. The penalty is annexed by God either as author and
sovereign of nature, or as supernatural. If by God as super-
natural, the penalty must itself be supernatural ; and therefore
he who believes in its remission must believe in the superna-
tural, for no man can believe in the remission of a penalty
which he does not believe to have been annexed. If God an-
nexes the penalty as author and sovereign of nature, its remis-
sion must be supernatural. To assume that the order of nature
remits it, is to assume nature to be in contradiction with herself,
or to deny the remission by denying the existence of any
penalty to remit. Where the remission begins, there ends the
penalty. If the remission be in the order of nature, then the
order of nature imposes no penalty beyond the point where the
remission begins ; and then there is no remission, for nothing is
remitted. To say that God as author and sovereign of nature
remits what in the same character he imposes is to assume that
he imposes no penalty that goes farther than the commence-
ment of the remission. Then, in fact, no remission. The pen-
alty, in this case, would be exhausted, not remitted. Remission,
then, must be by God as supernatural, not as natural ; not as
author and sovereign of nature, but as author and dispenser of
grace. Remission is necessarily an act of grace, and therefore
supernatural. Then, whatever, view be taken of the penalty
itself, he who believes in its remission must believe in the super-
natural order.
So of the resurrection of the dead. We do not mean to say
that by natural reason we cannot demonstrate a future continued
existence, but that a fact answering to the term resurrection is
naturally neither cognoscible nor demonstrable. Resurrection
means rising again, and evidently pertains, not to the soul,
which never dies, but to the body, and implies that the same
body which died is raised ; for if not, it would not be a re-
surrection, but a simple surrection, or perhaps new creation.
Now, by no natural light we possess can we come to the know-
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 15
ledge of the fact that our bodies shall rise again. Yet we are
undeniably taught in the Gospel that such is the fact.
Moreover, the Apostle Paul tells us that the body shall not
only be raised, but it shall be raised in a supernatural condi-
tion. " It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."
It is to be made like to our blessed Saviour's glorious body.
But a glorified body does not pertain to the order of nature ;
because the natural body it is said, is to be " made like to the
body of his glory," which implies that it must be changed
from its natural to a supernatural condition, before it is a glori-
fied body. But by what natural powers we possess do we ar-
rive at the fact that there are glorified bodies, much more, that
our vile bodies shall be changed into glorified bodies ? And by
what process of reasoning, not dependent for its data on the
revelation, can we, now we are told it shall be so, prove that it
will be so I
So, again, as to our final destiny. The truth we are to
believe pertains to the supernatural order. St. Peter says, " By
whom (Jesus Christ) he hath given us very great and precious
promises, that by these you may be made partakers of the
divine nature," efficiamini divinice consortes natures. 2 Pet.
i. 4. That this is to partake of the divine nature in a superna-
tural sense, and not in the sense in which we naturally par-
take of it, in being made to the image and likeness of God, is
evident from the fact that the Apostle calls it a gift, and says it
is that which is promised. What pertains to nature is not a
gift, and what is already possessed cannot be said to be some-
thing promised. Therefore the participation of the divine na-
ture in question is not a natural, but a supernatural, participa-
tion. The blessed Apostle John tells us, "We are now the
sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be.
We know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, be-
cause we shall see him as he is." 1 John iii. 2. Here it is as-
serted that we are to be something more than sons of God in
the sense we now are; for we know not, even being sons of
God, what we shall be. But this we do know, that when he
10 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
shall appear we shall be like him. But this likeness is super-
natural, not that to which we were created ; otherwise it would
be a likeness 2iossessed, not to be possessed. How by the light
of nature learn this fact, that we are to become like God, par-
takers of the divine nature, in a supernatural sense ? Again,
the blessed Apostle in the same passage says, " We shall be
like him, because we shall see him as he is." So St. Paul,
1 Cor. xiii. 12 : "Now we see through a glass, darkly, but then
face to face ; now I know in part, but then I shall know even
as I am known." The fact here asserted, to wit, that our future
destiny is the beatific vision, that is, to see God as he is, and to
know him even as we ourselves are known, is not naturally in-
telligible, nor demonstrable by natural reason. Moreover, to
see God as he is exceeds our nature ; for naturally we cannot
see God as he is, that is, as he is in himself. The destiny,
then, which the Gospel reveals for them that love the Lord is
supernatural. For " It is written, The eye hath not seen, ear
heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what
things God hath prepared for them that love him." 1 Cor. ii. 9.
Therefore, to believe the Gospel, or the truth which Jesus Christ
taught, it is necessary to believe not only truth supernatural ly
communicated, but truth pertaining to the supernatural order.
But we have already proved that it is necessary to salvation to
believe the truth and all the truth which Jesus taught. There-
fore it is necessary to believe truth which pertains to the super-
natural order.
The result thus far is, that, in order to be Christians, to bo
saved, to enter into life, to secure the rewards of heaven, it is
necessary to believe the truth which Jesus Christ taught, and
that we cannot believe this without believing in that which is
supernatural, and supernatural both as to the mode of commu-
nication and as to the matter communicated. The truth which
Jesus Christ taught is, in general terms, the Gospel, or Chris-
tian revelation; and the Christian revelation is a supernatural
revelation, and, in part at least, a revelation of the supernatural.
This revelation and its contents we must believe, or resign our
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 17
pretensions to the Christian name. To believe this revelation
and its contents is not, we admit, all that is requisite to the
Christian character far from it ; for there remain beside, faith,
hope and charity, and the greatest is charity. Moreover, faith
alone is insufficient to justify us in the sight of God ; for faith
without works is dead, and therefore inoperative. Nevertheless,
faith is indispensable. " For without faith it is impossible to
please God," and " He that belie veth not shall be condemned."
This much we conceive we have established ; and this much,
we presume, the Christian Examiner will concede.
II. Faith or belief, as distinguished from knowledge and
science, rests on authority extrinsic both to the believer and the
matter believed. In it there is always assent to something pro-
posed ab extra. That the sun is now shining, I know by my
own senses ; it is therefore a fact of knowledge ; that the three
angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, which I know
not intuitively, but discursively, is a fact of science. The first I
know immediately ; the second I can demonstrate from what it
contains in itself. But in belief the case is different. The
matter assented to is neither intuitively certain, nor intrinsically
evident. I am told there is such a city as Rome, which I have
never seen. Having myself never seen Rome, I have no intui-
tive evidence that there is such a city. The proposition that
there is such a city is not intrinsically evident, contains nothing
in itself from which I can demonstrate its truth. Its truth, then,
can be established to me only by evidence extrinsic both to my-
self and to the proposition, that is, by TESTIMONY. That there
is a God is a fact of knowledge ; for if it be said that we do
not know it intuitively, we know it at least discursively, since
from the creation of the world, even the invisible things of God
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, as says St. Paul, Rom. i. 20. But that God has des-
tined them that love him to the beatific vision is not a fact of
knowledge, or of science ; for it is neither intuitively certain,
nor internally demonstrable. It may be true ; but whether so
2*
18 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
or not can be determined only by testimony, that is, evidence
extrinsic both to the proposition and to myself. Hence St.
Paul says, Heb. xi. 1, "Faith is the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things that appear not ; " and St. Augus-
tine, " Faith is to believe what you see not." Tract 40 in Joan.
There may be matters contained in the Christian revela-
tion which are matters of knowledge or of science, but we are
concerned with it now only so far as it is a matter of faith. As
a matter of faith, its truth rests solely on extrinsic evidence, or
testimony. We cannot, then, as reasonable beings, believe it,
unless we have some extrinsic authority competent to vouch for
its truth, or some witness whose testimony is credible. But as
an object of faith, the Christian revelation, in part at least, is a
revelation of the supernatural. Now, this which is supernatural
cannot be adequately witnessed to or vouched for by any natu-
ral witness or authority. No witness is competent to testify to
that which he does not or cannot himself knew, either intui-
tively or discursively. But no natural being, how high so ever
in the scale of being he may be exalted, can know either intui-
tively or discursively the truth of that which, as to its matter, is
supernatural. The only adequate authority for the supernatu-
ral is the supernatural itself, that is, God. For though angels
or divinely inspired men may declare the supernatural to us,
yet they themselves are not witnesses to its intrinsic truth, and
have no ground for believing its truth but the veracity of God
revealing it to them. They may be competent witnesses to the
fact of the revelation, but not to the truth of the matter revealed.
The authority or ground for believing the supernatural mat-
ter revealed is, then, the veracity of God, and we cannot reason-
ably or prudently believe any proposition involving the super-
natural on other authority. We have no sufficient ground for
faith in such matters, unless we have the clear, express, testi-
mony of God himself. But the testimony of God is sufficient
for any proposition, in case we have it j because enough is
dearly seen of God, from the creation of the world, being un-
derstood by the things that are made, to establish on a scientific
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 19
basis the fact that he can neither deceive or be deceived ; for
we can demonstrate scientifically, from principles furnished by
the light of natural reason, that God is infinitely wise and good,
and no being infinitely wise and good can deceive or be de-
ceived. God is the first trutliprima veritas in being, in
knowing, and in speaking, and therefore whatever he declares
to be true must necessarily and infallibly be true. Nothing,
then, is more reasonable than to believe God on his word or
simple veracity ; for it is no more than to believe that infinite
and perfect truth, truth itself, cannot lie. Whatever God has
revealed must be true. Even the Christian Exminer would
admit the doctrine of the Trinity, if it were proved to be a doc-
trine of Divine revelation. The witness, ground, or authority
for believing the supernatural is the veracity of God, and this
all will admit to be sufficient, if we have it ; and none will ad-
mit, if they understand themselves, that a lower authority is
sufficient.
But, although the veracity of God is the ground or author-
ity on which we assent to the matter revealed, yet we cannot
believe without sufficient evidence of the fact of revelation, or, in
other words, without a witness competent to testify to the fact
that God has actually revealed the matter in question, made
the particular revelation to which assent is demanded. The
Christian Examiner is Unitarian, but it will tell us that it ought
to believe the doctrine of the Trinity, if God has revealed it.
Yet it demands, very properly, evidence of the fact that God has
revealed it or declared its truth. Reasonable or a well grounded
belief in the supernatural, then, requires two witnesses, two
vouchers ; one to the truth of the matter revealed, which is the
veracity of God revealing it ; the other to the fact of the revela-
tion, or that the matter in question has actually been divinely
revealed.
The revelation is made to intelligent beings, and must
therefore consist in intelligible propositions. We do not mean
that the truths revealed should be comprehensible; for every
supernatural truth, as to its matter, must be wholly incompre-
SO THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
hcnsible to natural reason ; but that the propositions to be be-
lieved must be intelligible. What is present to the mind, in
believing the revelation, are these propositions, which convey
the truth, but in an obscure manner, to the understanding. If
we should mistake the propositions actually contained in God's
revelation, or substitute others therefor, since it is only through
them that we arrive at the matter revealed, we should not be-
lieve the revelation which God has actually made, but something
else, and something else for which we cannot plead the veracity
of God, and therefore something for which we have no solid
ground of faith. Suppose you adduce a book which you say
contains the revelation God has made, and suppose you bring
ample vouchers for the fact that it really does contain such
revelation. In this case I should have sufficient ground for be-
lieving the book to contain the word of God ; but before I should
believe the word of God itself, I must believe the contents of the
book in their genuine sense. I must have, then, some authority,
extrinsic or intrinsic, competent to .declare what is this genuine
sense. What I believe is what is present to my mind when I
believe. What is present to my mind is the interpretation or
meaning I give to God's word. If this interpretation or mean-
ing be not the genuine sense, I do not, as we have said, believe
God's word, but something else. Faith in the supernatural re-
quires, then, in addition to the witness that vouches for the fact
that God has made the revelation, an interpreter competent to
declare the true meaning of the revelation.
The faith we are required to have is equally required of all men.
It is said, qui non credideret, that is, any one, without any
limitation, who believeth not, shall be condemned. Then there
must be no limitation of the essential conditions of faith. Then
the witness for the faith, and the interpreter of God's word,
must be present in all nations, and subsist through all ages,
Catholic in space and time. We who live in this country at
the present day need them just as much and in the same sense
as the Jews did in the age of the Apostles.
The witness to the fact of the revelation, and the inter-
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURDH. 21
preter of the word, must not only subsist through all ages and
nations, but must be unmistakable j and unmistakable not only
by a few philosophers, scholars, and men of parts and leisure, but
by the poor, the busy, the weak, the ignorant, the illiterate;
for all these are equally commanded to believe, and have a
right to have a solid ground of belief, which they cannot
have if they may, with ordinary prudence, mistake the true
witnessand interpreter, and call in a false witness and a mis-
interpreter.
The witness and interpreter must be infallible ; for, if fal
lible, it may call that God's word which is not his word, and
assign a meaning to God's word itself which is not the genuine
meaning. We may, then, be deceived, and think we are be-
lieving God's word when we are not. But where there is a pos-
sibility of deception, there is room for doubt, and where there is
room for doubt, there is no faith ; for the property of faith is to
exclude doubt. The Apostle says, " I know in whom I believe,
and am certain," and whoever cannot say as much has not yet-
elicited an act of faith.' Faith is a theological virtue, which con-
sists in believing, explicitly or implicitly, all the truths God has
revealed, without doubting, on the veracity of God alone. It re-
quires absolute certainty, objective as well as subjective. Where
there is belief without sufficient objective, certainly the belief is
not faith but mere opinion or persuasion. Mere subjective cer-
tainty, that is, an inward persuasion, even though it should ex-
clude all actual doubt, would not be faith, unless warranted by
evidence in which reason can detect no deficiency. It is a blind
prejudice, and would vanish before the light of intelligence. A
man may fancy that his head is set on wrong side before, and
be so firmly persuaded of it that no reasoning can convince him
to the contrary; but his internal persuasion is not faith. For
faith is primarily, though not exclusively, an act of the under-
standing, and must be reasonable, and he who has it must have
a solid reason to assign for it. The man has not faith, if he
doubts, or may reasonably doubt; and he may reasonably
doubt, if the evidence is not sufficient. He who has for his faith
22 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
only the testimony of a fallible witness, that may both deceive
and be deceived, has always a reasonable ground for doubt, and
consequently no solid ground for faith. If he reasons at all on
the testimony, if he opens his eyes at all to his liability to be
deceived, he cannot, however earnestly he may try to believe,
avoid doubting. Therefore, since, with a fallible witness, or fal-
lible interpreter, we can never be sure that we are not mistaken,
it necessarily follows, if we are to have faith at all, that we must
have a witness and interpreter that cannot err, that is, infallible.
We sum up again by saying, that it is necessary to believe
the truth Jesus Christ revealed, or, in other words, the Christian
revelation ; that to believe this is to believe truths which pertain
to the supernatural order ; and that, to have a solid ground for
believing truths pertaining to the supernatural order, we must
have, 1. The word or veracity of God ; 2. A witness to the fact
of revelation, and an interpreter of the genuine sense of what
God has revealed, infallible and subsisting through all ages and
nations, and, with ordinary prudence, unmistakable by even the
simple and unlearned. The first the Christian Examiner will
not deny us. We proceed to prove the second.
III. There must be such a witness and interpreter, or, in other
words, some infallible means of determining what is the word
of God, because God has made belief of his word the essential
condition of salvation. We know from natural theology, that
is, from what is evident to us of God by natural reason, that
he is, that he is just, and that he would not be just, should he
make faith the essential condition of salvation, and not provide
the necessary conditions of faith. He has made faith the condi-
tion of salvation, as we have proved, and as the Christian
Examiner must admit, unless it chooses to deny the Christian
revelation altogether. But the infallible witness and interpreter
alleged is a necessary condition of faith, as we have shown from
the nature of faith itself. Therefore, God, since he is just and
cannot belie himself, has provided us with the witness and inter-
preter required, or, what is the same thing, some infallible
THE CHURCH VGAINST NO-CHURCH. 23
means of determining what is the word he commands us to
believe.
There is, then, the witness and intepreter of God's word in
question. Who or what is it? To this question four answers
may be returned:!. Reason; 2. The Bible; 3. Private Illu-
mination : 4. The Apostolic Ministry, or the Church teaching.
1. Reason may be taken in two senses : 1. The intellective fac-
ulty, as distinguished from the sensitive faculty ; 2. The discur-
sive or reasoning faculty. In the first sense, it is the faculty of
knowing intuitively, and is the principle of knowledge, in distinc-
tion from what is technically termed science. In this sense, rea-
son, in order to answer our purpose, to serve as the' witness and
interpreter proved to be necessary, must be able either to know
God intuitively, or to apprehend intuitively the intrinsic truth
of his word. Reason must see God face to face, know intuitively
that it is God who speaks ; or it cannot testify, on its own know-
ledge, to the fact that the speaker alleged is God. But reason
cannot see God thus face to face. We have and can have no
intuitive knowledge of God in this sense. Reason cannot be
the witness on the ground of its intuitive apprehension of God,
nor can it be on the ground of its intuitive perception or appre-
hension of the intrinsic truth of the matter revealed. Our natu-
ral reason or power of knowing cannot extend beyond the bounds
of nature. But the matter revealed, or the truths to be believed*
are supernatural, and therefore transcend the reach of the natu-
ral intellect. If the natural intellect could attain to them, they
would be, not supernatural, but natural. Moreover, if the intrin-
sic truth of the revelation could be apprehended, intuitively
known, it would be, not a matter of faith, but of knowledge ; for
faith is, to believe what is not seen, argumentum non apparen-
tium. Heb. xi. 1. But it is a matter of faith, as already proved,
and therefore not of knowledge. Therefore reason cannot appre-
hend the intrinsic truth of the revelation, and from the intrinsic
truth know it to have been divinely revealed. Therefore reason,
as the simple intellective faculty, or power of intuition, cannot
be the witness.
24 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
Reason, in the second sense, is discursive, the subjective prin-
ciple of science, in distinction from intuitive knowledge, the
faculty of deducing conclusions from given premises. If the
premises are true, the conclusions are valid. But reason cannot
furnish its own premises. They must be given it ; hence, they
are called data. These data must be furnished either by intui-
tion, or by faith. But in the case before us they can be fur-
nished by neither ; not by intuition, as we have just proved ;
and not by faith, because faith is the matter to be determined.
Proof by reason, in the sense we now use the term, is called
demonstration. The position assumed, when it is alleged that
the discursive reason is the witness of the fact of revelation, is,
that reason can find in the internal character of the revelation
itself, or what purports to be a revelation, the data from which
it can demonstrate that it is actually the word of God. But
this is possible only on condition that reason, independently of
all revelation, be in possession of so perfect a knowledge of God
as to be able to say a priori what a revelation from God will
and necessarily must be. But this is inadmissible ; 1. Because
it would imply that the revelation is intrinsically evident to
natural reason, and therefore that it is an object of science and
not of faith ; and 2. Because the revelation is of God as super-
natural, and reason can know God as supernatural, only through
the medium of supernatural revelation itself. The knowledge
which reason has of God prior to the revelation is simply what
is contained in natural theology, that is, knowledge of God sim-
ply as author, sustainer, and sovereign of nature. From this it
is, indeed, possible to obtain data from which we may conclude,
within certain limits, what a supernatural revelation cannot be,
but not what it must be. God, whether as author of nature, or
as author and dispenser of grace, that is, as natural or as super-
natural, intelligible or superintelligible, is one and the same being
and therefore cannot in the one be in contradiction to what he
is in the other. If, in what purports to be a revelation from
him, we find that which contradicts what is clearly seen of him,
from the creation of the .world, through the things that are
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 25
made, we have the right to pronounce it, a priori not his rev-
elation. But beyond this reason cannot go ; for it is not law-
ful to reason from nature to grace, from the natural to the
supernatural, from data furnished by natural science to super-
natural revelation. Reason, then, has no data from which it
can conclude what is the revelation. Therefore it cannot be the
witness demanded.
Moreover, if reason knew enough of God, independently of
the supernatural revelation, to be able, from the intrinsic charac-
ter of the revelation, to pronounce on its genuineness, not only
negatively, but affirmatively, it would know all of God the rev-
elation itself can teach. The revelation would then be super-
fluous, in fact, no revelation at all ; and the question of its
genuineness would be an idle question, not worth considering.
To assume the competency of reason, as the witness, would then
be to deny the necessity of the revelation and its value,
which, in fact, is what all our Rationalists do, and probably wish
to do.
But, in denying the competency of reason as the witness to
the fact of the revelation, we do not deny the office of reason in
determining whether a revelation has been made, nor that the
fact of revelation is, can, and should be, made evident to natural
reason. We merely deny that it is intrinsically evident. It is
not wtrinsically evident, but &rtrinsically evident ; not internally
demonstrable, but externally provable. It can be proved not
by reason, but to reason by testimony ; and of the credibility of
the testimony, reason may, and should judge.
Three things must always be kept distinct in the question
of supernatural revelation: 1. The ground of faith in the
truths revealed ; 2. The authority on which we take the fact of
revelation ; 3. The credibility of this authority. The first, as
we have seen, is the veracity of God, and is sufficient, because
God is the ultimate truth in being, in knowing, and in speak*
ing, and therefore can neither deceive nor be deceived. The
second we are seeking, and it is not a witness to the truth of
the matter revealed, but to the fact that God reveals it, and
2
26 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
can be competent only on condition of being itself supernatural
or supernaturally enlightened. The third is the crediblity of
the witness to the fact of revelation, and must be evidenced to
natural reason ; or there will be an impassable gulf between
reason and faith, and we can have no reason for our faith, and
therefore no faith.
The fact of revelation, we shall show in its proper place,
may be evidenced to natural reason through the credibility of
the witness, and therefore, that faith is possible. But because
reason is competent to judge of the credibility of the witness,
we must not conclude that it is itself a competent witness to the
fact of revelation. This, conceded, the first answer is inadmis-
sible, for the fact of revelation is neither intuitive nor demon-
strable.
2. The answer just dismissed is that of the Rationalists, and
is, in one of its forms, substantially the one which we ourselves
gave in all we preached and wrote on the subject while asso-
ciated with the Unitarians. The second answer is the Protes-
tant answer, and the one, if we understand him, adopted by the
writer in the Christian Examiner. This assumes that the Bible
is the witness ; that is, the Bible interpreted by the private
reason of the believer, availing himself of such aids, philological,
critical, historical, &c., as may be within his reach. But this
answer cannot be accepted, because, without an infallible author-
ity independent of the Bible, it is impossible, 1. To settle the
canon ; 2. To establish the sufficiency of the Scriptures ; 3. To
determine their genuine sense.
The Bible can be adduced as the witness only in the char:
actor of an authentic record of the revelation actually made ;
for, according to its own confession, as we may find on ex-
amining it, it was not the original medium of the revelation
itself. The revelation, according to the Bible itself, in great
part at least, was in the first instance made orally, and orally
published before it was committed to writing. This is especially
true of the Christian revelation, in so far as distinguished from
the Jewish. It was communicated orally to the Apostles, by
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 2*7
our Lord, and by them orally to the public ; and converts were
made, and congregations of believers gathered, before one word
of it was written. The writing was subsequent to the teaching
and believing, and evidently, therefore, the primitive believers
either believed without having any authority for believing, or
had an authority for believing independent of written docu-
ments. To them what we term the Bible was not the witness.
It, then, was not the original witness, or, as we have said, the
original medium of the revelation. Its value, then, must consist
entirely in the fact, that it faithfully records, in an authentic
form, what was actually revealed. It is, then, only as a record
that it can be adduced as evidence. But a record is no evidence
till authenticated. It cannot authenticate itself; for, till authen-
ticated, its testimony is inadmissible. It must be authenticated
by some competent authority independent of itself. This au-
thentication of the Bible as a record of the revelation made is
what we call settling the canon.
Now, it is obvious, that, till the canon is settled, we have no
authentic record, no Bible, to adduce. We may have a num-
ber of books bound up together, to which the printer has given
the title of The Bible ; but what we want is not the book called
the Bible, but authentic records to which we may appeal as
evidence; and if the book we call the Bible contains books
which are not authentic records, or does not contain all that
are, we cannot appeal to it as evidence ; for we may, in the one
case, take for revelation what is not revelation, and, in the other,
leave out what is revelation. This is evident of itself. "We
must, then, settle the canon. But where is the authority to
settle it?
The authority must be, 1. Independent of the Bible ; 2. In-
fallible. But the advocates of the answer we are considering
admit no infallible authority but that of the Bible itself. There-
fore the 7 have no authority by which to settle the canon, or to
determine what is Bible or what is not Bible.
It v/ill not do to say, the canon is all those books which have
been received by the Church as canonical ; because the advo-
28 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
cates of this answer deny the authority of the Church, and
stoutly contend that she may both deceive and be deceived. It
will not do to appeal to tradition ; for what vouches for the in
errancy of tradition ? And what right have Protestants to ap-
peal to tradition, whose authority they do not admit, and which
they contend may err and does err on many and the most vital
points ? Nor will it do to adduce the Fathers ; for they only
establish what in their time was the tradition or belief of the
Church, by no means the intrinsic truth of that tradition or
belief. Where, then, is the authority for settling the canon ?
There is no authority on Protestant principles, as is evident
from the fact that Protestants have no canon. They all exclude
from the canon established by the Church several books which
the Church holds to be canonical. As to the remaining books,
they dispute whether all are canonical or not. Luther rejects
the Catholic Epistle of St. James, which he denominates " an
epistle of straw," and also doubts the canonicity of several
others. Mr. Andrews Norton, a learned and leading Unitarian,
formerly a professor in the Divinity School, Cambridge, rejects
pretty much the whole of the Old Testament ; the Epistle to
the Hebrews, the Epistles of James and Jude, the second of
Peter, and the Apocalypse, in the New Testament ; casts sus-
picion on the canonicity of all the Pauline Epistles, strikes out
the first chapters of Matthew and Luke, and such portions of
the remaining books as are demanded by the conveniences of
his critical canons, or the exigencies of his dogmatic theology.
Not a few of our Unitarians restrict the canon to the four Gos-
pels. Several of the Germans strike from these the Gospel
according to St. John; while Strauss, Baur, and Theodore
Parker, regard the remaining Gospel narratives rather as a col-
lection of anecdotes illustrating the notions of the early Christian
believers, than as authentic histories of events which actually
transpired ; and the great body of Liberal Christians, who are
the Protestants of Protestants, agree that the Bible is so loosely
written, is so filled with metaphor and Oriental hyperbole, that
no argument, especially no doctrine, can be safely built on single
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 29
words, or even single sentences, however plain, positive, and
uncontradicted, or unmodified by other portions of Scripture,
their meaning may seem to be. It is evident from this state-
ment of facts, that Protestants have no canon ; that each private
man is at liberty to settle the canon according to his own judg-
ment or caprice ; and therefore that they have no authentic re-
cord to adduce as evidence of the fact of revelation. They
must agree among themselves what is Bible, what is inspired
Scripture, and authenticate the record, before they can legiti-
mately introduce it as an infallible witness.
But pass over the difficulty of settling the canon ; suppose
the canon to be settled according to the decision of the Church,
and that, by an inconsistency which in the present case cannot
be avoided, the authority of the Church to settle the canon is
conceded ; still there remains the question of the Sufficiency of
the Scriptures. The record, however authentic it may be, can
be evidence only for what is contained in it. If it does not con-
tain the whole revelation, it is not evidence for the whole. If
not evidence for the whole, it is not sufficient; for it is the
whole revelation, not merely a part, to which the witness is
needed to testify, since it is repugnant to the character of God
to suppose that he should reveal any truth but for the purpose
of having it believed.
That the Scriptures do contain the whole revelation is not to
be presumed prior to proof; because they themselves testify that
they are not, at least only in part, the original medium of the
revelation. If the revelation had been, in the first instance,
made by writing, and by writing only, then, if we had the en-
tire written word, we should have the right to conclude that we
had the whole revealed word. But since a part of the revela-
tion, to say the least, was communicated orally, taught and be-
lieved before the writing was commenced, we cannot conclude
from the possession of the entire written word the possession of
the entire revealed word, unless we have full evidence that the
whole revealed word has been written. The fact of the suf-
ficiency of the Scriptures is not, then, to be presumed from the
30 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
fact of their canonicity. It is a fact to be proved, not taken for
granted.
But tin's fact cannot be proved by tradition, by the authority
of the Church, or by the testimony of the Fathers ; for these all,
on Protestant principles, are fallible, and not to be depended
upon ; and, moreover, they all testify against the fact in ques-
tion. It cannot be proved by reason ; because reason takes
cognizance not of the fact of revelation, but simply of the mo-
tives of credibility. It must be proved by an authority above
reason, and, as already established, by an authority which can-
not err. But the Bible is asserted to be the only inerrable
authority. Therefore it must be proved from the Bible itself.
But the Bible proves no such thing, for it nowhere professes to
contain the whole revelation which has been made, but even
indicates to the contrary. Therefore the sufficiency of the Scrip-
tures cannot be proved, for the sufficiency of the Scriptures
must mean that they are sufficient to teach not only the whole
revelation of God, but the fact that they do teach the whole,
since without this no o*e can know whether he has the faith
God commands him ^ have, or not. But in failing to prove
their sufficiency, they fail to prove this fact ; therefore prove
their own insufficiency.
It may be replied, that, though the Scriptures may not con-
tain a full record of all that was revealed, they nevertheless con-
tain all that is necessary to be believed in order to be saved.
We reply, 1. That the command of God to us is not to believe
the Bible or the written word, but the revelation which he has
made ; and therefore we are not to presume that we have the
faith required, from the fact that we believe the whole written
word, unless we have first established the fact that the written
word is commensurate with the revealed word. 2. God, we
know by natural reason, cannot reveal what he does not re-
quire to be believed ; for the truth revealed while unbelieved, is
as if unrevealed, and its revelation has no sufficient reason.
But God cannot act without a sufficient reason. No suffi-
ficient reascn for the revelation of truth, but that it should be
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 31
believed, can be conceived, or possibly exist. God reveals it
that it should be believed. Then lie requires it to be believed.
No one can fail to do what God requires, without sin ; because
God cannot require what he does not make possible. If we
cannot fail to believe what God has revealed, without sin, we
cannot be saved without believing it. Therefore, it is necessary
to salvation to believe all that God has revealed.
God cannot make a revelation and require us to believe it
without making it so evident that we can have no intellectual
reason for not believing it. Unbelief, then, must be the result
of some perversity of the will, some moral repugnance, which
withholds us from the consideration of the truth revealed, and
blinds us as to the evidences of the fact of its revelation. But
this perversity of will, this moral repugnance, is a sin, and as
much so in the case of one truth revealed as in the case of an-
other. Therefore it is necessary to believe all that God has
evealed, in order to be saved. Therefore the Scriptures do not
contain all that it is necessary to believe for salvation, unless
they contain all that God has revealed.
3. But waiving these considerations, it is either a fact that
the Scriptures do contain all that is necessary to salvation, or it
is not. If it be a fact, it is a fact which must be proved, and
proved by a competent authority. The only competent au-
thority, on Protestant principles, is the Bible itself. If the Bible
asserts that it contains all that is necessary to be believed in
order to be saved, then it may be conceded that it does. If it
assert no such thing, then it does not. But the Bible nowhere
asserts that it contains all that is necessary to be believed in
order to be saved. Therefore, the Bible does not contain all
that is necessary to be believed ; for this fact itself, of the suffi-
ciency of the faith it does contain, is itself essential to that
sufficiency.
Finally, even admitting the Scriptures may contain the whole
revelation, it is not possible by private reason alone to be infal-
libly certain of their genuine sense. To believe that the Scrip-
tures contain the whole word of God is not to believe that
32 THE CHURCH AUAINST NO-CHURCH.
word itself. It is merely believing them to be authority v r e
which is indeed something, and, in this age of infidelity, ration-
alism, and transcendentalism, no doubt a great deal ; but is not
the faith required. The command is not to believe that the
Bible is an authentic record of the revelation, but to believe the
truths revealed, not the Bible, but what the Bible, rightly
interpreted, teaches. The truths revealed are the object, the
material object, of faith ; and these evidently are not believed,
unless the Bible be believed in its genuine sense, even assuming
the Bible to contain them all.
We insist on this point, because it is one on which there are
frequent and dangerous mistakes. The matter of faith is these
revealed truths, which are fixed and unalterable, universal and
permanent, and which must be carefully distinguished from our
notions or apprehensions of them, which are dependent on our
mental states or conditions, and change and fluctuate as wo
ourselves change or fluctuate. These notions are not the mat-
ter of faith, and to hold fast these is quite another thing from
holding fast the truths themselves. If these notions, which are
our interpretations or constructions of the truth, were the faith
required, the faith would be one thing with one man, another
thing with another, and one thing with the same man yester-
day, another to-day, and perhaps still another to-morrow. The
true faith is an undoubting belief of the TRUTH, not what a
man thinks to be the truth, but what really is truth ; otherwise
men could be saved so far as belief is necessary to salvation, under
one form of belief as well as another, for there is probably no
form of error which its adherents do not think is truth. Sin-
cerity in the belief of error cannot be the substitute for Christian
faith ; for we have tbund that the faith which is the condition
sine qua non of salvation is belief of truth and not falsehood,
and of that very truth which Jesus Christ revealed. But this
truth we do not believe, unless it lie in our interpretation as it
lies in the mind of Jesus Christ himself. If it do not so lie,
then we misinterpret it, and the misinterpretation of truth is
not truth, and to believe this misinterpretation is to believe not
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 33
the truth, but something- else. If, then, we do not believe tlio
revelation made in the Scriptures, in its genuine sense, in the
sense intended by Almighty God, we do not believe the reve-
lation at all.
Now, it is necessary not only that we seize, without any mis-
take, this genuine sense, but that we be infallibly certain that
we have seized it. Even admitting that with nothing but pri-
vate reason we could hit upon the genuine sense of Scripture, it
would avail us nothing, unless we had this infallible certainty ;
because without this infallible certainty we cannot have faith.
Will any man pretend that it is possible by private reason alone
to be infallibly certain that we have the genuine sense of the
Scriptures ? We may, perhaps, feel certain ; but this feeling
certain is not faith. Faith is a firm, unwavering, and unwaver-
able conviction of the understanding, as well as a cheerful as-
sent of the will. The mere feeling is worth nothing. Every
enthusiast, every fanatic, has the feeling; but he who has noth-
ing else is a mere reed shaken with the wind, or a wild beast let
loose in society, as unacceptable to God as unprofitable to him-
self or dangerous to his associates. It is not this Almighty God
demands of us, and it is not for the want of this that he places
us under condemnation and suffers his wrath to abide upon us.
No ; we must have certainty, an intellectual certainty, certainty
which the mind can grasp, and its hold of which all the crafti-
ness of subtle sophists, all the allurements of the world, all the
temptations of the flesh, and all the assaults of hell, cannot in-
duce it for one moment to relax. We must have a faith which
can be proof against all trials, come they from what quarter
they may ; for our life is a warfare, an incessant warfare, and
there come to all of us moments when nothing but a firm,
fixed, and unalterable faith can sustain us, moments when
feeling, when the dearest affections of the heart, when all that
can powerfully affect us as creatures of time and sense, conspire
against us, and we must stand up against them and even against
ourselves. O, in these terrible moments, in the sacred name of
34 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
Christian charity, mock us not with a faith that melts away into
mere feeling, and vanishes in mere fancy !
Now, it needs no words to prove that a faith which is not
grounded on the word of God, who can neither deceive nor be
deceived, will not answer our wants, will not be proof against
the many "fiery trials" to which it must needs in this world be
subjected. But we have no such faith merely because we have
the Bible in our possession, nor because the Bible contains the
word of God, nor because we read and study it and believe that
we believe it. We have such a faith only on condition of
knowing infallibly that what we take to be the meaning of the
Bible is God's meaning ; for the faith is belief of the truth as it
is in Jesus, not as it is in us. We ask again, Can private rea-
son give us this certainty ?
This is a serious question, and one which the Protestant must
answer, before he can have any solid reason for his faith. It
will not do to call upon us to prove the negative ; even if we
could not prove that it is impossible from the Bible and private
reason to become infallibly certain of the genuine sense of the
word of God, it would not follow that we can from them obtain
the infallible certainty without which there is no faith, and, if
no faith, no salvation. He who affirms the proposition must
prove it, not for the sake of meeting the logical conditions of
his opponent's argument, for that is an affair of small moment ;
but for himself, for his own mind, to have in himself and for
himself a well-grounded faith. Now, how will he prove this
proposition, that from the Bible and private reason alone he
can ascertain the genuine sense of the word of God, and know
infallibly that he has that sense ?
Will he prove this proposition from the Bible ? He is bound
by his own principles to do so ; for this is his rule of faith,
and his rule of faith should rest on Divine authority. But he
admits no Divine authority except the Bible. Then he must
prove it from the Bible, or admit that he has no sufficient au-
thority for it. Can he prove it from the Bible ? Not in ex-
press terms, for the Bible in express terms does not assert it,
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 35
as is well known. It ca*\ be proved from the Bible only by
means of certain passage? which are assumed to imply it. But
whether these do imply it or not depends on the interpretation
we give them. It can be proved from Scripture, then, only by
a resort to interpretation. But the interpretation demands the
application, the use of the rule, as the condition of establishing
it. But how determine that the interpretation which authorizes
the rule is not itself a misinterpretation, especially since it is an
interpretation which is disputed \ Can the rule be proved
from reason \ Not from reason, as the faculty of intuition ;
because the fact, that from the Bible and private reason alone
we can infallibly determine what it is that God has actually re-
vealed, is evidently not intuitively certain. From reason, as the
principle of reasoning \ From what data shall we conclude it \
It may be said, that God is just, that he has made a revelation,
commanded us to believe it, and made our belief of it the condition
sine qua non of salvation ; but he would not be just in so doing,
if this revelation were not infallibly ascertainable in its genuine
sense by the prudent exercise of natural reason. Ascertainable
by natural reason in some way, we grant ; but by private rea-
son and the Bible alone, we deny ; for God may have made
the revelation ascertainable only by a divinely commissioned
and supernaturally guided and protected body of teachers,
and the office of natural reason to be to judge of the credi-
bility of this body of teachers. From the fact that the reve-
lation is addressed to reasonable beings, and is to be believed
by such, and therefore must be made intelligible, it does not
necessarily follow that it must be intelligible from the Scriptures
and private reason alone. For this would imply that the Scrip-
tures were intendeed to be the medium and the only me-
dium through which God makes his revelation to men; the
very question in dispute.
Can it be proved as a matter of fact, from experience \ We
have before us the history of Protestant sects for the last three
hundred years. A three hundred years' experience ought to
suffice to demonstrate the possibility of their ascertaining the
36 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
sense of God's word, if it be thus ascertain able. Yet Protes-
tants during this long period have done little but vary their
interpretations, dispute, wrangle, divide, subdivide, and sub-
subdivide, on the question of what it is God has revealed.
They are now split up into some five or six hundred sects.
There is not a single doctrine in which they all agree ; not a
single doctrine has been asserted by one that has not been
denied by another. The writer in the Christian Examiner is
a conscientious and devout Unitarian, and yet how large a
portion of his Protestant brethren will not deem it an excess of
courtesy to treat him and his associates as Christian beLevers ?
The Gospel according to Dr. Channing has very little affinity
with the Gospel according to Dr. Beecher. Now, truth is one,
and can admit of but one true interpretation. Of these many
hundred Protestant interpretations, only one at most can be the
true interpretation; all the rest are false interpretations, and
their adherents are no true Christian believers. Can any Pro-
testant say with infallible certainty that his interpretation is the
true one ? If not, how can he elicit an act of faith, how, if
come to the use of reason, can he be a Christian ?
The writer in the Christian Examiner makes very light of
these different interpretations of the word of God, and thinks
difference of interpretation can do no great harm, because, in
his judgment, over it all " there may prevail a harmony of sen-
timent and a harmony of life." But he mistakes the end of
unity of faith. Unity of faith is essential because truth is one
and there can be but one true faith, and without this true faith
salvation is not possible. "Without faith it is impossible to
please God." And this must needs be the true faith, not a false
faith, which is no faith at all. Our Unitarian friend seems to
imagine that what we are required to believe is, not the truth,
but what we think to be the truth ; that is, we are required to
believe the truth not as it is in Jesus, but as it is in ourselves !
Does he find any proof of this convenient doctrine in the Scrip-
ture ? Can he adduce a " Thus saith the Lord" for it ? If not,
according to hiss own principles, it rests only on human au-
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 37
thority, on which he does not allow us to believe ; for he makes
it the duty of the believer to stand up firm against all human
dictation in matters of belief. In this he is right, and we must
have higher authority than his, before we can consent to regard
any man's constructions of the truth, unless we have infallible
authority for believing them the true constructions, as the truth
Almighty God commands us to believe, and without believing
which, we must lie under his wrath and condemnation.*
No argument can be drawn, it is evident, from experience, to
prove that from the Bible and private reason alone we can
determine with infallible certainty what is the revelation of God.
So far as experience throws any light on the subject, it warrants
the opposite conclusion, and makes it certain that without some-
thing else faith is out of the question. Protestants, in fact,
have no faith ; nay, so far from having any faith, nearly all of
them deny its possibility. They have, as we have seen, no au-
thority from the Bible, from reason, or from experience, for
their rule of faith ; and they cannot be such poor logicians as to
infer that they can have faith by virtue of a rule which is not
authorized. This is no doubt, a serious matter for them ; for,
ever must ring in their ears sine fide impossibile est placer e
Deo, qui non crediderit condemnabitur. We must, then,
either give up the possibility of faith, or seek some other than
the Protestant answer to the question, Who or what is the
witness to the fact of revelation ?
3. The insufficiency of this answer has been felt even by
Protestants themselves, and some of them have proposed a
third answer, which we may denominate Private Illumination,
because it is a revelation made for the special benefit of him
who receives it, and not a revelation to be communicated by
him for the faith or confirmation of the faith of others. It is
contended for, under various forms, but the more common form,
and the one with which we are principally concerned in this
discussion, is the Calvinistic, or what is usually denominated
Christian experience. This concedes the defectiveness of the
logical evidence of the fact of revelation, and pretends that it
38 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
is supplied by a certain interior illumination from the Holy
Ghost in the fact of regeneration, whereby the believer is
enabled to know by his own experience the truth of the doc-
rine he believes or is required to believe. The famous Jonathan
Edwards was a great advocate for this, and sets it forth with
considerable ability in his Treatise on the Affections, and espe-
cially in a sermon on The Reality of the Spiritual Light,
preached at Northampton in 1734. It is insisted on, we be-
lieve, by all the Protestant sects that claim to be Evangelical.
Indeed, this, in their estimation, constitutes the chief mark by
which Evangelicals are distinguished from Non-evangelicals.
That there is a Christian sense, so to speak, internal tradi-
tion, as it is sometimes called, to distinguish it from the exter-
nal, which belongs to Christians, and which makes them alto-
gether better judges of what is Christian truth than are those
who are not Christians, and that the just, those who belong to
the soul of the Church, have a clearer perception, a more vivid
appreciation, of the truth, beauty, grandeur, and work of Chris-
tian faith than have the unregenerate or the unjust, we of course
very distinctly and cheerfully admit. We also admit, and con-
tend, that " faith is the gift of God," not merely because it is
belief in truth which God has graciously revealed, as our Unita-
rian friends apparently maintain, but because no man can be-
lieve, even now that the truth is revealed, without the aid of
divine grace, that is to say, without grace supernaturally be-
stowed. Faith is a virtue which has merit ; but no virtue
possible without the aid of divine grace has merit, that is,
merit in relation to eternal life. The grace of faith is absolutely
essential to the eliciting of the act of faith.
But this considers faith in as much as it is divine faith, a gift
of God, and lying wholly in the supernatural order, not as sim-
ply human faith, in which it depends on extrinsic evidence or
testimony, and the obligation of a man under the simple law of
nature to believe, the only sense in which, in this discussion.
we consider it. Unbelief, in those to whom the Gospel has
been preached is a sin not merely against the revealed law, but
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 39
also against the natural law, which it could not be, if the Gospel
did not come accompanied with sufficient evidence to warrant
belief in every reasonable man. No man is to blame for not
believing what is not sufficiently evidenced to his understand-
ing, or for not taking, prior to his knowledge of his obligation
to do so, the necessary steps to obtain through grace the
faith that translates him from the natural order into the super-
natural kingdom of God. Sin is predicable of the will, not of
the intellect, and if the evidence were not all that can be justly
required to convince the intellect, there could be no sin in sim-
ple refusal of the will to believe. The sin lies in the refusal to
believe what is sufficiently evidenced ; for the refusal can then
proceed only from some moral repugnance to the truth, or some
propensity of the will, which restrains the man from duly con-
sidering the truth and weighing its evidence. Undoubtedly,
grace, to illustrate the understanding and to incline the will, is
necessary to enable a man to elicit the supernatural act of faith,
or to be a true Christian believer ; but it is not needed to sup-
ply the defect of the evidences objectively considered, because
simple natural reason itself is bound to assent to the truth of
the Gospel. The Gospel is addressed to man as a reasonable
being, and therefore must satisfy the reasonable demands of
reason, and it is because it does so satisfy them, that not to be-
lieve it is a sin under the natural law. Reason itself commands
us to believe it. Hence grace cannot be necessary, simply for
the purpose of supplying the defect of evidence, considered as
all evidence must be, as addressed to natural reason.
But the Calvinistic view is not that the private illumination,
or the grace of faith is simply necessary to translate one into
the kingdom of grace, and enable him to elicit an act of divine
)r supernatural faith, but to supply the defect of logical evi-
dence, for it is asserted as the witness to the fact of revelation;
The grace is bestowed in the fact of regeneration, and therefore
implies that prior to regeneration there is no sufficient evidence
for believing revelation. The moral obligation to believe cannot
begin till the evidence is complete, so the unregenerate are
40 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
under no obligation to believe, and in them unbelief is, an< ^n
be, no sin ! This is not the Christian doctrine, for God com-
mands all men to repent and believe in his Son, under pnin of
present wrath and eternal condemnation.
But according to the Evangelical doctrine regeneration con-
sists precisely in the gift of faith. There is, according to the
same doctrine, no amissibility of grace ; once in grace, always in
grace ; consequently, after regeneration unbelief is impossible,
and the regenerate can never contract the sin of unbelief. Before
regeneration unbelief is not a sin, consequently, there can never
be any sin of unbelief a most convenient doctrine to all mis-
believers and infidels. Yet the New Testament clearly teaches,
if it clearly teaches anything, that infidelity is a most grievous
sin. This Calvinistic view is therefore clearly inadmissible.
In another form, the doctrine of private illumination is made
to mean not merely the confirmation of the believer's faith in a
revelation previously made and propounded for his belief, but
the medium of the revelation itself. It regards all external
revelation, all that may be called historical Christianity, as un-
necessary, and teaches that each man has, by grace, the infalli-
ble witness in himself, that the Spirit of Truth, promised by
Christ to his Apostles to lead them into all truth is, and has
been, in every man born into the world, from Adam to the pres-
ent moment, and is in every man an infallible teacher, revealing
and confirming to him all the truth which concerns his spiritual
state, relations, and destiny. We say, by grace ; for we do not
here speak of the doctrine of our modern Transcendentalists,
which, though often confounded with the view we have given,
which is the Quaker view, is yet quite distinguishable from it.
The Transcendentalist doctrine excludes all grace, all that is
supernatural, and assumes, that man, by virtue of his natural
union with the Divinity, is able to apprehend intuitively all
spiritual truth. This, with a transcendental felicity of expres-
sion, has been denominated " Natural-supernaturalism." But
this is only another way of stating the doctrine refuted under
the head of the sufficiency of reason as the principle of intuition.
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 41
"Natural-supernatural" is a barbarism, and involves a direct
contradiction. Either the truths attained lie within the range
of our natural powers, or they do not. If not, the Transcen-
dental doctrine is false, for then the knowledge of them would
be supernatural. If they do, then they are not supernatural at
all. Transcendentalism, in point of fact, admits no supernatural
order. Its adherents, following the sublimated nonsense of
that profound opium-eater, and literary plagiarist, Coleridge, de-
fine supernatural to be supersensuous ; and because by science
we evidently can attain to what is not sensuous, they sagely in-
fer that we are able to know naturally the supernatural ! Just
as if what is naturally attained could be supernatural, either as
the object known, or as the medium by which it is known ? Just
as if nature could not include the supersensible as well as the
sensible, as if the soul were not as natural as the body, an angel
as a man ! But this " natural-supernaturalism " which makes
the fortune of Carlyle, Emerson, Parker, and we know not how
many German dreamers, is nothing but a Transcendental way
of denying all supernatural revelation, and its refutation does
not belong to the present discussion. It is intended to account
for the phenomena presented by the religious history of man-
kind, without the admission of the supernatural or gracious in-
tervention of Almighty God, and would deserve attention if we
were defending Christianity against unbelievers. We have no
concern with it now, for at present we are defending the Church
against heretics, not against infidels.
The Quaker view is theoretically, though perhaps not practi-
cally, distinct from this Transcendental natural-supernaturalism.
It does not assume that the supernatural is naturally intelli-
gible, nor that the supernatural is merely the supersensible. It
admits the supernatural order, and contends that the witness
in every man is distinct from human reason, and is in the
proper sense of the term supernatural. Now this witness, called
" the light within," either enables us to see intuitively the truth,
or it merely witnesses to the fact of revelation. If the first, it is
too much ; for it would imply that the truth is matter of know-
42 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
ledge and not of faith, contrary to what we have proved. More-
over, it would imply that man is blest with the beatific vision
in this life, and sees and knows God intuitively, as he is in him-
self, which is not true. If the second, then, to the fact of what
revelation does it witness ? To the revelation which God has
made us through his Son Jesus Christ ? Does it witness to this
by an inward perception of the truth of the matter revealed ?
or by simply deposing to the fact that God revealed it ? Not
the first,) because that would make the truth revealed a matter
of science* Then the second. But of this we demand proof.
Do you say, that the spirit beareth witness to the fact ? How
will you prove to me, or even to yourself, that it does so witness,
and that the spirit witnessing in you is veritably and infallibly
the spirit of God ? Do you allege, the spirit is in every man
testifying to the same fact, and proving itself to each man to be
really and truly the infallible spirit of God? I deny it, and
millions deny it with me. What have you to oppose to our
denial ? Do you admit our denial ? Then you abandon your
doctrine ? Do you say our denial is false ? Then, also, you
abandon your doctrine ; for you admit that we err, and there-
fore cannot have in us an infallible teacher. If I deny, I deny
by as high authority as you affirm ; and what reason, then can
you give why your affirmation must be received rather than my
denial ?
Again : How do you prove that every man has this infallible
witness ? From the external revelation, by passages from the
Holy Scriptures ? Then you reason in a vicious circle ; for you
take the inward witness to prove the Scriptures and then the
Scriptures to prove the witness. From immediate revelation to
yourself? Then you must prove that you are the recipient of
such revelation, which you can do only by a miracle, for a
miracle is the only proper proof of such a fact.
But do you abandon the ground that it is the external reve-
lation to which the witness deposes, and contend that it is rather
the medium of a revelation made solely to the individual, than
the witness to a revelation made and propounded for the belief
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 43
of all men in common ? Then it is nothing to the purpose.
Granting its reality, it can avail only each man separately ;
nothing to a, common belief, and be no ground for crediting a
common revelation, or for making a public or external profession
of faith. But the revelation to which we are seeking a witness
is not a new revelation, not a private revelation which Almighty
God may see proper to make to individuals, but a revelation
already made, and propounded for the belief of all men. This
is the revelation to be established ; and since your private reve-
lation does not establish this, or, if so, only by superseding it
and rendering it of no value (for it can prove it even to the in-
dividual only by its being seen to be identical with what the
individual receives without it), it evidently cannot be the witness
we are in pursuit of. And this is the common answer to the
alleged private illumination, whatever its form. It is valid, if
valid at all, only within the bosom of the individual, and can be
alleged in support of no common or public faith ; therefore can
be no witness in any disputed case. It may be a private benefit,
or may not be. It is a matter not to be spoken of, and a fact
never to be used, when the question relates to anything but
the individual himself. The faith we are required to have is
a faith propounded to all men, a public faith, and must be
sustained by public evidence, by arguments which are open to
all and common to all. We must, therefore, reject this third
answer, as inappropiate and insufficient.*
4. From what we have established it follows that the witness
to the fact of revelation is not reason, the Bible interpreted by
private reason, nor private illumination. No witness, then, re-
mains to be introduced but the Apostolic ministry, or Ecclesia
docens. We do not deny the possibility on the part of God^of
adopting some other method ; but he manifestly has not adopted
any other than one of the four methods we have enumerated.
The first three of these four we have proved he cannot have
* rr ^'\a. subject the reader will find still further discussed in the articles
whi**> fallow in reply to the Episcopal Observer, and Professor Thornwell.
44 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
adopted, because they are inadequate. Then, either the last
method is adopted, and the Apostolic ministry is the witness,
or we have no witness. But we have a witness, as before
proved. Therefore, the Apostolic ministry, or Ecclesia doccns,
is the witness.
This conclusion stands firm without any further proof, but
we do not intend to leave it without proving it by plain,
positive, and direct evidence. But before proceeding to do this,
we must, dispose of one or two preliminary difficulties. Accord-
ing to the principles we have laid down, the witness to the su-
pernatural is incompetent unless it be itself supernatural, or,
what is the same thing, supernaturally aided. But the Apos-
tolic ministry is composed of men, each of whom, taken singly,
is confessedly only human. The whole is only the sum of the
parts. Therefore the ministry itself is only human. If human,
natural. If natural, incompetent. Therefore the Apostolic min-
istry cannot be such a witness as is demanded.
This objection is founded on the supposition that the collec-
lective body of teachers are assumed to be the witness by virtue
of their natural powers or endowments, which is not the fact.
Left to their natural powers, the body of teachers, taken either
singly or corporately, would be altogether incompetent, however
learned, wise, or saintly. The competency of the body of
teachers is asserted solely on the ground that Jesus Christ is
with it, and supernaturally speaks in and through it ; and in
and through the body rather than the teachers taken singly,
because his promise, on which we rely, is made to the body, and
not to the individuals taken singly. The ministry is the organ
through which our Lord supernaturally bears witness to his
own revelation. If this be a fact, if our Lord really, by his
supernatural presence, be with the Ministry, if in its authorita-
tive teachings he makes it his organ and speaks in and through
it, its competency cannot be questioned ; for we then have in
it the supernatural witness to the supernatural. Whether thir
be a fact or not will be soon considered.
But it is still further objected, that, if the witness to the s*
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 45
pernatural must be itself supernatural, the supernatural can
never be witnessed to natural reason, and therefore man can
never have any good grounds for believing the supernatural,
unless he be himself supernaturally elevated above his nature.
For the competency of the supernatural witness is a supernatu-
ral fact which can be proved only by another supernatural wit-
ness, which in turn will require still another, and thus on, in in-
finitum, which is impossible. But we must distinguish be-
tween the competency of the witness to testify to the fact of
revelation and the motives of the credibility of the witness. The
competency of the witness depends on its supernatural charac-
ter; the motives of credibility being needed only by natural
reason, are such as natural reason may appreciate. The credi-
bility of the witness is supernaturally established to natural rea-
son by means of miracles. A miracle is a supernatural effect
produced in or on natural objects, and therefore connects the
natural and supernatural, so that natural reason can, in some
sense, pass from the one to the other. Since the miracle is
wrought on natural objects, it is cognizable by natural reason,
and natural reason is able to determine whether a given fact be
or be not a miracle. From the miracle the reason concludes
legitimately the supernatural cause, and the Divine commission
or ' authority of him by whom it is wrought. Having estab-
lished the divine commission or authority of the miracle-worker,
we have established his credibility, by having established the
fact that God himself vouches for the truth of his testimony.
The miracle, therefore, supersedes the necessity of the supposed
infinite series of supernatural witnesses, by supernaturally con-
necting the natural with the supernatural. It is God's own
assurance to natural reason, that he speaks in and by or through
the person by whom it is performed. Then we have the veracity
of God for the truth of what the miracle-worker declares, and
therefore infallible certainty ; for natural reason knows that God
can neither deceive nor be deceived.
The supernatural, it follows, is provable. Consequently the
character of the Apostolic ministry, as the supernatural witness
46 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
to the fact of revelation, is provable, that is, is not intrinsically
improvable. It becomes a simple question of fact, and is to be
proved or disproved in like manner as any other question of
fact falling under the cognizance of natural reason. The process
of proof is simple and easy. The miracles of our blessed
Lord were all that was necessary to establish his Divine au
thority to those who saw them ; for it was evident, as Nico-
demus said to him, "No man can do these miracles which
thou doest, unless God be with him." St. John iii. 2. These
accredited him as a teacher from God. Then he was necessarily
what he professed to be, and what he declared to be God's word
was God's word. This was sufficient for the eyewitness of the
miracles.
But we are not eyewitnesses. True ; but the fact, whether
the miracles were performed or not, is a simple historical ques-
tion, to which reason is as competent as to any other historical
question. If it can be established infallibly to us that the mira-
cles were actually performed, we are virtually and to all intents
and purposes in the condition of the eyewitnesses themselves,
and they are to us all they were to them. Then they accredit
to us, as to them, the Divine commission of Jesus, and authorize
the conclusion that whatever he said or promised was infallible
truth ; for whether you say Jesus was himself truly God as
well as truly man, or that he was only divinely commissioned,
you have in either case the veracity of God as the ground of
faith in what he said or promised.
Now, suppose it be a fact that Jesus appointed a body of
teachers, and promised to be always with them, protecting them
from error and teaching them all truth ; and suppose, farther,
that the appointment and promise are ascertainable by natural
reason, infallibly ascertainable, we should then have infallible
certainty that Jesus Christ does speak in and through this body,
that it is infallible in what it teaches, and therefore that what it
declares to be the word of God is the word of God ; for it is
infallibly certain that Jesus Christ will keep his promise, since the
promise is made by God himself, either directly, as we hold, or
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 47
through his accredited agent, as the Christian Examiner holds,
and it is impossible for God to lie, or to promise and not fulfil.
In this case, calling this body of teachers the Catholic Church,
we could make our act of faith without the least room for
doubt or hesitation. " my God ! I firmly believe all the
sacred truths the Catholic Church believes and teaches, be-
cause thou hast revealed them, who canst neither deceive nor
be deceived."
Taking the facts in the case to be as here supposed, the only
points in the process to which exceptions can possibly be taken,
or which can by any one be alleged to be not infallibly certain,
are, 1. The competency of natural reason from historical testi-
mony to establish the fact that the miracles were actually
performed ; 2. Admitting the facts to be infallibly ascertain-
able, the competency of reason to determine infallibly whether
they are miracles or not ; 3. The competency of reason to con-
clude from the miracle the Divine authority of the miracle-
worker ; 4. Its competency from historical documents to ascer-
tain infallibly the fact of the appointment of the body of
teachers, and the promise made them. These four points, un-
questionably essential to the validity of the argument, are to be
taken, we admit, on the authority of reason. Can reason deter-
mine these with infallible certainty? But, if you say it can,
you affirm the infallibility of reason, and then it of itself suffices,
without other infallible teacher ; if you say it cannot, you deny
the possibility of establishing infallibly the infallibility of your
body of teachers.
Reason is infallible within its own province, but not in regard
to what transcends its reach. To deny the infallibility of reason
within its province would be to deny the possibility not only of
faith, but of both science and knowledge, and to sink into abso-
lute skepticism, even to " doubt that doubt itself be doubt-
ing," which is impossible ; for no man doubts that he doubts.
Revelation does not deny reason, but presupposes it. The ob-
jection to reason is not that it cannot judge infallibly of some
matters, but that it cannot judge infallibly of all matters. But,
48 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
because it cannot judge infallibly of all matters, to say it can
judge infallibly of none is not to reason justly. As well say, I
am not infallibly certain that I see the tree before my window^
oecause I cannot see all that may be going on in the moon. It
is infallibly certain that the same thing cannot both be and not
be at the same time ; that two things respectively equal to a
third are equal to one another ; that the three angles of a trian-
gle are equal to two right angles ; that what begins to exist
must have a creator ; that every effect must have a cause, and
that every supernatural effect must have a supernatural cause,
and that the change of one natural substance into another natu-
ral substance is a supernatural effect ; that every voluntary
agent acts to some end, and every wise and good agent to a
wise and good end. These and the like propositions are all in-
fallibly certain. Reason, within its sphere, is therefore infallible ; '
but out of its sphere it is null.
Human testimony, within its proper limits, backed by cir-
cumstances, monuments, institutions which presuppose its truth
and are incompatible with its falsehood, is itself infallible. I
have never seen London, but I have no occasson to see it in
order to be as certain of its existence as I am of my own.
History, too, is a science ; and although everything narrated in
it may not be true or even probable, yet there are historical
facts as certain as mathematical certainty itself. It is infallibly
certain that there were in the ancient world the republics of
Athens, Sparta, and Rome ; that there was a peculiar people
called the Jews, that this people dwelt in Palestine, that they
had a chief city named Jerusalem, in this chief city a superb
temple dedicated to the worship of the one God, and that this
chief city was taken by the Romans, this temple burnt, and this
people, after an immense slaughter, were subdued, and dispersed
among the nations, where they remain to this day. Here are
historical facts, which can be infallibly proved to be facts.
Now, the miracles, regarded as facts, are simple historical
facts, said to have occurred at a particular time and place, and
are in their nature as susceptible of historical proof as any
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 49
other facts whatever. Ordinary historical testimony is as valid
in their case as in the case of Caesar's or Napoleon's battles.
Reason, observing the ordinary laws of historical criticism, is
competent to decide infallibly on the fact whether they are
proved to have actually occurred or not. Reason, then, is com-
petent to the first point in the process of proof, namely, the fact
of the miracles.
It is equally competent to the second point, namely, whether
the fact alleged to be a miracle really be a miracle. A miracle
is a supernatural effect produced in or on natural objects. The
point for reason to make out, after the fact is proved, is whether
the effect actually witnessed be a supernatural effect. That it
can do this in every case, even when the effect is truly mira-
culous, we do not pretend ; but that it can do it in some cases,
we affirm, and to be able to do it in one suffices. When I see
one natural substance changed into another natural substance,
as in the case of converting water into wine, I know the
change is a miracle ; for nature can no more change herself
than she could create herself. So, when I see a man who has
been four days dead, and in whose body the process of decom-
position has commenced and made considerable progress, re-
stored to life and health, sitting with his friends at table and
eating, I know it is a miracle ; for to restore life when extinct is
no less an act of creative power than to give life. It is giving
life to that which before had it not, and is therefore an act
which can be performed by no being but God alone. Reason,
then, is competent to determine the fact whether the alleged
miracle really be a miracle. It is competent, then, to the
second point in the process of proof.
No less competent is it to the third, namely, the Divine com-
mission of the miracle-worker. In proving the event to be a
miracle, I prove it to be wrought by the power of God. Now,
I know enough of God, by the natural light of reason, to know
that he cannot be the accomplice of an impostor, that he cannot
work a miracle by one whose word may not be taken. The
miracle, then, establishes the credibility of the miracle-worker.
3
50 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
Then, the miracle- worker is what he says he is. If he says he
is God, he is God ; if he says he speaks by Divine authority, -he
speaks by Divine authority, and we have God's authority for
what he says. The third point, then, comes within the province
of natural reason, and may be infallibly settled.
The fourth point is a simple historical question ; for it con-
cerns what was done and said by our Blessed Lord in regard
to the appointment of a body of teachers. It is to be settled
historically, by consulting the proper documents and monuments
in the case. It is not a question of speculation, of interpretation
even, but simply a question of fact, to which reason is fully
competent, and can, with proper prudence and documents, set-
tle infallibly.
These remarks accepted, it follows that the infallible cer-
tainty we demand is possible, that is, is not a priori impossible.
In passing from the possible to the actual, it is necessary to
establish, by historical testimony, the miracles of our Blessed
Lord, from which we conclude his Divinity or Divine com-
mission, and that he did appoint a body of teachers, commission
the Church teaching, with the promise of infallibility and inde-
fectibility. The first, the Christian Examiner concedes ; we
proceed, therefore, to the proof of the second.
The question before us, distinctly stated, is, Has Jesus Christ
commissioned a body of pastors and teachers, and given this
body the promise of infallibility and indefectibility ? If not,
faith, as we have seen, is impossible, and no man can have a
solid reason for the Christion hope he professes to entertain.
It is, then, worth inquiring, whether we have not sufficient
proof of the fact that he has commissioned such a body.
In settling this question, we shall use the New Testament,
but simply as an historical document. We do this because it
abridges our labor, and because the New Testament, so far as
we shall have occasion to adduce it, is admitted as good author-
ity by those against whom we are reasoning. It is their own
witness, and its testimony must be conclusive against them.
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 51
Moreover, its general authenticity, as a contemporary historical
document, would fully warrant its use, even if not adduced by
our adversaries.
It must not be objected to us, that, after what we have said
of the necessity of an infallible authority to authenticate the
canon, to quote the Bible to establish the commission in ques-
tion is to reason in a vicious circle. This is the standing Pro-
testant objection. "We do not admit it. For, 1. We do not
depend on. the Bible for the historical facts from which we con-
clude the commission of the Ecclesia docens, or body of pastors
and teachers ; for these facts we can collect from othet sources
equally reliable, and do so collect them when we reason with
unbelievers ; and 2. We do not, in this controversy, quote the
Bible as an inspired volume, but simply as an historical docu-
ment, and therefore not in that character in which the authority
of the Church is necessary to authenticate it.
Nor, again, let it be said, that, since, in quoting the Bible to
establish the point before us, we have only our private reason
for interpreter, we are precluded by our own principles from
quoting it at all ; for to be able from the Bible and private rea-
son alone to deduce the faith which is the condition sine qua
non of salvation is one thing ; to be able from the New Testa-
ment as an historical document to ascertain a simple matter of
fact which it records is another and quite a different thing.
Some things are clearly and expressly recorded in the Bible,
and some are not. Those which are not clearly and expressly
stated are not to be infallibly ascertained without an infallible
interpreter. But if we are to deduce our faith from the Bible
alone, we must be able by private reason alone to ascertain
these as well as the others; for we are not to presume that
Almighty God has revealed anything superfluous, or not es-
sential to the faith. That we can so ascertain all that is con-
tained in the Bible we have denied, and still deny ; and so must
every honest man who has ever seriously attempted the work
of interpreting the Sacred Scriptures. But that there artf
some things in the Bible which may be infallibly ascertained,
52 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH,
we have not denied, nor dreamed of denying. What is clearly
and expressly taught in the Bible can be as easily and as infal-
libly ascertained as what is clearly and expressly taught in any
other book ; and if all in the book, were clear and express, we
should no more need any interpreter, but our own reason pru-
dently exercised, than we should for a decree of a council or
a brief of the Pope. It is the character of the book itself that
renders the interpreter necessary ; and the fact, that its charac-
ter is such as demands an interpreter to make obvious its con-
tents, is, to say the least, a strong presumption that Almighty
God never intended it as the fountain from which we are to
draw our faith by private reason alone. If he had so intended
it, he would have made it so plain, so express, so definite, that
no one, with ordinary prudence, could fail to catch its precise
meaning. But admitting the obvious insufficiency of private
reason to interpret the whole Bible and deduce from it the
faith we are required to have, we may still contend that by the
reason common to all men we are able to determine even infal-
libly some of its contents. No objection can, then, be urged
against our quoting it in the present controversy, especially
since we shall quote only what is clear, distinct, and express,
and what all must admit to be so.
In proof of our position, that Jesus Christ has appointed,
commissioned, a body of teachers with authority to teach, we
quote the well-known passage in St. Matthew's Gospel, xxviii.
18, 19, 20, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in
earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you ; and behold, I am with you all days unto the consumma-
tion of the world ;" also, St. Mark, xvi. 15, " Go ye into all the
earth, and preach the Gospel unto every creature ; " and,
Eph. iv. 11, "And some indeed he gave to be apostles, and
some prophets, and some evangelists, and others pastors and
teachers."
These are conclusive as to the fact that Jesus Christ did com-
mission a body of teachers, or institute the Ecclesia docens.
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 53
The commission is from one who had authority to give it, be-
cause from one unto whom was given all power in heaven and
in earth ; it was a commission to teach, to teach all nations, to
preach the Gospel to " every creature," equivalent, to say the
least, to all nations and individuals, and to teach all things
whatsoever Jesus Christ himself commanded. The commission
is obviously as full, as express, as unequivocal, as language can
make it, and was given by our Blessed Lord after ^as resur-
rection, immediately before his ascension.
That this was not merely a commission to the Apostles per-
sonally is evident from the terms of the commission itself, and
the promise with which it closes. It was the institution and
commission of a body or corporation of teachers, which begin-
ning with the Apostles and continuing the identical body they
were, must subsist unto the consummation of the world. For
they who were commissioned were commanded to teach all
nations and individuals, and in the order of succession as well as
in the order of coexistence ; for such is the literal import of the
terms. But this command the Apostles personally did not
fulfil, for all nations and -individuals, even using the term all to
imply a moral and not a metaphysical universality, have not
yet been taught ; they could not fulfil it, for during their
personal lifetime all nations and individuals were not even in
existence. Then one of three things ; 1. The Apostles failed
to fulfil the command of their Master ; 2. Our Blessed Lord
gave an impracticable command ; or, 3. The commission was
not to the Apostles in their personal character. We can say
neither of the first two ; therefore we must say the last.
But the commission was to the Apostles, and therefore the
body of teachers must, in some way, be identical with them, as
is evident from the command, " Go ye" indisputably addressed
to the Apostles themselves. But they can be identical with the
Apostles in but two ways : 1. Personally ; 2. Corporately.
They are not personally identical, for that would make them
the Apostles themselves, as numerical individuals, which we
have just seen they are not. Then they must be corporately
54 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
identical. Then the commission was to a corporation of teach-
ers. The commission gave ample authority to teach. There-
fore Jesus Christ did commission a body of teachers with ample
authority to teach, and, since commissioned to teach all na-
tions and individuals in the order of succession as well as of co-
existence, a perpetual or always subsisting corporation. Thus
the very letter of the commission sustains our position.
The w'omise with which the commission closes does the
same. "iBehold I am with you all days unto the consummation
of the world." They to Avhorn this promise was made, and
with whom the Saviour was to be present were identical with
the Apostles, for he says to the Apostles, " I am with you."
They were to be in time, that is, in this life ; for he says, I am
with you all days, naaag rdf ^fte^ag which cannot apply to
eternity, in which the divisions of time do not obtain. They
were not the Apostles personally, because our blessed Saviour
says again, " I am with you all days unto the consummation of
the world" which is an event still future, and the Apostles per-
sonally have long since ceased to exist as inhabitants of time.
But they were identical with the Apostles, and, since not per-
sonally, they must be corporately identical. Therefore the
promise was to be with the Apostles, as a body or corporation
of teachers, all days even unto the consummation of the world.
But Jesus Christ cannot be with a body that is not. Therefore
the body must remain unto the consummation of the world.
Therefore our Blessed Lord has instituted, appointed, com-
missioned a body or corporation of teachers, identical with the
Apostles, continuing their authority, and which must remain
unto the consummation of the world.
The same is also established by the blessed Apostle Paul in
the passage quoted from Ephesians, iv. 11, "And he indeed
gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evan-
gelists, and others to be pastors and teachers," taken in con-
nexion with 1 Cor. xii. 28, " And God indeed hath set some in
the Church, first, apostles, secondly, prophets, thirdly, teachers ;
after that miracles, then the graces of healings, helps, govern-
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 55
ments, kinds of tongues, interpretations of speeches." These
texts, so far as we adduce them, clearly and distinctly assert
that God has set in the Church, or congregation of believers,
pastors and teachers as a perpetual ordinance. They prove
more than this, for which at another time we may contend ; but
they prove at least this, which is all we are contending for now.
" God hath set," " God gave to be." These expressions prove
the pastors and teachers to be of Divine appointment, and
therefore that they are not created or commissioned 6y the con-
gregation itself. They are set in the Church, given to be, as a
perpetual ordinance ; for the rule for understanding any pas-
sage of scripture, sacred or profane, is to take it always in a
universal sense, unless the assertion of the passage be necessarily
restricted in its application by something in the nature of the
subject, or in the context, some known fact, or some principle of
reason or of faith. But obviously nothing of the kind can be
adduced, to restrict the sense of these passages either in regard
to time or space. They are, therefore, to be taken in their plain,
obvious, unlimited sense. Therefore the institution of pastors
and teachers is not only Divine, but universal and perpetual in
the Church.
We may obtain the same result from the end for which the
pastors and teachers are appointed; for the argumentum ad
quern is not less conclusive than the argumentum a quo. If
the end to be attained cannot be attained without assuming the
authority and perpetuity of the body of pastors and teachers,
we have a right to conclude their authority and perpetuity ;
since they are appointed by God himself, who cannot fail to
adapt his means to his ends. For what end, then, has God in-
stituted this body of pastors and teachers ? The Apostle an-
swers, " For the perfection of the saints, for the work of the
ministry, unto the edification of the body of Christ, till we all
meet in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the
Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age
of the fulness of Christ ; that we may not now be children tossed
to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, in
56 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
the wickedness of men, in craftiness by which they lie in wait to
deceive ; but, performing the truth in charity, we may in all
thing's grow up in him who is the head, Christ." Eph. iv. 12-
15. This needs no comment. The end here proposed, for
which the Christian ministry is instituted, is one which always
and everywhere subsists, and must so long as the world re-
mains. But this is an end which obviously cannot be secured
but by an authoritative and perpetual body of teachers. There-
fore the body of teachers is authoritative and perpetual. There-
fore, GocF, or God in Jesus Christ, has appointed, commissioned,
a body of teachers, the Ecclesia docens, as an authoritative and
perpetual corporation, to subsist unto the consummation of the
world.
We have now proved the first part of our proposition,
namely, the fact of the institution and commission of the Ec-
clesia docens as an authoritative and perpetual corporation of
teachers. Its authority is in the commission to teach ; its per-
petuity, in the fact that it cannot discharge its commission with-
out remaining to the consummation of the world, in the pro-
mise of Christ to be with it till then, which necessarily implies
its existence unto the consummation of the world, and in the
fact that the promise is to it as a corporation identical with the
Apostles. The proof of this first part of our proposition neces-
sarily proves the second, namely, the infallibility of the corpo-
ration. The Divine commission necessarily carries with it the
infallibility of the commissioned to the full extent of the com-
mission. It is on this fact that is grounded the evidence of
miracles. Miracles do not prove the truth of the doctrine
taught ; they merely accredit the teacher, and this they do sim-
ply by proving that the teacher is Divinely commissioned. The
fact to be established is the Divine commission. This once,
established, it makes no difference whether established imme-
diately, by a miracle, or mediately, by the declaration of
one already proved by miracles, as was our Blessed Lord, to
speak by Divine authority. Jesus, it is conceded, spoke by
Divine authority, even by those who, with the Christian Ex-
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 57
aminer, deny his proper Divinity. Then a commission given
by him was a Divine commission, and pledged Almighty God
in like manner as if given by Almighty God himself directly.
The teachers were, then, Divinely commissioned. Then in all
matters covered by the commission they are infallible ; for God
himself vouches for the truth of their testimony, and must
take care that they testify the truth and nothing but the
truth.
Moreover, the command to teach implies the obligation of
obedience. The commission is a command to teach, and to
teach all nations and individuals. Then all nations and indi-
viduals are bound to believe and obey these teachers ; for au-
thority and obedience are correlatives, and where there is no
duty to believe and obey, there is no authority to teach. But
it is repugnant to reason and the known character of God to say
that he makes it the duty of any one to believe and obey a fal-
lible teacher, one who may both deceive and be deceived.
Were he to do so, he would participate in the same fallibility,
and be the false teacher's accomplice, which is impossible ; for
he is, as we have said, prima veritas in essendo, in cognoscendo,
et in dicendo, and therefore can neither deceive nor be deceived.
Therefore they whom he has commissioned, must be infallible.
We prove the promise of infallibility also from the express
testimony of the New Testament. "I will ask the Father,"
says the Saviour, addressing the disciples, " and he shall give
you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever,
the Spirit- of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it
seeth him not, nor knoweth him ; but ye shall know him, be-
cause he shall abide with you, and be in in you He shall
teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind whatso-
ever I shall have said to you When he, the Spirit of
Truth, shall come, he shall teach you all truth ; for he shall
not speak of himself, but whatsoever things he shall hear he
shall speak. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine
and declare it unto you." St. John, xiv. 16, 17, 26 ; xvi. 13, 14.
They to whom is here promised the Spirit of Truth are un-
3*
58 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
questionably the Apostles, who, we have seen, were commis-
sioned as teachers ; but to them nececessarily in their corporate
capacity, as the Ecclesia docens, not personally, because it is
said, the Paraclete shall " abide with you for ever" It is not to
a body of teachers in general, that is, to any body of teachers
which may claim to be Apostolic, that the promise is made, but
to that body which is identical with the Apostles, because it is
said, "he shall abide with you" that is, the Apostles. This
identifies, the subjects of this promise with the subjects of the
cominissi<*ri before ascertained. The promise is express, and
unmistakable. The Spirit of Truth was not only to abide with
the teachers for ever, but was to teach them all things, and
bring to their minds whatever Jesus may have said to them ;
in a word, to teach them " all truth" that is, all truth included
in the terms of the commission. If this be not a promise of
infallibility, we confess we know not what would be.
The infallibility of the teachers is, then, established. But, for
the special benefit of our Protestant readers, who are a little
dull of apprehension on this subject, we repeat, that we do not
predicate this infallibility of the body of teachers in their natu-
ral capacity, nor of their personal endowments. It in no way,
manner, or shape depends on their personal qualities or personal
characters, however exalted, whether for intelligence, learning,
sagacity, or sanctity. It is God speaking in and through
them ; God, who can choose the foolish things of this world to
confound the wise, weak things to bring to naught the mighty,
nay, base things, and things that are not, and out of the mouth
of babes and sucklings show forth his truth and perfect his
praise ; who can make the wrath of men praise him, and even
the wicked the instruments of his will and the organs of his
word ; and who does do so at times, that it may be seen that
his truth does not stand in human wisdom, nor his Church de-
pend on human virtue.
For the special benefit of the same class of readers, we re-
mark, also, that the infallibility claimed extends only to those
n/atters included in the terras of the commission. These are
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 59
to "teach all things whatsoever" Jesus commands. In relation
to those matters Jesus did not command, or concerning which
he gave no commandment, infallibility is not claimed, and could
not be established if it were. Nevertheless, from the nature
of the case, the Church teaching must be the judge of what
things Jesus has commanded her to teach, and therefore un-
questionably the interpreter of her own powers. To assume
to the contrary would be to deny her authority while seeming
to admit it. If she alone has received authority to teach, she
alone can say what she has authority to teach.
The indefectibility of the Ecclesia docens follows as a ne-
cessary consequence from what has been already established.
The commission is the pledge of its own fulfilment. Whatever
commission God gives must be fulfilled. This must be admit-
ted, because the commission pledges God himself. The com-
mission was not of a body of teachers, that is, of some body
of teachers who should always be found, but it was solely, ex-
clusively, and expressly to the Apostolic ministry. It was to
the identical body to whom Jesus himself spoke. He spoke to
the Apostles. It was to them, and to them only, the commis-
sion was given. But it was a commission the terms of which
imply that the commissioned must remain even unto the con-
summation of the world. But the Apostles none of them per-
sonally did so remain. Therefore, though given to them exclu-
sively, it was not given to them in their personal character, but
was given, as we have proved, to them as a corporation or body
of teachers, in which sense they may continue unto the consum-
mation of the world ; for one of the attributes of a corporation
is immortality, and, so long as the terms of its charter are ob-
served, it is perpetuated as the same identical corporation.
Now, as the commission was given to the Apostles as a corpo-
ration, it was given only to that identical corporation, continued
or perpetuated in space and time, which they were. But this
commission is a commission to this corporation to teach, and to
teach even to the consummation of the world. Then it must
exist as the identical corporation to the consummation of the
60 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
world. Then it can never fail to exist, or lose its identity.
The commission is a pledge of infallibility. Then it can never
fail, or lose its identity as an infallible body. If it fail in neither
of these respects, is is indefectible, so far as we have affirmed its
indefectibility ; for we have affirmed its indefectibility only as a
body of infallible teachers.
If there be any truth in the principles laid down, any reliance
to be placed on the promises of Almighty God made through
his Son Jesus Christ, it is infallibly certain that God has,
through his Son, established an infallible and indefectible, minis-
try, or Ecclcsia docens, commanded it to teach all nations and
individuals "all things whatsoever" he has revealed, and there-
fore commanded all nations and individuals to submit to it, to
believe, observe, obey whatsoever it teaches as the revelation of
God. The only remaining question for us is, Which of the
pretended Christian ministries now extant is the true Apostolic
ministry ; that is to say, which is the body of teachers that in-
herits the promises ? For if we find this one, we know then
that it has the promise of infallibility, and that whatever it de-
clares to be the word of God is the word of God. We can
know then in whom we believe, and be certain. We need
spend but a moment in answering this question. The ministry
must be the identical Apostolic ministry, the identical corpora-
tion to which the promises were made. It is the corporate
identity that is to be established. It is known already, that it,
at any period we may assume, is in existence ; for it is indefec-
tible, and cannot fail. We say, then,
It is the Roman Catholic ministry. It can be no other. It
cannot be the Greek Church. The Greek Church was for-
merly in communion with the Church of Rome, and made one
corporation with it. The Church of Rome was then the true
Church, Ecclesia docens, or it was not. If not, the Greek
Church is false, in consequence of having communed with a
false Church. If it was, the Greek Church is false, because
it separated from it. So, take either horn of the dilemma, the
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 61
Greek Church is false, and its ministry not the Apostolic min-
istry which inherits the promises. The same reasoning will
apply with equal force to any one of the Oriental sects not in
communion with the See of Rome, and a fortiori to all the
modern Protestant sects. Therefore the Roman Catholic min-
istry is the Apostolic corporation, because this corporation can
be no other.
You object, in behalf of the Greek Church, that Rome sep-
arated from her, not she from Rome. This we deny. It is
historically certain that the Greek Church, prior fy> the final
separation, agreed with the Church of Rome on the matters
(the Supremacy of the Pope and the Procession of the Holy
Ghost) which were made the pretexts for separation. In the
separation, the Greek Church denied what she had before as-
serted, while Rome continued to assert the same doctrine after
as before. Therefore the Greek Church was the dissentient
party. Prior to the separation, the Greek Church agreed with
the Roman in submitting to the papal authority. In the sep-
aration, the Greek Church threw off this authority, while the
Roman continued to submit to it. Therefore the Greek Church
was the separatist.
You insist, that, though the act of separation may, indeed,
have been formally the act of the Greek Church, yet the separa-
tion was really on the part of Rome, who had corrupted the
faith, and rendered separation from her necessary to the purity
of the Christian Church. But, if this be so, whatever the cor-
ruptions of the faith Rome had been guilty of, the Greek Church
participated in them during her communion with Rome. If
they vitiated the Latin Church, they equally vitiated the Greek.
Then both had failed, and the true Church, which we have seen
is indefectible, must have been somewhere else. Then the
Greek Church could become a true Church by separating from
the communion of the Latin Church only on condition of coming
into communion with the true Church. But it came into
communion with no Church. Therefore the Greek Church, at
any rate, is false.
62 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
The same reasoning applies to the before mentioned Oriental
sects, and a fortiori to Protestants. Protestants were once in
communion with Rome. They either were then in communion
with the Church of Christ, or they were not. If they were,
they are not now, because they have separated from it. If they
were not, they could come into communion with the Church of
Christ only by joining the true Church. But they joined none.
Therefore they are not in communion with the Church of
Christ, and their pretended ministries are none of them the
Apostolic ministry. Therefore, we say again, it is the Roman
Catholic ministry, because it can be no other, and must be some
one.
You object, that the true Church always subsists, indeed, but
not always as a visible body, and therefore may be neither one
nor another of the special church organizations extant, but in
point of fact be dispersed through them all. But this objection
is not pertinent ; for we are not considering the question of the
Church in the sense in which it is taken in this objection. The
objection takes the word church in the sense of the congregation
of the just, or persona called and sanctified ; we, in the ques-
tion before us, take it in the sense of the congregation of
Christian pastors and teachers, in which sense it can neither
be invisible nor dispersed. It is the witness to the fact of reve-
lation, and it is essential that the witness should be visible, that
its competency and credibility may be judged of. It is com-
manded to teach all nations and individuals, and all nations
and individuals are therefore commanded to believe and obey
whatever it teaches. But, if invisible, this command is imprac-
tible ; for we could never know where, when, or what it teaches,
and therefore whether we believed and obeyed its teachings,
or not. It cannot be dispersed through various communions,
because it is a corporation, and its dispersion would be its dis-
solution. It is a corporation of teachers. No man has a right
to teach, unless commissioned by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ,
as we have seen, commissions individuals only in and through
the commission of the body. Then one must be united to the
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
body, as the condition of receiving a commission to teach.
Therefore the teachers cannot be dispersed through different
corporations. The teaching body is infallible, and, if dispersed
through all communions, the truth must be infallibly taught in
all communions. But it is so taught only in one communion ;
because all communions differ among themselves, and could
not differ had they no error. As no two can be found that
agree, only one can have the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth. Therefore the ministry in question is
only one, and not dispersed. It cannot be dispersed ; for, if it
were, it could not answer the end of its institution, which is to
maintain unity of faith, perfect the saints in the knowledge of
the Son of God, and prevent us from being children tossed to
and fro and carried about with every wind of 'doctrine ; for to
secure this end it must be public, recognizable, one, uniform,
and authoritative. Nor could the individual teacher ever verify
his commission, as a teacher sent from God, unless he can point
to the visible body of which he is a member, and which was
commissioned by Jesus Christ, and from him inherits the
promises. Therefore we dismiss this notion of the invisible
Church, and of an invisible body of true Christian teachers dis-
persed through various and conflicting communions. Such
teachers would be as good as none, for no one could distinguish
them from false teachers.
We repeat, then, the Roman Catholic ministry is the Apos-
tolic ministry, for this ministry can be no other. This conclu-
sion very few, perhaps none, would deny, if they admitted, what
we have proved, that Jesus Christ did institute such a ministry
as we contend for. If there be an infallible Church, authorized
by the Saviour to teach, all must say, it is indisputably the Ro-
man Catholic Church ; for all see it can be no other, and, in
fact no other even pretends to be it.
But we may prove our proposition not merely by the removal
or destruction of the negative, but by plain, positive, affirmative
evidence. The first method of proof is conclusive in itself; the
second is also conclusive in itself. All that is to be done to
64 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
prove the proposition affirmatively is, to identify the Roman
Catholic ministry, as a corporation, with the corporation Jesus
Christ instituted and commissioned in the persons of the Apos-
tles. The kind of evidence needed is the same as is requisite in
any case of the identification of a corporation. The identity is
established by showing that the corporation retains its original
name, and has regularly succeeded to the original corporators.
The name is not conclusive evidence, but is a presumption of
identity. In the present case, it is easy to prove that the min-
istry in question retains the Apostolic name. This name is
Catholic, and the Roman Catholic Church bears it, and always
has borne it. It is and always has been known and distin-
guished by it, and no other corporation is or ever has been
known or distinguished by it. The old Donatists claimed it,
but could not appropriate it. They are known only as Dona-
tists. Some members of the English and American Episcopal
Church, now and then, put on airs, and with great emphasis
call themselves CatJwlics ; but the bystanders only smile, for
they see the long ears peering out from under the lion's skin.
While, on the other hand, go into any city in the world and
ask the first lad you meet to direct you to the Catholic Church,
and he will direct you without hesitation to the Roman Catholic
Church. This shows, that, by the common judgment and con-
sent of mankind, the distinctive appellation of the Church in
communion with the See of Rome is Catholic.
The regular succession of the Roman Catholic ministry to
the Apostolic is easily made out. We can establish the regular
succession of pontiffs from St. Peter to Gregory the Sixteenth,
the present Pope ; and this establishes the unity of the corpora-
tion in time, and therefore its identity. The regular succession
and unity of authority of the corporation can also be established
in the orders and mission of the pastors ; for the Catholic min-
istry has never been schismatic. This regular succession and
unity of authority establishes, of course, the identity of the cor-
poration. Then the Catholic ministry is identical with the
Apostolic ministry. The two points on which this conclusion
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 65
depends we leave, of course, without adducing in detail the his-
torical proof of them. Established historically, they warrant the
conclusion. They can be established by conclusive historical
proof. Therefore the conclusion stands firm.
"We establish our proposition, then, by showing that the
Apostolic ministry can be no other than the Koman Catholic,
and by showing that it is the Roman Catholic. Nothing more
conclusive than this double proof can be desired. Then we sum
up by repeating, that Jesus Christ has instituted and commis-
sioned an infallible and indefectible body of teachers, and this
body is the congregation of the Roman Catholic pastors in com-
munion with their chief. The Catholic Church, then, is the
witness to the fact of revelation. What its pastors declare to
be the word of God is the word of God ; what they enjoin as
the faith is the faith without which it is impossible to please
God, and without which we are condemned and the wrath of
God abideth on us. What they teach is the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth ; for God himself has commis-
sioned them, and will not suffer them to fall into error in what
concerns the things they have been commissioned to teach.
The question of the Church as the congregation of believers
can detain us but a moment. We agree with the Christian
JZxaminer, that the Church in this sense embraces " the whole
company of believers, the uncounted and wide-spread congrega-
tion of all those who receive the Gospel as the law of life ; that
the Church of Christ comprehends and is composed of all his
followers." But who are these ? " My sheep," says our blessed
Lord, "hear my voice and follow me." We must hear his
voice, as the condition of following him, or being his followers.
But we cannot hear his voice where it is not, where it speaks
not. Where, then, speaks his voice ? In the Catholic Church,
in and through the Catholic pastors, and nowhere else. Then
we hear his voice only as we hear the voice of the Catholic
Church, and follow him only as we follow what this Church in
his name commands. Only they, then, who hear and obey the
Catholic Church are of the Church, only they who are in the
66 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
communion of this Church are in the communion of Christ. It
is time, then, to abandon No-Churchism, and to return to the
one fold of the one Shepherd, and submit ourselves to the
guidance of the pastors he has made rulers and teachers of the
flock.
We do not suppose this conclusion will be very pleasing to
our Protestant readers, and we do not suppose anything Ave
could say, conscientiously, would please them ; for we do not
see any right they have to be pleased, standing where they do.
There is the stubborn fact, that no man has God for his father
who has not the Church for his mother, which cannot be
got over ; and if we have not the true Church for our mother,
then " are we bastards and not sons." The presumption, to say
the least, is strongly against our Protestant brethren ; and they "
have great reason to fear, that, after all, they are only " children
of the bondwoman." They may try to hide this from them-
selves, and to stifle the voice of conscience by crying out
"Popery!" "Papist!" "Romanist!" "Idolatry!" "Super-
stition ! " and the like, but this can avail them little. They
may make light of the question, and think themselves excused
from considering it. But there comes and must come to the
greater part of them an hour when they feel the need of some-
thing more substantial than anything they have. They may use
swelling words, and speak in a tone of great confidence ; but
the best of them have their doubts, nay, long periods when they
can keep up their courage, and persuade themselves that they
hope, only by shutting their eyes, refusing to think, plunging
into religious dissipation, or giving way to the wild and destruc-
tive bursts of fanaticism and superstition. The great question
of the salvation of the soul must at times press heavily upon
them, and create no little anxiety. For it is a terrible thing to
be forced into the presence of God uncovered by the robe of the
Redeemer's righteousness, a terrible thing to have all the sins
of our past life come thronging back on the memory, and to feel
that they are registered against us, unrepented of, unforgiven ;
a terrible thing to feel that the number of these sins is daily
THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH. 67
and hourly increasing, that we ourselves are continually exposed
to the allurements of the world, the seductions of the flesh, and
the temptations of the devil, with no weapon but our own puny
arm with which to defend ourselves, and no strength but our
own infirmity with which to recover and maintain our integ-
rity. Alas ! we know what this is. We know what it is
to feel oppressed with the heavy load of guilt, to struggle
alone in the world, against all manner of enemies, without
faith, without hope, without the help of God's sacraments ; we
know what it is to feel that we must trust in our own arm and
heart, stand on the pride of our own intellect and conviction.
We know, too, what it is to feel all these defences fail, all this
trust give way ; for to us have come, as well as to others, those
trying moments when the loftiest are laid low, and the proud-
est, prostrate in the dust, cry out from the depth of their
spiritual agony, " Is there no help ? God ! why standest
thou afar oft'? Help, help, or I perish!" Alas! there are
moments when we cannot trifle, when we cannot lean on a
broken reed, when we must have something really Divine,
something on which we can lay hold that will not break, and
leave us to drop into everlasting perdition. It is a terrible
question this of the salvation of the soul, and no man can pru-
dently put it off. It must be met and answered, and the sooner
the better.
We urge this upon our Protestant brethren. They have no
solid ground on which to stand, no sure help on which to rely
Their own restlessness proves it ; their perpetual variations and
shifting of their creeds prove it ; the new and strange sects con-
stantly springing up amongst them prove it ; their worldly-
mindedness, their universal and perpetual striving after what
they have not, and find not, prove it ; the wide-spread infidelity
which prevails among them, and the still more destructive in-
differency prove it. Their spiritual strength is the strength of
self-confidence or of desperation. They cannot live so. There
is no good for them in their present state. Why will they not
ask if there be not a better way ? If they will but seek, they
68 THE CHURCH AGAINST NO-CHURCH.
shall find, knock, it shall be opened to them. There is that
faith which they deny, and that certainty which they ridicule.
But they will find it not in their pride. They will find it not,
till they learn to look on him they have despised, and to fly for
succour to him they have crucified. But we have been be-
trayed into remarks, which, though true, would come with a
better grace from one whose faith is less recent than our own.
Yet we have said nothing by way of vain-glory. If we have
faith, it is no merit of ours. We have been brought by a way
we knew not, and by a Power we dared not resist ; and His
the praise and the glory, and ours the shame and mortification
that for so many years we groped in darkness, boasting that
we could see, and holding up our farthing-candle of a mis-
guided reason as a light that was to enlighten the world !
We have been asked, " How in the world have you become
a Catholic ? " In this essay we have presented an outline, or
rather a specimen, of the answer we have to give. It is incom-
plete ; but it will satisfy the attentive reader, that not without
some show of reason, at least, have we left our former friends
and the endearing associations of our past life, and joined our-
selves to a Church which excites only the deadly rage of the
great mass of our countrymen. The change with us is a great
one, and a greater one than the world dreams of, or will dream
of. At any rate, it is a change we would not have made if we
could have helped it, a change against which we struggled
long, but for which, though it makes us a pilgrim and a
sojourner in life, and permits us no home here below, we can
never sufficiently praise and thank our God. It is a great gain
to lose even earth for heaven. If, however, we be pressed to
give the full reason of our change, we must refer to the grace
of God, and the need we felt of saving our own soul.
THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER VERSUS THE CHURCH 69
THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER VERSUS THE CHURCH.
THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER, VOL. I., NO. III. BOSTON.
MAY, 1845. MONTHLY.*
THIS periodical, the recently established organ of the Evan-
gelical division of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in its num-
ber for May last, contains an attempted refutation of the article
headed The Church against No-Church, in our last Review.
The writer after a preliminary nourish or two, says his " pur-
pose is to have the pleasure of refuting" us. We presume
from this that his purpose is to have the pleasure of refuting
the main position or leading doctrine of the article. That
position or doctrine, as we stated it, is, that, " with this theory
alone (the No-Church theory), it is impossible to elicit an act
of faith : " or, in other words, that it is not possible to elicit an
act of faith, unless we accept the authority of the Roman
Catholic Church as the witness and expounder of God's word.
Now, to refute this, it is not enough to invalidate our reasoning
in this or that particular, but it is necessary to prove positively
that an act of faith can be elicited by those who reject this au-
thority. But this the writer has not done, and, so far as we can
see, has not even attempted to do. He cannot, then, whatever
else he may have done, have refuted us. All he has done, ad-
mitting him to have done all he has attempted, is, to prove,
not that we were wrong in asserting the necessity of the author-
ity of the Church to elicit an act of faith, but that it is im-
possible for any one to elicit an act of faith at all, as we shall
soon have occasion to see.
But, in point of fact, the writer has not done what he at-
tempted ; he has not invalidated our reasoning in a single par-
ticular ; and if he has succeeded in refuting any one, it is him-
self. He begins by giving, professedly, a synopsis of our argu-
* July, 1845.
70 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
ment ; but his synopsis is very imperfect. It leaves out several
distinct positions we assumed and attempted to establish as es-
sential to the argument we were conducting. If this is by de-
sign, it impeaches the fairness and honesty of the writer ; if
unintentional, it shows that he did not comprehend the article
he undertook to refute, and impeaches his capacity.
Our readers will recollect that we begin our argument by as-
suming, that, in order to be saved, to be acceptable to God, to
enter into life, it is necessary to be a Christian. We then pro-
ceed to establish, 1. That, in order to be a Christian, it is neces-
sary to be a believer, to believe somewhat ; 2. That this some-
what is TRUTH NOT FALSEHOOD ; 3. That the truth we are to
believe is the truth Jesus Christ taught or revealed; and, 4.
That this truth, pertains, in part, at least, to the supernatural
order. Now, the second position, namely, that, in order to be a
Christian believer, it is necessary to believe TRUTH, NOT FALSE-
HOOD, the Observer entirely omits, and takes no notice of it, in
its attempted refutation of us. Why is this ? The Observer
cannot suppose we inserted this proposition without a design, or
that it is of no importance to our agument. The position is
both positive and negative, and asserts, that, to be a Christian
believer, it is necessary not only to believe truth, but truth with-
out mixture of falsehood. A very important position, and one
on which much of our subsequent reasoning depended, and
designed to meet the very doctrine contended for by the Ob-
server, namelvj that we have all the faith required of us, if we
believe Christian truth, though we believe it mixed with error,
in an exact or in a false sense.
After having established the four positions just enumerated,
we proceed, in the second division of our article, to state the
necessary conditions of faith in truths pertaining to the super-
natural order, or what we need in order to be able to elicit an
act of faith in a revelation of supernatural truth. Under this
division, we attempt to establish, 1. That faith demands an
authority on which to rest, extrinsic both to the believer and
the matter believed ; 2. That the only, but sufficient, authority
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 71
for the intrinsic truth of the matter of supernatural revelation
is the veracity of God ; 3. That a witness to the fact that God
has actually revealed the matter in question, that is, a witness
to the fact of revelation, is also necessary ; 4. That this witness
must be not merely a witness to the fact that God has made a
revelation, or to the fact of revelation in general, but to the
precise revelation in each particular case in which there may be
a question of what is or is not the revelation of God, there-
fore an interpreter, as we expressed ourselves, of the genuine
sense of the revelation ; 5. That this witness must be universal,
subsisting through all times and nations ; 6. Unmistakable,
with ordinary prudence, by the simple and illiterate ; and, 7.
Infallible.
Now, of these seven positions, the writer in the Observer ob-
jects expressly to the fourth, and, by implication, to the sev-
enth. But he takes no notice of our definition of- faith, namely,
that "it is a theological virtue, which consists in believing,
without doubting, explicitly or implicitly, all the truths Al-
mighty God has revealed, on the veracity of God alone," on
which, he must be aware, rests nearly the whole of our argu-
ment for the necessity of an infallible witness to the fact of rev-
elation ; for, if faith consists in believing without doubting, it is
obvious that it is impossible to elicit an act of faith on the au-
thority of a fallible witness. It can be possible only where
there is no reasonable ground for doubt as to what God has
actually revealed ; and there always is reasonable ground for
doubt, where the reliance is on a fallible witness, that is, a wit-
ness that may deceive or be deceived. Our conclusion, then,
that the witness must be infallible, or faith is not possible,
must be admitted, if our definition of faith is accepted. We
were not to be refuted, then, on this point, except by a refu-
tation of our definition of faith. But the writer in the Observer
does not refute this definition, for he does not even notice it.
How, then, can he claim to himself the " pleasure " of having
refuted us?
But the writer in the Observer objects strongly to the fourth
72 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
position of the second division of our article. He says we af-
firm that we need " an interpreter of the genuine sense of what
God has revealed, because God has made faith the condition
sine qua non of salvation ; and if we should mistake the propo-
sitions actually contained in God's revelation, or substitute
others therefor, since it is only through the proposition we ar-
rive at the matter revealed, we should not believe the revelation
God has actually made, but something else, and something for
which ive cannot plead the veracity of God, and therefore
something for which we have no solid ground of faith" The
portion of this sentence in Italics the writer discreetly omits in
his quotation. Our doctrine was this : The ground of faith in
the truth or matter revealed is the veracity of God revealing it.
But when we believe the matter revealed in a false sense, not in
its genuine sense, we do not, in fact, believe what is revealed,
but something else, and, therefore, something which God has
not revealed, and for the truth of which we have not his
veracity. Consequently, we need an interpreter, that is, some
means, or, as we say in the article, i( some authority, extrinsic
or intrinsic," to say what is or is not the revelation in its gen-
uine sense ; which is only saying, what is or is not the revela-
tion Almighty God has actually made. Is it not so ? Are we
not right in this? The writer in the Observer says no. He
objects to this, because we here, he says, assume " three things
which need a little looking after : 1. That God's revela-
tion to man is not intelligible. 2. That a human interpreter
can make it plain. 3. That, unless the nice theological shades
of meaning in God's word are appreciated, one cannot be saved.
In general terms, we deny all these propositions." So do we ;
and, moreover, we deny that we assume, or that our argument
implies, either one or another of them.
The Observer contends that God's revelation is made to us in
terms as express and as intelligible as human language can
make it. " Natural reason," it says, " teaches us enough of God
to know that he is infinitely wise, benevolent, and good. An
infinitely wise, benevolent, and good being, in making a revela-
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 73
tion to dependent and erring creatures, could not do otherwise
than adapt it, in the most perfect manner, to their condition."
Be it so; we said as much, more than once, ourselves. But
what is "the most perfect manner?" "A revelation," con-
tinues the Observer, " coming from such a being, would be con-
veyed in intelligible propositions, so expressed and arranged as
to be least liable to be misunderstood." In propositions intel-
ligible through the ministry of the Church teaching, we grant
it ; otherwise, we deny it, because he has not so conveyed, ex-
pressed, and arranged it. " Then, if a revelation have corne
from God, it must be as clear and intelligible as human lan-
guage can make it." Through the same ministry, we concede
it ; otherwise, we deny it, and for the same reason.
There was no occasion to assert the intelligibleness of divine
revelation against us, for that we conceded. The real question
at issue is not whether the revelation be intelligible, but whether
it be intelligible without the aid of the pastors of the Church.
The Observer was bound to show that no such aid is needed, or
else not secure the " pleasure " of refuting us. We knew before-
hand the only argument he could adduce, and that argument
we ourselves adduced and replied to. The Observer has merely
brought against us this objection, without noticing our reply to
it. We stated, " It may be said that God is just, that he has
made us a revelation, commanded us to believe it, and made
belief of it the condition sine qua non of salvation ; but that ho
would not be just in so doing, if this revelation were not infalli-
bly ascertainable in its genuine sense by the prudent exercise of
natural reason." Here is the argument of the Observer, taken
in connexion with what we had previously said of what natural
reason teaches us of God, as clearly and as forcibly put as the
Observer itself has put it ; and here is our reply : " Ascertain-
able by natural reason, in one method or another, we grant ; by
private reason and the Bible alone, we deny ; for God may
have made the revelation ascertainable only by a divinely com-
missioned and supernaturally guided and protected body of
teachers, and the office of natural reason to be to judge of the
4
74 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
credibility of this body of teachers" This reply is conclusive,
at least till shown to be inconclusive ; consequently the writer
in the Observer was precluded, by the most ordinary rules of
logic and morals, from insisting on the objection, till he had not
only noticed, but refuted, the reply. He has done neither. He
has taken an objection which we had anticipated and replied to,
urged it against us, without deigning to notice our reply, and
this he calls refuting us !
The writer in the Observer proceeds in his argument against
a position he says we assume but which we do not assume, on
the assumption that the revelation Almighty God has made to
us is made exclusively in the written word, and is made " in in-
telligible propositions, so expressed and arranged as to be least
liable to be misunderstood," " as clear and as intelligible as lan-
guage can make it." This assumption we met and refuted, or
attempted to refute, in our article ; but the Observer, according
to its custom, takes no notice of our refutation, or attempted
refutation. This assumption is provable only in two ways :
1. A priori, by reasoning from the known character of God;
2. A posteriori, by reasoning from the character of the revela-
tion actually made. The first method can avail it nothing, for
the reason we before assigned, and have just now repeated.
We adduced, in our article, several arguments and facts to show
that the second method can avail it just as little. These facts
and arguments it does not set aside, does not attempt to set
aside, for it does not even notice them, or make an effort to
show that its assumption may be true in spite of them. And
yet il purposed to have the " pleasure" of refuting us ! and we
are gravely assured by another Episcopal organ, The Christian
Advocate and Witness, that it really has refuted us, and in a
masterly manner turned our logic against us. Really, these
Episcopalians have queer notions of what constitutes a refutation
of an opponent.
But we deny the assumption of the Episcopal Observer, and
call upon the writer to reply to the facts and arguments we ad-
duced against it. Will he, in open day, maintain that the sev-
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 75
era! articles of Christian faith, even as he holds them, are ex-
pressed in the Sacred Scriptures in propositions as clear and in-
telligible as human language can make them ? He is an Epis-
copalian, and therefore believes, we are bound to presume, in
the Nicene creed. Will he tell us where in the Sacred Scrip-
tures the consubstantiality of the Son to the Father, or the pro-
cession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son,
Filioque, is expressed in terms as clear, as intelligible, and as
unequivocal as in the creed ? It will not be enough to adduce
passages which teach or imply one or the other of these doc-
trines, but he must adduce passages which teach them as ex-
pressly, in a manner as clear and intelligible, as they are taught
in the creed ; for his assumption is, that they are expressed in
the Sacred Scriptures in a manner as clear and intelligible as
they can be in human language. Adduce the passages, if you
please. You, as an Episcopalian, are bound to admit infant
baptism as an article of the Christian faith. Do you find this
expressed in the Bible in a manner " as clear and intelligible as
human language can make it ? " If so, why have you not been
able, long ere this, to settle the dispute with your Baptist
brethren, who have as much reverence for the Bible as you
have, are as learned, and no doubt as honest ? If the articles
of Christian faith be expressed in the Sacred Scriptures in pro-
positions as clear and intelligible as language can make them,
how happens it that men dispute more abaut their sense as
contained in the Sacred Scriptures than they do about their
sense as drawn out and defined in the creed? Is there an
article of faith held to be fundamental by the Episcopal Ob-
server that has not been disputed on what has been conceived
to be the authority of Scripture itself? Yet all is in Scripture
as clear and as intelligible as human language can make it !
Who is at a loss to know what the Catholic Church means by
her decisions ? Who questions the sense of the dogma as given
in her definition of it ? If she can define an article of faith so
as to end all dispute concerning its sense, so far as she defines
it, it follows that articles of faith can be expressed in language,
76 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
for her definitions are expressed in language, so afc to
preclude uncertainty as to their meaning. But this cannot
be said of the articles of faith as expressed and arranged in the
Sacred Scriptures, because men have doubted and disputed
from the first, and do now doubt and dispute, as to what
they are, as is proved by the number of ancient sects, and the
some five hundred or more Protestant sects still extant; and
also by the violent controversy, concerning what the writer in
the Observer must regard as fundamentals, now raging in his
own Church, both in this country and in England. Nay, the
Scriptures themselves are express against the rash assumption
of the Observer. " And account," says St. Peter, " the long-
suffering of our Lord is salvation, as also our most dear brother
Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you ;
as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in
which there are certain things hard to be understood, which the
unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scrip-
tures, to their own destruction." 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16. This is to
the point. The Scriptures, according to their own declaration,
do contain things hard to be understood, and which the un-
learned wrest to their own destruction ; aud these are not unes-
sentials, because their misinterpretation involves the destruction
of those who misinterpret them. Where is the intelligence,
where is the conscience, of this rash writer? Has he no
reverence for truth, no fear of God before his eyes, that he
hesitates not to give the lie to the Holy Ghost, and to affirm
what is so obviously untrue ? Let him show as much unanim-
ity among the aforesaid five hundred or more Protestant sects,
who all hold the Bible to be the word of God, and profess to
take it as their rule of faith and practice, concerning what he
himself holds to be fundamentals, as we can show him among
Catholics concerning the meaning of the articles of faith the
Church has defined, and we will listen to his assertion, that the
revelation of God, as contained in the Sacred Scriptures, for
this is his meaning, is " as clear and intelligible as human
language can make it ; " but till then, we recommend him to
VERSUS THE CHURCH.
moderate his tone, and meditate daily on the solemn fact that a
judgment awaits us, and we must all give an account for all
our thoughts, words, and deeds. An induction contradicted by
glaring and lamentable facts is inadmissible ; and such is his,
that the revelation of God, as expressed in the Sacred Scriptures,
is " as clear and intelligible as human language can make it."
We admit the revelation to be perfectly intelligible in the way
and manner, and by the means, intended by the Revealer ; but
in the way and manner asserted by the Observer, we deny its
intelligibleness, as must eveiy honest man who has seriously
undertaken to interpret the Holy Scriptures by the aid of pri-
vate reason alone.
The writer in the Observer asserts that we assume " that a
human interpreter can make it (divine revelation) plain." We
assume no such thing ; and moreover, if he is capable of un-
derstanding, in any degree, his mother tongue, and has read
our article through, he knows that we not only do not, but,
with our general doctrine, that we could not. Does he not
know, that, throughout the article, we are attempting, among
other things, to establish the utter incompetency of a merely
human interpreter ? Does he not know that we contend for
the competency of the Church to interpret or declare the reve-
lation of God, only on the ground that she has the promise of
the superhuman, the supernatural, guidance and assistance of
the Holy Ghost? Does he not know, that, according to all
Catholics, it is not the Humanity of the Church, but the Di-
vinity, whose Spouse she is, that decides in her decisions, and
in her interpretations is the interpreter ? Prove us wrong in
holding this, if you can ; but do not assert that we assume,
either consciously or unconsciously, that the revelation of God
can be made plain by a mere human interpreter. It was not
for a human interpreter we contended, but for a divine inter-
preter ; and our argument was to prove, that, without a divine
interpreter of divine revelation, it is impossible to elicit an act
of faith. Will the Episcopal Observer remember this ? The
folly and absurdity it ascribes to us, of contending for a human
78 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
interpreter, we leave to Low-Churchmen and their dearly be-
loved children and grandchildren, the No-Churchmen.
The Observer also charges us with assuming, " that, unless
the nice theological shades of meaning in God's word be ap-
preciated, one cannot be saved." There is little pleasure in
replying to an opponent who has yet to learn the simplest ele-
ments of the matters in debate, and on which he affects to
speak as a master. The writer in the Observer does not ap-
pear to have ever read a single elementary work on theology.
He appears to be wholly ignorant of any distinction between
faith and theology. We said not one word about " nice the-
ological shades of meaning;" we neither said, nor implied in
anything we said, that theology is at all necessary to salvation.
We spoke of faith as the condition sine qua non of salvation,
we admit, but not of theology ; and we contended that the faith
must be embraced in its purity and integrity, or one cannot be
saved : but not that one cannot be saved unless he appreciates
the nice distinctions of theology. Theology and its distinc-
tions belong to science, a science constructed by human reason
from principles derived from the light of nature and the super-
natural revelation made immediately to .faith. It is useful, be-
cause, in the ordinary course of divine providence, we cannot
have faith, propagate, preserve, and defend faith, without it;
for by it, as says St. Augustine, Fides saluberrima, quce ad
veram beatitudinem ducit, gignitur, defenditur, roboratur*
Theology is necessary or useful only as subservient to faith ;
but faith is indispensable to salvation, as says the blessed Apos-
tle, "Without faith it is impossible to please God;" and
whoso does not please God, we take it, is not in the way of
salvation. As to distinctions or nice shades of meaning in faith,
we said nothing about them, for we were not aware of their
existence. Faith is one, a whole, and must be embraced in its
purity and integrity, or it is not embraced at all.
" But it is derogatory to the character of God and the inter-
ests of religion," says the writer in the Observer, " to say that
* Lib. XIV. De Trin. Cap. 1
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 79
the exact mind of the Spirit must in every point in revelation
be fully seen and acknowledged, as the condition of being saved."
On what authority is this said ? Does he deny faith to be the
condition sine qua non of salvation ? Of course not, for we
assert it in our article, and he takes no exception to our asser-
tion. Must not this be faith in what the Holy Ghost has re-
vealed, that is, in the revelation Almighty God has made ?
Has not Almighty God made belief of this revelation a necessa-
ry condition of salvation ? If so, has he made it necessary to
believe the whole, or only a part ? In its exact sense, or in an
inexact sense ? If you say a part is not necessary to be believed,
will you tell us what part ? Will you be so obliging as to
favor us with a specification, on divine authority, of the portions
of revelation which we have the permission of the Holy Ghost
to disbelieve or not believe ?
That it is necessary to believe the whole revelation, as the
condition sine qua non of salvation, is evident from the very
definition we gave of faith, namely, that it is " a theological
virtue, which consists in belie \ingall the truths God has revealed,
on the veracity of God alone." Does the Observer deny this
definition of faith ? If it does, why has it not said so, and re-
futed it by refuting the arguments by which we attempted to
sustain it ? and, since its purpose was to have the pleasure of
refuting us, why did it not give and sustain a definition in op-
position to ours ? Was it a sufficient refutation of us for it to
pronounce, as it does, that, in that portion of the article in
which we give this definition, we " enter into a bog and floun-
der till we reach the opposite side ? " Was it afraid, if it fol-
lowed us, it would itself sink in the " bog," stick fast in the
" morass ? " or was it only the pleasure, not the pain, of re-
futing us it promised itself? If faith consist in believing all
the truths Almighty God has revealed, and dare the Observer
assert that it does not ? and if faith be, as the blessed Apostle
declares, the condition without which we cannot be saved, it fol-
lows necessarily that the whole mind of the Spirit, so far as
revealed, must be believed, as the condition of being saved.
80 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
Will the writer in the Observer deny this ? Let him do it,
and he may possibly find himself in " a bog " to which there
is no " other side."
But it may be the writer in the Observer does not mean to
assert, that " it is derogatory to the character of God and in-
jurious to the interests of religion" to say, that all the truths
Almighty God has revealed must be explicitly believed, as the
condition of being saved, but simply that it is derogatory, <fcc.,
to say they must be explicitly believed in their exact sense, as
they lie in the mind of the Holy Ghost, We say explicitly
believed, for this is what he must mean by being " fully seen
and acknowledged." What he means to object to is the as-
sertion, that the exact mind of the Spirit must be believed as
the condition sine qua non of salvation. " The exact mind of
the Spirit " must mean the entire revelation Almighty God has
made, in its exact sense, or, as we expressed ourselves, in its
genuine sense. Then we can understand by the exact mind
of the Spirit neither more nor less than " the pure word of
God." Then it is derogatory to the character of God and in-
jurious to the interests of religion to say, that the pure word of
God the revelation in its purity and integrity must be be-
lieved as the condition of being saved. Then, in order not to
derogate from the character of God, and not to injure the in-
terests of religion, we must say, the impure word of God, that
is, the word of God corrupted' by a greater or less admixture of
falsehood and error, is sufficient, all that it is necessary to be-
lieve, in order to be saved, or to have that faith without which
" it is impossible to please God !" Is the Episcopal Observer
prepared to adopt this conclusion ? It must adopt it. It will
not allow us to insist on the exact mind of the Spirit. But if
we do not take the exact mind of the Spirit, we must take the
inexact mind. The inexact mind, so far forth as inexact, is
not the mind of the Spirit at all, is not the word of God,
is not truth, but falsehood, and therefore of the Devil, who is a
liar from the beginning, and the father of lies. The inexact
mind of the Spirit is the impure or corrupt word of God, the
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 81
word of God and the words of the Devil combined. If it be
derogatory to the character of God and injurious to the inter-
ests of religion to insist on the necessity to salvation of faith in
the pure word of God, it must be honorable to the character
of God and advantageous to the interests of religion to contend
that belief of the impure word, the corrupt word, the word of
God combined with the words of the Devil, is sufficient as the
condition of being saved ! A very comforting doctrine to all
classes of errorists ; for they all hold the truth, or some portion
of truth, but mixed with error, that is, in an inexact, a false,
or a corrupt sense. The Observer's own church defines the
visible Church of Christ to be "a congregation of faithful men,
in the which the pure word of God is preached." Art. XIX.
We suppose they who preach the pure word of God preach it
because they hold its belief to be necessary as the condition of
being saved. The Church of Christ, then, inasmuch as it
preaches, and, we presume, insists on, the pure word of God,
or the exact mind of the Spirit, as necessary to salvation, does
that which is " derogatory to the character of God and injurious
to the interests of religion !" Happily, however, for the writer
in the Observer, his church is not obnoxious to this charge ; for
it is unquestionably innocent of the sin of preaching the pure
word of God.
After all, this is rather a singular doctrine for a Protestant to
avow, however consistent it may be for him to entertain it. The
charge against the Church of Rome by the pseudo-reformers
was not that it did not hold the word of God, but that it had
ceased to hold it in its purity. It had corrupted the word of
God, not the written word, not the text, but the sense, the doc-
trine, that is, " the mind of the Spirit," and therefore had be-
come a corrupt church, in the bosom of which salvation had be-
come impossible, or, at least, exceedingly doubtful. On this
ground they pretended to separate from its communion, and on
this ground their children have generally attempted to vindicate
their separation. But the Episcopal Observer, it seems, aban-
dons this ground, and gives the Reformers a very unfilial blow.
4*
82 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
According to this modern Protestant, the fact that a church has
corrupted the word of God, and preaches not the pure word, but
the impure word, is rather to its credit, and should be a motive
for seeking or remaining in its communion, instead of a motive
for separating from it. The only good ground of separation,
if we accept his doctrine, would be the fact that the Church
preaches the pure word of God, and commands belief in the
exact mind of the Spirit, as the condition of salvation. From
such a church it must be one's duty to separate, because such a
church derogates from the character of God, and injures the
interests of religion. Perhaps it was on this ground, after all,
that the Reformers separated from the communion of the Holy
See, and on this ground that Protestants generally remain sep-
arate from that communion.
But the Observer not only protests against the necessity of
belief in the exact mind of the Spirit, but it contends that the
exact mind of the Spirit cannot possibly be communicated to
us. " Thoughts may be communicated," it says, " by a written
or spoken language ; but perfectly, entirely, unmistakably, by
neither. To this rule the thoughts of God form no exception.
When communicated to erring men, they come clothed under
the guise of the erring representative, human language ; and of
necessity, therefore, are liable, in some of their shades, to be
misconceived." So Almighty God himself cannot, if he will,
teach us the exact truth, nor make to us. a revelation of his will
which we may believe without mixture of error ! The truth as
it is in God cannot be communicated to us ; we can never re-
ceive what God is pleased to reveal, "perfectly, entirely, unmis-
takably ;" but must always misconceive it to a greater or less
extent, and substitute, for the mind of the Spirit, our own mind,
for the word of God, our own words, or the words of the
Devil ! And yet, the Observer tells us, the revelation God has
made us is so easy of comprehension, " that the wayfaring man,
though a fool, shall not err therein" Nevertheless, Almighty
God himself cannot make a revelation that can be perfectly re-
ceived, that can be embraced without mistakes and misconcep-
VERSUS THE CHURCH.
It is a convenience, sometimes, when we wish to secure
the '* pleasure " of refuting an opponent, to have short mem-
ories and flexible principles.
But, according to the Observer, we can never, even by the
help of Almighty God, embrace the word of God in its purity
and integrity ; for, coming to us " clad in the defectible exterior
of human language," it must, " by a law of necessity, be un-
derstood differently by different minds." We can never know
precisely what it is God requires us to believe, and we never
can believe what he requires us to believe, without mixing with
it more or less of error and falsehood. Be it so. Will the Ob-
server oblige us, then, by telling us how far we may combine
with the word of God, or substitute for it, our own words, or
those of the Devil, without danger to the soul? Will he tell
us, on divine authority, where is the exact boundary, on one
side of which mistakes and misconceptions, errors and false-
hoods, are harmless, and on the other side of which they are
destructive? Will he give us some rule by which we may
always know whether we are on the right side or the wrong
side ? The rule is important, and we pray this Protestant the-
ologian, who proposes to himself the very great pleasure of re-
futing us, to give us the slight pleasure of furnishing us this
rule, so that we may not only know whether he really has re-
futed us, but also whether we have more or less error than we
may with safety entertain.
But if we cannot receive the revelation of God without mis-
taking or misconceiving it, how is it possible for us to know
whether we have the faith Almighty God requires of us or not ?
If we mistake on one point why may we not on another?
And if we are always liable to err, if even Almighty God can-
not set us right, because he can speak to us only through hu-
man language, which is always and necessarily a distorting me-
dium, where is faith, or even the possibility of faith ? Faith is
to believe without doubting, and is possible only where there is
absolute certainty. But where there is a liability to err, nay,
a necessity to mistake and misconceive, there is and can be no
84 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
absolute certainty, but is and necessarily must be doubt, and,
therefore, no faith. If the Observer is right in its doctrine, faith
is impossible. It clearly shows, then, that, on its premises, faith,
properly so called, is impossible, the very conclusion to which,
we stated, in advance, we intended to force it and all who reject
the authority of the Catholic Church as the witness and ex-
pounder of God's word. Yet it claims " the pleasure" of having
refuted us !
We can understand now, why, in his synopsis of our argu-
ment, the writer in the Observer leaves out our definition of
faith, and our position that what we are to believe is truth, not
falsehood. If faith be to believe without doubting, it is not
possible without absolute certainty, and absolute certainty is
possible only in the case of absolute truth ; and absolute truth
he foresaw he was not likely to get, without going to Rome ;
for, without going to Rome, he knew he could, at best, have
only truth mixed with falsehood. To controvert our definition
of faith, or to refute the arguments by which we sustained our
position, that what we are to believe is " truth, not falsehood,"
was no easy matter, and not safe to be attempted ; and yet he
must have the pleasure of refuting us.
The whole controversy between Catholics and Protestants
tunas on the questions here involved. Catholics say that Al-
mighty God has made us a revelation, and commanded us to
believe it, without doubting, in its integrity and genuine sense,
as the condition sine qua non of salvation. Protestants also say
God has made us a revelation, and commanded us to believe
it without doubting, as the condition sine qua non of salvation,
but, virtually, if not expressly, that he does not command us to
believe it in its integrity and genuine sense, but only so much
of it as commends itself to our own minds and hearts, and in
the sense in which it pleases us to understand it. They are
obliged to say this, or acknowledge the authority of the Catholic
Church, and condemn themselves, as not having that faith with-
out which they cannot be saved.
The presumption, to say the least, is in favor of the Catholics
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 85
for we cannot reasonably suppose that the Holy Ghost reveals
what he does not require us to believe, nor that he can consent
that we should believe his word in any sense but his own.
The Protestants are, then, presumptively in the wrong, and
consequently, the onus probandi rests on them. They can
justify themselves only by producing, on divine authority, a
specification of the portions of God's word they have the per-
mission of the Holy Ghost to disbelieve or not believe, according
to their own caprice ; and also the permission of the Holy Ghost
to believe his word in their own sense, rather than in his. God
has made us a revelation ; this they admit, as well as we. He
has commanded us to believe it ; this they admit as well as we.
He has made belief of it a necesssary condition of salvation ; this
they dare not deny. What, then, is the fair presumption from
these premises ? Is it not, that God commands belief in his
revelation in its purity and integrity as the condition of salva-
tion? Unquestionably. Then, unless you have his authority
for saying that he neither requires you to believe all he has
revealed, nor to believe what you do believe in its true sense,
you are convicted of not having the faith he commands, unless
you actually believe his whole revelation, and in its true sense.
Moreover, the ground on which you are to believe this reve-
lation is the veracity of God alone. Now, this ground is suf-
ficient ground of faith in all that God has revealed, and you
can with no more propriety refuse to believe one portion of it
than another. To refuse to believe this revelation is to make
God a liar, and you make him a liar in refusing to believe one
article, as much as you would in refusing to believe the whole-
You must, then, believe the whole, or you make God, in your
own mind, a liar ; and are you prepared to maintain that he
who charges God with falsehood, which is to blaspheme the
Holy Ghost, is in the way of salvation ?
So must you also believe the revelation in God's sense ; for
it is only in his sense that it is his word. If you put a mean-
ing upon my words different from the meaning I put upon
them, they cease to be my words, and become yours. So, when
86 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER.
you put a meaning upon God's word different from the meaning
he puts upon it, it ceases to be his word, and becomes your
word, and you believe then the truth not as it is in God, but
as it is in you. You must, then, believe the revelation in its
true sense, or you do not believe the revelation Almighty God
has made. Is it not remarkable that Protestants seem never to
be aware of this ?
Again, God commands faith in his revelation. But faith is
to believe without doubting, and is, as we have seen, possible
only on condition of infallible evidence, which leaves no room
for doubt, but gives absolute certainty. The certainty of faith,
though different in kind, must be equal in degree to the cer-
tainty of knowledge, or it is not faith. But this certainty is not
possible in case of error or falsehood. Error or falsehood can-
not be infallibly evidenced ; for, if it could, it would not be error
or falsehood, but truth. It follows, therefore, that the requisite
degree of evidence to elicit faith is possible only in the case of
absolute truth. But the revelation of God, when misinterpreted,
when taken not in its exact sense, is not absolute truth, and
therefore cannot be so evidenced to the mind as to elicit faith.
But we must have faith, or be eternally damned. Then you
must take the revelation in its exact sense, or not be saved.
Do you reply, that faith, in this sense, is impossible, because
it is impossible to have infallible certainty of the exact mind of
the Spirit? This is a plain begging of the question. Impos-
sible, on your ground, we admit ; but not, therefore, necessarily,
on every ground. Your objection merely proves that you can-
not, as Protestants, elicit an act of faith, which is what we con-
tend ; but when you say therefore we cannot elicit faith at all,
you assume that your ground is the true and only ground,
which is what we deny, and what it is your business to prove.
Because you cannot elicit faith, it does not follow that faith can-
not be elicited. God has commanded it, as you yourselves dare
not deny ; but God cannot command what is impossible ; therer
fore faith is possible. Then the fact that it is not possible,
on your ground, only proves that you are wrong.
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 87
One of the objections we brought against the Bible, as the
witness to the fact of revelation, was, that, without an infallible
authority, distinct from the Bible, it is impossible to prove the
sufficiency of the Scriptures. We contended, for several rea-
sons, which we gave, that they who take the Bible, as inter-
preted by private reason alone, for the only and sufficient rule
of faith, are bound to prove that their rule is sufficient from the
Sacred Scriptures themselves. But this they cannot do, for
the Scriptures nowhere assert their own sufficiency. The Ob-
server contends that they are not bound to prove the sufficiency
of the Scriptures, but that we are bound to prove their insuffi-
ciency ! But it nowhere takes up or replies to our objections,
and nowhere shows on what principle we are bound to prove a
negative. Doubtless, if we deny a proposition, we are bound to
justify our denial by adducing a good reason for it ; but in most
cases it is sufficient to allege the fact that the affirmative propo-
sition is not proved. Protestants assert the sufficiency of the
Scriptures ; it is their business to prove that sufficiency, and by
divine authority, too, a thing they never have done, and a
thing they know perfectly well, if they know anything of the
subject, they never can do. By what right do they assume a
position, without offering a single particle of evidence appropri-
ate in the case to prove it, and then call upon us to disprove it ?
Is rational culture so neglected among Protestants, and even
Protestant theologians, that they have no more sense of sound
reasoning than this implies ?
But we went further, and disproved the sufficiency of the
Scriptures, which was more than our argument required. Faith
is to believe, without doubting, all the truths Almighty God
has revealed, and, therefore, is possible only on condition that
we have absolute certainty that what we receive as the revela-
tion of God is his revelation, and the whole of his revelation, as
we proved before and have now proved again. The witness,
to be adequate, sufficient, must, then, testify to the fact that
the matter believed or to be believed is the revelation, and the
whole revelation, Now, to this last fact, namely, that they
88 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
.
contain the whole revelation, or the whole word of God, the
Scriptures do not testify. Therefore, they are insufficient, for
this very reason, if for no other. This is the argument ad-
duced in our article, and, certainly, before the Observer can
legitimately claim the pleasure of having refuted us, and the
right to assert the sufficiency of the Scriptures, it is bound to
set this argument aside. But it does not even notice it.
The Observer, we apprehend, does not understand what a
witness to the fact of revelation means. He seems to reason
on the supposition, that, when we contended for a witness to
the fact of revelation, we meant merely that we must have a
witness to the fact that God has made a revelation. We as-
sure him this was not our meaning. We mean by the fact of
revelation, not simply the fact that God has made a revelation,
but that he has revealed this or that is a faqfr^ and we mean by
a witness to the fact of revelation, not merely a witness to rev-
elation in general, but to each particular point of the revelation.
Assume, for instance, that the mystery of the Trinity is the
point in question. The ground of faith in this mystery is the
veracity of God revealing it. But before we can know that
we have God's veracity for the truth of this adorable mystery,
we must know that God has revealed it, that is, the fact that
he has revealed it. Now, the witness we demand is a witness
to this fact, and to the like fact in every other case ; and un-
less we have such a witness an infallible witness, too in
each particular case, we have and can have no faith. Does
the Observer understand this ? Will it deny that a witness,
and an infallible witness, in the sense here defined, is the con-
dition sine qua non of faith ? Can it say that God has re-
vealed this or that article of faith, if it have no witness to the
fact that God has revealed it ? Can it say it with absolute
certainty without an infallible witness ? and if it cannot say
with infallible certainty that God has revealed it, can it be-
lieve, without doubting, that he has revealed it ? No man has
faith, till he can say with St. Augustine, " O God, if I am de-
ceived, Thou hast deceived me," and this, too, in every single
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 89
article of faith. Who can say this, unless he has infallible
evidence that the particular article, which is in question, is act-
ually God's word ?
We must, then, have the witness, or faith is impossible.
What is this witness ? We stated that it must be, 1. Reason ;
2. The Bible ; 3. Private illumination ; or, 4. The Apostolic
ministry, or Ecclesia docens. We demonstrated that it could
not be the first three, and, therefore, inferred that it must be the
fourth, or we have no witness. The Observer nowhere meets
our arguments ; but merely cavils at one or two collateral
points. It does not bring out, clearly and distinctly, any doc-
trine of its own ; but, so far as we can understand its loose
statements, it assumes that the witness is the Bible, interpreted,
not by private reason, but by private illumination, or what he
calls " the internal monitor." We prove by historical testi-
mony that the Scriptures contain the revelation of God, and
by the internal monitor we ascertain its sense.
But, 1. We cannot, by historical testimony, prove that the
Bible contains the whole revelation of God ; and yet, assum-
ing a revelation to have been made, and belief of it enjoined
as the condition of being saved, we can demonstrate, as we
have shown, by reason, that it is necessary to believe, and to
know that we believe, the whole.
2. There are many false prophets gone out into the world,
and we are not to believe every spirit, but to try the spirits if
they be of God. 1 St. John, iv. 1. There must, then, be
some criterion by which we may distinguish the true from the
false. This cannot be the internal monitor, because that is pre-
cisely what we are to try. What is this criterion ? The bless-
ed Apostle tells us. " We are of God. He that knoweth
God heareth us. He that is not of God heareth not us. By
this we know the spirit of truth from the spirit oi error."
Ib. 6. If you have the spirit of truth, you hear the Apostles,
that is, abide in the Apostolic doctrine and communion. You
must, then, prove that you abide in the Apostolic doctrine and
THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
communion, before you have proved your right to follow your
" internal monitor."
3. We are commanded to give a reason to them that ask us
of the hope that is in us. But, according to the Observer it-
self, this inward witness is authority only for the individual him-
self, and, therefore, no reason to be assigned to others.
4. All men are required to believe the revelation God has
made, on pain of eternal condemnation. To believe the reve-
lation is to believe it in its integrity and genuine sense. But
it must be propounded to those who are as yet unbelievers in
this sense, as the condition of their believing it. Now, it must
be propounded with infallible evidence that it is the revelation
of God, or without it. If without it, unbelievers are justifia-
ble in rejecting it, which no Christian can admit. But if the
sense is to be ascertained only by the inward monitor of the
individual, it cannot be propounded with the infallible evidence
required, for this evidence must be evidence to the revelation
in its genuine sense, since otherwise that which is evidenced
would not be the word of God, but something else, the
words of man, or of the Devil.
5. The internal monitor is the Holy Ghost. Is the Holy
Ghost given to unbelievers ? If you say yes, we demand the
proof, which the Observer admits cannot be given. If you say
no, then, we ask, where is the sin of unbelievers in that they
are unbelievers ? The revelation is not credible, save in its true
sense. They who are not privately illuminated by the Holy
Ghost know not and cannot know it in its true sense. Then
they cannot believe it. Yet they are, by all Christian theology,
declared sinners in consequence of their unbelief. Is a man a
sinner for not doing what he has not the ability to do ?
6. But lastly, the practical effects of this doctrine prove that
it is not of God. It paves the way for lawless enthusiasm, and
the introduction of all manner of false doctrines. Every en-
thusiast may allege that he has the Holy Ghost, and though
what he teaches is as false as hell and wicked as the Devil, you
have no means of convicting him. He speaks by the Holy
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 91
Ghost ; would you shut the mouth of the Holy Ghost ? He
follows the Spirit ; would you resist the Spirit ? Each man is
the Ecclesia docens, and professes to speak with infallible au-
thority. What will you do ? What will you say ? Your
mouth is shut. Does not the Spirit witness to itself? What
right have you to oppose your Spirit to his ? Has he not as
high authority as you have ? You say, No ; he says, Yes ;
and how are you to prove your no is above his yes ? What is
to decide between you ? The Bible ? Not so fast. Your
rule of faith is the Bible interpreted by the internal monitor.
He appeals to the Bible, as well as you ; and the question is
not, whether the Bible be or be not the word of God, but
whether he or you have its genuine sense. What does the
Bible mean ? You, on the authority of what you call the Holy
Ghost, say it means this ; he, on what he alleges to be the
same authority, says it means that. Which of you is right ?
What is to decide ? Nothing. You cannot convict him, nor
he you. There you are, eternally at loggerheads, and the most
damnable heresies are rife in the land, and ruining the people,
both for this world and for that which is to come. This is one
of the glorious effects of your " glorious Reformation !" Can a
doctrine, leading to such disastrous consequences, be a doctrine
from God ? And has Almighty God provided no safer rule for
the instruction of his children in that faith he requires them to
believe as the condition of being saved ? Out upon the foul
blasphemy ! Say it not, but rather go and sit in sackcloth and
ashes at the foot of the cross, look on him ye have crucified, and
weep in silence over your folly and wickedness.
The Observer complains of us, that we assumed, in our ar-
gument, that Protestants admit that God has made us a revela-
tion, and that we did not reason with them as if they were Jews,
Mahometans, or infidels. Perhaps we were wrong in this, but
it will do us, we hope, the justice to acknowledge, that we did
not assume them to be believers in the revelation of God ; we
only assumed that they profess to believe it, at least, some por-
tions of it. We have known Protestants too long and too in-
92 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
timately to be guilty of the folly of inferring their belief from
their profession. We hope this explanation will satisfy the
Observer, and induce it to withdraw its complaint. We as-
sumed that Protestants admit that God has made us a revela-
tion, and that the Scriptures, so far as we had in our argument
occasion to appeal to that revelation, contain an authentic rec-
ord of it. This they profess ; and in reasoning with them, we
supposed it would be more respectful to take them at their pro-
fession than it would be to go behind it for their actual belief
or want of belief. If, however, they object to this, prefer to
have us reason with them as if they were infidels, and really
believe that this would be more in accordance with truth, we
will hereafter do our best to accommodate them.
On one point the Observer seems really to believe that it has
caught us in a difficulty, and its antics on the occasion are quite
diverting. We contended that we cannot elicit an act of faith
without an infallible witness to the fact of revelation, and that
this witness cannot be reason, the Bible, nor private illumina-
tion, but is and must be the Apostolic ministry. On this, the
Observer breaks out : " We have, then, no proof of the
fact of revelation, unless we can find it in the testimony of the
Apostolic ministry. Very well, Mr. Brownson, as the first
important matter is the fact that we have a revelation, bring
forward the witness. The witness ! the witness ! we must
have the witness !" With all my heart, dear Mr, Observer ;
only contain yourself a moment. You call for a witness to the
fact that God has made us a revelation, and to this fact you im-
ply that we have no witness to produce but the Apostolic min-
istry. With your leave, this is a mistake. There is a wide
difference between what we call the fact of revelation, and the
fact that God has made us a revelation. To the fact of reve-
lation, that is, to prove what is or is not the revelation Almighty
God has made, the Apostolic ministry is to us the only com-
petent witness ; but to the fact that Almighty God has made a
revelation, it is not, nor did we pretend or imply that it is, the
only witness. To this fact we adduce as the witness HISTORICAL
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 93
TESTIMONY, by which we prove that there was such a person as
Jesus Christ, and that he wrought miracles which prove him to
have spoken by divine authority. Here is the witness you
demand. Do you object to its testimony ? Bring forward,
then, your objections, and we will reply to them when we come
to defend the Church against infidels. *
If the Observer had read our article from page 45 to page
50, it would, perhaps, have suspected that we could extricate
ourselves more easily from the difficulty it has conjured up,
than it appears to have imagined. It is often a convenience
to understand your opponent, before attempting to refute him,
though sometimes an inconvenience, we admit, if one is
resolved beforehand, come what will, to have the " pleasure"
of refuting him. The Apostolic ministry, existing, as it has,
in uninterrupted succession through eighteen hundred years, is
itself, by the very fact of its existence, a proof of the fact that
Almighty God has made us a revelation ; but we did not ad-
duce it, nor are we obliged, by the logical conditions of our
argument, to adduce it, in proof of this fact ; for we prove this
fact independently of its authority, by the historical testimony
by which we establish the authenticity of the Scriptures as
historical documents.
The Observer accuses us of reasoning in a vicious circle,
because we assert that the Apostolic ministry is the only com-
petent witness to the fact of revelation, and yet appeal to the
Scriptures in proof of the fact that a revelation has been made,
and to determine the commission of the ministry. We con-
fess we can detect no vicious circle in this. The fact that a
revelation has been made was evidenced to those who lived in
the age in which it was, made by miracles, which accredited
those by whom it was made, as we showed in our article. We
appeal to the Scriptures, in the first instance, not to ascertain
what this revelation is, but as a simple historical record of the
miracles and other facts, which prove that a revelation has been
made, or that God has really spoken to man. " It is perfectly
legitimate to say, the Apostolic ministry is the only witness
94 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
competent to say what it is God has or has not spoken, and
yet appeal to the Scriptures as historical doctrines to prove
that he has spoken. Here is no vicious circle.
Nor do we reason in a vicious circle when we assume the
Apostolic ministry to be the only witness to the fact of revela-
tion, and yet adduce the Scriptures as historical documents in
proof of the commission of the ministry. Because we do not
first assume the authority of the ministry as the only proof of
the Scriptures as historical documents, and then adduce the
Scriptures in proof of the commission which authorizes it to
testify to that authenticity. We take the Scriptures, already
proved to be authentic historical documents, so far forth as his-
torical in their character, at least, so far forth as we have occa-
sion to use them in the argument, to prove one simple historical
fact, namely, the commission which Jesus Christ gave to his
Apostles ; and then we take the ministry, proved, through the
commission of the Apostles, to be Apostolic, as the witness to
the fact and the expounder of revelation, whether contained in
the Scriptures or deposited elsewhere. Here is no vicious cir-
cle, and we say so on the authority of the Observer itself. We
accused the advocates of private illumination with reasoning in
a vicious circle, when they take the witness to prove the Scrip-
tures, and then the Scriptures to prove the witness. Not at
all, says the Observer : " For while we take the Scriptures to
prove the witness, we do not take the witness to prove the
truth of the Scriptures, but their sense. The establishment of
the fact of their existence, as the record of God's revealed will,
is antecedent to their use to prove the witness, and independ-
ent of his testimony." This, though not a complete reply to
us, because, as a matter of fact, the establishment of the exist-
ence of the Scriptures as the record of God's revealed will is
not antecedent to their use to prove the witness, since the fact
that they are the record of the revealed will of God in its purity
and integrity is one of the facts to which the witness is to testify,
is nevertheless a valid distinction, and a complete refutation
of the Observer's charge against us. For, while we take the
VERSUS THE CHURCH.
95
Scriptures as historical documents, to prove the conmmission of
the Apostolic ministry, we do not take the Apostolic ministry
to prove that the Scriptures are authentic historical documents,
but to prove what is or is not the word which Almighty God
lias spoken. The establishment of the fact of their existence
as authentic historical documents is antecedent to their use to
prove the commission of the Apostolic ministry, and independ-
ent of its testimony. The blunder of the Observer comes from
confounding the fact of the existence of the Scriptures as au-
thentic historical documents with the fact of their authority as a
record of revelation.
The Observer, however, is not to be so easily balked of the
"pleasure" of refuting us.
" We want no easier task than to establish false religions on
the principle here laid down. There would be no difficulty to
get the appointment of a body of pastors and teachers, and then
to find witnesses to testify to the/actf of the appointment. And
then, if this body of teachers were allowed to say that such and
such books contained the record of a revelation from God, we
could not only have as many false teachers as we wanted, but a
correspondent number of spurious Bibles. If the lying ' witness '
swear to a false revelation, the untrue revelation would of course
vouch for the appointment of the witness. It is easy enough,
then, to bring historical testimony to the appointment of a wit-
ness ; but the authority of the witness is it from heaven, or
of men I If you say, of men, then, why believe the testimony ?
if from heaven, then it is a revealed fact, and on your principles
cannot be known but by the testimony of the ' witness.' Bishop
Sherlock, in his day, fell in with just such reasoners as Mr.
Brownson. and pushed them around the circle after this man-
ner : ' The Scriptures are very intelligent to honest and diligent
readers, in all things necessary to salvation ; and if they be not,
I desire to know how we shall find out the Church ; for certainly
the Church has no charter but what is in the Scriptures ; and
then, if we must believe the Church before we can believe or
understand the Scriptures, we must believe the Church before
we can possibly know whether there be a church or not ! If we
prove the Church by the Scriptures, we must believe and under-
stand the Scriptures before we can know the Church. If we
believe and understand the Scriptures upon the authority and
9
6
THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
interpretation of the Church, considered as a church, then we
must know the Church before the Scriptures. The Scripture
cannot be known without the Church, nor the Church without
the Scripture, and yet one of them must be known first ; yet
neither of them can be known first, according to these princi-
ples ; which is such an absurdity, as all the art of the world can
never palliate.'
" That Mr. Brownson may have no ground to say he is treat-
ed unfairly in this matter, we give him leave to hang upon just
which horn of the dilemma he may choose ; but as for hanging
upon both, we insist that he shall do no such thing." pp. 138,
139.
With the Observer's permission, we will, at present, hang on
neither horn. To the extract from Bishop Sherlock we reply,
that the Scriptures, as authentic historical documents, are logic-
ally, though not chronologically, in our argument, before the
Church as a divinely commissioned body ; but the Church, as
the divinely commissioned witness and expounder of the word
of God, is both logically and chronologically before the Scrip-
tures, for, as a matter of fact, the Church is older than the Scrip-
tures.
The divine authority of the commission is inferred from the
fact that it was given by Jesus Christ, proved, by the miracles
he performed, to speak by divine authority. The fact that he
wrought miracles, and the fact that he gave the commission, are
both historical facts, and provable by historical testimony, with-
out our being obliged to appeal to the authority of the witness.
But the authority of the commission, if of God, is a revealed
fact. If revealed, it can be proved only by the authority of
the Apostolic ministry, because that is the only witness we ac-
knowledge to the fact of revelation. Then we must assume the
divine authority of the commission as the condition of proving
it, which is absurd ; or we must admit some other witness than
the Apostolic ministry, and then we contradict ourselves, and
our whole reasoning falls to the ground. This objection was
urged against us by the Christian World, one of the organs
of the Unitarians. The reply is simple and easy. The Apos-
tolic ministry is nothing- but the continuation of Christ's own
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 07
ministry while lie \vas on the earth ; and the Church teaching,
which we have called the Apostolic ministry, was, while he
was on earth, in him. But in him its authority to teach is not
established by the commission to the Apostles, but by the
miracles he wrought. We take the authority of the Church
teaching in him while he was on earth, proved by miracles to
be of God, to establish the Divine authority of the commission
to the Apostles. Consequently, we neither deny the Apostolic
ministry to be the only witness, nor do we fall into the absurdity
of assuming the divine authority of the witness as the condition
of proving its divine authority. Will the Observer tell us on
which horn of his imagined dilemma we now hang ?
The commission to the Apostles created no new ministry, but
simply provided for the continuance, unto the consummation of
the world, of the visible ministry our blessed Saviour had him-
self exercised while on the earth. "As my Father hath sent
me, so send I you." When he was on earth the witness was
visible in him, now it is visible in the body of the pastors and
teachers of the Roman Catholic Church, but, though visible
under other conditions, it is one and the same ; " For, behold,"
says our blessed Saviour, "I am with you all days unto the
consummation of the world." He is the witness, and testifies
through them. Does the Observer ask a better witness ? If it
does, it must find him, for we never pledged ourselves to produce
a better.
One point more we notice, and then take our leave of this
Episcopal Observer, till we hear from him again. Our readers
will recollect the argument we used to identify the Ecclesia do-
cens, or Church teaching, with the Roman Catholic ministry.
" It is the Roman Catholic ministry. It can be no other. It
cannot be the Greek Church. The Greek Church was formerly
in communion with the Church of Rome, and made one corpo-
ration with it. The Church of Rome was then the true church,
Ecclesia docens, or it was not. If not, the Greek Church is
false, in consequence of having communed with a false church.
If it was, the Greek Church is false, because it separated from
it. So take either horn of the dilemma, the Greek Church is
5
98 THE EPISCOPAL OBSERVER
false, and its ministry not the apostolic ministry which inherits
the promises. The same reasoning will apply with equal force
to any of the Oriental sects not in communion with the see of
Rome ; and, a fortiori, to all the modern Protestant sects.
Therefore, the Roman Catholic ministry is the Apostolic corpora-
tion, because this corporation can be no other."
Upon this the Episcopal Observer remarks :
" It is one of the easiest things in the world to make out a
false conclusion, if one can be allowed to slip a false premise into
the process of induction. There are so many violations of the
rules of logic in the above paragraph, that the reader would
hardly have patience to follow us in their exposure. Precisely
the same reasoning, in the same words, with only a slight inter-
change of terms, will best show its absurdity.
"'It is the ministry of the Greek Church. It can be no
other. It cannot be the Roman Catholic ministry. The Ro
man Catholic Church was formerly in communion with the
Greek Church, and made one corporation with it. The Greek
Church was then the true church, JEcclesia docens, or it was not.
If not, the Church of Rome is false, in consequence of having
communed with a false church. If it was, the Church of Rome
is false, because it separated from it. So, take either horn of
the dilemma, the Church of Rome is false, and its ministry not
the Apostolic ministry which inherits the promises,' &c."
p. 141.
Now, will it be credited that we anticipated this retort and
replied to it ? Yet such is the fact. Here is what we said :
"You object, in behalf of the Greek Church, that Rome
separated from her, not she from Rome. This we deny. It is
historically certain, that the Greek Church, prior to the final
separation, agreed with the Church of Rome on the matters
(the Supremacy of the Pope and the Procession of the Holy
Ghost) which were made the pretexts for separation. In the
separation, the Greek Church denied what she had before as-
serted, while Rome continued to assert the same doctrine after
as before. Therefore the Greek Church was the dissentient
party. Prior to the separation, the Greek Church agreed with
the Roman in submitting to the papal authority. In the separ-
ation, the Greek Church threw off this authority, while the
Roman continued to submit to it. Therefore the Greek Church
was the separatist.
VERSUS THE CHURCH. 99
"You insist, that, though the act of separation may, indeed,
have been formally the act of the Greek Church, yet the separ-
ation was really on the part of Rome, who had corrupted the
faith, and rendered separation from her necessary to the purity
of the Christian Church. But, if this be so, whatever the cor-
ruptions of the faith Rome had been guilty of, the Greek Church
participated in them during her communion with Rome. If
they vitiated the Latin Church, they equally vitiated the Greek.
Then both had failed, arid the true Church, which we have seen
is indefectible, must have been somewhere else. ^Then the
Greek Church could become a true Church by separating from
the communion of the Latin Church only on condition of coming
into communion with the true Church. But it came into com-
munion with no Church. Therefore, the Greek Church, at any
rate, is false."
Yet the Observer nowhere notices the fact that we had thus
replied in advance, nor even that we were aware of the objec-
tion. It has not noticed these replies, express to its objection,
and yet it claims to have refuted us ! Yes, it has refuted us,
by urging the objections we ourselves brought, but without no-
ticing our answers ! This may be a refutation in the Protestant
sense, but, thank God ! it is not in the Catholic sense. The con-
duct of the Observer, in this respect, we shall not trust ourselves
to characterize as it deserves, nor shall we suffer it to surprise us.
Deprived, as the writer is, by the simple fact that he is a Protest-
ant, of the ordinary means of divine grace, nothing better was
to be expected of him. He has a cause to maintain, which does
not admit of candor and truthfulness, honesty and fair dealing,
and we should be more surprised to find him exercising such
virtues than we are by finding him sinning against them.
It is worthy of note that this Episcopal writer has passed over
the articles in our Review against his own church, and, church-
man as he professes to be, has entered the lists only against an
article the main design of which was to defend the Church
against No-Church. It is also worthy of note, that the objec-
tions he has brought against us were nearly all brought pre-
viously in the Christian Register and Christian World, the two
weekly organs of the No-Church Unitarians. What does this
100
indicate ? Are Unitarians and Episcopalians acting in concert ?
or are we to infer that a common dread of Catholicity is com-
bining all the various Protestant sects against the Catholic
Church ? This last seems to us not improbable. The signs of
the times seem to indicate that the several tribes of Goths, Van-
dals, Huns, and other barbarians, are forming a league for a new
invasion of Rome. Well, be it so. "He that dwelleth in
heaven shall laugh at them, and the Lord shall deride them."
The Episcopalians may read their destiny in that of the old
Donatists, whom, in many respects, they resemble ; and all the
Protestant sects combined are not so formidable to the Church
as were, at one period, the old Arians. The Church triumphed
over the Arians ; she will triumph over the Protestants. A
union whose principle is hatred will not long subsist, but will
soon break asunder. Protestantism is doomed. The Devil may
be very active and full of wrath, and utter great swelling words,
for a season, because he knows that his time is short ; but Prot-
estantism must go the way of all the earth. The Lord will
remember mercy, and will not much longer afflict the nations,
but will recall them to the bosom of his Church.
THORNWELL'S ANSWER TO DR. LYNCH *
APRIL, 1848.
SOMETIME in 1841, Mr. Thorn well, a Presbyterian minister,
and " Professor of Sacred Literature and the Evidences of Chris-
tianity in the South- Carolina College," published, anonymously,
in a Baltimore journal, a brief essay against the divine inspira-
* The Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament proved to be Corrupt
Additions to the Word of God. The Arguments of Romanists from
the Infallibility of the Church and the Testimonies of the Fathers in
Behalf of the Apocrypha discussed and refuted. By JAMES H.
THORNWELL. New York : Leavitt, Trow, & Co. Boston : Charles
Tappan. 1845. 16mo. pp. 417.
*
TO DR. LYNCH, 10f
tion of those books of the Old Testament which Protestants
exclude from the canon of Scripture. To this essay, as subse-
quently reprinted with the author's name, the Rev. Dr. Lynch,
of Charleston, S. C., replied, in a series of letters addressed to
Mr. Thornwell, through the columns of The Catholic Miscel-
lany. The volume before us is Mr. Thornwell's rejoinder to Dr.
Lynch, and contains, in an Appendix, the original essay, and the
substance of Dr. Lynch's reply to it. The rejoinder consists of
twenty-nine letters, which cover nearly the whole ground of
controversy between Catholics and Protestants, and, though
written in a Presbyterian spirit, they are respectable for ability
and learning. The work, though nothing surprising, is, upon
the whole, above the general average of publications of its class.
The purpose of the essay was to "assert and endeavor to
prove that Tobit, Judith, the additions to the Book of Esther,
Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, with the Epistle of Jeremiah,
the Song of the Three Children, the Story of Susannah, the
Story of Bel and the Dragon, and the First and Second Books
of Maccabees are neither sacred nor canonical, and of course of
no more authority in the Church of God than Seneca's Letters
or Tally's Offices." (pp. 339, 340.) In the present work, the
author attempts to maintain the same thesis, and to refute the
objections urged by Dr. Lynch against it. He professes on his
very title-page to have proved the books enumerated " to be
corrupt additions to the word of God," and to have discussed
and refuted " the arguments of Romanists from the infallibility
of the Church and the testimonies of the Fathers in their
behalf." The question very naturally arises, Has he done this ?
Has he proved that these books are uninspired, as he must have
done, if he has proved them to be corrupt additions to the word
of God; and has he refuted the arguments of Catholics, or
rather of Dr. Lynch, in their behalf ?
The arguments which Dr. Lynch adduces for these books are
drawn from the infallibility of the Church and the testimony of
the Fathers. If the Church is infallible, the testimony of the
Fathers is of subordinate importance, for the infallibility alone
102 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
suffices for the faithful ; if the Church is not infallible, it is of
still less consequence what the Fathers testify ; for then all faith
is out of the question, both for Catholics and all others. We
may, therefore, waive all consideration, for the present, of the
argument for the deutero-canonical books drawn from the testi-
mony of the Fathers, and confine ourselves to that drawn from
the infallibility of the Church. The argument from infallibility
must, of course, be refuted, before the author can claim to have
refuted Dr. Lynch, or to have proved his general thesis, that
the books in question are " corrupt additions to the word of
God."
The Catholic Church, undeniably, includes these books in
her canon of Scripture, and commands her children to receive
them as the word of God. This is certain, and the author
concedes it; for he adduces it as a proof of her "intolerable
arrogance." If she is infallible in declaring the word of God,
as all Catholics hold, these books are certainly inspired Scrip-
lure, and rightfully placed in the canon. This is the argument
from infallibility; and it is evident to every one who under-
stands what it is to refute an argument that it can be refuted
only by disproving the infallibility, or, what is the same thing,
proving the fallibility, of the Church. To prove the Church
fallible, moreover, it is not enough to refute the arguments by
which Catholics are accustomed to prove her infallibility; for
a doctrine may be true, and yet the arguments adduced in
proof of it be unsound and inconclusive. It will, therefore,
avail the author but little to refute our arguments for the in-
fallibility, unless he refutes the infallibility itself; for so long
as he is unable to say positively that the Church is fallible, he
is unable to refute the argument from her infallibility. It may
still be true that she is infallible, and if she is, the books are
not uninspired compositions, but infallibly the word of God.
Mr. Thornwell, who regards himself as an able and sound
logician, appears to have some consciousness of this, and in-
deed to concede it. Accordingly, he devotes a third of his
whole volume to disproving the infallibility of the Church, or
TO DR. LYNCH. 103
rather, to proving her fallibility. "I have insisted," he says
in his Preface, "largely on the dogma of infallibility, more
largely, perhaps, than my readers may think consistent with the
general design of my performance, because I regard this as
the prop and bulwark of all the abominations of the Papacy."
(p. S.)
But to prove the fallibility of the Church, or to. disprove her
infallibility, is a grave undertaking, and attended with serious
difficulties. The Church cannot be tried except by some stand-
ard, and it is idle to attempt to convict her on a fallible au-
thority. If the conviction is obtained on a fallible authority,
the conviction itself is fallible, and it, instead of the Church,
may be the party in the wrong. The Professor cannot take a
single step, cannot even open his case, unless he has an infalli-
ble tribunal before which to summon the Church, some infal-
lible standard by which to test her infallibility or fallibility. But
before what infallible tribunal can he cite her ? What infallible
authority has he on which he can demand her conviction ?
The only possible way in which the fallibility of the Church
can be proved is by convicting her of having actually erred on
some point on which she claims to be infallible. But it is evi-
dent, that, in order to be able to convict her of having erred on
a given point, we must be able to say infallibly what is truth or
error on that point. Clearly, then, the Professor cannot com-
mence his action, much less gain it, unless he has an authority
which pronounces infallibly on the points on which he seeks to
convict her of having actually erred. But what authority has
he ? Unhappily, he does not inform us, and does not appear to
have recognized the necessity on his part of having any author-
ity. He sets forth, formally, no authority, designates no court,
specifies no law, lays down no principles. This is a serious
inconvenience, and affects both his legal and his logical attain-
ments. His argument, let him do his best, must be minus its
major proposition ; and from the minor alone we have always
understood that it is impossible to conclude any thing.
Mr. Thornwell denies the infallibility of the Church, and he
104
recognizes no infallible authority in any one of the sects, includ-
ing even his own. He has, then no authority which he can al-
lege, but the authority of reason, and his own private judgment.
His own private judgment is of no weight, and cannot be ad-
duced in a public discussion. The authority of reason we ac-
knowledge to be infallible in her own province ; but her pro-
vince is restricted to the natural order, and she has no jurisdic-
tion in the supernatural order, to which the Church professes to
belong. The Church has the right to be tried by her peers.
Reason is not, and cannot be, the peer of the supernatural, and
is totally unable, in so far as the Church lies within the super-
natural order, to pronounce any judgment concerning her infalli-
bility one way or the other.
Reason, undoubtedly, knows that God is, and that he can
neither deceive nor be deceived. It knows, therefore, if he ap-
points the Church, commissions her, as his organ, to declare his
word, that she must declare it infallibly ; for then it is he him-
self that declares in her declaration, and if she could either de-
ceive or be deceived, he himself could either deceive or be de-
ceived. If, then, reason finds sufficient or satisfactory grounds
for believing that God has appointed or instituted the Church to
declare his word, to teach all nations to observe all things what-
soever he has revealed, it pronounces her infallible, and acknowl-
edges its obligation to receive, without any questioning, what-
ever she teaches.
Reason, again, knows that God cannot be in contradiction
with himself, and therefore, since both the natural order and the
supernatural are from him, that he cannot establish principles in
the one repugnant to those established in the other. On the
authority of reason, then, we may always assert that he cannot
teach one thing in the natural order and its contradictory in the
supernatural order. If, then, it be clearly established, that the
Church, on matters on which she claims to teach infallibly,
teaches what is in contradiction either to the supernatural or the
natural order, it is certain that she is fallible. But as reason
cannot go out of the order of nature, we can on its authority
TO DR. LYNCH. 105
establish the fallibility of the Church only on the condition of
convicting her of having actually contradicted some law or prin-
ciple of the natural order. If the Church, in other words, con-
tradict reason, reason is competent to conclude against her, but
not when she merely transcends reason ; for what is above rea-
son may be true, but what is against reason cannot be.
It follows from this that the authority of reason in the case
before us is purely negative, and that the Professor can conclude
from it against the Church only on condition that he proves
that she actually contradicts it. But it is necessary even here
to bear in mind that the natural can no more contradict the
supernatural than the supernatural the natural. When the
motives of credibility have convinced reason that the Church
teaches by supernatural authority, her teaching is as authorita-
tive as any principle of reason itself, and may be cited to prove
that what is alleged against her as a principle of reason is not a
principle of reason, with no less force than the alleged principle
itself can be cited to prove that she contradicts reason. The
Professor must, then, in order to prove her fallibility, adduce a
case, not of apparent contradiction, but of real contradiction,
a case in which what she teaches must evidently contradict an
evident principle of reason, so evident that it is clear that to
deny it would be to deny reason itself.
The position, then, which the Professor must take and main-
tain, in order to establish his thesis, is, that the Church, in her
teaching on matters on which she claims to teach infallibly, has
taught or teaches what contradicts an evident and undeniable
principle of reason. This he must do before he can prove the
fallibility of the Church, and he must prove the fallibility of the
Church before he can refute the argument drawn from it for the
books enumerated. Has he proved this ? Unhappily, he does
not appear to have understood that this was at all necessary, or
to have suspected that it was only by proving the Church to be
against reason that he could conclude her fallibility. He does
not appear to have known that there are and can be no ques-
tions debatable between Catholics and Protestants but such as
\
06
pertain exclusively to the province of reason. He labors under
the hallucination, that he has something besides the reason com-
mon to all men which he may oppose to us, that he has the re-
velation of Almighty God, and that he is at liberty to attempt
to convict the Church, not on reason alone, but also on the word
of God. This would be ridiculous, if the matter were not so
grave as to make it deplorable. He has no word of God to
cite against us, and if he cites the Holy Scriptures at all, he
must cite them either in the sense of the Church, or as simple
historical documents ; because it is only in the sense of the
Church that we acknowledge them to be inspired. We can
cite them as inspired Scripture against him, as an aryumcntum
ad hominem ; for he holds them to be inspired Scripture as in-
terpreted by private judgment. But he cannot against us ; for
the argument would not be ad hominem, unless cited in the
sense of the Church, since it is only in that sense, that, on our
own principles, they are the word of God.
The fact is, Mr. Thornvvell from first to last forgets in his
argument that we are as far from admitting his authority as he
is from admitting ours. He writes under the impression, that
he has the true Christian doctrine, and is invested with ample
authority to define what is, and what is not, the word of God.
He assumes his Presbyterianism to be true, and when he has
proved that Catholicity contradicts it, he concludes at once that
Catholicity is false. But Presbyterianism is only his private
judgment, and therefore of no authority. By what right does
he erect his private judgment into a criterion of truth and
falsehood, assume that it is infallible, and proceed to pronounce
ex cathedra on the revealed word of God ? We cannot recog-
nize his authority as sovereign pontiff, unless he brings us
credentials from heaven, duly signed and witnessed. His as-
sumption we cannot admit. He is confessedly fallible, and his
decisions we cannot even entertain. He does not come to us
duly commissioned by Almighty God to teach us his word ; he
is simply a man, with no authority in the premises which may
not be claimed and exercised by every other man as well as by
TO DR. LYNCH. 107
himself. In an argument with Catholics 'he can be only a man,
and is at liberty to adopt no line of argument that would not
be equally proper in the case of a pagan, Mahometan, or any
other infidel.
Protestant controversialists are exceedingly prone to forget
this. They assume that they have the word of God, that they
know and believe what God has revealed, and that they have in
their opinions a standard by which to try the Church. Yet they
claim to be reasoners, and tell us that we have surrendered our
reason ! But whether the Church be or be not commissioned
to declare the word of God, it is certain that they are not.
Certain is it, that, if she is not authorized to declare it, no one
else is ; and equally certain is it, that no one not so authorized
has any right to adduce in an argument any thing he takes to
be the word of God, save by the sufferance or consent of his
opponents. It is a grave mistake to suppose that there is any
other common ground between us and our adversaries than that
of reason. It will not do for our adversaries to suppose, that,
because we hold to the inspiration of the Scriptures, they may
allege them in their own sense against us ; for we admit their
inspiration only on the authority, and in the sense, of the Church.
On her authority, and in the sense in which she defines their
doctrines, we hold them to be the word of God ; but in no
other sense, and on no other ground. Independently of her
authority and interpretations, there are no inspired Scriptures
for us. This fact must never be lost sight of, and it would save
Protestants an immense deal of labor, if they would keep it in
mind, and govern themselves accordingly. If they cite the
Bible against us, on any authority or in any sense but that of
the Church, it is not for us the word of God, but simply their
private opinion, by which we are not and cannot be bound.
Among ourselves, who admit the authority of the Church, and
therefore the inspiration of the Scriptures, it is lawful, on a point
on which the actual teaching of the Church is matter of inquiry,
to appeal to the written word, as also to the Fathers and Doctors
of the Church, and also to the analogies of faith ; but it is never
[08
THORNWELL'S ANSWER
lawful for those out of the Church, denying her authority, to
make a like appeal against us ; for the authority to which we
appeal is resolvable into the authority of the Church, which
they deny.
The rule we here insist upon is that of common sense and
common justice, and rests for its authority on the principle,
that no man has the right to assume in his argument the point
that is in question. We ourselves cite the Scriptures against
our adversaries, but always either ad hominem, because they,
though we do not, admit their inspiration independently of the
authority of the Church, or as simple historical documents,
whose authenticity and authority as such documents, but not as
inspired writings, reason is competent to determine. But we
never assume our Church and her definitions as the authority
on which to convict those without of error ; for to do so would
be a sheer begging of the question. Undoubtedly, if our Church
is right, all her adversaries are wrong. It needs no argument
to prove that. We, therefore, take our stand in the argument,
either on what our adversaries concede, or on the common rea-
son of mankind, and attempt to prove from the one or the
other, or both, that every one is bound to believe and obey the
Church. Protestants must not expect us to allow them more
than we claim for ourselves. They may need more in order to
make out their case ; but we are not aware that they have any
right to special privileges, or to exemption from the common
obligations of reason and justice. As there are no concessions
of ours which can avail them, they must in their controversies
with us take their stand on the reason common to ah 1 men, and,
since common to all, alike theirs and ours. They must bring
their action at common law, not on a special statute. Then they
must restrict themselves to those questions which come within
the jurisdiction of reason, and which she is competent to decide
without appeal. Then they must waive all questions which
pertain to the subject-matter of revelation ; for these all unde-
niably lie in the supernatural order, and therefore without the
province of reason.
.
TO DR. LYNCH. 10
We frankly concede that Mr. Thornwell lias proved that
Catholicity is not Presbyterianism, and that, if Presbyterianism
is the revelation of God, Catholicity is not. But this amounts
to nothing ; Presbyterianism is neither proved nor conceded to
be Christianity. He cannot, therefore, assume it against us.
We concede him not one inch of Christian ground on which to
set his foot. We demur to every argument he adduces or at-
tempts to adduce from the convictions or prejudices of his sect,
or from his own conceptions of the word of God. We listen to
no arguments, we entertain no objections, we plead to no char-
ges, not drawn from the common reason of mankind. We must,
therefore, beg him to descend from his tripod, and meet us as
a man with no authority but that which belongs to the reason
of every man.
We must, in view of this state of the case, eliminate from
Mr. Thornwell's arguments against infallibility, as not to be en-
tertained, all that he urges on the authority of his own religious
convictions or prejudices, and confine ourselves simply to what
he adduces on the simple authority of reason. These last, all
that is legitimately adduced, consist of an attempted refutation
of Dr. Lynch's argument for the infallibility of the Church, and
certain philosophical, historical, and moral objections alleged
against the Church.
We might well pass over Mr. Thornwell's attempt to refute
Dr. Lynch's argument for infallibility, because, if successful, it
would accomplish nothing to his purpose. The argument he has
to refute is the argument from the infallibility of the Church,
not the argument for it ; for the question is not on believing
that infallibility, but on denying it. It may, as we have said,
be true, and yet the arguments by which we attempt to prove
it be unsound and inconclusive. The defect of proof is a good
reason for not believing, but it is not always an adequate reason
for denying. The thesis the Professor seeks to maintain requires
him to deny the infallibility of the Church, or to assert her falli-
bility, and therefore the burden of proof devolves on him. He
asserts that the disputed books are corrupt additions to the word
.
of Go
foci, which he cannot possibly prove without disproving the
infallibility of the Church, which declares them to be inspired
Scripture. But he claims to have won a victory over Dr.
Lynch, and his friends have bound the laurel around his brows.
We are, therefore, disposed to subject his claim to a slight exam-
ination, and to inquire if his shouts have not been a little pre-
mature, and if, after all, the victory does not remain with his
opponent. If he has succeeded, he has gained nothing for his
thesis ; but if he has failed, we can conclude against it at once,
at least so far as he is concerned.
Mr. Thornwell states Dr. Lynch's general argument for the
disputed books to be,
" Whatever the pastors of the Church of Rome declare to be
true must be infallibly certain :
" That the Apocrypha [the books enumerated] were inspired,
the pastors of the Church of Rome declare to be true :
" Therefore it must be infallibly certain."
This is slated in Mr. Thornwell's language, not in Dr. Lynch's,
and is by no means so well expressed as it might be ; but let
that pass. Substituting the names of the books alleged by Mr.
Thornwell to be corrupt additions to the word of God for the
term Apocrypha, we are willing to accept it. To this argument,
which he has shaped to suit the objections he wishes to bring
against it, Mr. Thornwell's first objection is, that it is " vitiated
by the ambiguity of the middle." The words " pastors of the
Church," may be'understood either universally, particularly, or
distributively, to mean the whole body of the pastors, some of
them, and every one individually.
Ambiguity of the middle is where the words are taken in one
sense in the major, and in another sense in the minor; but
where they are taken in the same sense in both the premises,
although in themselves susceptible of several meanings, there is
no ambiguity of the middle. In the argument as stated, the
words, pastors, &c., are, in themselves considered, susceptible of
the senses alleged, but as used in the argument they are tied
down to one sense. The rule of construction is, to understand
TO DR. LYNCH.
,
all words used in a general or universal sense, unless there be
some reason, expressed or implied, in the context or the nature
of the subject, for not doing so. There is, in the present case,
no such reason in either premise, and therefore we must take
the words generally, or universally, in both, for the whole body
of pastors. If so, there is no ambiguity of the middle.
But Mr. Thornwell asserts that Dr. Lynch does use the words
in the three different senses mentioned. He accuses him of
meaning by them, at one time, the whole body of pastors col-
lected or assembled in council, at another time, a part only, and
finally, every one individually ; and alleges as proof, the fact,
that in his Letter he predicates infallibility, 1. of the whole body
of pastors in their collective capacity, 2. of the Council of
Trent, in which only a part were personally assembled, and 3. of
each single teacher or missionary.
1. That Dr. Lynch, when he predicates infallibility of the
body of pastors in their collective capacity, means the whole
body, takes the words, pasters, &c., universally, is conceded, but
that he means the whole body assembled in council we deny.
He speaks of them as a body of individuals in their collective
capacity, not as a collected or congregated body ; and that he
does not mean the body of pastors assembled in council is evi-
dent from the fact, that he contends that the pastors of the
Church had decided the question of the inspiration of the books
in dispute long before the Council of Trent, since, to do so, they
did not need to assemble in a general council. Thus he says
expressly, "The doctrines of the Catholic Church can be
known from the universal and concordant teaching of her pas-
tors, even when her bishops have not assembled in a general
council and embodied those doctrines in a list of decrees." (pp.
370, 371.) It is evident, then, that Dr. Lynch holds the pas-
tors of the Church to be a body of individuals, to have a collec-
tive capacity, and the faculty of teaching infallibly in that capa-
city, even when not congregated. If Mr. Thornwell had recog-
nized a difference between collective and collected, or congregated,
,.
THORN WELL 8 ANSWER
he would easily have surmounted this part of his difficulty, with-
out any foreign aid.
2. The acts of the Holy Council of Trent, touching faith and
morals, Dr. Lynch unquestionably holds to be infallible, not be-
cause he predicates infallibility of a part of the body of pastors,
but because they were the acts of the whole Church represented
in it, or at least made so by subsequent adoption, as is evident
enough from his language. The proof, therefore, that he takes
the words in a partitive sense, is inadequate.
3. That each single pastor teaches infallibly in his collective
capacity, as " member " of the body of pastors, is conceded, but
that he does so individually or in his individual capacity is de-
nied ; for in his individual capacity he cannot teach at all. Dr.
Lynch speaks of his teaching infallibly only in his capacity as
member of the body. As member of the body, the only sense
in which he is a teacher at all, he participates of its infallibility
and teaches by its authority, and infallibly, not because he is in-
dividually infallible, but because it is infallible. Consequently
in representing the single teacher as teaching infallibly, Dr.
Lynch does not use the words pastors, &c., in a distributive
sense.
Mr. Thornwell is unfortunate in his proofs, notwithstanding he
had shaped his statement of the argument with special reference
to them. He fails to substantiate his objection of " ambiguity
of the middle," and consequently all that he says, which is
founded on it, falls to the ground. The beautiful argument he
had constructed to prove that a Catholic can never know when
and where to find the infallible authority on which he had ex-
pended so much labor, and lavished so many rare ornaments,
falls to pieces through default of a foundation. Decidedly, it is
an inconvenience to build without any thing to build with or to
build on. It is worse than being compelled to make bricks with-
out straw.
Mr. Thornwell, after his objection to the form of the argument,
proceeds to deny and to refute its major, namely, the infallibility
of the Church. His first effort is to refute Dr. Lynch's argu-
TO DR. LYNCH.
ment for it. Dr. Lynch contends that " we cannot be called on
to believe any proposition without adequate proof;" that " when
Almighty God designed to inspire the works contained in the
Holy Scriptures, he intended they should be believed to be in-
spired ;" and that " therefore there does exist some adequate
proof." Thus for all is evident enough, and the Professor brings
no objection to what is alleged. We may presume it, then, as
conceded, that there does exist some adequate proof of their
inspiration, that is to say, some authority competent to declare
the fact. What is it ? " It must be," says Dr. Lynch, " a body
of individuals to whom, in their collective capacity, God has
given authority to make an unerring decision on the subject."
It must be such a body, because it can be nothing else. This
body is composed of the pastors of the Catholic Church. There-
fore the pastors of the Catholic Church have authority to make
an unerring decision, that is, have infallible authority to declare
the word of God.
Mr. Thornwell does not deny, that, if such a body exists, it
is the pastors of the Roman Catholic Church. On this point
he raises no question, and we may regard him as conceding
it. He denies the necessity of any such body as Dr. Lynch
asserts. He objects, first, to the form of the argument by which
Dr. Lynch undertakes to prove it. The argument, he says, sins
by an imperfect enumeration of particulars. It is a destructive
disjunctive conditional, which must contain in the major all the
suppositions which can be conceived to be true, and in the minor
destroy all but one. But Dr. Lynch has not included all such
suppositions in his major, and therefore, conceding that he ha*
destroyed in the minor all he has enumerated save one, he is not
entitled to his conclusion. Dr. Lynch has enumerated four
methods : 1. Every individual, on the strength of his own
private examination, is to decide for himself, private judgment ;
2. Every individual, is to receive books as inspired, or reject them
as uninspired, according to the decisions of such persons as he
judges qualified by their erudition and sound judgment to deter-
mine the question, the judgment of the learned ; 3, We must
THORNWELL'S ANSWER
take the inspiration of Scripture from some individual whom
God has commissioned to announce this fact to the world ; or
4. From a body of individuals to whom, in their collective capac-
ity, God has given authority to make an unerring decision on
the subject. But a fifth supposition is possible, says the Profes-
sor, namely, " God himself by his Eternal Spirit may condescend
to be the teacher of men, and enlighten their understandings to
perceive in the Scriptures themselves infallible marks of their in-
spiration. " This supposition Dr. Lynch has " entirely overlook-
ed, " " strangely suppressed," and therefore cannot even by de-
stroying the first three suppositions conclude the fourth.
But Dr. Lynch has not "entirely overlooked," "strangely
suppressed," this fifth supposition, but expressly mentions it, and
gives his reason for not including it in the number of supposable
methods. Mr. Thornwell has generously furnished us the evi-
dence of this. After enumerating the four methods stated, Dr.
Lynch says (Appendix, p. 359) : " I might perhaps add a fifth
method ; that each one be informed what books are inspired by
his private spirit. But I omit it, as, were it true, it would be
superfluous, if not a criminal intrusion on the province God
would have reserved to himself, to attempt to prove or disprove,
when our duty would be simply to await in patience the revela-
tion to each particular individual. You are not a member of the
Society of Friends, and your essay is not an expose of the teach-
ings of your private spirit, but an effort to appeal to argument. "
With this passage before his eyes, we cannot understand how
the Presbyterian minister could assert that Dr. Lynch entirely
overlooked this fifth method, for undeniably the Catholic Doctor
means by the private spririt precisely the same thing the Pres-
byterian does by God condescending to teach men by his Eternal
Spirit. Moreover, the reasons assigned by Dr. Lynch for not
including it in the list of supposable methods are conclusive, at
least till answered. These reasons are two : 1. That, if assum-
ed, all argument would be forclosed, either as superfluous or as
criminal ; and 2. Mr. Thornwell evidently rejects it, because he
appeals to argument, and therefore against him it cannot be
TO DR. LYNCH.
...
necessary to include it. These are solid reasons, and Mr. Thorn-
well should have met them before accusing Dr. Lynch of having
entirely overlooked the method of interior illumination, and es-
pecially before insisting upon its being supposable.
Mr. Thorn well is apparently disposed to maintain that this
fifth method is the one actually adopted, but this he is not at
liberty to do. The method is private, not public, and cannot be
appealed to in a public debate. In a public debate, the appeal
must always be to a public authority, that is, to an authority
common to both parties. If the authority to which the appeal
is to be made is private, there can be no public debate ; if pri-
vate, interior, immediate, as must be the teachings of the spirit,
there can be no argument. Argument in such a case would be
superfluous and even criminal. When, therefore, a man resorts,
on a given question, to argument, and to public argument, he
necessarily assumes that the authority which is to determine the
question is public, and denies it to be private. Mr. Thornwell
in his essay made his appeal to argument, and wrote his essay
to prove that the question he raised is to be settled, not by the
private spirit, but by public facts, arguments, and authority.
He therefore cannot fall back on the private spirit. Having
elected public authority, he must abide by it. If he cannot
now fall back on the private spirit, he cannot allege it as a sup-
posable method ; and if he cannot so allege it, he cannot accuse
Dr. Lynch's argument of sinning by an imperfect enumeration
of particulars, because it omits it.
Mr. Thornwell, furthermore, is very much affected by Dr.
Lynch's supposed temerity in restricting the number of suppo-
sable methods to the four enumerated. He grows very eloquent,
and manifests no little pious horror at what he calls an effort to
set bounds to Omnipotence. All this is very well, but he him-
self excludes the method of private teaching, by writing his
book to prove, on other grounds, that the books in question are
uninspired, and he does not even attempt to suggest an addi-
tional method. Nobody, unless it be himself, seeks to limit Om-
nipotence ; nobody, to our knowledge, denies that Almighty
God might have adopted the private method, if he had chosen to
do so. The question is not, as is evident from the whole train of
Dr. Lynch's reasoning, on abstract possibilities, but on what is or
is not possible in hac providentia. Nobody pretends that the
private spirit is not supposable because it is metaphysically im-
possible, but it is not supposable because incompatible with
other things which we know must be supposed, and which Mr.
Thormvell undeniably does suppose.
The alleged fifth method not being supposable, unless Mr.
Thormvell chooses to condemn himself for attempting to argue
the question, and to confess that all his arguments are senseless
and absurd, nay, profane and criminal, the objection raised to
Dr. Lynch's major falls to the ground ; and as he does not pre-
tend that the conclusion is not logical, he must grant the con-
clusion or deny the minor. But he cannot grant the conclu-
sion without conceding the infallibility of the Church, which
he seeks to disprove. He therefore asserts that " the minor is
lame, and can at best yield only a lame and impotent conclusion. "
The minor is proved only by removing or destroying the first
three suppositions. But this is not done ; for the arguments
by which Dr. Lynch seeks to do it apply with equal force
against the fourth, which he must retain. But the legitimacy
of this reply is questionable. One of the four suppositions
must be true, for some adequate proof does exist. If the ob-
jections adduced are in themselves considered sufficient to re-
move the three, they cannot be urged against the fourth, for
that would prove too much, namely, that there is no adequate
proof. If insufficient, they must then be shown to be so on
other grounds, or else we can always reply, one supposition
is true, apd it must be the fourth, because it cannot be one
or another of the first three.
We deny the assertion, that the arguments against the three
apply with equal force against the fourth. We begin with Dr.
Lynch's argument against the first supposition, that every
individual is to decide for himself on the strength of his own
examination. This is utterly impossible ; for the bulk of man-
TO DR. LYNCH.
,
kind want the ability, the leisure, and the opportunity to acquire
the amount of science and erudition necessary to enable them
to come to an absolutely certain conclusion on the subject of the
inspiration of the Scriptures. This is evident to every one who
considers, 1. The controversies which have obtained respecting
the canon ; 2. The nature of the questions to be settled, and
what it needs to enable one to decide respecting the fact of the
inspiration of ancient books on intrinsic grounds ; 3. That every
one is required to believe the truth on the subject, not only after
a life of inquiry, and historical and scientific investigation, but
from the moment of coming to years of discretion ; and 4. The
actual condition of the generality of mankind in relation to sci-
ence and erudition. These considerations are amply sufficient
to disprove the first supposition ; for every one is commanded to
believe, and the proof, to be adequate, must be adequate in the
case of every one, of the ignorant slave and rude savage, as
well as of the learned and gifted few, of the boy or girl in
whom reason has just dawned, as well as of the scientific vete-
ran or the grey-haired scholar.
The Professor replies : The learning asserted to be necessary, if
necessary at all, must be so because the fact of inspiration in gen-
eral is not determinable without it, and therefore must be as
necessary in the body supposed as in the individual deciding for
himself. But the body must acquire it either by investigation
or by inspiration. If by investigation it has no advantage over
the individual, and whatever proves his inability applies with
equal force against its ability. If by inspiration, then it must
have the same learning to be able to determine the fact of its
own inspiration, and the people who are to receive its decision
must also have it in order to be able to judge of its inspiration.
Hence the Professor sums up triumphantly, " AVhen you shall
condescend to inform me how the Fathers of Trent could decide
with infallible certainty upon the Scriptures, without the learning
which is necessary, in your view, to understand the evidence, if
they themselves were uninspired", or how, if inspired, they could
without this learning, either be certain themselves of the fact, or
118 THORN WELL'S ANSWER
establish it with infallible certainty to the people, who, without
your learning, must judge of the inspiration of the Holy Coun-
C il 5 when, consistently with your principles, you resolve these
difficulties, one of the objections to your argument will cease. "
(p. 51.)
This is the argument in all its force. Its substance is, what-
ever difficulties there may be in the way of the method of pri-
vate judgment, precisely the same difficulties are in the way of
the body of individuals supposed, and can no more easily be
overcome by it than by the individual himself. This is the
common Protestant reply to our objections against the method
of private judgment, and is tantamount to saying, that a man
has just the same difficulties to overcome in simply declaring
what he believes and always has believed as in determining by
personal inquiry and examination what he ought to believe ; or
that it is as easy to ascertain and verify the truth we are igno-
rant of as it is merely to express with precision the truth we
already possess and always have possessed from the first mo-
ment of our existence !
But let us examine this famous argument, which, in one form
or other, is the great, and virtually the only, argument by which
Protestants seek to evade the force of the objections of Catho-
lics to their scheme of proof. Dr. Lynch asserts that a certain
amount of science and erudition is necessary to enable an indi-
vidual, on the strength of his own examination, to come to an
absolutely certain decision on the fact of the inspiration of an
ancient writing, whose inspiration is determinable, not on ex-
trinsic, but mainly on intrinsic grounds. Then, says the Profes-
sor, the same amount is necessary to enable an inspired indi-
vidual to judge of the evidence of his own inspiration. But this
conclusion can follow only from the assumption, that the evi-
dence of inspiration must be the same for the inspired and the
uninspired. If you make the evidence mediate in the uninspir-
ed, you must also make it mediate in the inspired ; and if im-
mediate in the inspired, then also immediate in the uninspired.
But it is not mediate in the inspired ; for, unquestionably, he
TO DR. LYNCH. 119
who inspires immediately evidences the fact to the one he in-
spires. How, then, contend for mediate evidence in the unin-
spired ? Grant this reasoning, and the author condemns him-
self. The evidence is immediate, and yet he has written a book
to settle the question by argument and erudition, both of which
are mediate. He has, on this hypothesis, evidently proved
nothing ; for he has offered inappropriate evidence, and must be
mistaken when he says that he has proved the books enumer-
ated to be " corrupt additions to the word of God. "
Again ; the Professor asserts, that, if the learning alleged be
necessary in the particular case, it is so because the fact of in-
spiration is determinable in no case without it, that is, that a
thing cannot be true in the particular unless it be true in the
universal, as if one should say, some men cannot be black,
because all men are not black; or, some are black, therefore
all men are black 1 We presume Mr. Thornwell's servant is a
black man ; therefore, he himself is a black man. The prin-
ciple the Professor adopts is, not only that what is true of the
genus must be true of the species, but, also, that what is true
of the species must be true of the genus. Thus, man is an ani-
mal ; but a goose is an animal ; therefore, man is a goose ;
or, a goose is an animal ; but man is an animal ; therefore, a
goose is a man. But the principle, if adopted, carries us farther
yet. It is the denial of all differentia, the fundamental error
of Spinozism or pantheism. Thus, under the genus substance,
God is substance ; but a moss is substance ; therefore, God is a
moss, or reverse it, and a moss is God ! Is this a principle to
be adopted by a Professor of " the Evidences of Christianity "
in so respectable an institution as the South Carolina College ?
Has the Professor yet to make his philosophy, as well as his
theology ?
But, evidently, there is a difference of species ; for the Pro-
fessor would take it as unkind, nay, uncivil, in us, if, because
he comes under the genus animal, as does every man, we should
insist on including him in the species goose. It cannot there-
fore, follow, that, because a thing is true in the particular, it
120 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
must be true in the universal. Consequently, Dr. Lynch may
assert that a certain amount of science and erudition is nec-
essary to decide on a particular fact by a particular agent,
on particular grounds, and yet not be obliged to concede that
the same amount 13 necessary in every case, whoever the agent,
and whatever the grounds on which he is to decide. The
amount alleged to be necessary may not be necessary in the
case of the inspired themselves to determine the fact of their
own inspiration ; it may not be necessary in the case of the
eyewitnesses of the miracles by which the inspired evidence the
fact that God speaks to and by them ; it may not be necessary
to those who receive the fact immediately from the inspired
themselves, or on the authority God himself has commissioned
to declare it ; and yet be indispensable in the case of a single
individual who has, on the strength of his own examination, to
decide whether a book written some two or three thousand
years ago is or is not an inspired composition ; as it needs no
argument to prove.
The knowledge, be it more or be it less, necessary in the case,
to determine what books are and what are not inspired, must be
possessed by the body supposed, as well as by the individual, we
concede ; and if that body is destitute of it and has it to learn,
it must learn it either from investigation or inspiration, we also
concede ; otherwise we deny it. But the body asserted in the
hypothesis is, by the very terms of the supposition, already in
possession of the truth, and of all the knowledge necessary to
declare it, and, in deciding the question, has only to declare
solemnly what it already holds and has held from the moment
of its institution. Therefore, it has to acquire the knowledge
neither by investigation nor by inspiration ; for it has not to ac-
quire it at all. Unless, then, the Professor chooses to maintain
that to declare what one already holds directly from our Lord
or his Apostles is the same thing as for an individual ignorant
of it to learn it by the examination of historical documents and
scientific investigation, he must concede that the parity he seeks
to establish between every individual deciding the fact of inspir-
-
TO DR. LYNCH. 121
ation on the strength of his own examination, and the Church,
or body of teachers supposed, doing it on the authority of our
Lord and his Apostles, from whom it received it immediately,
has no foundation except in his own fancy, and that the conclu-
sions whicli depend upon it fall to the ground.
The Professor's reasoning is vitiated by his supposing a body
of individuals totally different from that supposed in the hypoth-
esis he is arguing against. The body he supposes is no body
or corporation at all ; but a simple aggregation of individuals
who at any given time compose it. Between such a body and
the Apostles there must needs be all the distance of time and
space, that there is between the Apostles and the individuals
themselves. It would and it could possess only what the indi-
viduals composing it should bring to it, and they could bring to
it only what they acquire in their individual capacity. " The
mere fact of human congregation," as the Professor rightly con-
tends, could confer no power, beyond the aggregate power of the
individuals congregated. Hence the aggregate body, or collec-
tion of individuals, as well as the single individual, would need
to obtain, either by investigation or inspiration, the knowledge
necessary to come to an infallible decision. It needed no learned
professor to tell us all this, which is by no means beyond the
reach of any man of ordinary sense. Indeed, we feel humbled
when we find learned men bringing such objections to us, hum-
bled for ourselves, that they can think so meanly of our under-
standings as to suppose us capable of holding any thing against
which objections so obvious even to a child may be urged, and
humbled for them, that they should imagine, that, in bringing
such objections, they are telling something recondite, or that it
is possible that such objections can have any power to demolish
that lofty and spacious edifice, the Church, founded upon the
rock, firmly built and cemented, which has withstood all the
assaults of wicked men and devils for eighteen hundred years,
and against which the gates of hell shall never prevail, not even
to loosen a single stone or to detach a single tile.
But this body, this aggregate of individuals, is not the body
6
122
supposed by Dr. Lynch, and to prove that this has no advantage
over the individual is nothing to the purpose, for nobody cer-
tainly no Catholic, denies it. The Professor's argument is a sheer
paralogism, of that species which consists in proving what is not
supposed in the question, and which is not denied by the adver-
sary, a sophism for which the learned Professor has a peculiar
fondness, and into which he falls with remarkable facility. The
body supposed by Dr. Lynch is the Church teaching ; for he says,
" the pastors of the Catholic Church claim to compose it." But
the Catholic Church, as a body or corporation, the only sense in
which it is alleged to have any teaching faculty at all, is not an
aggregation of individuals who at any given time compose it,
a body born and dying with them ; but the contemporary of
our Lord and his Apostles, in immediate communion with them,
and thus annihilating all distance of time and place between
them and us. She is, in the sense supposed, a corporation, and,
like every corporation, a collective individual possessing the attri-
bute of immortality. She knows no interruption, no succession
of moments, no lapse of years. Like the eternal God, who is
ever with her, and whose organ she is, she has duration, but no
succession. She can never grow old, can never fall into the past.
The individuals who compose the body may change, but she
changes not ; one by one they may pass off, and one by one be
renewed, while she continues ever the same ; as in our own bod-
ies, old particles constantly escape, and new ones are assimilated,
so that the whole matter of which they are composed is changed
once in every six or seven years, and yet they remain always iden-
tically the same bodies. These changes as to individuals change
nothing as to the body. The Church to-day is identically that
very body which saw our Lord when he tabernacled in the flesh.
She who is our dear Mother, and on whose words we hang with
so much delight, beheld with her own eyes the stupendous mir-
acles which were performed in Judea eighteen hundred years
ago ; she assisted at the preaching of the Apostles on the day
of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost descended upon them in
cloven tongues of fire ; she heard St. Peter, the prince of the
TO DR. LYNCH. 123
Apostles, relate how the Spirit descended upon Cornelius and his
household, and declare how God had chosen that by his mouth
the Gentiles should hear the word of God and believe ; she list-
tened with charmed ear and ravished heart to the last admo-
nition of " the disciple whom Jesus loved," " My dear children,
love one another ; " she saw the old Temple razed to the ground,
the legal rites of the old covenant abolished, and the once chosen
people driven out from the Holy Land, and scattered over all
the earth ; she beheld pagan Rome in the pride and pomp of
power, bled under her persecuting emperors, and finally planted
the cross in triumph on her ruins. She has been the contem-
porary of eighteen hundred years, which she has arrested in
their flight and made present to us, and will make present to all
generations as they rise. With one hand she receives the de-
positum of faith from the Lord and his commissoned Apostles,
with the other she imparts it to us. Such is the body supposed,
between which and the individual Mr. Thornwell must establish
the parity he contends for, or not establish it at all. What has
this body to do, in order to decide what books are, and what are
not, inspired 1 Merely to declare a simple fact which she has
received on competent authority, merely what our Lord or his
Apostles have told her. What needs she, in order to do it with
infallible certainty ? Simply protection against forgetting, mis-
understanding, and misstating ; and this she has, because she
has, according to the hypothesis, our Lord always abiding with
her, and the Paraclete, who leads her into all truth, and " brings
to her remembrance " all the words spoken to her by our Lord
himself personally, or by his inspired Apostles, keeping her
memory always fresh, rendering her infallible assistance rightly
to understand and accurately to express what she remembers to
have been taught. Here are all the conditions requisite for an
infallible decision ; and all these must be supposed, because they
are all asserted in the hypothesis.
Now we demand what parity there is between such a body,
which has only to state what it believes and always has believed
on the inspiration of Scripture, and which has the supernatural
24 THORN WELL'S ANSWER
assistance of tlie Holy Ghost to state it infallibly, and an indi-
vidual who has nothing but certain writings before him, and who
has to determine, by the examination of documents and scien-
tific investigation of the intrinsic evidences, whether they are
inspired or not, a fact which, since it is supernatural, lies out
of the order of nature, and is therefore only extrinsically prov-
able. Who so blinded by passion, by pride, by prejudice, or
ignorance, as to pretend, that such a body, supposing it to exist,
can no more come to a certain conclusion, is in no better con-
dition for coming to a certain conclusion, on the fact of the in-
spiration of the Holy Scriptures, than an ignorant slave on our
plantations, or a rude savage of our forests ? Who is he ? In-
deed, it is the learned Presbyterian minister, the " Professor of
Sacred Literature and the Evidences of Christianity in the Soutli
Carolina College ! " It is evident to any man of ordinary sense,
that such a body can decide the question infallibly, and equally
evident that the ignorant slave or the rude savage cannot.
To the dilemma, therefore, in which the Professor affects to
have placed his Catholic opponent, we reply : The Council of
Trent could, uninspired, but simply assisted by the Holy Ghost,
decide with infallible certainty upon the inspiration of the Scrip-
tures, without the learning necessary in the case of the individual
deciding for himself on the strength of his own examination, be-
cause it had only to give an authoritative expression to the actual
faith of the body of pastors it represented, and it could estab-
lish the infallibility of its expression to the people who were to
receive it, because, to do so, it had only to establish that it did
express the universal faith of that body, easily collected from its
being received by the whole body as soon as made known. The
other part of the dilemma falls of itself. We do not assume,
nor are we obliged to assume, that the Fathers of Trent were
inspired. Inspiration is needed only where the truth to be pro-
mulgated is unknown and has to be revealed : where nothing is
to be done but infallibly state the truth already revealed and
believed, the infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost, without
inspiration, suffices.
TO DR. LYNCH. 125
We have here shown that the difficulties suggested are r*>
solvable on Catholic principles; the Professor must therefore
concede, according, to his promise, that one objection to Dr.
Lynch's argument ceases. But this one objection is his only
objection to that argument, so far as it bears against the first-
named method ; and since this is removed, the argument, thus
far, is not refuted. If not refuted, it, at least against the Pro-
fessor, is sound, and, then, the first method is destroyed, and
Dr. Lynch is entitled to his conclusion against it.
There remain to be considered the second and third supposi-
tions. The second, that of relying on the judgment of the
learned, the Professor passes over in profound silence, and
therefore yields it up as indefensible. It is remarkable, how-
ever, that Mr. Thorn well should do so ; for it is really the
method actually adopted by the majority of Protestants, and
abandoning it is virtually abandoning Protestantism itself. Un-
doubtedly, Protestants assert private judgment ; but the private
judgment on which they actually rely is not the private judg-
ment of each individual, but the private judgment of those
assumed to be learned and wise and prudent. Protestantism
must never be taken at its word ; for one of its essential prop-
erties is, to profess one thing and to do another, or to give us
the name without the thing, the sign without the thing signi-
fied. Whoever knows Protestants at all knows that they take
their opinions, not on their own private judgment, but on the
authority of their masters. Whenever they do not do so, we
find them becoming downright Rationalists, or absolute apos-
tates from Christianity ; and it is never, only as grouped around
some leader, swearing by the words of some master, that we
see them retain anything of the form of religion, or present any
compact appearance. The people are aware of their own ina-
bility to decide for themselves what they ought to believe, and
they only decide what heresiarch they will follow, what master
they will have. Thus they say, " So said Martin Luther, so
said John Calvin, or George Fox ; so teach Edwards and
Dwight, Owen and Gill, Wesley and Swedenborg, Murray and
126
Ballon, Charming and Fourier, Emerson and Parker." It is not
in himself the poor Protestant confides, but in some leader who
seems to him, for his learning, wisdom, and sound judgment,
worthy of confidence. If here and there a bold, energetic indi-
vidual starts up with perfect confidence in his own judgment,
arid has the courage or the audacity to proclaim, as the truth
of God, his own personal conceits or convictions, he either
founds a new sect, or a new party or faction in the sect, to
which he pertains ; as we see in the instance of Muncer and
George Fox, Brown ancl Sandeman, Wesley and Whitefield,
Erskine and Irving, Southcote and Pusey, Campbell and Bush-
nell, Channing and Parker. If each judged for himself, we
should see no sects, parties, or groups ; each would stand
alone, on his own two feet, acknowledging no master, and no
fellow, saying always 7, never able to say we.
This must needs be. How, except by relying on such men
as Mr. Thornwell, could the great body of Presbyterians, for
instance, come to any conclusion on the question discussed in
the volume before us ? In fact, they do not attempt to ob-
tain a conclusion by any other means. "Mr. Thornwell is a
godly man ; he is a great and learned man ; he has investigated
the subject ; he wont deceive us ; and we will believe what he
says." Here is the fact, disguise it as you will, and Mr. Thorn-
well knows it as well as we do. We must, therefore, regard his
passing this method over in silence as a tacit confession that in
his judgment Protestantism is not defensible.
Nevertheless, we cannot be much surprised that Mr. Thorn-
well passes this method over in silence. It is not a method to
be avowed. Protestant ministers would have a short lease of
their power, if they were to avow it. They would be pressed
with a multitude of questions, which it would be very incon-
venient to answer. " After all, " the justly indignant people
whom they have led might say, " this private judgment you
preached was only a pretext, a bait to catch gudgeons. You
never meant it ; you only meant that we must submit our judg-
ments to yours ! Is it true that you monopolize all the learning,
TO DR. LYNCH. 127
all the wisdom, all the judgment, in the world? What guaran-
ty can you give us, fallible men as you confess yourselves, that
you yourselves are not deceived, nay, that you are incapable
of deceiving us ? You deceived us, when you promised us
the right of private judgment. What reason have we to sup-
pose you do not deceive us in other things also ? " Such ques-
tions might be put, and, if put, it is obvious that it would be
very inconvenient to answer them.
The first method is disproved ; the second is abandoned ; only
the third remains. This, that of a single individual duly com-
missioned by Almighty God to announce the fact of inspiration
to the world, the Professor does not attempt to defend as true,
or as one which he does or can hold ; but he maintains, that^
on Catholic principles, it is probable, and therefore Dr. Lynch
is entitled only to a probable conclusion, not sufficient for his
purpose, because he must conclude with absolute certainty. The
Professor concludes, that, on Catholic principles, this hypoth-
esis is probable, from the fact, that, on Catholic principles, it
is a probable opinion that the Pope is infallible. But his argu-
ment involves a transition from one genus to another, and there-
fore concludes nothing. The single individual asserted in the
hypothesis is commissioned in his individual capacity to an-
nounce the fact, and it is in this capacity that he is to do it.
But such a commissioned individual is not the Pope, or Sov-
ereign Pontiff. No Catholic holds the Pope in his individual
capacity to be infallible. He is infallible, as we hold, and as
we presume Dr. Lynch also holds ; but only in his capacity
of Supreme Head of the Church, in which sense he is included
in the fourth hypothesis, as joined to the body of individuals
asserted, inseparable from it, and essential to it. Concede, then,
the infallibility of the Sovereign Pontiff, nothing is conceded in
favor of the third method ; for in the sense in which he is infal-
lible he is the Church, or essentially included in the fourth
method ; since the head is not without the body, nor the body
without the head.
The third method, then, is not the method. Then no one
128
of the first three. Then the fourth is ; because some method
of proof does exist, and it can be no other. Mr. Thornwell,
therefore, has not refuted Dr. Lynch's argument. If he has
not refuted it, against him, it stands good. Then the method
of proof is the body supposed. But this body has author-
ity to make an unerring decision on the subject of inspiration,
that is, to declare unerringly what is or is not the word of
God, therefore infallible in declaring the word of God. But
this body is composed of the pastors of the Catholic Church.
Therefore the pastors of the Church are infallible in declaring
the word of God, the proposition Dr. Lynch undertook to prove.
It would seern from this, that the learned and logical Professor's
shouts of victory were decidedly premature. It is- clear, also,
since we are not considering what is or is not possible in the
abstract, but in hac providentia, that the whole controversy
turns between the first method and the fourth ; for the private
spirit is not admissible, and the Professor does not defend the
second, and cannot, and would not if he could, defend the third.
It is, then, either private judgment or the Catholic Church. So
the Professor virtually concedes or maintains. What, therefore,
he further adduces in his Fourth Letter, namely, that it is as easy
to prove the inspiration of the Scriptures as the infallibility of
the Church, cannot be entertained. There does exist some ade-
quate proof; this is conceded. It evidently cannot be the
method of private judgment ; for it is absolutely impossible for
a field slave, for instance, ignorant of letters, and with no time
or ability to learn, to be able to decide for himself, on his own
examination, whether Tobias or JEcclesiasticus is or is not an
inspired composition. But, if not private judgment, it must be
the infallible Church, and therefore the Church and its infalli-
bility follow from the necessity of the case. This necessity
overrides every possible objection. Bring as many objections
as you please, and we dismiss them, as proving, if any thing,
too much, and therefore nothing. Quod nimis probat, nihil
probat.
Thus far we have confined ourselves, after stating the ques-
TO DR. LYNCH. *29
tion> to showing that the Professor has not refuted Dr. Lynch &
argument for the infallibility of the Church. This has-been
perfectly gratuitous on our part, for the burden of proof is on
the Professor. But having vindicated Dr. Lynch's argument
for the infallibility of the Church, we are now able to conclude
it against Mr. Thornwell from the necessity of the case, the
strongest argument that it is possible to use. Infallibility over-
rides all objections ; and consequently, the Professor, let him do
his best, cannot prove the fallibility of the Church. Here, then,
we well might rest ; but we find our author rather an amusing
companion, and we should be sorry to part company with him
so soon. We hope, therefore, to be able, in an early number,
to consider the direct proofs of the fallibility of the Church,
which he has attempted to bring. In the meantime, we recom-
mend him, since he must hold his logical reputation dear, to
make himself acquainted with Catholicity, before attempting
again to write against it, and review also his logic, before he
again asks his opponent to reason in syllogisms.
THORNWELL'S ANSWER TO DR. LYNCH.*
JULY, 1848.
MR. THORNWELL begins his argument against the Church
(Letter IV.) by asserting, in substance, that we are unable to
prove her infallibility, or if able, only by a process which super-
sedes the necessity of an infallible church to determine what is
or is not the word of God. " It is just as easy," he says, " to
prove the inspiration of the Scriptures as the infallibility of
* The Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament proved to be Corrupt
Additions to the Word of God. The Arguments of Romanists from
the Infallibility of the Church and the Testimony of the Fathers in
Behalf of the Apocrypha discussed and refuted. By JAMES H.
THORNWELL. New York : Leavitt, Trow, & Co. Boston : Charles
Tappan. 1845. 16mo. pp. 417.
130 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
any church." The evidence for both " is of precisely the same
nature/' The infallibility of the Church "the inspiration of
Rome," as he improperly expresses it " turns upon a promise
which is said to have been made nearly two thousand years ago ;
the inspiration of the New Testament turns upon facts which are
said to have transpired at the same time. Both the promise
and the facts are to be found, if found at all, in this very New
Testament." You must prove its credibility, or you cannot prove
the promise ; and if you prove its credibility, you prove the facts.
Therefore " you cannot make out the historical proofs of Papal
infallibility without making out at the same time the historical
proofs of Scriptural inspiration." Consequently, if you contend
that the proofs are insufficient for the inspiration, you deny their
sufficiency for the infallibility, and then cannot assert your infal-
lible Church ; if you say they are sufficient for the infallibility,
you concede their sufficiency for the inspiration, and then do not
need your infallible Church to determine what is or is not the
word of God. (pp. 57-65.)
But Dr. Lynch proves, as we have seen in our former article,
and as is sufficiently evident without proof to every one of ordin-
ary reflection, that it is morally impossible to determine, with
absolute certainty, what Scriptures are or are not inspired, except
by the infallible Church. To assert, after this, that the infallible
Church itself is provable only by proving Scriptural inspiration,
is only asserting, in other words, that no adequate proof of what
is or is not inspired Scripture exists. But some adequate method
does exist, as Dr. Lynch proves, and Mr. Thornwell concedes.
This method, if not private judgment, is the infallible Church,
as he also virtually concedes ; for private illumination is not a
method of proof, since, if a fact, it is not a fact that can be ad-
duced in evidence ; and the other two methods supposed, namely,
the judgment of the learned, and the single individual commis-
sioned by Almighty God to announce the fact of inspiration to
the world, he either abandons or cannot assert. The method,
then, is either the infallible Church, or private judgment. It
cannot be private judgment, if the objections urged against it be
TO DR. LYNCH. 131
conceded. To attempt, without answering these objections, to
show that equal objections bear against the Church, is, for the
purposes of the argument at least, to concede them, and there-
fore to prove, if any thing, that no adequate method of proof
exists, which is not allowable. As long, then, as private judg-
ment remains unrelieved of the objections which declare it an
impossible and therefore an unsupposable method, the argument
proves too much for the Professor as well as for us, and conse-
quently nothing.
This answers sufficiently Mr. Thornwell's reasoning, as far as
it is intended to bear against Dr. Lynch's argument for infalli-
bility from the necessity of the case. But we have a higher
purpose in view than the simple vindication of Dr. Lynch, or the
formal refutation of Professor Thorn well, and will therefore waive
this reply and meet the reasoning on its intrinsic merits. Mr.
Thornwell's conclusion rests on two assumptions : 1. That in
order to establish the infallibility of the Church, Catholics are
obliged to establish the credibility of the New Testament ; and
2. That the credibility of the New Testament, when established,
is all that is needed to establish Scriptural inspiration, that is,
to settle the question what Scriptures are and what are not in-
spired. Both of these assumptions we deny.
1. In order to establish the infallibility of the Church, it is
not necessary to establish the credibility of the New Testament.
All that is needed to establish the infallibility is the miraculous
origin of the Church. If she had a miraculous origin, she was
founded by Almighty God ; for none but God can work a mir-
acle. If founded by Almighty God, she is his Church and
speaks by his authority ; therefore infallibly ; for God can au-
thorize only infallible truth. In order to make out the miracu-
lous origin of the Church, we are not obliged to recur to the
New Testament at all ; we can do it, and are accustomed to do
it, when arguing with avowed unbelievers, without any reference
to the authority of the Scriptures, either as inspired or as simple
historical documents. We do it by taking the Church as we
find her to-day, existing as an historical fact, and tracing her up,
132
step by step, through the succession of ages, till we ascend to
her original Founder. The extraordinary nature of her claims,
uniformly put forth, and steadily acted upon from the first ; her
various institutions, professing to embody facts, which could not
in the nature of things have sprung from no facts, or from facts
pertaining exclusively to the natural order ; the external history
which runs parallel to hers ; the relation held to her from the
beginning by the Jewish and pagan worlds, and by the various
heresies in each succeeding age from the Gnostics down to the
followers of the Mormon prophet ; all these combined prove
in the most incontestable manner her supernatural character,
and triumphantly establish the fact that her Founder must have
had miraculous powers, and she a miraculous origin.
Undoubtedly, the infallibility of the Church turns, in the argu-
ment, upon a promise made nearly two thousand years ago ; but
it is not true that the promise must necessarily be found only in
the New Testament. A promise may be expressed in acts as
well as in words, in the fact as well as in its record. The prom-
ise we rely upon is expressed in the miraculous origin of the
Church, and is concluded from it on the principle, that the effect
may be concluded from the cause, if the cause be known. In
the natural order, God, in giving to a being a certain nature,
promises that being all that it needs to attain the end of that
nature. So in the supernatural order, in creating a supernatural
being, he promises it all the powers, assistance, means, and con-
ditions necessary to enable it to discharge its supernatural func-
tions, or to gain the supernatural end to which he appoints it.
In supernaturally founding the Church to teach his word, he
therefore promises her infallibility in teaching it: because the
function of teaching the word of God cannot be discharged with-
out it.
2. But even if we were obliged as we are not and cannot
be to assert the credibility of the New Testament in order to
make out our historical proofs, it would not be that credibility
which would suffice to establish Scriptural inspiration, nor should
we be obliged to make out any facts from which Scriptural inspir-
TO DR. LYNCH. 133
ation could be immediately concluded. As all we have to make
out is the miraculous origin of the Church, and as this is made
out, if the fact of the miracles of our Lord is established, all that,
in any case, we could need to do, in regard to the credibility of
the New Testament, would be to make out its credibility so far
as requisite to establish this fact. We do not want the New
Testament to prove the miraculousness of the facts, for that fol-
lows from the facts themselves ; nor to accredit as teachers or
witnesses those by or in favor of whom Almighty God performs
the miracles, for that follows from the miraculousness ; we can,
at most, need it only for the purpose of proving that the miracles,
in their quality of simple historical facts, actually occurred. For
this simple historical testimony is sufficient, and consequently
the simple historical credibility of the New Testament, as far as *
needed to authorize us to assert that the miracles actually took
place, is all that it can even be pretended that we must make
out. The New Testament is not one book, but a collection of
books by different authors, each resting on its own independent
merits, and the proof of the credibility of one does by no means
establish the credibility of the rest. The most we can need for
our purpose is the historical credibility of one of the Four Gos-
pels, say the Gospel according to St. Matthew ; for that Gospel
records all the facts necessary to establish the miraculous origin
of the Church. Consequently, all the credibility of the New
Testament we can, in any case, be required to establish, is the
historical credibility of St. Matthew's Gospel.
This Gospel may be perfectly credible as an historical docu-
ment, without being inspired. The facts to be taken on its author-
ity, though supernatural as to their cause, are within the natural
order as to their evidence, and as easily proved as any other class
of historical facto. They fall under the senses, and require in
their witnesses only ordinary sense and ordinary honesty. To
the trustworthiness of their historian, who, in recording them,
has only to give a faithful narrative of what has transpired be-
fore his eyes, or what he has collected from the testimony of
eyewitnesses, nothing beyond the ordinary human faculties can
134 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
be requisite. Hence, many Protestants maintain the credibility
of the Evangelical History, and yet deny the inspiration of the
Gospels. We have by us a learned and elaborate work, in
which the author, who, for learning and ability, ranks second to
no Protestant theologian in the country, maintains, on the author-
ity of the Pentateuch, the inspiration of Moses, and the divine
origin of the Mosaic law, and yet denies the inspiration of the
Pentateuch itself. Indeed, if none but inspired documents could
be cited as credible authority for historical facts, human history
would need to be closed at once, and Mr. Thornwell would find
himself shut out from all means of establishing the historical
objections he urges with so much zest, in the volume before us,
against the Church ; for undeniably, he can cite no inspired
Scripture for them. It is not prudent for an author to take a
ground which must prove more fatal to himself than to his op-
ponent.
This fact, namely, that we need only the historical credibility
of the New Testament at most, seems not to have sufficiently
arrested Mr. Thorn well's attention ; or if it has, he must have
too hastily concluded that the same order of credibility which is
sufficient for the miracles is also sufficient for the inspiration.
He proceeds, apparently, on the assumption, either that simple
historical credibility is sufficient to establish the inspiration
of the Scriptures, or that we need supernatural credibility to
establish the miracles. Thus, he asks :
" If the books of the New Testament are to be received as credi-
ble testimony to the miracles of Christ, why not on the subject of
their own inspiration ? Are you not aware that the great his-
torical argument on which Protestants rely in proving the inspir-
ation of the Scriptures presupposes only the genuineness of the
books and the credibility of their authors ? They assert it
[their own inspiration], and [if credible] are to be believed
I had thought that the only difficulty in making out the external
proofs of inspiration was in establishing the credibility of the
books which profess to be inspired. It had struck me, that, if
it were once settled that their own testimony was to be received,
the matter was at an end. But it seems now that . . . . it is still
TO DR. LYNCH. 135
doubtful whether, in the way of private judgment, a man could
ever be assured that credible books are to be believed on the
subject of their origin :" pp. 62, 63.
This reasoning involves a transition a specie ad speciem.
Credible books are certainly to be believed within the order of
credibility which they are proved or conceded to possess, but
not within an order which transcends or rises above it ; for nothing
can transcend itself, and the conclusion must be in the order of
the premises, or the argument is a fallacy. The credibility of
the New Testament which we assert, or which it is contended we
are obliged to assert, is simply historical credibility, or credibility
in the natural order ; but the credibility the Professor needs, to
establish the inspiration, is credibility in the supernatural order ;
for inspiration pertains, undeniably, to the supernatural order,
both as to its cause and as to the medium of its proof. There-
fore we may receive the books as credible testimony to the
miracles, and not on the subject of their own inspiration.
Mr. Thorn well evidently reasons on the assumption, that we
cannot assert the credibility of the New Testament in relation
to the miracles without asserting it in relation to the inspiration.
That is, a witness cannot be credible at all, unless he is univer-
sally credible, and he who receives his testimony in one order
binds himself to receive it in every order ; if he receives it in one
respect, he must in every respect ; in matters of fact, then also
in matters of opinion ! But this is too extravagant for any man
in his sober senses seriously to maintain. If this were once
admitted, there would speedily be an end to human testimony,
and our Presbyterian friend would find himself in a sad plight ;
for his sole dependence is on private judgment, and he can pre-
tend to nothing better than human testimony for his religious
belief. No witness, unless absolutely omniscient, is or can be
universally credible ; and as no man is absolutely omniscient, it
follows, if no one can be credible under one relation without
being credible under every relation, that no one can in any
respect be credible at all. But we cannot concede this. Every
day, in every court of law, in all the practical affairs of life in
136 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
which there is an appeal to human testimony, we act, and are
obliged to act, on the supposition, that a man may be credible
in relation to some things without being credible in relation to
all things.
Every body knows that a witness may be perfectly credible in
testifying to facts which fall under the observation of his senses,
and yet be deserving of no credit in relation to his opinions, his
judgments, his views, or his explanations of the causes of the
facts to which he testifies. Nothing hinders, then, a man from
being a credible witness to the facts recorded in the New Testa-
ment, even though he should assert and believe himself inspired
when in point of fact he was not ; for in testifying to the facts
he testifies to what has come under his senses, while in assert-
ing his inspiration he is merely giving an opinion, or offering an
explanation of certain facts or phenomena of his own internal
experience. The erroneous opinion or explanation does not im-
pair his credibility as a witness to the facts, if his error is one
which he may innocently entertain. That a man can innocently
believe himself divinely inspired when he is not can hardly admit
of a doubt. A man so believing is, by the very terms of the
supposition, uninspired. He is then, since inspiration is a super-
natural fact, necessarily ignorant of inspiration, unacquainted
with its phenomena, and destitute of the necessary criterion for
determining what it is or what it is not. What more natural,
then, than that he should mistake certain phenomena of his
own experience, otherwise inexplicable to him, for those of in-
spiration, and thus honestly believe himself inspired, when in
reality he is uninspired ?
The Professor argues on the assumption, common to all en-
thusiasts, that no man can honestly mistake the origin or cause
of the phenomena of his own internal experience, and therefore,
that, when one says he is inspired, we must believe either that
he actually is inspired or that he is a liar, a wilful deceiver,
whose word is to be received on no subject whatever. There is
no reason for this assumption. He who is inspired, undoubted-
ly, knows the fact, and is as incapable of being deceived in
TO DR. LYNCH. 137
relation to it as he is of deceiving others ; but from this it by no
means follows that a man who is not inspired must always
know that he is not. Inspiration is, sometimes, at least, neces-
sary to enable us to determine what is not inspiration, as well as
to determine what is. He is little versed in the natural history
of enthusiasm, who has yet to learn that honest men, men of
rare gifts and inflexible principles, whose word on any subject
.within the range of sensible observation we would not hesitate
a moment to take, not unfrequently labor under the impression
that they hold immediate intercourse with the Almighty, are
inspired, or divinely illuminated, when such is far from being
the fact. Witness, for instance, Jacob Boehmen, George Fox,
and Emanuel Swedenborg. These men are not inspired, nor
are they liars. They do not intend to deceive, and are not even
deceived themselves as to the facts of their internal experience,
from which they infer their inspiration ; they are deceived only
in their opinions, their judgments of those facts, the explanations
of them which they adopt, or the origin and cause which they
assign them. Who dare pretend that this destroys their credi-
bility in relation to simple matters of fact, evident to their senses ?
They do not mistake, they only misinterpret, the facts of their
own consciousness ; and who may not do as much ? All men,
however trustworthy they may be as witnesses to sensible facts,
unless supernaturally protected from error, are liable, as is well
known, to err in their judgments, in their explanations of phe-
nomena, in relation to the origin and causes of things, and in
relation to the origin and causes of their own internal experience
as well as of other things.
The Professor falls into the common mistake of Protestants ;
that the inspiration of a genuine book, by an author proved to
be historically credible, may be concluded from its own declara-
tion. We say he falls into this mistake ; for we cannot suppose
that he falls into the still grosser one of supposing that we can
prove the miracles only by a supernaturally credible witness,
since that would deny that Christianity itself can be proved,
nay, that any thing supernatural is or can be provable, and
138 THORN WELL'S ANSWER
therefore that man is or can be the subject of a supernatural
revelation. If the miracles cannot be proved without a super-
naturally credible witness, the supernatural credibility of the
witness will in turn demand another supernaturally credible wit-
ness to establish it, and this another, and thus on ad infinitum.
We should need an infinite series of supernatural witnesses in
order to establish the supernatural. But an infinite series is an
infinite absurdity.
As we cannot suppose the Professor ignorant of the absurdity
into which he would fall, if he contended for the necessity of
any thing more than ordinary historical credibility to establish
the miracles, we must suppose him to hold that ordinary his-
torical credibility is sufficient to establish the inspiration of the
Scriptures, in case they declare their own inspiration. But the
inspiration of a genuine book, historically credible, cannot be
concluded from its own declaration ; because inspiration, being
a supernatural fact, falling in no sense, as do the miracles, within
the natural order, can be proved only by a supernaturally cred-
ible witness, which a merely historically credible witness is not.
Before, from the declaration of the book, the Professor can
conclude its inspiration, he must prove its author a credible wit-
ness to the supernatural. But no witness is a credible witness
to the supernatural, unless he is himself inspired or divinely
commissioned. The witness is not credible, unless competent.
In ordinary cases, a witness may be competent, and not credible ;
but in no case can he be credible, if incompetent. No witness,
unless inspired or divinely commissioned, is competent to testify
to the supernatural. The witness is not competent, unless he
can intellectually attain to or take cognizance of that to which
he is to testify. But no witness can intellectually attain to or
take cognizance of the supernatural, which, by the fact that it
is supernatural, transcends all natural intellect, without some-
thing more than natural intellect ; that is, without supernatural
illumination or assistance, precisely what is meant by being
inspired or divinely commissioned. Therefore the Professor
cannot conclude the inspiration from the mere historical cred-
TO DR. LYNCH. 139
ibility of the witness, and must prove the author to be inspired,
or divinely commissioned, before, from its own declaration, he
can conclude a given book is inspired Scripture.
Now, since in making out our historical proofs the most which
it can be pretended that we must do is to make out the histori-
cal credibility of the books of the New Testament, or the credi-
bility of their authors, in their quality of author, merely in rela-
tion to the natural order, it is not true, even in case we must
appeal for our facts to the New Testament, that we cannot make
out the historical proofs of the infallibility of the Church, with-
out making out at the same time the historical proofs of the
inspiration of the Scriptures ; for we are not obliged to assert
the credibility of the New Testament in relation to the super-
natural, the sense in which it must be asserted in order to be
credible authority for its own inspiration.
Nor, waiving this, do we, in making out the credibility which
we are supposed to be under the necessity of making out, es-
tablish any facts from which the inspiration of the New Testa-
ment can be immediately concluded. The Professor himself
says the Protestant argument "presupposes the genuineness of
the books and the credibility of their authors." In addition,
then, to the credibility of the authors, it is necessary, in order
to establish the inspiration, to establish the genuineness of the
books ; that is, that they were actually written by the persons
whose names they bear, and have come down to us in their pur-
ity and integrity. Now this, even if we must make out the cred-
ibility of the New Testament, we are not obliged to make out.
An historical document may be authoritative without being gen-
uine. If it contains a faithful narrative of facts as they occured,
it is sufficient for the ordinary purposes of history. That the
Gospel according to St. Matthew, for instance, does contain such
a narrative, is provable, without proving its inspiration, in the
usual way of authenticating historical documents, by the nature
of the narrative itself, the quality of the facts recorded, the cir-
cumstances under which it was published or first cited, the esti-
mate in which it was held by those best qualified to judge of its
140
authority, the manner in which it was treated by those who had
an interest in discrediting it, and by reference to various con-
temporary or subsequently existing monuments, especially public
institutions implying, founded upon, or growing out of, the facts
which it professes to record. In this way we could accredit this
Gospel as an historical document, even if it had come down to
us without the author's name. Indeed, ancient historical works
in general derive but little authority from the names of theii
authors, and, other things being equal, the works of Herodotus,
Livy, and Tacitus would have no less authority than they now
have, even if they had been anonymous productions. As the
genuineness of the book is an essential element in any method
of proof of its inspiration, except that by the infallible Church,
and as we are under no necessity, prior to the Church, of prov-
ing it in the case of a single one of the books of the New
Testament, it follows that we are not obliged, in making out
the historical proofs of the infallibility of the Church, to make
out at the same time the historical proofs of the inspiration
of the Scriptures.
We can now easily expose the fallacy of Mr. Thorn well's
pretended dilemma. Assuming what we have just disproved,
he says to Dr. Lynch, in his peculiarly sweet and delicate
manner :
" Now, Sir, one of two things must be true ; either the credi-
bility of the Scriptures can be substantiated to a plain, unletter-
ed man, or it cannot. If it can be, there is no need of your
infallible body to authenticate thejr inspiration, since that matter
can be easily gathered from their own pages. If it cannot, then
your argument from the Scriptures to an Indian or negro in
favor of an infallible body is inadmissable, since he is incapable
of apprehending the premises from which your conclusion is
drawn. You have taken both horns of this dilemma, pushing
Protestants with one, and upholding Popery with the other, and
both are fatal to you. Now, as it is rather difficult to be on
both sides of the same question at the same time, you must ad-
here to one or the other. If you adhere to your first position,
that all human learning is necessary to settle the credibility of
the Scriptures, then you must seek other proofs of an infallible
TO DR. LYNCH. 141
body than those which you think you have gathered from the
Apostles A circulating syllogism proves nothing ; and
if he who establishes the credibility of the Scriptures by an
infallible body, and then establishes the infallibility of the body
from the credibility of the Scriptures, does not reason in a circle,
I am at a loss to apprehend the nature of that sophism. If you
adhere to your other position, that the accuracy of the Evangel-
ists can be easily substantiated, then your objections to private
judgment are fairly given up, and you surrender the point, that
a man can decide for himself, with absolute certainty, concern-
ing the inspiration of the Bible. Take which horn you please,
your cause is ruined ; and as you have successively chosen both,
you have made yourself as ridiculous as your reasoning is con-
temptible." pp. 64, 65.
This argument evidently involves a transition from one genus
to another. The Professor confounds in the first part of his
fancied dilemma the historical credibility, and in the second the
accuracy of the Evangelists in their account of the miracles,
with the inspiration of the Scriptures, and then concludes as if
they were all facts of the same order ; which is a sad blunder,
and little creditable to the " Professor of Sacred Literature and
the Evidences of Christianity in the South Carolina College."
Dr. Lynch does not say that it requires " all human learning to
settle the credibility of the Scripturers " in any sense in which
he can need their credibility prior to the Church ; he simply
maintains that all human learning, and perhaps more too, is
necessary to settle, with absolute certainty, by private judgment,
on intrinsic grounds, the inspiration of ancient writings, which
is a generically distinct proposition. The " accuracy of the
Evangelists," which he asserts can be substantiated to the Indian
or negro, is not the inspiration or the supernatural credibility
of the Scriptures ; but their accuracy as historians of the mir-
acles, or that the miracles which they record actually transpired.
As this accuracy does not presuppose or necessarily imply the
inspiration or the supernatural credibility of the Scriptures, noth-
ing hinders Dr. Lynch from adhering to both of the positions
he has assumed, " pushing Protestants with one, and uphold-
142
ing Popery with the other," however inconvenient it may be to
his Presbyterian adversary.
" He who establishes the credibility of the Scriptures by an
infallible body, and then establishes the infallibility of the body
from the credibility of the Scriptures, reasons in a circle," if the
credibility in both cases be taken in the name sense, we concede ;
if in different senses, we deny. But Dr. Lynch does not estab-
lish the infallibility of the Church from the credibility of the
Scriptures at all ; or if he does, it is not from their credibility in
that sense in which he contends that their credibility can be
proved only by the infallible body. The only sense in which he
can be said to establish the infallible body from the credibility of
the Scriptures is their simple historical credibility ; the sense in
which he asserts the infallible body as necessary to prove their
credibility is their credibility as inspired writings. As they can
have the former without having the latter, we may, without any
vicious circle, take the facts we need to prove the infallible body
from their historical credibility, and then take the infallible body
to prove their inspiration, or supernatural credibility, although
we are, as we have shown, under no necessity of doing so.
Does the Professor deny that we can do so ? Does he contend
that this would be to reason in a vicious circle ? What, then,
shall we say of his own reasoning for the inspiration of the New
Testament ? If he denies the distinction we have made, the
historical credibility of the New Testament and its inspiration
are one and the same thing, convertible terms. Then we re-
tort his argument. He says the infallibility of the Church
" turns upon a promise which is said to have been made nearly
two thousand years ago, the inspiration of the New Testament
turns upon facts which are said to have transpired at the same
time. Both the promise and the facts are to be found, if found
at all, in this very New Testament. " Here it is positively as-
serted that the facts which prove the inspiration can nowhere be
found but in the New Testament itself. Then they must be
taken on its credibility. But credibility and inspiration, accord-
ing to him, are one and the same thing, convertible terms.
TO DR. LYNCH. 143
Then he must take the inspiration of the New Testament to
prove the facts, and then the facts to prove the inspiration. If
this be not to reason in a circle, we are " at a loss to apprehend
the nature of that sophism."
Now one of two things must be true ; either this reasoning is
valid, or it is not. If it is, Mr. Thornwell cannot make out the
inspiration of the Scriptures ; for " a circulating syllogism proves
nothing." If it is not, he fails to refute Dr Lynch, and then is
refuted by him, as we proved in our former article. In either
case, he is refuted. " Take which horn you please, your cause
is ruined." Although the Professor says " it is rather difficult
to be on both sides of the same question at the same time," yet
he contrives to surmount the difficulty. He assumes that this
reasoning is not valid, by urging, in spite of it. his own argu-
ment for Scriptural inspiration, and that it is valid, by urging it
against Dr. Lynch. We may, then, reply to him in his own
choice language : " Take which horn you please, your cause is
ruined ; and as you have successively chosen both, you have
made yourself as ridiculous as your reasoning is contemptible."
But even this is not the worst. Mr. Thornwell's conclusion
rests on the assumption that the Scriptures declare their own
inspiration, that their inspiration " is a matter " which " may
be easily gathered from their own pages." " They assert," he
maintains, " their own inspiration, and, if credible, are to be
believed." But, granting that they declare their own inspira-
tion, we have shown that it does not necessarily follow that they
are inspired, because, to render their own testimony sufficient for
that, they must be proved to be supernatu rally credible, since
inspiration is a supernatural fact, provable only by a supernat-
ural ly credible witness, and the only credibility, if any, which the
Professor can claim for them is simple historical credibility. He
binds himself to reason from our premises, because he says we
cannot make out the historical proofs of the Church without
making out at the same time the historical proofs of inspiration.
Consequently, since the historical credibility of the Scriptures ia
all that we, at most, can be obliged to make out, it is all the
144
Professor can have as the principle from which to reason against
us. This is conclusive against him. But waiving this, waiving
the objection to the order of credibility, and giving what we do
not concede that we must make out the genuineness of the
books it is pretended we must cite, still he cannot conclude
Scriptural inspiration, because no one of the books whose histori-
cal credibility we need or can need declares its own inspira-
tion. We have shown, that for our purpose it suffices, in any
case, to establish the credibility of one of the Four Gospels as
an historical document. But no one of the Four Gospels de-
clares or intimates that it is inspired Scripture, or even asserts
the inspiration of any other of the Scriptural books. Conse-
quently, the Professor has not even its own declaration for the
inspiration of Scripture, and must be mistaken in saying that
Scriptural inspiration is a matter which " may be easily gathered
from " the pages of the Scriptures themselves.
But, adds the Professor, " you [Dr. Lynch] have yourself ad-
mitted that the teaching of the Apostles was supernaturally pro-
tected from error, and if their oral instructions were dictated
by the Holy Ghost, why should that august and glorious Visit-
ant desert them when they took the pen to accomplish the same
object when absent, which, when present, they accomplished by
the tongue ? " (p. 62.) The question is irreverent and imper-
tinent. We have no right to demand of the Holy Ghost the
reasons of what he does or does not do. It is competent for
him, if such be his pleasure, to inspire men for one thing and
not for another, to inspire them to teach and not to write, to enable
them to accomplish a given object by one method and not by
another method ; and the Professor cannot say that he does not,
because he sees no reason why he should. The Holy Ghost
may have reasons not known to the learned Professor of Sacred
Literature, <fec., in the South Carolina College.
Dr Lynch admits that the teaching of the Apostles was su-
pernaturally protected from error, and we must prove that it was,
or not prove the infallibility of the Church ; but that it there-
fore necessarily follows that they were inspired as authors, or
7
TO DR. LYNCH. 145
even as teachers, we neither admit nor are bound to admit. To
be inspired, is, undoubtedly, to be supernaturally protected from
error, but to be supernaturally protected from error is not neces-
sarily to be inspired. Every Catholic believes his Church super-
naturally protected from error ; but no one believes her to be
inspired. As all Catholics make this distinction, Dr. Lynch's
admission is no admission of inspiration even in the teaching of
the Apostles. Inspiration is necessary only when the mission is
to reveal truth ; when the mission is simply to teach a revelation
already consummated, supernatural assistance, without inspir-
ation, is all that is needed. If the mission of the Apostles wa?
simply to teach a revelation which they had received through
their personal intercourse with their Master, while he was yet
with them in the flesh, and prior to the Church, this certainty
is all that we can be required to establish, they had no need
of inspiration, either as teachers or as writers, in order to be
supernaturally protected from error. To concede or to assert
such protection, then, is not to concede or assert their inspiration.
We certainly cannot be required to make out for the Apostles
any thing more than we claim for the Church, and since all we
claim for her is supernatural protection from error in teaching a
revelation already consummated, this is all that we can be obliged
to make out for them.
Nor does the inspiration of the Apostles or of their writings
follow immediately from the facts on which we must rely in order
to prove the infallibility of the Apostles, or their supernatural
protection from error. The facts on which we do and must rely
are the miracles. These do not of themselves prove the inspir-
ation, but simply the divine commission of him by or in favor
of whom Almighty God works them, on the principle asserted
by St. Nicodemus : " Rabbi, we know thou art come a teacher
from God ; for no man can do the miracles which thou doest,
unless God be with him." The divine commission follows neces-
sarily from the miracles, and the supernatural protection from
error, or the infallibility, follows necessarily from the divine com-
mission. But the inspiration does not, because the teacher may
146
be commissioned to teach, and may teach infallibly, without being
inspired. Even Apostolic inspiration, then, cannot be immedi-
ately concluded from the facts on which we must rely ; then a
fortiori, not the writings of the Apostles. We say immediately,
for to say it can be mediately is nothing to the purpose. We
ourselves hold that the inspiration both of the Old Testament
and the New can be mediately proved, that is, through the teach-
ing of the Church, proved by the miracles to be supernaturally
protected from error.
But the Professor continues, " The Apostles themselves de-
clare their writings possessed the same authority with their oral
instructions. Peter ranks the Epistles of Paul with the Scrip-
tures of the Old Testament, which were confessed to be inspired ;
and Paul exhorts the Thessalonians to hold fast the traditions
they had received from him, either by word or epistle." (p. 62.)
That the Apostles anywhere declare their writings possess the
same authority with their oral instructions, we have not found in
any of the writings attributed to them with which we are ac-
quainted ; and if they did, it would not be sufficient, for the
question at this moment relates, not to the authority, but to the
inspiration, of the Scriptures, and it is not yet proved that even
the oral instructions of the Apostles were inspired.
The Epistles of St. Peter and of St. Paul are not admissible
testimony, because they are not included in that portion of the
New Testament whose credibility we can, in any case, be obliged
to make out. We can have no occasion for their testimony,
prior to the Church ; and as the Professor binds himself to the
testimony we must use, or to what necessarily follows immedi-
ately from it, he cannot use it. The question now before us is,
not whether he can or cannot, without the Church, prove the
inspiration of the Scriptures, but whether he can prove it from
the facts which we must prove in order to prove the infallibility
of the Church.
St. Paul was not one of the twelve ; his vocation was subse-
quent to the establishment of the Church ; and in no case can
it be necessary for us even to establish his divine commission in
TO DR. LYNCH.
147
order to establish the miraculous origin of the Church, from which
her infallibility immediately follows. But even if the Professor
could cite the authority of St. Paul, he would be obliged to make
out, before his citation would avail him any thing, 1. That St.
Paul's oral instruction was inspired ; 2. That the Epistle to the
Thessalonians is genuine ; 3. That the Epistle to which he refers
in it was the Epistles which we now have under his name ; and,
4. That these Epistles are possessed by us precisely as he wrote
them. Here are four facts not easy to make out, and which the
Professor must make out for himself; for we are under no obli-
gation to make them out for him, and they do not follow neces-
sarily from any thing we are bound to make out.
The divine commission of St. Peter as one of the Apostles,
we, of course, are obliged to make out ; but ubi Petrus, ibi
Ecclesia when we have done that, we have, in fact, made out
our infallible Church. Let this, however, pass for the present.
Though we are obliged to make out the divine commission of
St. Peter as one of the twelve, we are not obliged to make out
his inspiration, or the authenticity or genuineness of the Epistles
attributed to him. The Epistle the Professor cites is no author-
ity till its authenticity and genuineness are proved, and it hap-
pens to be precisely one of those books of the New Testament
whose authenticity and genuineness Protestant theologians, at
least many of them, call in question. But granting its genuine-
ness, it avails nothing till the Professor proves that the Epistles
of St. Paul to which it refers are those we now have, and that
we have them as St. Paul wrote them ; for the Professor is not
merely to prove that there were inspired writings, but he is to
prove what writings now possessed by us are or are not to be
received as inspired Scripture. But even suppose this done, it
does not follow that these Epistles are inspired. St. Peter does
not, as the Professor asserts, " rank them with the Scriptures of
the Old Testament, which were confessed to be inspired," but
simply with " the other Scriptures." What Scriptures these
were, whether inspired or uninspired, the Professor may or may
not have some means of knowing, but St. Peter, in the writings
148 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
attributed to him, nowhere informs him. That the Scriptures
of the Old Testament were confessed to be inspired, we know
from tradition and the Church, but not from the New Testament.
From the New Testament alone we can prove neither that the
books of the Old Testament were inspired, nor of what books
the Old Testament consisted. St. Paul tells us, indeed, that " all
Scripture divinely inspired is profitable," &c., but he nowhere
tells us what books or portions of books are divinely inspired
Scripture. It is not true, then, that the inspiration of the Scrip-
tures can " be easily collected from their own pages." Then the
whole argument of the Professor falls to the ground ; for even
if their own testimony were to be received, it would still be nec-
essary to have the infallible body to prove their inspiration, since
they themselves do not assert it.
We are not surprised that Mr. Thornwell should strive earn-
estly to convict his Catholic opponent of reasoning in a vicious
circle. He must, as a Protestant, do so. Protestantism would
abnegate herself, should she once concede that it is possible for
us to prove the infallibility of the Church, without having re-
course to the supernatural authority of the Scriptures. It is
with the Protestant, therefore, a matter of life and death. If
he fails, it is all over with his cherished Protestanism. Her
friends must follow her in long and sad procession to her final
resting-place, howl their wild requiem, and leave the night-shade
to grow over her grave, and return to their desolate hearths,
with none to comfort them. What, indeed, is the essential prin-
ciple of Protestantism, in so far as she pretends to be dis-
tinguished from the open and total rejection of all supernatural
religion ? What is it, but the assertion that the Bible is the
original and only source or authority from which Christianity is
to be taken ? Every body knows that this is her essential, her
fundamental principle, in every sense in which she can even pre-
tend to be a religion. To admit it to be possible for us to estab-
lish the infallibility of the Church without the Scriptures, or
without their supernatural authority, would be to surrender this
TO DR. LYNCH. 149
principle, and with it Protestantism herself, as far as she can
claim to be distinguishable from infidelity.
All Protestants know this, and hence they always assert that
we do and must reason in a vicious circle. It would be so con
venient, it is so necessary, for them, that we should, they have
for so long a time so uniformly and so confidently asserted that
we do, that it is hard for them now to admit, or even to believe,
that we do not and need not. Like inveterate story-tellers, they
appear to have come at last, by dint of long and continued re-
petition, to believe their own falsehoods, the last infirmity of
the credulous and the untruthful. Indeed, we can hardly doubt
that the great body of Protestants really do labor under the
hallucination, that we must, in order to establish the Church,
first establish, in the usual Protestant way, the authority of the
Scriptures as inspired documents ; and as we contend that the
infallibility of the Church is necessary to prove their inspiration,
that we must prove the inspiration by the Church, and the
Church by the inspiration, a manifest vicious circle. But as a
circle proves nothing, they think they may well say, that in
proving the Christian religion we have and can have no advan-
tage over them. Grant, say they, we must prove the credibility
of the Scriptures before we can conclude their inspiration, from
which we take our faith, you must prove the same credibility
before you can conclude the infallibility of the Church, from
which you are to take yours, and you have and can have, prior
to the Church, no means of proving that credibility which we
have not.
When the credibility is once established, our difficulties are
ended, for the inspiration is easily collected from the express
declaration of the Scriptures themselves ; but the infallibility of
the Church is not. We have the express authority of the di-
vinely accredited witness, but you have only your own interpret-
ations or constructions of certain texts, in which you may err ;
and if you do not, you cannot assert that yours is the church
intended, without making a full course of universal history for
eighteen hundred years. How much simpler is our method than
150 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
yours ! With how many difficulties you encumber yourselves
from which we are free ! You have to make out all that we
must make out, and in addition the fact of an infallible church,
and the further fact that yours is it.
You may tell us that we may mistake the sense of Scripture,
that our method is encumbered with difficulties, that it does not
give us absolute certainty, and that something easier and surer
is desirable. Be it so, what then ? You have nothing to say,
for you have nothing better to offer us. Suppose the Church ;
what do you gain ? You must take it from the Scriptures, and
the Scriptures themselves from the same authority that we do,
that is, private judgment. You must take it also from the
Scriptures by your private interpretation of them ; and you
must take the fact that yours is the Church from your private
interpretations of history. Every step in your process of proof
must be taken by private judgment, and we should like to know
how private judgment is more certain in your case than in ours,
why it is to be condemned in us, and commended in you.
Be it that it does not yield absolute certainty ; what then ?
Absolute certainty, who can have it ? What presumption for
such frail and erring mortals as we are to pretend to it ! We
do not need it. It is not in accordance with the intentions of
Providence, nor compatible with our moral interest, that we
should have it. " The true evidence of the Gospel is a growing
evidence, sufficient always to create obligation and assurance,
but effectual only as the heart expands in fellowship with God,
and becomes assimilated to the spirits of the just Our
real condition requires the possibility of error, and God has
made no arrangements for absolutely terminating controversies
and settling questions of faith, without regard to the moral sym-
pathies of men." (pp. 74, 75.) With such certainty as we have
we study to be satisfied. It is not the characteristic of wisdom
to aim at impossibilities, or of honesty to profess to have what
it has not.
Thus they reason, and must reason, wise and honest souls !
who assert that the Bible is the original and only source of
TO DR. LYNCH. 151
Christian doctrine, and who define faith, with Professor Stuart
of Andover, to be a species of probability, more certain, perhaps,
than mere opinion, but less certain than knowledge, or ring the
death-knell of their own system. If it be possible in the nature
of things or the providence of God to bring an unbeliever to
Catholicity without first converting him to Protestantism, they
must for ever shut their mouths, or open them only to give vent
to their mortification and despair. But, happily for us, the rea-
sonings which demand the principle of universal skepticism for
their postulate are not apt to convince, and the assertions of men
who deny all infallible authority, and confess to their own falli-
bility and want of certainty, are not absolutely conclusive. It
is possible, after all, that these learned Protestants are mistaken,
nay, laboring under "strong delusions," and that we poor
benighted Papists have the truth. At worst, the authority on
which we rely can be no more than fallible, while that on which
they rely must be fallible at best. At worst, then, we are as
well off as they can be at best.
But are these Protestants, who would have us regard them as
full-grown men, strong men, the lights and support of the age,
aware, that, in all this argumentation on which they pride them-
selves, and which they hold to be our complete refutation, they
are merely reasoning against us from their own principles, and
not from any principles common to them and us ? Their rea-
sonin.g, undeniably, rests on the assumption of the Bible as the
original and only source, under God, of Christian doctrine, a
fundamental principle of Protestantism, and which we no more
admit than we do the other fundamental principle of Protestant-
ism, namely, private judgment. They are very much mistaken,
if they suppose that we merely object to their rule of private
judgment, if they suppose that they and we occupy common
ground till we reach the limits to which the Bible extends, and
that our only controversy with them, as far as the Bible goes, is
one of simple exegesis, and after that merely a controversy in
relation to certain points of belief not to be found in the Bible.
Our main controversy with them is prior to the Bible, and relates
152 THORN WELL'S ANSWER
to the origin or fountain and authority from which the faith is
to be drawn.
Protestantism, taking it according to the professions of its
most distinguished doctors, is resolvable into two principles, if
principles they can be called, namely, 1. The Bible is the orig-
inal and only source of Christian faith ; and, 2. The Bible is to
be taken on and interpreted by private judgment. These are
its two rules. It is nothing to us whether these two rules are or
are not compatible one with the other, and we do not inquire
now whether the latter does or does not necessarily and in fact
absorb the former, and reduce Protestantism to sheer Transcend-
entalism in principle, for that is a matter which we have already
sufficiently discussed elsewhere ; but we say, what every body
knows, that Protestantism professes these two rules as funda-
mental, and that they are essential to its very existence, and one
of them as much as the other. Now we, as Catholics, reject
and anathematize both of these rules, as Protestants ought to
know. Consequently, for them to urge an argument against us
which assumes either as its principle is a sheer begging of the
question, or an assumption of Protestantism as the principle from
which to conclude against Catholicity. Yet this is precisely the
method of argument adopted in the brief summary of their rea-
soning which we have given.
This is not lightly said. Mr. Thornwell's whole reply to Dr.
Lynch is a striking illustration and proof of it. Dr. Lynch
states certain objections to private judgment; Mr. Thornwell
replies, You cannot urge those objections, because, whatever their
weight, they bear as hard against the Church as against us.
What is the proof of this ? You must take the Church from
the Scriptures, or not take it at all ; and if you take it from
them, you must do so by private judgment, for you cannot use
your Church before you get it ; and as you can get your Church
only subsequently to the Scriptures, you must take the Scriptures
themselves on private judgment, or use a circulating syllogism,
which proves nothing. But the proof that we must take the
Church from the Scriptures ? Why you must take it from the
TO DR. LYNCH. lD*
Scriptures because you have nothing e.se to take it from. But
the proof that we have nothing else to take it from ? The Pro-
fessor has no possible answer, but the assumption of the Bible
as the original and only source of Christian faith. Consequently,
at bottom, whether he knows it or not, he simply assumes one
principle of Protestantism as the principle of his answers to ob-
jections urged against the other. That is, if we consider Prot-
estantism in its unity, he attempts to prove the same by the
same ; if in its diversity, he reasons in a vicious circle, proving
private judgment by his Bible rule, and his Bible rule by pri-
vate judgment ! And yet Mr. Thornwell has the simplicity to
accuse Dr. Lynch of using a circulating syllogism.
Undoutedly, it is very convenient for Protestants, when hard
pressed as to one of their principles, to resort to the other ; but
as both rules are denied, and are both directly or indirectly called
in question in every controversy they have or can have with us,
they would do well to bear in mind that the arguments they thus
adduce are as illegitimate and worthless as if drawn from the very
principle they are brought to defend. We really wish that our
Protestant friends would study a little logic, at least make them-
selves acquainted with the more ordinary rules of reasoning and
principles of evidence. It would save us some trouble, and them-
selves from the ridicule to which they expose themselves, when-
ever they undertake to reason. It is idle to attempt to convince
a man by arguments drawn from the principle or system he is
opposing, or to pretend to have refuted him by reasons which
derive all their force from principles which he neither admits nor
is obliged to admit. In reasoning, each party must reason from
principles admitted by the other, or from principles proved by
arguments drawn from principles which the other does not or
cannot deny. Our Protestant friends ought to know this ; for
Mr. Thornwell very considerately informs us (p. 72) that they
are not " prattling babes and silly women," but " bearded
men."
Protestants seem to have inquired how it would be convenient
for them that we should reason, and to have concluded, because,
154 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
if we should reason in a given manner, it would be just the
thing for them, that we of course do and must reason in that
manner. If we admitted their doctrine as to the Bible, we un-
doubtedly should be obliged to reason in the manner they allege.
If the road from unbelief to Catholicity lay through Protestant
territory, if we could convert the unbeliever to the Church only
by first converting him to Protestantism, as Mr. Thornwell vir-
tually contends, we should, of course, be obliged to make out
the divine authority of the Scriptures, if at all, in the way in
which Protestants attempt to do it, and then many of the objec-
tions we now urge and insist upon against private judgment we
should be obliged to meet as well as they ; but, surely, some
other proof that such is the fact should be brought forward than
this, that, if it be not so, then Protestantism must be false ; for
the conclusion is not one which we are not able to concede. In
reasoning with Protestants, we are generally civil enough to take
them at their word ; and as we find them professing to hold the
divine authority of the Scriptures, we draw our arguments
against them from the Scriptures, because it is always lawful to
reason against a man from his own principles ; but in reasoning
against unbelievers, we make no appeal to the Scriptures, unless
it be sometimes as simple historical documents, proved to be such
by general historical criticism, in which character we can legiti-
mately appeal to them. The assertion, that we are obliged, by
the nature of the case, to take the Church from the Scriptures,
is altogether gratuitous, and even preposterous. It rests, as we
have seen, on the assumption, that the Bible is the original and
sole authority for Christian faith. This is what Mr. Thornwell
holds, what as a Protestant he must hold. The Bible, then, oc-
cupies the same place in his system that the Church does in ours ;
for this is precisely what we say of the Church. The Bible is
for him the original and sole depositary of the faith, its keeper,
witness, teacher, and interpreter. He must, then, establish the
divine authority of the Scriptures, as we the divine authority of
the Church ; for only a divine authority is sufficient for Christian
faith. To do this, as we have already established, he must have
TO DR. LYNCH. 155
a supernaturally credible witness. Prior to and independently
of the supernatural authority of the Scriptures, then, he must
obtain such witness. This he can do, or he cannot. If he can-
not, he cannot establish the divine authority of the Scriptures.
If he can, then we also can ; for prior to the Scriptures, we stand,
at least, on as good ground as he. But such a witness is all we
need for the divine authority of the Church. Then either the
Professor cannot establish the divine authority of the Scriptures,
or we can establish the divine authority of the Church without
the Scriptures. Where now are the Professor's assumption, and
his triumph about reasoning in a circle ?
Again. The divine authority of the Scriptures is itself .an
article of faith, because a supernatural fact, and a revealed fact,
if a fact at all. This can be proved without the Scriptures, or
it cannot. If it cannot, then it cannot be proved at all, for the
Scriptures can authorize no article of faith till their own divine
authority is established. If it can, it is false to say the Scrip-
tures are the original and only authority for faith, for here is an
article of faith not taken from them, but from some other source
and authority. Or in another form : Either the supernatural
witness supposed can be obtained, or cannot. If the Professor
says the latter, he abandons his Protestantism, by confessing to
his inability to establish th.e divine authority of the Scriptures,
from which alone he is to take it. If he says the former, he
also abandons his Protestantism ; for then he .concedes the pos-
sibility of another authority for faith than the Scriptures, which
Protestantism does and must deny, or deny itself. The Profes-
sor may take which alternative he pleases ; in either case, he
must surrender his Protestantism, as far as at all distinguishable
from sheer infidelity.
Thus easy is it to overthrow the strongest positions of Prot-
estants, and we confess that our only practical difficulty in refut-
ing Protestantism lies precisely in its weakness, nay, its glaring
absurdity. Our arguments against it fail to convince, because
too easily obtained, and because they are too obviously conclu-
sive. People doubt their senses, and refuse to trust their reason.
156
They think it impossible that Protestantism, which makes such
lofty pretensions, should be so untenable, so utterly indefensible,
as it must be, if our arguments against it are sound. We
succeed too well to be successful, and fail because we make out
too strong a case. Indeed, Protestantism owes its existence and
influence, after its wickedness, to its absurdity. If it had been
less glaringly absurd, it would long since have been numbered
with the things that were. Fuit ilium. But many people find
it difficult to believe it to be what it appears ; they think it must
contain something which is concealed from them, some hidden
wisdom, some profound truth, or else the enlightened men among
Protestants would not and could not have manifested so much
zeal in its behalf, forgetting that Socrates ordered just before
his death a cock to be sacrificed to JEsculapius, that Plato ad-
vocated promiscuous concubinage, and that Satan, notwithstand-
ing his great intellectual power, is the greatest fool in the uni-
verse, a fool whom a simple child saying credo outwits and
turns into ridicule. But they may be assured that it is not one
whit more solid than it appears, and that the deeper they probe
it, the more unsound and rotten they will find it.
Protestants would do well to study the Categories, or Predi-
caments, and learn not to contemn proper and necessary distinc-
tions. They should know that they cannot conclude the super-
natural from the natural ; and that the historical credibility of
the Scriptures does not, of itself, establish their divine authority
in relation to the supernatural order. Historical credibility suf-
fices for the miracles ; and miracles accredit the teachers, but not
immediately the teaching, whether oral or written. The teach-
ing is taken on the authority of the accredited teacher. Conse-
quently, between the miracles and the divine authority of the
Scriptures the authority or testimony of the teacher must inter-
vene, and whether it does intervene in favor of the Scriptures or
not is a question of fact, not of reason.
Hence it is easy to detect the falsity of Mi. Thornwell's gen-
eral thesis, that " it is just as easy to prove the inspiration of the
Scriptures as the infallibility of any church." The inspiration
TO DR. LYNCH. 157
of the Scriptures and the divine authority or infallibility of the
Church are both supernatural facts, and therefore provable only
by evidence valid in relation to the supernatural. In order to
prove the inspiration of the Scriptures, the Professor must prove
their divine authority ; for he is to take their inspiration from,
their own testimony, which is not adequate, unless supernatural ly
credible. But to prove the divine authority of the Scriptures,
he must prove the divine commission of the Apostles. The
supernatural is provable in two ways, by miracles, and by
divinely accredited or commissioned teachers. The miracles ac-
credit or prove the divine commission of the teachers, but, as we
have just seen, not the divine authority of the writings. This
must be taken on the authority of the teachers themselves, and
the Apostles are the only teachers supposable in the case ; be-
cause all, whether Church or Scriptures as a matter of fact,
comes to us from God through them. Consequently, the Pro-
fessor must establish, in some way, their divine commission, or
not establish the divine authority of the Scriptures, and there-
fore the supernatural credibility of their testimony to their own
inspiration.
This we also must do, or not be able to assert the infallibility
of the Church. The divine commission is a point common to
us both ; both must make it out, he without the authority of
Scripture, and we without the authority of the Church. If he
can make it out, we can, and if we can make it out, he can ; for
we both, in relation to it, stand on the same ground, have the
same difficulties, and the same, and only the same, means with
which to overcome them.
The divine commission of the Apostles is made out, if at all
by the miracles historically proved to have actually occurred.
These, thus proved, accredit the teachers, that is, the Apostles,
as teachers come from God, therefore commissioned by him ; and
if commissioned by him, what they teach, as from him, must be
infallibly true, because he cannot authorize the teaching of what
is not infallibly true. Thus history proves the miracles, the mir-
acles prove the divine commission, and the divine commission
158 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
proves the infallibility. Thus far, we and the Professor travel
together. But and this is the point he overlooks when we
have gone thus far, and obtained the divinely commissioned
Apostles, we have got the infallible Church; for they are it, in
all its plenitude and in all its integrity. Has the Professor got his
inspired Scriptures ? No. He has not yet got even their divine
authority, and does not as yet even know that there are any
Scriptures at all, much less what and which they are ; and he
can know only as these divinely commissioned Apostles inform
him, that is, as taught by the infallible Church, precisely what
we have always told him, and what he ought to have known in
the outset.
Does the Professor answer, that we have not yet proved the
present existence of the infallible Church, and that ours is it ?
Be it so. We must, of course, establish the fact of communion
between us and the Church of the Apostles, or not be able to
assert the infallibility of our Church. But the Professor has
also to establish the fact of his communion with the same
Church, before he can assert the divine authority of the Scrip-
tures ; for he is to assert it on her authority, and this he cannot
do until he proves that he has her authority. The simple ques-
tion, then, between us is, whether it is as easy for him to estab-
lish the fact of the communion in his case, as it is for us to
establish it in ours. He must prove, not only that it is possible
in his case, but that it is as easy in his as in ours, or abandon
his thesis.
As yet, the Professor has only the point in common with us
of the divine commission, or infallible Church, of the Apostles.
The authority of this Church he must bring home to the sacred
books with absolute certainty, and with so much exactness as to
include no uninspired and to exclude no inspired Scripture. He
must bring it home, not merely to some books, but to all whose
inspiration is to be asserted ; and this not in general only,, but
also in particular, to each particular book, chapter, verse, and
sentence. This, in the nature of the case, he can do only by
proving the genuineness of the Apostolic writings, and the iden-
TO DR. LYNCH. 159
tity, purity, and integrity of all those books which, though not
written by the Apostles themselves, are to be received as inspired
on their authority. This he must do before he can establish the
divine authority of the Scriptures, and be able to conclude their
inspiration from their own testimony, in case he has it.
This is what the Professor has to do, in order to make out
the fact of Apostolic communion in his case ; but all we have to
do, in order to establish it in ours, is to prove historically the
continuance in space and time of the Church of the Apostles,
and its external identity, or its identity as a visible corporation
or kingdom, with our Church. Now ^which is the easiest ? Is
it as easy to prove the authenticity, purity, and integrity of some
sixty or seventy ancient books, written in different languages,
and transcribed perhaps a thousand times, subject to a thousand
accidents, as to establish the external identity of a visible corpo-
dtion or kingdom, extending over all nations, the common cen-
tre around which, in one form or another, revolve all the signifi-
cant events of the world for eighteen hundred years, and no
more to be mistaken than the sun in the cloudless heavens at
noonday ? We are to prove, we grant, the external identity of
our Church with the Church in the days of the Apostles, a
thing, in its very nature, as easy to be done as to establish the
continuance and identity of any civil corporation, state, or em-
pire, ancient or modern. But the Professor has to do as much
as this, and more too, in the case of the Bible, and of each
separate book, chapter, and sentence in the Bible, a thing
morally impossible to be done, as all the attempts of Protestants
to establish the divine authority of the Scriptures sufficiently
prove.
But even if this were done, the Professor would not have
established the inspiration of a single sentence of Scripture, as
Scripture. The divine authority of the Scriptures does not prove
their inspiration, unless they themselves declare it ; for the Pro-
fessor must gather their inspiration from their own pages. He
can assert no book to be inspired, unless, if it be a genuine
Apostolic writing, it clearly and unequivocally asserts its own
160 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
inspiration, and if it be not an Apostolic writing, unless it is
clearly and unequivocally declared to be inspired by some book
whose divine authority is established. And even this would not
be enough for his purpose ; for he must not only make out the
inspiration of certain books, but he must establish by divine
authority what books are, and what are not, to be received a?
inspired Scripture. He must bring divine authority to say
These, and these only, are to be so received. This last is impos
sible, for it is well known that Scripture nowhere draws or pro
fesses to draw up a list of the inspired books. This of itself is con-
clusive against the Professor. The former, also, is impossible, for
none of the Apostolic writings, unless it be the Apocalypse, whose
authenticity many Protestants deny, assert their own inspiration,
and, with this exception, and some portion of the prophetic
books, what is received as Scripture is nowhere in Scripture
asserted to be inspired. Hence there are amongst us Protestant
Doctors of Divinity, who, while professing to acknowledge the
authority of our Lord and his Apostles, and the general historical
fidelity and authority of the Bible, deny entirely its inspiration.
The Professor, therefore, must be decidedly mistaken in say-
ing that, "it is just as easy to prove the inspiration of the
Scriptures as the infallibility of any church." His meaning is,
that, i" the nature of the case, it must be as easy to prove the
insp' .don as the infallibility, which we see is by no means the
fa<~ , because, on no hypothesis, can he prove the inspiration of
' 3 Scriptures without first proving the infallible Church, and the
nistorical identification of the Church in space and time is a
thing infinitely easier to make out than the authenticity, identity,
purity, and integrity of ancient writings. The latter can be done,
if at all without a continued infallible authority, only with ex-
treme difficulty, and by a few gifted individuals, who have ample
opportunities and learned leisure for the purpose. The other is
a thing easily done. It is, making allowance for the greater
lapse of time between the two extremes, as easy to prove that
Pius IX. is the successor of St. Peter in the goverment of the
Church, as that James K. Polk is the successor of George Wash
TO DE. LYNCH. 161
ington in the Presidency of the United States; and the fact of
the succession in the former case as much proves that the Church
of which Pius IX. is Pope is the Church of St. Peter, that is,
of the Apostles, as the succession in the latter case proves that
the United States of which Mr. Polk is President are the same
political body over which George Washington presided. Even
the allowance to be made for lapse of time dwindles into insig-
nificance, the moment we consider the more important part in
the affairs of the world performed by the Church than by the
United States, or by any temporal state or kingdom of ancient
or modern times.
To identify and to establish the purity and integrity of an
ancient book, which has been subject to all the accidents of two
or three thousand years, is by no means an easy task ; but the
identity in space and time of an outward visibly body, " a city
set on a hill," the common centre of nations, and spreading itself
over all lands and conducting the most sublime and the most
intimate affairs of mankind, everywhere with us, at birth, bap-
tism, confirmation, marriage, in sickness and health, in joy and
sorrow, in prosperity and adversity, in life and death, taking us
from our mother's' womb, and accompanying us as our guardian
angel through life, and never leaving us for one moment till we
arrive at home, and behold our Father's face in the eternal habit-
ations of the just, is the easiest thing in the world to establish
through any supposable series of ages. You may speak of its
liability to corruption ; but far less liable must it be, even hu-
manly speaking, to corruption than the Scriptures, and indeed,
after all, it is only from its incorruptness and its guardian care,
that even you, who blaspheme the Spouse of God, conclude the
purity and integrity of the Scriptures. Far easier would it be
to interpolate or mutilate the Scriptures, without detection, than
for the Church to corrupt or alter her teachings, always diffused
far more generally, and far better known than their pages. If
publicity, extent, and integrity of the Christian people are to be
pleaded for the purity and integrity of the sacred text, as they
162 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
must be, then a fortiori for the purity and integrity of the
Church's teaching.
But passing over all this, supposing, but not conceding, that
the Professor could make out the inspiration of Scripture, it would
amount to just nothing at all ; for the real matter to be deter-
mined is, what is or is not to be received as the word of God,
and till this is determined, or an. unerring rule for determining
it is obtained, nothing is done of any practical moment. To
prove that the Scriptures are inspired, and therefore contain the
word of God, is only to prove where the word, or some portion
of the word, of God is, not what it is. Between where and what
there is a distance, and, unless some means are provided for
bridging it over, an impassable gulf. We are not told what the
word of God is, till we are told it in the exact sense intended
by the Holy Ghost, and this is not told us by being told that
the word of God or some portion of it, is contained in a certain
book. How will the Professor tell us this ?
The controversy turns on the means of evidencing the word
of God to the Indian or negro. Suppose the Professor goes to
the Indian or negro, with his copy of the Holy Scriptures ; sup-
pose, per impossible, that he succeeds in proving to him that
the several books were dictated by the Holy Ghost, and in the
exact state in which he presents them. What is this to him ?
He cannot read, and the book is to him a sealed book, as good
as no book at all. What shall be done ? Shall the Indian or
negro wait till he has learned to read, and to read well enough
to read, understandingly, the Bible, which is out of his power,
and also till he has read it through several times, and some five
or six huge folios besides, to explain its unusual locutions, and its
references to strange manners and customs, and to natural and
civil history, before hearing or knowing what is the message sent
him by his Heavenly Father ? What, in the mean time, is he
to do? Is he to remain a heathen, an infidel, an alien from the
commonwealth of our Lord ? If he needs the Gospel as the
medium of salvation, how can he wait, as he must, on the low-
est calculation, more than half the ordinary life of man, without
TO DR. LYNCH. 163
peril to his soul ? If he does not need it, what do you make
the Gospel but a solemn farce ? Suppose he does wait, suppose
he does get the requisite amount of learning ; what surety have
you, even then, that he will not deduce error instead of truth
from the book, and instead of the word of God embrace the
words of men or of devils ?
The pretence of Protestants, that they derive their belief, such
as it is, from the Bible, is nothing but a pretence. If not, how
happens it that, as a general rule, children grow up in the
persuasion of their parents, that the children of Episcopalians
find the Bible teaching Episcopalianism, Presbyterian children
find it teaching Presbyterianism, Baptist children Baptist doc-
trine, Methodist children Methodism, Unitarian children Unita-
rianism, Universalist children Universalism ? Why is this ? The
Professor knows why it is, as well as we do. He knows it is so,
because their notions of religion are not derived from the Bible,
but from the instructions of their parents, their nurses, their Sun-
day-school teachers, their pastors, and the society in the bosom
of which they are born and brought up, and that, too, long be-
fore they read or are able to read the Bible so as to learn any
thing from its sacred pages for themselves. He knows, too, that,
when they do come to read the Bible, which may happen with
some of them, they read it, not to learn what they are to be-
lieve, not to find what it teaches, but to find in it what they have
already been taught, have imbibed, or imagined. All Protest-
ants know this, and it is difficult to restrain the expression of
honest indignation at their hypocrisy and cant about the Bible,
and taking their belief from the Bible, the Bible, the precious
word of God. The most they do, as a general rule, is to go to
the Bible to find in it what they have already found elsewhere,
and it rarely happens that they find any thing in it except what
they project into its sacred pages from their own minds.
To hear Protestants talk, one would think they were the
greatest Bible-readers in the world, and that they believed every
thing in the Bible, and nothing except what they learn from it.
It is no such thing. Who among them trusts to the Bible alone ?
164 THORN WELL'S ANSWER
Where is tlie Protestant parent, pretending to any decent respect
for religion, who leaves his children to grow up without any re-
ligious instruction till they are able to read and understand the
Bible for themselves ? Has not every sect its catechism ? A
catechism ? What means this ? With " the Bible, the whole
Bible, and nothing but the Bible" on their lips, have they the
audacity and the inconsistency to draw up a catechism and teach
it to their children ? Why do they not follow out their princi-
ple, and leave their children to " the Bible, the whole Bible, and
nothing but the Bible ? " Do you shrink, Protestant parents, as
well you may, from the fearful responsibility of suffering your
children to grow up without any religious instruction ? Why
not shrink also from the still more fearful responsibility of teach-
ing them your words for the word of God ? You tell us the
Bible is your sole rule of faith, that there are no divinely ap-
pointed teachers of the word of God, and you sneer at the very
idea that Almighty God has provided for its infallible teaching ;
and yet you, without authority, fallible by your own confession,
draw up a catechism, take upon yourselves the office of religious
teachers, and do not hesitate to teach your own crude notions,
your own fallible, and, it may be, blasphemous opinions, training
up your children, it may be, in the synagogue of Satan, keeping
them aliens from the communion of saints, and under the eter-
nal wrath of God ! How is it that you reflect not on what you
are doing, and for your children's sake, if not for your own, you
do not tremble at your madness and folly ? Who gave you
authority to teach these dear children ? Who is responsible to
their young minds and candid souls for the truth of the doc-
trines you instil into them ? O Protestant father, thou art mad ?
Thou lovest thy child, art ready to compass sea and land for him,
and yet, for aught thou knowest, thou art doing all in thy power
to train him to be the eternal enemy of God, and to suffer for
ever the flames of divine vengeance !
But the catechism. Who gave to you authority to draw up
a catechism ? Would you teach your children damnable here-
sies ? Would you poison their minds with error and their
TO DR. LYNCH. 165
hearts with lies ? What it is you do when you draw up and
teach a catechism ? You deny the authority of the Church
to teach, yet here you are, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Bap-
tists, Methodists, Ranters, Jumpers, Dunkers, Socinians, Unita-
rians, Universalists, all of you, doing what you make it a crime
in her to do, drawing up and teaching a catechism, the most
solemn and responsible act of teaching that can be performed ;
for in it you demand of confiding childhood simple and un-
wavering belief in what you teach ! But the catechisms, you
say, are for the most part drawn up in the language of the
Holy Scriptures. Be it so. Who gave you authority to teach
the Holy Scriptures ? What infallible assurance have you, that,
in teaching the words of Scripture, you are teaching the sense
of Scripture ? Is it a difficult thing either to lie or to blaspheme
in the words of Scripture ?
We confess that we can hardly observe any measure in our
feelings or in our language, when we regard the profession and
the practice of Protestants, when we consider how they lie unto
the world and unto themselves, and how many precious souls,
for whom our God has died, they shut out from salvation. One
must speak in strong language, or the very stones would cry out
against him. The Professor, whom we have supposed going
with his Bible in his hands, and holding it out to the rude
savage or poor slave, ignorant of letters, saying, " Read this, my
son, and it shall make you wise unto salvation," would he
wait, think ye, till his tawny son or black brother had learned
to read and become able to draw his faith from the Bible for
himself, before instructing him ? Be assured, not. He would
hasten to instruct him without delay in his Presbyterian Cate-
chism, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Five Points of
the Synod of Dort, or some modification of them. Never would
he trust him to the Bible alone. So it is with all Protestant
missionaries, and so must it be. No matter what they profess,
in practice none of the sects place or can place their dependence
on the written word to teach the faith without the aid of the
living preacher. They all know, or might know, that they use
166 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
the Bible, not as the source from which the simple believer is
to draw his faith, but as a shield to protect the teachers of one
sect from those of another ; and that they assert its authority
only as enabling each preacher to find some plausible pretext for
preaching whatever comes into his own head. They place their
dependence, not on a dead book, which when interrogated can
answer never a word, which lies at the mercy of every interpreter,
but, nolens volens, on the living teacher, and do without author-
ity, and against their avowed principles, what they condemn us
for doing, and what we do at least consistently, and in obedience
to our principles.
There is no use in multiplying words or making wry faces
about the matter. Whatever men may pretend, 'f they have
any form of belief or of unbelief, their reliance is oil the living
teacher to preserve and promulgate it. The thing is inevitable.
And since it is so, it is absolutely necessary, if we are to know
and believe the word of God, that we have teachers duly author-
ized, divinely appointed to teach that word, so that we may not
believe for the word of God the words of fallible men or of
devils. Therefore, even if we could establish the inspiration of
the Scriptures, as we cannot without the Church, the Church
would still be indispensable, for without her we should still have
no infallible means of knowing what is the word of God.
We have here refuted the Professor's thesis in all its parts.
We have shown him that he has no logical right to urge it ;
that if he is allowed to urge it, he cannot prove it, but that we
can easily prove the contrary ; and, finally, that if he could
prove it, it would avail him nothing. We hope this will be
satisfactory to him and his friends. He has been, even his
friends must confess, singularly unsuccessful ; but the fault has
not been altogether his own. He has done as well as any Prot-
estant could do. But it is an old and expressive proverb, if a
homely one, that " nobody can make a silk purse out of a sow's
ear." Nobody can make any thing out of Protestantism, and
her defence must needs baffle the finest intellects. She is utterly
indefensible. No man can construct an argument in her favor, or
TO DR. LYNCH. 167
against the Church, that is not at bottom a mere fallacy. Logic
as well as salvation is on the side of the Church, not with her
enemies, and Protestantism is as repugnant to sound reason as
she is to the best interests of man. Whoever espouses her must
needs render himself an object of pity to all good men and good
angels. Mr. Thornwell has naturally respectable abilities, even
considerable logical powers, and some vigor of intellect. He
wants refinement, grace, unction, but he has a sort of savage
earnestness which we do not wholly dislike, and manifests a zeal
and energy, which, if directed according to knowledge, would
be truly commendable. But all these qualities can avail him
nothing, for Protestantism at best is only a bundle of contra-
dictions, absurdities, and puerilities. How a man of an ordinary
stomach could undertake its defence would be to us unaccount-
able, did we not know to what mortifications and humiliations
pride compels its subjects to submit. Pride cast the angels,
which kept not their first estate, down from heaven to hell, and
perhaps we ought not to be surprised that it degrades mortal
men to the ignoble task of writing in defence of Protestantism.
The refutation of the Professor's thesis gives us the full right
to conclude the infallibility of the Church with Dr. Lynch from
the necessity of the case, and therefore to assert it, whatever
objections men may fancy against it; because the argument for
it rests on as high authority as it is possible in the nature of
things to have for any objection against it. Nevertheless, we
will examine in our next Review the Professor's moral and his-
torical objections to the Church, and dispose of them as well as
we can, we hope to his satisfaction.
168
THORNWELL'S ANSWER TO DR. LYNCH *
OCTOBER, 1848.
IN the articles already devoted to Mr. Thornwell's book, we
have vindicated Dr. Lynch's argument drawn from the necessity
of the case for the infallibility of the Church, and proved, un-
answerably, if any thing can be so proved, that without the
infallible Church, the Protestant is utterly unable to prove the
inspiration of the Scriptures. Since he concedes, that, if the in-
fallible Church exists at all, it is the Catholic Church, Mr. Thorn-
well must .Jjien, either acknowledge its infallibility, or give up
the Christian religion itself. Having done this, which has been
wholly gratuitous on our part, we proceed to the consideration
of the Professor's direct arguments for the fallibility of the
Church, or his direct attempts to prove that she is not infallible.
We have shown in our first essay, that the nature of the
argument the Professor is conducting does not permit him, even
in case we should fail to prove the infallibility, to conclude the
fallibility of the Church. He denies that she i*> infallible, that
is, asserts that she is fallible, and it is only by proving her fallible
that he can maintain his thesis, that the books which he calls
apocryphal are " corrupt additions to the word of God." The
question is not now on admitting, but on rejecting, the infalli-
bility of the Church, and the. onus probandi, as a matter of
course, rests on him. He is the plaintiff in action, and must
make out his case by proving the guilt, not by any failure on our
own part, if fail we do, to prove the innocence, of the accused ;
for every one is to be presumed innocent till proved guilty.
* The Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament proved to be Corrupt
Additions to the Word of God. The Arguments of Romanists from
the Infallibility of the Church and the Testimony of the Fathers in
Behalf of the Apocrypha discussed and refuted. By JAMES H.
THORNWELL. New Yor* : Leavitt, Trow, & Co. Boston ; Charles
Tappan. 1845. 16mo. pp. 417.
TO DR. LYNCH. 169
We have also shown, that in attempting to prove the falli
bility of the Church, Mr. Thorn well must confine himself to such
arguments as an infidel may consistently urge. We have already
disloged him from every position he might be disposed to occupy
on Christian ground. He has no magazine from which he can
draw proofs against the Church, but the reason common to all
men. He can prove the Church fallible only by proving that
she has actually erred ; and he can prove that she has actually
erred only by proving that she has actually contradicted some
principle of reason. It will avail him nothing to prove by rea-
son that she teaches things the truth of which reason cannot
affirm ; for reason does not know all things, and things may be
above reason, and yet not against reason. Nor will it avail him
to prove that she contradicts his private convictions, or the teach-
ings of his sect ; for neither he nor his sect is infallible. Noth-
ing will avail him but to prove some instance of her contradiction
of a truth of reason, infallibly known to be such truth. The
simple question for us to determine, then, in regard to what he
alleges, is, Has he adduced an instance of such contradiction ?
If he has, he has succeeded ; if he has not, he has failed, and
we, since the presumption, as we say in law, is in our favor,
may conclude the infallibility of the Church against him.
1. Mr. Thorn well's first alleged proof that the Church is not
infallible is, that Catholics differ among themselves as to the seat
of infallibility. It is uncertain where the infallibility is lodged.
Then it is not apparent ; and if not apparent, it does not exist ;
for de non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio. But
this, supposing it to be true, though a good reason why we can-
not assert the infallibility as a fact proved, is not a good reason
for asserting that it does not exist. A thing may exist and yet
not appear to us. Otherwise the stars would not exist when the sun
shines, nor gems in the mine before being discovered. The point
to be established is not the non-appearance of the infallibility,
but its non-existence ; and if the Professor does not show that
non-existence, he fails, for his own maxim then bears against
him, de non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio.
8
170
But what is alleged is not true. Catholics do not disagree as
to the seat of infallibility. Mr. Thorn well is mistaken, when he
says (p. 76), " There are no less than three different opinions
entertained in your Church as to the organ through which its
infallibility is exercised or manifested." He confounds the three
different modes in which Catholics hold that the infallibility is
exercised with three different opinions as to its organ, evidently
supposing that they who assert one of them must needs deny
the other two. All Catholics agree, and must agree, for it is dt
fide, that the pastors of the Church, that is, the bishops in union
with the Pope, their visible head, are infallible in what they
teach, both when congregated in general council and when dis-
persed, each bishop in his own diocese ; and the great majority
hold that the Pope alone, when deciding a question of faith or
morals for the whole Church, is also infallible. The only differ-
ence of opinion amongst us is as to the fact, whether the Pope
is or is not infallible, when so deciding. But as there is no dif-
ference of opinion as to the other two modes, whatever difference
there may be as to this, it is not true that there are " three
different opinions in. our Church as to the organ through which
its infallibility is exercised or manifested."
2. The Church cannot be infallible, because she requires a
slavish submission of all her members, bishops, priests, and laity,
to the Pope. "The system of absolute submission runs un-
checked until it terminates in the Sovereign Pontiff at Eome,
whose edicts and decrees none can question, and who is therefore
absolute lord of the Papal faith," (p. 77.) We can see nothing
unreasonable in making the Pope, under God, the " absolute
lord of the Papal faith." As to the submission, if the Pope
has authority from God as the supreme visible head of the
Church, it cannot be a slavish submission ; for slavery is not
in submission, but in submission to an authority which has no
right to exact it. Reason teaches that we are bound to obey
God, and to obey him equally through whatever organ it may
please him to command us, or to promulgate his will. If he has
commissioned the Pope as his vicar in the government of the
...
TO DR. LYNCH. 171
Church, there is nothing repugnant to reason in submission or
obedience to the Pope. The Professor must prove that the Pope
is not divinely commissioned, before, from the fact that the
Church obliges us to obey him, he can conclude that she errs or
is liable to err. But this he has not proved.
3. The Church makes the Pope greater than God, II papa
e piu che Dio per noi altri. and cannot assert his supremacy
without asserting his infallibility. But if she asserts the infalli-
bility of the Pope, she denies that she is an infallible Church ;
for, during the first six centuries, there was no Pope. (p. 78.)
Where the Professor picked up his scrap of Italian, he does not
inform us ; but if any one has made him believe that Catholics
hold the Pope to be greater than God, he may be sure he has
been imposed upon. How can we hiold the Pope to be greater
than God, when we believe him to be simply the vicar of Jesus
Christ, receiving all that he is and has from God? Grant that
Papal supremacy necessarily carries with it Papal infallibility,
a doctrine we by no means dispute, the conclusion is not sus-
tained ; for it is not proved that during the first six centuries
there was no Pope. What the Professor alleges as proof is not
conclusive. His statements are either false or irrelevant. What
he says that is true is not to his purpose ; what he says that is
to his purpose is not true. He alleges, 1. Till the seventh
century, at least, the bishops of the Church, not excepting the
bishops of Rome, were regarded as officially equal ; 2. Accord-
ing to St. Jerome, wherever there is a bishop, he is of the same
merit and the same priesthood, and, according to St. Cyprian,
the episcopate is one, and every bishop has an undivided portion
of it ; 3. St. Cyprian says to the African bishops in the great
council at Carthage, that none of them makes himself a bishop
of bishops, and that it belongs solely to our Lord Jesus Christ to
invest them with authority in the government of his Church, and
to judge them ; and, 4. St. Gregory the Great disclaimed the
title of "Universal Bishop." (pp. 78, 79.)
To the first we reply, that, not only as late as the seventh
century were all the bishops of the Church, not excepting the
172 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
bishops of Rome, regarded as officially equal, but they are, as
bishops, so regarded even now ; and as the fact that they are
now so regarded does not prove that there is now no Pope, the
fact that they were so regarded during the first six centuries can-
not prove that there was no Pope then. The equality of all
bishops is a doctrine of the Church. The Pope, as simple
bishop, is only the equal of his brethren ; he is superior only as
bishop of Rome, of which see the primacy is an adjunct, or pre-
rogative. "Thus, a Roman council, in 378, says of Pope Dam-
asus, that he is. equal in office to the other bishops, and surpasses
them in the prerogative of % his see."*
To the second we give a similar reply. The unity of the
episcopate, and that each bishop possesses an undivided por-
tion of it, that is, that the bishops possess or hold it in solido,
according to the felicitious expression of St. Cyprian, is held by
the Church now, and believed as firmly by all Catholics as ever
it was. As the belief of this doctrine is not now disconnected
with the belief in the Papacy, it cannot follow, from its having
been entertained in the time of St. Cyprian, that there was then
no Pope. This reply disposes of the citation from St. Jerome,
as well as of that from St. Cyprian. But the Professor argues,
that, if the episcopate be one, and the bishops possess it in soli-
do, there can be no Pope. We do not see that this follows.
Unity is inconceivable without a centre of unity, and how con-
ceive the bishops united in one and the same episcopate without
the Pope as their centre of union ?
To the third we reply, that, according to the fair interpretation
of the language of St. Cyprian, in reference to its occasion and
purpose, it has nothing to do with the subject. But let it be
that St. Cyprian intended to deny, and actually does deny, the
Papal authority, what then ? Before the Professor can conclude
that there was no Pope down to St. Cyprian's time, he must
prove either that St. Cyprian is a witness whose testimony we
as Catholics, are bound to receive, or that he is one who could
* Ep. v. Apud Constant, T. I. col. 528, cited by Kenrick, Primacy
of the Apostolic See, p. 106, 3d edition.
TO DR. LYNCH. 173
not err. As Catholics, we are bound to receive the testimony
of single fathers or doctors only so far as their teaching is coin-
cident with that of the Church. The infallibility attaches to the
Church, and to single doctors only in so far as they teach her
doctrine. Never, then, can we be bound to receive the testimo-
ny of any father or doctor which conflicts with her teaching.
The Testimony of St. Cyprian does thus conflict, if what it is
alleged to be. Therefore we are not bound to receive it, and it
cannot be urged against us, as an argumentum ad hominem.
Then the Professor must prove that St. Cyprian did not err.
But, from the nature of the case, this he can do only by prov-
ing that he could not err. This he does not do, and cannot pre-
tend ; for he admits no infallible authority but that of the writ-
ten word. (p. 84.) Consequently, let the testimony of St. Cy-
prian be what it may, it is not sufficient to prove that there was
no Pope down to his time.
Moreover, if the alleged testimony of St. Cyprian refers to
the Papal authority at all, it refers to it only inasmuch as it de-
nies the right of St. Stephen, his contemporary, whom Mr.
Thornwell himself calls the Pope, to excereise that authority.
If St. Cyprian's language does not express resistance to the Pa-
pal authority, it contains no reference to it. But resistance to
an authority proves its existence. There was, then, in the time
of St. Cyprian, an actual Pope, that is, a Pope claiming the right
to exercise the Papal authority ; and the position of the Profes-
sor, that there was no Pope, is contradicted by his own witness.
" But not according to the constitution of the Church." That
is a question, not of reason, but of authority, and therefore not
debatable. The simple question, stated in the terms most favor-
able to the Professor, resolves itself into this, whether St. Cyp-
rian is to be believed against St. Stephen, who claimed to be
Pope, and the Church, who admitted his claim. To assume
that he is, is to beg the question. The Professor must, then,
give us a valid reason for believing St. Cyprian rather than St.
Stephen and the Church, or he proves nothing by St. Cyprian's
testimony, be it what it may. But he has given us no such
1*74 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
reason. St. Cyprian was fallible, and fallibility is not sufficient
to set aside the claim of infallibility.
To the fourth we answer, that St. Gregory the Great Disclaimed
through humility, as savoring of pride, the title of " Universal
Bishop," we grant, but this is nothing to the purpose. The
Professor must prove that he disclaimed the Papacy and the
Papal authority, or he does not prove his position. But this he
does not and cannot do ; for St. Gregory the Great, as is well
known, on numerous occasions, asserted and exercised that au-
thority ; nay, it was in the exercise of it that he rebuked
John Jejunator, Patriarch of Constantinople, for arrogating to
himself the title of " (Ecumenical Patriarch," a title which
even the Bishop of Rome, though Sovereign Pontiff, forbore to
assume.
The Professor, it is evident from these replies, fails to prove
that during the first six centuries there was no Pope. His ob-
jection, founded on the assumption that there was none, falls,
therefore, to the ground ; and if it were required by our present
argument, we could and would, prove an uninterrupted succes-
sion of Popes from St. Peter to Pius the Ninth.
4. The Professor, taking it for granted that he had proved
that the infallibility of the Church, if lodged with the Pope^
could not be asserted, proceeds to show that it cannot be main-
tained, if lodged either with general councils or with the Eccle
sia dispersa. But these three ways are all the possible suppo-
sitions, and if in no one of these the Church can be infallible,
she cannot be infallible at all. But he has not, as we have
seen, disproved her infallibility through the Pope, and, for aught
he proves, she may be infallible through her Sovereign Pontiffs.
Consequently, as far as the argument to disprove her infallibility
is concerned, it is no matter whether she is infallible in either
of the other two modes or not.
But she cannot be infallible, if the infallibility be lodged with
the general councils ; for full two hundred years elapsed from
the death of the last of the Apostles before such a council was
asseirbled. (p. 79.) If her infallibility is expressed only through
TO DR. LYNCH. 175
general councils, we concede it; but this is no Catholic doc-
trine ; for we all, while we hold the general councils to be infal-
lible, hold also that the bishops of the Church in union with
their chief, the Pope, teach infallibly when dispersed, each in his
own diocese, as well as when congregated in council.
But the councils cannot be infallible, because the early coun-
cils attributed the authority of the canons they settled to the
sanction of the Emperor, (p. 80.) As this is asserted without
any proof, it is sufficient for us simply to deny it. That the
civil effect of the canons, or their authority as civil laws, de-
pended on the sanction of the Emperor, we concede, for the
Church never assumes to enact civil laws; but that they de-
pended on that sanction for their spiritual effect, or their author-
ity in the spiritual order, we deny, and some better authority
than that of one Barrow, an Anglican minister, which is no au-
thority at all, will be needed to prove it.
The infallibility of the Church, continues the Professor, can-
not be maintained, if lodged with the pastors of the Church
dispersed each in his own diocese ; because it would then depend
on unanimous consent, and the unanimous consent of all can
never be ascertained, (p. 81.) This unanimous consent could
not be ascertained, if the pastors of the Church were so many
independent and unrelated individuals, like Protestant ministers,
we concede ; but, whether congregated or dispersed, Catholic
pastors are ONE BODY, hold the episcopate in solido, and
through the Pope, the centre of unity and communion, they all
commune with each, and each with all. Each is bound for all,
and all for each, and each by virtue of this communion can give
the unanimous faith of all. All that we need know is that the
particular pastor to whom we are subjected is in communion
with the Pope ; for if he is, we know he is in communion with
the head, then with the body, and then with the members. If
thus in communion with the head, with the body, and with the
members, what he gives as the unanimous faith of the whole
must be the unanimous faith of the whole, or that which has the
unanimous consent of all.
176 THORN WELL'S ANSWER
5. But the Church cannot be infallible, because she has con-
tradicted herself. " Popes have contradicted Popes, councils
have contradicted councils, pastors have contradicted pastors,
&c." (p. 83.) This argument is good, if the fact be as alleged.
But the fact of contradiction must be proved, not taken for
granted. Does the, Professor prove it? Let us see. The first
proof he offers is, that " the Council of Constantinople decreed
the removal of images, and the abolition of image-worship, and
the Council of Nice, twenty-three years after, re-established
both." (p. 84.) But, unhappily for the Professor, no Council
of Constantinople, or of any other place, recognized or received
by the Church as a council, ever decreed any such thing. There
may have been, for aught we care, an assembly of Iconoclasts
at Constantinople, collected by an Iconoclastic emperor, which
made some such decree ; but that no more implicates the Church
than a decree of a college of dervishes or of a synod of Presby-
terian ministers.
" The second Council of Ephesus approved and sanctioned the
impiety of Eutyches, and the Council of Chalcedon condemned
it." (ib.) But there was only one Council of Ephesus, and that
.was held before the rise of the Eutychian heresy ! There was
an Ephesian Latrocinium which approved the heresy of Euty-
ches, but it was no council, and its doings were condemned,
instantly, by the Church.
"The fourth Council of Lateran asserted the doctrine of a
physical change in the Eucharistic elements, in express contra-
diction to the teachings of the primitive Church, and the evi-
dent declarations of the Apostles of the Lord." (ib.) The Pro-
fessor is not the authority for determining what was the doctrine
of the Apostles or of the primitive Church, and cannot urge his
notions of either as a standard by which to try the Church. He
must adduce, on the authority of the Church herself, the teach-
ings of the primitive Church contradicted by the decree of the
fourth Council of Lateran, before he can allege that decree or
assertion as a proof of her having contradicted herself. This
he has not done.
TO DR. LYNCH. 177
"The secoTicl Council of Orange gave its sanction to some of
the leading doctrines of the school of Augustine, and the Coun-
cil of Trent threw the Church into the arms of Pelagius." (ib.)
Here no instance of contradiction is expressed. But it is not
true, and the Professor offers no proof, that the Council of Trent
threw the Church into the arms of Pelagius ; and as a matter
of fact, that council defines the doctrines of grace, which con-
demn the Pelagian heresy, in the very words of St. Augustine.
The Professor would do well to set about the study of ecclesias-
tical history
" Thus, at different periods, every type of doctrine has pre-
vailed in the bosom of an unchangeable Church." (ib.) Not
proved, and would not be, even if the foregoing charges were
sustained. False inferences and unsupported assertions are not
precisely the arguments to disprove the infallibility of the Church.
We beg the Professor to review his logic.
" The Church has been distracted by every variety of sect,
tormented by every kind of controversy, convulsed by every
species of heresy." If this means that she has sanctioned every
variety of sect and every species of heresy, we simply reply, that
the Professor has not proved it ; if it means, that, first and last,
she has had to combat every variety of sect and species of heresy,
we concede it. But to adduce this as a proof of her having con-
tradicted herself is ridiculous in logic, and monstrous in morals.
You might as well argue that the Church was once Lutheran,
because she condemned Lutheranism, Calvinistic, because she
condemned Calvinism, that St. John was a Gnostic, because he
wrote his Gospel to condemn Gnosticism, or that Mr. Thornwell
himself is a Catholic, because he anathematizes Catholicity ; nay,
that the judge, who, in the discharge of his judicial functions,
condemns the crime of murder, must needs be the murderer,
and that the eleven were guilty of the treachery of Judas, for
they no doubt condemned it. Is this Protestant logic, and
Protestant morality ?
The Church " at last has settled down on a platform which
annihilates the word of God, denounces the doctrines of Christ
178
and his Apostles, and bars the gates of salvation against men."
(ib.) Indeed ! How did the Professor learn all that ?
Here is all the Professor adduces to prove the fact of the
Church having contradicted herself, and it evidently does not
prove it. Then the argument founded on it against the infalli-
bility of the Church must go for nothing. For aught that yet
appears, the Church may be infallible. It is certainly a great
inconvenience not to know ecclesiastical history when one wishes
to reason from it.
From these objections, which the Professor calls "historical
difficulties in the doctrine of Papal infallibility," we proceed to
consider another class, in his Sixth Letter, which we may term
philosophical difficulties. The charge under this head is, that
the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church Papal infallibility,
as the Professor improperly expresses it leads to skepticism,
(p. 89.) The proofs assigned, as nearly as we can get at them,
amidst a mass of speculations sometimes correct enough, but
illustrating, when considered in relation to the argument, only
the ignorantia elenchi, a favorite figure of logic with the
author, are two, namely, the Church enjoins dogmas which
contradict reason, and holds that doctrines may be philosophi-
cally true, and yet theologically false.
1. The instance adduced to prove that the Church requires us
to believe what contradicts reason is the doctrine of Transub-
stantiation. It is a principle of reason that we believe our senses.
But this doctrine denies the testimony of our senses, and there-
fore contradicts reason. " Upon the authority of Rome we are
required to believe that what our senses pronounce to be bread,
that what the minutest analysis which chemistry can institute is
able to resolve into nothing but bread, what every sense pro-
nounces to be material, is yet the Incarnate Son of God, soul,
and body, and Divinity, full and entire, perfect and complete.
Here Rome and the senses are evidently at war ; and here the
infallible Church is made to despise one of the original principles
of belief which God has impressed upon the constitution of the
TO DR. LYNCH. 179
mind." (p. 93.) What is here said about the minutest analysis
chemistry can institute, &c., amounts to nothing, makes the case
neither stronger nor weaker ; for chemical analysis, however
minute or successful, can give us only sensible phenomena. It
never attains to substance itself. The simple assertion is, that
the doctrine of Transubstantiation contradicts reason, because it
contradicts the senses. But is this true ?
There is no contradiction of the senses, unless the doctrine
requires us to believe that what is attested by the senses is false.
What is it the senses attest ? Simply the presence in the Sacred
Host of the species, accidents, or sensible phenomena of bread.
This is all ; for it is well settled in philosophy, that the senses
attain only to the phenomena, and never to the substance or sub-
ject of the phenomena. Does the doctrine of Transubstantiation
deny this ? Not at all. It asserts precisely what the senses
assert, namely, the presence in the Sacred Host of the species,
accidents, or sensible phenomena of bread. Then it does not
contradict the senses.
" But it is a principle of human nature to believe, that, where
we find the phenomena, there is also their subject ; that, if in the
Sacred Host all the sensible phenomena of bread are present,
the substance of bread is also present." Undoubtedly, if rea-
son has no authority, satisfactory to herself, for believing the
contrary. In ordinary cases, reason has no such authority, and
we are to believe that the sensible phenomena and their subject
do go together. But reason cannot deny that God, if he chooses,
can, by a miraculous exertion of his power, change the subject
without changing the phenomena, and if in any particular case
it be certified infallibly to her that he actually does so, she her-
self requires us to believe it. In the Most Holy Eucharist, it is
so certified to reason, if the Church be infallible, and therefore,
in believing that the sensible phenomena of bread are there
without their natural subject, we are simply obeying reason, and
of course, then, do not contradict it. It is no contradiction of
reason to believe on a higher reason what we should not and
could not on a lower reason. In trjis doctrine, we are simply
180 TIIORNWELL'S ANSWER
required to suspend the ordinary reason at the bidding of an
extraordinary reason, which is not, and never can be, unreason-
able. Consequently, there is in the doctrine nothing contrary
to reason, and the Church, in enjoining it, does not enjoin a dog-
ma which contradicts either reason or the senses, though she un-
questionably does enjoin a dogma which is above reason. The
first proof, therefore, that the doctrine of infallibility " leads to
skepticism," must be abandoned, as having no foundation for
itself.
2. The second proof is no better. That certain infidel or
paganizing philosophers, in the latter part of the fifteenth and
early part of the sixteenth century, maintained that proposi-
tions may be philosophically true, yet theologically false, we con-
cede; that this was the doctrine of the Schoolmen, or that it
was ever for a moment countenanced by the Church, we deny.
Indeed, Leo X., in Concilii Lateranensis Sess. 8, 1513, con-
demns it, by declaring every assertion contrary to revealed faith
to be false, and decreeing that all persons adhering to such erro-
neous assertions be avoided and punished as heretics, tanquam
hcereticos. It would not be amiss, if the Professor would bear
in mind that proofs which are themselves either false or in want
of proof prove nothing, however pertinent they may be.
We cannot follow the Professor in his declamatory specula-
tions in support of his charge. His reasoning is all fallacious.
He starts with the assumption, that the Church is fallible, has
no authority from God to teach, and then charges her with con-
sequences which would follow, no doubt, if she were fallible, if
she had no divine commission ; for they are the precise conse-
quences which do follow from the teaching, or rather action, of
the Protestant sects. If the Church were fallible, a mere human
authority, arrogantly claiming to teach infallibly, we certainly
should not defend her, or dispute that her influence would be
as bad as Mr. Thornwell falsely alleges ; but we do not recog-
nize his right to assume the fallibility of the Church as the basis
of his proofs that she is not infallible ; and we cannot accept as
facts mere consequences deduced from an hypothesis which we
TO DR. LYNCH. 181
deny, and which is not yet proved, far less receive them as proofs
of the hypothesis.
There are in Catholic countries, no doubt, many unbelievers ;
but before this can be adduced as evidence 'that the Church, by
claiming to be infallible, leads them into unbelief, it is necessary
to prove that she is not infallible. If infallible, she cannot have
a skeptical tendency ; because what she enjoins must be infalli-
ble truth, and skepticism, when it does not proceed from malice,
results always, not from truth being present to the mind, but
from its not being present. But it is worthy of remark, that
the objections to Christianity on which unbelievers chiefly rely
are not drawn from the distinctive teachings of the Catholic
Church, nor from the Scriptures as she interprets them. They
are nearly all drawn from the Scriptures as interpreted by pri-
vate judgment, and hence, as we should expect, infidelity abounds
chiefly in Protestant countries. Protestant Germany, England,
the United States, are, any one of them, far more infidel than
even France ; and our own city cannot, in religious belief, com-
pare favorably with Paris, infidel as Paris unhappily is. Modern
infidelity is of Protestant origin ; Giordano Bruno sojourned in
Protestant England; Bayle was a Protestant, and resided in
Holland ; Voltaire, the father of French infidelity, did but trans-
port to France the philosophy of the Englishman Locke, and the
doctrines and objections of the English deists, Herbert of Cher-
bury, Tindal, Toland, Chubb, Morgan, Woolston, and others.
Indeed, to England especially belongs the chief glory, such as it
is, of infidelizing modern society. France and Germany are
nothing but her pupils. Rightly do Protestants regard her as
the bulwark of their religion ; for in the war against the Church,
against the revelation of Almighty God, she, with her sanctimo-
nious face and corrupt heart, has the chief command. It
were easy to show, that, aside from the internal malice of unbe-
lievers, the chief cause of infidelity in modern society is Protest-
antism, which asserts the divine authority of the Scriptures, and
then leaves them to be interpreted by private judgment ; but it
is unnecessary. It is becoming every day more and more obvious,
182 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
that, the more Protestants circulate the Bible, the mere do they
multiply scoffers and unbelievers.
In Letter VII. we come to another class of objections, which
we may term moral objections. These are summed up in the
assertion, The Church cannot be infallible, because her " infalli-
bility is conducive to licentiousness and immorality." (p. 105.)
The proof of this is, first, the unproved assertion, that the doc-
trine of the infallibility of the Church leads to skepticism ; and,
second, the allegation that Catholicity and Jesuitism are on 3 and
the same thing. The first assertion we dismiss, for we have just
shown that the Professor does not sustain it. As to Jesuitism,
we hardly know what to say ; for we do not know, and the au-
thor does not inform us, what is meant by Jesuitism. For aught
that appears, the identity asserted may be conceded without pre-
judice to the Church. The Society of Jesus is composed of
Catholic priests, and we are not aware that these have any pe-
culiar doctrines, either of faith or morals. Indeed, they could
not have ; for if they were to have any, they would be obliged
to leave the Order and the Church. The notion among some
Protestants, that the Jesuits are a sect in the bosom of the
Church, professing certain dogmas of faith or certain principles
of morals different from those professed by other Catholics, is a
ridiculous blunder. The Church enjoins the same faith and the
same principles of morals upon all her children, and no person,
or class of persons, would be suffered to teach in her commu-
nion, who should add to or take from them. The Jesuits are
Catholics, neither more nor less, and it is fair to presume that in
faith and principles of morals they agree with all Catholics, and
profess what the Church teaches.
But that the Jesuits teach, or ever have taught, doctrines fa-
vorable to licentiousness or immorality is a matter to be proved,
not taken for granted. What is the proof the Professor offers ?
Here is all we can find : " These three cardinal principles of
intention, mental reservation, and probability cover the whole
ground of Jesuitical atrocity." (p. 115.^ The Professor labors
TO DR. LYNCH. 183
long and hard to identify Catholicity and Jesuitism. He must,
therefore, concede that these three principles cover the whole of
what he holds to be atrocious in Catholicity. Catholicity, then,
is " conducive to licentiousness and immorality," because it con-
tains the three principles of " intention, mental reservation, and
probability." But what is the meaning the Professor attaches
to these principles ? Unhappily, he gives us no clear and expli-
cit answer ; for he writes with his head full of false assumptions.
" The detestable principles," he says, " of the graceless order
[the Jesuits] may be found embodied in the recorded
canons of general councils. That the end justifies the means,
that the interests of the priesthood are superior to the claims of
truth, justice, and humanity, is necessarily implied in the decree
of the Council of Lateran, that no oaths are binding that to
keep them is perjury rather than fidelity which conflict with
the advantage of the Church. What fraud have the Jesuits
ever recommended or committed, that can exceed in iniquity the
bloody proceedings of the Council of Constance in reference to
Huss ? What spirit have they ever breathed more deeply im-
bued with cruelty and slaughter, than the edict of Lateran to
kings and magistrates, to extirpate heretics from the face of the
earth ? The principle on which the sixteenth canon of the third
Council of Lateran proceeds covers the doctrine of mental re-
servations. If the end justifies the means, if we can be per-
jured with impunity to protect the authority of the priesthood,
a good intention will certainly sanctify any other lie, and a man
may always be sure that he is free from sin, if he can only be
sure of his allegiance to Rome and his antipathy to heretics.
The" doctrine of probability is in fall accordance with the spirit
of the Papacy, in substituting authority for evidence, and making
the opinions of men the arbiters of faith. And yet these three
cardinal principles of intention, mental reservation, and proba-
bility, which are so thoroughly Papal, cover the whole ground
of Jesuitical atrocity." pp. 114, 115.
It would seem from this, that the Professor understands by
the principle of intention, that the moral character of the actor
is determined by the intention with which he acts ; by that of
mental reservation, that no one can bind himself by oath to do
that which conflicts with the advantage of the Church ; and by
184
that of probability, the substituting of authority for evidence,
and making the opinions of men the arbiters of faith. If this
is not his meaning, we are unable to divine what it is.
That Catholicity teaches that the moral character of the ac-
tor is determined by his intention, or, in other words, that a
man is to be judged according to his intention, may be true
but this must be morally wrong, or it cannot be adduced as a
proof that the teaching of the Church is " conducive to licen-
tiousness and immorality." That this is morally wrong, the Pro-
fessor does not prove, or even attempt to prove. For ourselves,
we are not now called upon to prove that it is right. It is for
the Professor to prove that it is wrong. But we own, that, from
our boyhood, we have always supposed it a dictate of reason that
the man is to be praised or blamed according to his intention.
If I really intend to do a man evil, my unintentional failure to
do him evil does not exonerate me from guilt ; if I really intend
to do him good, but, in attempting to do him good, unintention-
ally do him evil, I am not guilty. If I have killed a man in
self-defence, the law excuses or justifies me ; and it does not
hold me guilty of murder, unless the killing has been done with
a felonious intent. He who takes the life of a fellow-being
through private revenge is a murderer ; the public officer who
does it in pursuance of a judicial sentence is no murderer, and
does but a justifiable act. Whence the difference, if not in the
difference of intention ? That no act, in relation to the actor, is
blameworthy unless done from a malicious intention, or praise-
worthy unless done from a virtuous intention, we have always
supposed to be the teaching of reason, and we must have high
authority to convince us that we have been wrong.
" But on this ground the Church erects her doctrine, that the
end justifies the means." We cannot concede this ; first, because
the Church has no such doctrine ; and second, because the prin-
ciple does not imply it. The assertion, that the Church teaches,
that any Catholic doctor teaches, or ever did teach, that the end
justifies the means, is made without the faintest shadow of a
reason, and the reverse is what she does teach, as every man
TO DR. LYNCH. 185
knows who knows anything of her teaching. The doctrine of
intention objected to implies nothing of the sort. The Church
teaches, indeed, that the act for which we are accountable is the
act of the will ; but she teaches that no act is done with a good
intention that is not referred to God as the ultimate end, and
that every one of our acts is to be so referred. Now, in choosing
the means, we as much act as we do in the choice of the end,
and therefore must be, as to the means, bound by the same law
which binds us as to the end ; and then we can no more choose
unjust means than we can unjust ends, and therefore can be
allowed to seek even just ends only by just means.
The Professor says that " the Jesuit Casnedi maintains in a
published work, that at the day of judgment God will say to
many, * Come, my beloved, you who have committed murder,
blasphemed, &c., because you believed that in so doing you were
right.' " But he takes good care not to give us a reference to
the work itself, and we hazard nothing in saying that no Jesuit
ever published such a sentence, unless it was to condemn it, as
containing a Protestant heresy. That invincible ignorance, if
really invincible, excuses from sin, is, no doubt, a doctrine of the
Church ; for she teaches that no one can sin in not doing that
which he has no power to do. No doubt, involuntary mistakes, if
unavoidable, springing from no malice in the will, from no cul-
pable neglect of ours, are excusable ; but no Catholic divine ever
taught that invincible ignorance can extend to the great precepts
of the natural law, to such as forbid murder, blasphemy, <fec. ;
for they are engraven on the heart of every man, and are evident
to every man by the light of natural reason. The Professor has
been misled, by relying on the authority of Pascal, and other
writers of his stamp. He refers us to Pascal's Provincial Letters
" for a popular exposition of the morality of the Jesuits." He
might as well refer us to Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary
for a popular exposition of the morality of the Gospel. Pascal
was a Jansenist, and Jansenists are heretics, not Catholics. The
Provincial Letters are witty, but wicked, a tissue of lies,
forgeries, and misrepresentations, from beginning to end, as has
186
been amply proved over and over again. If Mr. Thormvell is
ignorant of this fact, he will have to search long before he will
find a Catholic or a Jesuit doctor that will permit him to hold
that his ignorance is excusable.*
* In ordinary times, what we have said in the text is all that would
need to be said in reference to the Society of Jesus ; but now, when the
Society is suffering a severe persecution, even in Catholic countries, we
are unwilling to pass the subject over without bearing our testimony,
feeble as it is, in favor of the children of St. Ignatius. We do this the
more willingly, because we are conscious that we have ourselves fre-
quently done them injustice, both in our thoughts and in our words.
It is hard, when we hear a body of men widely and constantly decried,
not to be more or less prejudiced against them ; and nothing is more
natural than, when under the influence of this prejudice, to exaggerate
beyond all reasonable bounds the slight imperfections we may observe
in here and there an individual member, and to generalize them into
characteristics of the body itself. Few persons have been more preju-
diced against the Society of Jesus than we ourselves. But having taken
some pains to find a basis for the unfavorable judgment we had formed,
we hardly know when or how, we confess that we have been entirely
unsuccessful. There may have been individual Jesuits whose conduct
we could not approve, but we are satisfied, after studying the history of
the Order, that it needs no other defence than a simple statement of
facts, and no other eulogium than the recital of its deeds.
Every body knows the popular meaning attached to Jesuitical. Tak-
ing the word in this meaning, there are no men so little Jesuitical as
the Jesuits. Their whole history proves them to be remarkable for their
simplicity of heart, singleness of purpose, and straightforwardness of
conduct No man can take up a work in defence of the Order, written
by a member, without being fully convinced that the Jesuit is the anti-
thesis of the character commonly ascribed to him. We have heard
many charges, and grave charges, against him ; but we have not heard
one that we have not seen refuted. Jesuits are men, and, of course,
suffer more or less the infirmities common to all men; but we should
like to be shown a body of men, of equal numbers, placed in the try-
ing circumstances in which they have been, who have shown less of
human infirmity, or been more true to the motto, Jld major em Dei
G/oriam. There is no field of science or art which they have not culti-
vated with success; no department of literature which they have not
enriched with their contributions ; scarcely a nation to which they have
not preached the cross ; and hardly a land which they have not conse-
crated with the blood of their martyrs.
TO DR. LYNCH. 18 Y
1. The principle of mental reservation happens to be no
Catholic doctrine. Protestants would, no doubt, be pleased to
find that the Church teaches that lying is sometimes justifiable,
for such a doctrine is one they stand very much in need of; but
Even the present persecution of the Society is to its glory. If the
Jesuits had been political demagogues, if they had been violent radi-
cals, ready to sacrifice liberty to license, order to anarchy, religion to
politics, heaven to earth, our ears would not have been stunned with
maddened outcries against them; the world would have owned them
as her children, and the age would have delighted to honor them. We
know it is pretended that they are the enemies of liberty and the friends
of despotism, but it needs only a slight knowledge of facts to know that
this is mere pretence. Liberty has more than once found her noblest
champion in the Jesuits, and the hostility a year or two since manifested
to them in France was because they demanded the freedom of educa-
tion, a right guarantied by the Charter itself. They may not be, in
these days, foremost among those who stir up rebellions and revolutions ;
they may not regard the fearful events which have recently taken
place in Europe, as sure to bring back the golden age of the poets;
they may hold their mission to be spiritual, rather than political, and
believe it more important to convert individuals and nations to God
than to one political creed or another ; but if so, it does not follow that
they are wrong, or that for this very reason they are not all the more
worthy of our respect and confidence.
The Society of Jesus was instituted, not for political, but for religious
purposes, and its members, by their profession, are devoted to preaching
the Gospel, hearing confessions, and educating youth, and that not for
one country only, but for all countries. These ends are the same and
of equal importance everywhere and under all forms of government.
If the Jesuits were to adopt a political creed, and become its propagan-
dists, how could they devote themselves to the ends of their institute,
alike under the monarchy of Europe and the democracy of America?
What course would or could be proper for them, but to abstain from
declaring themselves in favor of any particular form of government,
and to content themselves with simply inculcating upon all citizens to
obey the legitimate government of their country, whatever its form or
constitution ?
The charge against the Jesuits of being in favor of this or that form
of government arises from their refusal to declare themselves in favor
of one or another, from the fact that they have no political creed, and
make it a point of duty to stand aloof from politics, and to confine them-
selves to the discharge of their spiritual functions. They obey the
188
she teaches nothing of the sort. She does not command her
children at all times and on all occasions to speak all the truth
they may happen to know, but she does command them never
to speak any thing but the truth ; and she teaches them, that,
powers that be, and comport themselves as loyal subjects to the author-
ity of the country, whether it be autocracy, as in Russia, constitution-
alism, as in France and Great Britain, or republicanism, as in America.
What more could we ask of them ? If tyrants denounce them because
they will not turn defenders of tyranny, if revolutionists denounce them
because they will not join in the war against legitimate authority, whose
fault is it ? Are we to condemn the Jesuits because tyrants and revolu-
tionists wrong them ?
Wherever the Jesuits are permitted to establish themselves, they are
a blessing. It is not easy to estimate the value to this country of their
services as instructors of our youth. It would be difficult to find a sub-
stitute for them as educators. In every part of the country, they are,
for the pure love of God, founding colleges, and training up our child-
ren in the way they should go. Is this nothing ? These colleges are
but of yesterday, yet have they already done great service, as we our-
selves can personally testify, and who have peculiar reason to thank
Almighty God for raising up and moving the good fathers to devote
themselves to the important work of education. But as yet they have
really done nothing, in comparison with what they will do. They
now rank among the best in the country, and in a few years they will
place education with us at least on a level with what it is in the most
favored countries of the Old World. And can we count this small
service ?
Worldings may despise the Jesuits, infidels and heretics may calum-
niate them; misguided Catholics, whose faith is but a dead faith, may
distrust them ; but the world needs them, our own country needs them,
and though the Church is dependent on no religious order, they are
not the least efficient of her servants. Protestants, in their estimation
of the Jesuit, betray only their ignorance or their malice, or both. The
character they ascribe to the Jesuit they will find in its perfection in
their own ministers, and the best definition of Jesuitical, in the popu-
lar acceptation of the term, is a Presbyterian minister, the antithesis
of a Jesuit. Mr. Thornwell illustrates and accepts, in the book be-
fore us, every element of what he calls Jesuitism. No man can have
been brought up among Presbyterians without, knowing that the prin-
ciple, the end justifies the means, is the one on which they generally
act, whether they avow it or not. No one can read one of their books
against the Church without perceiving that the principle of mental
TO DR. LYNCH. 189
when they use words which by their natural force convey a false
sense, they speak falsehood, whatever may have been their secret
meaning, and that knowingly and intentionally to use language
which is naturally calculated to deceive the hearer, to convey to
him a false meaning, or a meaning different from that in the
mind of him that uses it, is to lie, to sin against God. All who
are acquainted with Catholic morality know that this is her
teaching, and whoever asserts the contrary is guilty of the very
offence he would fasten upon her, and has no excuse for his con-
duct. For if he is ignorant of her doctrine, he speaks rashly ;
if he is not ignorant, he is guilty of a wilful falsehood.
2. The facts which the Professor alleges, granting them to be
facts, do not prove the principle of mental reservation. We
presume the Professor wishes to maintain that the Church
teaches that it is lawful for her children to take oaths which
conflict with her advantage, but that they must take them with
the mental reservation, not to keep them ; and that if so taken,
it is no sin to break them. This is what he needs in order to
make out his case. But this he does not prove. Granting that
reservation, or, in plain terms, the right to lie for the purpose of ad-
vancing Protestantism, is a principle which they practically adopt, and
hold in constant requisition ; and whoever will read a Presbyterian dog-
matical work will see that to higher certainty than probability its au-
thor does not aspire, and that to substitute authority for evidence, and
to make the opinions of men the the arbiters of faith, is his boast.
Nothing is more ridiculous than for a Presbyterian minister to accuse
Jesuits of a want of principle, of candor, of honesty, or to charge them
with fraud and cruelty. Who ever heard of a Presbyterian minister
that was not, officially, the very impersonation of pride, cant, hypoc-
risy, bigotry, and cruelty ? If such a one there ever was, we may be
sure that he did not live and die a Presbyterian. We know something
of Presbyterianism ; it was our misfortune to have been brought up a
Presbyterian. We know what are its secret covenants, the pledges it
exacts of its adherents, and the measures it takes to prevent the least
ray of light from penetrating their darkness. Take a Protestant's ac-
count of Catholicity or Jesuitism, change the name, and it is a faithful
picture as far as it goes, of proud, arrogant, bigoted, cruel, and perse-
cuting Presbyterianism. There is not a charge brought against us by
Presbyterians that is not substantially true of them.
190
he has rightly stated the doctrine of the Council of Lateran, he
does not tell us which council, all he proves is, that the Church
teaches that no oath taken to her prejudice is binding; but he
does not prove that she teaches that the reason why it is not
binding is because it was taken with a mental reservation not to
keep it in case it conflicted with her advantage. For aught that
appears, the reason why the Church declares that such oaths do
not bind is because she holds them to be unlawful oaths, oaths
which no man has a right to take, and which therefore are void
ab initio. The Professor will hardly maintain the morality of
robbers and cutthroats, that a man who has taken an unlawful
oath is bound to keep it. He will hardly pretend that he who
should swear to assist in a plot for blowing up the Presbyterian
Assembly when in session, for instance, would be bound to keep
his oath, or to refrain from revealing the plot, simply because he
had sworn not to do so. The whole sum and substance of the
charge, then, is, that the Jesuits and the Church teach that un-
lawful oaths do not bind. Does this conflict with reason ? Is
this " conducive to licentiousness and immorality ? " Is it im-
moral to teach that no man can bind himself to do wrong ?
But in this the Church teaches that " the interests of the
priesthood are superior to the claims of truth, justice, and hu-
manity ; for she holds that all oaths which conflict with her
advantage are unlawful." The conclusion is not necessary, for
it may be that her interests, her advantage, are identical with the
claims of truth, justice, and humanity ; or that it is only by pro-
moting her interests and seeking her advantage that it is possible
to vindicate the claims of truth, justice and humanity. If she
be what she professes to be, this must be so ; and that she is
what she professes to be the Professor must presume till he has
proved the contrary. If she be the Church of God, any oath
to her prejudice is an oath against God, and no man can be mad
enough to say that an oath against God can bind, or that the
claims of truth, justice, or humanity can be prejudiced by not
keeping it. But the Professor cannot assume that she is not the
Church of God, for that she is not, is the very point he is to
TO DR. LYNCH. 191
prove, and he cannot prove this by assuming it, and making the
assumption the principle of his arguments to prove it. Such a
procedure would simply beg the question. Granting, then,
that the Church does teach that oaths to her prejudice are un-
lawful, and therefore do not bind, nothing proves that she is not
right in so doing, and therefore nothing proves that in doing
so she favors " licentiousness and immorality." To condemn the
Church, on the ground the Professor assumes, would be to assert
the doctrine opposite to hers ; namely, unlawful oaths are to be
kept, that, if I have been foolish or wicked enough to swear to
do wrong, I am bound in conscience to keep rny oath and do the
wrong, a monstrous doctrine, which strikes at the foundation
of all morals. It h strange what blunders Protestants commit,
in trying to get an argument against the Church. It would seem
as if it never occurred to them to examine the principle of the
objections they urge. They seem to say, if the Church should
favor licentiousness and immorality, then she would not be the
Church of God ; therefore she does favor licentiousness and
immorality. The Church forbids unlawful oathes.
3. The Professor, evidently, is ignorant of the principle of
probability, or probabilism, as understood by Catholic theolo-
gians. That principle, if he did but know it, is very nearly the
contrary of what he supposes, and is little else than the well-
known maxim of the Common Law, that, if there is a reasonable
doubt, the accused is entitled to its benefit. But the principle,
as the Professor defines it, is not embraced by the Church, nor
defended by a single Catholic divine. He says, the Church sub-
stitutes " authority for evidence, and makes the opinions of men
the arbiters of faith ; " but this, in principle, at least, is a mis-
take ; for the Church teaches that God alone is the arbiter of
faith, and that nothing but his word, declared to be his word,
by himself through his divinely appointed organ, can be of faith.
His word divinely declared to be his word is the highest evi-
dence reason can demand or receive ; and if the Church is
proved to reason to be his organ for declaring his word, reason
has the highest evidence possible for believing that whatever
192 THOBNWELL'S ANSWER
she teaches as the word of God is infallibly true. She asserts
that reason has the right to demand this evidence, and has no
right to dispense with it. In principle, then, she denies the
principle of probability as set forth by the Professor. If she is
what she claims to be, she denies it in her practice, and cannot
possibly do as alleged. That she is what she professes to be
the Professor is bound, as we have already shown, to presume
till he makes the contrary appear ; which he does not do.
The Professor identifies Jesuitism with Catholicity, and re-
solves all that is atrocious in Jesuitism into the three principles
enumerated, and therefore all that is atrocious in Catholicity.
But the first of these principles is a simple dictate of reason,
and contains nothing atrocious. Then all that is atrocious in
Catholicity, or all the atrocity that can be charged upon Catho-
licity, is resolvable into the other two principles, namely, mental
reservation and probability. But these are not Catholic princi-
ples, and, however atrocious they may be, their atrocity cannot
be charged to her. Therefore no atrocity can be charged to her,
even according to the Professor's own argument. But to be
"conducive to licentiousness and immorality" is undeniably
atrocious. Therefore the Church is not conducive to them. So
the Professor does not sustain his assertion, that " Papal infalli-
bility is conducive to licentiousness and immorality." Assuredly,
the Professor is ignorant of the laws of evidence.
The next proof offered against the infallibility of the Church
is, that "it is the patron of superstition and will-worship."
(p. 116.) This is a singular objection. How infallibility can
patronize superstition and will-worship, that is, we//-worship, or
the worship of wells, conceding them to be wrong, is more than
we are able to conceive. Infallibility can be the patron of noth-
ing wrong, and the Professor, if he should prove his thesis, would
prove that superstition and will-worship are right, not that the
Church is fallible. Can he mean that the assertion of her in-
fallibility is the patron of superstition and will-worship ? But
this he would be troubled to prove, even if he should prove the
TO DR. LYNCH. 193
existence of superstition and will-worship in the Church ; for
they undeniably exist out of the Church, in communities which
lay no claim to infallibility. Does he mean that the Church is
not infallible, because she is the patron of superstition, &c. ?
Why, then, did he not say so ? If this is his meaning, his argu-
ment is valid, if the fact be as alleged. But, unhappily for his
cause, the fact is not as alleged.* Catholics pay divine honors to
God alone, as every one knows who knows any thing of Catholic
worship. That we keep relics, pictures, and images, and pay
them a relative honor as memorials of departed sanctity, we
admit ; that we venerate the Saints, especially the Ever-blessed
Virgin, the Most Holy Mother of God, we also admit ; but that
this is superstition or will-worship we deny, and the Professor
must prove, or not assert it.
The last proof of the fallibility of the Church which the Pro-
fessor attempts to offer is, that she is not infallible, for " she is
hostile to civil government." (p. 143.) His argument is, when
reduced to form, the church that claims and exercises temporal
authority is hostile to civil government ; but the Roman Catho-
lic Church claims and exercises temporal authority; therefore
she is hostile to civil government. The church that is hostile
to civil government is fallible ; but the Roman Catholic Church
is hostile to civil government ; therefore, the Roman Catholic
Church is fallible, that is, not infallible.
The church that claims and exercises supreme temporal autho-
rity is hostile to civil government, if she has received from Al-
mighty God no grant of that temporal authority, we concede ;
if she has received the grant, we deny. No church which pos-
sesses, by the Divine grant, temporal authority, can be hostile
to civil government by claiming and exercising it, because she is
herself, under God, the civil government. But the Roman
Gatholic Church, if she has received the grant, does thus pos-
sess the temporal authority. Therefore, if she claims and exer-
cises that authority, she is not hostile to civil goverment.
* The reader will find this objection replied to at length in Brown-
son's Quarterly Review for January, 1848, pp. 101-116.
194
The church that is hostile to all government in civil affairs is
fallible, we concede ; for the necessity of government in civil
affairs is clearly evinced from reason ; the church that is hostile
only to distinct and independent civil government is fallible, we
deny, for it may be that God has vested the government of civil
as well as spiritual affairs in the same hands. The denial of
civil government distinct from and independent of the Church
is a proof of fallibility only on the supposition that such civil
government exists by divine right. But if all government, civil
as well as spiritual, is vested in the Church, it does not so exist.
Therefore its denial is no proof of fallibility. Moreover, the
Roman Catholic Church, as we have seen, cannot be hostile to
civil government, even if she claim and exercise the supreme
temporal authority, if she has received it as a grant from God,
the Supreme Ruler. But it is not proved that she claims or ex-
ercises it without such grant. Therefore it is not proved that
she is hostile to civil government ; and therefore, again, it is not
proved that she is fallible. The Professor labors to prove, that,
according to Catholicity, " the Pope is the vicar of the Omnipo-
tent God, invested alike with temporal power and ecclesiastical
authority." (p. 147.) If so, the Pope is the vicar of God in
both orders, and is invested with the supreme authority in both.
Then he is by divine appointment the temporal sovereign. But
for the temporal sovereign to claim aud exercise temporal autho-
rity is not to be hostile to the civil government, but to assert and
maintain it.
But the claim of the Church to "secular authority merges
the state in the Church. Kings and emperors, nations and com-
munities, become merely the instruments and pliant tools of
spiritual dominion. " (page. 153.) What if the spiritual do-
minion be legimate ? All power is of God, and there is no legit-
imate authority not from him. Kings, emperors, nations, com-
munities, have no right to exercise temporal authority, save as
vicars of the Omnipotent God, and it is only for the reason that
they are such that we are under any obligation to obey them.
If Almighty God has made the Pope his sole vicar in both
TO DR. LYNCH. 195
orders, obedience is due to him by all both in church and state,
and then it is no objection to the Church that she exacts the
submission of kings, emperors, nations, communities, for they
can, in such case, have no authority not derived from God
through the Pope. The Professor, if he grant that the Pope is
the vicar of Almighty God in the temporal and in the spiritual
order, cannot urge his objection, because in doing so he would
resist the authority of the vicar of God, and therefore of God
himself.
Again, if the Pope be the vicar of God in both orders, the
claim and exercise of the supreme temporal dominion do not
merge the state in the church, for then the Church is both church
and state. The Church could merge the state in herself by
claiming and exercising temporal power, only on condition that
she had received no special grant of temporal power, and claimed
to exercise it solely by virtue of her grant of spiritual authority.
But if she teaches, as the Professor contends, that in the Pope
she has been invested with temporal as well as with spiritual
authority, she does not do this, that is, does not claim the tem-
poral as incidental to the spiritual. Therefore, even granting
that she claims the supreme temporal authority, she does not
and cannot merge the state in the Church as a spiritual author-
ity, which is the sense intended. This is evinced from the in-
stance of the Papal states. The Pope in regard to them is su-
preme in both temporals and spirituals, but they exist as a state,
as a civil government, as much so as Tuscany or Sardinia.
The Professor does not appear to understand the question he
wishes to discuss. The spiritual order is undeniably superior to
the temporal, and nothing can be legitimately concluded from
the temporal to the prejudice of the spiritual. No man who
has any knowledge of even natural morality can pretend that it
is the prerogative of the temporal order to define or give law to
the spiritual. It is not according to reason that the lower should
rule the higher, the body the soul, for instance, or the state the
Church. To object to the Church that she subjects the whole
temporal order to the spiritual order, or that she makes the spir-
196
itual dominion supreme, is to make an objection which reason
disavows, because it would be in principle the same as to deny
the right of reason to rule the flesh, nay, the same as to deny
reason itself. The Church, if she is God's Church, if she has
received plenary spiritual authority as the vicar of the Omnipo-
tent God, must needs be superior to the state, and the state can
have no authority to do aught she declares to be sinful or mor-
ally wrong, and must be bound to do whatever she declares to
be required by the law of God. To allege that she subjects kings,
emperors, <fec., to her dominion is, then, to allege nothing against
her.
The Professor does not state the question properly. He be-
gins with an assumption which he has no right to make. He as-
sumes, that, if the Church claims any authority in the temporal
order, she is a usurper, and therefore cannot be infallible. He
takes it for granted, then, that, if he proves that she has claimed
such authority, he has disproved her infallibility. But we de-
mand the proof from reason, that she has no authority in tem-
porals. Till he proves this, he cannot conclude, from the fact
that she claims it, that she is a usurper, and therefore fallible.
It is certain from reason, since all power is of God, and there is
and can be no rightful authority to govern in any order not de-
rived mediately or immediately from him, that he can make the
Pope his sole vicar on earth in both orders, if such be his will
and pleasure. If he does so, then it is also certain that the Pope
has the right to exercise the supreme authority in both orders,
and then that, so far from his temporal authority being usurped,
all authority not derived from God through him is usurpation.
What the Professor has to prove, then, in case he contends that
the Church claims the supreme temporal authority, is, not that
she claims it, but that she claims it without having received it
from God. If she asserts that she has received it, since the
legal presumption is in her favor, and the argument is not to
prove, but to disprove, her infallibility, he can prove that she
has not received it only by proving that she has in the exercise
of it violated some principle of natural justice.
TO DR. LYNCH. 197
We are far from conceding that the Church has ever claim-
ed or exercised temporal authority in the sense intended ; but
pass over that. Let it be supposed for the present that she
has. What is the evidence that she has ever violated any prin-
ciple of natural justice ? You can arraign her only on the law
of nature, before the bar of natural reason. Produce, then, the
precept of the law of nature which she has violated or contra-
dicted. We have looked carefully through all that the Pro-
fessor has urged, and we can find nothing that is immoral or
unjust. All his proofs are reduced to this, that she claims and
exercises temporal authority. Grant all this, what then ? Where
is your evidence that she has not rightfully claimed and exer-
cised it ? You offer none, and only work yourself up into a vio-
lent passion against her, because she has claimed and exercised
it. Where is your evidence that the exercise you fancy you have
proved has been contrary to the law of nature ? You offer only
two things ; first, what you call the Jesuit's oath, and, second,
the prohibition of duelling by the Council of Trent. The oath
ascribed to the Jesuits is a forgery. The Jesuits have no such
oath, for as Jesuits they take no oath at all. The Council of
Trent condemns duelling, we grant ; but is it the condemnation
of duelling, or duelling itself, that is contrary to the precepts of
justice ? Which is easier to defend, duelling, or the Church
in condemning it ? And who is in the wrong, the Church in
condemning, or you in defending, the base, cowardly, and detest-
able practice of single combat ?
But the Church does more than condemn it. According to
the statute of the Council of Trent, in its twenty-fifth session,
" the temporal sovereign who permits a duel to take place in his
dominions is punished not only with excommunication, but with
the loss of the place in which the combat occurred. The du-
ellists and their seconds are condemned in the same statute to
perpetual infamy, the loss of their goods, and deprived, if they
should fall, of Christian burial, while those who are merely spec-
tators of the scene are sentenced to eternal malediction." (p. 152.)
Well, what then? What then? Why, this proves that the
198 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
Church claims the right to exercise civil authority, nay, to inflict
civil punishments ; for such are the forfeiture of goods, and the
loss of the place where the combat occurs. Yes, as you cite the
statute, but not as it was passed by the Council of Trent.* But
let that pass. If so, it is nothing to your purpose, unless the
punishment prescribed is in itself unjust. Will you maintain
that ?
" In a conflict of power between princes and Popes, the first
and highest duty of all the vassals of Rome is to maintain her
honor and support her claims." (p. 153.) Suppose a conflict
of power between the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States and the civil authorities of the
country, which party would the Professor, as a Presbyterian min-
ister and member of that church, support ? The civil author-
ities ? Then he either condemns his church, or raises the tem-
poral order above the spiritual, which he expressly repudiates.
Would he side with his church, and maintain the independence
of the spiritual order ? Then he would recognize and act on the
principle he objects to us, and we retort his objection. Suppose
a conflict between an infallible church and a fallible civil govern-
ment, we demand which of the two ought to yield. " But the
Church is not infallible." That is for you to prove. If she is
infallible, she must be in the right, and then we are bound in
reason to support her ; if she is not infallible, we deny that we
are bound to support her at all, for then she is not God's Church.
" Hence the Jesuit in his secret oath renounces all allegiance
to all earthly powers which have not been confirmed by the
Holy See." (ib.) The Jesuit has no secret oath, and renounces
no allegiance to the civil government. The charge is false.
" The Romish Church, too, sets her face like a flint against
the subjection of her spiritual officers to the legal tribunals of
the state." (ib.) Well, what if she does ? Where is the proof
that in this she is wrong ? She " has positively prohibited the
intolerable presumption of laymen, though kings and magis-
trates, of demanding oaths of allegiance from the lofty members
* Vide Cone. Trident. Sess. 25, cap. xix.
TO DR. LYNCH. 199
oi her hierarchy." (ib.) In case they hold nothing temporal
of them, conceded ; but what then ? Will the Professor be good
enough to demonstrate the right of the temporal authority to
demand from a minister of religion an oath of allegiance in
spirituals ?
La Fayette is reported to have said, that, " if ever the liber-
ties of this country should be destroyed, it would be by the
machinations of the Romish priests." (p. 154.) Therefore the
Church is fallible ! La Fayette is reported, by whom ? When ?
Where ? What if he did say so 1 Was La Fayette infallible ?
And does it follow that the thing must be so, because La Fayette
thought so ? If he did once think so, it is possible that he
changed his mind, for it is reported that he became reconciled to
the Church and died a Catholic, and it is well known that he
was, when dying, exceedingly anxious for the services of a " Ro-
mish priest." He had probably had enough of French philoso-
phism during his lifetime, without wishing to carry any with
him into eternity.
" They are all of them [ Catholic priests] sworn subjects of
a foreign potentate." (ib.) Not true. The authority of the
Church is Catholic, not national, and can be no more foreign
here than at Rome.
" There are peculiar principles in the constitution and polity
of Rome which render it an engine of tremendous power."
(p. 159.) Who has more power than God? Because, if we
admit the existence of God, we must admit his omnipotence,
are we to be atheists ? If the Church be not God's Church, she
cannot possess the authority we claim for her, without danger,
we concede ; if she is his Church, and the Pope is his vicar,
what have we to fear from her power more than we should have,
if it were exerted immediately by God himself? We defend
the Church as God's Church, and attempt no defence of her on
the supposition that she is not his Church. Prove to us that he
has not instituted her, and we will abandon her ; but remember
that proving that she has a tremendous power is no proof to us
that he has not instituted her ; for it belongs not to us to say
200
how much or how little power it is proper for him to delegate to
her. The claim of similar power for a human or man-made
church, like the Presbyterian, would unquestionably be danger-
ous, and has proved itself so in the whole history of Protestant-
ism. But that it is dangerous in a divinely commissioned
church, we know, and so does every man of common sense, is
not and cannot be true ; for God himself becomes our surety for
the right exercise of the power, and that is sufficient.
" The doctrine of auricular confession establishes a system of
espionage which is absolutely fatal to personal independence,
and from the intimate connection between priests and bishops,
and bishops and the Pope, all the important secrets of the earth
can be easily transmitted to the Vatican." This is ridiculously
absurd. No priest can communicate to any person living the
secre*ts of the confessional, and he can no more do it to his
bishop or to the Pope than he can to James H. Thorn well. He
cannot speak, out of the confessional, of what has been told him
in the confessional, even to the penitent himself. No instance
of the secrets of the confessional having been betrayed has ever
occurred. Even the vilest apostates have never been known to
disclose what they had received under the seal of the confess-
ional. The Catholic clergy do not record the confessions of
their penitents in a book, making them a part of the records of
the Church, as did the former Puritan ministers of New Eng-
land, as we had occasion ourselves to know from the inspection
of the records of some of their churches, over which it was our
misfortune to be settled as pastor.
As to the system of espionage, we all know that it was car-
ried on to its perfection in the Congregational churches of New
England ; and it still existed in full vigor a few years ago in the
Presbyterian churches in the Middle States, as we had personal
means of knowing. In most Calvinistic churches, especially the
Congregational, the Presbyterian, and the Methodist, the mem-
bers are bound by a solemn covenant, a covenant frequently
renewed, to watch over one another, which means, practically,
that they shall be spies one upon another ; and who that has
TO DR. LYNCH. 201
had the misfortune to be brought up a Presbyterian has not
felt that he was under perpetual surveillance, that every member,
it might be, of the particular church to which he belonged was
on the look-out to catch him tripping ? We have ourselves had
ample opportunities of learning the degree of personal independ-
ence allowed by Presbyterianism, and we never knew the mean-
ing of personal independence till we became a Catholic. There is
no comparison, in this matter of personal independence, between
Catholicity and any form of Protestantism we are acquainted
with, and that is saying much, if what is alleged concerning our
frequent changes be not altogether untrue. Catholicity provides
us all the helps we need in order to attain to Christian perfec-
tion ; she exhorts, she entreats us to avail ourselves of them,
and to attain to that perfection ; but she throws the responsi-
bility on our own individual consciences. Catholics, also, usually
mind their own business, and attend rather to their own con-
sciences than to those of their neighbors. Hence, you find
among them very little hypocrisy. Their conduct is free, frank,
natural, and, as far as we have had opportunities of observing,
they generally wear their worst side outward. It needs a close
and intimate acquaintance with them to know, or even to sus-
pect their real piety and worth. This indicates any thing but
the want of personal independence, and the presence of the sys-
tem of espionage alleged. Indeed, the Professor in bringing
this charge must have argued against us from what he knows
to be true of his own sect ; but this is to pass from one genus to
another, not allowable in logic. Servility, slavishness, the want
of personal independence, the fear to say that our souls are our
own, though unquestionably characteristics of the Presbyterian,
are no characteristics of the Catholic. There is a total difference
between the mild and parental authority exercised by our clergy
over us, and the harsh and severe tyranny notoriously exercised
by Presbyterian ministers over their flocks ; and it would take
much to make Catholics believe it possible for a people to stand
in such awe and dread of a minister of religion as Presbyterians
do of their ministers. Our children are delighted to see a priest
202 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
come into the house ; we, when a boy, if we saw a minister
coming, used to run and hide in the barn.
The Professor has mentioned several other points, but they
involve no principle not already met and disposed of. The
great question of the mutual relation of the temporal and spir-
itual powers we have not discussed, for it has not lain in our
way. In these essays we have not been laboring to establish
the claims of the Church, but to test the validity of the objec-
tions urged by the Professor. We have shown that he has
offered nothing that disproves, or tends to disprove, her infal-
libility. This is all that was required of us. That the Church
is hostile to civil government we deny, and could easily prove,
if it were necessary. But the burden of proof is on the Pro-
fessor, and we are not disposed to assume it for ourselves. The
Church represents the spiritual order, and has exclusive jurisdic-
tion under God, for her own children, of all questions which
pertain to that order ; but as the Church, she has never enacted,
or attempted to enact, civil laws. She asserts, undoubtedly,
the independence, and if the independence, the supremacy of
the spiritual order, because the spiritual order embraces every
moral question, and the state is as much bound to obey the
moral law as the individual ; but as long as the civil govern-
ment seeks the public good without violating any precept of
that law, she leaves it, within its own province, free to adopt
and carry out the economical or prudential policy it judges
proper or expedient.
The Professor alludes to the struggles which have at times
occurred between the civil and ecclesiastical powers, and takes
it for granted that in these struggles the civil power was always
in the right, and the Church in the wrong. It is singular how
readily Protestants, when they wish to deny the infallibility of
the Church, assume it for individuals and for civil government.
But civil government is confessedly fallible. The simple fact of
a conflict between the two powers is, therefore, no evidence that
the right is against the Church. Indeed, the conflict itself is a
TO DR. LYNCH. 203
presumption that the state is in the wrong ; because the pre-
sumption is always in favor of the superior order. Do our Prot-
estant friends ever reflect on the distrust which they manifest of
their own pretended churches, when they assume that right
must needs be, in every contest, on the side of the temporal
authority ? Do they remark that they prove themselves thus
to be either courtiers or infidels ? Even if the Church were
only a human institution, it would not follow that she would not
be in the right in warring against political tyrants. We certainly
have no respect for Presbyterianism, and yet, if we should find
the state, by virtue of its own authority, attempting to suppress
it, we should side with Presbyterianism against the state ; for
we hold the utter incompetency of the state in spirituals, and
we no more concede its right to sit in judgment on Presbyteri-
anism than we do its right to sit in judgment on Catholicity.
The question is one which belongs to the spiritual authority,
and the state, in its own right, has and can have nothing to do
with it.
It perhaps has never occurred to the Professor that it might
be profitable to investigate those struggles which afford him so
much matter of virulent but foolish declamation against the
Church. In fact, the Popes, in their contests with the civil
powers, need no apology. Judged even as a human power, they
were always in the right, on the side of justice and humanity,
defending the cause of the oppressed, and putting forth their
power only to vindicate the rights of conscience, to succor the
weak, to console the afflicted, and to protect the friendless. We
said all this, and even more, while yet in the ranks of Protest-
ants and far from dreaming that we should one day be a Catho-
lic. We grant that the Pope has excommunicated princes and
nobles, deposed kings and emperors, and absolved their subjects
from their allegiance ; but in this he has only done his duty as
the Spiritual Father of Christendom, and what was required by
humanity as well as religion. These princes were his spiritual
subjects, amenable to his authority by the law of the Church
which they acknowledged, and by the constitution of their own
204
states. He was their legal judge, had the right to summon
them before him, and to cut them off, if he saw proper, from
the communion of the faithful, and excommunication of itself
worked virtual deposition. In absolving subjects from their
allegiance, he usurped no authority, for he was the legal judge
in the case ; for whether the allegiance continued or had ceased
presented a case of conscience, of which, as Sovereign Pontiff,
he had supreme jurisdiction, and because he was by all parties
the acknowledged umpire between princes and their subjects.
But he never absolved from their allegiance the subjects of infi-
del princes, or of any princes not Catholic, or bound to be Catho-
lic by the constitution of their states, as the kings and queens
of Great Britain are bound, since 1688, to be Protestant.
But what, in fact, was the absolution granted, and in what
cases has the Pope exercised, or claimed, the right to grant it ?
Has the Pope ever claimed the right to absolve from their alle-
giance the subjects of a legitimate prince, who reigns justly,
according to the laws and constitution of his state ? Never. In
every such case he impresses upon his spiritual children the duty
of obedience. But the obligation between prince and subject is
reciprocal. If the subject is bound to obey the prince, the prince
is bound to protect the subject. This is implied in the very
nature of the social compact. The people are not for the prince,
but the prince is for the people. The authority of the prince is
not a personal franchise or right, but a trust, and he is bound
to exercise it according to the conditions on which it is commit-
ted to him. Government exists, nor for the good of the govern-
ors, but for the good of the governed. The true prince is the
servant of his subjects. Government is instituted for the com-
mon good, and the moment it ceases to consult the common
good, or the public good, it forfeits its rights. The tyrant, the
oppressor, has and can have no right to reign, and therefore no
right to exact obedience. His subjects cease to be subjects to
him, and are free in a lawful manner to resist, and even de-
pose him ; for resistance to tyrants, if the manner of the resist-
ance be just, is obedience to God. When a prince becomes a
TO DR. LVNCH. 205
tyrant, when he oppresses his subjects, and tramples on the rights
of our common humanity, he breaks the compact between him
and his subjects, and by so doing releases them from their alle-
giance. Hence our Congress of 1 776 after having alleged George
the Third to be a tyrant, conclude, " Therefore these
United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and inde-
pendent states ; and they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British crown." Now suppose the subjects of a prince, feeling
themselves aggrieved, oppressed, complain to the Holy Father,
the judge recognized by both parties in the case, that their prince
has broken the compact, violated his oath of office, and become
a tyrant ; suppose the Holy Father entertains the complaint, and
summons both parties to plead before him, and, after a patient
hearing of the cause, gives judgment against the prince, declares
him to have forfeited his rights, and that his subjects are absolv-
ed from their allegiance, what would there be in all this to which
reason could object ? Well, this is precisely the kind of abso-
lution the Popes have granted, and never have they deposed a
prince or absolved his subjects, except in cases precisely similar
to the one here supposed. He merely declares the law, and
applies it to the facts of the case presented. The absolution
itself simply gives a legal character to a fact which already exists.
The necessity of some such authority as that which Protestants
complain of in the Popes is' widely and deeply felt in modern
society, and various substitutes for it, such as a congress of
nations, have been suggested or attempted, but without any
favorable results. Having rejected the Pope as the natural and
legal umpire between the prince and his subjects, we find our-
selves reduced to the dilemma, either of passive obedience and
non-resistance to tyrants, or of revolution, which denies the right
of government, renders order impracticable, and resolves society
into primitive chaos. To deny the right to resist the tyrant is
to doom the people to hopeless slavery ; to assert it, and yet
leave to each individual the right to judge of the time, the
means, and the mode of resistance, is disorder, no-governmentism,
the worst form of despotism. In the " dark ages," men were
206 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
able to avoid either alternative. By recognizing the Pope as
umpire, who, by his character and position, as head of the Church'
which embraced all nations, was naturally, not to say divinely,
fitted to be impartial and just, they practically secured the right
of resistance to tyranny, without undermining legitimate author-
ity. It will be long before modern nations will be wise enough
to recognize how much they have lost by what they call their
progress.
For ourselves, we thank God that there was formerly a power
on earth that was able to depose tyrants, and to step in between
the people and their oppressors. We are not among those who
are afraid to glory in the boldness and energy of those great
Popes who made crowned heads shake, and princes hold their
breath. Our heart leaps with joy when we see St. Peter smite
the oppressor of the Church or of his people to the earth, and
if we have ever felt any regret, it has been at the slowness of
the Holy Father to smite, or at his want of power to smite with
more instant effect. Even when a Protestant, we learned to
revere the calumniated Hildebrands, Innocents, and Bonifaces,
those noble and saintly defenders of innocence, protectors of the
helpless, and humblers of crowned tyrants and ruthless nobles.
0, how slow even we Catholics are to do them justice ! How
little do we reflect on the deep debt of gratitude we owe them !
O, dumb be the tongue that would rail against the Popes or
apologize for their firm resistance to the usurpation of the tem-
poral authorities ! Alas ! how often in the history of modern
Europe have we seen them, under God, the last hope of the
world, the only solace of the afflicted, the sole resource of the
wronged and downtrodden ! Alas ! it is precisely because of
their noble defence of religion and freedom, of their fidelity to
God and to man, that they have been calumniated, and the
world has been filled with the outcries of tyrants, and their
minions and dupes, against them.
That the interposition of the Sovereign Pontiffs in temporal
affairs often occasioned much disturbance, and even civil wars,
we are not disposed to deny ; but on them who made the inter-
TO DR. LYNCH. 207
position necessary must rest the responsibility. In this world,
it often happens that right cannot be peacefully asserted and
maintained, and tyranny proves a curse, not only while it is un-
resisted, but even when resisted, and successfully resisted. We
cannot permit a band of depredators to go unresisted, because
we must disturb them by resisting them. Injustice, iniquity,
can never be redressed, the tyrant can never be deposed and the
legitimate sovereign restored, without a combat, and often a
long and bloody one. Even our Lord himself told us to think
not that he had come to send peace on the earth, but a sword
rather. But shall we, therefore, make no efforts to right the
wronged, to save justice and humanity from utter shipwreck ?
Let no man who glories in the revolutionary principle, who boasts
of being a lover of freedom and the progress of mankind, pre-
tend it. We are no revolutionists ; we hold ourselves bound in
conscience to obey the legal authority ; but we acknowledge no
obligation to obey the oppressor, and let the competent author-
ity but declare him an oppressor and summon us to the battle-
field, and we are ready to obey, to bind on our armor, rush in
where blows fall thickest and fall heaviest, let the disturbance
be what it may. We are, thank God, Roman Catholics, and
therefore love freedom and justice, and dare not, when called
upon, to shrink from defending them against any and every
enemy, at any and every sacrifice.
The Professor contends that the Church is hostile to civil
government ; we would respectfully ask him if he has reflected,
that, without her, civil government becomes impracticable. How,
without her as umpire between government and government,
and between prince and subject, and without her as a spiritual
authority to command the obedience of the subject and the jus-
tice of the prince, will he be able to secure the independence of
nations, and wise and just government ? Will he learn from
experience ? Let him, then, read modern history. The age in
politics discards the Church. Protestantism for three hundred
years has been the religion of nearly a third, and, in politics, of
the whole of Europe. Three hundred years is a fair time for an
208 THORNWELL'S ANSWER
experiment. Well, what is the result ? DESPOTISM on the one
hand, and ANARCHY on the other. There is not, at this mo-
ment, a single well-organized civil government on the whole
Eastern continent, and only our own on the Western. The
government of Great Britain may seem to be an exception for
the Old World, but it is a perfect oligarchy ; it fails to secure
the common weal ; enriches the few and impoverishes the many ;
and its very existence is threatened by a mob which the ever-
increasing poverty of the industrial classes hourly augments, and
grim want is rendering desperate. Our own government is sus-
tained solely by the accidental advantages of the country, con-
sisting chiefly in our vast quantities of unoccupied fertile lands,
which absorb our rapidly increasing population, and form a sort
of safety-valve for its superfluous energy. Strip us of these
lands, or let them be filled up so that our expanding population
should find its limit, and be compelled to recoil upon itself, our
institutions would not stand a week.
Here in the present state of the world, hardly to be paralleled
in universal history, when old governments are either all fallen
or tottering ready to fall ; when all authority is cast ofT, and law
is despised ; when the streets of the most civilized cities run with
the blood of citizens shed by citizens, and the lurid light of
burning cottage and castle gleams on the midnight sky ; when
saintly prelates bearing the olive-branch of peace are shot down
by infuriated ruffians ; when murder and rapine hardly seek eon-
cealment, and all civilization seems to be thrown back into the
savagism of the forest, here we may read the wisdom of those
who discard the Church, and denounce her as hostile to civil
government, the wisdom of the doctrine which a scoffing and
unbelieving age opposes to the truth which Almighty God has
revealed, and to the lessons of universal experience. Alas ! how
true it is, that God permits strong delusions to blind the impious
and the licentious, that they may bring swift destruction upon
themselves !
But it is time to bring our remarks to a close. We have
examined the principal arguments which Mr. Thornwell has
TO DR LYNCH. 209
brought forward to prove the fallibility of the Church, and we
leave our readers to judge for themselves whether we have not
proved, that, in every instance, they are either unsound in prin-
ciple or irrelevant, proving nothing but the Professor's own malice
or ignorance. The Professor has made numerous assumptions,
numerous bold assertions, but in no instance has he done better
than simply to assume the point he was to prove. He has de-
claimed loudly against the Church, he has said many hard things '
against her, but he has harmed only himself and his brethren.
We now take our leave of him. We have done all we proposed.
We have vindicated the Catholic argument for the disputed books
drawn from the infallibility of the Church, which is enough,
without the testimonies of the Fathers, although we have even
these. We regvet that the task of answering the Professor had
not been assumed by Dr. Lynch himself, who would have ac-
complished it so much better than we have done. Yet it was
hardly fitting that he should have assumed it. He could not,
with a proper respect for himself and his profession, have replied
to such a vituperative performance as Mr. Thorn well's book.
We were brought up a Presbyterian, and have been accustomed
from our youth to the sort of stuff we have had to deal with,
and therefore have been able to reply without feeling the
degradation we should have felt, had we all our lifetime been
accustomed to the courtesy and candor of Catholic controver.
sialists.
PROTESTANTISM ENDS IN TRANSCENDENTALISM.*
JULY, 1846.
WE have no intention of reviewing at length the book the
title of which we have just quoted. Indeed, we have read it
only by proxy. We have heard it spoken of in certain literary
* Margaret, a Tale of the Real and Ideal, Blight and Bloom, includ-
ing Sketches of a Place not before described, called Mons Christi
Boston : Jordan & Wiley. 1846. 12mo. pp. 460.
210 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
circles as a remarkable production, almost as one of the won-
ders of the age. The Protestant lady who read it for us tells
us that it is a weak and silly book, unnatural in its scenes and
characters, coarse and vulgar in its language and details, wild
and visionary in its speculations ; and, judging from the portions
here and there which we actually have read, and from the source
whence it emanates, we can hardly run any risk in indorsing our
Protestant friend's criticism. The author is a man not deficient
in natural gifts ; he has respectable attainments ; and makes, we
believe, a tolerably successful minister of the latest form of Prot-
estantism with which we chance to be acquainted ; though,
since we have not been introduced to any new form for several
months, it must not be inferred from the fact that we are ac-
quainted with no later form, that none later exists.
So far as we have ascertained the character of this book, it
is intended to be the vehicle of certain crude speculations on re-
ligion, theology, philosophy, morals, society, education, and mat-
ters and things in general. The Mons Christi stands for the
human heart, and Christ himself is our higher or instinctive
nature, and if we but listen to our own natures, we shall at once
learn, love, and obey all that our Blessed Redeemer teaches.
Hence, Margaret, a poor, neglected child, who has received no
instruction, who knows not even the name of her Maker, nor
that of her Saviour, who, in fact, has grown up in the most bru-
tish ignorance, is represented as possessing in herself all the ele-
ments of the most perfect Christian character, and as knowing
by heart all the essential principles of Christian faith and morals.
The author seems also to have written his work, in part at least,
for the purpose of instructing our instructors as to the true
method of education. He appears to adopt a very simple and
a very pleasant theory on the subject, one which cannot fail to
commend itself to our young folks. Love is the great teacher ;
and the true method of education is for the pupil to fall in love
with the tutor, or the tutor with the pupil, and it is perfected
when the falling in love is mutual. Whence it follows, that it is a
great mistake to suppose it desirable or even proper that tutor and
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 211
pupil should both be of the same sex. This would be to reverse
the natural order, since the sexes were evidently intended for
each other. This method, we suppose, should be called " LEARN-
ING MADE EASY, OR NATURE DISPLAYED," since it would enable
us to dispense with school-rooms, prefects, text-books, study, and
trie birch, and to fall back on our natural instincts. These two
points of doctrine indicate the genus, if not the species, of the
book, and show that it must be classed under the general head
of Transcendentalism. If we could allow ourselves to go deeper
into the work and to dwell longer on its licentiousness and blas-
phemy, we probably might determine its species as well as its
renus. But this must suffice ; and when we add that the author
Sterns to comprise in himself several species at once, besides the
whole genus humbuggery, we may dismiss the book, with sin-
cere pity for him who wrote it, and a real prayer for his speedy
restoration to the simple genus humanity, and for his conversion,
through grace, to that Christianity which was given to man from
above, and not, spider-like, spun out of his own bowels.
Yet, bad and disgusting, false and blasphemous, as this book
really is, bating a few of its details, it is a book which no Prot-
estant, as a Protestant, has a right to censure. Many Protest-
ants affect great contempt of Transcendentalism, and horror at
its extravagance and blasphemy ; but they have no right to do
so. Transcendentalism is a much more serious affair than they
would have us believe. It is not a simple " Yankee notion," con-
fined to a few isolated individuals in a little corner of New Eng-
land, as some of our Southern friends imagine, but is in fact the
dominant error of our times, is as rife in one section of our com-
mon country as in another ; and, in principle, at least, is to be
met with in every popular Anti-Catholic writer of the day,
whether German, French, English, or American. It is. and has
been from the first, the fundamental heresy of the whole Prot-
estant world ; for, at bottom, it is nothing but the fundamental
principle of the Protestant Reformation itself, and without as-
suming it, there is no conceivable principle on which it is possi-
ble to justify the Reformers in their separation from the Catholic
212 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
Church. The Protestant who refuses to accept it, with all its
legitimate consequences, however frightful or absurd they may
be, condemns himself and his whole party.
We are far from denying that many Protestants, and, indeed,
the larger part of them, as a matter of fact, profess to hold many
doctrines which are incompatible with Transcendentalism ; but
this avails them nothing, for they hold them, not as Protestants,
but in despite of their Protestantism, and therefore have no right
to hold them at all. In taking an account of Protestantism, we
have the right, and, indeed, are bound, to exclude them from its
definition. Every man is bound, as the condition of being ranked
among rational beings, to be logically consistent with himself;
and no one can claim as his own any doctrine which does not
flow from, or which is not logically consistent with, his own first
principles. This follows necessarily from the principle, that of
contradictories one must be false, since one necessarily excludes
the other. If, then, the doctrines incompatible with Transcend-
entalism, which Protestants profess to hold, do not flow from their
own first principles, or if they are not logically compatible with
them, they cannot claim them as Protestants, and we have the
right, and are bound to exclude them from the definition of
Protestantism. The man cannot be scientifically included in the
definition of the horse, because both chance to be lodged in the
same stable, or to be otherwise found in juxtaposition.
The essential mark or characteristic of Protestantism is, un-
questionably, dissent from the authority of the Catholic Church,
in subjection to which the first Protestants were spiritually born
and reared. This is evident from the whole history of its origin,
and from the well known fact, that opposition to Catholicity is
the only point on which all who are called Protestants can agree
among themselves. On every other question which comes up,
they differ widely one from another, and not unfrequently some
take views directly opposed to those taken by others ; but when
it concerns opposing the Church, however dissimilar their doc-
trines and tempers, they all unite, and are ready to march as one
man to the attack. As dissent. Protestantism is negative, denies
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 213
the authority of the Catholic Church, and can include within its
definition nothing which, even in the remotest sense, concedes or
implies that authority. But no man, sect, or party can rest on
a mere negation, for no mere negation is or can be an ultimate
principle. Every negation implies an affirmation, and therefore
an affirmative principle which authorizes it. He who dissents
does so in obedience to some authority or principle which com-
mands or requires him to dissent, and this principle, not the ne-
gation, is his fundamental principle. The essential or funda-
mental principle of Protestantism is, then, not dissent from the
authority of the Catholic Church, but the affirmative principle
on which it relies for the justification of its dissent.
What, then, is this affirmative principle ? Whatever it be, it
must be either out of the individual dissenting, or in him ; that
is, some external authority, or some internal authority. The
first supposition is not admissible ; for Protestants really allege
no authority for dissent, external to the individual dissenting,
have never defined any such authority, never hinted that such
authority exists or is needed : and there obviously is no such au-
thority which can be adduced. In point of fact, so far from dis-
senting from the Church on the ground that they are commanded
to do so by an external authority paramount to the Church, they
deny the existence of all external authority in matters of faith,
and defend their dissent on the ground that there is no such
authority, never was, and never can be.
But some may contend, judging from the practice of Protest-
ants, and what we know of the actual facts of the original estab-
lishment of Protestantism in all those countries in which it has
become predominant, that it does recognize an exteraal author-
ity, which it holds paramount to the Church, and on which it
relies for its justification. Protestantism, as a matter of fact,
owes its establishment to the authority of the lay lords and tem-
poral princes, or, in a general sense, to the civil authority. It
was, originally, much more of a political revolt than of a strictly
religious dissent, and its external causes must be sought in the
ambition of princes, dating back from Louis of Bavaria, and in-
214 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
eluding Louis the Twelfth of France, rather than in any real
change of faith operated in the masses ; and its way was prepared
by the temper of mind which the temporal princes created in
their subjects by the wars they undertook and carried on osten-
sibly against the popes as political sovereigns, but really for the
purpose of possessing the patrimony of the Church, and of
subjecting the Church, in their respective dominions, to the
control of the secular power. The Reformers would have ac-
complished little or nothing, if politics had not come to their
aid. Luther would have bellowed in vain, had he not been
backed by the powerful Elector of Saxony, and immediately
aided by the Landgrave Philip ; Zwingle, and (Ecolampa-
dius, and Calvin would have accomplished nothing in Swit-
zerland, if they had not secured the aid of the secular arm, and
followed its wishes ; the powerful Huguenot party in France
was more of a political than of a religious party, and it dwind-
led into insignificance as soon as it lost the support of great
lords, distinguished statesmen and lawyers, and provincial par-
liaments. In Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, the Reform was
purely the act of the civil power ; in the United Provinces, it
was embraced as the principle of revolt, or of national independ-
ence ; in England, it was the work, confessedly, of the secular
government and was carried by court and parliament against
the wishes of the immense majority of the nation ; in Scotland,
it was effected by the great lords, who wished to usurp to them-
selves the authority of the crown ; m this country, it came in
with the civil government, and was maintained by civil enact-
ments, pains, and penalties. We might, therefore, be led, at
first sight, to assert the fundamental principle of Protestantism
to be the supremacy in spirituals of the civil power. But this
would be a mistake, because it did not recognize this supremacy
unless the civil power was Anti-Catholic, and because the asser-
tion of this supremacy of the civil power in spirituals was itself
a denial of the authority of the Church, and therefore could
not be made without making the act of dissent. There is no
question but the Protestants did, whenever it suited their pur-
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 215
pose, assert the supremacy of the state in spiritual matters ; and
it must be conceded that it is very agreeable to its nature to do
so, as is evident from the fact, that even now, and in this conn-
try, it opposes the Catholic Church chiefly, and with the most
success, on the ground that Catholicity asserts the freedom of
religion, or, what is the same thing, the independence of the
spiritual authority. Still this cannot be its ultimate principle.
The Church taught and teaches, that, though the independence
of the civil power in matters purely temporal is asserted, its au-
thority in spirituals is null. To deny this is to deny the Church,
and as much to dissent from her authority as to deny her infalli-
bility, her divine authority, or any article of the creed she teaches ;
and this must be denied before the supremacy of the civil power
in spirituals can be asserted. Therefore, if Protestantism did
openly, avowedly, assert the Erastian heresy of the supremacy
of the civil power in spirituals, it would not justify her dissent
by an external authority, unless she could make this assertion
itself on some external authority acknowledged to be paramount
to the Church. But for this she has no external authority, since
the Church denies it, and the authority of' the state is the mat-
ter in question. She can, then, assert the supremacy of the
state only on the authority of some principle in the individual
dissenting, and therefore only on some internal authority.
Whatever authority, then. Protestentisra. may ascribe to the
civil power, it is not an external authority, because the authority
asserted is always of the same order as that on which it is assert-
ed, and can never transcend, it.
Others, again, rr.ay think, since Protestants, and especially
those among them denominated Anglicans and Episcopalians,
occasionally appeal to Christian antiquity and talk of the Fa-
thers, and sometimes even profess to quote them, that they have,
or think they have, in Christian antiquity an authority for dis-
sent, virtually, at, least external to the individual dissenting. But
Christian antiquity, unless read with a presumption in favor of
the Church, save on a few general and public facts manifestly
against Protestants, decides nothing. Understood as the Church
216 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
understands it, aad it evidently may, without violence to its let-
ter or spirit, be so understood, it condemns Protestantism with-
out mercy. To make it favor Protestantism even negatively, it
is necessary to resort to a principle of interpretation which the
Church does not concede, and the adoption of which would,
therefore, involve the dissent in question. If we take with us
the canon, that all the Christian Fathers are to be understood in
accordance with the Church when not manifestly against her,
Christian antiquity will be all on the side of the Roman Catho-
lic Church ; if we take the canon, that all in the Christian
Fathers is to be understood in a sense against the Church, when
not manifestly in her favor, Christian antiquity may, on some
important dogmas, leave the question doubtful ; though even
then it would, in fact, be decisive for the authority of the Church,
and therefore implicitly for all special dogmas. But, be this as
it may, it is undeniable that it is only by adopting this latter
canon that Protestantism can derive any countenance from Chris-
tian antiquity. But on what authority do they, or can they, adopt
such a canon ? Protestants call themselves reformers ; they are
accusers, dissenters, and therefore all the presumptions in the
case are manifestly against them, as they are against all who
accuse, bring an action or a charge against others ; and they
must make out a strong prima facu case, before they can turn
the presumptions in their favor. This is law, and it is justice.
Till they do this, the presumption is in favor of the Church ;
and then it is enough for her to show that the testimony of an-
tiquity may, without violence, be so understood as not to im-
peach her claims. Till then, nothing will make for Protestants
which is not manifestly against her, so clear and express as by
no allowable latitude of interpretation to be reconcilable with
her pretentious. That is to say, the Protestant must impeach
the Church on prima facie evidence, before he can have the
right to adopt that canon of interpretation without which it is
manifestly suicidal for him to appeal to Christian antiquity.
Take, as an illustration of what we mean, the testimony of St.
Justin Martyr to the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence. It
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 217
is clear to any one who reads the passage, that the words in a
plain and easy sense confirm the Catholic doctrine ; and yet, if
there were an urgent necessity for interpreting them otherwise,
we are not certain but, without greater deviation from the literal
sense than is sometimes allowed, they might be so understood
as not to be inconsistent with the views of the Blessed Eucharist
which some Protestant sects profess to entertain. But by what
authority, because they may be so interpreted, are we to say
they must be ? In truth, it is nothing to the Protestant's pur-
pose to say they may be, till he establishes by positive authority
they must be, for it is obvious they also may not be. Now,
what and where is this positive authority ? .Manifestly not in
Christian antiquity itself ; and yet it must be had, before Chris-
tian antiquity can be adduced as authorizing dissent from the
Catholic Church. This authority, as we said before, must be
either external to the dissenter or internal in the dissenter him-
self. It cannot be external ; for, after the Church, there is no
conceivable external authority applicable in the case. It must,
then, be internal. Then the authority of Christian antiquity, as
alleged against the Church, is only the authority there is in the
dissenter himself, according to the principle already established,
that the authority asserted is necessarily of the same order as
that on which it is asserted.
Finally, it will, perhaps, be alleged, inasmuch as all Protest-
ants did at first, and some of them do now, appeal to the written
word, or the Holy Scriptures, in justification of their dissent,
that they have in these a real or a pretended authority, external
to and independent of the dissenter, distinct from and paramount
to that of the Church. But a moment's reflection will show,
even if the Scriptures were not in favor of the Church, that this
is a mistake. The Holy Scriptures proposed, and their sense
declared, by the Church, we hold with a firm faith to be the
word of God, and therefore of the highest authority ; but, if not
so proposed and interpreted, though in many respects important
and authentic historical documents, and valuable for their excel-
lent didactic teachings, they would not and could not be for us
218 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
the inspired, and, in a supernatural sense, the authoritative,
word of God. To the Protestant they are not and cannot be an
authority external to the dissenter ; because, denying the un-
written word, the Church, and all authoritative tradition, he has
no external authority to -vouch for the fact that they are the in-
spired word of God, or to declare their genuine sense. If there
be no external authority to decide that the Bible is the word of
God, and to declare its true sense, the authority ascribed to it in
the last analysis, according to the principle we have established,
is only the authority of some internal principle in the individual
dissenting ; for, in that case, the individual, by virtue of this in-
ternal principle, decides, with the Bible as without it, what is
and what is not God's word, what God has and has not revealed ;
and therefore what he is and what he is not bound to believe,
what he is and what he is not bound to do.
It is, moreover, notorious that Protestants do really deny all
external authority in matters of faith, and hold that any external
authority to determine for the individual what he must believe
would be manifest usurpation, intolerable tyranny, to be resisted
by every one who has any sense of Christian freedom, or of his
rights and dignity as a man. Even the Anglican Church, which
claims to herself authority in controversies of faith, acknowledges
that she has no right to ordain any thing as of necessity to sal-
vation, which may not be proved from God's word written ; and
by implication at least, if she means any thing, leaves it to the
individual to determine for himself whether what she ordains is
provable from the written word or not ; and, therefore, abandons
her own authority, by making the individual the judge of its
legality. No one will, furthermore, pretend that Protestants
even affect to have dissented from the Catholic Church, in which
they were spiritually born and reared, in obedience to an exter-
nal authority ; that is to say, another Church, which they held
to be paramount to the Roman Catholic Church. If they had
admitted that there was anywhere an authoritative Church, they
would have agreed that it was this Church, and could have been
no other. In denying the authority of the Roman Catholic
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 219
Church, they denied, and intended to deny, in principle, all ex-
ternal authority in matters of faith ; and the chief count in the
indictment of the Church, which they have drawn up, and on
which they have been for these three hundred years demanding
conviction, is, that she claims to be such authority, when no such
authority was instituted, or intended to be instituted. We may,
then, safely conclude that the affirmative principle on which
Protestantism relies for the justification of its denial of Catholic
authority is not some authority external to the individual dis-
senting, and held to be paramount to that from which he dis-
sents.
Then the principle must be internal in the individual himself
and this is precisely what Protestantism teaches ; for by her own
confession, nay, by her own boast, her fundamental principle is,
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. This was the only principle which, in the
nature of the case, she could set up as the antagonist of Catholic
authority ; and it is notorious the world over, that it is in the
name of this principle that she arraigns the Church, and com-
mands her to give an account of herself. We see, even to-day,
emblazoned on the banners borne by the motley hosts of the so-
called "Christian Alliance," this glorious device, THE RIGHT
OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. This is their battle-cry, as Deus Vult
was that of the Crusaders. It is their In hoc siyno vince. " We
want no infallible pope, bishops, or church, to propound and ex-
plain to us God's word, to lord it over God's heritage, and make
slaves of our very consciences. No ! we are freemen, and we
strike for freedom, the glorious birthright of every Christian to
judge for himself what is or what is not the word of God ; that
is, what he is or is not to believe." There is no mistake in this.
If there is any thing essential, any thing fundamental, in Pro-
testantism, any thing which makes it the subject of a predicate
at all it is this far-famed and loud-boasted principle of PRIVATE
JUDGMENT.
In saying this, we of course are not to be understood as as-
serting that Protestants always, or even commonly, respect, in
their practice, this right of private judgment. Practically, every
220 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
Protestant says, " / have the right to think as I please, and you
have the right to think as I do ; and if you do not, I will, if I
have the power, compel you to do so, or confiscate your goods,
deprive you of citizenship, outlaw you, behead, hang, or burn
you; at least, imprison you, flog you, or bore your ears and
tongue." In point of fact, Protestants, we grant, have very gen-
erally violated the principle of private judgment, and have prac-
tised, in the name of religious liberty, the most unjust, tyranny
over conscience, unjust, because, on their own principles, they
have received from Almighty God no authority to dictate to
conscience, and because they also concede, what is unquestion-
ably true, that conscience is accountable to God alone. Every
attempt of any man, set, or class of men, not expressly commis-
sioned by Almighty God, so expressly that the authority exer-
cised shall be really and truly his, to exert the least control
over conscience is a manifest usurpation, an outrageous tyranny,
which every man, having a just reverence for his Maker, will
resist even unto death. The Catholic Church, indeed, claims
plenary authority over conscience ; but only on the ground, that
she is divinely commissioned, and that the authority which speaks
in her is literally and as truly the authority of God, as that of
the representative is that of his sovereign. If per impossibile,
she could suppose herself not to be so commissioned, and there-
fore not having the pledge of the divine supervision, protection,
and aid which such commission necessarily implies, she would
concede that she has no authority, and should attempt to exer-
cise none. We cheerfully obey her, because in obeying her we
are obeying not a human authority, but God himself. In sub-
mitting to her we are free, because we are submitting to God,
who is our rightful sovereign, to whom we belong, all that we
have, and all that we are. Freedom is not in being held to no
obedience, but in being held to obey only the legal sovereign ;
and the more unqualified this obedience, the freer we are. Per-
fect freedom is in having no will of our own, in willing only
what our sovereign wills, and because he wills it. If the Church,
as we cannot doubt, be really commissioned by God, the more
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 221
absolute her authority, the more unqualified our submission, the
more perfect is our liberty, as every man knows, who knows any
thing at all of that freedom wherewith the Son makes us free.
But in yielding obedience to a Protestant sect, it is not the same.
When any one of our sects undertakes to dictate to conscience,
it is tyranny ; because, by its own confession, it has received no
authority from God. It is tyranny, even though what it attempts
to enforce be really God's word ; for it attempts to enforce it by
a human, and not by a divine authority. It would still tyran-
nize, because it has no right to enforce any thing at all. It may
say, as our sects do say, it has the Bible, that the Bible is God's
word, and that it only exacts the obedience to God's com-
mands which no man has the right to withhold. Be it so. But
who has made it the keeper and executor of God's laws ? Where
is its commission under the hand and seal of the Almighty ?
It is, doubtless, right that the civil law should be executed,
that the murderer, for instance, should be punished ; but it does
not therefore follow that I, as a simple citizen, have the right to
execute them, and to inflict the punishment. That may be done
only by the constituted authorities, and is not my business ; and
it is a sound as well as a homely adage, Let every one mind his
own business. Protestants, on this point, fall into grievous
errors. The simple possession of the Holy Scriptures does not
constitute them keepers of the word, even supposing the Scrip
tures to contain the whole word, and give them the right to
dictate to conscience, as they imagine, any more than the fact of
my having in my possession the statute-book constitutes me the
guardian and administrator of the laws of the commonwealth.
Protestants, whenever they interfere with the right of private
judgment, convict themselves, on their own principles, of practis-
ing on what, in these days, is called " Lynch law ; " and Lynch
law is to the state precisely what Protestantism, in practice, is to
the Church. This is a fact which deserves the grave consider-
ation of those sects which contend for creeds and confessions, and
claim the right to try and punish as heretics such as in their
judgment do not conform to them. Even Dr. Beecher himself
222 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
came very near, a few years since, being lynched by his Presby-
terian associates ; arid if it had not been for an extraordinary
suppleness and marvellous skill in parrying blows, hardly to have
been expected in one of his age, it might have been all up with
him. Our Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, Puritan, and Angli-
can friends should lay this to heart, and never suffer themselves
to complain of the practice of " Lynch law," or to find the least
fault with the commission of Judge Lynch himself, for it
emanates from the same authority as their own, and is as regu-
larly made out and authenticated. But this is foreign from our
present purpose. It is enough for our present purpose, that
Protestants assert, in theory, as they unquestionably do, the right
of private judgment, and make it the principle of their dissent
from the authority of the Catholic Church.
But all men, at least as to their inherent rights, are equal.
The right of private judgment, then, cannot be asserted for one
man, without being at the same time, and by the same author-
ity, asserted for all men. Then Protestants cannot assert pri-
vate judgment as their authority for dissenting from the Catho-
lic Church, without erecting it into a universal principle. We
may assume, then, that Protestantism begins by laying down as
its principle the right of all men to private judgment.
But the right of all men to private judgment is in effect the
unrestricted or universal right to private judgment. This may
not have been clearly seen in the beginning, and there is no
question but Protestants intended .in the commencement to re-
strict the right of private judgment to the simple interpretation
of the written word. But every one, whatever may be his in-
tentions, must be held answerable for the strict logical conse-
quences of the principles he deliberately adopts ; for if he does
not foresee these consequences, he ought not to take upon him-
self the responsibility of adopting the principles. The right of
private judgment, once admitted, can no longer be restricted. If
restricted at all, it must be by some authority, and this author-
ity must be either external or internal. If internal, it is private
judgment, itself, and then it cannot restrict, for it would be ab-
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 223
suid to say that private judgment can restrict private judgment.
It cannot be an external authority, because Protestants admit
no exiernal authority, and because we cannot assert an exter-
nal authority to restrict private judgment, without denying
private judgment itself. Either the authority must prescribe the
limits of private judgment, or private judgment must prescribe
the limits of the restriction ; if the first, it is tantamount to the
denial of private judgement itself, for private judgment would
then subsist only at the mercy of authority, by sufferance, and
not by right ; if the latter, the authority is null ; for private
judgment may enlarge or contract the restriction as it pleases,
and that is evidently no restriction which is only what that
which is restricted chooses to make it. It is impossible, then,
to erect private judgment into a principle for all men, and after--
wards to restrict it to the simple interpretation of the Holy
Scriptures.
If we assert the right of private judgment to interpret the
Holy Scriptures, we must assert its right in all cases whatsoever ;
for the principle on which private judgment can be defended in
one case is equally applicable in every case. Will it be said
that private judgment must yield to God's word ? Granted.
But what is God's word ? The Bible. How know you that
Do you determine that the Bible is the word of God by some
external authority, or by private judgment ? Not by some ex-
ternal authority, because you have none, and admit none. By
private judgment ? Then the authority of the Bible is for you
only private judgment. The Bible does not propose itself, and
therefore can have no authority higher than the authority which
proposes it. Here is a serious difficulty for those Protestants
who set up such a clamor about the Bible, and which shows
them, or ought to show them, that, whatever the Bible may be
for a Catholic, for them it can, in no conceivable contingency, be
any thing but a human authority. The authority of that
which is proposed is of the same order as that which proposes,
and cannot transcend it. This is a Protestant argument, and
is substantially the great argument of Chillingworth against
224 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
Catholicity. Nothing proposes the Bible to Protestants but
private judgment, as is evident from their denial of all other au-
thority ; and therefore in the Bible they not we, thank God !
have only the authority of private judgment, and therefore
only the word of man, and not the word of God. If the au-
thority on which Protestants receive the word of God is only
that of private judgement, then there is for them in the Bible
only private judgment ; and then nothing to restrict private
judgment, for private judgment can itself be no restriction on
private judgment.
Moreover, if we take the Bible to be the word of God on the
authority of private judgment, and its sense on the same author-
ity, as Protestants do and must, then we assume private judg-
ment to be competent to decide of itself what is and what is not
the word of God, what God has revealed and what he has not
revealed, has commanded and has not commanded, and there-
fore competent to decide what we are to believe and what we
are not to believe, and what we are to do and what we are not
to do. But this is to assume the whole for private judgment,
and therefore to assume its unrestricted right. We, may, then,
assume, in the second place, that Protestantism not only lays
down the principle of the right of all men to private judgment,
but the right of all men to the universal or unrestricted right of
private judgment.
But private judgment itself is not, strictly speaking, ultimate,
and therefore, though it be the principle of Protestantism, is not
its ultimate principle. The ultimate principle of Protestantism
lies a little farther back. Rights are never in themselves ulti-
mate, but must always, to be rights, rest on some foundation or
authority. The right of private judgment necessarily implies
some principle on which it is founded. Every judgment is by
some standard or measure ; for when we judge it is always by
something, and this, whatever it is, is the principle, law, rule,
criterion, standard, or measure of the judgment. In every act
of private judgment this standard or measure is the individual
judging. The individual judges by himself and to judge by
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 225
one's self is precisely what is meant by private judgment. In it
the individual is both measurer and measure, in a word, his
own yard-stick of truth and goodness. But rights, to be rights,
must not only be founded on some principle, but on a true prin-
ciple ; for to say they are founded on a false principle is only say-
ing in other words, that they have no foundation at all. The right
of all men to unrestricted private judgment, then, necessarily
implies that each and every man is in himself the exact measure
of truth and goodness. In laying down the principle of private
judgment as the principle of its dissent from the Catholic Church,
Protestantism, then, necessarily lays down the principle, that
each and every man is in himself the exact measure of truth
and goodness, the very fundamental proposition of Transcen-
dentalism. The identity in principle is, then, perfect; and no
Protestant, as we began by saying, can refuse to accept Trans-
cendentalism, with all its legitimate consequences, without con-
demning himself and his whole party
This conclusion is undeniable, for the acutest dialectician will
find no break or flaw in the chain of reasoning by which it is
obtained. We, then, may assume this very important position,
that Transcendentalism is the strict logical termination of Prot-
estantism ; and if some Protestants, as is the case, refuse to ad-
mit it, it is at the expense of their dialectics ; because they can-
not, or dare not, say, Two and two make four, but judge it more
prudent to say, Two and two make five, or to compromise the
matter and say, Two and two make three. There are few things
which are more disgusting than the cowardice which shrinks
from avowing the legitimate consequences of one's own princi-
ples. The sin of inconsequence is, as the celebrated Dr. Evar-
iste de Gypendole justly remarks, a mortal sin, at least, in the
eyes of humanity ; for it is high treason against the rational na-
ture itself ; and he who deliberately commits it voluntarily ab-
dicates reason, and takes his place among inferior and irrational
natures. If your principles are sound, you cannot push them
to a dangerous extreme ; and if they will not bear pushing to
226 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
their extreme consequences, you should know that they are un-
sound, and not fit to be entertained ; for it is always lawful to
conclude the unsoundness of the principle from the unsoundness
of the consequences.
Taking this view of the case, we confess the Transcendentalists
appear to us the more respectable, and indeed the only respecta-
ble because the only consistent, class of Protestants. Consistent
as Protestants, we mean, not as men ; for Transcendentalism is
the ne plus ultra of inconsistency and absurdity ; but as Prot-
estants they are consistent in so far as they carry out with an
iron logic the Protestant principle to its legitimate results ; and
in doing this, in the providence of God, they are rendering no
mean service to the cause of truth. They are a living and prac-
tical reductio ad absurdum of Protestantism. They strip it of
its disguises, expose it in its nakedness, and subserve the cause
of truth as the drunken Helotse subserved the cause of temper-
ance in the Spartan youth by exposing to them the disgusting
effects of drunkenness.
It is of great practical importance that Protestantism should
be exhibited by its followers in its true light as it really is in it-
self. Thus far Protestants have owned their success and influ-
ence, in the main, to the fact, that the mass of them have never
eeen and comprehended Protestantism in its simple, unadulter-
ated elements. It has always been presented to them in a livery
stolen from Catholicity. The great mass of the Protestant peo-
ple, seeing it only in this livery, have supposed that it apper-
tained to the household of faith, and that they had in it all that is
essential to the Christian religion. Unable to penetrate its dis-
guises, unable to distinguish between what was genuinely Prot-
estant and what was surreptitiously taken from the Church, they
could not understand the force or truth of the Catholic accusa-
tions against them. It seemed to them utterly false to say that
they had no faith, no church, no religion, and that their Prot-
estantism necessarily involved the denial of the whole scheme of
revealed religion, and left them in reality nothing but mere
Naturalism. Had they not something they called a church ?
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 227
Haa they not places of worship modelled after Christian tem-
ples ? Had they not the Holy Scriptures, pastors and teachers,
hymns, prayers, all the exterior forms of worship ? Did they
not profess to believe in God, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation,
the Atonement, the necessity of Grace, the endless punishment
of the wicked, and the eternal beatitude of the just, all that
even Catholic doctors have ever taught that it is necessary ex
necessitate medii ad salutem to be explicitly believed ? Did
they not try to lead holy and devout lives, spend much time in
prayer and^ praise, seek earnestly to know and do the will of
God, and actually, in many instances, attain to a moral elevation
which would more than compare favorably wilh that of many
Catholics ? How say, then, that we have no religion, that our
principles are at war with Christianity, and lead necessarily to
the destruction of all faith, of all Christian morality ? Have we
not in our Protestantism, as we hold it, a living lie to your un-
just charge, your foul aspersion ? It must be confessed, that
appearances to the Protestant, were much against the Catholic,
and it required considerable insight and firmness of logic tc
establish the charges which the Catholic, from the principles of
an infallible faith, was fully warranted in preferring. But time
and events have now made clear and certain to all who can see
and reason, what then seemed so doubtful, not to say, so un-
founded. In Transcendentalism, which is both the logical and
historical development of Protestantism, it may now be seen
that the Protestant, not the Catholic, was deceived; that not
the Catholic was unjust in his charges, but the Protestant was
carried away by his delusions. This is an immense gain, and
by showing this, by stripping Protestantism of its disguises, by
compelling it to abandon what it had attempted to retain of
Catholicity, and to restrict it to its own principles, Trancenden-
talism is subserving in no ordinary degree the cause of religion
and morality. Three hundred years of controversy have result-
ed in simplifying the question, and in making up the true and
proper issue. If the true and proper issue could have been
made in the beginning, Protestantism would have died in its
228 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
birth. The mass of those who have followed the Protestant
standard have done so because they supposed they had in the
Holy Scriptures a divine authority for their belief. Here was
their mother delusion. Catholics have really in the Holy Scrip-
tures a divine authority, because they receive them on the propo-
sition of the Church expressly commissioned by Almighty God
to propose the truth revealed ; but Protestants, as we have seen,
since they take the Holy Scriptures only on the authority of pri-
vate reason, have in them only the authority of private reason,
a merely human authority. It is now seen and understood that
the Scriptures, if taken on human authority, have only a human
authority ; and therefore, as Catholics always alleged, Protest-
ants, with all their pretensions, have only a human authority for
the dogmas they profess to derive from them, and therefore are
not, and never have been, able to make that act of divine faith
without which, if they have come to years of discretion, they
possess no Christian virtue, and do nothing meritorious for
eternal life. If Christianity be a supernatural life, the life which
begins in supernatural faith and contemplates a supernatural
destiny, it is now clear that Protestants cannot and never could
claim to be truly within the pale of the Christian family, but do
reject and always have virtually rejected the Christian religion
itself.
This being so, it becomes necessary now either to deny the
supernatural character of the Christian life, and therefore the
necessity of divine or supernatural faith, or to give up Protest-
antism as having no claim to be called Christian. This is be-
coming a general conviction among Protestants themselves, and
therefore the tendency to reject Christianity, as a supernatural
religion, is manifesting itself all over the Protestant world. Even
Bishop Butler, the great Anglican light of the last century, de-
clares the Gospel to be only " a republication of the law of
nature ; " and we have rarely met with a Protestant, whatever
might be his unintelligible jargon about the New Birth, that
did not hold, substantially, that the Christian life is merely the
continuation and development of our natural life. The old
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 229
modes of speech, adopted when Christianity was held to be a
supernatural religion, are, we admit, in some instances, retained
and insisted upon ; but they have lost their former significance.
Supernatural is defined to be supersensuous, as if spiritual ex-
istences could not be natural as well as material existences. It
is thus Coleridge defines supernatural ; it is thus, also, the Su-
pernaturalists of Germany, of the school of Schleiermacher and
De Wette, understand it, while the Rationalists deny it in name
as well as in reality. In no higher sense do we find the word
recognized by the mass of Swiss and French Protestants.
" What did Almighty God make us for ? " said we, the other
day, to a worthy Protestant preacher, not without note in this
community and the councils of his country. " To develope and
perfect our spiritual natures," was the ready reply ; that is, to
finish the work which Almighty God began, but left incomplete ;
and this is the reply which, in substance, is almost universally
given by those Protestants who plume themselves on having
pure and ennobling spiritual views of religion. Thus it is, men
everywhere lose sight of their supernatural destiny, and then
deny the necessity of a supernatural life, and then the necessity
of grace. Thus, in substance, if not in name, they reject the
doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Miraculous Con-
ception and Birth of our Saviour, Original Sin, the Atonement,
Remission of Sins, the Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures,
and, finally, all that is incompatible with the principle of man's
sufficiency for himself, as so many reminiscences of Popery, or
traditions of the Dark Ages, and as interposing between the
human soul and its Creator, and hindering its freedom am.
growth. It is idle to deny, that all over the Protestant world
the tendency to this result is strong and irresistible, and that i
is already reached by the more thinking and enlightened por-
tion of Protestants. The true and proper issue, then, cannot be
really any longer evaded. Protestants must meet the simple
questions of Naturalism or Supernaturalism, of Transcendentalism
or Catholicity, of man or God.
No doubt, a certain class of Protestant doctors do, and will,
230 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
for some little time to come, struggle to stave off this issue, but
in vain. Matters have proceeded too far. It is too late. The in-
ternal developments of Protestantism are too far completed, the
spirit at work in the Protestant ranks is too powerful, to prevent
the direct issue from being made. Transcendentalism, under
one form or another, has struck its roots so deep, has spread out
its branches so far, and finds so rich a soil, that it must ere long
cause all the other forms of Protestantism, as the underbrush in
a thick forest, to die out and disappear. The spirit of inquiry
which Protestantism boasts of having quickened, the disposition
to bring every question, the most intricate and the most sacred,
to the test of private judgment, which she fosters, and which it
would be suicidal in her to discountenance, will compel these
doctors themselves either to give up their vocations, or to fall
into the current and suffer themselves to be borne on to its term-
ination. Resistance is madness. The movement party advances
with a steady step, and will drive all before it. Whatever Evan-
gelical doctor throws himself in its path to stay its onward march
is a dead man and ground to powder. There is no alternative ;
you must follow Schlegel, Hurter, Newman, Faber, back into
the bosom of Catholic unity, or go on with Emerson, Parker,
and Carlyle. Not to-day only have we seen this. Think you
that we, who, according to your own story, have tried every form
of Protestantism, and disputed every inch of Protestant ground,
would ever have left the ranks of Protestantism in which we
were born, and under whose banner we had fought so long and
suffered so much, if there had been any other alternative for us ?
The " No Popery " cry which our Evangelicals are raising,
and which rings in our ears from every quarter, does not in the
least discompose us. In this very cry we hear an additional
proof of what we are maintaining. We understand the full sig-
nificance of this cry. The Protestant masses are escaping from
their leaders. The sectarian ministers, especially of the species
Evangelical, are losing their hold on their flocks, and finding
that their old petrified forms, retained from Luther, or Calvin,
or Knox, will no longer satisfy them, have no longer vitality
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 231
for them. Their craft is in danger ; their power and influence
are departing, and Ichabod is beginning to be written on their
foreheads. They see the handwriting on the wall, and feel that
something must be done to avert the terrible doom that awaits
them. Fearfulness and trembling seize them, and, like the
drowning man, they catch at the first straw, and hope, and yet
with the mere hope of despair, that it will prove a plank of
safety. They have no resource in their old, dried-up, dead forms.
They must look abroad, call in some extrinsic aid, and, by means
of some foreign power, delay the execution of the judgment they
feel in their hearts has already been pronounced against them.
They must get up some excitement which will captivate the
people and blind their reason. No excitement seems to them
more likely to answer their purpose than a " No Popery " ex-
citement, which they fancy will find a firm support in the hered-
itary passions and prejudices of their flocks. Here is the sig-
nificance of this " No Popery" excitement.
But this excitement will prove suicidal. Times have changed,
and matters do not stand as they did in the days of Luther, and
Zwingle, and Henry, and Calvin, and Knox. The temper of
men's minds is different, and there is a new order of questions
up for solution. The old watchwords no longer answer the pur-
pose. What avails it to prove the Pope to be Antichrist, to
populations that do not even believe in Christ ? What avails it
to thunder at Catholicity with texts which are no longer believed
to have a divine authority ? Protestantism must now fall back
on her own principles, and fight her battles with her own weap-
ons. She must throw out her own banner to the breeze, and
call upon men to gather and arm and fight for progress, for
liberty, for the unrestricted right of private judgment, or she will
not rally a corporal's guard against Catholity. But the moment
she does this, she is, as the French say, enfoncee ; for she has
subsisted and can subsist only by professing one thing and doing
another. Let our Evangelical doctors, in their madness, rally,
in the name of progress, of liberty, of private judgment, an
army to put down the Pope, and the matter will not end there.
232 PROTESTANTISM ENDS
Their forces, furnished with arms against Catholicity, will turn
upon themselves, and in a hoarse voice, and if need be, from
brazen throats and tongues of flame, exclaim, " No more sham >
gentlemen. We go for principle. We do not unpope the Pope
to find a new pope in each petty presbyter, and a spy and in-
former in each brother or sister communicant. You are noth-
ing to us. Freedom, gentlemen; doff your gowns, abrogate
all your creeds and confessions, break up all your religious or-
ganizations, abolish all forms of worship except such as each
individual may choose and exercise for himself, and acknowledge
in fact, as well as in name, that every man is free to worship one
God or twenty Gods, or no God at all, as seems to him good,
unlicensed, unquestioned, or take the consequences. We will
no more submit to your authority than you will to that of the
Pope."
This is the tone and these the terms in which these "No
Popery" doctors will find, one of these days, their flocks address-
ing them ; for we have only given words to what they know as
well as we is the predominant feeling of the great majority of the
Protestant people. The very means, in the present temper of
the Protestant public, they must use to insure their success, can-
not fail to prove their ruin. They will only hasten the issue
they would evade. Deprived, as they now are, for the most
part, of all direct aid from the civil power, the force of things is
against them, and it matters little whether they attempt to
move or sit still. They were mad .enough in the beginning to
take their stand on a movable foundation, and they must move
on with it, or be left to balance themselves in vacuity ; and if
they do move on with it, they will simply arrive nowhilher.
They are doomed, and they cannot escape. Hence it is all their
motions affect us only as the writhings and death-throes of the
serpent whose head is crushed.
Regarding it of the greatest importance that the whole matter
should be brought to its true and proper issue, and believing
firmly, that when the real alternatives are distinctly apprehended
and admitted, that many Protestants will choose " the better
IN TRANSCENDENTALISM. 233
part," we are not displeased to witness the very decided tend-
ency to Transcendentalism now manifesting itself throughout
the Protestant world. It is a proof to us that the internal de-
velopments of Protestantism are not only bringing it to its
strictly logical termination, but, what is more important still, to
the term of its existence. The nations which became Protest-
ant rebelled against the God of their fathers, the God who had
brought them up out of the bondage of ignorance, barbarism,
idolatry, and superstition, and said they would not have him to
reign over them, but they would henceforth be their own mas-
ters, and rule themselves. He, for wise and merciful but in-
scrutable purposes, gave them up to their reprobate sense, left
them to themselves, to follow their own wills, till bitter experi-
ence should teach them their wickedness, their impiety, their
folly and madness, and bring them in shame and confusion to
pray, " O Lord, in thy wrath remember mercy ; save us from
ourselves, or we perish !" To this desirable result it was not to
be expected they would come till Protestantism had run its
natural course, and reached its legitimate termination. They
would not abandon it till they had exhausted all its possibilities,
and till it could no longer present a new face to charm or de-
lude them. In this Transcendental tendency, we see the evi-
dence that it has run or very nearly run its natural course, and
in Transcendentalism reaches its termination, exhausts itself, and
can go no farther ; for there is no farther. Beyond Transcend-
entalism, in the same direction, there is no place. Transcend-
entalism is the last stage this side of NOWHERE ; and when
reached, we must hold up, or fly off into boundless vacuity. In
its prevalence, then, we may trust we see the signs of a change
near at hand ; and any change must certainly be in a better
direction.
234 PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL .*
OCTOBER, 1849.
WE have seen few works written with a more just apprecia-
tion of our age than the one before us, or so well adapted to the
present state of the controversy which we are always obliged to
carry on with the enemies of the Church. Its author under-
stands well the essential nature of Protestantism, and clearly
and distinctly points out the proper method of meeting it under
the various forms it at present assumes, and of imposing silence
on its arrogant and noisy pretentions. He does not confine
himself to the field of theological controversy, properly so called,
but he meets Protestants on their own chosen ground, on the
broad field ef European civilization, and shows them that, under
the point of view of civilization, of liberty, order, and social
well-being, Protestantism has been a total failure, and that, even
in reference to this world, Catholicity has found itself as superior
to it as it claims to be in regard to the world to come. He
does not merely vindicate Catholicity, in relation to civilization,
from the charges preferred against it by the modern advocates
of liberalism and Progressism, but by a calm appeal to history
and philosophy, he shows that the opposing system has inter-
rupted the work of civilization which the Church was prosecut-
ing with vigor and success, and has operated solely in the inter-
est of barbarism. In doing this, he has done a real service to
the cause of truth, and we learn with pleasure that one of our
friends in England has translated his work, originally written
Spanish, and rendered it accessible to the great body of English
and American readers.
Such a work as this was much needed in our language. We
have, indeed, many able controversial works, works admirable
* Le Protestantisme compare au Catholicisme dans ses Rapports avec
la Civilisation Europeenne. Par M. L'ABBE JACQUES BALMES. Paris :
Debr6court. 1842-44. 3 tomes 8vo.
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 235
for the learning, ability, and skill of their authors ; but we
have comparatively few which are adapted to the present state
of the controversy with Protestants. The greater part of those
accessible to the mere English reader are well adapted only to
the few individuals whose hearts the grace of God has already
touched, and whose faces are already set towards the Church.
Truth is one and invariable, but error is variable and manifold.
It is always the same truth that we must oppose to error, but it
is seldom the same error for two successive moments to which
we must oppose it. We must shoot error, as well as folly, " as
it flies." and we must be able to shoot it under ever-varying and
varied disguises. The works we have, excellent as they are in
their way, and admirably fitted to guard the faithful against
many of the devices of the enemy to detach them from the
Church, and to aid and instruct persons in heretical communions
who are virtually prepared to return to the Church, do not hit
the reigning form of Protestantism ; they do not reach the seat
of the disease, and are apparently written on the supposition of
soundness, where there is, in fact, only rottenness. The princi-
ples they assume as the basis of their refutation of Protestantism,
though nominally professed or conceded by the majority of Pro-
testants, are not held with sufficient firmness to be used as the
foundation of an argument that is to have any practical efficacy
in their conversion. They all appear to assume that Protestants
as a body really mean to be Christians, and err only in regard to
some of the dogmas of Christianity and the method of deter-
mining the faith ; that Protestantism is a specific heresy, a dis-
tinct and positive form of error, like Arianism or Pelagianism;
and that its adherents would regard themselves as bound to re-
ject it, if proved to be repugnant to Christianity, or contrary to
the Holy Scriptures. This is a natural and a charitable suppo-
sition ; but we are sorry to say, that, if it was ever warrantable,
it is not by any means warrantable in our times, except as to
the small number of individuals in the several sects who are
mere exceptions to the rule. Protestantism is no specific heresy,
is no distinct or positive form of error, but error in general, in-
236 PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
different to forms, and receptible of any form or of all forms, as
suits the convenience or the exigency of its friends. It is a ver-
itable Proteus, and takes any and every shape judged to be
proper to deceive the eyes or to elude the blows of the cham-
pions of truth. It is Lutheran, Calvinistic, Arminian, Unitarian,
Pantheistic, Atheistic, Pyrrhonistic, each by turns or all at once,
as is necessary to its purpose. The Protestant as such has, in
the ordinary sense, no principles to maintain, no character to sup-
port, no consistency to preserve ; and we are aware of no au-
thority, no law, no usage, by which he will consent to be bound.
Convict him from tradition, and he appeals to the Bible ; convict
him from the Bible, and he appeals to reason ; convict him from
reason, and he appeals to private sentiment ; convict him from
private sentiment, and he appeals to skepticism, or flies back to
reason, to Scripture, or tradition, and alternately from one to the
other, never scrupling to affirm, one moment, what he denied
the moment before, nor blushing to be found maintaining, that,
of contradictories, both may be true. He is indifferent as to
what he asserts or denies, if able for the moment to obtain an
apparent covert from his pursuers.
Protestants do not study for the truth, and are never to be
presumed willing to accept it, unless it chances to be where and
what they wish it. They occasionally read our books and listen
to our arguments, but rarely to ascertain our doctrines, or to
learn what we are able to say against them or for ourselves. The
thought, that we may possibly be right, seldom occurs to them ;
and when it does, it is instantly suppressed as an evil thought,
as a temptation from the Devil. They take it for granted, that,
against us, they are right, arid cannot be wrong. This is with
them a " fixed fact, " admitting no question. They condescend
to consult our writings, or to listen to our arguments, only to
ascertain what doctrines they can profess, or what modifications
they can introduce into those which they have professed, that will
best enable them to elude our attacks, or give them the appear-
ance of escaping conviction by the authorities from tradition,
Scripture, reason, and sentiment which we array against them.
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 237
Candor or ingenuousness towards themselves even is a thing
wholly foreign to their Protestant nature, and they are instinct-
ively and habitually cavillers and sophisticators. They disdain
to argue a question on its merits, and always, if they argue at
all, argue it on some unimportant collateral. They never recog-
nize unless it is for their interest to do so any distinction be-
tween a tr unseat and a concedo, and rarely fail to insist that the
concession of an irrelevant point is a concession of the main
issue. They have no sense of responsibleness, no loyalty to
truth, no mental chastity, no intellectual sincerity. What is
for them is authority which no body must question; what is
against them is no authority at all. Their own word if not in
their favor, they refuse to accept ; and the authority to which
they professedly appeal they repudiate the moment it is seen not
to sustain them. To reason with them as if they would stand
by their own professions, or could or would acknowledge any
authority but their own ever-varying opinions, is entirely to mis-
take them, and to betray our own simplicity.
Undoubtedly, many of our friends, who have not, like our-
selves, been brought up Protestants, and have not to blush at the
knowledge their Protestant experience has given them, may feel
that in this judgment we are rash and uncharitable. Would
that we were so. W T e take no pleasure in thinking ill of any
portion of our fellow-men, and would always rather find our-
selves wrong in our unfavorable judgments of them than right.
But in this matter the evidence is too clear and conclusive to
allow us even to hope that we are wrong. There is not a single
Protestant doctrine opposed to Catholicity that even Protestants
themselves have not over and over again completely refuted;
there is not a single charge brought by Protestants against tin 1
Church that some of them, as well as we, have not fully exploded ;
and no more conclusive vindication of the claims of Catholicity
can be desired than may be nay, than in fact has been collect-
ed from distinguished Protestant writers themselves. This is a
fact which no Protestant, certainly no Catholic, can deny. How
happens it, then, that the Protestant world still subsists, and
2.38 PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
that, for the last hundred and fifty years, we have made compar-
atively little progress in regaining Protestants to the Church?
We may, it is true, be referred to the obstinacy in error char-
acteristic of all heretics ; but, in the present case, unless what
is meant is obstinacy in error in general, and not in error in par-
ticular, this will not suffice as an answer; because, during this
period, there has been no one particular form of error to which
Protestants have uniformly adhered. No class of Protestants
adheres to-day to the opinions it originally avowed. In this res-
pect, there is a marked difference between the Protestant sects of
modern times and the early Oriental sects. The Jacobite holds
to-day the same specific heresy which he held a thousand years
ago ; and the Nestorian of the nineteenth is substantially the
Nestorian of the fourth century. But nothing analogous is true
of any of the modern Protestant sects. Protestants boast, in-
deed, their glorious Reformation, but they no longer hold the
views of its authors. Luther, were he to ascend to the scenes
of his earthly labors, would be utterly unable to recognize his
teachings in the doctrines of the modorn Lutherans ; the Calvin-
ist remains a Calvinist only in name ; the Baptist disclaims his
Anabaptist original ; the Unitarian points out the errors he de-
tects in his Socinian ancestors ; and the Transcendentalist looks
down with pity on his Unitarian parents, while he considers it a
cruel persecution to be excluded from the Unitarian family. No
sect retains, unmodified, unchanged, the precise form of error
with which it set out. All the forms Protestants have from time
to time assumed have been developed, modified, altered, almost
BS soon as assumed, always as internal or external controversy
made it necessary or expedient. Here is a fact nobody can deny,
nnd it proves conclusively that the Protestant world does not
subsist solely by virtue of its obstinate attachment to the views
or opinions to which it has once committed itself, or in conse-
quence of its aversion to change the doctrines it has once pro-
fessed.
This fact proves even more than this. Bossuet very justly
concludes from the variations of Protestantism its objective
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 239
falsity, because the characteristic of truth is invariability ; but
we may go farther, and from the same variations conclude the
subjective falsity of Protestantism, or that Protestants have no
real belief in, or attachment to, the particular doctfines they
profess, not only that Protestants profess a false doctrine, but
that they are insecere, and destitute, as a body, of real honesty
in their professions. If they believed their doctrines, they could
never tolerate the changes they undergo. New sects might, in-
deed, arise among them, but no sect would suffer its original doc-
trines to be in the least altered or modified. The members of
every sect, if they believed its creed, would, so long as they ad-
hered to it, be struck with horror at the bare idea of altering or
modifying it ; for it would seem to them to be altering or modi-
fying the revealed Word of God. This is a point of no slight
importance in judging the Protestant world, and seems to us to
deserve more attention than the great body of Catholics even
are disposed to give it. These variations prove, at least, that
Protestantism is something distinct from the formal teachings
of Protestants, and something that can and does survive them.
That we are neither rash nor uncharitable in our judgment
of Protestants, severe as it unquestionably is, may be collected
from facts of daily occurrence. The great body of Protestants,
it is well known, labor unceasingly to detach Catholics from the
Church, and to this end use all the means the age and country
will tolerate. It was to combine their forces against Catholicity,
that, a few years since, under the pontificate of Gregory XVL,
the Protestant ministers held their World's Convention in Lon-
don ; that they formed Protestant alliances in England, Ger-
many, France, Switzerland, and this country, devised a plan in
concert with the Italian refugees in these several countries for
effecting a civil revolution in every Catholic state, especially in
the Papal States, and called upon the Protestant people every-
where to contribute funds for carrying it out, a plan, even to
minute particulars, which the well-known ministers, Bacon,
Coxe, Beecher, Kirk, and others, forewarned us of in a meeting
of the Protestant Alliance in this city ir 1845, and which we
240 PROTESTANTISM IK A NUTSHELL.
have seen to a great extent realized during the last two years,
much to the joy of thousands of nominal Catholics, who little
suspected themselves to be the dupes of miserable demagogues
on the one hand, and of hypocritical Protestant ministers on the
other. But while Protestants, in season and out of season, by
means fair and by means foul, by means open and by means
secret and tortuous, seek to detach Catholics from the Church,
they appear quite indifferent as to which of the thousand and
one Protestant formulas they are led to embrace, or whether,
indeed, they are led to embrace any one of them. Excepting,
as we always do, here and there an individual, they are satisfied
with the simple fact, that those drawn off from the Church are
no longer Catholics. Whatever we lose, they count their gain,
and although they are well aware that the majority of those
they gain from us turn out rank apostates, infidels, and blas-
phemers, they nevertheless rejoice over them, and claim them as
so many accessions to their ranks. If Protestants had any sin-
cerity in their professions, if they had any sense of religion, how
could they regard themselves as triumphing in proportion as
they succeed in detaching miserable wretches from us, and sink-
ing them in religion even below the ancient heathen, especially
since none of them dare pretend that we do not embrace all the
essentials of the Christian religion, or that salvation is not attain-
able in our Church ? They profess to be Christians, but they
would rather make us infidels, apostates, atheists, blasphemers,
than suffer us to remain Catholics. What more conclusive proof
can you ask of their insincerity, of the fact that their profes-
sions afford no clew to the real state of their minds, and ought
to count for nothing ?
Doubtless, we are not to be understood to imply that Prot-
estants are always distinctly conscious of their own want of strict
honesty and sincerity. No man knoweth whether he deserveth
love or hatred. Knowledge of one's self is hard to acquire;
self deception is one of the easiest things in the world, and few
there are who are certain that they have a good conscience, or
are sure of the motives which govern them. No doubt, Prot-
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 241
estants gioss over their conduct, and have some method of justi-
fy ino- it in their. own eyes; no doubt, they persuade themselves
that they are sincere, at least as sincere as they can afford to
be, as honest in their belief as people generally are ; but they
know not what manner of spirit they are of, and as that spirit
is inherently a lying spirit, as Catholics well know, it must needs
lie unto themselves as well as unto others. Probably every
heresiarch dupes himself before he dupes others, and holds the
post of leader only because a greater dupe than his followers.
That kind of honesty and sincerity compatible with a false spirit
and gross delusion, we are not disposed to deny to Protestants ;
but we should remember that no really sincere and truthful
mind ever is or ever can be deluded. No man ever is or ever
was strictly honest and sincere in the profession of a false doc-
trine, for no false doctrine can ever, in the nature of things,
be so evidenced as to exclude doubt; and he who professes to
believe what he doubts professes what he knows he does not
believe, and therefore professes what he knows is not true. A
man may be honestly in doubt as to what is or is not the truth
on certain points ; but no man can honestly profess faith in a
false doctrine, for in a false doctrine no man can have faith.
A sort of honesty and sincerity we certainly concede to the
generality of Protestants ; but as to the end for which they pro-
fess their doctrines, rather than as to the doctrines themselves.
The principle common to them, and the only one we can always
be sure they will practically adhere to, is, that the end justifies
the means. The end they propose is, neither to save their souls
nor to discover and obey the truth, but to destroy or elude Cath-
olicity. The spirit which possesses them maddens them against
the Church, and gives them an inward repugnance to everything
not opposed to her. To overthrow her, to blot out her exist-
ence, or to prevent her from crushing them with the weight of
her truth, is to them a praiseworthy end, at least a great and
most desirable end ; directly or indirectly, consciously or un-
consciously, it becomes the ruling passion after money -getting
of their lives, a passion in which they are confirmed and
11
242 PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
strengthened by all the blandishments of the world, and all the
seductions of the flesh. Any means which tend to gratify this
passion, to realize this end, they hold to be lawful, and they can
adopt them, however base, detestable, or shocking in themselves i
with a quiet conscience and admirable self-complacency.
That the ruling motive or dominant instinct of Protestants, in
their character of Protestants, is, at least under a negative point
of view to destroy or elude Catholicity, is evident from the char-
acter of the variations which their Protestantism has undergone,
and is daily and hourly undergoing. Examine these variations,
and you will find that they each and all tend to remove Protest-
antism farther and farther from the Catholic standard, and to
shelter it from the blows of Catholic assailants. Each successive
reformer eliminates from his sect some Catholic doctrine which
it may have retained, or modifies some element of which he sees
the Catholic controversialist can take advantage. The tendency
of the Protestant world, collectively and in each of its divisions
and subdivisions, has been steadily in the direction from the
Church against which it protests, and the progress which Prot-
estants so loudly boast, has consisted, and still consists, in get-
ting rid of what they originally retained in common with Catho-
lics. The Protestant vanguard, which announces that the main
body is at hand, has advanced very far, and retains less of Chris-
tian principle than was retained by the old heathen world in
the times of the Apostles. Take your fully developed Trans-
cendentalist, the last word of Protestantism, and you will find
him divested of every Catholic principle, and, under the point
of view of religion, reduced, not only to nudity, but to nihility.
The poor man retains nothing, not even so much as a shadow.
He is a Peter Schlemil, and has sold his shadow to the man in
black. What can have reduced him to such straits, driven
him to such extremes? Love of truth, force of conviction?
Nothing of the sort. Be not so simple as to pretend it. He
assigns, and attempts to assign, no authority, no reason, for his
nihilism. He even acknowledges that he has no reason to as-
sign, and tells you that he only throws out what he thinks,
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 243
without pretending to prove it. He is a seer, and utters what he
sees, and you must take him at his word, or not at all. Why,
then, does he rush into nihilism ? Simply, because he is seer
enough to see, that, if he admits that anything exist, he will
be driven ultimately to acknowledge the truth of Catholicity.
Rather than do that, he will sell his soul, as well as his shadow,
to the man in black, and consent to deny his own existence.
Almost every day, we meet intelligent Protestant gentlemen
who frankly acknowledge that there is no alternative but Cath-
olicity or no-religion, and yet who just as frankly tell us that they
will not be Catholics. Not long since, a Protestant minister of
respectable standing in this city assured us, in all seriousness,
that he " would rather be damned than become a Catholic."
We of course informed him that he could have his choice, for
Almighty God forces no one to accept the gift of eternal life.
This worthy minister is, no doubt, very ready to embrace the
truth that does not convict him of error, if such truth there be ;
but if we may take him at his word, he is prepared to resist, at
all hazards, the truth that would indict him. Is it truth, or his
own opinion that he loves ?
The mistake of our popular controversialists seems to arise
from their supposition, that Protestantism can be learned from
the symbolical books and theological writings of Protestants.
Undoubtedly we can thus learn that Protestantism which is put
forth to elude Catholicity, or to lure Catholics from their Church,
and therefore a Protestantism highly important, for the sake
of Catholics, to be studied and refuted ; but not thus can we
learn the Protestantism which lies in the Protestant mind and
heart, and which it is necessary to refute for the sake of Prot-
estants themselves. This Protestantism is not learned from
symbolical books or theological writings, and but comparatively
few Protestants themselves can give us a clear and distinct
statement, much less a just account of it. We can seize it only
in the historical developments and manifest tendencies of the
Protestant movement, and explain it only by means of a thor-
244 PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
ough knowledge of human nature on the one hand, and of
Catholic faith and theology on the other.
It appears to us, that our controversialists are mistaken, also,
in regarding the more reputable sects that is, the sects which,
in their symbols and professions, have departed the least from
the Catholic standard as better exponents of the Protestant
mind than the less reputable, and as those whose views it is
the most important to study and refute. Nearly all the con-
troversial works we have, originally written in the English lan-
guage, are directed against the Anglican and Protestant Epis-
copal sects. We are not aware of a single Catholic work, writ-
ten expressly against the so-called Evangelical sects, Presby-
terians, Baptists, Methodists, or what we may call Pietism.
And, with the exception of the profound and scientific work of
Father Kollmann, against Unitarians, too profound and scien-
tific to be intelligible to those for whom it was written, we
have in English not a single work against Rationalism, which,
in reality, has a larger number of adherents, in both England
and this country, than either Anglicanism or Evangelicalism.
This indicates a serious defect in our controversial literature, and
seems to us to be owing to a false estimate of the relative im-
portance of the several Protestant sects. There are, no doubt,
many individuals included in the more reputable sects, who, if
compelled to choose, would sooner return to the Church than
follow the Proiestant movement to its natural terminus ; but they
are only a small minority, and would hardly be missed in the
sects to which they respectively belong. All the sects are on
the move, tending somewhither. Not one of them is stationary.
This they make their boast ; and one of the most frequent and
most effective charges they bring against the Church is, that she
is not progressive, but remains immovable, insisting that we shall
believe to-day the very doctrines which she taught and believed
in the Dark Ages. The dominant tendency of any given sect
is the tendency which the great majority of its members obey.
Ascertain, then, the dominant tendency of each sect, and you
have ascertained the direction in which the great majority of its
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 245
members are moving, and will continue to move, if diverted or
arrested by no foreign influence. But what, in fact, is the dom-
inant tendency of each and every Protestant sect ? Is there a sin-
gle one whose successive developments, modifications, and changes
tend to bring it nearer and nearer to the Catholic standard, and
to prepare it for communion with the Church ? Nobody can
pretend it. Everybody knows that every sect is moving in the
opposite direction, and that the dominant tendency of the Prot
estant world, a few individuals excepted, is towards Rationalism,
Transcendentalism, and therefore towards pantheism, atheism,
nihilism. This is decisive, and proves that those sects which
have departed farthest from Catholicity are the truest reprenta-
tives of the Protestant spirit, and the best exponents of genuine
Protestantism, as the fully developed man is a better exponent
of humanity than the new-born infant. What it is most im-
portant, then, to study and refute, must be the principles of
these more advanced sects, not those of the sects who remain
behind, or are still rocking in their cradle, and therefore Trans-
cendentalism, rather than Anglicanism.
Undoubtedly we see, from time to time, a conservative, per-
haps a retrogade, movement in the bosom of the several sects.
But this movement is the result, in most cases, of alarm for the
credit or prosperity of the sect, rather than of any deep or sin-
cere attachment to the principles or doctrines the sect threatens
to leave behind. Besides, the movement is ever but a mere
eddy in the stream, or a slight ripple on its surface. It reaches
never to the bottom of the sect, and arrests or diverts never its
main current. This is evident from the late Oxford movement,
one of the most- important movements of the kind which has
recently been witnessed. There was a time when timid Prot-
estants feared, and many good Catholics hoped, that it would
restore England to Catholic faith and unity; but no sooner did
it become manifest to all the world that its tendency was to
communion with Rome, than it was arrested. A few individuals
became reconciled to the Church, but the majority of those at
first favorably disposed towards it avowedly or tacitly abandoned
246 PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
it, lapsed into the ordinary channel of their sect, and suffered
themselves to be borne onward with it towards its natural term,
no-religion, or nihilism. So it is in every sect in which a sim-
ilar movement takes place. As soon as it is clear that its ten-
dency is anti-Protestant, that is, towards Rome, it is arrested,
and only here and there an individual dares henceforth avow
his adherence to it.
It may be thought by some, that the more reputable sects
are the real bulwarks of Protestantism, and that, if we refute
them, the less reputable sects will fall of themselves. Doubtless
this is one reason why our English and American Catholic con-
troversialists direct their attacks so exclusively against Anglican-
ism and Protestant Episcopalianisrn. But we are disposed to
believe that the real supporters of Protestantism, if not in them-
selves, at least in their views and influence, are the sects which
are farthest removed from Catholicity. If there was nothing be-
low Anglicanism to which Anglicans could descend, we should
have short work with it, and the Anglican and Episcopal sects
would soon disappear. The more reputable sects, comparing
themselves with the immense Protestant world below them, look
upon themselves as substantially orthodox, and are more dispos-
ed to dwell on what they retain that others have given up, than
on what they themselves lack which we have. They form, too,
a sort of aristocracy, a haute noblesse, in the sectarian world, and
are pleased with their rank, and unwilling to forego the import-
ance it gives them in their own eyes. Moreover, the sects be-
low them, all Protestant, and of their own race, smooth the de-
scent for them in proportion as they are driven from their more
elevated position, and enable them to descend by an easy grada-
tion, by almost imperceptible steps, to the lowest depths of
error. If the High-churchman is defeated, he can descend to
Low-churchism ; if the Low-churchman is defeated, he can de-
scend to Evangelicalism ; if the Evangelical is defeated, he can
descend either, on the one hand, to Rationalism, or, on the other,
to Transcendentalism, for, in point of fact, Evangelicalism is
nothing but a loose combination of Rationalism and Transcend-
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 247
entalism. It is far easier for a High-churchman to become a
Low- church man than it is for him to become a Catholic, and
always is the next step in the descending scale far easier to take
than the next step in the ascending scale.
" Facilis descensus Averno :
Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis ;
Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hie labor est."
As long as there is a lower step that can be taken without
abandoning the essential element of Protestantism, the defeat of
the more reputable sects, on the ground they profess to occupy,
will do little for their conversion; for they will never acknowl-
edge, even to themselves, that they are defeated, so long as there
is any conceivable Protestant ground from which they are not
actually driven. It is owing to the fact that Protestants now
claim as Protestant all the territory between the ground occupi-
ed by Dr. Pusey and that occupied by M. Proudhon, and thus
have a larger field for advance or retreat, that we find their con-
version in our times so much more difficult than it was formerly.
St. Francis of Sales, Bishop of Geneva, himself alone regain-
ed seventy-two thousand Protestants to the Church; we are
aware of no bishop in the present age, however zealous, learned,
able, or saintly, who has the consolation of recovering anything
approaching a like number. We cannot, therefore, but regard
the views and tendencies of the more advanced sects as those
which it is now altogether the most important to study and
refute
Not only does Protestantism, as our divines have from the
first maintained, logically lead to the denial of all religion, to
atheism, and therefore to nihilism, for to deny that God exists
is to deny that anything is, but it is now clear to all who have
examined the subject, that the great body of Protestants are
really prepared, as occasion may require, to follow it thus far.
The majority of the Protestant world are really, if not avowedly,
Transcendentalists to-day, as every one knows who is acquainted
248 PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
with recent Protestant literature ; and Strauss, Feuerbach, Bauer,
Parker, Emerson, Michelet, Quinet, and Proudhon have more
sympathizers than Hengstenberg, Pusey, Seabury, Nevin, Alex-
ander, Beecher, and Kirk. Proudhon is nothing but a consist-
ent Red Republican ; and where is the Protestant, in case he is
not restrained by his temporal interest, who does not sympathize
with Red Republicanism ? Have not Protestants very generally,
in England and this country, sympathized with Mazzini and his
Roman Republic? Nay, was it not in concert with, and by aid
even of, the more reputable Protestant sects, that he expelled
the Sovereign Pontiff, -and established his Reign of Terror ? Is
not Protestant sympathy very generally enlisted in favor of the
infidel and socialistic revolutions in Europe, all of which have
been stirred up and helped on by Protestants, under the lead
of their ministers, in the name of liberty, but really for the pur-
pose of overthrowing and annihilating the Church ? Evident is
it, then, that they will go, as a body, to all lengths which they
find necessary to accomplish their purpose of hostility to Catho-
licity ; and as they never can even logically overthrow the
Church, so long as the existence of anything is admitted, they
must deny everything, and rush into nihilism.
It is necessary, then, if we wish to arrest the Protestant move-
ment, and do what in us lies to save the souls of Protestants,
that we reason with them, not as if it were a sufficient refutation
of them to prove that they are tending to atheism, but as men
who believe nothing, and build up our argument against them
from the very foundation. Prove to them that their doctrines
are anti-Christian, and they will only beg you to inform them
wherefore that is a reason for not believing them ; prove Chris-
tianity to be true, and they will merely beg you to prove your
proofs, and thus demand of you an infinite series of proofs.
They are, under the point of view of religion and philosophy,
wholly rotten, and from the sole of the foot to the crown of the
head there is no soundness in them. Nothing will answer for
them that does not descend as low as the last denial that it is
possible for the human mind to conceive, and drive them from
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 249
position to position, till there is no position remaining outside of
the Church which they can even affect to take.
Protestantism as we now find it, and even as it was, virtually,
in the sixteenth century, is not merely the denial of certain Ca-
tholic dogmas, is not merely the denial of the Christian revela-
tion itself, but really the denial of all religion and morality, na-
tural and revealed. It denies reason itself, as far as it is in the
power of man to deny it, and is no less unsound as philosophy
than it is as faith. It extinguishes the light of nature no less
than the light of revelation, and is as false in relation to the na-
tural order as to the supernatural. Even when Protestants
make a profession of believing in revelation, they discredit rea-
son. In regard to reason, they are, even when professing to
believe, very generally Pyrrhonists. The Evangelical sects, for
instance, do not merely deny the sufficiency of reason as our
only guide, but they deny its trustworthiness altogether, and as-
sert that we must take for our guide the Scriptures, not as in-
te'-preted by an authority accredited to reason, nor as interpret-
ed by reason itself, but as interpreted by the private illuminations
of the spirit. They thus supersede, as it were, annihilate, rea-
son, and reduce themselves to the condition of irrational beings,
virtually declare man incapable of receiving a supernatural reve-
lation, and then call upon him to believe the Bible, and to walk
by the supernatural light of feith. As long as their enthusiasm
lasts, as long as they can keep up a sort of unnatural excitement,
they may half persuade themselves that they are supernaturally
illuminated ; but as soon as their fever abates, and they sink to
their ordinary level, they experience the most painful misgivings,
the supposed supernatural light fades away, and, having no rea-
son on which to fall back, they can believe nothing, and either
openly avow themselves infidels, or, merely keep up a show
of piety, seek relief by devoting all their energies to worldly dis-
tinctions or pleasures. They begin by proposing revelation, not
as the complement, but as the substitute, of reason ; and when
revelation fails, as fail it must f not supported by motives of
250 PROTESTANTISM IS A NUTSHELL.
credibility addressed to reason, and satisfactory to it, nothing re-
mains for them but universal skepticism.
The formalists sects, as the Anglican and Episcopalian, reach
the same result though by a different process. Building on
sham, taking the shadow for the substance, and denying both
the substance and the light the shadow necessarily implies. or,
in other words, refusing to draw from their premises their logical
consequences, afraid to make a complete proposition, to say two
and two make four, and stopping short with saying two and two,
lest they lose the via media, and roll over to Rome, or fall off into
Dissent, they destroy reason by mutilating and enslaving it, and
find themselves without anything by or to which a supernatural
revelation can be accredited. The Rationalistic sects, seeing the
errors of Evangelicals and formalists, think to save reason by
resolving the supernatural into the natural ; but in doing this
they lose revelation, and therefore reason, because no man can
deny revelation without denying reason, and because reason
without revelation is insufficient for herself, inadequate to the
solution of the great problems of life which she herself raises.
Beginning by asking of reason more than she can give, they
end by discarding her and falling into universal skepticism, the
ultimate term of all Protestantism.
Protestants, it is well known, are able to keep up the self-
delusion that they are believers only by obstinately refusing to
push their principles to their legitimate consequences, and by
shutting their eyes to the objections which may be suggested or
urged against them. The condition of a Protestant wishing to
retain his Protestantism, and yet keep up the appearance of being
a believer, is most pitiable. The poor man has no mental freedom,
no intellectual courage, but is a cowardly slave, with all the
weakness and meanness characteristic of slaves in general. He
never dares trust himself to his principles, and follow them out
to their remotest logical consequences, and is doomed, turn
which way he will, to be inconsequent, and to submit to a most
tyrannical and capricious master ; for otherwise he would find
himself, on the one hand, approaching too near Catholicity to
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 251
remain a Protestant, or, on the other, too near to nihilism to
even pretend to be a believer. Alas for the poor man ! He
hugs his chains, and, by the strangest infatuation imaginable,
fancies his slavery is freedom. All who have studied the subject
know well that Protestants are Protestants, not by virtue of rea-
son, but in spite of reason, not because they reason, but solely
because they do not, will not, and dare not reason. The rejec-
tion of reason is their fundamental vice. Reason is our natural
light, and, though of no value out of its sphere, in its sphere is
inerrable. It does not suffice of itself for all. the wants of the
human soul, but its annihilation reduces us below the condition
of men, and renders us incapable of receiving even a superna-
tural revelation. Revelation does not abrogate or supersede
reason ; it restores it and supplies its deficiencies. Grace sup-
poses nature. Christianity is a system of pure grace, is, in
fact, a supernatural creation, but a supernatural creation for the
natural, designed to repair the damage nature has incurred by
guilt, and to enable man to attain the end to which his Creator
originally appointed him. Man is not for the Sacraments, but
the Sacraments are for man. The first office of grace is to re-
store nature, or to heal its wounds ; having restored it to health,
it elevates it, indeed, but always retains it, and uses it. Here is
the grand fact that Protestant theologians always overlook.
They, in reality, always present nature and grace as two antag-
onistic powers, and suppose the presence of the one must be the
physical destruction of the other. Luther and Calvin, weary of
the good works, and shrinking from the efforts to acquire the
personal virtues enjoined by Catholicity, began their so-called
reform by asserting the total depravity of human nature, and
maintaining that original sin involved the loss of reason and free-
will, reducing man physically to the condition of irrational ani-
mals, and superadding the penalty of guilt. Here, in the very
outset, they denied natural reason, all natural religion, and all
natural morality, and consequently asserted for man in the natu-
ral order, left to his natural powers and faculties, universal skep-
ticism and moral indifference ; for without reason there can Le
252 PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
no belief, and without free-will no moral obligation, no moral dif-
ference of actions.
The Arminians, indeed, saw this, and sought to remedy it by
reasserting the natural law ; but as they still held to total de-
pravity, the reassertion amounted to nothing ; or, if they some-
times abandoned total depravity, they rushed to the opposite
extreme, and reasserted Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism, and
restricted the office of grace to enabling us to do more easily
what, nevertheless, we are able to do without it. If they suc-
ceeded in escaping the peculiar error of Luther and Calvin, they
fell into Rationalism. As Luther and Calvin annihilated reason
and free-will, the whole spiritual nature of man, and made man
purely passive in the work of regeneration and Christian per-
fection, the Arminians, become Rationalists, disregarding the ne-
cessity of grace, made the natural law sufficient, and asserted
or\\y a natural morality. But experience proving the inadequa-
cy of the natural law, when taken without its revealed comple-
ment and sanction, of natural morality, when not elevated by
supernatural Christian virtue, they, like the others, lapsed, of
necessity, into the same skepticism.
The error of each class is avoidable only by understanding
that grace always supposes nature, and that grace without na-
ture would be as a telescope to a man without eyes. Revela-
tion supposes reason, and we as effectually deny Christianity
when we deny reason as when we deny revelation ; both must
be asserted with equal firmness and emphasis, each in its own
sphere, in relation to its appropriate office, or nothing is asserted.
To deny reason is, a fortiori, to deny revelation, and to deny
revelation is virtually to deny reason ; because the evidences of
the fact of revelation are amply sufficient to satisfy reason, and
because reason, without revelation, being undeniably insufficient
to solve the problems which torture the mind without faith, and
to satisfy the craving of our nature for something above itself,
cannot maintain itself practically in credit, and necessarily loses
its authority. Philosophy, undoubtedly, rests for its basis on
natural reason, otherwise we should be unable to distinguish it
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 253
from Catholic theology, or to draw any intelligible distinction
between the natural and supernatural ; but without the light of
revelation, we shall never be able, in our fallen condition, to
construct a sound and adequate philosophy. So, on the other
hand, without a sound and adequate philosophy, we can never
possess a true and adequate theology ; for as revelation is neces-
sary as an instrument in the construction of philosophy, so is
philosophy necessary as an instrument in the construction of
theology, that is, theology as a science, and as distinguishable
from faith. Hence, in all courses of Catholic instruction, the
student makes his philosophy before he proceeds to his theology.
It is clear enough, from what we have said, that the most
pressing want of Protestants, under the intellectual point of
view, is a sound philosophy, which, so to speak, shall rehabilitate
reason, and restore them to natural religion and morality. They
have lost reason, and have fallen below the religion or morality
which lies in the natural order, and which all revealed religion
and morality presuppose. The philosophy needed is nowhere
to be found in the Protestant world, and cannot possibly be
created by Protestants, for the reason that the revelation which
must serve as its instrument they have not, or at best only some
detached fragments of it. The only respectable school of philos-
ophy to be found amongst Protestants is the Scottish School of
Reid and Stewart ; but this school dogmatizes rather than phi-
losophizes. It very justly assumes that all philosophy must
proceed from certain indemonstrable principles, and it does not
err essentially in its inventory of these principles ; but it fails to
establish them, or to show us that they have scientific validity.
It calls them the constituent principles of human belief, and
says, very truly, that they must be admitted, or all science, all
philosophy, is out of the question. But this is no more than
Hume, whom it aims to refute, himself said. Is science or phi-
losophy possible ? is the precise question to be answered.
Without the conditions you assert, we grant it is not possible ;
but what then ? Therefore your alleged principles are sound ?
Why not : Therefore all science, all philosophy, is impossible ?
254
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
No doubt, the Scottish School has protested vehemently against
the skepticism of Hume, but its refutation of that skepticism is
a mere paralogism, a simple begging of the question, and there-
fore, scientifically considered, worthless.
But, after all, we cannot place our chief reliance on philoso-
phy as an instrument in the conversion of Protestants. Philos-
ophy is too indirect and too slow in its operations to meet their
wants. They are too far gone, too restless, too impatient, too
averse to calm reflection and continuous thought, to listen to
us while we set the true philosophy before them, or to sub-
mit to the labor absolutely requisite to comprehend and appre-
ciate profound philosophical science. An age of balloons, steam-
cars, and lightning telegraphs is not exactly the age for philos-
ophers. Moreover, Protestant perversity would find in the
necessity of the long and patient thought, and close and subtile
reasoning, demanded by philosophy, an objection to our religion
itself. Your religion, they would say, if true, is intended for
all mankind, and therefore should be within the reach of every
capacity. The thought and reasoning necessary to create or
understand the philosophy you insist upon, transcend the capa-
city of all but the gifted few, and therefore, if necessary to estab-
lish your religion, prove that your religion is not true. We
might, indeed, reply, that the thought and reasoning objected to
are necessary to refute the errors of Protestants, not simply to
establish our religion ; but that would amount to nothing in
practice. The nature of the Protestant is to devise the most
subtile errors in his power, and to find an objection to our relig-
ion in the very labor he makes necessary for their refutation.
When he objects, he may be as subtile and as abstruse as he
pleases ; but when we reply, he insists that we shall be popular,
and never go beyond the depth of the most ordinary capacity,
that we shall answer the objection not only to the mind that
raises it, but to the minds of all men. Only the candid among
Protestants would acknowledge the justness of our reply, and
these would fail to comprehend it ; for if you find a candid
Protestant, you may safely conclude that he lacks intelligence,
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 255
as when you find an intelligent Protestant you may be sure that
he lacks candor. There must, then, be some briefer and more
expeditious way of dealing with Protestants than that of philoso-
phy, if we wish to affect them favorably.
We have defined Protestantism to be hostility to the Church,
and virtually nihilism, because Protestants in general, sooner
than return to the Church will push their hostility to its last
consequence, which is the denial of God, therefore of all exist-
ence and existences. But this is not all that we have to say of
the matter. No man loves error for its own sake, or wills what
does not appear to him to be good. The natural heart of every
man recoils instinctively from atheism ; and it is seldom, if ever,
that one without a fearful and even a protracted struggle aband-
ons all faith and piety, resigns all hope of an hereafter, and con-
sents to place himself in the category of the beasts that perish.
Hatred, no doubt, will carry a man to great lengths ; but even
hatred must have its cause, real or imaginary. Hatred is love
reversed, and intense hatred of one thing is the reverse action
of intense love of something else. Protestants hate the Church.
Wherefore? Because they love truth? Nonsense. Because
they believe her false, and destructive to the souls of men ? Non-
sense again. We hope there is no Catholic so stupid as to be-
lieve it. Their hatred of the Church has nothing to do with
concern for truth or for salvation. A large portion of them be-
lieve in no truth, in no salvation ; a larger portion still are of
opinion that all men will be saved, and that truth is whatever
seems to a man to be true ; and the remainder hold that the
Church is substantially orthodox, and that salvation is attainable
in her communion, as well as in their own. Whatever, then,
the cause of their hatred of the Church, it is a cause uncon-
nected with considerations of another world, or with truth as
such.
We need not look far for this something which Protestants
O
love and the Church condemns, and for condemning which they
are full of wrath against her. It is nothing very recondite, or
very difficult to seize. We make quite too much of Protestant-
256 PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
ism, which is, in reality, a very vulgar thing, and lies altogether
on the surface of life. Protestantism is nothing more or less
than that spirit of lawlessness which leads every one to wish to
have his own way, very common in women and children, and
perhaps not less common in men, only they have, generally, a
better faculty of concealing it. Objectively defined, it is expres-
sed in the common saying, "Forbidden fruit is sweetest;" and
subjectively, it is a craving for what is prohibited, because pro-
hibited. It imagines that the sovereign good is in what the law
forbids, and opposes the Church because she upholds the law,
hates the law because the law restrains it, duty because duty
obliges it ; and since, as long as it admits the existence of God,
it must admit duty, it denies God ; and since, as long as it ad-
mits the existence of anything, it must admit the existence of
God, it denies everything, and lapses into nihilism. Here is the
whole mystery of the matter, Protestantism in a nutshell.
The source of this impatience of restraint, and this desire to
have one's own way, is the pride natural to the human heart,
the root of every vice and of every sin. " Your eyes shall be
opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil," said
the serpent to Eve ; and she reached forth her hand, plucked the
forbidden fruit, ate, and sin and death were in the world. Pride
is, on the one hand, a denial of our dependence, and, on the
other, the assertion of our own sufficiency. Here you may see
the origin and the essential characteristic of Protestantism,
which is as old as the first motion of pride or of resistance to the
will of God. Protestantism, after all, is more ancient than we
commonly concede. Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, would
have been as correct if he had said the Devil was the first Prot-
estant, as he was in saying that he was " the first Whig." It
offends pride to be compelled to acknowledge our own insuffici-
ency, to admit that we cannot be trusted to follow our own in-
clinations, that we must be subjected to metes and bounds, and
placed under tutors and masters, who say, Do this, Do that ;
and we are galled, and we resolve \ve will not endure it ; we will
break the withes that bind us ; we will stand up on our own
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 257
two feet, and assert our freedom in face of heaven, earth and hell.
Hence we see Protestants, in every age, mounting the tallest pair
of stilts they can find or construct, and with more or less vehe-
mence, with more or less eclat, according to the circumstances of
time and place, magniloquently asserting the " inborn" rights of
man, proudly swearing to be free, to stand up in their native dig-
nity, in the full and resplendent majesty of their own manhood,
and making such appeals and forming such alliances as they
fancy will best secure their independence, relieve them from all
restraints, and give them the opportunity to live as they list.
Such is the general and essential characteristic of Protestant-
ism ; its particular character or form is determined by, and va-
ries with, the circumstances of time and place. In itself, as
Balmes well shows, it is a phenomenon peculiar to no period of
history, but whatever it has that is peculiar it borrows from the
character of the epoch in which it appears. It is always essen-
tially the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, but
the form under which the disobedience manifests itself depends
on exterior and .accidental causes. What it resists is what it
finds offensive to human pride, to pure, unmitigated egotism,
and what it asserts is always asserted as the means of securing
free scope to its independent action. In the sixteenth century,
pride found itself galled by submission to the Church, for the
Church could not tolerate its wild speculations and its theolog-
ical errors. It then denied the authority of the Church ; and
in order to make a show of justifying its denial, it asserted the
supremacy of the Scriptures, interpreted by private reason, or
by the private Spirit. Soon it found that the assertion of the
supremacy of the Scriptures, so interpreted, limited its sove-
reignty, and that it was as galling to its sense of independence
to submit to a dead book as to a living Church, and then it de-
nied the Scriptures, and, to justify its denial, asserted the su-
premacy of reason. But reason, again, galled it, reminded it
of its dependence, and would not suffer it to live as it listed.
Then it cried out, Down with reason, and up with sentiment !
a Transcendental element paramount to reason, and thus
258 PROTEST AKTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
reached the jumping-off place. In order to resist effectually
the Pope, it at one time, as in England, proclaims the divine
right of kings ; and then, in order to get rid of the divine right
of kings, it proclaims the divine right of the people, or, to speak
more accurately, of the mob ; and finally, in order to get rid of
the authority of the mob, it proclaims the divine right of each
and every individual, and declares that each and every individual
is God, the only God, thus resolving God into men, and all
men into one man, which implies the right of every man to take
the entire universe to himself, and possess it as his own property.
You laugh at its absurdity ? Upon our conscience, \ve invent
nothing, we exaggerate nothing, and say nothing more than is
asserted, in sober earnest, by men whom the Protestant world
delights to honor.
Turn Protestantism over as you will, analyze it to your heart's
content, you can make nothing more or less of it than mere
vulgar pride, and the various efforts pride makes from time to
time and place to place to secure its own gratification, to realize
the assertion of the serpent, " Ye shall be as gods knowing good
and evil," that is, ye shall know good and evil of yourselves,
as God knows them of himself, and shall be independent, and
act as seemeth to you good, even as God is independent and
doth according to his will, not as subject to a power above him-
self, and in obedience to another will than his own. Just see
the proof of this, in the sympathy now universally given to
every revolt against established authority. All your modern
literature is Satanic, and approves, and teaches us to approve,
every rebel, whether against parental, popular, royal, or Divine
authority. The Protestant readers of Paradise Lost sympathize
with Lucifer, in his war against the Almighty, and if they had
been in heaven, as one of our friends suggests, would have sided
with him. Our friend, J. D. Nourse,* defending himself against
our strictures on his book, boldly asserts that God is a despot,
and his government a despotism, nay, that all authority is
despotic.
* See below. Authority and Liberty.
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 259
Finding the essence of Protestantism to be mere vulgar pride,
that it is a moral disease rather than an intellectual aberration,
it is evident that we are to treat it as a vice rather than as an
error, and Protestants as sinners rather than as simply unbe-
lievers or misbelievers. This may not be very flattering to their
pride ; nevertheless, it is the only way they deserve to be treat-
ed, and the only way in which they can be treated for their
good. We honor them quite too much when we treat them as
men whose heads are wrong, but whose hearts are sound. The
wrongness of the head is the consequence of the rottenness of
the heart. The remedy must be applied to the seat of the dis-
ease, or it will be wholly ineffectual ; and as the disease is in the
will rather than in the intellect, we must, as we do with sinners
in general, avail ourselves of motives that tend to persuade the
will, rather than of those which tend primarily to convince the
understanding. Get the heart right, and the intellect will soon
rectify itself.
Now it is certain, that, so far as the great body of Protestants
are concerned, it is of no use to appeal to any love of truth or
regard for salvation they may be supposed to have. They are
very generally prepared, with Macbeth, " to jump the world to
come," and think only how they shall manage matters for this
world. They are worldly, and their wisdom is earthly, sensual,
devilish ; even their virtues, their honesty, their uprightness of
conduct, have reference, not to God, but to their justification,
either in the eyes of the world, or in the eyes of their own pride.
They are too proud or too vain to do this or that act which is
contrary to good manners. We must therefore approach them
as men who are wedded to this world, who are Protestants for
the sake of living for this world alone, and refuse to be Catho-
lics because Catholicity enjoins humility, detachment from the
world, and a life of self-denial and mortification, lived for God
alone. As long as it is conceded, or as long as they believe it
true, that their Protestantism is more favorable to man, regarded
solely as an inhabitant of this world, than Catholicity, we cannot
280 PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL.
get them to listen to what we have to say for our religion. If
they hear, it will be as if they heard not.
But it is a fact, as clearly demonstrable, in its way, as any
mathematical problem, that Catholicity enjoins the only normal
life for man, even in this world, letting alone what it secures us
in another. Human pride just now takes the form of Socialism,
and Socialism is the Protestantism of our times. It is human
pride under this form that we must address, and show to the
Socialists, not as some silly and misguided creatures calling
themselves Catholics, and sometimes occupying editorial chairs,
are accustomed to do that Catholicity favors them by accept-
ing their Socialism, but that it favors the object they profess to
have at heart, that it is the true and only genuine Socialism,
the basis of all veritable society, and the only known instrument
of well-being, either for the individual or for the race. We must
show, that, under the social point of view, under the various re-
lations of civilization, Protestantism is an egregious blunder, and
precipitates its adherents into the precise evils they really wish
to avoid. That it does so is evident enough to all who have
eyes to see, and is proved by the very complaints Protestants
make of their own movements. Their own complaints of them-
selves show, to use a vulgar proverb, that they always "jump
from the frying-pan into the fire," in attempting to better their
condition. They could not endure the authority of the Church ;
they resisted it, and fell under the tyranny of the sect, even in
their own view of the case, a thousand times less tolerable.
They rebelled, in the name of liberty, against the Pope, and fell
under the iron rule of the civil despot ; in England, they could
not endure the Lord's bishops, and they fell under the Lord's
presbyters, and from Lord's presbyters under the Lord's brethren,
and from Lord's brethren under the capricious tyranny of their
own fancies and passions. In political and social reforms it has
fared no better with them. In France, the Constituante were
more oppressive than the old monarchy, the Gironde than the
Constituante, the Mountain than the Gironde ; and the present
French government, in order to save society from complete des-
PROTESTANTISM IN A NUTSHELL. 261
tmction, is obliged to adopt measures more stringent than ever
Charles the Tenth or Louis Philippe dared venture upon. The
overthrow of one tyranny leads to another of necessity more
heartless and oppressive, because weaker and possessing a less
firm hold on the affections of the people. A strong government
can afford to be lenient. A weak government must be stringent.
Yet the wise men of the age rush on in their wild-goose chase
after worldly felicity, while it flies ever the faster before them.
Like the gambler, who has played away his patrimony, his wife's
jewels, and pawned his hat and coat, but keeps playing on, they
insist on another throw, though losing all, fancy they are just
agoing to recover all, and make a fortune equal to their bound-
less wishes. If they could but see themselves as the unexcited
bystanders see them, they would throw away the dice, and rush
with self-loathing from the hell in which they find only their
own ruin.
The principle on which Protestants seek even worldly felicity
is false, and we can say nothing better of them, than that they
prove themselves what the sacred Scriptures would term fools In
following it. When was it ever known that pride, following it-
self, did not meet mortification, or that any worldly distinction,
or good, sought for its own sake, did not either baffle pursuit, or
prove a canker to the heart ! Did you ever see a man running
after fame that ever overtook it, or a man always nursing his
health that was ever other than sickly ? Have you no eyes,
no ears, no understanding ? Fame comes, if at all, unsought,
greatness follows in the train of humility, and happiness, coy to
the importunate wooer throws herself into the arms of him
who treats her with indifference. All experience proves the truth
of the principle, " Seek first the kingdom of God, and his jus-
tice, and all these things shall be superadded unto you." Take
it as inspiration, as the word of God, or as a maxim of human
prudence, it is equally true, and he who runs against it only
proves his own folly. " Live while you live," says the Protest-
ant Epicurean. Be it so ; live while you live, but live you can-
not, unless you live to God, according to the principles of the
262 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
Catholic religion. Live now you do not, and you know you do
not ; you are only just agoing, and not a few of you fear that
you are never even agoing to live, as all your poetry, with its
deep pathos and melodious wail, too amply proves.
Here comes in to our aid the excellent work before us. It ex-
actly meets the present state of the Protestant world, and makes
the only kind of appeal to which, in their present mood, they
will listen. Its author makes no apology for Catholicity, he
offers no direct argument for its truth ; he simply comes forward
and compares the respective influences of Protestantism and
Catholicity on European civilization, and shows, that, while
Catholicity tends unceasingly to advance civilization, Protestant-
ism as unceasingly tends to savagism, and that it is to its hostile
influences we owe the slow progress of European civilization
during the last three centuries. He shows that Protestantism is
hostile to liberty, to philosophy, to the higher mental culture, to
art, to equality, to political and social well-being. He shows it,
we say ; not merely asserts, but proves it, by unanswerable argu-
ments and undeniable facts. If any one doubts our judgment, we
refer him to the work itself, and beg him to gainsay its facts,
or answer its reasoning, if he can. The Protestant who reads
it will hardly boast of his Protestantism again.
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
APRIL, 1849.
A CRITIC in this city expresses surprise that this book could
have been written by a young man born and brought up in
Kentucky ; but we see no reason why it could not have been
written by a young man as well as by an old man, and in Ken-
tucky as well as in any other part of the Union. We suppose
* Remarks on the Past, and its Legacies to American Society. By
J. D. NOURSE. Louisville (Ky.) : Morton & Griswold 1847. IGino.
pp. 223.
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 263
they read and think in Kentucky as well as in Massachusetts ;
and it is not more strange that a young Kentuckian than that a
Bostonian should expend a good deal of thought in elaborating
a system compounded of truth and falsehood, common-place and
crude speculation. The book certainly indicates some natural
and acquired ability, but no ability peculiar to either side of the
Alleghanies. The substance of it may be read any day in
Schlegel, Carlyle, Macaulay, Guizot, Bancroft, and The Boston
Quarterly Review, We have discovered nothing new or striking
in the views it sets forth, or if now and then something we never
met with before, it is usually something we have no desire to
meet with again.
The author tells us, in his brief advertisement, " that it may
seem presumptuous for a young backwoodsman to enter
the lists with Schlegel, Guizot, and Macaulay." We think it not
only may seem so, but that it actually is so ; for Schlegel and
Guizot to say nothing of Macaulay are at least men of varied
and profound erudition. They are scholars, and have not de-
rived their learning at second or third hand. Mr. Nourse may
rival, nay, surpass them, in his ambition and self-confidence ; but
he must live long, and enjoy advantages of study which neither
Kentucky nor Massachusetts affords, before he rivals them in
any thing else, or can do much else than travesty them. Not
that we ragard either of them as a safe guide. Guizot is eclec-
tic and humanitarian ; and Schlegel is too mystical, and too
ambitious, to reduce within a theory matters which by their very
nature transcend any theory the human mind can form or com-
prehend. Mr. Nourse has, if you will, extraordinary natural
abilities, an honest and ingenuous disposition ; but he has not yet
begun to master the present, far less the whole past. He has a
vague recognition of religion, concedes some influence to Chris-
tianity in civilizing the world ; but he is without faith, and has
yet to learn the very rudiments of the Christian creed. We
doubt, also, whether he is able to give even the outlines of a
single historical period, or of a single people or institution, with
sufficient accuracy to enable them to serve as the basis of a sin
264 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
gle sound induction. One should know the facts of history be-
fore proceeding to construct its philosophy. He will forgive us,
therefore, if we tell him that we do regard him as not a little
presumptuous in attempting a work for which he has in reality
not a single qualification. He writes, indeed, with earnestness ;
his style, though somewhat cramped, and deficient in freedom
and ease, is dignified, simple, clear, and terse, occasionally rich
and beautiful ; but this cannot atone for the general incorrectness
of his statements, or the crudeness and unsoundness of his
speculations.
With sound premises and freed from the prejudices of his
education, we doubt not, Mr. Nourse might arrive at passable
conclusions ; but he is ruined by his love of theorizing, his false
philosophy, and his unsound theology. He may have philan-
thropic impulses and generous sentiments ; he may mean to be
a Christian, and actually believe that he is a Christian believer ]
but, whether he knows it or not, the order of thought which he
seeks to develop and propagate is neither more nor less than the
old Alexandrian Syncretism, as obtained through German Mys-
ticism, French Eclecticism, and Boston Transcendentalism. Rad-
ically considered, his system, if system it can be called, is the
old Alexandrian system, which sprang up in the third century
of our era, as the rival of the Christian Church, ascended the
throne of the Caesars with Julian the Apostate, and fled to Per-
sia in the sixth century, when Justinian closed the last schools
of philosophy at Athens. This system was an attempted fusion
of all the particular forms of Gentilism, moulded into a shape as
nearly like Christianity as it might be, and intended to dispute
with it the empire of the world. It borrowed largely from
Christianity, copied the forms of its hierarchy, and many of
its dogmas ; which has led some in more recent times, who never
consult chronology, to charge the Church with having herself
qppied her hierarchy, her ritual, and her principle doctiines from
it. It madfe no direct war on the Christian Symbol ; it simply
denied or derided the sources whence it was obtained, and the
authority which Christian faith always presupposes. It called
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 265
itself Philosophy, and its pretension was to raise philosophy to
tlie dignity of religion, and to do by it what Christianity pro-
fesses to do by faith and an external and supernaturally accred-
ited revelation. It was, therefore, Gentile Rationalism, and, in
fact, Gentile Rationalism carried to its last degree of perfection.
It is this Rationalism, met and refuted by the great Fathers of
the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, that lies at the bottom of
our author's thought, and which he labors to reproduce with a,
zeal we cannot say ability not unworthy of a disciple of
Plotinus, Proclus, and Porphyrius.
This should not surprise us. There is nothing new under the
sun. The old Gentile world exhausted human reason ; and it
is not possible, even with a full knowledge of all the Church
teaches, taking human reason alone as the basis of our system,
to surpass the old Alexandrian Syncretism, or Neoplatonism, as
it is sometimes called. In constructing it, the human mind had
present to it, as materials, all the labors and traditions of Gentil-
ism in all ages and nations, and also all the teachings and tra-
ditions of Jews and Christians, as well as of the Jewish and
early Christian sects ; and it was, from the point of view of Ra-
tionalism, the resume of the whole. It was the last word of
heathendom. In it Gentilism, collecting and combining all that
was not the Christian Church, exerted all her forces and all her
energies for a last desperate battle against the Nazarene, against
the triumph of the Cross. Catholicity or Rationalism is, as
every one knows or may know, the only alternative that remains
to us since the preaching of the Gospel. Impossible, then, is it
to depart from Catholicity without falling back on Rationalism,
and, if a little profound and consistent, upon Neoplatonism, as
Rationalism in its fulness and integrity. All heresies are simply
attempts to return to this Rationalism, and in it they find their
complement, as may be historically as well as logically establish-
ed. All your modern philosophies are regarded as profound
and complete only as they approach it. Kant, Schelling, Hegel,
Cousin, Leroux, De Lamennate, Hermes, Schleiermacher, Car-
lyle, Emerson, Parker, all belong to the Alexandrian school, and
266 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
only reproduce, more or less successfully, its teachings, and to
the best of their ability renew the war it waged against the
Christian Church.
It is no objection to what we assert, that the sects and many
of the modern philosophies retain some or even the greater part
of the Christian dogmas. Neoplatonism did as much. We
must not forget that Neoplatonism is subsequent to the Christian
Church ; that it took its rise in the school of Ammonius Saccas,
in the beginning of the third century of our era ; that it received
its form and development from Ploiinus, who flourished about
the year of our Lord 260 ; and that it proposed itself as the
rival rather than the antagonist of Christianity. Its aim was to
satisfy the ever-recurring and indestructible religious wants of
the human soul, without recognizing the Christian Church, or
bowing to the authority of the Nazarene. It was not the Chris-
tian doctrines, abstracted from the Christian Church, and re-
ceived as philosopy on the authority of reason or even private
inspirations, instead of the authority of our Lord and his super-
naturally commissioned teachers, that it opposed. It was will-
ing to accept Christianity as a philosophy, or a part of philoso-
phy ; but not as a religion, far less as a religion complete in it-
self and excluding all others. Hence, it, as well as the Church,
taught one Supreme God existing as a Trinity in Unity, the
immortality of the soul, the fall of man and the corruption of
human nature, the necessity of redemption, self-denial and the
practice of austere virtue ; that we are bound to worship God,
must live for him, and can attain to supreme felicity only in at-
taining to an ineffable union with him. In the simple province
of philosophy it was often profound and just. In many things
it and Christianity ran parallel one with the other. Not unfre-
quently do the Alexandrian philosophers talk like Christian
Fathers, and Christian Fathers talk like Alexandrian philoso-
phers. There is Neoplatonism in St. Gregory Nazianzen, in St.
Basil, and St. Augustine. The most renowned of the Fathers
studied in its schools, as distinguished Doctors now study in the
schools of the philosophers of France and Germany. But Neo-
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 267
platonism was at bottom a philosophy, and whatever it held
from Christianity, it held as philosophy, as resting on a human,
not a Divine basis. The philosophers transformed Christianity,
so far as they accepted it, into a philosophy ; while the Fathers
made Neoplatonism, so far as they did not reject it, subservient
to Christianity, to the statement and explication of Christian
theology to the human understanding, keeping it always within
the province of reason, and never allowing it to become the ar-
biter of the dogmas of faith, or to supersede or interfere with the
Divine authority on which alone they were to be meekly and
submissively received. The Fathers, therefore, were not less
Christian for the philosophy they did not reject, nor the Alex-
andrians the less Gentile Rationalists for the Christian doctrines
they borrowed. One may embrace, avowedly, all Christian
doctrine, without approaching the Christian order, if, as Hermes
proposed, he embraces it as philosophy, or on the authority of
reason ; for the Christian, to be a Christian believer, must be-
lieve God, and therefore Christianity, because it is his supernat-
ural word, not because it is the word of human reason or human
sentiment, as contend our modern Liberal Christians.
It, would be interesting to show historically the resemblance
of the whole modern un-Catholic world to the old Alexandrian
world represented by Plotinus. Jamblicus, Porphyrius, Proclus,
and Julian the Apostate ; how each heresiarch and each mod-
ern philosopher only reproduces what the old Christian Fathers
fought against and defeated, how every progress in this boasted
age of progress only tends to bring us back to the system which
the Gregories, the Basils, and their associates combated from
the Christian pulpit and the Episcopal chair ; but we have
neither the space nor the learning to do it as it should be done.
Yet no one who has studied with tolerable care the learned
Gentilism of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries of our era, and
is passably well acquainted with the modern Rationalism of
France and Germany, and the movements of the various heret-
ical sects in our day, can doubt that our own nineteenth century
is distinguished for its return to Gentilisra, and has nearly repro-
268 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
duced it under its most perfect form. The separate forms of heath-
enism had become effete ; no one of them any longer satisfied
the minds or the hearts of its adherents. An age of skepticism
and indifference had intervened, attended by a licentiousness of
manners and public and private corruption which threatened the
universal dissolution of society. Individuals rose who saw it,
and felt the necessity of a general reform, and that a general
reform was impossible without religion. But they would not,
on the one hand, accept the Church, and could not, on the other,
hope any thing from any of the old forms of heathenism. The
world must have a religion, and could not get on without it.
But how get a religion, when all religions were discarded, when
all forms of religion were treated with general neglect or con-
tempt ?
The Reformers saw that they must have a religion, and, since,
none existed which was satisfactory, none which was powerful
enough to meet the exigency of the times, they must make one
for themselves ; that is, form one to their purpose out of the
old particular religions no longer heeded. Alexandria was their
proper workshop, for there were collected or lying about in glo-
rious confusion all the necessary materials. They began with
the assumption, that all religions are at a bottom equally true,
and that the error of each is in its exclusiveness, in its claiming
to be the whole of religion, and the only true religion. Take,
then, the elements of each, mould them together into a com-
plete and harmonious whole, and you will have the true religion,
a religion which will meet the wants of all minds and hearts,
rally the human race around it, and be " The Church of the
Future." Hence arose the Alexandrian Syncretism, combining
in one systematic whole, as far as reason could combine them, all
the known religions of the world, which, under the name of
philosophy, but which became a veritable superstition, disputed
the empire of the world with Christianity for full three hundred
years.
What is the movement of our day, but an attempt of the
same sort ? By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 269
various forms of heresy, in which the Protestant spirit had de-
veloped itself, and which had attempted to reproduce Gentilism
without forfeiting their title to Christianity, had exhausted their
moral force, and the age began to lapse again into the old license
and corruption. Never in its worst days was there grosser im-
morality and corruption in the Roman Empire than prevailed in
England during the earlier half of the last century, under the
reigns of George the First and George the Second. Deism was
rife in the court, in the schools, in the Church, among the nobil-
ity and the people. Germany was hardly better, if so good ; and
of France under the regency of the profligate Duke of Orleans,
or under Louis the Fifteenth with his pare au cerfs, we need not
speak. Literature was infidel throughout, and atheism became
fashionable. To the rabid infidel propagandism, begun by the
English deists, and carried on by Voltaire and his associates,
under the motto Ecrasez Finfame, soon succeeded, as of old,
profound skepticism and indifference. Neither false religion nor
no religion could rouse the mind from the torpidity into which
it sank. Exclusive heresy, or, as we may say, sectarianism, bora
from the Protestant Reformation, though producing its effects
far beyond the limits of the so-called Protestant world, had
caused all forms of religion, about the beginning of this century,
to be treated as equally false and contemptible.
But, once more, individuals started up frightened at the pros-
pect they beheld. They felt and owned the eternal truth, Man
cannot be an atheist. They saw the necessity of a general re-
form, and that a general reform could be effected only by relig-
ion. But, disdaining the Church as did the old Alexandrians,
and seeing clearly that all the particular forms of Protestantism
were worn out, they felt that they must have a new religion, and
to have it they must either make it for themselves, or reconstruct
it out of such materials as the old religions supplied. The prin-
ciple on which they proceed is precisely the Alexandrian. To
them all religions are equally true or equally false, true as
parts of a whole, false when regarded each as a whole in itself.
Take, then, the several religions which have been and are, mould
270 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
them into a complete, uniform, and systematic whole, and you
will have what the Editor of The Boston Quarterly Review,
and Chevalier Bunsen after him, call " The Church of the Fu-
ture/' and Dr. Bushnell and his friends call "Comprehensive
Christianity," what Saint-Simon denominated Nouveau Chris-
tianisme, and M. Victor Cousin brilliantly advocates under the
name of Eclecticism, borrowed avowedly from the Neoplatonists.
In perfect harmony with this, you see everywhere attempts
to amalgamate sects, to form the un-Catholic world into one
body, with a common creed, a common worship, and a common
purpose. While the philosophers elaborate the bases of the
union, statesmen and ministers attempt its practical realization.
This is what we see in "Evangelical Alliances" and "AVorld's
Conventions," in the formation of "The Evangelical Church"
in Prussia, and the union of Prussia and England in establishing
the bishopric of Jerusalem. The aim is everywhere the same
that it was with the Alexandrians, the principles of proceeding
are the same, and the result, if obtained, must be similar. The
movement of the un-Catholic world now, how much soever it
may borrow from Christianity, however near it may approach
the Catholic model, can be regarded, by those who understand
it, only as a conscious or unconscious effort to reproduce the
Gentile Rationalism of the old Alexandrian school.
The identity of the two movements might be established even
down to minute details. The most fanciful dreams of our Tran-
scendentalists may be found among the Alexandrians, either
with those who disavowed Christianity, or the sects, professing
to retain it, allied to them. The very principle of Transcenden-
talism, namely, an element or activity in the human soul above
reason, by which man is placed in immediate communion with,
the Divine mind, is nothing but the Ecstasy or Trance of the
Neoplatonists, or their fifth source of science ; and the Alexan-
drian theurgy and magic are reproduced in your Swedenborg-
ianism and Mesmerism. Moreover, the Protestant Reformation
itself not only involved as its legitimate consequence a return to
the Alexandrian Rationalism, but was in some measure the ef-
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 27 1
feet of such return. To be satisfied of this, we need but study
the history of the Revival of Letters and the controversies of
the schools in the fifteenth century. We say nothing of the
Revival in so far as it was simply a revival of classical antiquity
under the relation of art, or beauty of form, under which rela-
tion it was not censurable, but relatively, perhaps a progress.
Christian piety and learning can coexist with barbarism in taste,
and want of elegance and polish in manners, but do not demand
them. The Revival, however, was, in fact, something more than
this, and something far different from it. Those Greek scholars
who escaped from Constantinople when it was taken by the
Turks, and who spread themselves over Western Europe, did not
bring with them merely the poets, orators, and historians of an-
cient Greece, nor merely more complete editions of Plato and
Aristotle ; they brought with them Proclus and Plotinus, and
the old Alexandrian Rationalism, with its Oriental comprehen-
siveness and its Greek subtlety. They made no attacks on the
Church, they professed profound respect for Catholicity, and
with Eastern suppleness readily subTnitted to her authority ; but
they deposited in the minds and hearts of their disciples the
germs of a system the rival of hers, which weakened their at-
tachment to her doctrines, disgusted them with the barbarous
Latin and un- Greek taste of her Monks, and the rigid, some-
times frigid, Scholasticism of her Doctors. These germs were
not slow in developing, and very soon gave us the Neoplatonists
in philosophy, and the Humanists in literature, of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. The former destroyed the authority of
the Schoolmen ; the latter, at the head of whom stood Erasmus,
the Voltaire of his time, covered the clergy, especially the Monks,
with ridicule, and sowed the seeds of practical, as the others had
of speculative infidelity. Combined or operating to the same
end, they prepared, and, favored by the politics of the period,
produced the Protestant Reformation. Not accidentally, then,
has Protestantism from its birth manifested a Gentile spirit, mis-
represented and ridiculed every thing distinctively Christian, or
that it is now undeniably developing in pure Alexandrian Syn-
272 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
cretism, gathering itself up as a grand and well-organized super-
stition to wage war once more on the old Alexandrian battle-
ground, with the old Alexandrian forces and arms, against the
Nazarene, as Julian the Apostate always terms our Lord. Was
it by accident that Protestantism, wherever permitted to follow
its instincts, began by pulling down, breaking, or defacing the
CROSS, the sacred symbol of Christianity ?
The identity of the modern movement with that which result-
ed in Alexandrian Syncretism may be traced also in the panthe-
istic tendencies of the day. The Alexandrian school rejected
none of the popular gods ; it placed Apis and Jove, Isis and
Hercules, and sometimes even Christ himself, in the same tem-
ple ; but all under the shadow of the god Serapis, the symbol
of unity, or rather of THE WHOLE, THE ALL, that is, of pure pan-
theism, in which all pure Rationalism is sure to end. To what
does all modern philosophy tend, but to pantheism ? Have we
not seen Spinoza in our own day rehabilitated, an*d commented
upon as the greatest of modern philosophers ? Cousin's Eclecti-
cism is undeniably pantheistic, and less cannot be said of Schel-
lingism or Hegelism. Socialism, now so rife, is simply pantheism
adapted to the apprehensions of the vulgar, refined and volup-
tuous with the Fourierists and Saint-Simonians, coarse and re-
volting with the Chartists and Red Republicans.
But we are pursuing this line of remark beyond our original
purpose. We may return to it hereafter. In the meantime we
invite those who have the requisite leisure and learning to take
up the subject, and consider the relation of all the ancient and
modern sects to Gentilism, the persistence of Gentilism in Chris-
tian nations down to our own times, in spite of the anathemas
of the Church and the unwearied efforts of the Catholic clergy
to exterminate it, and its all but avowed revival in our own day
under the most comprehensive, scientific, erudite, subtle, and
dangerous form it has ever assumed. In doing this, great atten
tion should be paid to chronology ; for the Gentilism with which
it is the fashion among Protestants and unbelievers to compare
Christianity, and from which it is pretended the Church has
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 273
borrowed, will b. 1 found to have been formed two cen-
turies and a half after the birth of our Lord. That stupend-
ous fabric, that systematic organization of Gentilism, which we
find in the time of Julian the Apostate, and which fell with him,
was not the model copied by the Church, but was itself mod-
elled after the Christian hierarchy, and it is heathenism that has
Christianized, not the Church that has heathenized. The Pla-
tonism of modern times, whether on the Continent or in Eng-
land, is not the Platonism of Plato, but of the Alexandrians, as
every one knows who has studied Plato himself in his own
inimitable Dialogues, not merely in the speculations of Plotinus,
or the commentaries of Proclus.
That our author, born and brought up in the Protestant
world, and formed by its Gentile spirit and tendencies, should
even unconciously fall into the Alexandrian order of thought,
and labor to reconstruct a system intended to rival the Christian,
is nothing strange. In doing so, he only yields to the spirit of
the age, and follows the lead of those whom the age owns and
reverences as its chiefs. That his system is not Christian,
although he would have us receive it as Christian, is evident
enough from his dictum with regard to miracles. " The mira-
cles ascribed to Christ and his Apostles," he says (p. 61,) "how-
ever conclusive to those who witnessed them, are no evidence
to us, until by other means we have established the truth of the
writings which record them, that is to say, until we have proved
all that we wish to prove." There is a sophism in this, which,
probably, the author does not perceive. If the writings are the
only authority for the miracles as historical facts, that we must
establish their historical authenticity before the miracles can be
evidence to us, we concede ; but not their truth, that is, the
truth of the mysteries they teach, the material object of faith,
therefore the matter we want proved. The miracles are not
proofs of the mysteries, but simply motives of credibility. " Rab-
bi, we know that thou art come a teacher from God ; for no man
could do these miracles which thou doest, unless God were with
2*74 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
him." Ordinary historical testimony, though wholly inadequate
to prove the mysteries, is sufficient to prove the miracles as facts,
and, when so proved, they are evidence to us in the same man-
ner and in the same degree that they were to those who witnessed
them. It does not, therefore, follow that we must prove, without
them, all we want proved, before they can be evidence to us.
But this by the way. The author in his dictum asserts either
that Christianity is not provable at all, or that it is provable
without miracles ; but no Christian can assert either the one or
the other. The former is absurd, if Christianity came from God
and is intended for reasonable beings. God, as the author of rea-
son, cannot require us to believe, and we as reasonable beings
cannot believe, without reason, or authority sufficient to satisfy
reason. The latter cannot be said without reducing Christianity
to the mere order of nature ; for a supernatural religion is, in
the nature of things, provable only by supernaturally accredited
witnesses, and witnesses cannot be supernaturally accredited
without miracles of some sort. To deny the necessity of mir-
acles as motives of credibility, or to assert the provability of
Christianity without them, is to deny the supernatural character
of Christianity, and therefore to deny Christianity itself; for
Christianity is essentially and distinctively supernatural. With-
out the miracles, Christianity is prpvable only as a philosophy,
and as a philosophy it must lie wholly within the order of na-
ture ; since philosophy, by its very definition, is the science of
principles cognizable by the light of natural reason. Rational-
ism turns for ever within the limits of nature, and, do its best, it
can never overleap them. It can never rise to Christianity ; all
it can do is, by rejecting or explaining away the mysteries, dis-
carding all that transcends reason, to bring Christianity down to
itself, a fact we commend to the serious consideration of all
who pretend that our religion, even to its loftiest mysteries, is
rationally or philosophically demonstrable. The Christianity
they can prove as a philosophy is no more the Christianity of
the Gospel than the Neoplatonism of Proclus and Plotinus was
the Christianity of the Gregories, the Basils, and the Augustines.
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 275
The author also betrays the unchristian character of his order
of^ thought in his third discourse, entitled Spiritual Despotism
and the Reformation. He says, indeed, in this part of his work,
some very handsome things in his own estimation of the
Church ; but, as he says them from the humanitarian point of
view, on the hypothesis that she is a purely human institution,
and therefore a gigantic imposition upon mankind, we cannot
take them as evidences of his Christian mode of thinking. If
the Church is what we hold her to be, these humanitarian com-
pliments and apologies are impertinent ; and if what he holds
her to be, they betray on his part a very unchristian laxity of
moral principle. An infallible Church, the Church of God,
needs no apologies ; man's Church, or the Synagogue of Satan,
deserves none. But, although the author maintains that the
Church was very necessary from the fifth to the fifteenth cen-
tury, that she preserved our holy religion, and without her
Christian faith and piety would have been lost, Christianity
would have been unable to fulfil her mission, and the European
nations would have remained uncivilized, ignorant, illiterate,
ruthless barbarians, he yet holds that she was a spiritual des-
potism, and the Protestant Reformation was inevitable and ne-
cessary to emancipate the human mind from her thraldom, and
to prepare the way for mental and civil freedom.
According to the author, the spiritual despotism of the Church
consisted in her claiming and exercising authority over faith and
morals, over the minds, the hearts, and the consciences of the
faithful. If we catch his meaning, which does not appear to lie
very clear or distinct even in his own mind, the despotism is in
the authority itself, not simply in the fact that the Church claims
and exercises it. It would be equally despotism, if claimed and
exercised by any one else, because it is intrinsically hostile to the
rights of the mind and to the principles of civil liberty. Conse-
quently, he objects not merely to the claimant, but to the thing
claimed, and rejects the authority, let who will claim it, or let it
be vested where or in whom it may.
But this is obviously unchristian. If we suppose Christianity
276 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
at all, we must suppose it as an external revelation ' t*. a
definite and authoritative religion, given by the Supreme L? A T -
giver to all men as the Supreme Law, binding upon the whole
man, against which no one has the right to think, speak, or act,
and to which every one is bound to conform in thought, word,
and deed. All this is implied in the very conception of Chris-
tianity, and must be admitted, if we admit the Christian religion
at all. The authority objected to is therefore included in the
fundamental conception of the Christian revelation, and conse-
quently we cannot denominate it a spiritual despotism without
denominating Christianity itself a spiritual despotism, which, we
need not say, would be any thing but Christian.
The author's order of thought would carry him even farther.
If the authority of the Church is a spiritual despotism for the
reason he assigns, the authority of God is also a spiritual des-
potism. The principle on which he objects to the Church is,
that the mind and the state are free, and that any authority
over either is unjust. The essence of despotism is not that it is
authority, but that it is authority without right, will without
reason, power without justice. We cannot suppose the exist-
ence of God without supposing the precise authority over the
mind and the state objected to. If this authority, claimed and
exercised in his name by the Church, is despotism, it must be, then,
because he has no right to it ; if no right to it, he is not sove-
reign ; if not sovereign, he does not exist. If God does not exist,
there is no conscience, no law, no accountability, moral or civil.
To this conclusion the author's notions of mental freedom and
civil liberty, pushed to their logical consequences, necessarily lead.
Every Christian is obliged to recognize, in the abstract, to say
the least, the precise authority claimed and exercised by the
Church over faith and morals, over the intellect and the con-
science, in spirituals and in temporals ; and it is a well-known
fact, that all Christian sects, as long as they retain any thing
distinctively Christian, do claim, and, as far as able, exercise it,
and never practically abandon it, till they lapse into pure Ra-
tionalism, from which all that is distinctively Christian disap-
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 277
pears. It cannot be otherwise ; because Christianity is essen-
tially law, and the Supreme Law, for the reason, the will, the
conscience, for individuals and nations, for the subject and for
the prince. If our author's order of thought were Christian, he
could not object to authority in itself; he would feel himself
obliged to assert and vindicate it somewhere for some one ; and
and if he objected to the Church at all, he would do so, not be-
cause of the authority, but because it is not rightfully hers, but
another's, which would be a legitimate objection, and conclu-
sive, if sustained, as of course it cannot be, by the facts in the
case. His failure to object on this ground is a proof that his
thought is not Christian.
The author's notions of authority and liberty are not only un-
christian, but exceedingly unpliilosophical and confused. He
has no just conception of either, and is evidently unable to draw
any intelligible distinction between authority and despotism on
the one hand, or between liberty and license on the other. He
can conceive of authority and liberty only as each is the antago-
nist or the limitation of the other ; he ingenuously confesses that
he is unable to reconcile them, and presents their reconciliation
as a problem that Protestantism has yet to solve. " To adjust
the respective limits of these antagonists, Liberty of thought
and Ecclesiastical authority, and bring about a lasting treaty
of peace between them, is the yet unsolved problem of the Re-
formation. The Reformers attempted to solve it, and strove in
vain to confine the torrent they had set in motion, within cer-
tain dikes of their own construction. The spring-tide of free in-
quiry, not yet perhaps at its flood, is sweeping away their bar-
riers, and ages may elapse before it subsides into its proper chan-
nel, after cleansing the earth of a thousand follies and abuses."
(p. 160.) All this proves that his order of thought is unchris-
tian, and that his conceptions of authority and of liberty are not
taken from the Gospel. No intelligent Christian, no sound
philosopher even, ever conceives of authority and liberty as an-
tagonists, as limiting one the other, or admits that their concili
ation is an unsolved problem, or even a problem at all.
2*78 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTT.
The Christian, even the philosopher, derives all from God,
and nothing from man, and therefore escapes the difficulty felt
by our author and the Reformers. He knows that authority is
not authority, if limited, and liberty is not liberty, if bounded.
Consequently, he never conceives of the two in the same sphere,
but distributes them in separate spheres, where each may be
supreme. God is the absolute, underived, and unlimited Sove-
reign and Proprietor of the universe. Here is the foundation
of all authority, and also of all liberty. Before God we have no
liberty. We are his, and not our own. We are what he cre-
ates us, have only what he gives us, and lie completely at his
mercy. We hold all from him, even to the breath in our nos-
trils, and he has the sovereign right to dispose of us according
to his own will and pleasure. In his presence, and in presence
of his law, we have duties, but no rights, and our duty and his
right is the full, entire, and unconditional submission of ourselves,
soul and body, to his will. Here is authority, absolute, full, en-
tire, and unbounded, as must be all authority, in order to be
authority.
In the presence of authority there is no liberty ; where, then,
is liberty ? It is not before God, but it is between man and
man, between man and society, and between society and society.
The absolute and plenary sovereignty of God excludes all other
sovereignty, and our absolute and unconditional subjection to
him excludes all other subjection. Hence no liberty before God,
and no subjection before man ; and therefore liberty is rightly
denned, full and entire freedom from all authority but the au-
thority of God. Here is liberty, liberty in the human sphere,
and liberty full and entire, without restraint or limit in the
sphere to which it pertains. Man is subjected to God, but to
God only. No man, in his own right, has any, the least, author-
ity over man ; no body or community of men, as such, has any
rightful authority either in spirituals or temporals. All merely
human authorities are usurpations, and their acts are without
obligation, null and void from the beginning. If the parent, the
pastor, the prince has any right to command, it is as the vicar
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 279
of God, and in that character alone ; if I am bound to obey my
parents, my pastor, or my prince, it is because my God com-
mands me to obey them, and because in obeying them I am
obeying him. Here is the law of liberty, and here, too, is the
law of authority. Understand now why religion must found
the state, why it is nonsense or blasphemy to talk of an alliance
between religion and liberty, a reconciliation between authority
and freedom. Both proceed from the same fountain, the abso-
lute, underived, unlimited sovereignty of God, and can be no
more opposed one to the other than God can be opposed to him-
self. Hence, absolute and unconditional subjection to God is
absolute and unlimited freedom. Therefore says our Lord, " If
the Son makes you free, you shall, be free indeed."
The sovereignty of God does not oppose liberty ; it founds
and guaranties it. Authority is not the antagonist of freedom ;
it is its support, its vindicator. It is not religion, it is not Chris-
tianity, but infidelity, that places authority and liberty one over
against the other, in battle array. It is not God who crushes
our liberty, robs us of our rights, and binds heavy burdens upon
our shoulders, too grievous to be borne ; it is man, who at the
same time that he robs us of our rights robs God of his. He
who attacks our freedom attacks his sovereignty ; he who vindi-
cates his sovereignty, the rights of God, vindicates the rights of
man ; for all human rights are summed up in the one right to
be governed by God and by him alone, in the duty of absolute
subjection to him, and absolute freedom from all subjection to
any other. Maintain, therefore, the rights of God, the suprem-
acy in all departments of the Divine law, and you need not
trouble your heads about the rights of man, freedom of thought
or civil liberty ; for they are secured with all the guaranty of
the Divine sovereignty. The Divine sovereignty is, therefore, as
indispensable to liberty as to authority.
We need not stop to show that the Divine sovereignty is not
itself a despotism. The essence of despotism, as we have said,
is not that it is authority, but that it is authority without right,
will without reason, power without justice, which can never be
280 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
said of God ; for bis right to universal dominion is unquestion-
able, and in him will and reason, power and justice are never
disjoined, are identical, are one and the same, and are indistin-
guishable save in our manner of conceiving them. His sover-
eignty is rightful, his will is intrinsically, eternally, and immuta-
bly just will, his power just power. Absolute subjection to him
is absolute subjection to eternal, immutable, and absolute justice.
Hence, subjection to him alone is, on the one hand, subjection to
absolute justice, and, on the other, freedom to be and to do all
that absolute justice permits. Here is just authority as great
as can be conceived, and true liberty as large as is possible this
side of license ; and between the two there is and can be in the
nature of things no clashing, no conflict, no antagonism. How
mean and shallow is infidel philosophy !
Taking this view along with us, a view which is alike that of
Christianity and of sound philosophy, we cannot fail to perceive
that the objection urged against the Church is exceedingly ill-
chosen. The Church, if what she professes to be, and we
have the right here to reason on the supposition that she is,
represents the Divine sovereignty, and is commissioned by God
to teach and to govern in his name. Her authority, then, is his
authority, and it is he that teaches and governs in her and
through her ; so far, then, from being hostile to liberty in one
department or another, she must be its support and safeguard
in every department. The ground and condition of liberty is
the presence of the Divine sovereignty, for in its presence there
is no other sovereignty, no other authority, consequently no
slavery. The objection, that the Church is a spiritual despot-
ism, is grounded on the supposition that all authority is despot-
ism and all liberty license, that is, that liberty and authority
are antagonist forces, which would require us to deny both,
for neither despotism nor license is defensible. Authority and
liberty are only the two phases of one and the same principle ;
suppose the absence of authority, you suppose the presence of
license or despotism, which, again, are only the two phases of
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 281
one and the same thing. To remove license or despotism, you
must suppose the presence of legitimate authority. The Church
being the representative of the Divine sovereignty on the earth,
introduces legitimate authority, and by her. presence necessarily
displaces both despotism and license, that is, establishes both
order and liberty.
The difficulty which Protestants and unbelievers suppose must
exist in conforming reason, which is not always obedient to will,
to the commands of authority, arises from their overlooking the
nature of authority. The authority is not only an order to be-
lieve, but it is authority for believing. The authority of reason
in the natural order is derived from God, not from man ; and
the obligation to believe the axioms of mathematics or the def-
initions of geometry arises solely from the fact, that reason,
which declares them, does, thus far, speak by Divine authority.
If it did not, reason would be no reason for believing or assert-
ing them. The same Divine authority in a higher order, speak-
ing through the Church, cannot be less authoritative, or a less
authority for believing what the Church teaches. Hence the
command of the Church is at once authority for the will and
for the reason, an injunction to believe and a reason for believing.
The absolute submission of reason to her commands is not, as
some fancy, the abnegation of reason. Reason does not, in sub-
mitting, fold her hands, shut her eyes, and take a doze, like a
fat alderman after dinner, but keeps wide awake, and exercises
her highest powers, her most sacred rights, according to her
own nature. What more reasonable reason for believing than
the command of God ? since, in the order of truth, his sover-
eignty is identically his veracity. To suppose a Catholic mind can
have any difficulty in bringing reason to assent to the teachings
of the Church, believed to be God's Church, is as absurd as to
suppose that an American who has never been abroad can have
any difficulty in believing that there is such a city as Paris, or
that Louis Napoleon Bonaparte has recently been elected Pres-
ident of the French Republic ; or as to suppose that the logi-
cian finds a difficulty in bringing his reason to assent to the
282 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
proposition that the same is the same, that the same thing can-
not both be and not be at the same time, or that two and two
make four.
It is not the Church that establishes spiritual despotism ; it is
she who saves us from it. Spiritual despotism is that which
subjects us, in spiritual matters, to a human authority, whether
our own or that of others, for our own is as human as
another's ; and the only redemption from it is in having in them
a divine authority. Protestants themselves acknowledge this,
when they call out for the pure word of God. The Church
teaches by Divine authority ; in submitting to her, we submit
to God, and are freed from all human authority. She teaches
infallibly ; therefore, in believing what she teaches, we believe
the truth, which frees us from falsehood and error, to which all
men without an infallible guide are subject, and subjection to
which is the elemental principle of all spiritual despotism. Her
authority admitted excludes all other authority, and therefore
frees us from heresiarchs and sects, the very embodiment of spir-
itual despotism in its most odious forms. Sectarianism is spirit-
ual despotism itself; and to know how far spiritual despotism
and spiritual slavery may go, you have only to study the his-
tory of the various sects and false religions which now exist, or
have heretofore existed.
In the temporal order, again, the authority claimed and exer-
cised by the Church is nothing but the assertion over the state
of the Divine sovereignty, which she represents, or the subjection
of the prince to the Law of God, in his character of prince as
well as in his character of man. That the prince or civil power
is subject to the law of God, no man who admits Christianity
at all dares question ; and, if the Church be the Divinely com-
missioned teacher and guardian of that law, as she certainly is,
the same subjection to her must be conceded. But this, instead
of being opposed to civil liberty, is its only possible condition.
Civil libertv, like all liberty, is in being held to no obedience but
obedience to God ; and obedience to the state can be compatible
with liberty only on the condition that God commands it, or on
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 283
the condition that he governs in the state, which he does not
and cannot do, unless the state holds from his law and is subject
to it. To deny, then, the supremacy of the Church in tempo-
rals is only to release the temporal order from its subjection to
the Divine sovereignty, which, so far as regards the state, is to
deny its authority, or its right to govern, and, so far as regards
the subject, is to assert pure, unmitigated civil despotism. All
authority divested of the Divine sanction is despotic, because it
is authority without right, will unregulated by reason, power
disjoined from justice. Withdraw the supremacy of the Church
from the temporal order, and you deprive the state of that sanc-
tion, by asserting that it does not hold from God and is not
amenable to his law ; you give the state simply a human basis,
and have in it only a human authority, which has no right to
govern, which I am not bound to obey, and which it is intolera-
ble tyranny to compel me to obey. "Let every soul," says the
blessed Apostle Paul, the Doctor of the Gentiles, " be subject to
the higher powers ; for there is no power but from God ; and
those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth
power resisteth the ordinance of God Wherefore be
subject of necessity, not only for wrath, but for conscience' sake."
(Rom. xiii. 1-5.) Here the obligation of obedience is grounded
on the fact that the civil power is the ordinance of God, that is,
as we say, holds from God. But, obviously, this, while it subjects
the subject to the state, equally subjects the state to the Divine
sovereignty. Take away the subjection of the state to God, and
you take away the reason of the subjection of the subject to the
state ; and we need not tell you that to subject us to an author-
ity which we are not bound to obey is tyranny. See, then,
what you get by denying the supremacy of the Church in
temporals !
The Church and the state, as administrations, are distinct
bodies; but they are not, as some modern politicians would
persuade us, two coordinate and mutually independent author-
ities. The state holds under the law of nature, and has author-
ity only within the limits of that law. As long as it confines
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
itself within that law, and faithfully executes its provisions, it
acts freely, without ecclesiastical restraint or interference. But
the Church holds from God under the supernatural or revealed
law, which includes, as integral in itself, the law of nature, and
is therefore the teacher and guardian of the natural as well as
of the revealed law. She is, under God, the supreme judge of
both laws, which for her are but one law ; and hence she takes
cognizance, in her tribunals, of the breaches of the natural law
as well as of the revealed, and has the right to take cognizance
of its' breaches by nations as well as of its breaches by individ-
uals, by the prince as well as by the subject, for it is the supreme
law for both. The state is, therefore, only an inferior court,
bound to receive the law from the supreme court, and liable to
have its decisions reversed on appeal.
This must be asserted, if we assert the supremacy of the
Christian law, and hold the Church to be its teacher and judge;
for no man will deny that Christianity includes the natural as
well as the supernatural law. Who, with any just conceptions,
or any conceptions at all, of the Christian religion, will pretend
that one can fulfil the Christian law and yet violate the natural
law ? that one is a good Christian, if he keeps the precepts of
the Church, though he break every precept of the Decalogue ?
or that Christianity remits the catechumen to the state to
learn the law of nature, or what we term natural morality ?
Grace presupposes nature. The supernatural ordinances of God's
law presupposes the natural, and the Church, which is the
teacher and guardian of faith and morals, can no more be so
without plenary authority with regard to the latter than the
former. Who, again, dares pretend that the moral law is not
as obligatory on emperors, kings, princes, commonwealths, as
upon private individuals ? upon politicians, as upon priests or
simple believers ? Unless, then, you exempt the state from all
obligation even to the law of nature, you must make it amena-
ble to the moral law as expounded by the Church, divinely
commissioned to teach and declare it.
Deny this, and assert the independence of the political order,
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 285
and declare the state in its own right, without acco mtability to
the Christian law, of which it is not the teacher or guardian, su-
preme in temporals, and you gain, instead of civil liberty, sim-
ply, in principle at least, civil despotism. If you deny that the
Church is the teacher and guardian of the law of God, you must
either claim the authority you deny her for the state, or you
must deny it altogether. If you claim it for the state, you, on
your own principles, make the state a spiritual despotism, and
on ours also ; for the state obviously has not received that au-
thority, is incompetent in spirituals, is no teacher of morals, or
director of consciences. If you deny it altogether, you make
the state independent of the moral order, independent of the
Divine sovereignty, the only real sovereignty, and establish pure,
unmitigated civil despotism.
There is no escaping this conclusion ; and hence we see the
folly and madness of those who assert in the name of liberty the
independence of the political order, and exclaim, in a tone of
mock heroism, "Neither priest nor bishop shall interfere with
my political opinions as long as I am able to resist him ! " Bra-
vo ! my young Liberal ; but did you know what you are doing,
you would see that you are laying the foundation, not of liberty,
but of despotism. Hence, too, we see that our author must be
mistaken, when he asserts that the Protestant Reformation, in
its essential principle, was u a revolt of free spirits against profli-
gate despotism." It was no such thing. Its objections to the
Church, reduced to their substance, were simply, the Church is
a spiritual despotism because she claims supremacy over reason,
conscience, and the state ; and it objected to her, not because
it was she who claimed that supremacy, but because it rejected
the supremacy itself, let it be claimed by whom it might. This
our author himself concedes, contends, and proves. Its argu
ment was, the Church of God cannot claim supremacy over rea-
son, conscience, and the state. But the Church does claim this
supremacy, therefore she cannot be the Church of God. The
principle of the argument is, that God could not delegate the
authority to any Church. But if he could not, it must have
280 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
been because he himself did not possess it. Therefore the
essential principle of the Reformation, in the last analysis, was
the denial, on the one hand, of the sovereignty of God over
reason, conscience, and the state, and on the other, the assertion
of the absolute independence of man and the temporal order,
which is either pure license or pure despotism, according to the
light in which you choose to consider it. The real character of
the Reformation was the substitution of human sovereignty for
the Divine ; and hence, in its developments, wherever it is free
to follow its own law, we see it result either in pure humanism
or pure pantheism, as it does or does not combine with religious
sentiment. And either is the denial of both authority and lib-
erty ; for all authority is in the Divine sovereignty, and all lib-
erty in being bound to it alone, that is, in freedom from all
human government resting merely on a human basis, whether
ourselves, the one, the few, or the many, as every one would
see, if it were understood that authority over myself, emanating
from myself, is as human, and therefore as illegitimate, as much
of the essence of despotism, as authority over me emanating
from other men. Is it not said in all languages that a man may
be the slave of himself, of his own passions, his own ignorance,
or his own prejudices ? Under Protestantism we may have
civil and spiritual despotism, or civil and spiritual license, the
only two things that man can found, without a divine commis-
sion and subjection to the divine law ; but authority and liberty
are possible and can be practically secured only under the divine
order represented by the Church, or an institution precisely sim
ilar to what she professes to be, the divinely commissioned
teacher and guardian of both the natural and the revealed law.
That this conclusion will be acceptable to our politicians,
young or old, we are not quite so simple as to suppose ; but we
are not aware that it is necessary to consult their pleasure.
They have in these, as they had in other times, the physical
power to do with us as seems to them good. They can decry
us, they can pull out our tongue, cut off our right hand, and at
need burn our body, or cast it to the wild beasts ; but this will
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 287
not alter the nature of things, make wrong right, or right wrong.
Civil and spiritual despotism is not the less despotism because
practised by them, and in the name of humanity and the peo-
ple. We desire to have all due respect for them ; but we must
confess that we have not yet seen their title-deeds, the papers
which prove them to have a chartered right from Almighty God
to be the sole governors of mankind. We have no authority for
pronouncing them infallible or impeccable ; we have seen no
reason for supposing their ascendency, freed from the restraints
of the Divine law, is either honorable to God or serviceable to
man ; we have not found them always exempt from the common
infirmities of our nature ; and we think we have seen, at least
heard of, politicians who were ambitious, selfish, intriguing,
greedy of power, place, emolument even. In a word, we have
no reason to believe that they monopolize all the wisdom, the
virtue, the generosity and disinterestedness of the community,
or that they never need looking after, and therefore never need
a power above them, under the immediate and supernatural pro-
tection of Almighty God, to look after them, and to compel
them to keep within their own province, to respect religion, and
to refain from inflicting irreparable injuries upon society. Even
should they, then, clamor against us, or do worse, it would not
greatly move us, and would tend to confirm us in the truth of
our doctrine, rather than lead us to distrust its soundness or its
necessity.
We need hardly say that we advocate no amalgamation of
the civil and ecclesiastical administrations. They are in their
nature, as we have said, distinct, and the supremacy of the
Church which we assert is by no me#ns the supremacy of the
clergy as politicians. AVe have no more respect for clergymen
turned politicians than we have for any other class of politicians
of equal worth, perhaps not quite so much ; for we cannot forget
that they, in becoming politicians, descend from their sacerdotal
rank, as a judge does in descending from the bench to play the
part of an advocate. We have had political priests ever since
there was a Christian state, and many of them have made sad
288 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
work of both politics and religion. We have nothing to say of
them, but that they were politicians, and their censurable acts
were not performed in their character of priests. The principle we
assert does not exact that the Church should turn politician, and
thus from the Church become the state, or that the clergy should
turn politicians; it exacts that both she and they should not.
The clergy as politicians fall into the category of all politicians,
and their supremacy as politicians would still be the supremacy
of the state, not of the Church. The state is supreme, if poli-
ticians as such be supreme, let them be selected from what class
of the community they may. The principle exacts, indeed, the
supremacy of the clergy, but solely as the Church, in their
sacerdotal and pastoral character as teachers, guardians, and
judges of the law of God, natural and revealed, supreme for in-
dividuals and nations, for prince and subject, king and common-
wealth,. noble and plebeian, rich and poor, great and small, wise
and simple ; not as politicians, in which character they have and
can have no preeminence over politicians selected from the laity,
and must stand on the same level with them. We do not advo-
cate far from it the notion that the Church must administer
the civil government ; what we advocate is her supremacy as the
teacher and guardian of the law of God, as the supreme court,
which must be recognized and submitted to as such by the state,
and whose decisions cannot be disregarded, whose prerogatives
cannot be abridged or usurped by any power on earth, without
rebellion against the Divine majesty, and robbing man of his
rights. As Christians, we must insist on this supremacy ; as
Catholics, it is not only our duty, but our glorious privilege, to
assert it, and to understand and practise our religion as God
himself, through his own chosen organ, promulgates and ex-
pounds it.
We know how hateful this doctrine is to politicians, to the*
world, and to the devil, who seek always to find a rival in the
state to the kingdom of God. We know that the representatives
of the state in nearly all ages of Christendom, and in nearly all
nations, have resisted it, and been encouraged, sustained, in
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 289
their resistance, by ambijous piiests and courtly prelates. We
know that it is now resisted by every civil government on earth,
that the kings of the earth stand up, the princes conspire to-
gether, the nations rage, and the people imagine vain things,
against the Lord and against his Christ, saying, Let us break
their bonds asunder, let us cast away their yoke from us ; but
we cannot help that. We know the truth, and dare assert it ;
we know the rights of God, and dare not betray them. We
cannot be false, because others are, shrink from proclaiming
the supremacy of the moral order, because now more than ever
it is necessary to proclaim it. We do not understand the hero-
ism that goes always with the popular party, or the loyalty that
deserts to the enemy the moment that his forces appear to be
the most numerous. We know the moral order is supreme, and
shall we fear to say it, lest sinners tremble, the wicked gnash
their teeth, and the multitude threaten ? We know our Church
is God's Church ; that she is the judge of God's law, and has
the right to denounce, as from the judgment-seat of the Al
mighty, whoever violates it, and to place king or peasant under
her anathema, if he refuses to obey it. She has the right, the
divine right, to denounce moral wrong, spiritual wrong, political
wrong, tyranny and oppression, wheresoever or by whomsoever
they are practised, and to vindicate the rights of God, and, in so
doing, the rights of man, let who will dare threaten or invade
them. We are subject to God, but to him only ; and are we
afraid to assert the fact ? Are we not free before all men ?
The Church is the Divinely appointed guardian of truth, vir-
tue, liberty, because she is the representative of the Divine sov-
ereignty on earth. Kings and potentates, commonwealths and
mobs, may rise up, as they have often risen up, against her ;
politicians may murmur or denounce, the timid may quake, the
faint-hearted may fail, the cowardly shrink away, and the dis-
loyal join her persecutors ; but that can neither justify them,
nor unmake her rights, nor depose her from her sovereignty
under God, cannot make it not true that she represents the
moral order, and that the moral order is supreme. That su-
13
290 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY.
premacy is a fact in God's universe, an eternal and primal truth;
and let no man dare deny it, who would not be branded on his
forehead traitor to God, and therefore to man ; and let him who
fears to assert it in the hour of thickest danger be branded pol-
troon. It is the glory of the Church that she has always assert-
ed it. She asserted it in that noble answer of her inspired
Apostles to the magistrates, " We must obey God rather than
men ;" she asserted it in her glorious army of martyrs, who
chose rather to die at the stake, in the amphitheatre, under the
most cruel and lingering tortures, than to offer incense to Jupiter
or to the statue of Caesar ; she asserted it by the mouth of holy
Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, when he forbade the emperor
Theodosius the Great to enter the Church till he had done pub-
lic penance for his tyrannical treatment of his subjects, and
drove him from the sanctuary, and bade him take his place with
the laity, where he belonged ; she asserted it in the person of
her sovereign Pontiff, St. Gregory the Seventh, when he made
the tyrant and brutal Henry the Fourth of Germany wait for
three days shivering with cold and hunger at his door, before he
would grant him absolution, and when he finally smote him
with the sword of Peter and Paul for his violation of his oaths,
his wars against religion, and his oppression of his subjects ; and
she asserted it, again, in the person of her glorious Pontiff, Gre-
gory the Sixteenth, who, standing with one foot in the grave,
confronted the tyrant of the North, and made the Autocrat of
all the Russias tremble and weep as a child. Never for one mo-
ment has she ceased to assert it in face of crowned and un-
crowned heads, Jew, Pagan, Arian, Barbarian, Saracen, Prot-
estant, Infidel, Monarchist, Aristocrat, Democrat ; and gloriously
is she asserting it now in her noble confessor, the Bishop of
Lausanne and Geneva, and in her exiled Pontiff, Pius the Ninth.
You talk of religious liberty. Know you what the word
means ? Know ye that religious liberty is all and entire in the
supremacy of the moral order ? The Church is a spiritual des-
potism, is she ? Bold blasphemer, miserable apologist for ty-
rants and tyranny, go trace her track through eighteen hundred
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY. 291
years, and behold it marked with the blood of her free and no-
ble-hearted children, whom God loves and honors, shed in defence
of religious liberty. From the first moment of her existence has
she fought, ay, fought as no other power can fight, for liberty of
religion. Every land has been reddened with the blood and
whitened with the bones of her martyrs, in that sacred cause ;
and now, rash upstart, you dare in the face of day proclaim her
the friend of despotism ! Alas ! my brother, may God forgive
you, for you know not what you do.
But we have said enough to show the unchristian as well as
the unphilosophical character of our author's thought, which we
are willing to believe he does not fully comprehend, and from
the logical consequences of which, were he to see them, we are
anxious to believe he is prepared to recoil with horror. His
thought is unphilosophical, because it conceives authority and
liberty as antagonists ; it is unchristian, because it reduces Chris-
tianity to mere Rationalism, and revives Alexandrian Gentilism ;
because it denies the Divine sovereignty, and the supremacy in
all things of the spiritual or moral order ; because it denies
moral accountability, and involves unmitigated despotism or un-
bounded license as the inevitable doom of the human race. As
a philosopher, we hold his work in contempt ; as an historian,
we deny its authenticity; as a Christian, we abhor it; as a
friend of liberty, civil and religious, we denounce its principles, as
fit only for despots or libertines.
There are matters of detail in the work to which we seriously
object, but, as we have shown the unsoundness of the book in
its principles, it is not worth while to waste time or argument in
exposing them. The author has expended no inconsiderable
thought and labor in constructing his work, but, like all the
works which rank under the head of philosophy of history, it is
shallow, vague, confused, worthless. The writers of philosophy
of history may have great natural talents, they may have varied
and extensive learning, but they start wrong, they attempt what
is impossible, and never go to the bottom of things or rise to
their first principles. They never reach the ultimate ; they never
292 AUTHORITY AXD LIBERTY.
attain to science ; and only amuse or bewilder us with vague
generalities, crude speculations, or unmeaning verbiage. There
is an order of thought of which they have no conception, infin-
itely more profound than theirs, which, when once attained to,
makes all their views appear heterogeneous, confused, weak, and
childish.
We have no disposition to treat our young Kentuckian rudely,
or to discourage him by an unkind reception. We know him
only through his book. His book is bad, but we every day re-
ceive works which are far worse. We do not believe that he
means to be a Pagan ; we do not believe that he even means to
be a Rationalist ; we are sure that he does not mean to deny
the moral order ; and this is much for him personally, but it is
nothing for his book. In judging the man, we look to his in-
tention ; in judging the author, we look only to the principles
he inculcates. If these are unsound or dangerous, we have no
mercy for the author, though we may abound in charity for the
man. Mr. Nourse does not understand his own principles ; he
has not seen them in all their relations, and does not suspect
their logical consequences. He has undertaken, without other
guide than a few books which, themselves unsafe guides, he has
read, but not digested, to do. after the study of a few months,
what no mortal man could accomplish with all the libraries in
the world, were he to live longer than the world has stood.
How could he expect to succeed ? We hold him accountable
for his rashness in undertaking such a task, not for having failed
in its accomplishment.
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 293
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.*
OCTOBER, 1847.
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE was among the most distin-
guished men of his age. He was born at Chamberri in Savoy,
1753, was a senator of Piedmont at the time of the French
invasion in 1792, and resided at St. Petersburg, as the ambas-
sador of the king of Sardinia, from 1804 to 1817, in which last
year he returned to Turin, where he died in 1821. Though
not a subject of France, he was descended from a French
family ; was peculiarly French in his genius as well as his lan-
guage, and his works were all written in reference to French
ideas and affairs at the time of their composition. No one
among those who labored during the first years of this century
to revive and restore French literature, perverted by the phil-
osophers, and nearly destroyed by the Revolution, deserves a
more honorable mention, or exerted a more salutary influence
in exposing the popular fallacies of the day, and in recalling
men's minds to deeper and sounder religious and political doc-
trines.
As a theologian, some may think that he placed too much
reliance on the analogies his profound and varied erudition sup-
plied him with between the principles of our holy religion and
those which were acknowledged in the old heathen world, that he
was more fond than is prudent in these times of citing pagan
authorities for his doctrines, and that he gave an almost unor-
thodox application to the dictum of St. Vincent of Lerins, quod
semper, quod ubique, et ab omnibus / but it cannot be denied
that his works were peculiarly adapted to the temper of the
times in which they were written, and admirably fitted to ex-
cite and engage the attention of a lively people grown weary
* Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions
Translated from the French of M. LE COMPTE JOSEPH DE MAISTRE.
Boston : Little & Brown. 1847. 16mo. pp.173.
294 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
indeed of infidelity, anarchy, and military despotism, but not
yet recovered from the habits of incredulity and impiety, of
sneering at the priest and the altar, and of regarding Christian-
ity as old and effete ; or that, if they contain some things local
and temporary in their interest they still contain much that is
universal and permanent, which may be profitably studied in
every age and country. No one acquainted with them can
hesitate to regard them as peculiarly appropriate to our own
country, and worthy the serious attention of our people, whether
Catholic or Protestant.
The analogies between the principles of our holy religion and
those of the ancient world, on which Count de Maistre lays
great stress in all his works, are undeniable ; but if we adduce
them without taking great care to mark their precise nature,
and the precise purpose for which we adduce them, we are in
danger of giving occasion to an argument unfavorable to Chris-
tianity. German neologists and their American followers, it is
well known, appeal to these analogies, and attempt from them
to construct an argument against Christianity as a positive re-
vealed religion, or against the special divine inspiration of the
Holy Scriptures, and in favor of their pernicious error, that in-
spiration, so far as it is to be admitted at all, is a universal phe-
nomenon, not peculiar, unless it be in degree, to certain indi-
viduals, but common to all men in all countries and ages of the
world, that God speaks objectively to no one, but reveals sub-
jectively, in their spiritual nature, reason, conscience, sentiment,
the same great truths to all. Hence they conclude that all
religion is natural, if we consider the fact that it is common to
all men, and resulting spontaneously from universal humanity,
or supernatural, if we consider the fact that our nature lives
and operates only in God, and through the creative and uphold-
ing power and wisdom of God, who is himself above nature.
All religions, say they, are therefore at bottom one and the
same, natural or supernatural according to the point of view
from which we choose to consider them ; and they differ as
concrete religions only according to, and in consequence of, the
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 295
differing degrees of mental and moral culture of mankind in
different ages, countries, and individuals. To get at the perfect
form of religion, we must eliminate whatever is local, tempo-
rary, peculiar to this or that individual, to this or that age or
country, and seize upon that which has been held always, every-
where, and by all. What we thus obtain, the residuum which
remains after this analysis, will be absolute religion ; that is to
say, all religions in general, and no religion in particular, like
man without men, the race without individuals !
No man was ever farther from adopting this gross absurdity,
or of countenancing this religious nihilism, than Count de Mais-
tre ; but we sometimes feel, while reading his learned and bril-
liant pages, that he has not been always careful to guard against
it, and that he says many things which could, without much
difficulty, be construed in its favor. He does not appear to us
to state clearly always the precise purpose for which he adduces
these analogies, or the precise grounds on which he ascribes to
them the value he evidently supposes them to possess. In a
word, he does not appear to have marked with precision the
place which belongs to the consensus hominum, and seems at
times to hold it to be the ground of certainty, and to favor the
notion that the Church is authoritative for the reason that she
is the organ through which the universal consent of the race ex-
presses itself, and therefore to favor the heresy taught a short
time after by De Lamrnenais. Yet it is only in appearance ;
for in his thought, though not always sufficiently guarded in his
expression, we are sure he was sound and orthodox.
If we appeal to these analogies to show what has always been
the reason or belief of mankind, and, from the fact that mankind
have always assented to principles identical with the principles
of Christianity, or analogous to them, conclude the truth of the
Christianity as a divinely revealed religion, we fall into the error
of De Lammenais, condemned as heretical ; because we then
make the consensus hominun the ground of certainty, the au-
thority for believing, instead of the veracity of God, as required
by faith. But, if we adduce them as authorities, not for faith,
296 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
but for what is and always has been the practical reason or com-
mon sense of mankind, and therefore as proofs that the princi-
ples of our holy religion are not unreasonable, but reasonable,
our method is perfectly legitimate, and perhaps the very best
that can be adopted against the unbeliever. It is only in this
latter sense, we are confident, that Count de Maistre, in reality,
appeals to the consensus hominum and adduces the analogies in
question.
The unbeliever, born and bred in Christian lands, professes to
meet the Chrisiian on the ground of reason, and from reason
alone to disprove the Christian religion ; that is, he objects that
Christianity is contrary to reason. But in order to sustain his
objection, he must prove that Christianity is contradicted, either
by the pure or demonstrative reason, or by the practical or
moral reason ; that is, either by reason as the principle of meta-
physical certainty, or by reason as the principle of moral cer-
tainty. The first is out of the question ; for reason in the former
sense, the speculative reason of Kant, as Kant himself has
shown in his Kritik der reinen Vernunft, cannot affirm or deny
any thing on the subject. Moreover, it has been proved, over
and over again, that there is nothing in Christianity which con-
tradicts any principle of speculative reason ; and all the chiefs
of the modern infidel school, Bayle, Voltaire, D'Alembert, Hume,
and Thomas Paine, concede that it is impossible to prove any
thing, metaphysically, against Christianity. " They themselves,"
says Benjamin Constant, an unsuspicious authority on this point,
"acknowledge that reasoning can authorize only doubt."*
They can only say they do not believe it, or that there is no
sufficient reason for believing it ; but no one of them ventures to
say that it must necessarily be false, or that, after all, it may not
be true. So far as regards the speculative reason, it is certain,
that, if reason cannot, as we concede it cannot, pronounce a
judgment in favor of our religion, it cannot pronounce a judg-
ment against it. It can and must concede its metaphysical possi-
bility, and this is as far as it can go, either one way or the other.
* De la Religion, Tom. I. p. 7. Paris, 1824.
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 297
The unbeliever, then, must leave the speculative reason, and
show that our religion is condemned by the practical reason, or
withdraw his objection. But the criterion of the practical reason
is the consensus hominum. In speculative reason the individual
needs not to go out of himself, for the speculative reason in se
is as perfect in one as it is in all men ; and when I have demon-
strated that the three angles of the triangle are equal to two
right angles, I have no need of the assent of the race, and their
assent can add nothing to the demonstration, or to the certainty
of the fact. But in regard to the practical reason it is not so ;
for this may be warped or perverted by individual idiosyncrasies,
ignorance, education, position, passions, prejudices. Here the
individual reason must be rectified or verified by the reason of
the race, and that only is the reason of the race which is held
always, everywhere, and by all. Hence we say the consensus
hominum is the criterion of the practical reason, and the author-
ity on which this or that is to be taken, not as divine revela-
tion, for that is the error to be avoided, but as practical reason ;
for certainly that is not unreasonable, contrary to the practical
reason, which the race universally assents to, but must be in ac-
cordance with it, and demanded by it ; or else the race would
not and could not have universally assented to it. The consen-
sus hominum is not the ground for believing this or that to be
revealed, but simply for believing it approved by the practical
reason ; and if it is approved by the practical reason, we believe
it on the authority of that reason, not fide divina, indeed, but
fide humana, and must do so, or prove ourselves unreasonable,
be ourselves condemned by reason.
Now if the unbeliever fails, as he does, to show that there is
something essential to the Christian religion repugned by the
practical reason, he fails entirely to sustain his objection. He
boasts of common sense, but common sense is only another name
for what we call the practical reason. He says our religion con-
tradicts common sense. But his assertion is worth nothing, un-
less he proves it by showing the contradiction ; which he never
does and never can do. But if, on the other hand, we prove to
298 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
him that every one of the principles of our religion has the au-
thority of common sense, or that in believing our religion we
assent to nothing not assented to in principle always and every-
where by the race, we prove that our religion in principle is
reasonable, that the unbeliever cannot object that it is unreason-
able, and that he, if he denies its principles, is himself unreason-
able, obnoxious to the precise objection which he brings
against us.
This last is what Count de Maistre has done. He proves, by
admirable philosophical analysis and rare erudition, that there is
in our holy religion no principle which the race has not always
and everywhere assented to, and therefore, that, in refusing to
believe it, in rejecting its principles, we are rejecting not merely
the word of God as handed down to us by the Church, but also
the practical reason or common sense of mankind, and by doing
so place ourselves in direct hostility to the reason we boast,
and whose authority we acknowledge. He thus turns the tables
upon the loud-boasting and conceited infidel, and shows him that
it is he, not the Christian, who must humble himself before rea-
son, and beg pardon for the outrages he offers her. The unbe-
liever, in fact, builds never on reason, but always on unreason.
Reason disowns him, scorns him, nay, holds him, intellectually
considered, in perfect derision. Poor thing ! she says, he has
lost his wits ; send him to the lunatic asylum.
Having established, as Count de Maistre has done, that all
the principles of our religion have the consensus hominum, we
have established that they are approved by reason. We must
now assume that they are principles inherent in reason itself, im-
mediately ascertainable by reason, or that they have been derived
from some other source. If we say either of the former, they
are authoritative for reason, and reason must assent to them on
the peril of ceasing to be reason. If we say they are not inher-
ent in reason, nor immediately ascertainable by reason, we must
attribute them since the practical reason by approving pro-
nounces them pure, sacred, good to some source above reason,
that is, the supernatural, and therefore either immediately or
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 299
mediately to God himself. Then they are unquestionably true,
and we must believe them, or again prove ourselves unreason-
able ; for nothing is more reasonable than to believe God, and
therefore what he reveals. So, on either supposition, we must
assent to them or deny reason itself. Consequently, the anal-
ogies alleged against us by the enemies of our religion fully
establish the reasonableness of Christianity in principle, and that
reason must assent to it in principle or abdicate itself.
Yet we pretend not that by these analogies and pagan author-
ities we prove the absolute truth of Christianity as a positive
revealed religion. We simply remove all objections a priori
which can be conceived against it, and establish the reasonable-
ness, the truth, for the practical reason, of its principles ; but we
leave the fact of Christianity as a supernaturally revealed relig-
ion to be proved or not proved by the testimony in the case.
The argument thus far shows the possible truth of the religion,
the actual truth for the reason of its principles, and places it as
a positive religion in the category of facts which may be proved
by testimony. If the actual testimony appropriate in the case
be equal to what satisfies the reason in the case of ordinary his-
torical facts, to what is sufficient in the ordinary affairs of life to
render assent prudent, it is proved as a positive revealed relig-
ion to the full extent that reason does or can demand ; and he
who does not assent and act accordingly abdicates his title to be
considered a reasonable being. The appropriate testimony in
the case is unquestionably equal to this, is all that reason,
unless it ceases to be reason, requires or can require. Whoever,
then, witholds his assent from the Christian religion, unless
through sheer ignorance, denies reason. True, the assent thus
yielded or warranted is only the assent of reason, and by no
means the assent of faith, in the proper Christian sense ; some-
thing more is undoubtedly demanded for faith ; but that, what-
ever it be, is to be sought, not from reason, but from divine
grace, which is freely given to all who do not voluntarily
resist it.
The Count's method of argument, properly understood, is
300 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
therefore triumphant against the unbeliever, as the neologists
themselves have proved over and over again. The objection of
the neologist which we have stated is met, 1. by the fact that
the analogies adduced extend to the principles, not to the posi-
tive doctrines, of Christianity ; and consequently, before the ne-
ologists can be entitled to their conclusion, they must rebut the
positive testimony in favor of Christianity as a supernatural ly
revealed religion, and also prove that the principles without the
doctrines are sufficient, neither of which they do or can do ; and,
2. by the fact that the principles in question, between which and
Christianity there is the relation of analogy or identity, are not
themselves originally derived from simple natural reason, or from
an interior subjective revelation made immediately to each man
in particular, but from the primitive revelation made to our first
parents, and preserved and diffused by tradition. We, as well
as they, find Christian elements in the old heathen poets and
philosophers ; and perhaps in general the heathen world, under
each of its various religions, retained more of Christian princi-
ple we say not of Christian doctrine than is retained by our
modern sects. Under veils and symbols more or less transpar-
ent, we find not seldom, not only Christian principles, but a very
near approach to some one or more of the Christian Mysteries
themselves. Indeed, the type after which all religions have
been fashioned is evidently the Christian religion, and there is
scarcely a single Christian idea, if we may use the term, which
is not to be found out of the Christian Church. This, however,
presents no difficulty to the Christian ; not, indeed, because he
supposes all has been derived from the Holy Scriptures and in-
tercourse with the Jews, as some have thought, though more
may have been derived from this source than many in our days
are willing to acknowledge, but because it was contained in the
primitive revelation to our first parents, and formed the common
patrimony of the race. What we thus find is revealed truth,
truth pertaining to the Christian revelation, pure in its source,
but in the lapse of time corrupted and mixed up with fables by
the nations, as they multiplied and spread themselves over the
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 301
face of the earth. The fountain was pure and supernatural, but
the streams which flowed from it became gradually corrupt by
receiving waters flowing from other fountains. Thus, what we
find in consonance with our religion as supernatural we attribute
to the primitive revelation preserved by tradition ; what we find
repugnant to it we attribute to men speaking from themselves,
their own darkened understandings and corrupt hearts.
The Christian revelation is not, strictly speaking, a new rev-
elation ; Judaism as such, though a divine institution for a spe-
cial purpose, was not a dogmatic revelation, and contained no
revealed truths not contained in the primitive revelation. The
primitive revelation contained in substance the whole Christian
revelation, and the only difference between the faith of the Fath-
ers from the beginning, before Christ, and that of the Fathers
since, is, that those before believed in a Christ to come, and
those since believe in a Christ that has come, and that in many
things our faith is clearer and more explicit than was theirs.
From the beginning till now, the revelation believed has been
ever one and the same revelation, the faith has always been one
and the same faith. Our Lord and his Apostles introduced no
new religion, no new faith, made no new revelation, except to
clear up and render more explicit what had been revealed and
believed by the faithful from the first. It is not the true view
to look upon our Lord as coming into the world to found a new
religion, or to reveal even new dogmas, as do many of our mod-
ern sects. He came to make the Atonement, to perform the
work of redemption, to open the door for the admission of the just
into heaven, and to establish a new order, the order of grace in
place of the Law, that we might have life, and have it more
abundantly.
Due consideration of this fact would correct the errors of our
Liberal Christians, and enable them to get over some of the dif-
ficulties they now find, or imagine they find. They read the
New Testament, and find in it no creed formally drawn out, and
therefore conclude that none is enjoined or necessary. They
find some one asking what he shall do to be saved, and an Apos-
302 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
tie in his answer requiring him simply to believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ, and therefore they conclude only the simple belief
in Jesus as the Messiah, whether as God, as a superangelic
being, or as man only, it matters not, is all the faith the Gospel
requires. But they forget that they to whom the Apostle so
answers are supposed to be already instructed in the faith, and
to lack nothing of the true Christian faith, but to believe that
the Christ that was to come has come, and is this same Jesus
whom they crucified, and whom God has raised from the dead.
The simple article enjoined was all the addition or modification
their previous faith required. But to conclude from this that
nothing more was required at all is very bad logic.
This fact attended to furnishes us one of the reasons why the
faith is always assumed or presupposed in the Holy Scriptures,
instead of being distinctly and formally taught. The sacred
writers always address themselves to believers, to persons sup-
posed to have already received the faith, and therefore not in
need of being formally and systematically taught the whole
creed. They write, not to propose the creed, but simply, under
the relation of faith, to correct the errors of believers, or to en-
lighten them on some particular points of doctrine. Nothing is
more illogical than to conclude, from the absence of all distinct
and formal statement from their pages of the several articles
of the creed, that no formal creed was proposed, believed, or
required.
The recognition of the primitive revelation is necessary, also,
to account for the sublime truths we often meet with in ancient
pagan writers, Oriental and Occidental, in juxtaposition with
mere puerilities, gross absurdities, and abominations. Any one
who has read Plato will understand what we mean. There are
passages in this writer hardly unworthy of a Christian Father,
which are admirable for the truth and sublimity of the thought,
for their lofty religious conception and pure morality ; and there
are others childishly weak, obviously absurd, and grossly impure,
as, for instance, some passages in the Banquet, the Timceus, and
the Republic. Take Socrates himself. What more noble than
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 303
his speech on his trial ? He speaks of God, of virtue, and im-
mortality with his disciples, while awaiting his execution, almost
as a Christian, and more worthily than many who call themselves
Christians do or can speak ; and yet, just before his death, he
can order a cock to be sacrificed to ^Esculapius. Through nearly
all heathen antiquity we find similar phenomena constantly re-
curring. How explain them ? The mind capable of producing
from its own resources the true, the pure, the sublime, and beau-
tiful thoughts and sentiments we find, could never have produced
or tolerated those of a totally different character, invariably
mixed up with them. The only possible explanation is, that in
the former they spake from tradition, from the sublime wisdom
of the ancients, derived from a primitive revelation, ns they
themselves always acknowledge; just as the only explanation
of what we find agreeable to the purity, truth, and sublimity of
the Gospel in the writings and discourses of modern heretics is
that it is derived not from their heresy or their own minds, but
retained from the Gospel itself, is the reminiscence of the true
faith, not yet wholly lost in the crude mass of their own errors
and speculations.
But we have suffered ourselves to be carried too far away by
a topic only incidental to our present purpose. While acknowl-
edging the danger to which Count de Maistre's method of rea-
soning for religion against an unbelieving and scoffing age is
exposed, when not duly guarded, we have wished, in passing,
to show that it is substantially sound, and may be used with
great propriety and effect. The influence his writings have ex-
erted on France are a proof of it. When he first appeared,"
religion was out of fashion, and her voice failed to arrest the
attention of the reading public. It required no ordinary de-
gree of moral courage at that time to avow one's self a Chris-
tian, a firm believer in the Church of God, and ready to do
battle for the faith. For more than half a century the whole
literary taste had been perverted ; the philosophers and their
followers, Voltaire and his school, reigned supreme in the world
of letters, in the public acts, and the saloons of fashion. But
304 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
Count de Maistre did not hesitate to raise his voice, and, sec-
onded by De Lammenais, not yet fallen, and by the Restoration
and its friends, he succeeded, by the grace of God, in bringing
up religion once more to men's thoughts and affections, and of
showing to faith and purity what is never to be doubted that
they have no cause to blush before the pretended worshippers
of reason, even in the temple of reason herself. France is no
longer what she was. The French works best known and most
generally read by the people of this country are the groans,
writhings, and contortions of a party in its agony. They pro-
ceed not from the mind or the heart of the real, living, progres-
sive France of to-day. Sans-culottism in religion, morals, or
politics is not at present precisely a Parisian mode, and it is no
longer incompatible with good taste and admission into good
society to cover one's nakedness with the robe of justice and
piety.
Of the several works of Count de Maistre, there is no one
which, at the present moment, could be circulated or read with
more advantage amongst us, than the one now before us, or
better fitted to the actual wants of our politicians, whether Cath-
olics or Protestants ; for, unhappily, a very considerable portion
of our Catholic population are as unsound in their politics as
their Protestant neighbors. Both classes, with individual ex-
ceptions, have borrowed their political notions from the school
of Hobbes, Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Paine,
and forget, or have a strong tendency to forget, that Divine
Providence has something to do with forming, preserving,
amending, or overthrowing the constitutions of states. We say
nothing new, when we say that modern politics are in principle,
and generally in practice, purely atheistic. Even large numbers,
who in rel-igion are sound orthodox believers, and would suffer
a thousand deaths sooner than knowingly swerve one iota from
the faith, may be found, who do not hesitate to vote God out
of the political constitution, and to advocate liberty on principles
which logically put man in the place of God. It is to such as
these the little work before us is addressed, and they cannot
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 305
study it without perceiving the capital mistake they have made
not in seeking political freedom, but in seeking to base it on
atheistical principles. The man who advocates political liberty
on Protestant principles can stop short of atheism only at the
expense of his logic.
Count de Maistre is no doubt a stanch monarchist, and holds
hereditary monarchy, tempered by a due admixture of aristocracy
and democracy, to be the best of all possible forms of govern-
ment ; but it is not for this we commend him, for this is by no
means a necessary conclusion from the great generative principle
of political constitutions he insists upon. That principle we may
accept without any disposition to be monarchists, for it is as
true and as applicable in the ease of a republican constitution
as in that of a monarchical constitution. Where the existing
legitimate order is monarchical, it undoubtedly requires us to
support monarchy, and forbids us to seek to substitute another
order in its place ; but, for the same reason, where the existing
legitimate order is the republican, it requires us to support re-
publicanism, and forbids us to seek to introduce monarchy. In
this country the existing legal order is republican, and the prin-
ciple the Count insists upon commands us, whatever may or
may not be our private convictions as to the best form of gov-
ernment in se, to support it, and to resist with our lives every
attempt to subvert it. It may or may not be, we may or we
may not believe it, the best of all possible forms of government
in the abstract ; but that has nothing to do with the question.
It is the form which God in his providence has established here,
and therefore it is the best for us ; it is the law, and therefore
we must obey it, and cannot resist it without resisting God,
from whom is all power, by whom kings reign and legislators
decree just things.
There are two grounds on which we may seek support for our
republican institutions ; the one, opinion ; the other, conscience ;
that is, either because we believe them the best in se, or be-
cause they are the law. Our modern politicians, who uniformly
mistake falsehood for truth, and substitute the feebler for the
306 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
stronger, the worse for the better reason, as a matter of course
place all their reliance on the former, and regard those who pre-
fer the latter as the enemies of our free institutions. But noth-
ing is more fluctuating, precarious, or uncertain than opinion.
The multitude may be of one opinion to-day, and of another to-
morrow. To-day they may hurrah for democracy ; to-morrow
they may throw up their caps for some military hero, and cry,
Long live the king! To rely on mere opinion is to lean on a
broken reed. The opinion may change, and the moment it does,
we have no reason, if it has been our reliance, to urge for sustain-
ing the present order, or why the people should not subvert it,
and substitute some other order ; and we may be sure the opin-
ion will change, whenever the present order proves, or attempts
to prove, itself a government by restraining popular passion and
caprice, or anything more than a by-law of a voluntary associ-
ation ;
" For no man ever feels the halter draw
But with a mean opinion of the law."
But if we place their support on the ground that they are the
legal order, the law, we make our appeal, not to opinion, but to
conscience. Conscience uniformly and invariably commands us
to obey the law, but does not command us always to obey opin-
ion. Opinions may vary as to what is the law ; but when this
or that is decided to be law, conscience, which is not opinion,
without any variation or the least hesitation, commands us to
submit to it, and all who regard at all the voice of conscience do
so. When we place the obligation to support our institutions
on the notion we may have that they are the best, we give them
only an intellectual basis, and can enlist only the intellect in
their behalf; but when we demand obedience to them on the
ground that they are the law, we base them on morality, and
place them under the protection of religion. We demand then
obedience as a duty, not merely as a sound judgment, and
make loyalty not merely a sentiment, but a virtue. It was only
the fol/y or delusion of the last century that could, for a mo-
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 30*7
merit, have hesitated between conscience and opinion, or even
pretended to doubt which is the more reasonable and solid basis
of government.
We suspect, however, that our politicians will continue to pre-
fer opinion to conscience ; for it is not the preservation of our
institutions, but the facility of changing them, that they wish to
secure. It is not government they want, but the liberty to make
the government any thing they please ; or if they ask for
government, it is not that it may govern them, but that they
may govern it. They want, not a fixed and permanent order,
but a loose and flexible order, yielding without the least resist-
ance to their passions, caprices, or supposed interests. They re-
gard, and for this reason will continue to regard, all those who
would make our institutions sacred, place them under the pro-
tection of religion and morals, and support them on the ground
that they are the law, and that the law must be obeyed, as the
enemies of the people, and to be denounced as anti-republican
and anti-American. They are willing to appeal to opinion and
sentiment, but they cannot endure that we should appeal to re-
ligion and morals, to conscience, or the sense of duty. For on
the former ground there is liberty to change, modify, subvert, at
will ; but on the latter there is a strict obligation to preserve the
institutions as they are, and to resist unto death every one who
would seek to subvert them. It is not monarchy or aristocracy
against which the modern spirit fights, but against loyalty ;
what it hates is not this or that form of government, but legiti-
macy, and it would rebel against democracy as quick as against
absolute monarchy, if democracy were asserted on the ground
of legitimacy.
The modern spirit is in every thing the direct denial of the
practical reason. It reverses every thing which has received
the sanction of the race. In former times, it was universally
held that authority was a good, indeed a necessity, and in all
things men sought for an authority, something which could and
had the right to command. They inquired always for the law,
and law was always held to be imperative. Religion was the
308 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
highest law, and authoritative, and no individual or nation had a
right to dispute its dominion ; morals were binding, were the
law imposed by religion ; politics were referred to the sovereign
authority, to the majesty of the prince, or the state. The great-
est evil conceivable was supposed to be that of being without
law, without religious, moral, and political authority having the
right to exact and the ability to secure submission. Man's glory,
according to the ancient spirit, was in obedience to law. But
the modern spirit reverses all this. It sgeks not the authority
which men are bound to obey, and to induce them to obey it,
but it claims for man himself the authority in all things to make
the law. It asserts the universal and absolute supremacy of
man, and his unrestricted right to subject religion, morals, and
politics to his own will, passion, or caprice. There is no denying
this. Its direct aim and tendency is to place the subject over
the sovereign, and to give to the subject in religion, morals, or
politics the right to put a rope round his sovereign's neck, as
the Chinese sometimes do around the neck of their idol, and*
drag him from his throne, and through the streets, and apply
the bamboo whenever he chances not to conform himself to their
will and pleasure. It calls government government, because it
is not government ; morals morals, because they are not morals,
that is, not obligatory upon the will ; religion religion, because it
is not religion, that is, does not bind man to God ; law law, be-
cause it is not law ; and reason reason, because it is not reason.
Marvellous is the age we live in ! Marvellous the light and
progress of the modern world ! We have extinguished the light
of reason, and therefore are reasonable ; reduced wisdom to
folly, and therefore are wise ; substituted nonsense for sense,
and therefore are intelligent, and have the right to call all who
went before us fools and madmen, which assuredly they were,
unless we are.
The political mania of the last century, and a mania not yet
much abated, was that a political constitution may be written
and clapped into one's pocket. Men not in a lunatic hospital,
men who were regarded by their contemporaries as great men,
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 309
iearned men, profound philosophers and statesmen, in open day,
in elaborate treatises, in grave deliberative assemblies, actually
contended that the political constitution is a thing which may
be made as one makes a handcart or a wheelbarrow, or drawn
up beforehand as one draws up a note of hand ; and, what is
stranger still,' they were believed, and whole nations thrilled at
the wonderful discovery, and, leaving all other business, engaged
heart and soul, might and main, in the manufacture and sale of
constitutions. We ourselves opened a shop for the business, or
pretended to do so ; but France opened an establishment on a
much larger scale, and carried on the business to an extent
which differed only a step from the sublime. The facility and
rapidity with which the lively French, for a series of years, turn-
ed out ready-made constitutions, for home consumption and ex-
portation, can be compared to nothing better than to the facility
with which a Connecticut Yankee turns out wooden clocks,
wooden bowls, wooden nutmegs, cut-nails, clothes-pins, or loco-
foco matches. The delusion was all but universal for a time,
and can be accounted for not without attributing it in part to
demoniacal agency. Men not drawn down below the rank of
their own nature, not made worse than human in their passions,
and less than human in their reason and understanding, could
never have been so wildly and madly carried away.
In the work before us, Count de Maistre attacks with, all his
erudition, philosophy, experience, and wit, this terrible delusion,
a delusion which even Carlyle has mercilessly ridiculed, and
against which, our readers will bear us witness, we ourselves
have argued and declaimed with all our might, ever since we
began to address the public on political subjects. De Maistre
shows, beyond the possibility of doubt or cavil, that the political
constitution of a state is not and cannot be made ; that what-
ever it is, whatever its form, if it be a constitution at all, it is
generated, not made ; that it grows up by Divine Providence,
and is never framed beforehand, drawn up deliberately, and put
into operation by those who live or are to live under it. It is
never the work of deliberation, but always the work of Divine
810 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
Providence, using men and circumstances as his instruments.
It is always immediately or mediately mediately in all cases,
perhaps, except one imposed by God himself, is the expression
of the Divine will, and therefore legitimate, sacred, and suited to
the nation. This is the leading principle of the Essay before us.
The generative pr. nciple of all political constitutions which are
such is Divine Pi Dvidence, never the deliberate wisdom or will
of men.
This doctrine is unquestionably conservative ; for it makes the
constitution sacred. It is monarchical, where monarchy is the
constitution of the state ; it is also republican, where, as with us,
the constitution is republican. It would forbid the subjects of a
monarchy to throw off monarchy and attempt to create a repub-
lic ; it would also forbid the citizens of a republic to throw off
republicanism and attempt to found a monarchy. If we are de-
structives or revolutionists on principle, and are resolved to be
always able to govern the government when we please and as
we please, this doctrine must offend us, and we cannot but resist
it; but if we are attached to our institutions, hold our constitution
to be law, not a mere regulation, and wish to preserve it, this is
the very doctrine we need, and must heartily embrace. For our
own part, we hold the republican constitution of this country to
be the legitimate order, and ourselves bound in conscience to
submit to it, whether we believe it the best possible form of gov-
ernment for every people on earth or not. IT is THE BEST POS-
SIBLE FORM FOR us. We wish to preserve it intact, in all its
life and vigor, and therefore we wish to see the doctrine in ques-
tion embraced and cherished by every American citizen.
But when we speak of the American constitution, our readers
must not imagine that we mean the written instrument usually
denominated the constitution. The written constitution may
sometimes be a memorandum of the real constitution, but is
never that constitution itself ; and it is always a mere cobweb,
save so far as it is also written on the hearts, and in the habits,
the manners and customs of the people, as our own daily expe-
rience abundantly proves. The constitution is the living soul
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 811
of the nation, that by virtue of which it is a nation, and is able
to live a national life, and perform national functions. You can
no more write it out on parchment, and put it into your pocket,
than you can the soul of man. It is no dead letter, which when
interrogated is silent, and when attacked is impotent; it is a
living spirit, a living power, a living providence, and resides
wherever the nation is, and expresses itself in every national act.
Written constitutions are never resorted to, when the real con-
stitution is in full vitality and vigor, and the state performs freely
its normal functions ; and the most beautiful period in the his-
tory of every nation is the period prior to the attempt to reduce
its constitution and laws to writing. The written instrument is
invariably a proof that the constitution has suffered violence,
has been enfeebled, and its existence endangered. It is resorted
to as a means of preservation, in the hope that by writing it the
constitution may be strengthened, and further encroachment
prevented. But w T hen it is in its full vigor, and has suffered no
violence, men no more think of writing it, than the housewife
thinks each morning of reducing to writing her arrangements
for her household during the day.
The people of this country have not made, and could not
make, our political constitution. It was imposed by a compe-
tent authority, and has grown to be what it is, through the pro-
vidence of God. The people have never had the control of it.
It was not their foresight, wisdom, convictions, or will, that made
it republican. The constitution was republican from the first,
and we established no monarchy or nobility at the close of the
war of Independence, for the simple reason that neither was in
our constitution. The royalty and nobility we knew prior to In-
dependence were English, not American. Mr. Bancroft has well
remarked, in his history of the Colonization of the United States,
that royalty and nobility did not emigrate. Since they did not
emigrate, they remained at home, and were not here ; not being
here, they were not in our political constitution. The commons
alone emigrated, and consequently our constitution recognized
only commons. When, therefore, the foreign authority was
312 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
thrown off, and we were left to our own constitution, we had
only the government of the commons, that is to say, the repre-
sentative democracy, or the elective aristocracy, if we may use
the term, which we brought here from the mother country.
Our government is simply the British House of Commons, with-
out the king and House of Lords, divided for the sake of con-
venience into an upper and lower chamber, and with such few
changes and modifications as were necessary to provide for an
executive authority. The constitution was determined for us by
the providence of God, which so ordered it that only the com-
mons emigrated, and so created and ai ranged circumstances as
to compel us from sheer necessity to live under a government
from which royalty and nobility are excluded.
Count de Maistre not only contends that the constitution is
never made, or drawn up by the people with deliberation and
forethought, that it is always the work of Providence using men
and circumstances to effect or express his will, but that it can
never be essentially changed by the people or the nation, delib-
erately or otherwise, without the destruction of the nation itself.
If God determines and fixes the political constitution of a peo-
ple, it follows that the constitution exists by the divine will and
authority ; to seek to subvert or essentially change it is, then, to
war against God, and we need not labor to prove that no indi-
vidual or nation can ever rebel against God with success or im-
punity. Nations and individuals who conspire against God, and
seek to make their will prevail instead of his, are sure to be de-
stroyed. They separate themselves from the source of life, from
the fountain of strength, and can but wither and die, as the
branch severed from the vine.
This conclusion, which we know by infallible faith to be true,
is, moreover, verified by all history. Our wise politicians seek
a thousand reasons to explain the different results which nation-
al independence has produced here, from those which it has pro-
duced in Spanish America. There can be no question that in
every one of the Spanish American states republicanism has
proved a complete failure; yet with us it is thought to have
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 313
succeeded. Whence the difference ? It is idle to look fc r the
cause in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon over the Spanish
race, for this superiority is perfectly imaginary ; and the Span-
ish American colonies, as colonies, were in real prosperity and
genuine civilization in advance of the Anglo-American. The
difference of religion, too, has been immensely in favor of Span-
ish America ; because, while Protestantism tends to render men
disorderly, insubordinate, impatient of restraint, and indifferent
to the sacred obligations of law, Catholicity generates habits of
order, subordination, and reverence for law. Yet the attempt
to establish republicanism in Spanish America has resulted very
nearly in the dissolution of all society. The cause of the dif-
ference is in the fact that republicanism with us was from the
first the constitution, but was never the constitution of the Span-
ish American colonies. In them royalty and nobility settled ;
and the whole constitution of the mother country, not merely
that of the commons, was transferred to the New World. Roy-
alty and nobility were integral elements in their constitution
from the outset. We in declaring independence made no revo-
lution in the government ; we only threw off what was foreign,
while we retained all that was indigenous, and the removal of
the foreign or English authority only enabled the indigenous to
manifest and exert itself in open day, in full and unimpeded
life and vigor. But in Spanish America independence was not
merely throwing off the foreign element, the authority of the
mother country, but was a revolution, a subversion of the exist-
ing constitution, and the attempt to establish a new and a
totally different political order. The cause of the failure is pre-
cisely in this attempt to change essentially the political constitu-
tion. If Spanish America had simply declared herself inde-
pendent of Old Spain, but retained intact her domestic constitu-
tion, there can be no reason to doubt that her prosperity would,
at least, have kept pace with ours. Portuguese America, Bra-
zil, has succeeded the best, after us, of all the American States,
for she did not essentially change her original constitution.
We can easily suppose what would have been our success, if
314 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
we had attempted to introduce and establish monarchy and no-
bility. There were among us distinguished men the most dis-
tinguished, perhaps, arid firm patriots, too who had no con-
fidence in republicanism, and were pretty well persuaded that a
government without king and nobles must prove a failure. But
we had no royalty and nobility. Neither was here, and neither
could be introduced without a social revolution. Suppose we
had attempted to introduce them, to constitute the three estates,
and retain the whole constitution of the mother country ; who
can doubt that the result would have been similar to what has
been in Spanish America the attempt to introduce republican-
ism ? Neither being in the constitution, both would have been
resisted by the whole force of American society, and could have
triumphed only by overcoming that force, and destroying the
whole existing social order, that is, the state itself.
France sought to change from a monarchy to a republic. She
was great, powerful, intellectual, and enthusiastic. Never could
the attempt have been made under more favorable auspices.
She was aided, or not impeded, in the outset, by the very orders
in the state which had the greatest privileges to lose ; the sur-
rounding nations, the whole world sympathized with her, and
applauded her movement ; and yet her failure was striking, and
no man can doubt, if he has ordinary judgment, that, if she
had not returned to her old constitution, or in part returned,
she would ere this have been blotted out from the chart of
Europe as an independent nation. Her present uneasiness, her
present unsettled and ominous state, and all the difficulties she
has to encounter grow out of her return having been partial, in-
stead of complete. The most glorious period of French history
since the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, perhaps since St. Louis,
is that of Charles the Tenth, a man and a prince to whom
history is not likely to do justice. The Bourbons committed
great faults, and they deserved, and drew down upon their
guilty heads the vengeance of Almighty God ; but if the fam-
ily had, before the breaking out of the Revolution, or in its
first stages, listened to the Count d'Artois, or if France had
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 315
been wise enough to understand his character and appreciate
the firmness of his principles when he became Charles the
Tenth, she would now have been in the possession of her an-
cient constitution and of all her ancient glory. There would
have been no " glorious three days," no programme de Hotel
de Ville, no such anomaly as a "citizen king," a king by
virtue of the Bourse, it is true, but only so much the better.
The same impossibility of changing the constitution without
destroying social order \ve see in the recent history of Spain
and Portugal. Each of these kingdoms, Spain especially, play-
ed at no distant date a distinguished part among the kingdoms
of Europe ; but both are now fallen so low that there are few
so poor as to do them reverence. It is not difficult to trace
their present degradation, we say not to efforts at social amelior-
ation, but to efforts to ameliorate- their social condition by or-
ganic changes, or fundamental changes in the political consti-
tution of the state, that is, to revolutionism, and they must
return substantially to their old national constitutions, lapse into
anarchy and barbarism, or be absorbed by their more powerful
neighbors.
We have found in our historical reading no instance of a
fundamental change of the national constitution that was suc-
cessful. Never does a republic become a monarchy, or a mon-
archy a republic, without the virtual destruction of the state.
Athens was originally monarchical, tempered, we suspect, by both
aristocracy and democracy. The democratic element finally
gained the mastery ; but it retained the ascendency for only one
hundred and four years. Solon himself saw the . Pisistratidse,
and the whole period was one of political turmoil, of change,
and usurpation, and the government was almost always in the
hands of a single chief, who ruled, with or without law, during
his ascendency, very much as he pleased. The smaller Grecian
cities, which adopted the republican order with scarcely an ex-
ception, in brief space, fell under the rule of tyrants or usurpers.
We make no account of Rome, because her constitution was
originally patrician, a modification of the patriarchal, and the
316 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
royal authority acted not really on the people, but simply on the
patrician, or head of the gens. The abolition of the royal and
the substitution of the consular authority were no fundamental
change in the constitution ; nor was the establishment, at a
later period, of the tribunitial veto ; for the positive power of
the state continued where it had been placed by Romulus, in the
patrician body. The change to the imperial government was
perhaps more fundamental, and makes decidedly for the doctrine
we maintain ; for just in proportion as the constitution was
changed under the emperors, and they usurped the functions of
the Senate, Rome declined, and continued to decline, till it was
no more.
In fact, if we may credit at all the lessons of history, the
change of the original constitution of a state, if fundamental
and permanent, is always and inevitably the destruction of the
state itself. It is as easy to extract the soul from the body, and
give to the body another soul, without causing death, as to take
from a state its original constitution and give it a new one, and
still retain the life of the nation. If the original constitution
has died out, the nation is dead, and you can no more give it a
new constitution and restore it to life, than you can give to a
dead body a new soul, and render it once more a living body.
The new constitution must come in with a new people, which
subjects and takes the place of the old, as is clearly evinced in
the case of the downfall of the old Roman empire, and the rise
of the modern states of Europe. Even religion herself cannot
prevent it ; she may delay the catastrophe, but she has no power
to avert it. Constantine. Theodosius, Justinian, cannot pre-
vent the doom of Rome, old or new. The Northern barbarian
executes it upon the one, the Turk upon the other. The vast
populations of Asia have no indigenous power to rise from
their degradation, and they will be restored never, unless con-
quered and subjected by a people already living, already in pos-
session of a constitution in its life and vigor, because their old
political constitutions are effete, and they now subsist as popu-
lations rather than as states.
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 317
God, by giving in his providence a particular constitution to
a particular people, has fixed ks law, the law of its life, its pros-
perity, and its duration. No people survives its constitution.
The overthrow of our republican constitution would be our po-
litical death. Spanish America, if it does not reestablish its
original monarchical and aristocratic order, must either lapse into
complete barbarism, or be absorbed by us. The Canadas have
foolishly attempted once, perhaps may attempt again, independ-
ence of the mother country, in view of establishing the republi-
can regime ; they have thus far failed, for they have royalty and
nobility in their constitution. If Lower Canada had not had,
she would, in what we call our Revolution, have made common
cause with us, gained her independence, and become a member
of our confederacy. Some Young Irelanders appear to us also
to dream of republicanism or democracy for Ireland. They
could not be madder. The constitution of Ireland is not, never
was, and never can be, republican. Royalty and nobility are
essential elements of it.
But let no one be so silly as to imagine that the conservative
principle contended for by Count de Maistre is hostile to such
social meliorations and such administrative changes as time and
its vicissitudes may render necessary or expedient. But the
true social reformer is the state physician, and proceeds in regard
to the state precisely as the medical doctor does in regard to the
human body. He seeks always to heal the disorders of the state
without destroying or impairing the constitution, and by the
application of such remedies as are peculiarly adapted to the
constitution. If the constitution is already broken up and be-
come incurable, he knows there is no effectual remedy, and that
complete dissolution, sooner or later, must inevitably ensue.
But if he finds the constitution still sound at bottom, he seeks
simply to restore it to its normal state, and to guard against
whatever would tend to impai* its healthy and vigorous action.
In other words, he restores, but does not seek to create ; devel-
ops, but does not attempt to institute.
On this principle we see our present Holy Father introducing
318 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
administrative changes in the temporal government of the States
of the Church. How far the reforms he has introduced or pro-
]><>M'd extend, we are not able to say; and how far they will
effect the end intended, and serve to tranquillize the turbulent
spirits, the unprincipled and ambitious, among his subjects, it is
not for us to judge, or even to inquire. But we can easily be-
lieve that in an old government, like that of the Roman States,
some administrative abuses may with the lapse of time have
crept in, and that the alterations which for the last hundred years
have been taking place around them have rendered some admin-
istrative changes expedient. As a wise and judicious prince, as
a watchful and tender father, the Pope seems to believe such to
be the fact, and to be determined to correct the former and to
introduce the latter ; and for this he has been applauded to the
echo, rather in the hope of inducing him to go farther, we ap-
prehend, than from any real satisfaction felt for what he has thus
far done or proposed. But we confess, that, notwithstanding the
shouts which ring in our ears, and the loud praises he has se-
cured from those whose praise is always suspicious, we have seen
in him not the least conceivable tendency to countenance the
misnamed Liberalism now so rife in the European populations.
They who flatter themselves that the Sovereign Pontiff of Chris-
tendom, is about to place himself at the head of the Liberals,
as their leader in the war against legitimacy, will find their shouts
have been premature, and their hopes fallacious. That Pius the
Ninth is the father of his people, that his sympathies are with
the oppressed and down-trodden of all nations, that he is the
uncompromising enemy of injustice and arbitrary rule, whether
of kings or peoples, is no doubt true, and in saying so we only
say he is Pope ; but because this is true, we have the fullest as-
surance that nothing can be farther from his thoughts and in-
tentions than to countenance, even in the remotest degree, the
mad and ruinous radicalism or socialism of the day, or that it
has aught to hope from him but his anathema.
We know the enemies of law and order have rejoiced ; we
know that even some Catholics, placing their politics, uncon-
POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 310
sciously no doubt, before their religion, have flattered themselves
that our Holy Father seeks to effect an alliance between Catho-
licity and modern socialism ; but he is the Vicar of Jesus Christ,
not a pupil from the school of the apostate De Lamennais, and
can no more form an alliance with socialism than with despot-
ism. One Pope is not in the habit of reversing, in what involves
a principle, the decisions of another. We all know the doctrine
of the VAvenir; we all know that after the revolution of July,
1830, De Lamennais sought to persuade the Church to make
common cause with the European populations against their po-
litical sovereign's, to throw herself into the arms of the people,
and trust for her support to their holy instincts ; and we all
know the answer he received from Rome. The Church throws
herself into the arms of neither the people nor the sovereigns ;
she relies for support on no power foreign to herself. She rests
on God alone, who has promised to be with her all days unto
the consummation of the world. She forms no alliances. The
sects may trim their sails to the breeze, and appeal now to des-
potism and now to liberalism, now seek to avail themselves of a
temperance excitement, and now of an Abolitiuiii-t or a socialist
movement, for they are all impotent in themselves, and can
subsist only by means of supplies drawn from abroad. But the
Church draws all her support and all her motive power from
within, from God himself. Her ensign is the cross, the cross
alone, and her battle-cry, from the first to the last, is Deus vult.
As she withstood the despotic tendency of kings and emperors
in the Middle Ages, and taught the sovereigns that they held
their power as a trust from God, and were bound to exercise it
for the good of their subjects, so will she withstand the popular
tendencies towards license and anarchy, and teach the people
that their duty and their interest are in the maintenance of the
order Almighty God has established for them, and in frank and
conscientious submission to law.
Nothing could be madder, on the part of Catholics with us,
than to adopt the radicalism of the country. Our only security
here is in the supremacy of the law, and the prevailing sense of
320 POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS.
its sacredness, without which its supremacy is impossible. The
Catholic who does not wish to pave the way for the confiscation
of the property of his Church, and for the suppression of his
worship in these States, must beware how he binds himself to
the extreme liberalism of the country, and aids the tendency
now so active, under the name of progress, to sweep away all
the guaranties of law. It is natural that persons who have du-
ring their whole lives felt only the pressure of government, and
known government only in its abuses, should on coming here
be disposed to adopt extreme views, and think only of restricting
the sphere and diminishing the power of government ; and it is
natural also, that, finding their religion generally unpopular, they
should seek to conciliate favor for it, or to acquire popularity for
themselves, by falling in with the popular political current, and
showing themselves enthusiastic in their support of the dominant
tendency of the country ; but in doing either they are as far
from consulting their true interest as they are their duty as Cath-
olics. Majorities may protect themselves; minorities have no
protection but in the sacredness and supremacy of law. The law
is right as it is ; we must study to keep it so ; and if we do, we
shall always throw our influence on the conservative side, never
on the radical side.
It may be objected, that the doctrine we contend for is op-
posed to progress ; but it is opposed to progress in no sense in
which progress is not a delusion. There is progress of individu-
als, but no progress of human nature, a progress of particular
nations, but none of the race. Nations are like individuals ;
they are born with their peculiar constitutions and capacities,
which determine all that they can be. They grow up like indi-
viduals, attain their growth, their maturity, decline into old age,
become enfeebled, and die, and pass away. It is the universal
law, and there is no elixir vitce for nations any more than for
individuals. The Rosicrucians pretended that it is possible in
the case of the individual to ward off death and maintain per-
petual youth, and Godwin, and Balzac, and Buhver have made
the notion the theme of interesting romances, as all know who
WAR AND LOYALTY. 321
have read St. Leon, Le Centenaire, and Zanoni, nnd our modern
politicians try t:> persuade us to believe the same is possible with
regard to the state ; but, in either case, it .s a mere dream of the
fancy or a delusion of the devil. The limits of our national pro-
gress are fixed by the inherent principles of our constitution, and
it is madness to dream of passing beyond them.
In conlusion, we would express our thanks to the translator
of the excellent little work which we have made the text of
our remarks. He has done his task with taste and fidelity, and
the notes he has annexed to the work add to its permanent
value. There is one thing, however, the translator has not
done ; but as he knows what it is, and as it concerns him per-
sonally, we say no more. Disagreeing with De Maistre as to his
monarchical views, at least so far as concerns our own country,
and avowing it as our full and settled conviction that the desti-
ny of our country is inseparable from the destiny of its republi-
can constitution, we yet recommend his Essay as worthy of
general study, and as almosc the only sensible political pamphlet
that has ever been published amongst us. Our politicians may
slight it, may denounce it, and denounce us for recommending
it ; but if they do, so much the worse for them, so much the
worse for the country.
WAR AND LOYALTY.*
OCTOBER, 1846.
OUR orators have invested the Fourth of July with so many
disturbing associations, that our citizens are gradually becoming
less and less disposed to greet its annual return with those fes-
tivities which it was the hope of our fathers would continue to
* An Oration delivered before the Authorities of the City of Boston
in the Tremont Temple, July 4, 1S46. By FLETCHER WEBSTER
Boston : Eastburi; . 1846 Svo. pp.33.
322 WAR AND LOYALTY.
mark it through all generations to come. Still, it is a day
sacred in the affections of every American citizen, and it cannot
come round without exciting lively emotions of gratitude and
joy in every American heart. The birth of a nation is an event
to he rememhered, and the day on which it takes its rank in the
family of independent nations is well deserving to be set apart by
some service, at once joyous and solemn, recounting the glory
which has been won, the blessings which have been received,
and pointing to the high destiny and grave responsibilities to
which the new people are called.
The orations ordinarily given on our national anniversary are
of that peculiar sort which it is said neither gods nor men can
tolerate. They are tawdry and turgid, full of stale declama-
tion about liberty, fulsome and disgusting glorification of our-
selves as a people, or uncalled-for denunciations of those states
and empires that have not seen proper to adopt political institu-
tions similar to our own. Yet we may, perhaps, be too fastidi-
ous in our taste, and too sweeping in our censures. Boys will
be boys, and dulness will be dulness, and when either is install-
ed " orator of the day," the performance must needs be boyish
or dull. But when the number of orations annually called forth
by our national jubilee, from all sorts of persons, throughout the
length and breadth of the land, is considered, we may rather
wonder that so many are produced which do credit to their au-
thors, and fall not far below the occasion, than that there are so
few. All are not mere school-boy productions ; all are not pat-
riotism on tiptoe, nor eloquence on stilts. Every year sends out
not a few, which, for their sound sense, deep thought, subdued
passion, earnest spirit, manly tone, and chaste expression, de-
serve an honorable place in our national literature. There are
and perhaps as large a proportion as we ought to expect
Fourth of July orators, who, while they indulge in not unseem-
ly exultations, forget to disgust us with untimely rant about
self-government, the marvellous virtue and intelligence of the
masses, and the industrial miracles they are daily performing;
who show by their reserve, rather than by their noisy declama,-
WAR AND LOYALTY. 323
tion, that they have American hearts, and confidence in Ameri-
can patriotism and American institutions. A people not facti-
tiously great has no occasion to speak of its greatness ; and
true patriotism expresses itself in deeds, not words. The real
American patriots are not those shallow brains and gizzard
hearts which are always prating of the American spirit, Ameri-
can genius, American interests, American greatness, and calling
for an American party ; but those calm, quiet, self-possessed
spirits who rarely think of asking themselves whether they are
Americans or not, and who are too sincere and ardent in their
patrotism to imagine it can be necessary to parade its titles.
Their patriotism has no suspicions, no jealousies, no fears, no
self-consciousness. It is too deep for words. It is silent, majes-
tic. It is where the country is, does what she bids, and, though
sacrificing ail upon her altars, never dreams that it is doing any
thing extraordinary. There is, perhaps, more of this genuine
patriotism in the American people than strangers, or even we
ourselves, commonly suppose. The foam floats on the surface,
and is whirled hither and thither by each shifting breeze ; but
below are the sweet, silent, and deep waters.
Among the orations delivered on our great national festival,
which we would not willingly forget, the one before us by Mr.
Fletcher Webster, eldest son of the Hon. Daniel Webster, de-
serves a high rank. It is free from the principal faults to which
we have alluded, simple and chaste in its style and language,
bold and manly in its tone and spirit, and, in the main, sound
and just in doctrine and sentiment. It frequently reminds us
of the qualities which mark the productions of the author's dis-
tinguished father, and which have placed him at the head of
American orators ; and it bears ample evidence, that, with time,
experience, and effort, the son need not be found unworthy of
such a father.
Certainly, we do not subscribe to every sentiment, view, or
argument of this eloquent oration ; but we like its frank and
manly tone, its independent and earnest spirit, and we accept
without reserve the leading doctrine it was designed to set
324 WAR AND LOYALTY.
forth. We are also grateful to Mr. Webster for having had
the moral courage to assert great truths in a community where
they can win little applause, and to administer a well merited
rebuke to certain dangerous ultraisms when and where it was
not uncalled for. He has proved that he is not unworthy to
be reckoned a freeman and a patriot, and he deserves and will
receive the approbation of all who can distinguish between
words and things, and prefer sound sense and solid wisdom to
mad fanaticism and hollow cant. It is cheering to find our
young men rising above the tendencies of the age and country,
and manifesting some respect for the wisdom and virtue of their
ancestors, and indicating that they have some suspicion that all
that is wise and just was not born with the new generation and
possibly may not die with it. It permits us to hope things may
not have gone quite so badly with us as we had feared ; that
the people are less unsound at the core than we had dared be-
lieve ; that, after all, there is a redeeming spirit at work among
them ; and that our noble experiment in behalf of popular in-
stitutions may not be destined to a speedy failure.
Our great danger lies in the radical tendency which has be-
come so wide, deep, and active in the American people. We
have, to a great extent, ceased to regard any thing as sacred or
venerable ; we spurn what is old ; war against what is fixed ;
and labor to set 1 religious, domestic, and social institutions
afloat on the wild and tumultuous sea of speculation and experi-
ment. Nothing has hitherto gone right ; nothing has been
achieved that is worth retaining ; and man and Providence have
thus far done nothing but commit one continued series of blun-
ders. All things are to be reconstructed ; the world is to be
recast, and by our own wisdom and strength. We must bor-
row no light from the past, adopt none of its maxims, and take
no data from its experience. Even language itself, which only
embodies the thoughts, convictions, sentiments, hopes, affections,
and aspirations of the race, cannot serve as a medium of inter-
course between man and man. It is not safe to affirm that
black is black, for the word black only names an idea which the
"WAR AND LOYALTY. 325
past entertained, and most likely a false idea. With such a
tendency, wide and deep, strong and active, we cannot but ap-
prehend the most serious dangers. With it there can be no
permanent institutions, no government, no society, no virtue, no
well-being.
There is much to strengthen this radical tendency. It is
natural to the inexperienced, the conceited, and the vain ; and
it can hardly fail to be powerful in a community where these
have facilities for occupying prominent and commanding posi-
tions. Young enthusiasts, taught to "remember, when they
are old, not to forget the dreams of their youth," that is, not to
profit by experience, and not doubting that what they were
ignorant of yesterday was known by no one, and that they must
needs be as far in advance of all the world as they are of their
own infancy, bring benevolent affection, disinterested zeal, and
conscientiousness to its aid ; political aspirants, reckless of prin-
ciple and greedy of place, appeal to it as their most facile means
of success ; and the mass of the people, finding their passions
flattered, and their prejudices undisturbed, are thrown off their
guard, presume all is right, and cherish unconsciously the ene-
my that is to destroy them. A factitious public opinion grows
up, becomes supreme, to which whoever wishes for some con-
sideration in the community in which he lives, must offer in-
cense, and which he must presume on no occasion to contradict.
The majority of the people, indeed, may not be represented by this
opinion, may, it is true, not approve it ; but they are isolated
one from another, minding each their own affairs, and ignorant
of their numbers and strength ; while the few, by their union,
mutual acquaintance, concert, and clamor, are able to silence
any single voice not raised in adulation of their idol. Political
parties conspire to the same end. One party to-day, ambitious
of success, courts this factitious public opinion as a useful aux-
iliary, and succeeds; the other must do so to-morrow, or
abandon all hopes of succeeding. Then follows a strife of
parties, which shall bid highest, and outradical the other. The
radical tendency is thus daily exaggerated by those who in
326 WAR AND LOYALTY.
reality disapprove it, and in their feelings have no sympathy
with it. Hence, the evil goes ever from bad to worse. Un-
happily, this is no fancy sketch. We have seen it, and we see
it daily pass under our own eyes, and not, we confess, without
lively alarm for our beloved country and her popular insti-
tutions.
It is, therefore, with more than ordinary pleasure that we see
among our young men, in whose hands are the destinies of our
country, whose views and passions and interests must be con-
sulted by any party aspiring to power and place, some symp-
toms of an opposing tendency. Right glad are we that the
young " sovereigns" show some signs of beginning to take sound-
er and more practical views, and to cherish a reaction against
the ultraisms of the day. This oration, and some other indica-
tions, which have not escaped our notice, prove to us that there
is a returning respect for the wisdom of experience, and that
the reign of the Garrisons, the Parkers, the Sumners, the O'Sul-
tivans, the Channings, the Abby Folsoms, et id omne genus, ap-
proaches its termination, and that henceforth practical sense and
wise experience will at least dispute the throne with fanatic zeal,
blind enthusiasm, and bloated conceit.
In preparing this oration, Mr. Webster must have been con-
scious that he was running athwart the views of many whom
most of us have been accustomed to hold in high esteem, and
that, in venturing to assert the lawfulness of war and the obli-
gation of the citizen to obey the government, he would be at-
tacking every class of fanatics in the land, and could not fail to
incur the unmitigated wrath and hostility of the whole modern
" Peace " party. Yet his courage did not fail him. He does
not appear to have had any misgivings before even the awful
shade of the late Noah Worcester, founder of the American
Peace Society, and he has dared consult his relations as a man
and a citizen, and to lay it down as his rule of action, that he is
responsible, not to the self-created associations of the day, to
the reigning cant of the time and place, but solely to his God
and his country. For this, however much he may be condemned
WAR AND LOYALTY. 327
by fanatical reformers, we honor him, and for this every right-
minded man will honor him ; for in this he has asserted his in-
dependence, and set an example worthy of imitation.
The main topic of this oration is the lawfulness of war, and
the duty of the citizen to obey the government, a topic at all
times interesting and important, and especially so at this time,
when we are actually engaged in a war with a neighboring re-
public, the necessity of which is questioned by many of our cit-
izens ; and when there is widely prevalent a notion that the cit-
izen is under no moral obligation to obey the law, if it does not
chance to coincide with his own private convictions of justice
and expediency. We agree in the main with the view of this
topic which the author takes, and gladly avail ourselves of the
occasion to make some additional remarks of our own, which
may tend to illustrate and confirm it, though the readers of the
oration may, perhaps, consider them quite superfluous.
The war of 1812, declared by this country against Great
Britain, as is well known, was exceedingly unpopular in the New
England States, not, indeed, in consequence of any especial
partiality for Great Britain herself, nor because they were less
patriotic than the other members of the confederacy, but be-
cause the chief burdens of the war fell upon them, in the ruin
it brought to their commerce and its dependent interests, then
their principal interests. It is not for us to pronounce any opin-
ion on the justice or expediency of that war; but we cannot
censure with extreme severity the New England people for be-
ing strongly opposed to it. Yet there can be no question, that,
in the madness of the moment, the opposition was carried to
wholly unjustifiable lengths, and, though we willingly acquit it
of all treasonable intentions, it in reality stopped only this side
of treason. Some weak-minded but well disposed New England
ministers, incapable of taking comprehensive views and of seek-
ing to remedy an evil by attacking it in its principle, seeing the
danger to the union, to the stability of our institutions, occa-
sioned by the opposition to the war, which they never thought
328 WAR AND LOYALTY.
of censuring or attempting to moderate, lamenting the very se-
rious evils suffered by their friends and neighbors, and taking it
for granted that the war was wholly unnecessary and unjust,
made the grand discovery in moral theology that war is malum
in se, is always unnecessary, and can never be lawful. They
without much delay proceeded, more suo, to form an association
against war, and to preach, lecture, and issue tracts in favor of
universal peace. They appealed to the prejudices against the
actual war, and to general philanthropy. New Englanders, es-
pecially Bostonians, are rarely insensible to the appeal to philan-
thropy. Since the softening down of some of the asperities of
their primitive Puritanism, which took place in the latter half
of the last century, they have been justly remarkable for their
philanthropy, no people in the world more so. Industrious,
frugal, economical, they certainly are ; but mean, sordid, miserly,
they are not, and are incapable of being. They are, in truth,
open, frank, generous, and liberal', with a sort of passion for
world reform, which is one of their foibles. The unpopularity
of the war 'of 1812, and the popularity of the appeal to philan-
thropy, gave to the peace movement a speedy and strong sup-
port, till peace became a sort of cant among us, and it was haz-
ardous to one's reputation to intimate that war, terrible as may
be its evils, is nevertheless sometimes just and necessary.
But the genuine Yankee is never satisfied with doing only
one thing at a time. He is really in his glory only when he
has some dozen or more irons all in the fire at once. The sim-
ple question of peace could by no means absorb his superabund-
ant zeal and philanthropy, so he invented and set on foot anti-
slavery and various other movements, all of which adopted the
" peace principle ;" for the chief actors in one were, for the most
part, prominent actors in all. By means of agitation, froth and
foam, declamation and rant, of conventions, agents, tracts, lec-
tures, sermons, periodicals, a new code of morals has been grad-
ually framed among us ; all that was once regarded as settled
is now called in question ; what was approved by the generations
which preceded us is now pronounced low, earthly, sensual, devil-
WAR AND LOYALTY. 329
ish ; the fairest reputations are blackened ; our own patriots
and heroes are calumniated, and even Washington himself has
been publicly branded as an " inhuman butcher. 1 ' We are cast
completely adrift. There was no true morality in the world be-
fore these modern societies sprung from the womb of night, and
we are required to look to a few canting ministers, strolling
spinsters, and beardless youths, as the sole authoritative ex-
pounders of the precepts of the divine law. We are unable to
determine what it is safe to eat or to drink, when to rise up or
sit down, unless some of these self-constituted guides condescend
to inform us. Sin and death hover everywhere ; poison lurks
in every thing, even in the bread made from the finest wheat,
and in the purest water from the fountain ; and there seems to be
no possible means of living but to go naked and cease to eat or
drink. It is a wonder how the world has contrived, for six
thousand years, to get on, how men and women have contrived
to be born, to live, to grow, and to persuade themselves that
they enjoy a tolerable share of health and vigor, both of mind
.and body.
The joke, in fact, becomes serious. Many of the rising gener-
ation are beginning to take it, not as a dull jest, but as down-
right earnest. It interferes quite too much with the social and
domestic business of life, and, if continued much longer, will re-
duce the great mass of us to mere automata. It is, therefore,
high time for what sober sense, for what decency, there may
have been left in the community to speak out, send these fanat-
ics back to their native inanity, and let it be known, that, though
for a time we have suffered ourselves to be made fools of, after
all, we are not quite so stupid, so vain or conceited, as to imag-
ine that nobody understood or practised the moral virtues till
our modern associations burst from darkness to teach them ; that
we really have not sunk so low as to lose all respect for our an-
cestors, all reverence for the awful past, over which has flowed
the tide of human joy and human sorrow, and to be wholly un-
able to serve our own generation without calumniating those
which have placed us in the world and made us what we are.
330 WAR AtfD LOYALTY.
He is a foolish as well as a wicked son who curses the mother
that bore him. There has been, from the first, a Providence
that has watched over and ruled in the affairs of men ; our dis-
tant forefathers had eyes, ears, hands, intellects, hearts, as well
as we, and knew how to use them, and did use them, not al-
ways ineffectually. How, indeed, would the hoary Past, were it
not that experience has made it wise and taught it to make al-
lowances for the follies and pranks of youth, laugh at our solemn
airs and grave decisions ! How should we hang our heads and
blush, even to the tips of our ears, could we but for one moment
see ourselves as it sees us ! " The son," says the proverb,
" thinks his father a fool ; the father knows his son to be one."
The more we study what has been, the less disposed shall we be
to exult in what is. Happily, we begin to discover some symp-
toms that there are those among us, who have, now and then, at
least, a suspicion that change is not always progress, and that
it is more creditable to be able to revere wisdom than to con-
temn it.
War, against which nearly all our modern fanatics declaim so
much, and which in the new moral code is utterly prohibited, is,
of course, not a thing to be sought for its own sake. Its necess-
ity must always be lamented, as we must always lament that
there are crimes to be redressed, or criminals to be punished, or
diseases to be cured. But because we must always lament that
there are offenders to be punished, it does not follow that to
punish them is never necessary, or that their punishment is an
evil, and morally wrong ; or because it is to be regretted that
there are diseases, that we must treat the physician and his
drugs as a nuisance. The father weeps that he has occasion to
chastise his child, but knows that " to spare the rod is to spoil
the child ;" nor does it necessarily follow, because war involves
terrible evils, and is to be avoided whenever it can be without
sacrificing the public weal, that it is in itself wrong, and may
never be resorted to without violating the law of God. Its ne-
cessity is an evil, but, as a remedy, it may be just and beneficial.
Disease is an evil, but not, therefore, the medicine that restores
WAR AND LOYALTY. 331
to health. War is a violent remedy for a violent disease, and
as such mav, when all other remedies prove or must prove in-
effectual, be resorted to without sin. We, therefore, venture to
maintain, in the very face of our modern fanatics, that war de-
clared by the sovereign authority of the state, for a just cause,
and prosecuted with right intentions, is not morally wrong, and
may be engaged in with a safe conscience.
That war is not morally wrong, in itself, is evident from the
fact, that Almighty God has himself, on several occasions, as in
the case of the ancient Israelites, actually commanded or ap-
proved it. But God cannot command or approve what is mor-
ally wrong, without doing wrong himself; which is absurd and
impious to suppose. It cannot be in itself morally wrong, unless
prohibited by some law ; but there is no law which prohibits it.
It is not prohibited by the law of nature. By the law of na-
ture, the individual has the right to defend and avenge him-
self. Justice not only forbids wrong to be done, but requires
that the wrong done be avenged. In a state of nature where
there is no established government, but each individual is left
to his own sovereignty, each one has the right of defending and
avenging himself in his own hands. If this be true of a pri-
vate person, it must also be true of the state or nation ; for na-
tions have precisely the same rights in relation to one another
that individuals have. They then, who admit no law but the
law of nature, must concede that war is not prohibited.
Nor is war prohibited by the divine law. This all will readi-
ly grant to be true, so far as concerns the old law, which no-
where condemns war, and not frequently presents us God him-
self as commanding or approving it. It is also true, so far as
concerns the new law, or Christian law. " If Christian discip-
line, " says St. Augustine, " condemned all wars, the Gospel
would have given this counsel of salvation to the soldiers who
asked what they should do, that they should throw away their
arms and withdraw themselves from the military service alto-
gether. But it says to them, ' Do violence to no man, calumni-
ate no one, and be content with your wages.' St. Luke iii. 14.
332 WAR AND LOYALTY.
Surely it does not prohibit the military service to those whom it
commands to be contented with its wages." *
Our Lord, St. Matt. viii. 10, commends the faith of a centu
rion who had soldiers under his command, says he had not
found so great faith in Israel, and yet does not order him to
throw away his arms, or abandon the military service. Corne-
lius, Acts x. 2, " a centurion of the band which is called Italian,"
is commended as " a religious man, fearing God ; " and the bles-
sed Apostle Paul, Heb. xi- 32-34, praises Gedeon, Barac, Sam-
son, and others, " who through faith subdued kingdoms, became
valiant in war, put to flight the armies of foreigners." These
considerations show that war is not prohibited by the Christian
law. Then it is prohibited by no law, and therefore is not nec-
essarily sinful, but may be just and expedient.
But it is objected, that there are certain passages in the New
Testament which, if not expressly, yet by implication, evidently
deny the lawfulness of war. 1. "All that take the sword shall
perish by the sword." St. Matt. xxvi. 52. But to take the
sword is to use the sword without the order or consent of the
proper authority. He who only uses the sword by order or con-
sent of the proper authority, that is, of the political sovereign?
if he be a private person, or of God, if he be a public person or
sovereign prince, does not take the sword, but simply uses the
sword committed to him. Nor are we to understand that all who
take the sword on incompetent authority will be literally slain,
but that they will perish by their own sword, that is, be punish-
ed eternally for their sin, if they do not repent.f
2. " I say unto you, not to resist evil ; but if any man strike
* " Nam si Christiana disciplina omnia bella oulparet, hoc potius
militibus consiliuin salutis petentibus in Evangelic diceretur, ut abji-
cerent arma, seque omnino militias subtraherent. Dictum est autem
eis, Neminem concusseritis, nulli caJumniam feceritis ; svfficiat
vobis stipendium vestrum. Quibus proprium stipendium sufficere de-
bere pra?cepit, militare utique non prohibuit." Epist. V., JLd Marcel-
linum, c. 2. 15. n.
f See St. Augustine, Contra Faustum, lib. 22, c. 70, and St. Thomas,
Summa, 2. 9 Q. 40, a. 1.
WAR AND LOYALTY. 333
thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." St. Matt.
v. 39. War is resistance of evil ; but this text forbids the re-
sistance of evil ; therefore it forbids war. But the precept re-
fers to the interior disposition, and commands that preparation
of the heart which does not resist evil by rendering evil for evil,
but endures patiently whatever wrongs or injuries are necessary
for the honor of God and the salvation of men. It is not to be
understood to the letter, for our Lord, who fulfilled it, when
struck in his face, did not turn the other cheek, but defended
himself by reasoning. It commands patience under wrongs and
insults, and forbids us to seek to avenge ourselves on our own
authority ; but it does not prohibit the redress of wrongs by the
proper authorities ; because we know from the testimony of St.
Paul that the magistrate is " the minister of God, an avenger
to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Rom. xiii. 4.
Wrongs, when redressed by the proper authority, may be re-
dressed without any malignant feelings, and, indeed, with the
most benevolent intentions towards the wrong-doer. Wrongs
are not, in all cases, to go unavenged, otherwise God would
not have appointed a ministry to avenge them. It is often
the greatest of evils to suffer offences to go unpunished, and one
of the most certain methods of preventing them is for the oag-
istrate to lot it be known and understood that they cannot be
committed with impunity.*
*" Sunt ergo ista praecepta patientiae semper in cordis proeparatione
retinenda, ipsaque benevolentia, ne reddatur malum pro malo, semper in
voluntate complenda est. Agenda sunt autem multa, etiam cum invitis
benigna quadam asperitate plectendis, quorum potius utilitati consu-
lenda est quam voluntati Nam in corripiendo filio quamlibet
aspere, nunquam amor paternus amittitur. Fit tamen quod no lit et
doleat, qui etiam videtur dolore sanandus. Ac per hoc si terrena ista
respublica prsecepta Christiana custodial, et ipsa bella sine benevolen-
tia non gerentur, ut ad pietatis justitiseque pacatam societatem victis
facilius consulatur. Nam cui licentia iniquitatis eripitur, utiliter, vin-
citur; quoniam nihil est infelicius felicitate peccantium, qua pcenalis
nutritur impunitas, et mala voluntas velut hostis interior roboratur."
S. Aug. ubi sup. et de Serm. Domini, lib. 1, c. 19, and also St. Thom-
as, ubi sup.
334 WAR AND LOYALTY.
3. "Revenge not yourselves, my clearly beloved, but give
place to wrath ; for it is written, Vengeance is mine, and I \vill
repay, saith the Lord." Rom. xii. 19. This, though relied on
by the peace party, is not to the purpose, for it speaks of pri-
vate revenge, which every body admits is condemned by the
Christian law. It is of the same import with the text we have
just dismissed. It simply commands patience under injuries,
forbearance towards those who do us wrong, and forbids us to
seek redress of wrongs done us in a resentful spirit, or by our
own hands or authority. But it does not necessarily imply that
the public authority, which is the minister of God, may not re-
dress them, or that the commonwealth may not repel or vindi-
cate attacks upon itself, whether they come from within or from
without. To avenge wrongs is not in itself wrong, because it is
said the Lord " will repay ;" nor is it wrong for the magistrate
to avenge them, for " he is the minister of God, an avenger," as
we have seen, " to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil ;"
and it is wrong for the individual to do it only because in civil
society his natural right to do so is taken away, and because it
is made his duty to leave it to God or the minister God in his
providence appoints.
4. " For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but pow-
erful through God." 2 Cor. x. 4. But St. Paul is speaking,
not of the sword which the magistrate bears, nor of that which
the sovereign state, as the minister of God to execute wrath,
may put into the hands of its servants, but of the weapons to be
used in the conversion of infidels and sinners. These, indeed,
are not carnal, but spiritual, and powerful through the virtue
God confers on them. Carnal weapons are unlawful in the
work of conversion, for conversion is not conversion unless volun-
tary. God says to the sinner, " Give me thy heart," that is, thy
will ; and this carnal weapons can force no man give. It can
be subdued only by spiritual arms, rendered effectual through
divine grace. But this says nothing against the lawfulness of
repelling or avenging injustice whether from subjects or foreign-
ers, by the proper authorities. These several texts, tlen, pj?*ke
WAR AND LOYALTY. 335
nothing against our general conclusion, that war is not, in all
cases, prohibited by the Christian law.
But we are told, still further, that war is opposed to peace ;
yet the Gospel is a Gospel of peace, commands peace, and pro-
nounces a blessing on peacemakers. " Beati pacifici, quoniam
filii Dei vocabuntur" St. Matt. v. 9. War, undertaken for
its own sake, looking to itself as the end, is opposed to peace,
and unlawful, we grant ; but war, undertaken for the sake of
obtaining a just and lasting peace, is not opposed to peace, but
may be the only means possible of restoring and securing it.
Peace is then willed the intentions are peaceful, and war, as a
necessity, becomes itself a peacemaker, and as such is lawful,
and its prosecutors are not necessarily deprived of the blessing
pronounced on peacemakers. Hence, St. Augustine says,
" Pacem habere debet vohmtas, bellum necessitas, ut liber et Deus
a necessitate, et conservet in pace. Non enim pax quceritur ut
bellum excitctur, sed bellum geritur ut pax acquiratur. Esto
ergo etiam bellando patificus, ut eos quos expugnas, ad pads
utilitatem vincendo perducas" * The peace is broken, not by
the just war, but by the previous injustice which has rendered
the war necessary. The war itself is, necessarily, no more re-
pugnant to the virtue of peace than medicine is to health. The
mission of our Saviour is not opposed to peace, because followed
by certain evils of which he speaks, St. Matt. x. 34-36, and
which were not the end for which he came into world. The
preaching of the Gospel is not inconsistent with the virtue of
peace, because, through the depravity and wickedness of men,
it often occasions discord, divisions, and even wars ; nor do they
who faithfully preach it any the less " follow after the things
which make for peace."
In asserting that war is not necessarily unlawful, we are far
from pretending that all wars are just, or that war may ever be
waged for slight and trivial offences. The nation is bound stu-
diously to avoid it, to forbear till forbearance ceases to be a vir-
tue, and appeal to arms only as the last resort, after all other
* Epist. 205, Ad Bonifacium Comitem.
336 WAR AND LOYALTY.
appeals have failed, or it is morally certain that they must fail.
But when its rights are seriously invaded, when the offender
will not listen to reason, and continues his injustice, the nation
may appeal to arms, and commit its cause to the God of battles.
The responsibility of the appeal rests on the offender whose in-
justice has provoked it.
It may be said that war is unjustifiable, because, if all would
practise justice, there could be no war. Undoubtedly, if all
men and nations were wise and just, wars would cease. We
might then, in very deed, "beat our swords into ploughshares
and our spears into pruning-hooks," and learn war no more.
We should, not in vision only, but in reality, possess universal
peace. So, if all individuals understood and practised the moral
and Christian virtues in their perfection, there would be no oc-
casion for penal codes, and a police to enforce them. If no
wrongs or outrages were committed, there would be none to be
repressed or punished. If there were no diseases, there would
be none to cure. If the world were quite another world than it
is, it would be. But so long as the world is what it is, so long
as man foils to respect the rights of man, the penal code and
police will be necessary ; so long as diseases obtain, the physi-
cian and his drugs, nauseous as they are, will be indispensable ;
and so long as nation continues to encroach on nation, the ag-
grieved party will have the right and be compelled to defend
and avenge itself by an appeal to arms, terrible as that appeal
may be, and deplorable as may be the necessity which de-
mands it.
The evils of war are great, but not the greatest. It is a
greater evil to lose national freedom, to become the tributaries
or the slaves of the foreigner, to see the sanctity of our homes
invaded, our altars desecrated, and our wives and children made
the prey of the ruthless oppressor. These are evils which do
not die with us, but may descend upon our posterity through all
coming generations. The man who will look tamely on and see
altars and home defiled, all that is sacred and dear wrested from
him, and his country stricken from the roll of nations, has as
WAR AND LOYALTY. 337
little reason to applaud himself for his morals as for his man-
hood. No doubt, philanthropy may weep over the wounded
and the dying ; but it is no great evil to die. It is appointed
unto all men to die, and, so far as the death itself is concerned,
it matters not whether it comes a few months earlier or a few
months later, on the battle-field or in our own bedchambers.
The evil is not in dying, but in dying unprepared. If pre-
pared, and the soldier, fighting by command of his country in
her cause, may be prepared, it is of little consequence whether
the death come in the shape of sabre-cut or leaden bullet, or in
that of disease or old age. The tears of the sentimentalist are
lost upon him who is conscious of his responsibilities, that he is
commanded to place duty before death, and to weigh no dan-
ger against fidelity to his God and his country. Physical pain
is not worth counting. Accumulate all that you can imagine,
the Christian greets it with joy when it lies in the pathway of
his duty. He who cannot take his life in his hand, and, pausing
not for an instant before the accumulated tortures of years, rush
in, at the call of duty, where " blows fall thickest, and blows fall
heaviest," deserves rebuke for his moral weakness, rather than
commendation for his " peaceable dispositions."
Wars, w r e have been told, cost money ; and we have among
us men piquing themselves on their lofty spiritual views, accus-
ing the age of being low and utilitarian, and setting themselves
up as moral and religious reformers, who can sit calmly down and
cast up in dollars and cents the expenses of war, and point to
the amount as an unanswerable argument against its lawfulness.
War unquestionably costs money, and so do food and clothing.
But the sums expended in war would, if applied to that pur-
pose, found so many schools and universities, and educate so
many children ! The amount expended for food and clothing-
would found a larger number of schools and universities, and
educate a larger number of children. You should ask, not.
Will it cost money ? but, Is it necessary, is it just ? Would you
weigh gold in the balance with duty, justice, patriotism, hero-
338 WAR AND LOYALTY.
ism ? If so, slink back to your tribe, and never aspire to the
dignity of being contemptible.
But having established that war may be necessary and just,
the question comes up, What is the duty of the citizen or sub-
ject, when his government is actually engaged in war ? This is
a question of some moment, especially at the present time, when
there are so many among us who entertain very loose notions
of allegiance, and hardly admit that loyalty is or can be a virtue.
We may answer, in general terms, that, when a nation declares
war, the war is a law of the land, and binds the subject to the
same extent and for the same reason as any other law of the
land. The whole question is simply a question of the obligation
of the citizen to obey the law. So far as the subject is bound
to obey the law, so far he is bound to render all the aid in prose-
cuting the war the government commands him to render, and in
the form in which it commands it.
If the government leaves it optional with the citizen whether to
take an active part in the war or not, be is unquestionably bound
to remain passive, if he believes the war to be unjust. Conse-
quently, no foreigner, owing no allegiance to the sovereign mak-
ing the war, can volunteer his services, if he entertains any
scruples about its justice. But the subject, though entertaining
doubts about the justice of a given war in its incipient stages,
believing his government too hasty in its proceedings, and not
so forbearing as it might and should have been, yet after the war
has been declared, after his country is involved in it, can retreat
only by suffering grievous wrongs, and seeks now to advance
only for the purpose of securing a just and lasting peace, may, no
doubt, oven volunteer his active services, if he honestly believes
them to be necessary ; for the war now has changed its original
character, has ceased to be aggressive, and become defensive and
just. In such a case, love of country, and the general duty of
each citizen to defend his country, to preserve its freedom and
independence, override the scruples he felt with regard to the
war in it* incipient stages, and enable him to take part in it with
WAR AND LOYALTY. 339
a safe conscience. But, however this may be, it is clear, that,
when the government has actually declared war, and actually
commands the services, of the subject, he is bound in conscience,
whatever may be his private convictions of the justice of the war,
to render them, on the ground that he is bound in conscience to
obey the law. If he takes part in obedience to the command
of the government, he takes part, even though his private con-
viction is against the war, with a good conscience ; because the
motive from which he acts is not to prosecute a war he does not
regard as just, but to obey his sovereign, which he is not at
liberty not to do, and which he must do for conscience' sake.
The law binds in conscience, because all legitimate govern-
ment exists by divine appointment, and has a divine right to
make laws. For the same reason, then, that we are bound in
conscience to obey God, we are bound in conscience to obey the
law. The sovereignty resides in the nation, but is derived from
God. Per me reges regnant, et legum conditoresjusta deccrnunt.
" By me kings reign and lawgivers decree just things." Prov.
viii. 15. "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers ; for
there is no power but from God ; and the powers that are, are
ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power resist-
eth the ordinance of God, and they that resist purchase damna-
tion to themselves." Rom. xiii. 1,2. Since, then, the nation is
sovereign by divine appointment, it follows necessarily, that,
when the sovereign authority of the nation declares war, and
commands the services of the subject, he is held, on his alle-
giance to God, who is the King of kings and Sovereign of sover-
eigns, to render them, and cannot refuse without purchasing
damnation to himself.
The nation is not constituted sovereign by the assent of the
individuals of which it is composed, for it must be a sovereign
nation before individuals have or can have the right of assenting
or dissenting. The error of Rousseau and of some of our own
politicians is in assuming that the sovereignty, the authority to
institute government, to make and execute laws, inheres prima-
rily in the people distributively, as equal, independent individu*
340 WAR AND LOYALTY.
als, and is subsequently possessed by the people collectively, as a
political organism or person, by virtue of the assent of the peo-
ple taken distributively. The motive for advocating this view in
twofold : the first is, to make the basis of sovereignty purely hu-
man ; and the second, to take from actually existing govern-
ments all claims to inviolability, and thus establish a sort of
legal right on the part of subjects to rebel against the constitut-
ed authorities, whenever they judge it to be expedient. The
doctrine is the offspring of an age disposed to revolt from both
God and the state, and can be regarded only with horror by the
Christian and the patriot. The true doctrine is, that every na-
tion, that is, every people taken collectively, as a moral unity, as
a collective individual, is, by the fact that it is a nation, sover-
eign, and sovereign by the ordinance of God. Being thus in-
vested by the divine will with the political sovereignty, the na-
tion acting in its sovereign capacity has, saving the divine law,
the right to institute such forms of government, or to adopt such
methods for the expression of its sovereign will, as it in its pru-
dence judges best. It may institute a monarchy, an aristocracy,
or a pure democracy ; it may combine these three forms, or any
two of them, in any proportion and degree, and establish such
mixed governments as it pleases ; or it may reject all these
forms, and, as with us, establish representative government, to
be carried on through the medium of popular election. Which
is wisest and best is for each nation to decide for itself. In
point of fact, we suppose all are best where they fit, and worst
where they do not fit. But however individuals may speculate,
and whatever preferences as simple individuals they may have,
the nation acting in its sovereign capacity is the sovereign arbit-
er, and alone decides which shall be adopted, and having once
decided, that form which it adopts is legitimate, exists by divine
right, and its legitimate acts are laws, and bind in the interior as
well as in the exterior court.
This is as true of the actual American governments as of any
others. The American people were created by their colonial
governments, established by legitimate authority, bodies corpo-
WAR AND LOYALTY. 341
rate and politic subject to the crown of Great Britian. But the
charters granted by the crown, creating the colonial govern-
ments, and reserving the allegiance of the colonies, expressed or
necessarily implied reciprocal obligations. There was an express
or implied contract between the crown and the colonies. When
the crown, on its part, broke the contract, as we alleged it did,
it forfeited its rights, and the colonies were ipso facto absolved
from their allegiance, and necessarily became ipso facto free and
independent states or nations, as Great Britiain herself subse-
quently acknowledged them to be. As independent nations,
they possessed by the ordinance of God, who makes every
nation, in that it is a nation, sovereign, the right of self-govern-
ment, and were free to devise and adopt such forms of govern-
ment, not repugnant to the divine law, as they in the exercise
of their sovereign wisdom judged to be most expedient. They,
in the exercise of the right given them by Almighty God, es-
tablished the representative form of government, under a fed-
eral head. This form of government, therefore, exists with us
by divine right, is an ordinance of God. As such it is sover-
eign and inviolable ; as such it has from God authority to enact
laws for the common good. Then, since we are all bound in
conscience to obey God, we are bound to obey the government,
and when it enacts war, just the same as when it enacts any
thing else.
Ignorant, conceited, and unbelieving politicians, who would be
free to rule, but not bound to obey, may affect to be startled,
whenever there is speech of the divine right of government ;
but we really say nothing that militates in the least conceivable
degree against popular sovereignty. Our real offence consists, not
in denying the popular sovereignty, but in asserting for it a divine
sanction. What, indeed, is it we say ? Simply, that the nation,
that is, the people as a moral unity, or collective individual, as
distinguished from the people taken distributively, is sovereign
by the ordinance of God ; from which it follows, that the people
taken distributively owe allegiance to the nation, and are bound
to obey all the sovereign enactments of the government, not
342 WAR AND LOYALTY.
merely because it is human government, but because it is human
government governing by divine right. This abridges no right
of the sovereign people, but confirms its rights by the highest of
all possible sanctions. It leaves the nation free to adopt, if it
chooses, a pure democracy, and commands us, even though in-
dividually disapproving that form of government, to obey it for
conscience' sake. In a word, the doctrine we lay down makes
th<3 nation that is, the whole people taken collectively sover-
eign and inviolable, and the form of government it adopts, legit
imate and sacred, as the ordinance of God. It no doubt, therefore,
stamps with the divine as well as the national displeasure what
bv a strange perversion is termed sometimes " the sacred right
of insurrection," and utterly condemns all attempts at rebellion
or resistance to establish government, in the legitimate exercise
of its legitimate functions, as so many attacks on the inviolability
of the nation, and therefore on the inviolability of God himself,
who ordains that every nation, in that it is a nation, shall be
sovereign and inviolable. It can tolerate no efforts of any por-
tion of the people to change by violence any established form
of government for the sake of establishing another form which
they may believe to be more for the common good. But it
leaves individuals perfectly free to labor through legal forms, in
an orderly manner, for the amelioration of the laws and institu-
tions of the country, and the nation itself, when acting in its
sovereign capacity, as we did at the epoch of what we call our
Revolution, or as we do through the legal conventions of the
people, to change even the form of the government, and to or-
dain such new methods for the expression of its sovereign will
as it may believe to be most for the common good.* It leaves
the people as the commonwealth and the people as individuals
all the freedom there is this side of license, and forbids nothing
that is compatible with national sovereignty and inviolability.
It can be objected to, then, by none who are not prepared to
object to all government, all law, and all order.
* See St. Th., Summa, 1. 2, Q. 97, a. 1, and St. Aug., De Libero
Jlrbitrio, I., c. 6.
WAR AND LOYALTY. 343
The duty of obedience to law is precisely the same under a
republican government as under any other form of government.
For though the people make the law, yet it is not in the same
sense as that in which they are held to obey it. They make
the law in their collective sense, as a moral unity, or public
person ; they are held to obey in their distributive capacity, as
simple individuals. In their quality of electors, acting through
legal forms prescribed by sovereign authority, the people with
us make the law, but it is only when so acting that they make
it, have any voice in making it, or incur any responsibility, be
the law what it may. As individuals acting in any other capac-
ity, they are subjects, and in the same sense and to the same
extent as they would be in case they enjoyed no elective fran-
chise at all. The law is as imperative with us as it is under
any other form of government, and can no more be resisted
with a safe conscience than elsewhere.
This assumed, the individual in his quality of subject stands
here in relation to the law precisely as he does in those coun-
tries where there is no elective franchise. He incurs, indeed,
as elector, a responsibility for the law, and cannot be exempted
from blame, if he have not done all in his power to make the
law just and useful ; but when the proper authorities have en-
acted and promulgated the law, he in his quality of subject
incurs no responsibility by obeying it, in consequence of his re-
sponsibility as an elector in making it. The act of making the
law was not his individual act, and he is responsible for it, pro-
viding he acted with proper motives, only so far as he went to
make up the collective unity that enacted it. But the act of
obedience or of disobedience is purely his individual act, and is
unaffected, as obedience or disobedience, by any act of his per-
formed in another capacity, in which lie acts not as an individ-
ual, but as a part of a whole. Suppose, then, I look upon the
war declared by my government as unjust or uncalled for. This
may be a good reason why I should exert myself in my quality
of elector to get the law declaring it repealed, but it leaves me
in my quality of subject precisely where I should be in case I
044 WAR AND LOYALTi'.
had no elective franchise. I am just as much bound to obey
the law declaring the war, and incur no more blame for aiding
in prosecuting it. The citizen, when he believes a law unjust,
is doubtless bound as an elector to seek its repeal ; but till re-
pealed, he is as much bound to obey as he would be if he were
no elector, and only a simple subject; and being so bound, in-
curs no blame in obeying it, that he would not then also incur.
Rut is there no limit to this obedience to law ? Have I not
the right to judge the acts of authority, and decide for myself
whether they are such as I ought or ought not to obey ? That
is, Does or does not the law depend on the assent of the govern-
ed for its validity ? It is a sort of maxim with us Americans,
that no man can be justly held to obey a law to which he has
not assented. This, taken absolutely, is not admissible. The sov-
ereign authority resides in the people as a whole, taken collec-
tively, not in the people distributively, and is derived not from
the people as individuals, as Rousseau dreamed, but from God,
as we have before proved from the Holy Scriptures. Moreover,
to make the law depend on the assent of the governed, that is,
on the assent of the subject, is to deny that the law is law, that
the subject is a subject, and to assert that one is bound by no
law, but free to do as he pleases. There can be no legitimate
government unless it have the right to govern, and there can
be no right to govern where there is not a correlative obligation
to obey. If the law cannot bind the subject till he gives his
assent, and he is free to give or withhold his assent, he is, and
can be, under no obligation to obey unless he chooses, and then
there is no right on the part of the government to enforce obe-
dience; then no right to govern; and then no government.
To make the law depend for its validity on the assent of the
governed is, then, the denial of all government. But govern-
ment exists by divine right. It has from God the right to com-
mand. Then it is not under the necessity of entreating or re-
questing the subject to be so complacent as to obey. The law,
then, is complete, the moment it is enacted and promulgated
by the proper authority. If 7 the law is then complete, the sub-
WUl AND LOYALTY. 345
ject has no .assent to give or withhold, no judgment to form, no
decision to take, but that to obey.
Nevertheless, there is a sense, in this country, and perhaps in
all countries, in which it is true that the assent of the governed
is essential to the validity of the law but this is the assent they
give in their quality of electors, through the medium of their
representatives in enacting the law, not an assent which they
give as subjects to the law after it is enacted and promulgated.
The distinction is obvious and important. It is only in our
quality of electors, through the medium of our representatives,
that we have any legislative authority, any assent, to give or to
withhold. But in this quality we have already assented to the
law, otherwise it could not have been enacted, since there is no
power with us but the people in this quality and through this
medium that does or can make the law. Having thus assented,
nay, enacted the law, we have no more assent to give, and it
would be absurd to seek, after this, the assent of the people in
their capacity of simple individuals, in which they are simply
subjects, and have no legislative voice whatever. Having spok-
en once in our legislative capacity, as electors, through our rep-
resentatives, we must obey, till, by speaking again in the same
capacity and through the same medium, we repeal the law.
That is, when the people have made the law, they must ob^y
it, till they, through the forms through which they made it,
repeal it.
But laws may undoubtedly be unjust. Am I bound to obey
unjust laws ? We will let St. Thomas answer this question for
us. " Laws imposed by human authority may be either just or
unjust. If they are indeed just, they bind in conscience, by the
eternal law from which they are derived, according to Prov. viii.
15, ' Per me reges regnant, et legum conditores justa decernunt?
They are just when they ordain what is for the common good,
when enacted by an authority which does not exceed its powers,
and when they distribute in equal proportions the burdens they
impose upon the subjects for the common good. For, since each
man is a part of the multitude, every man belongs to the multi-
346 WAR AND LOYALTY.
tude in that which he is and in that which he has, in like man-
ner as the part belongs in what it is to the whole, and hence
nature allows a certain detriment to the part that the whole may
be saved. Consequently, laws of this kind, which proportion
equally the burdens imposed, are just, bind in conscience, and
are legal laws. But laws may be unjust in two senses. 1. By
contrariety to human good, in the respects just mentioned.
They are unjust, when a prince imposes burdens on his subjects,
not for the common good, but rather for his own glory or cu-
pidity, when they exceed the commission or the authority which
ordains them, and when the burdens they impose, even though
for the common good, are not equally proportioned. Such acts
are violences rather than laws, as St. Augustine says, De Lib.
Arb., I., c. 5. * Lex esse non vidctur, quce justa non fuerit. 1
Laws of this kind do not bind in conscience, unless, perchance,
for the avoiding of scandal or disorder, for which a man must
forego his own rights, according to St. Matt. v. 40, 41, ' Qui
anyariavcrit te mille passus, vade cum eo alia duo ; et qui ab-
stulerit tibi tunicam, da ei et pallium. 1 2. Laws may be unjust
by contrariety to divine good, as the edicts of tyrants command-
ing idolatry or other things forbidden by the divine law. Such
laws are to be observed in no sense whatever, since, Acts iv., it
is necessary to obey God rather than men." *
The principle is, that all just laws bind in conscience ; but,
with regard to unjust laws, we must distinguish between those
which are unjust because they ordain what is repugnant to hu-
man good, and those which are unjust because they ordain what
is repugnant to the divine law. The latter do not bind, but we
are bound in conscience to refuse to obey them at all hazards ;
the former, when they only require us to suffer wrong, and if
they go farther and command us to do wrong, they are identical
with the latter, we may obey, and are bound to obey, when
our disobedience would cause scandal or breed disturbance in
the state.
But \?ho is to determine whether the laws are just or unjust?
* Summa, 1 2, Ques. 96, a. 4.
WAR AND LOYALTY. 347
Not absolutely in all cases the state, for that would make the
distinction between just and unjust laws nugatory, since the
state, in enacting a law, decides that it is just ; not the individ-
ual, for that would make the law depend on the assent of the
subject for its legality, which we have seen is not the fact, and
cannot be the fact, if we are to have government at all. There
is here, to many minds, no doubt, a serious difficulty ; but, with-
out considering it in a light which would involve a controversy
foreign to our present purpose, we may answer the question by
laying down the principle, that authority is always presumptively
in the right, and the law primd facie evidence of justice. The
onus probandi rests on the shoulders of the subject, who must
prove the law to be unjust, before he can have the right to re-
fuse it obedience. For this his own private judgment or con-
viction can never suffice. If he can allege nothing against the
law but his own individual persuasion of its injustice, he is
bound, by his general obligation to obey the laws, to obey it.
No one, then, can ever be justified in disobeying on his own pri-
vate authority. He must sustain his refusal to obey by an au-
thority higher than his own, higher than that of the state, or
else he will be guilty of resisting the ordinance of God, and,
therefore, purchase damnation to himself. Hence, where there
is no infallible authority to decide, the subject must always pre-
sume the law to be just, and faithfully obey it, unless it mani-
festly and undeniably ordains what is wrong in itself, and pro-
hibited by the law of God,
This rule may strike some as too stringent, but, if examined,
closely, it will be found to allow all the liberty to the subject
compatible with the existence of government. If, for instance,
the government should command me to lie, to steal, to rob, to
bear false witness, or any thing else manifestly against the law
of nature or the law of God, I should hold myself bound to
disobey, and to take the consequences of my disobedience. So,
also, if my government should declare war against an unoffend-
ing state, manifestly for the purpose of stripping it of its ter-
ritory, destroying its independence, and reducing its people to
348 WAR AND LOYALTY.
slavery, or for the purpose of overthrowing the Christian religion
and substituting a false religion, and should command me to
aid it in its nefarious designs, I should hold myself bound in
conscience to refuse at all hazards; for such a war would be
manifestly and palpably unjust, not in my judgment only, but
in that of all sound-minded men. Such a case would be clear,
and duty would be so plain that no question could arise. But
in a case less clear and manifest, in a case where there was
room for doubt, for an honest difference of opinion, I should
hold myself bound to obey the orders of the government, for
conscience' sake, leaving the responsibility with it, sure of in-
curring no blame myself.
In conclusion, we say, that, though we have defended the
lawfulness of war, when declared by the sovereign authority, for
a just cause, and prosecuted with right intentions, we have no
sympathy with that restless and ambitious spirit that craves war
for the sake of excitement or glory. Only a stern necessity can
ever justify the resort to arms, and that necessity does not in
reality often exist. In most cases, the war, with a little pru-
dence, a little forbearance, a little use of reason, might be avoid-
ed ; and a terrible responsibility rests upon rulers when they
unnecessarily plunge two nations in the horrors of war. Yet it
belongs to the sovereign authority to jvidge of the necessity of
the war, no less than to declare it ; and when not manifestly
and undeniably for that which is wrong in itself, the subject is
bound to obey, and give his life, if need be, for his country.
But the subject can, with a good conscience, fight only under
the national banner. He can never justly fight under the blood-
red flag of the factionist or of the revolutionist. The loyal
subject hears no call to the battle-field but that of his sovereign.
This sovereign he hears, by him he stands, for him he is ready
to fight against any enemies, from within or from without. But
there he stops. He can join with no faction, with no party,
against the legitimate authorities of his country. No dreams
of free institutions, of popular government, of an earthly para-
dise can make him raise the parricidal hand, and seek by vio-
THE HIGHER LAW. 349
lence to overthrow legitimate government, and introduce a new
political order. No, dearly as we love liberal institutions, and
as ready as we are to spill our blood in their defense where
they are the legal order, we would rush to the side of authority,
and spill the same blood against them, if there were an attempt
by violence to introduce them. True freedom is only where the
law is supreme, and the law is supreme only where the people
reverence it, and feel themselves bound by their duty to God to
obey it.
THE HIGHER LAW.*
JANUARY, 1851.
PROFESSOR STUART appears to have written this pamphlet
from patriotic motives, with an earnest desire to allay the uncall-
ed for popular agitation on the subject of negro slavery, and to
contribute his share towards the maintenance of domestic peace,
and the preservation of the Union. His chief purpose appears
to have been to remove the scruples of some of his friends, by
showing that a man may with a good conscience support the Fed-
eral Constitution although it recognizes slavery, and requires the
slave escaping into a non-slaveholding State to be given up on
the demand of his owner ; and though he is no great proficient
in moral theology, and his style is prolix, prosy, and at times
even garrulous, he has shown this to the satisfaction of all but
mere factionists and cavillers.
We do not think that the learned Professor has made out his
case as conclusively as he might have done. He is a man of
respectable ability and attainments, bnt not remarkable for the
strength or acutness of his logical powers. He makes now and
* Conscience and the Constitution, with Remarks on the recent
Speech of the Hon. Daniel Webster in the Senate of the United States
on the Subject of Slavery. By MOSES STUART. Boston : Crocker &
Brewster. 1S50. 8vo. pp. 119.
350
THE HIGHER LAW.
then a slip, of which an uncandid critic might take advantage.
He is strongly opposed to slavery, but wishes at the same time
to prove that the Christian may with a good conscience be a
slave-holder. In order to prove this, he asserts and proves that
slavery is not malum in se, and therefore, if a sin at all, it is so
only accidentally. But in order to justify his sincere aversion
to slavery, he maintains that it is always and everywhere an
evil, and execuses the old patriarchs for holding slaves only on
the ground of invincible ignorance ! In the darkness of those
early ages men knew and could know no better ! This we need
not say is in contradiction to his assertion that slavery is not
malum in se. But passing over slips of this sort, somewhat
common in all Professor Stuart's writings that have fallen under
our notice, and looking only to the main design and argument
of the pamphlet, we can very cheerfully commend it to our
Protestant readers.
For ourselves, we agree with Professor Stuart that slavery is
not malum in se. We hold that in some cases at least slavery
is justifiable, and to the slave even a blessing. To the slave it
is always good or evil according as he wills it to be one or the
other, or according to the spirit with which he bears it. If he
regards it as a penance, and submits to it in a true penitential
spirit, it is a blessing to him, a great mercy, as are on the same
condition to every one of us all the sufferings and afflictions of
this life. We should covet in this world, not happiness, but
suffering, and the more grievous our afflictions, the more should
we rejoice and give thanks. Christianity does not teach carnal
Judaism, but condemns it, and commands its opposite as the
condition of all real good, whether for this world or for that
which is to come. To the master, slavery is not an evil, when
he does not abuse it ; when he has not himself participated in
reducing those born free to servitude ; when he treats his slaves
with kindness and humanity, and faithfully watches over their
moral and religious well-being. The relation of master and
man, as to the authority of the former and the subjection of the
latter, diners in nothing from the relation of father and son
THE HIGHER LAW. 351
while the son is under age, and there is nothing which necessa-
rily makes the relation less advantageous to either party in the
one case than in the other.
That slavery as it exists in our Southern States is an evil, we
do not doubt; but it is so accidentally, not necessarily. The
evil is not in the relation of slavery itself, but in the fact that
the great body of the masters do not bring up their slaves in
the Church of God, and train or suffer them to be trained to ob-
serve the precepts of the Divine law. The mass of the slaves
in this country grow up in heresy or heathenism, to the everlast-
ing destruction of their souls. Here is the evil we see and de-
plore, an evil, however, which none but Catholics do or can
feel with much vividness. It is an evil which does not and can-
not weigh much with Protestants, for the slaves in general are
as little heathen and fully as orthodox as their masters. If the
masters were good Catholics, as they ought to be, and are under
the condemnation of God for not being, and brought up, as they
are bound to do, their slaves in the belief and practice of the
Catholic religion, there would be no evil in negro slavery to dis~
turb us. The only evils we see in it are moral and spiritual,
inseparable from heresy and heathenism. The physical and
sentimental evils, or pretended evils, about which Abolitionists
and philanthropists keep up such a clamor do not move us in
the least. We place not the slightest value on what the men
of this world call liberty, and we are taught by religion that
poverty and suffering are far more enviable than riches and sen-
sual enjoyment.
But conceding the evil of slavery as it exists in this country,
it is far from certain that it is an evil that would be mitigated
by emancipation, or that emancipation would not be even a
greater evil. The negroes are here, and here they must remain.
This is a " fixed fact." Taking the American people as they
are, and as they are likely to be for some time to come, with
their pride, prejudices, devotion to material interests, and hatred
or disregard of Christian truth and morals, it is clear to us that
the condition of the negro as a slave is even less evil than would
352 THE H Kill Ell LAW.
be his condition as a freedman. The freed negroes amongst us
are as a body, to say the least, no less immoral and heathen than
the slaves themselves. They are the pests of our Northern
cities, especially since they have come under the protection of
our philanthropists. With a few honorable exceptions, they
are low and degraded, steeped in vice and overflowing with
crime. Even in our own city, almost at the moment we write,
they are parading our streets in armed bands, for the avowed
purpose of resisting the execution of the laws. Let loose some
two or three millions like them, and there would be no living in
the American community. Give them freedom and the right to
vote in our elections, and the whole country would be at the
mercy of the lowest and most worthless of our demagogues.
With only Protestantism, indifferentism, infidelity, or savage
fanaticism to restrain them, all their base and disorderly passions
would be unchained, and our community would be a hell upon
earth. No ; before we talk of emancipation, before we can ven-
ture upon it with the least conceivable advantage to the slaves,
we must train them, and train the white American people also,
to habits of self-denial and moral virtue under the regimen of
the Catholic Church, which alone has power to subdue the bar-
barous elements of our nature, and to enable men of widely
different races, complexions, and characteristics to live together
in the bonds of peace and brotherhood. We cannot, therefore,
agree with Professor Stuart in his demand for emancipation, and
we are decidedly opposed, for the .present at least, not only to
the fanatical proceedings set on foot by our miserable Abolition-
ists and philanthropists to effect emancipation, but to emancipa-
tion itself. In the present state of things, emancipation would
be a greater evil than slavery, and of two evils we are bound to
choose the least. We have heard enough of liberty and the
rights of man ; it is high time to hear something of the duties of
men and the rights of authority.
We write very deliberately, and are prepared for all the oblo-
quy which may be showered upon us for what we write. The
cry of liberty has gone forth ; we, as well as others, have heard
THE HIGHER LAW. 353
it ; it has gone forth and been echoed and reechoed from every
quarter, till the world has become maddened with it. The
voice of law, of order, of wisdom, of justice, of truth, of expe-
rience, of common sense, is drowned in the tumultuous shouts
of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ! shouts fit, in the sense they
are uttered, only for assembled demons declaring war upon the
Eternal God. But this should be our shame, not our boast.
It ought not to be, and, if the world is to continue, must soon
cease to be. Society cannot subsist where the rights of author-
ity are forgotten, and loyalty and obedience are foresworn.
There is no use in multiplying words on the subject. Man is a
social being, and cannot live without society ; society is imprac-
ticable and inconceivable without government ; and government
is impossible where its right to command is denied, or the obli-
gation to obey it is not recognized. It is of the essence of gov-
ernment to restrain, and a government that imposes no restraint,
that leaves every one free to do whatever seeraeth right in his
own eyes, is no government at all. The first want of every peo-
ple is strong and efficient government, a regularly constituted
authority, that has the right and the power to enforce submis-
sion to its will. No matter what the form of your government,
no matter in whose hands the power is lodged, in the hands
of the king, of the lords, or the commons, it must, in so far as
government at all, be sovereign, clothed, under God, with su-
preme authority, and be respected as such, or society is only Bed-
lam without its keeper.
This is the great truth the American people, in their insane
clamor about the rights of man and the largest liberty, that is
to say, full license to every man, lose sight of, or in reality deny ;
and it is on this truth, not on liberty, for which all are crying
out, that it is necessary now to insist, both in season and out of
season. There may be times and countries when and where
the true servants of God must seek to restrict the action of gov-
ernment, and lessen the prerogatives of power ; but assuredly
here and now our duty is not to clamor for liberty or emanci-
pation, but to reassert the rights of authority and the majesty
354 THE HIGHER LAW.
of law. You will be decried, if you do so. No doubt of it.
But what then ? When was it popular to insist on the special
truth demanded by one's own age ? When was it that one
could really serve his age or country without falling under its
condemnation ? When was it that the multitude were known
to applaud him who rebuked them for their errors, exposed to
them the dangers into which they were running by following
their dominant tendencies, and presented them the truth needed
for their salvation ? What great or good man ever proposed to
himself to serve his fellow-men by following their instincts, flat-
tering their prejudices, and inflaming their passions ? Who
knows not that error and sin come by nature, and that virture is
achieved only by effort, by violence, by heroic struggle against
even ourselves ? Is not the hero always a soldier ? Let then,
the multitude clamor, let the age denounce, let the wicked rage,
let earth and hell do their worst, what care you, heroic soldier
of the King of kings ? Go forth and meet the enemy. Charge,
and charge home, where your Immortal Leader gives the word,
and leave the responsibility to him. If you fall, so much the
greater glory for you, so much the more certain your victory,
and your triumph.
But we are straying from the point we had in mind when we
set out. Our purpose was, to offer some remarks on what is
termed " the higher law " to which the opponents of the recent
Fugitive Slave Law appeal to justify their refusal to execute it.
The Hon. Mr. Seward, one of the Senators from New York, in
the debate in the Senate during the last session of Congress on
the Fugitive Slave Bill, refused to vote for the measure, although
necessary to carry out an express constitutional provision, on the
ground that to give up a fugitive slave is contrary to the law
of God ; and the Abolitionists and Free Soilers refuse to execute
the law, and even in some instances resist its execution, on the
same ground. When the honorable Senator appealed from the
Constitution to the law of God, as a higher law, he was told by
the advocates of the bill, that, having just taken his oath to
support the Constitution, he had debarred himself from the
THE HIGHER LAW. 355
right, while retaining his seat in the Senate, to appeal from it
to any law requiring him to act in contravention of its provi-
sions. The Abolitionists and Free Soilers immediately conclud-
ed from this that the advocates of the bill denied the reality of
any law higher than the Constitution, and their papers and
periodicals teem with articles and essays to prove the supremacy
of the law of God. The question is one of no little gravity, and,
to our Protestant friends, of no little perplexity. We may, there-
fore, be allowed to devote a few pages to its consideration.
We agree entirely with Mr. Seward and his Abolition and
Free Soil friends, as to the fact that there is a higher law than
the Constitution. The law of God is supreme, and overrides all
human enactments, and every human enactment incompatible
with it is null and void from the beginning, and cannot be obeyed
with a good conscience, for "we must obey God rather than men."
This is the great truth statesmen and lawyers are extremely
prone to overlook, which the temporal authority not seldom
practically denies, and on which the Church never fails to insist.
This truth is so frequently denied, so frequently outraged, that
we are glad to find it asserted by Mr. Seward and his friends,
although they assert it in a case and for a purpose in which we
do not and cannot sympathize with them.
But the concession of the fact of a higher law than the Con-
stitution does not of itself justify the appeal to it against the
Constitution, either by Mr. Seward or the opponents of the
Fugitive Slave Law. Mr. Seward had no right, while holding
his seat in the Senate under the Constitution, to appeal to this
higher law against the Constitution, because that was to deny
the very authority by which he held his seat. The Constitu-
tion, if repugnant to the law of God, is null and void, is without
authority, and as Mr. Seward held his seat by virtue of its au-
thority, he could have no authority for holding his seat, after
having declared it to be null and void, because the Constitution
is a mere compact, and the Federal Government has no existence
independent of it, or powers not created by it. This is an in-
convenience he does not appear to have considered. The prin-
356 THE HIGHER LAW.
ciple that would have justified his refusal to obey the Constitu-
tion would have deprived him of his seat as a Senator. More-
over, the question of the compatibility or incompatibility of the
Constitution with the law of God was a question for him to have
raised and settled before taking his senatorial oath. Could he
conscientiously swear to support the Constitution ? If he could,
he could not afterwards refuse to carry out any of its imperative
provisions, on the ground of its being contrary to the higher law ;
for he would in swearing to support the Constitution declare in
the most solemn manner in his power, that in his belief at least
it imposed upon him no duty contrary to his duty to God, since
to swear to support a constution repugnant to the Divine law re
to take an unlawful oath, and to swear with the deliberate in-
tention of not keeping one's oath is to take a false oath. After
having taken his oath to support the Constitution, the Senator
had, so far as he was concerned, settled the question, and it was
no longer for him an open question. In calling God to witness
his determination to support the Constitution, he had called
God to witness his conviction of the compatibility of the Consti-
tution with the law of God, and therefore left himself no plea
for appealing from it to a higher law. If he discovered the in-
compatibility of the imperative provisions of the Constitution
only after having taken his oath, he was bound from that mo-
ment to resign his seat. In any view of the case, therefore, we
choose to take, Mr. Seward was not and could not be justified
in appealing to a law above the Constitution against the Consti-
tiori while he retained his seat under it and remained bound by
his oath to support it. It is then perfectly easy to condemn the
appeal of the Senator, without, as Abolitionists and Free Soilers
pretend, falling into the monstrous error of denying the suprem-
acy of the Divine law, and maintaining that there is no law
above the Constitution.
What we have said is conclusive against the honorable Sena-
tor from New York, but it does not precisely apply to the case
of those who resist or refuse to obey the Fugitive Slave Law
now that it has been passed. These persons take the ground
THE HIGHER LAW. 35*7
that the law of God is higher than any human law, and there-
fore we can in no case be bound to obey a human law that is in
contravention of it. Such a law is a violence rather than a law,
and we are commanded by God himself to resist it, at least pas-
sively. All this is undeniable in the case of every human en-
actment that really does command us to act contrary to the law
of God. To this we hold, as firmly as man can hold to any
thing, and to this every Christian is bound to hold even unto
death. This is the grand principle held by the old martyrs, and
therefore they chose martyrdom rather than obedience to the
state commanding them to act contrary to the Divine law.
But who is to decide whether a special civil enactment be or be
not repugnant to the law of God ? Here is a grave and a per-
plexing question for those who have no divinely authorized in-
terpreter of the Divine law. The Abolitionists and Free Soilers,
adopting the .Protestant principle of private judgment, claim the
right to decide each for himself. But this places the individual
above the state, private judgment above the law, and is wholly
incompatible with the simplest conception of civil government.
No civil government can exist, none is conceivable even, where
every individual is free to disobey its orders whenever they do
not happen to square with his private convictions of what is the
law of God. The principle of private judgment, adopted by
Protestants in religious matters, it is well known, has destroyed
for them the church as an authoritative body, and put an end
to every thing like ecclesiastical authority ; transferred to civil
matters, it would equally put an end to the state, and abolish
all civil authority, and establish the reign of anarchy or license.
Clearly, if government is to be retained, and to govern, the right
to decide when a civil enactment does or does not conflict with
the law of God cannot be lodged in the individual subject.
Where then shall it be lodged ? In the state ? Then are you
bound to absolute obedience to any and every law the state may
enact ; you make the state supreme, absolute, and deny your
own principle of a higher law than the civil law. You have
then no appeal from the state, and no relief for conscience, which
358 THE HIGHER LAW.
is absolute civil despotism. Here is a sad dilemma for our un-
catholic countrymen, which admirably demonstrates the unsuit-
ableness of Protestant principles for practical life. If they assert
the principle of private judgment in order to save individual lib-
erty, they lose government and fall into anarchy. If they assert
the authority of the state in order to save government, they lose
liberty and fall under absolute civil despotism, and it is an his-
torical fact that the Protestant world perpetually alternates be-
tween civil despotism and unbridled license, and after three
hundred years of experimenting finds itself as far as ever from
solving the problem, how to reconcile liberty and authority.
Strange that men do not see that the solution must be sought
in God, not in man ! Alas ! reformers make a sad blunder
when they reject the Church instituted by God himself for the
express purpose of interpreting his law, the only protector of
the people, on the one hand, against despotism, and of govern-
ment, on the other, against license !
But the people cannot avail themselves of their own blunder
to withdraw themselves from their obligation to obey the laws.
Government itself is a divine ordinance, is ordained of God.
" Let every soul be subject to the higher powers ; for there is
no power but from God ; and the powers that be are ordained
of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power resisteth the or-
dinance of God. And they that resist purchase to themselves
damnation." We do not say that all the acts of government
are ordained of God ; for if we did, we could not assert the
reality of a law higher than that of the state, and should be
forced to regard every civil enactment as a precept of the Di-
vine law. In ordinary government, God does not ordain obedi-
ence to all and every of its acts, but to those only of its acts
which come within the limits of his own law. He does not
make civil government the supreme and infallible organ of his
will on earth, and therefore it may err, and contravene his will ;
and when and where it does, its acts are null and void. But
government itself, as civil authority, is a divine ordinance, and,
within the law of God, clothed with the right to command and
THE HIGHER LAW. 359
to enforce obedience. No appeal, therefore, from any act of
government, which in principle denies the divine right of gov-
ernment, or which is incompatible with the assertion and main-
tenance of civil authority, can be entertained. Since govern-
ment as civil authority is an ordinance of God, and as such the
Divine law, any course of action, or the assertion of any princi-
ple of action, incompatible with its existence as government, is
necessarily forbidden by the law of God. The law of God is
always the equal of the law of God, and can never be in con-
flict with itself. Consequently no appeal against government as
civil authority to the law of God is admissible, because the law
of God is as supreme in any one of its enactments as in
another.
Now it is clear that Mr. Seward and his friends, the Aboli-
tionists and Free Soilers, have nothing to which they can appeal
from the action of government but their private interpretation
of the law of God, that is to say, their own private judgment
or opinion as individuals ; for it is notorious that they are good
Protestants, holding the pretended right of private judgment,
and rejecting all authoritative interpretation of the Divine law.
To appeal from the government to private judgment is to place
private judgment above public authority, the individual above
the state, which, as we have seen, is incompatible with the very
existence of government, and therefore, since government is a
divine ordinance, absolutely forbidden by the law of God, that
very higher law invoked to justify resistance to civil enactments.
Here is an important consideration, which condemns, on the
authority of God himself, the pretended right of private judg-
ment, the grossest absurdity that ever entered the heads of men
outside of Bedlam, and proves that, in attempting to set aside
on its authority a civil enactment, we come into conflict not
with the human law only, but also with the law of God itself.
No man can ever be justifiable in resisting the civil law under
the pretence that it is repugnant to the Divine law, when he
has only his private judgment, or, what is the same thing, his
private interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures, to tell him what
360 THE HIGHER LAW.
the Divine law is on the point in question, because the principle
on which he would act in doing so would be repugnant to the
very existence of government, and therefore in contravention of
the ordinance, therefore of the law, of God.
Man's prime necessity is society, and the prime necessity of
society is government. The question, whether government shall
or shall not be sustained, is at bottom only the question, wheth-
er the human race shall continue to subsist or not. Man is
essentially a social being, and cannot live without society, and
society is inconceivable without government. Extinguish gov-
ernment, and you extinguish society; extinguish society, and
you extinguish man. Inasmuch as God has created and or-
dained the existence of the human race, he has founded and
ordained government, and made it absolutely obligatory on us
to sustain it, to refrain in principle and action from whatever
would tend to destroy it, or to render its existence insecure.
They who set aside or resist the Fugitive Slave Law on the
ground of its supposed repugnance to the law of God are, then,
no more justifiable than we have seen was the honorable Senator
from New York. In no case can any man ever be justified in
setting aside or resisting a civil enactment, save on an authority
higher than his own and that of the government. This higher
authority is not recognized by the Abolitionists and Free
Soilers ; they neither have nor claim to have any such author-
ity to allege ; consequently, they are bound to absolute submis-
sion to the civil authority, not only in the case of the Fugitive
Slave Law, but in every case, ho.wever repugnant such submis-
sion may be to their private convictions and feelings, or what
they call their conscience, for conscience itself is respectable only
when it is authorized \>y the law of God, or is in conformity
with it.
That this is civil despotism, that is, the assertion of the abso-
lute supremacy of the state, we do not deny ; but that is eolj
our fault. If' men, by rejecting the divinely authorized inter-,
preter of the law of God, voluntarily place themselves in- such 84
condition that they have no alternative but either civil
THE HIGHER LAW. SCI
or resistance to the ordinance of God, the fault is their own.
They must expect to reap what they sow. They were warned
betimes, but they would heed no warning; they would have
their own way ; and if they now find that their own way leads
to death, they have only themselves to blame. It is not we who
advocate despotism, but they who render it inevitable for them-
selves, if they wish to escape the still greater evil of absolute
license. As Catholics we wash our hands of the consequences
which they cannot escape, and which any man with half an eye
might have seen would necessarily follow the assertion of the
absurd and ridiculous, not to say blasphemous, principle of pri-
vate judgment. We have never been guilty of the extreme
folly of proclaiming that principle, and of superinducing the
necessity of asserting civil despotism as .the only possible relief
from anarchy. We are able to assert liberty without under-
mining authority, and authority without injury to liberty ; for
we have been contented to let God himself be our teacher and
our legislator, instead of weak, erring, vain, and capricious men,
facetiously ycleped reformers. As Catholics, we were not among
those who undertook to improve on Infinite Wisdom, and to
reform the institutions of the Almighty. We are taught by a
divinely authorized Teacher, that government is the ordinance
of God, and that we are to respect and obey it as such in all
things not repugnant to the law of God ; and we have an au-
thority higher than its, higher than our own, to tell us, without
error, or the possibility of error, because by Divine assistance
and protection rendered infallible, when the acts of govern-
ment conflict with the law of God, and it becomes our duty to
resist the former in obedience to the latter. Civil authority is
respected and obeyed when respected and obeyed in all things
it has from God the right to do or command ; and liberty is
preserved inviolate when nothing can be exacted from us in
contravention of the Divine law, and we are free to disobey the
prince when he commands us to violate the law of God. We
then do and can experience none of the perplexity which is ex-
perienced by our uncatholic countrymen. We have an infallible
362 THE HIGHER LAW.
Church to tell us when there is a conflict between the human
law and the Divine, to save us from the necessity, in order to get
rid of despotism, of asserting individualism, which is the denial
of all government, and, in order to get rid of individualism, of
asserting civil despotism, that is, the supremacy of the state, the
grave of all freedom. We have never to appeal to the principle
of despotism nor to the principle of anarchy. We have always
a public authority, which, as it is inerrable, can never be oppres-
sive, to guide and direct us, and if we resist the civil law, it is
only in obedience to a higher law, clearly and distinctly declared
by a public authority higher than the individual, and higher
than the state. Our readers, therefore, will not accuse us of
advocating civil despotism, which we abhor, because we show
that they who reject God's Church, and assert private judgment,
have no alternative but despotism or license. They are, as
Protestants, under the necessity of being slaves and despots, not
we who are Catholics. We enjoy, and we alone enjoy, the
glorious prerogative of being at once freemen and loyal subjects.
There is no principle on which the Abolitionists and Free
Soilers can justify their resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law.
They cannot appeal to the law of God, for, having no authority
competent to declare it, the law of God is for them as if it
were not. It is for them a mere unmeaning word, or meaning
only their private or individual judgment, which is no law at
all, and if it were would at best be only a human, and the low-
est conceivable human law. The highest human law is un-
questionably the law of the state, as the state is the highest hu-
man authority conceivable. No appeal can then lie from the
state to another human authority, least of all to the individual ;
for appeals do not go downwards, do not lie from the higher to
the lower, as ultra democracy would seem to imply. The high-
est conceivable human authority has passed the law in question,
and in so doing has declared it compatible with the law of God ;
and as its opponents have only a human authority at best to re-
verse the judgment of the state, nothing remains for them but
to yield it full and loyal obedience.
THE HIGHER LAW. 363
We have dwelt at length on this point, because it is one of
great importance in itself, and because we are anxious to clear
away the mist with which it has been surrounded, and to pre-
vent any denial on the one hand, or misapplication on the
other, of the great principle of the supremacy of the Divine
law. The misapplication of a great principle is always itself a
great and dangerous error, and often, perhaps always, leads to
the denial of the principle. Mr. Seward and his friends asserted
a great and glorious principle, but misapplied it. Their oppo-
nents, the friends of the Constitution and the Union, seeing
clearly the error of the application, have, in some instances at
least, denied the principle itself, and their papers North and
South are filled with sneers at the higher law doctrine. The one
error induces the other, and we hardly know which, under ex-
isting circumstances, is the most to be deprecated. Each error
favors a dangerous popular tendency of the times. We have
spoken of the tendency, under the name of liberty, to anarchy
and license ; but there is another tendency; under the pretext of
authority, to civil despotism, or what has been very properly de-
nominated Statolatry, or the worship of the state, that is, elevat-
ing the state above the Church, and putting it in the place of
God. Both tendencies have the same origin, that is, in the
Protestant rejection of the spiritual authority of the Church on
the one hand, and the assertion of private judgment on the
other ; and in fact, both are but the opposite phases or poles of
one and the same principle. The two tendencies proceed pari
passu, and while the one undermines all authority, the
other grasps at all powers and usurps all rights, and modern so-
ciety in consequence is cursed at once with the opposite evils of
anarchy and of civil despotism. The cry for liberty abolishes
all loyalty, and destroys the principle and the spirit of obedience,
while the usurpations of the state leave to conscience no freedom,
to religion no independence. The state tramples on the spirit-
ual prerogatives of the Church, assumes to itself the functions
of schoolmaster and director of consciences, and the multitude
ciap their hands, and call it liberty and progress ! We see this
364 THE HIGHER LAW.
in the popular demand for state education, and in the joy that
the men of the world manifest at the nefarious conduct of the
Sardinian government in breaking the faith of treaties and vio-
lating the rights of the Church. When it concerns the Church,
the supremacy of the state is proclaimed, and when it concerns
government or law, then it is individualism that is shouted.
Such is our age, our boasted nineteenth century.
Now there is a right and a wrong way of defending the
truth, and it is always easier to defend the truth on sound than
on unsound principles. If men were less blind and headstrong,
they would see that the higher law can be asserted without
any attack upon legitimate civil authority, and legitimate civil
authority and the majesty of the law can be vindicated with-
out asserting the absolute supremacy of the civil power, and
falling into statolatory, as absurd a species of idolatry as
the worship of stocks and stones. The assertion of the higher
law, as Abolitionists and Free Soilers make it, without any
competent authority to define and declare that law, leads
to anarchy and unbridled license, and therefore we are oblig-
ed, as we value society, law, order, morality, to oppose them.
On the other hand, the denial of the higher law as the condi-
tion of opposing them asserts the supremacy in all things of the
state, and subjects us in all things unreservedly to the civil
power, which is statolatory, and absolute civil despotism. No
wise and honest statesman can do either. But here is the
difficulty the Protestant statesman is obliged to do one or the
other, or both, at one moment one, at the next moment the
other. This is what we have wished to make plain to the dull-
est capacity. Protestantism is clearly not adapted to practical
life, and its principles are as inapplicable in politics as in religion.
There is no practical assertion of true liberty or legitimate au-
thority on Protestant principles, and neither is or can be assert-
ed but as men resort, avowedly or otherwise, to Catholic princi-
ples. Hence the reason why we have been unable to discuss
the question presented, and give a rational solution of the diffi-
culty, without recurring to our Church. In recurring to her, we
THE HIGHER LAW. 365
have, no doubt, offended the friends of the Constitution and the
Union, the party with whom are our sympathies, as much as we
have their enemies ; but this is no fault of ours, for we cannot
go contrary to what God has ordained. He has not seen proper
so to constitute society and endow government that they can
get on without his Church. She is an integral, an essential ele-
ment in the constitution of society, and it is madness and folly
to think of managing it and securing its well-being without her.
She is the solution of all difficulties, and without her none are
solvable.
For us Catholics, the Fugitive Slave Law presents no sort of
difficulty. We are taught, as we have said, to respect and obey
the government as the ordinance of God, in all things not de-
clared by our Church to be repugnant to the Divine law. The
law is evidently constitutional, and is necessary to carry out an
express and imperative provision of the Constitution, which or-
dains (Art. IV. Sect. 2), that " No person held to service or
labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another,
shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be dis-
charged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on
claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This is imperative, and with regard to its meaning there is no
disagreement. By this the slaveholders have the right to claim
their fugitive slaves in the non-slaveholding States, and the non-
slaveholding States are bound to deliver them up, when claimed.
For the purpose of carrying out this constitutional provision,
Congress passed a law, in 1793, which has proved ineffectual,
and it has passed the recent law, more strigent in its provisions,
and likely to prove efficient, for the same purpose. We can
see nothing in the law contrary to the Constitution, and, as high
legal authority has pronouced it constitutional, we must presume
it to be so. Nobody really regards it as unconstitutional, and
the only special objection to it is, what is no objection at all,
that it is likely to answer its purpose. Now as the law is nec-
essary to secure the fulfilment of the obligations imposed by the
Constitution, and as our Church has never decided that to res-
366 THE HIGHER LAW.
tore a fugitive slave to its owner is per se contrary to the law of
God, we are bound to obey the law, and could not, without re-
sisting the ordinance of God and purchasing to ourselves dam-
nation, refuse to obey it. This settles the question for us.
As to Protestants who allege that the law is contrary to the
law of God, and therefore that they cannot with a good con-
science obey it, we have very little in addition to say. There
are no principles in common between them and us, on which the
question can be decided. We have shown them that they are
bound to obey the civil law till they can bring a higher author-
ity than the state, and a higher than their own private judg-
ment, to set it aside as repugnant to the law of God. This
higher authority they have not, and therefore for them there is
no higher law. Will they allege the Sacred Scriptures ? That
will avail them nothing till they show that they have legal pos-
session of the Scriptures, and that they are constituted by Al-
mighty God a court with authority to interpret them and declare
their sense. As this is what they can never do, we cannot ar-
gue the Scriptural question with them. We will only add, that
there is no passage in either the Old Testament or the New .that
declares it repugnant to the law of God, or law of eternal jus-
tice, to deliver up the fugitive slave to his master ; and St. Paul
sent back, after converting him, the fugitive slave Onesimus to
his master Philemon. This is enough ; for St. Paul appears to
have done more than the recent law of Congress demands ; he
seems to have sent back the fugitive without being requested to
do so by his owner ; but the law of Congress only requires the
fugitive to be delivered up when claimed by his master. It will
not do for those who appeal to the Sacred Scriptures to maintain
either that St. Paul was ignorant of the law of God, or that be
acted contrary to it. This fact alone concludes the Scriptural
question against them.
But we have detained our readers long enough. We have
said more than was necessary to satisfy the intelligent and tne
candid, and reasoning is thrown away upon factionists and fan-
atics, Abolitionists and philanthropists. There is no question
THE HIGHER LAW. 367
that the country is seriously in danger. What, with the sec-
tionists at the North and the sectionists at the South, with the
great dearth of true patriots, and still greater dearth of states-
men, in all sections of the Union, it will go hard but the Union
itself receive some severe shocks. Yet we trust in God it will
be preserved, although the American people are far from merit-
ing so great a boon. After the humiliation of ourselves, and
prayer to God, we see nothing to be done to save the country,
but for all the friends of the Union, whether heretofore called
Whigs or Democrats, to rally around the Union, and form a
grand national party, in opposition to the sectionists, factionists,
and fanatics, of all complexions, sorts, and sizes. It is no time
now to indulge old party animosities, or to contend for old party
organizations. The country is above party, and all who love
their country, and wish to save the noble institutions left us by
our fathers, should fall into the ranks of one and the same party,
and work side by side, and shoulder to shoulder, for the main-
tenance of the Union and the supremacy of law. We see
strong indications that such a party is rapidly forming through-
out the country, and we say, let it be formed, the sooner the
better. Let the party take high conservative ground, against all
sorts of radicalism and ultraism, and inscribe on its banner, THE
PRESERVATION OF THE UNION, AND THE SUPREMACY OF LAW,
and it will command the support, we doubt not, of a large ma-
jority of the American people, and deserve and receive, we de-
voutly hope, the protection of Almighty God, who, we must
believe, has after all great designs in this country. Above all,
let our Catholic fellow-citizens in this crisis be faithful to their
duty, even though they find Mr. Fillmore's administration and
our Protestant countrymen madly and foolishly hostile to them ;
for on the Catholic population, under God, depend the future
destinies of these United States. The principles of our holy re-
ligion, the prayers of our Church, and the fidelity to their trusts
of the Catholic portion of the people, are the only sure reliance
left us.
S68 CATHOLICITY NECESSARY
CATHOLICITY NECESSARY TO SUSTAIN
POPULAR LIBERTY.
OCTOBER, 1845.
BY popular liberty, we mean democracy ; by democracy, we
mean the democratic form of government ; by the democratic
form of government, we mean that form of government which
vests the sovereignty in the people as population, and which is
administered by the people, either in person or by their dele-
gates. By sustaining popular liberty, we mean, not the intro-
duction or institution of democracy, but preserving it when and
where it is already introduced, and securing its free, orderly, and
wholesome action. By Catholicity, we mean the Roman Catho-
lic Church, faith, morals, and worship. The thesis we propose
to maintain is, therefore, that without the Roman Catholic re-
ligion it is impossible to preserve a democratic government, and
secure its free, orderly, and wholesome action. Infidelity, Prot-
estantism, heathenism may institute a democracy, but only
Catholicity can sustain it.
Our own government, in its origin and constitutional form, is
not a democracy, but, if we may use the expression, a limited
elective aristocracy. In its theory, the representative, within the
limits prescribed by the Constitution, when once elected, and
during the time for which he is elected, is, in his official action,
independent of his constituents, and not responsible to them for
his acts. For this reason, we call the government an elective
aristocracy. But, practically, the government framed by our
fathers no longer exists, save in name. Its original character
has disappeared, or is rapidly disappearing. The Constitution is
a dead letter, except so far as it serves to prescribe the modes
of election, the rule of the majority, the distribution and tenure
of offices, and the union and separation of the functions of gov-
ernment. Since 1828, it has been becoming in practice, and is
now, substantially, a pure democracy, with no effective constitu-
TO DEMOCRACY. 369
lion but the will of the majority for the time being. Whether
the change has been for the better or the worse, we need not
stop to inquire. The change was inevitable, because men are
more willing to advance themselves by flattering the people and
perverting the Constitution, than they are by self-denial to serve
their country. The change has been effected, and there is no
return to the original theory of the government. Any man who
should plant himself on the Constitution, and attempt to arrest
the democratic tendency, no matter what his character, ability,
virtues, services, would be crushed and ground to powder.
Your Calhouns must give way for your Polks and Van Burens,
your Websters for your Harrisons and Tylers. No man, who is
not prepared to play the demagogue, to stoop to flatter the peo-
ple, and, in one direction or another, to exaggerate the demo-
cratic tendency, can receive the nomination for an important
office, or have influence in public affairs. The reign of great
men, of distinguished statesmen and firm patriots, is over, and
that of the demagogues has begun. Your most important offi-
ces are hereafter to be filled by third and fourth-rate men, men
too insignificant to excite strong opposition, and too flexible in
their principles not to be willing to take any direction the ca-
prices of the mob or the interests of the wire-pullers of the mob
may demand. Evil or no evil, such is the fact, and we must
conform to it.
Such being the fact, the question comes up, How are we to
sustain popular liberty, to secure the free, orderly, and wholesome
action of our practical democracy ? The question is an import-
ant one, and cannot be blinked with impunity.
The theory of democracy is, Construct your government and
commit it to the people to be taken care of. Democracy is not
properly a government ; but what is called the government is a
huge machine contrived to be wielded by the people as they
shall think proper. In relation to it the people are assumed to
be what Almighty God is to the universe, the first cause, the
medial cause, the final cause. It emanates from them ; it is
370 CATHOLICITY NECESSARY
administered by them, and for them ; and, moreover, they are
to keep watch and provide for its right administration.
It is a beautiful theory, and would work admirably, if it were
not for one little difficulty, namely, the people are fallible, both
individually and collectively, and governed by their ^Missions
and interests, which not unfrequently lead them far astray, and
produce much mischief. The government must necessarily fol-
low their will ; and whenever that will happens to be blinded
by passion, or misled by ignorance or interest, the government
must inevitably go wrong ; and government can never go wrong
without doing injustice. The government may be provided for ;
the people may take care of that ; but who or what is to take
care of the people, and assure us that they will always wield the
government so as to promote justice and equality, or maintain
order, and the equal rights of all, of all classes and interests ?
Do not answer by referring us to the virtue and intelligence
of the people. We are writing seriously, and have no leisure
to enjoy a joke, even if it be a good one. We have too much
principle, w r e hope, to seek to humbug, and have had too much
experience to be humbugged. We are Americans, American
born, American bred, and we love our country, and will, when
called upon, defend it, against any and every enemy, to the best
of our feeble ability ; but, though we by no means rate Ameri-
can virtue and intelligence so low as do those who will abuse us
for not rating it higher, we cannot consent to hoodwink our-
selves, or to claim for our countrymen a degree of virtue and
intelligence they do not possess. We are acquainted with no
salutary errors, and are forbidden to seek even a good end by
any but honest means. The virtue and intelligence of the Amer-
ican people are not sufficient to secure the free, orderly, and
wholesome action of the government ; for they do not secure it.
The government commits, every now and then, a sad blunder,
and the general policy it adopts must prove, in the long run,
suicidal. It has adopted a most iniquitous policy, and its most
unjust measures are its most popular measures, such as it would
be fatal to any man's political success directly and openly to op-
TO DEMOCRACY. 37 1
pose ; and we think we hazard nothing in saying, our free insti-
tutions cannot be sustained without an augmentation of popular
virtue and intelligence. We do not say the people are not ca-
pable of a sufficient degree of virtue and intelligence to sustain
a democracy ; all we say is, they cannot do it without virtue and
intelligence, nor without a higher degree of virtue and intelli-
gence than they have as yet attained to. We do not apprehend
that many of our countrymen, and we are sure no one whose
own virtue and intelligence entitle his opinion to any weight,
will dispute this. Then the question of the means of sustaining
our democracy resolves itself into the question of augmenting
the virtue and intelligence of the people.
The press makes readers, but does little to make virtuous and
intelligent readers. The newspaper press is, for the most part,
under the control of men of very ordinary abilities, lax princi-
ples, and limited acquirements. It echoes and exaggerates pop-
ular errors, and does little or nothing to create a sound public
opinion. Your popular literature caters to popular taste, pas-
sions, prejudices, ignorance, and errors ; it is by no means above
the average degree of virtue and intelligence which already ob-
tains, and can do nothing to create a higher standard of virtue
or tone of thought. On what, then, are we to rely ?
" On Education," answer Frances Wright, Abner Kneeland,
the Hon. Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and
the Educationists generally. But we must remember that we
must have virtue and intelligence. Virtue without intelligence will
only fit the mass to be duped by the artful and designing ; and
intelligence without virtue only makes one the abler and more
successful villain. Education must be of the right sort, if it is
to answer our purpose ; for a bad education is worse than none.
The Mahometans are great sticklers for education, and, if we
recollect aright, it is laid down in the Koran, that every believer
must at least be taught to read ; but we do not find their educa-
tion does much to advance them in virtue and intelligence. Edu-
cation, moreover, demands educators, and educators of the right
sort. Where are these to be obtained ? Who is to select them,
372 CATHOLICITY NECESSARY
judge of their qualifications, sustain or dismiss tliem ? The peo-
ple ? Then you place education in the same category with de-
mocracy. You make the people through their representatives
the educators. The people will select and sustain only such
educators as represent their own virtues, vices, intelligence, prej-
udices, and errors. Whether they educate mediately or im-
mediately, they can impart only what they have and are. Con-
sequently, with them for educators, we can, by means even of
universal education, get no increase of virtue and intelligence to
bear on the government. The people may educate, but where
is that which takes care that they educate in a proper manner ?
Here is the very difficulty we began by pointing out. The peo-
ple take care of the government and education ; but who or what
is to take care of the people, who need taking care of quite as
much as either education or government ? for, rightly consid-
ered, neither government nor education has any other legitimate
end than to take care of the people.
We know of but one solution of the difficulty, and that is in
RELIGION. There is no foundation for virtue but in religion, and
it is only religion that can command the degree of popular vir-
tue and intelligence requisite to insure to popular government
the right direction and a wise and just administration. A peo-
ple without religion, however successful they may be in throwing
off old institutions, or in introducing new ones, have no power
to secure the free, orderly, and wholesome working of any insti-
tutions. For the people can bring to the support of institutions
only the degree of virtue and intelligence they have ; and we
need not stop to prove that an infidel people can have very little
either of virtue or intelligence, since, in this professedly Christian
country, this will and must be conceded us. We shall, there-
fore, assume, without stopping to defend our assumption, that
religion is the power or influence we need to take care of the
people, and secure the degree of virtue and intelligence neces-
sary to sustain popular liberty. We say, then, if democracy
commits the government to the people to be taken care of, reli-
TO DEMOCRACY. 373
gion is to take care that they take proper care of the govern-
ment, rightly direct and wisely administer it.
But what religion ? It must be a religion which is above the
people and controls them, or it will not answer the purpose. If
it depends on the people, if the people are to take care of it, to
say what it shall be, what it shall teach, what it shall command,
what worship or discipline it shall insist on being observed, we
are back in our old difficulty. The people take care of religion ;
but who or what is to take care of the people ? We repeat,
then, what religion ? It cannot be Protestantism, in all or any
of its forms ; for Protestantism assumes as its point of departure
that Almighty God has indeed given us a religion, but has given
it to us not to take care of us, but to be taken care of by us.
It makes religion the ward of the people ; assumes it to be sent
on earth a lone and helpless orphan, to be taken in by the peo-
ple, who are to serve as its nurse.
We do not pretend that Protestants say this in just so many
words ; but this, under the present point of view, is their dis- .
tinguishing characteristic. What was the assumption of the
Reformers ? Was it not that Almighty God had failed to take
care of his Church, that he had suffered it to become exceeding-
ly corrupt and corrupting, so much so as to have become a very
Babylon, and to have ceased to be his Church ? Was it not
for this reason that they turned reformers, separated themselves
from what had been the Church, and attempted, with such ma-
terials as they could command, to reconstruct the Church on its
primitive foundation, and after the primitive model ? Is not
this what they tell us ? But if they had believed the Son of
Man came to minister and not to be ministered unto, that Al-
mighty God had instituted his religion for the spiritual govern-
ment of men, and charged himself with the care and mainte-
nance of it, would they ever have dared to take upon themselves
the work of reforming it ? Would they ever have fancied that
either religion or the Church could ever need reforming, or,
if so, that it could ever be done by human agency ? Of course
374 CATHOLICITY NECESSARY
not They would have taken religion as presented by the
Church as the standard, submitted to it as the law, and confin-
ed themselves to the duty of obedience. It is evident, there-
fore, from the fact of their assuming; to be reformers, that they,
consciously or unconsciously, regarded religion as committed to
their care, or abandoned to their protection. They were, at least,
its guardians, and were to govern it, instead of being governed
by it.
The first stage of Protestantism was to place religion under the
charge of the civil government. The Church was condemned,
among other reasons, for the control it exercised over princes and
nobles, that is, over the temporal power ; and the first effect of
Protestantism was to emancipate the government from this con-
trol, or, in other words, to free the government from the restraints
of religion, and to bring religion in subjection to the temporal
authority. The prince, by rejecting the authority of the Church,
won for himself the power to determine the faith of his subjects,
to appoint its teaohers, and to remove them whenever they
should teach what he disapproved, or whenever they should
cross his ambition, defeat his oppressive policy, or interfere with
his pleasures. Thus was it and still is it with the Protestant
princes in Germany, with the temporal authority in Denmark,
Sweden, England, Russia, in this respect also Protestant, and
originally was it the same in this country. The supreme civil
magistrate makes himself sovereign pontiff, and religion and the
Church, if disobedient to his will, are to be turned out of house
and home, or dragooned into submission. Now, if we adopt this
view, and subject religion to the civil government, it will not
answer our purpose. We want religion, as we have seen, to
control the people, and through its spiritual governance to cause
them to give the temporal government always a wise and just
direction. But, if the government control the religion, it can
exercise no control over the sovereign people, for they control
the government. Through the government the people take
care of religion, but who or what takes care of the people?
This would leave the people ultimate, and we have no security
TO DEMOCRACY. 3*75
unless we have something more ultimate than they, something
which they cannot control, but which they must obey.
The second stage in Protestantism is to reject, in matters of
religion, the authority of the temporal government, and to sub-
ject religion to the control of the faithful. This is the full re-
cognition in matters of religion of the democratic principle.
The people determine their faith and worship, select, sustain, or
dismiss their own religious teachers. They who are to be taught
judge him who is to teach, and say whether he teaches them
truth or falsehood, wholesome doctrine or unwholesome. The
patient directs the physican what to prescribe. This is the the-
ory adopted by Protestants generally in this country. The con-
gregation select their own teacher, unless it be among the
Methodists, and to them the pastor is responsible. If -he teaches
to suit them, well and good ; if he crosses none of their wishes,
enlarges their numbers, and thus lightens their taxes and grati-
fies their pride of sect, also well and good ; if not, he must seek
a flock to feed somewhere else.
But this view will no more answer our purpose than the form-
er ; for it places religion under the control of the people, and
therefore in the same category with the government itself. The
people take care of religion, but who takes care of the people.
The third and last stage of Protestantism is Individualism.
This leaves religion entirely to the control of the individual, who
selects his own creed, or makes a creed to suit himself, devises
his own worship and discipline, and submits to no restraints but
such as are self-imposed. This makes a man's religion the ef-
fect of his virtue and intelligence, and denies it all power to
augment or to direct them. So this will not answer. The in-
dividual takes care of his religion, but who or what takes care
of the individual ? The state ? But who takes care of the
state ? The people ? But who takes care of the people ? Our
old difficulty again.
It is evident, from these considerations, that Protestantism is
not and cannot be the religion to sustain democracy ; because,
take it in which stage you will, it, like democracy itself, is subject
376 CATHOLICITY NECESSARY
to the control of the people, and must command and teach what
they say, and of course must follow, instead of controlling, their
passions, interests, and caprices.
Nor do we obtain this conclusion merely by reasoning. It is
sustained by facts. The Protestant religion is everywhere either
an expression of the government or of the people, and must
obey either the government or public opinion. The grand re-
form, if reform it was, effected by the Protestant chiefs, consisted
in bringing religious questions before the public, and subjecting
faith and worship to the decision of public opinion, public on
a larger or smaller scale, that is, of the nation, the province, or
the sect. Protestant faith and worship tremble as readily before
the slightest breath of public sentiment, as the aspen leaf before
the gentle zephyr. The faith and discipline of a sect take any
and every direction the public opinion of that sect demands.
All is loose, floating, is here to-day, is there to-morrow, and,
next day, may be nowhere. The holding of slaves is compati-
ble with Christian character south of a geographical line, and
incompatible north ; and Christian morals change according to
the prejudices, interests, or habits of the people, as evinced by
the recent divisions in our own country amoug the Baptists and
Methodists. The Unitarians of Savannah refuse to hear a preacher
accredited by Unitarians of Boston.
The great danger in our country is from the predominance
of material interests. Democracy has a direct tendency to favor
inequality and injustice. The government must obey the peo-
ple ; that is, it must follow the passions and interests of the peo-
ple, and of course the stronger passions and interests. These
with us are material, such as pertain solely to this life and this
world. What our people demand of government is, that it
adopt and sustain such measures as tend most directly to facili-
tate the acquisition of wealth. It must, then, follow the passion
for wealth, and labor especially to promote worldly interests.
But among these worldly interests, some are stronger than
others, and can command the government. These will take
possession of the government, and wield it for their own especial
TO DEMOCRACY. 377
advantage. They will make it the instrument of taxing all the
other interests of the country for the special advancement of
themselves. This leads to inequality and injustice, which are
incompatible with the free, orderly, and wholesome working of
the government.
Now, what is wanted is some power to prevent this, to mod-
erate the passion for wealth, and to inspire the people with such
a true and firm sense of justice, as will prevent any one interest
from struggling to advance itself at the expense of another.
Without this the stronger material interests predominate, make
the government the means of securing their predominance, and
of extending it by the burdens which, through the government,
they are able to impose on the weaker interests of the country.
The framers of our government foresaw this evil, and thought
to guard against it by a written Constitution. But they in-
trusted the preservation of the Constitution to the care of the
people, which was as wise as to lock up your culprit in prison
and intrust him with the key. The Constitution, as a restraint
on the will of the people or the governing majority, is already a
dead letter. It answers to talk about, to declaim about, in elec-
tioneering speeches, and even as a theme of newspaper leaders,
and political essays in reviews; but its effective power is a
morning vapor after the sun is well up.
Even Mr. Calhoun's theory of the Constitution, which regards
it not simply as the written instrument, but as the disposition
or the constitution of the people into sovereign states united in
a federal league or compact, for certain purposes which concern
'all the states alike, and from which it follows that any measure
unequal in its bearing, or oppressive upon any portion of the
confederacy, is ipso facto null and void, and may be vetoed by the
aggrieved state, this theory, if true, is yet insufficient ; because,
1. It has no application within the State governments them-
selves ; and because, 2. It does not, as a matter of fact, arrest
what are regarded as the unequal, unjust, and oppressive meas-
ures of the Federal government. South Carolina, in 1833,
forced a compromise, but in 1842, the obnoxious policy was
378 CATHOLICITY NECESSARY
revived, is pursued now successfully, and there is no State to
attempt again the virtue of State interposition. Not even South
Carolina can be brought to do so again. The meshes of trade
and commerce are so spread over the whole land, the control-
ling influences of all sections have become so united and inter-
woven, by means of banks, other moneyed corporations, and the
credit system, that henceforth State interposition becomes prac-
tically impossible. The Constitution is practically abolished,
and our government is virtually, to all intents, and purposes, as
we have said, a pure democracy, with nothing to prevent it
from obeying the interest or interests which for the time being
can succeed in commanding it. This, as the Hon. Caleb Gush-
ing would say, is a " fixed fact." There is no restraint on pre-
dominating passions and interests but in religion. This is an-
other " fixed fact."
Protestantism is insufficient to restrain these, for it does not
do it, and is itself carried away by them. The Protestant sect
governs its religion, instead of being governed by it. If one sect
pursues, by the influence of its chiefs, a policy in opposition to
the passions and interests of its members, or any portion of them,
the disaffected, if a majority, change its policy ; if too few or too
weak to do that, they leave it and join some other sect, or form
a new sect. If the minister attempts to do his duty, reproves a
practice by which his parishioners "get gain," or insists on their
practising some real self-denial not compensated by some self-
indulgence, a few leading members will tell him very gravely,
that they hired him to preach and pray for them, not to inter-
fere with their business concerns and relations ; and if he doe?
not mind his own business, they will no longer need his services.
The minister feels, perhaps, the insult ; he would be faithful ;
but he looks at his lovely wife, at his little ones. These to be
reduced to poverty, perhaps to beggary, no, it must not be ;
one struggle, one pang, and it is over. He will do the bidding
of his masters. A zealous minister in Boston ventured, one
Sunday, to denounce the modern spirit of trade. The next day,
he was waited on by a committee of wealthy merchants belong-
TO DEMOCRACY. 879
ing to his parish, who told him he was wrong. The Sunday
following, the meek and humble minister publicly retracted, and
made the amende honorable.
Here, then, is the reason why Protestantism, though it may
institute, cannot sustain popular liberty. It is itself subject to
popular control, and must follow in all things the popular will,
passion, interest, ignorance, prejudice, or caprice. This, in reality,
is its boasted virtue, and we find it commended because under
it the people have a voice in its management. Nay, we ourselves
shall be denounced, not for say ing Protestantism subjects religion
to popular control, but for intimating that religion ought not to
be so subjected. A terrible cry will be raised against us. " See,
here is Mr. Brownson," it will be said, " he would bring the
people under the control of the Pope of Rome. Just as we told
you. These Papists have no respect for the people. They sneer
at the people, mock at their wisdom and virtue. Here is this
unfledged Papistling, not yet a year old, boldly contending that
the control of their religious faith and worship should be taken
from the people, and that they must believe and do just what
the emissaries of Rome are pleased to command ; and all in the
name of liberty too." If we only had room, we would write
out and publish what the anti-Catholic press will say against us,
and save the candid, the learned, intellectual, and patriotic edit-
ors the trouble of doing it themselves ; and we would do it with
the proper quantity of Italics, small capitals, capitals, and ex-
clamation points. Verily, we think we could do the thing up
nearly as well as the Kest of them. But we have no room. Yet
it is easy to foresee what they will say. The burden of their
accusation will be, that we labor to withdraw religion from the
control of the people, and to free it from the necessity of follow-
ing their will ; that we seek to make it the master, and not the
slave, of the people. And this is good proof of our position,
that Protestantism cannot govern the people, for they govern
it, and therefore that Protestantism is not the religion wanted ;
for it is precisely a religion that can and will govern the people,
be their master, that we need.
380 CATHOLICITY NECESSARY
If Protestantism will not answer the purpose, what religion
will? The Roman Catholic, or none. The Roman Catholic
religion assumes, as its point of departure, that it is instituted
not to be taken care of by the people, but to take care of the
people ; not to be governed by them, but to govern them. The
word is harsh in democratic ears, we admit ; but it is not the
office of religion to say soft or pleasing words. It must speak
the truth even in unwilling ears, and it has few truths that are
not harsh, and grating to the worldly mind or the depraved
heart. The people need governing, and must be governed, or
nothing but anarchy and destruction await them. They must
have a master. The word must be spoken. But it is not our
word. We have demonstrated its necessity in showing that we
have no security for popular government, unless we have some
security that the people will administer it wisely and justly ; and
we have no security that they will do this, unless we have some
security that their passions will be restrained, and their attach-
ments to worldly interests so moderated that they will never
seek, through the government, to support them at the expense
of justice ; and this security we can have only in a religion that
is above the people, exempt from their control, which they can-
not command, but must, on peril of condemnation OBEY. De-
claim as you will; quote our expression, THE PEOPLE MUST
HAVE A MASTER, as you doubtless will ; hold it up in glaring
capitals, to excite the unthinking and unreasoning multitude, and
to doubly fortify their prejudices against Catholicity ; be mortal-
ly scandalized at the assertion that religion ought to govern the
people, and then go to work and seek to bring the people into
subjection to your banks or moneyed corporations through their
passions, ignorance, and worldly interests, and in doing so, prove
what candid men, what lovers of truth, what noble defenders of
liberty, and what ardent patriots you are. We care not. You
see we understand you, and, understanding you, we repeat, the
religion which is to answer our purpose must be above the peo-
ple, and able to COMMAND them. We know the force of the
word, and we mean it. The first lesson to the child is, obey ;
TO DEMOCRACY. 381
the first and last lesson to the people, individually or collectively,
is, OBEY ; and there is no obedience where there is no authority
to enjoin it.
The Roman Catholic religion, then, is necessary to sustain
popular liberty, because popular liberty can be sustained only
by a religion free from popular control, above the people, speak-
ing from above and able to command them, and such a relig-
ion is the Roman Catholic. It acknowledges no master but
God, and depends only on the divine will in respect to what it
shall teach, what it shall ordain, what it shall insist upon as
truth, piety, moral and social virtue. It was made not by the
people, but for them ; is administered not by the people, but for
them ; is accountable not to the people, but to God. Not de-
pendent on the people, it will not follow their passions ; not sub-
ject to their control, it will not be their accomplice in iniquity ;
and speaking from God, it will teach them the truth, and com-
mand them to practise justice. To this end the very constitu-
tion of the Church contributes. It is Catholic, universal ; it
teaches all nations, and has its centre in no one. If it was a
mere national church, like the Anglican, the Russian, the Greek,
or as Louis the Fourteenth in his pride sought to make the
Gallican, it would follow the caprice or interest of that nation,
and become but a tool of its government or of its predominat-
ing passion. The government, if anti-popular, would use it to
oppress the people, to favor its ambitious projects, or its unjust
and ruinous policy. Under a popular government, it would be-
come the slave of the people, and could place no restraint on
the ruling interest or on the majority ; but would be made to
sanction and consolidate its power. But having its centre in no
one nation, extending over all, it becomes independent of all,
and in all can speak with the same voice and in the same tone
of authority. This the Church has always understood, and
hence the noble struggles of the many calumniated popes to
sustain the unity, Catholicity, and independence of the ecclesi-
astical power. This, too, the temporal powers have always seen
and felt, and hence their readiness, even while professing the
882 CATHOLICITY NECESSARY
Catholic faith, to break the unity of Catholic authority , for, in
so doing, they could subject the Church in their own dominions,
as did Henry the Eighth, and as does the emperor of Russia, to
themselves.
But we pray our readers to understand us well. We un-
questionably assert the adequacy of Catholicity to sustain popu-
lar liberty, on the ground of its being exempted from popular
control and able to govern the people ; and its necessity, on the
ground that it is the only religion, which, in a popular govern-
ment, is or can be exempted from popular control, and able to
govern the people. We say distinctly, that this is the ground
on which, reasoning as the statesman, not as the theologian, we
assert the adequacy and necessity of Catholicity ; and we object
to Protestantism, in our present argument, solely on the ground
that it has no authority over the people, is subject to them, must
follow the direction they give it, and therefore cannot restrain
their passions, or so control them as to prevent them from abus-
ing their government. This we assert, distinctly and intention-
ally, and so plainly, that what we say cannot be mistaken.
But in what sense do we assert Catholicity to be the master
of the people ? Here we demand justice. The authority of
Catholicity is spiritual, and the only sense in which we have
here urged or do urge its necessity is as the means of augment-
ing the virtue and intelligence of the people. We demand it as
a religious, not as a political power. We began by defining de-
mocracy to be that form of government which vests the sover-
eignty in the people. If, then, we recognize the sovereignty of
the people in matters of government, we must recognize their
political right to do what they will. The only restriction on
their will we contend for is a moral restriction ; and the master
we contend for is not a master that prevents them from doing
politically what they will, but who, by his moral and spiritual
influence, prevents them from willing what they ought not to
will. The only influence on the political or governmental action
of the people which we ask from Catholicity, is that which it
exerts on the mind, the heart, and the conscience ; an influence
TO DEMOCRACY. 383
which it exerts by enlightening the mind to see the true end of
man, the relative value of all worldly pursuits, by moderating the
passions, by weaning the affections from the world, inflaming the
heart with true charity, and by making each act in all things seri-
ously, honestly, conscientiously. The people will thus come to
see and to will what is equitable and right, and will give to the
government a wise and just direction, and never use it to effect
any unwise or unjust measures. This is the kind of master we
demand for the people, and this is the bugbear of " Romanism "
with which miserable panders to prejudice seek to frighten old
women and children. Is there anything alarming in this ? In
this sense, we wish this country to come under the Pope of
Rome. As the visible head of the Church, the spiritual author-
ity which Almighty God has instituted to teach and govern the
nations, we assert his supremacy, and tell our countrymen that
we would have them submit to him. They may flare up at this
as much as they please, and write as many alarming and abusive
editorials as they choose or can find time or space to do, they
will not move us, or relieve themselves of the obligation Al-
mighty God has placed them under of obeying the authority of
the Catholic Church, Pope and all.
If we were discussing the question before us as a theologian,
we should assign many other reasons why Catholicity is neces-
sary to sustain popular liberty. Where the passions are unre-
strained, there is license, but not liberty ; the passions are not re-
strained without divine grace ; and divine grace comes ordina-
rily only through the sacraments of the Church. But from the
point of view we are discussing the question, we are not at liber-
ty to press this argument, which, in itself, would be conclusive.
The Protestants have foolishly raised the question of the influ-
ence of Catholicity on democracy, and have sought to frighten
our countrymen from embracing it by appealing to their demo-
cratic prejudices, or, if you will, convictions, We have chosen
to meet them on this question, and to prove that democracy
without Catholicity cannot be sustained. Yet in our own minds
the question is really unimportant. We have proved the insuf-
384 CATHOLICITY NECESSARY
ficiency of Protestantism to sustain democracy. What then?
Have we in so doing proved that Protestantism is not the true
religion ? Not at all ; for we have no infallible evidence that
democracy is the true or even the best form of government. It
may be so, and the great majority of the American people be-
lieve it is so ; but they may be mistaken, and Protestantism be
true, notwithstanding its incompatibility with republican institu-
tions. So we have proved that Catholicity is neccessary to sus-
tain such institutions. But what then ? Have we proved it to
be the true religion ? Not at all. For such institutions may
themselves be false and mischievous. Nothing in this way is
settled in favor of one religion or another, because no system of
politics can ever constitute a standard by which to try a relig-
ious system. Religion is more ultimate than politics, and you
must conform your politics to your religion, and not your relig-
ion to your politics. You must be the veriest infidels to deny
this.
This conceded, the question the Protestants raise is exceed-
ingly insignificant. The real question is, Which religion is
from God? If it be Protestantism, they should refuse to sub-
ject it to any human test, and should blush to think of compel-
ling it to conform to any thing human ; for when God speaks,
man has nothing to do but to listen and obey. So, having de-
cided that Catholicity is from God, save in condescension to the
weakness of our Protestant brethren, we must refuse to consider
it in its political bearings. It speaks from God, and its speech
overrides every other speech, its authority every other authority.
It is the sovereign of sovereigns. He who could question this,
admitting it to be from God, has yet to obtain his first religious
conception, and to take his first lesson in religious liberty ; for
we are to hear God, rather than hearken unto men. But we
have met the Protestants on their own ground, because, though
in doing so we surrendered the vantage-ground we might occu-
py, we know the strength of Catholicity and the weakness of
Protestantism. We know what Protestantism has done for
liberty, and what it can do. It can take off restraints, and in-
TO DEMOCRACY. 385
troduce license, but it can do nothing to sustain true liberty.
Catholicity depends on no form of government ; it leaves the
people to adopt such forms of government as they please, be-
cause under any or all forms of government it can fulfil its mis-
sion of training up souls for heaven ; and the eternal salvation
of one single soul is worth more than, is a good far outweigh-
ing, the most perfect civil liberty, nay, all the wordly prosperity
and enjoyment ever obtained or to be obtained by the whole
human race.
It is, after all, in this fact, which Catholicity constantly brings
to our minds, and impresses upon our hearts, that consists its
chief power, aside from the grace of the sacraments, to sustain
popular liberty. The danger to that liberty comes from love
of the world, the ambition for power or place, the greediness
of gain or distinction. It comes from lawless passions, from in-
ordinate love of the goods of time and sense. Catholicity, by
showing us the vanity of all these, by pointing us to the eternal
reward that awaits the just, moderates this inordinate love,
these lawless passions, and checks the rivalries and struggles in
which popular liberty receives her death blow. Once learn
Jiat all these things are vanity, that even civil liberty itself is
no great good, that even bodily slavery is no great evil, that
the one thing needful is a mind and heart conformed to the will
of God, and you have a disposition which will sustain a democ-
racy wherever introduced, though doubtless a disposition that
would not lead you to introduce it where it is not.
But this last is no objection, for the revolutionary spirit is as
fetal to democracy as to any other form of government. It is
the spirit of insubordination and of disorder. It is opposed to all
fixed rule, to all permanent order. It loosens every thing, and
sets all afloat. Where all is floating, where nothing is fixed,
where nothing can be counted on to be to-morrow what it is to-
day, there is no liberty, no solid good. The universal restless-
ness of Protestant nations, the universal disposition to change,
the constant movements of the populations, so much admired
by shortsighted philosophers, are a sad spectacle to the sober-
386 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
minded Christian, who would, as far as possible, find in all
things a type of that eternal fixedness and repose he looks for-
ward to as the blessed reward of his trials and labors here.
Catholicity comes here to our relief. All else may change, but
it changes not. All else may pass away, but it remains where
and what it was, a type of the immobility and immutability of
the eternal God.
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
OCTOBER, 1848.
WE take, in our political essays, unwearied pains to make our-
selves understood, and to guard against being misapprehended ;
but, through our own fault or that of our readers, our success
has rarely corresponded to our efforts. On all sides, from all
quarters, we are charged with being hostile to liberty and favor-
able to despotism, the enemy of the people, and the friend of
their oppressors. We could smile at this ridiculous charge, were
it not that some honest souls are found who appear to believe it,
and some moon-struck scribblers make it the occasion of excit-
ing unjust prejudices against our friends, and of placing them,
as well as ourselves, in a false position before the public. Injus-
tice to us personally is of no moment, and demands of us no
attention: but when, owing to our peculiar position, it can
hardly fail to work injustice to others, we are bound to notice
and to repel it.
The age in which we live is an age of theoretical, and, to a
great extent, of practical anarchy. Its ideas and movements are
marked by impatience of restraint, denial of law, and contempt
of authority. We have seen this, and have felt it our duty to
protest against it, and to do what we could, in our limited sphere,
to recall men to a sense of the necessity of government, and to
the fact of their moral obligation to uphold the supremacy of
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 387
law. This is our offence. Yet one would naturally suppose that
people of ordinary intelligence, somewhat acquainted with our
past history, might, without much difficulty, believe that in this
our motive has been to serve the cause of freedom, not that of
despotism. We, in fact, have done it, because liberty is impos-
sible without order, order is impossible without government, and
government in any worthy sense of the term is impossible without
a settled conviction on the part of the people of its legitimacy,
and of their obligation in conscience to obey it. Nothing deserv-
ing the name of government can be founded on the sense of the
agreeable or of the useful. Governments, so called, which appeal
to nothing higher, more catholic, and more stable, are mere crea-
tures of passion or caprice, and must follow the lead of popular
folly and excess, instead of restraining them, and directing the
general activity to the public good. They are not governments,
but mere instruments for the private gain or aggrandizement of
the adroit and scheming few who contrive to possess themselves
of their management. It is philosophically and historically de-
monstrable, that the permanence and stability of government, and
its wise and just administration for the common weal, the only
legitimate end of its institution, are impracticable, unless the
government is held to rest on the universal and unalterable sense
of duty, under the protection of religion.
This truth, though, in fact, a very commonplace truth, our
age overlooks, or, if it does not overlook, it rejects. Hence the
danger with which liberty in our times is threaten d. We have
believed it, therefore, not improper to guard against this danger,
and in order to do so, we have traced government back to its
source, and to the foundation of its authority. We have found
its origin, not in the people, but in God, from whom is all pow-
er ; and we have concluded from this its divine right, within its
legitimate province, to our allegiance. It has, since it derives its
authority from God, a divine right to command, and, if so, we
must be bound in conscience to obey it. Then it rests, not on
the sense of the agreeable or of the useful, to fluctuate as these
fluctuate, but on the sense of duty, and not merely duty to our
388 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
country or to mankind, but duty to God, a duty founded in
the unalterable relations of man to his Maker. This raises polit-
ical allegiance and obedience to the law to the rank of moral
virtue, and declares their violation to be a sin against God, to
whom we belong, all we have, and all we are. Hence, in its le-
gitimate province, even civil government becomes sacred and
inviolable ; and therefore we assert, on the one har;d, our duty
to obey it, and, on the other, deny the right of revolution, what
Lafayette calls " the sacred right of insurrection."
Here, in general terms, is the doctrine we have endeavored to
inculcate. That it is hostile to the political atheism now so rife,
we concede. We are Christians, and do not understand the
possibility of being Christians, and yet atheists in politics. We
have but one set of principles, and these are determined by our
religion. We cannot adopt one set of principles in our religion
and a contradictory set in our politics, saying " Good Lord " in
the one, and "Good Devil" in the other. We are too far be-
hind the age for that. But that this doctrine is hostile to liberty
or favorable to despotism, we do not concede, nay, positively
deny. In setting it forth, we have dwelt on that phase of it di-
rectly opposed to the dangerous tendencies of the age, because
it was not necessary to guard against tendencies from which we
have nothing to apprehend, and because we presumed that our
readers would of themselves see that it had another phase equally
opposed to the opposite class of tendencies. But for the hund-
redth time in our short life we have learned that the writer who
presumes any thing on the intelligence or discrimination of the
bulk of readers presumes too much, and will assuredly be disap-
pointed. The doctrine protects the government against radicals,
rebels, and revolutionists ; but it protects, also, the people against
tyrants and oppressors. The fears of our politicians on this last
point, whether real or affected, do little credit to their sagacity.
The monsters which affright them a little more light would ena-
ble them to see are as harmless as the charred stump or decay-
ing log which the benighted traveller mistakes for bear or
panther.
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 389
When we assert the doctrine of legitimacy, we are understood
to assert passive obedience and non-resistance to tyrants; but
needs it any extraordinary intellectual power and cultivation to
perceive that legitimacy, while it smites the rebel or the revo-
lutionist, must equally smite the tyrant or usurper ? If the
doctrine asserts the right of legitimate, it must deny the right
of illegitimate government ; if it denies the right to disobey the
legitimate authority, it must also deny the right of illegitimate
authority to command ; if it disarms the subject before the legal
authority, it must equally disarm the illegal authority before the
subject. How, then, from the fact that we are forbidden to re-
sist or to subvert legitimate government, the legal constitution
of the state, conclude that we are forbidden to resist or to de-
pose the tyrant ? Tyranny, oppression, is never legal, and there-
fore no tyrant or oppressor ever is or can be the legitimate sov-
ereign. To resist him is not to resist the legitimate authority,
and therefore demands for its justification no assertion of the
revolutionary principle. How is it, then, that you do not see
that the doctrine of legitimacy gives a legal right to resist
whatever is illegal, and therefore lays a solid foundation for
liberty ?
People, we know, are prejudiced against the doctrine which
asserts the divine origin and right of government, but it is be-
cause they misapprehend the doctrine, and because they identify
liberty with democracy. The doctrine, undoubtedly, does assert
the sacredness, inviolability, and legitimacy of every actual poli-
tical constitution, whatever its form, and that the monarchical
or aristocratic order, where it is the established order, is as legit-
imate as the democratic. But, if liberty and democracy are one
and the same thing, since the monarchical order is that which is
actually the established order in most states, liberty in most
states is precluded, and the people are and must be slaves.
Yet is it true that liberty and democracy are identical or con-
vertible terms ? Democracy, whose expression is universal suff-
rage, intrusts every citizen with a share in the administration of
tlie government, which is and can be done by no other political
390 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
order. But the elective franchise is a trust, not a right, and
therefore to withhold it is not to withhold freedom. Liberty is
in the possession and exercise of our natural rights. We have
none of us any natural right to govern ; for under the law of
nature all men are equals, and no one has the right to exercise
authority over others. The franchise is a municipal grant, and
depends on the will of the political sovereign. Liberty, unless
the question be between nation and nation, is not a predicate of
the government, but of the subject, and of the subject not in his
quality t>f a constituent element of the sovereignty, but in his
quality of subject. As subject he may be free, without being
intrusted with authority to govern, and therefore may be free
under other forms of government than the democratic.
In fact, democratic politicians never attain to the conception
of liberty. The basis of their theory of government is despotism.
They make the right to govern a natural right, and differ from
the confessedly despotic politicians only in claiming for every
man what these claim for only one. They make government a
personal right, incident to manhood, inalienable, and inamissible,
not a solemn trust which the trustee is bound to hold and
exercise according to law, and for which he is accountable.
Hence it is that democracy always sooner or later terminates in
despotism or autocracy. We deny that government is ever a
personal right, whether of the one, the few, or the many, and
therefore deny that a man has a natural right to a share in the
administration. He only has the right to whom the power is
delegated by the competent authority, and he holds it, not as a
personal right, but as a trust. Consequently, we do not concede
that the establishment of the democratic regime is at all essential
to the establishment or maintenance of liberty. He is free, en-
joys his liberty, who is secured in the possession and enjoyment
of all his natural rights ; and this is done wherever the legitimate
authority governs, and governs according to the principles of
justice. We are aware of no form of government that cannot
so govern, or which cannot also govern otherwise, if it choose.
We are republicans, because republicanism is here the estab-
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 391
lished order, but we confess that we do not embrace, and never
Lave embraced, as essential to liberty, or even as compatible
with liberty, the popular democratic doctrine of the country.
We beg leave to introduce here some remarks on Democracy
which we wrote in 1837, and published in the first number of
The Boston Quarterly Review, January, 1838.
" Democracy is sometimes asserted to be the sover-
eignty of the people. If this be a true account of it, it is in-
defensible. The sovereignty of the people is not a truth. Sover-
eignty is that which is highest, ultimate ; which has not only
the physical force to make itself obeyed, but the moral right to
command whatever 'it pleases. The right to command involves
the corresponding duty of obedience. What the sovereign may
command, it is the duty of the subject to do.
44 Are the people the highest ? Are they ultimate ? And are
we bound in conscience to obey whatever it may be their good
pleasure to ordain ? If so, where is individual liberty ? If so,
the people, taken collectively, are the absolute master of every
man taken individually. Every man, as a man, then, is an ab-
solute slave. Whatever the people, in their collective capacity,
may demand of him, he must feel himself bound in conscience
to give. No matter how intolerable the burdens imposed, pain-
ful and needless the sacrifices required, he cannot refuse obedi-
ence without incurring the guilt of disloyalty ; and he must sub-
mit in quiet, in silence, without even the moral right to feel that
he is wronged.
' Now this, in theory at least, is absolutism. Whether it be
a democracy, or any other form of government, if it be abso-
lute there is and there can be no individual liberty. Under a
monarchy, the monarch is the state. * UEtat, Jest moi? said
Louis the Fourteenth, and he expressed the whole monarchieal
theory. The state being absolute, and the monarch being the
state, the monarch has the right to command what he will, and
exact obedience in the name of duty, loyalty. Hence absolut-
ism, despotism. Under an aristocracy, the nobility are the state,
and consequenly, as the state is absolute, the nobility are also
absolute. Whatever they command is binding. If they re-
quire the many to be 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' to
them, then 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' to them
the many must feel it their duty to be. Here, for the many, is
absolutism as much as under a monarchy. Every body sees this.
392 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
" Well, is it less so under a democracy, where the people, in
their associated capacity, are held to be absolute ? The people
are the state, and the state is absolute; the people may there
fore do whatever they please. Is not this freedom ? Yes, for
the state; but what is it for the individual? There are no
kings, no nobilities, it is true ; but the people may exercise all
the power over the individual that kings or nobilities may ; and
consequently every man, taken singly, is, under a democracy, if
the state be absolute, as much the slave of the state, as under
the most absolute monarchy or aristocracy.
" But this is not the end of the chapter. Under a democratic
form of government, all questions which come up for the decis-
ion of authority must be decided by a majority of voices. The
sovereignty which is asserted for the people must, then, be trans-
ferred to the ruling majority. If the people are sovereign, then
the majority are sovereign ; and if sovereign, the majority have,
as Miss Martineau lays it down, the absolute right to govern.
If the majority have the absolute right to govern, it is the abso-
lute duty of the minority to obey. We who chance to be in
the minority are then completely disfranchised. We are wholly
at the mercy of the majority. We hold our property, our wives
and children, and our lives even, at its sovereign will and pleas-
ure. It may do by us and ours as it pleases. If it take it into
its head to make a new and arbitrary division of property, how-
ever unjust it may seem, we shall not only be impotent to resist,
but we shall not even have the right of the wretched to com-
plain. Conscience will be no shield. The authority of the ab-
solute sovereign extends to spiritual matters, as well as to tem-
poral. The creed the majority is pleased to impose, the minor-
ity must in all meekness and submission receive ; and the form
of religious worship the majority is good enough to prescribe,
the minority must make it a matter of conscience to observe.
Whatever has been done under the most absolute monarchy or
the most lawless aristocracy may be reenacted under a pure dem-
ocracy, and what is worse, legitimately too, if it be once laid
down in principle that the majority has the absolute right to
govern.
" The majority will always have the physical power to coerce
the minority into submission ; but this is a matter of no mo-
ment, in comparison with the doctrine which gives them the
right to do it. We have very little fear of the physical force of
numbers, when we can oppose to it the moral force of right.
The doctrine in question deprives us of this moral force. By
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 393
giving absolute sovereignty to the majority, it declares what-
ever the majority does is right, that the majority can do no
wrong. It ligiti mates every possible act for which the sanction
of a majority of voices can be obtained. Whatever the major-
ity may exact it is just to give. Truth, justice, wisdom, virtue,
can erect no barriers to stay its progress ; for these are the crea-
tions of its will, and may be made or unmade by its breath.
Justice is obedience to its decrees, and injustice is resistance to
its commands. Resistance is not crime before the civil tribunal
only, but also inforo conscicntice. Now this is what we protest
against. It is not the physical force of the majority that we
dread, but the doctrine that legitimates each and every act the
majority may choose to perform ; and therefore teaches them to
look for no standard of right and wrong beyond their own
will
" The effects of this doctrine, so far as believed and acted on,
cannot be too earnestly deprecated. It creates a multitude of
demagogues, pretending a world of love for the dear people,
lauding the people's virtues, magnifying their sovereignty, and
with mock humility professing their readiness ever to bow to
the will of the majority. It tends to make public men lax in
their morals, hypocritical in their conduct ; and it paves the way
ibr gross bribery and corruption. It generates a habit of ap-
pealing, on nearlv all occasions, from truth and justice, wisdom
and virtue, to the force of numbers, and virtually sinks the man
in the brute. It destroys manliness of character, independence
of thought and action, and makes one weak, vacillating, a
time-server and a coward. It perverts inquiry from its legiti-
mate objects, and asks, when it concerns a candidate for office,
not, Who is the most honest, the most capable ? but, Who will
command the most votes 1 and when it concerns a measure of
policy, not, What is just? What is for the public good? but,
What can the majority be induced to support ?
" Now, as men, as friends to good morals, we cannot assent
to a doctrine which not only has this tendency, but which de-
clares this tendency legitimate. That it does have this tendency
needs not to be proved. Every body knows it, and not a few
lament it. Not long since it was gravely argued by a leading
politician, in a Fourth of July oration, that Massachusetts ought
to give Mr. Van Buren her votes for the Presidency, because,
if she did not, she would array herself against her sister States,
and be compelled to stand alone, as the orator said with a sneer,
' in solitary grandeur.' In the access of his party fever, it did
394 ' LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
not occur to him that Massachusetts was in duty bound, wheth-
er her sister States were with her or against her, to oppose Mr.
Van Buren, if she disliked him as a man, or distrusted his prin-
ciples as a politician or a statesman. Many good reasons, doubt-
less, might have been alleged why Massachusetts ought to have
voted for Mr. Van Buren, but the orator would have been puz-
zled to select one less conclusive, or more directly in the face
and eyes of all sound morals, than the one he adduced. The
man who deserves to be called a statesman never appeals to
low or demoralizing motives, and he scorns to carry even a
good measure by unworthy means. There is within every man,
who can lay any claim to correct moral feeling, that which looks
with contempt on the puny creature who makes the opinions of
the majority his rule of action. He who wants the moral cour-
age to stand up ' in solitary grandeur,' like Socrates . in the face
of the Thirty Tyrants, and demand that right be respected, that
justice be done, is unfit to be called a statesman, or even a
man. A man has no business with what the majority think,
will, say, do, or will approve ; if he will be a man, and main-
tain the rights and dignity of manhood, his sole business is to
inquire what truth and justice, wisdom and virtue, demand at
his hands, and to do it, whether the world be with him or
against him, to do it, whether he stand alone 'in solitary
grandeur,' or be huzzaed by the crowd, loaded with honors, held
up as one whom the young must aspire to imitate, or be sneered
at as singular, branded as a ' seditious fellow,' or crucified be-
tween two thieves. Away, then, with your demoralizing and
debasing notion of appealing to a majority of voices ! Dare be
a man, dare be yourself, to speak and act according to your own
solemn convictions, and in obedience to the voice of God calling
out to you from the depths of your own being. Professions of
freedom, of love of liberty, of devotion to her cause, are mere
wind, when there wants the power to live and to die in defence
of what one's own heart tells him is just and true. A free gov-
ernment is a mockery, a solemn farce, where every man feels
himself bound to consult and to conform to the opinions and
will of an irresponsible majority. Free minds, free hearts, free
souls, are the materials, and the only materials, out of which
free governments are constructed. And is he free in mind,
heart, soul, body, or limb, he who feels himself bound to the
triumphal car of the majority, to be dragged whither its drivers
please ? Is he the man to speak out the lessons of truth and
wisdom when most they are needed, to stand by the right when
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 395
all are gone out of the way, to plead for the wronged and down-
trodden when all are dumb, he who owns the absolute right of
the. majority to govern ?
" Sovereignty is not in the will of the people, nor in the will
of the majority. Every man feels that the people are not ulti-
mate, are not the highest, that they do not make the right or the
wrong, and that the people as a state, as well as the people as
individuals, are under law, accountable to a higher authority
than theirs. What is this Higher than the people ? The king ?
Not he whom men dignify with the royal title. Every man, by
the fact that he is a man, is an accountable being. Every man
feels that he owes allegiance to some authority above him. The
man whom men call a king, is a man, and, inasmuch as he is a
man, he must be an accountable being, must himself be under
law, and therefore cannot be the highest, the ultimate, and of
course not the true sovereign. His will is not in itself law.
Then he is not in himself the sovereign. Whatever authority
he may possess is derived, and that from which he derives his
authority, and not he, in the last analysis, is the true sovereign.
If he derive it from the people, then the people, not he, is the
sovereign ; if from God, then God, not he, is the sovereign.
" Are the aristocracy the sovereign ? If so, annihilate the aris-
tocracy, and men will be loosed from all restraint, released from
all obligation, and there will be for them neither right nor
wrong. Nobody can admit that light arid wrong owe their
existence to the aristocracy. Moreover, the aristocracy are men,
and, as men, they are in the same predicament with all other
men. They are themselves under law, accountable, and there-
fore not sovereign in their own right. If we say they are above
the people, they are placed there by some power which is also
above them, and that, not they, is the sovereign.
" But if neither people, nor kings, nor aristocracy are sover-
eign, who or what is ? What is the answer which every man,
when he reflects as a moralist, gives to the question, Why ought
I to do this or that particular thing ? Does he say, Because the
kino; commands it, the aristocracy enjoin it, the people or-
dain it, the majority wills it ? No. He says, if he be true to
his higher convictions, Because it is right, because it is just.
Every man feels that he has a right to do whatever is just, and
that it is his duty to do it. Whatever he feels to be just he
feels to be legitimate, to be law, to be morally obligatory.
Whatever is unjust he feels to be illegitimate, to be without ob
ligation, and to be that which it is not disloyalty to resist. The
3',)6 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
Absolutist, he who contends, for unqualified submission on the
part of the people to the monarch, thunders, therefore, in the
ears of the absolute monarch himself, that he is bound to be
just; and the aristocrat assures his order that its highest nobil-
ity is derived from its obedience to justice ; and does not the
democrat, too, even while he proclaims the sovereignty of the
people, tell this same sovereign people to be just? In all this,
witness is borne to an authority above the individual, above
kings, nobilities, and people, and to the fact, too, that the abso-
lute sovereign is justice. Justice, is then, the sovereign, the
sovereign of sovereigns, the king of kings, lord of lords, the su-
preme law of the people, and of the individual.
" This doctrine teaches that the people, as a state, are as much
bound to be just as is the individual. By bounding the state by
justice, we declare it limited, we deny its absolute sovereignty,
and therefore save the individual from absolute slavery. The
individual may on this ground arrest the action of the state, by
alleging that it is proceeding unjustly ; and the minority has a
moral force with which to oppose the physical force of the major-
ity. By this there is laid in the state the foundation of liberty ;
liberty is acknowledged as a right, whether it be possessed as a
fact or not.
" A more formal refutation of the sovereignty of the people,
or vindication of the sovereignty of justice, is not needed. In
point of fact, there are none who mean to set up the sovereignty
of the people above the sovereignty of justice. All, we believe,
when the question is presented as we have presented it, will and
do admit that justice is supreme, though very few seem to have
been aware of the consequences which result from such an ad-
mission. The sovereignty of justice, in all cases whatsoever, is
what we understand by the doctrine of democracy. True dem-
ocracy is not merely the denial of the absolute sovereignty of
the king, and that of the nobility, and the assertion of that of
the people ; but it is properly the denial of the absolute sover-
eignty of the state, whatever the form of government adopted as
the agent of the state, and the assertion of the absolute sover-
eignty of justice
44 Sovereignty may be taken either absolutely or relatively.
When taken absolutely, as we have thus far taken it, and as it
ought always to be taken, especially in a free government, it
means, as we have defined it, the highest, that which is ultimate,
which has the right to command what it will, and which to re-
sist is crime. Thus defined, it is certain that neither people, nor
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 397
kings, nor aristocracies, are sovereign, for they are all under law,
and accountable to an authority which is not theirs, but which
is above them and independent of them.
" When taken relatively, as it usually is by writers on govern-
ment, it means the state, or the highest civil or political power
of the state. The state, we have seen, is not absolute. It is
not an independent sovereign. It is not, then, in strictness, a
sovereign at all. Its enactments are not in and of themselves
laws, and cannot be laws, unless they receive the signature of
absolute justice. If that signature be witheld, they are null and
void from the beginning. Nevertheless, social order, which is
the indispensable condition of the very existence of the com-
munity, demands the creation of a government, and that the
government should be clothed with the authority necessary for
the maintenance of order. That portion of sovereignty neces-
sary for this end, and, if you please, for the promotion of the
common weal, justice delegates to the state. This portion of
delegated sovereignty is what is commonly meant by sovereignty.
This sovereignty is necessarily limited to certain specific objects,
and can be no greater than is needed for those objects. If
the state stretch its authority beyond those objects, it becomes
a usurper, and the individual is not bound to obey, but may
lawfully resist it, as he may lawfully resist any species of injus-
tice, taking care, however, that the manner of his resistance be
neither unjust in itself, nor inconsistent with social order. For in-
stance, the state assumes the authority to allow a man to be
seized and held as property ; the man may undoubedetly assert
his liberty, his rights as a man, and endeavour to regain them ;
but he may not, in doing this, deny or infringe any of the just
rights of him who may have deemed himself his master or
owner." pp. 37-45.
When we wrote this, we had the reputation of being one of
the stanchest friends of liberty and the most ultra radicals in the
country, a fact which we commend to those of our former
friends who are now so ready to represent us as having gone
over to the side of despotism. We should not now call the
doctrine of the extract Democracy, as we did when we wrote it,
nor should we use certain locutions, to be detected here and there
in the extract, dictated by an erroneous theology ; but the doc-
trine itself is our present doctrine, as clearly and as energetically
898 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
expressed as we could now express it. It seems to us to contain
an unanswerable refutation of the popular democratic principle,
and a triumphant vindication of the sovereignty of justice,
therefore, of the divine origin and right of government ; for jus-
tice, in the sense the writer uses it, is identical with God, who
alone is absolute, immutable, eternal, and sovereign Justice.
The purpose of the writer was evidently to obtain a solid
foundation for individual freedom. If he, in order to do this,
found and proved it necessary to assert the divine origin and
right of government, to rise above the sovereignty of kings, of
nobles, and even of the people, to the eternal and underived
sovereignty of God, King of kings, and Lord of lords, how should
we suspect ourselves of being hostile to liberty, when asserting
the same doctrine in defence of the rights of government ?
Having for years proved the doctrine to be favorable to liberty,
how could we believe the public would be so unjust to us as to
accuse us of favoring despotism, because we undertook to prove
it equally favorable to civil government ? Why are we to be
classed as hostile to freedom, because we defend in the interests
of authority the doctrine which we have uniformly asserted as
the only solid foundation of freedom ? Whether we are right
or wrong in the doctrine itself, or in its application, would it be
any remarkable stretch of charity to give us credit for believing
ourselves no less favorable to liberty in bringing the doctrine out
in defence of authority, than we were in bringing it out in defence
of the rights of the subject ? Are liberty and authority neces-
sarily incompatible one with the other ? Or is it a blunder to
derive both from the same source, and to suppose that what es-
tablishes the legitimacy of authority must needs establish also
the legitimacy of liberty ?
But is the doctrine of the divine origin and right of govern-
ment hostile to liberty ? If government derives its existence and
its right from God, it can have no power but such as God dele-
gates to it. But God is just, justice itself, and therefore can
delegate to the government no power to do what is not just.
Consequently, whenever a government exercises an unjust power,
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 399
or its powers unjustly, it exceeds its delegated powers, and is an
usurper, a tyrant, and as such forfeits its right to command. Its
acts are lawless, because contrary to justice, and do not bind the
subject, because he can be bound only by the law. If they do
not bind, they are null, and the attempt to enforce obedience to
them may be resisted. Is it difficult, then, to understand, that,
while the doctrine asserts the obligation in conscience of obe-
dience to legitimate authority, to the government as long as it
does not command any thing unjust, it condemns all illegal au-
thority, and deprives the government of its right to exact obe-
dience the moment it ceases to be just? What is there in this
hostile to liberty ? Is my liberty abridged when I am required
to obey justice ? If so, be good enough to tell me whence I
obtain the right to do wrong.
Modern politicians assert, in opposition to the sovereignty of
God, the sovereignty of the people. The will of the people is
with them the ultimate authority. Is it they or we who are the
truest friends of liberty ? Liberty cannot be conceived without
justice, and wherever there is justice there is liberty. Liberty,
then, must be secured just in proportion as we secure the reign
of justice. This is done in proportion to the guaranties we have
that the will which rules shall be a just will. Is there any one
who will venture to institute a comparison between the will of
the people and the will of God ? No one ? Then who can
pretend that the doctrine which makes the will of the people the
sovereign is as favorable to liberty as the doctrine which makes
the will of God the sovereign ? The will of God is always just,
because the Divine will is never separable from the Divine rea-
son ; but the will of the people may be, and often is, unjust, for
it is separable from that reason, the only fountain of justice.
We make the government a government of law, because we
found it on will and reason ; these modern politicians make it
one of mere will, for they have no assurance that the will of the
people will always be informed by reason. By what right, then,
do they who maintain the very essence of despotism charge us
with being hostile to liberty ? Wherefore should we not, as we
400 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
do denounce them as the enemies, nay, the assassins of liberty,
men who salute her, and at the same instant smite her under the
fifth rib?
But, it is gravely argued, if you deny the popular origin and
right of government, you are a monarchist or an aristocrat,
We deny the conclusion. If people would pay a little attention
to what we actually say, before conjuring up their objections,
they would, perhaps, reason less illogically. We raise no ques-
tion between the sovereignty of kings and nobles and that of
the people. What we deny is the human origin and right of
government. We deny all undelegated sovereignty on earth,
whether predicated of the king, the nobility, or the people.
The question we are discussing lies a little deeper and a little
farther back than our modern politicians are aware. They are
political atheists, and recognize for the state no power above the
people ; we are Christians, and hold that all power, that is, all
legal authority, is from God ; therefore we deny that kings, no-
bilities, or the people have any authority in their own right, and
maintain that the state itself, however constituted, has only a
delegated authority, and no underived sovereignty. They place
the people back of the state, and maintain that it derives all its
powers from the people, and is therefore bound to do their will ;
we tell them that the people themselves are not ultimate have
no power to delegate, except the power which Almighty God
delegates to them, and this power they, as trustees, are bound to
exercise according to his will, and are, therefore, not free to exer-
cise it according to their own. They are desirous mainly of get-
ting rid of kings and nobles, and, to do so, they assert the sov-
ereignty of the popular will ; we wish to get rid of despotism
and to guard against all unjust government, and we assert the
sovereignty of God over kings, nobles, and people, as well as
over simple private consciences. Is this intelligible? Who,
then, is the party hostile to liberty ?
But, reply these same politicians, we do not mean to deny
the sovereignty of God ; we only mean that the authority he
delegates is delegated to the people, and not to the king or the
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 401
nobility. If by people you understand the people as the nation
with its political faculties and organs, and not the people as
mere isolated individuals, who disputes you ? Who denies that
kings and nobilities hold their powers, if not from, at least for,
the people, and forfeit them the moment they refuse to exercise
them for the common good of the people ? What are you
dreaming of? Do you suppose all men have lost their senses
because you have lost yours ? Who born and brought up under
a republic, who acquainted with and embracing the teachings
of Catholic theologians, is likely to hold the slavish doctrine, that
the people are for the government, not the government for the
people ? Do you suppose that the republican and Catholic ad-
vocate the divine right of kings, and passive obedience, the
invention of Protestant divines, set forth and defended by that
pedantic Scotchman, the so-called English Solomon ? Who that
has meditated on the saying of our Blessed Lord, "Let him
that would be greatest among you be your servant," can hold
that a prince receives power, or has any right to power, but for
the public good ? We do not deny the responsibility of kings
and nobles to the nation, or that the nation may, under certain
circumstances, and observing certain forms, call them to an ac-
count of their stewardship. But if this removes your objections
to our doctrine, it by no means removes ours to yours. We
complain of you, not because you make princes responsible to
the people, that is, to the nation, but because you leave the peo-
ple irresponsible, and make them subject to no law but their
own will. You simply transfer the despotism from the one or
the few to the many, and deny liberty by resting in the arbi-
trary will of the people. You stop with the people, and, if you
do not deny, you at least fail to assert, the sovereignty of God ;
you tell them their will is sovereign, without adding that they
have only a delegated sovereignty, and are bound to exercise it
in strict accordance with and in obedience to the will of God.
Here is your original sin. On your ground, no provision is
made for liberty, none for resistance to tyranny, without resort-
ing to the revolutionar} principle, the pretended right to resist
402 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
legitimate government, a contradiction in terms, and alike hos-
tile to liberty and to authority. On our ground, the right to
resist tyranny or oppression is secured without detriment to le-
gitimate government ; because the prince who transgresses his
authority and betrays his trust forfeits his rights, and having
lost his rights, he ceases to be sacred and inviolable.
But we are told, once, more, that practically it can make no
difference whether we say the will of God is sovereign, or the
will of the people ; for the will of the people is the true expres-
sion of the will of God, according to the maxim, Vox populi,
vox Dei. We deny it. The will of God is eternal and im-
mutable justice, which the will of the people is not. The peo-
ple may and do often actually do wrong. We have no more
confidence in the assertion, "The people can do no wrong,"
than we have in its brother fiction, " The king can do no
wrong." The people must be taken either as individuals or
as the state. As individuals, they certainly are neither infallible
nor impeccable. As the state, they are only the aggregate of
individuals. And are we to be told, that from an aggregation
of fallibles, we can obtain infallibility? Show us a promise
from Almighty God, made to the people in one capacity or the
other, that he will preserve them from error and injustice, be-
fore you talk to us of their infallibility. The people in their
collective capacity, that is, the state popularly constituted, never
surpass the general average of the wisdom and virtue of the
same people taken individually ; and as this falls infinitely below
infallibility, let us hear no more of the infallibility of the people.
For very shame's sake, after denying, as most of you do, the
possibility of an infallible Church immediately constituted and
assisted by Infinite Wisdom, do not stultify yourselves by com-
ing forward now to assert the infallibility of the people. If the
people are infallible, what need of constitutions to protect mi-
norities, and of contrivances for the security of individual liberty,
which even we in our land of universal suffrage find to be in-
dispensable ?
But we return to our original position. All power is of God.
LEGITIMACY kND REVOLUTIONISM. 403
By him kings reign and princes decree just things. Govern-
ment is a sacred trust from, him, to be exercised according to
his will, for the public good. The government which he in his
providence has instituted for a people, and which confines itself
to its delegated powers, for the true end of government, is le-
gitimate government, whatever its form, and cannot be resisted
without sin. But the government which is arbitrarily imposed
upon a people, or which betrays its trust, or usurps powers
seriously to the injury of its subjects, is illegitimate, and has
no claim to our allegiance. Such a government may be law-
fully resisted, and sometimes to resist it becomes an imperative
duty.
But who is to decide whether the actual government has
transcended its powers, and whether the case has occurred when
we are permitted or bound to resist it ? This is a grave ques-
tion, because, if the fact of illegitimacy be not established by
some competent authority, they who resist run the hazard of
resisting legitimate government, and of ruining both their own
souls and their country. Evidently the individual is not to de-
cide for himself by his own private judgment ; for that would
leave every one free to resist the government whenever he should
choose, which would be whenever it should command any thing
not to his liking. If he had the right thus to resist, the gov-
ernment would have no right to coerce his obedience, and there
would be an end of all government. Evidently, again, not the
people, for we must take the people either as the state, or as
outside of the state. Outside of the state they are simple indi-
viduals, and, as we have seen, have not, and cannot have, the
right to decide. As the state, they have no faculties and no or-
gans but the government which is to be judged, and therefore
can neither form nor express a judgment. Who, then ? Evi-
dently the power whose function it is to declare the law of God.
Since the government derives its authority from God, and is
amenable to his law, evidently it can be tried only under that
law, and before a court which has authority to declare it, and to
pronounce judgment accordingly.
404 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
But what shall be done in case there be no such court of
competent jurisdiction ? We reject the supposition. Almighty
God could never give a law without instituting a court to declare
it, and to judge of its infractions. We, as Catholics, know what
and where that court is, and therefore cannot be embarrassed
by the question. If there are nations who have no such court,
or who refuse to recognize the one Almighty God has establish-
ed, that is their affair, not ours, and they, not we, are responsible
for the embarrassments to which they are subjected. They, un-
doubtedly, are obliged either to assert passive obedience and
non-resistance, or to deny the legitimacy of any government by
asserting the right of revolution ; that is, they have no alterna-
tive but anarchy or despotism, as their history proves. But this
is not our fault. We are not aware that we are obliged to ex-
clude God and his Church from our politics in order to accom-
modate ourselves to those who blaspheme the one and revile the
other. We are not aware that we are obliged to renounce our
reason, and reject the lessons of experience, because, if we admit
them, they prove that Almighty God has made his Church es-
sential to the maintenance of civil authority on the one hand,
and of civil liberty on the other, because they prove that the
state can succeed no better than the individual, without religion.
We have never supposed that a man could be a Christian and
exclude God from the state, and we have no disposition to con-
cede, or to undertake to prove, that he can be. If the Church
is necessary as a teacher of piety and morals, she must be neces-
sary to decide the moral questions which arise between prince and
prince, and between prince and subject, and to maintain the con-
trary is only to contradict one's self. Politics are nothing but a
branch of general ethics, and ethics are simply practical theology.
If there is any recognized authority in theology, that authority
must have jurisdiction of every ethical question, that is, every
question which involves considerations of right and wrcng, in
whatever department of life they may arise. You may fight
against this as you please, but you cannot change the unalterable
nature of things. It is useless as well as hard to kick against the
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 400
pricks. The question of resistance, presents a case of conscience, a
moral question, and as such belongs by its very nature to the spirit-
ual order, and then necessarily falls under the jurisdiction of the
legitimate representative of that order. All the great principles of
politics and law are ethical, and treated as such by both Catholic
and Protestant theologians. How, then, can we dispense with the
agency of the Church in politics, any more than in private mor-
als or in faith itself? And are we to forego civil government,
are we to submit passsively to tyrants, or to rush into anarchy,
because the madness or blindness of others leaves them no other
alternative ? Must we reject or refrain from using the infallible
means which we possess for determining what is the law of God,
because others discard them and attempt to get on without
them ? Must we strip ourselves and run naked through the
streets, because some of our brethren obstinately persist in being
Adamites ? Really, this were asking too much of us.
But let no one be frightened out of his propriety, for we
really say no more for our Church than every sectarian claims
for his sect, no more in principle than was claimed last year by
the Presbyterians, when they officially condemned the Mexican
war, or by the Unitarians, when, as officially as was possible with
their organization or want of organization, they did the same. The
Church, in the case we have supposed, decides only the morality
or immorality of the act done or proposed to be done. And is
there a Protestant who belongs to what is called a church who
does not take his church as his moral teacher ? When Philip
of Hesse found his wife unsatisfactory to him, and wished to
take unto himself another, did he not sulbrnit the question to
Luther and the pastors of the new religion ? What are your
Protestant ministers, if not, in your estimation, among other
things, teachers of morals ? And in case of doubt, to whom
would you apply for its resolution but to your church, such as it
is ? Do you say you would not ? To whom, then ? To your
politicians ? What ! do you regard politicians as safer moral
guides than your pastors ? To the state ? So you hold the
Btate more competent to decide questions of morals than your
400 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
church ! But the state is the party accused ; would "ou suffer
it to be judge in its own cause ? Then you are at its mercy,
and are a slave. Trust your own judgment ? But you are a
party interested, and what right have you to be judge in your
own cause ?
The fact is, every man who admits religion at all must admit
its jurisdiction over all moral questions, whether in their indi-
vidual or in their social application, and therefore does and must
defer in them to that authority which represents for him the
spiritual order. The state has no commission as a teacher of
morals or as a director of consciences, and unless you blend
church and state, and absorb the spiritual in the temporal, you
cannot claim authority for the state in any strictly moral ques
tion. The theory of our own institutions is the utter iucompe-
tency of the state in spirituals. But spirituals include necessa-
rily every question of right and wrong, whether under the natu-
ral law or the revealed law, a fact too often overlooked, and
not sufficiently considered by some even of our nominally
Catholic politicians and newspaper- writers and editors. If this
be so, the ligitimate province of the stato is restricted to matters
which pertain to human prudence and social economy. With-
in the limits of the law of God, that is, providing it violate no
precept of the natural or revealed law, it is* as we have said in
our reply to Mr. Thornwell, independent and free to pursue the
policy which human wisdom and prudence suggest as best
adapted to secure the public good. To give it a wider province
would be to claim for it a portion at least of that very authority
which Protestants make it an offence in us to claim even for the
Church of God. We claim here no direct temporal authority
for the Church, but we do claim, and shall, as long as we retain
our reason, continue to claim for her, under God, supreme and
exclusive jurisdiction over all questions which pertain to the
spiritual order.
The conservative doctrine which we have contended for, and
which does not happen to please some of our readers, follows
necessarily from this doctrine of the divine origin and right of
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 407
government. No one particular form of government exists by
divine right for every people, but every form so exists for the
particular nation of which it is the established order. The es-
tablished order, the constitution of the state, which God in his
providence has given to a particular people, which is coeval with
that people, has grown up with it, and is identified with its whole
public life, is the legitimate order, the legal constitution, and
therefore sacred and inviolable. If sacred and inviolable, it must
be preserved, and no changes or innovations under the name of
progress or reform, that would abolish or essentially alter it, or
that would in any degree impair its free, vigorous, and healthy
action, can be tolerated.
This is the doctrine we have maintained, and this is asserted
to be hostile to liberty and favorable to despotism. However
this may be, the doctrine is not a recent doctrine with us, not
one which we have embraced for the first time 'since our conver-
sion to Catholicity. We held and publicly maintained it during
that period of our life when we were regarded as a liberalist,
and denounced by our countrymen as a radical, a leveller, and
a disorganize?. Thus, in October, 1838, we oppose it to the
mad proceedings of the Abolitionists, and maintain that it is a
sufficient reason for condemning those proceedings, that they
are unconstitutional and revolutionary.
" We would acquit the Abolitionists, also, of all wish to
change fundamentally the character of our institutions. They
are not, at least the honest part of them, politicians ; but very
simple-minded men and women, who crave excitement, and seek
it in Abolition meetings, and in getting up Abolition societies
and petitions, instead of seeking it in ball-rooms, theatres, or
places of fashionable amusement or dissipation. Politics, prop-
erly speaking, they abominate, because politics would require
them to think, and they wish only to feel. Doubtless some of
them are moved by generous sympathies, and a real regard for
the well-being of the Negro ; but the principal moving cause of
their proceedings, after the craving for excitement, and perhaps
notoriety, is the feeling that slavery is a national disgrace. Now
this feeling, as we have shown, proceeds from a misconception
of the real character of our institutions. This feeling can be
408 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
justified only on the supposition that we are a consolidated re-
public. Its existence is therefore a proof, that, whatever be the
conscious motives in the main of the Abolitionist, their proceed-
ings strike against our Federal system.
" Well, what if they do ? replies the Abolitionist. If Feder-
alism, or the doctrine of State sovereignty, which you say is the
American system of politics, prohibits us from laboring to free
the slave, then down with it. Any system of government, any
political relations, which prevent me from laboring to break the
yoke of the oppressor and to set the captive free, is a wicked
system, and ought to be destroyed. God disowns it, Christ dis-
owns it, and man ought to disown it. If consolidation, if cen-
tralization, be the order that enables us to free the slave, then
give us consolidation, give us centralization. It is the true doc-
trine. It enables one to plead for the slave. The slave is
crushed under his master's foot ; the slave is dying ; I see noth-
ing but the slave ; I hear nothing but the slave's cries for deliv-
erance. Away with your paper barriers ! away with your idle
prating about State rights ! clear the way ! let me run to the
slave ! Any thing that frees the slave is right, is owned by
God.
" We express here the sentiment and use very nearly the lan-
guage of the Abolitionists. They have no respect for govern-
ment as such. They, indeed, are fast adopting the ultra-radical
doctrine, that all government is founded in usurpation, and is an
evil which all true Christians must labor to abolish. They have,
at least some of them, nominated Jesus Christ to be President
of the United States ; as much as to say, in the only practical
sense to be given the nomination, that there shall be no Presi-
dent of the United States but an idea, and an idea without any
visible embodiment ; which is merely contending, in other words,
that there shall be no visible government, no political institutions
whatever. They have fixed their minds on a given object, and,
finding that the political institutions of the country and the laws
of the land are against them, they deny the legitimacy of all
laws and of all political institutions. Let them carry their doc-
trines out, and it is easy to see that a most radical revolution in
the institutions of the country must be the result.
" Now, we ask, has a revolution become necessary ? Is it no
longer possible to labor for the progress of Humanity in this
country, without changing entirely the character of our political
institutions ? Must we change our Federal system, destroy the
existing relations between the States and the Union and between
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 409
the States themselves ? Nay, must we destroy all outward, vis-
ible government, abolish all laws, and leave the community in
the state in which the Jews were, when ' there was no king in
Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own
eyes ? ' We put these questions in soberness, and with a deep
feeling of their magnitude. The Abolition ranks are full of in-
sane dreamers, and fuller yet of men and women ready to un-
dertake to realize any dream, however insane, and at any ex-
pense. We ask, therefore, these questions with solemnity, and
with fearful forebodings for our country. We rarely fear, we
rarely tremble at the prospect of evil to come. The habitual
state of our own mind is that of serene trust in the future ; and
if in this respect we are thought to have a fault, it is in being
too sanguine, in hoping too much. But we confess, the pro-
ceedings of the Abolitionists, coupled with their vague specula-
tions and their crude notions, do fill us with lively alarm, and
make us apprehend danger to our beloved country. We beg.
in the name of God and of man, the Abolitionists to pause, and
if they love liberty, ask themselves what liberty has, in the long
run, to gain by overthrowing the system of government we hava
established, by effecting a revolution in the very foundation of
our Federal system.
" For ourselves, we have accepted with our whole heart the
political system adopted by our fathers We take the
American political system as our starting-point, as our primitive
data, and we repulse whatever is repugnant to it, and accept,
demand whatever is essential to its preservation. We take our
stand on the Idea of our institutions, and labor with all our soul
to realize and develop it. As a lover of our race, as the devot-
ed friend of liberty, of the progress of mankind, we feel that we
must, in this country, be conservative, not radical. If \ve de-
mand the elevation of labor and the laboring classes, we do it
only in accordance with our institutions and for the purpose of
preserving them, by removing all discrepancy between their
spirit and the social habits and condition of the people on whom
they are to act and to whose keeping they are intrusted. We
demand reform only for the purpose of preserving American in-
stitutions in their real character ; and we can tolerate no changes,
no innovations, no alleged improvements, not introduced in
strict accordance with the relations which do subsist between
the States and the Union and between the States themselves.
Here is our political creed. More power in the Federal govern-
ment than was given it by the Convention which framed the
410 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
Constitution would be dangerous to the States, and with less
power the Federal government would not be able to subsist.
We take ii, then, as it is. The fact, that any given measure is
necessary to preserve it as it is, is a sufficient reason for adopt-
ing that measure ; the fact, that a given measure is opposed to
it as it is, and has a tendency to increase or diminish its power,
is a sufficient reason for rejecting that measure." The Boston
Quarterly Review, 1838, Vol. i. pp. 492-495.
The same doctrine we had inculcated in the Review for the
previous July of the same year.
"Our government, in its measures and practical character,
should conform as strictly as possible to the ideal or theory of
our institutions. Nobody, we trust, is prepared for a revolu-
tion ; nobody, we also trust, is bold enough to avow a wish to
depart very widely from the fundamental principles of our insti-
tutions; and everybody will admit that the statesman should
study to preserve those institutions in their simplicity and in-
tegrity, and should seek, in every law or measure he proposes,
merely to bring out their practical worth, and secure the ends
for which they were established. Their spirit should dictate
every legislative enactment, every judicial decision, and every
exesutive measure. Any law not in harmony with their genius,
any measure which would be likely to disturb the nicely adjusted
balance of their respective powers, or that would give them, in
their practical operation, a character essentially different from
the one they vfev<s originally intended to have, should be dis-
countenanced, and never for a single moment entertained.
" We would not be understood to be absolutely opposed to
all innovations or changes, whatever their character. It is true,
we can never consent to disturb the settled order of a state, with-
out strong and urgent reasons ; but we can conceive of cases in
which we should deem it our duty to demand a revolution.
When a government has outlived its idea, and the institutions
of a country no longer bear any relation to the prevailing habits,
thoughts, and sentiments of the people, and have become a mere
dead carcass, an encumbrance, an offence, we can call loudly for
a revolution, and behold with comparative, coolness its terrible do-
ings. But such a case does not as yet present itself here. Our
institutions are all young, full of life, and the future. Here, we
cannot be revolutionists. Here, we can tolerate no innovations,
no changes, which touch fundamental laws. None are admissi-
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 411
ble but such as are needed to preserve our institutions in their
original character, to bring out their concealed beauty, to clear
the field for their tree operation, and to give more directness
and force to their legitimate activity. Every measure must be in
harmony with them, grow, as it were, out of them, and be but
a development of their fundamental laws." Vol. i. pp. 334, 335.
Undoubtedly, we here recognize a case in which a revolution
would be justifiable ; but not a case in which it would be law-
ful to subvert the constitution ; for the case supposed is one in
which the constitution has already been subverted, and ceased
to be living and operative. The doctrine is nowise different
from our present doctrine on the subject, only what we called
revolution then we should call by another name now. The
movements of a people to depose the tyrant, to throw off the
illegitimate and to restore the legitimate authority, are not a
revolution in the sense in which we deny the right of revolution.
It is essential to our idea of a revolution, that it should involve,
in some respect, an effort or intention to subvert the legal au-
thority of a state. If, for instance, it be conceded that Ireland
is an integral part of the British empire, or, rather, of the Brit-
ish state, an effort on the part of Irishmen to sever her from the
British state, arid erect her into an independent nation, would
be revolutionary and unjustifiable. But if it be conceded that
she is a separate state, that she has never been merged in the
British state, and has been bound to it only by a mutual com-
pact, and if it be conceded or established that England has
broken the compact or not complied with its conditions, a like
effort at separation and independence would involve no revolu-
tionary principle, and, if prudent or expedient, would be justi-
fiable, even though it should lead to a fearful and protracted war
between the two nations.
It is clear, however, from these extracts, that, as long ago as
1838, we were, in relation to our own country, decidedly con-
servative. Here is another extract from the same Review, for
October, 1841, which proves that we, while still regarded as a
radical, generalized it and extended it to all countries.
412 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
"In this matter of world- reforming, it is our misfortune to
disagree with our radical brethren. The reforms which can be
introduced into any one country are predetermined by its geo-
graphical position, the productions of its soil, and the genius of
its people and of its existing institutions. Any reform which
requires the introduction or the destruction of a fundamental
element is precluded. All reforms must consist in, and be re-
stricted to, clearing away anomalies and developing already ad-
mitted principles." Vol. iv. p. 532.
Here is the conservative doctrine stated as broadly and as
distinctly as we state it, now, and we could easily show that we
entertained it at a much earlier date. Doubtless there are many
things to be found in The Boston Quarterly Review not easily
reconcilable with this doctrine ; for we had not, at the time of
conducting it, reduced all our ideas to a systematic and harmo-
nious whole. Moreover, we wrote with less care than we do
now ; for we wrote more for the purpose of exciting thought
than of establishing conclusions. But the discrepancies to be
detected are in general more apparent than real ; for we, un-
happily, adopted the practice of using popular terms in an un-
popular sense, which often gave us the appearance of advocat-
ing doctrines we by no means intended. Thus, we adopted the
word democracy, but defined it in a sense of our own, very dif-
ferent from the popular sense. We did the same with many
other terms. There was in this no intention to deceive. But
we had a theory, for in those times we were addicted to theo-
rizing, that the people used terms in a loose and vague sense,
and that the business of the writer was to seize and define it,
to give in its precision what the people really mean by the term,
if they could but explain their meaning to themselves. But we
found by experience that we could not make the people attend
to our definitions, and that they would, in spite of them, con-
tinue to use the popular term in its popular sense, and that, if
we wished to express another sense, or the same sense some-
what modified, we must select another term. The mistake wo
fell into is fallen into by many who are not so fortunate as to
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 413
detect it. Some of our friends have tried to find fault with our
views on liberty, when their own views were the same as ours.
They use the word liberty in relations in which we avoid it ;
but they, in using it, fail to convey their real meaning. The
popular mind understands by liberty something very different
from what they do. It is necessary to select terms with a view of
denying what we do not mean, as well as of expressing what
we do mean. Many of the inconsistencies we have been charged
with have grown out of our former neglect of this rule, and not
a few of the changes we are supposed to have undergone are
really nothing but changes in our terminology, made for the
purpose of getting our real meaning out to public apprehension.
But this by the way. Versatile as we may have been, we have
always had certain fixed principles, and what they were may be
known by noting what we have cast off in our advance towards
manhood, and what we have retained and still retain. The con-
servative principle is evidently one of these, and as we undenia-
bly held it when nobody dreamed of charging us with hostility
to liberty, we cannot see why our holding it now should be con-
strued into proof that we are on the side of despotism.
But let us look at the doctrine itself. People hold it objec-
tionable, because they suppose it commands us to preserve old
abuses and forbids us to labor for the progress of civilization.
But in this they assume two things: 1. That the legitimate
constitution of a state is, or may be, an abuse ; and, 2. That the
progress of civilization is denied, if the right to subvert the con-
stitution is denied.
The first involves a contradiction in terms. Nothing legal or
legitimate is or can be, an abuse ; An abuse is a misuse of that
which is legal. The abuse is always contrary to the constitu-
tion, or at least some departure from it ; and consequently con-
servatism, or the preservation of the constitution, instead of re-
quiring us to conserve the abuse, imperatively commands us to
redress it , because, if not redressed, it may in time undermine
and destroy the constitution itself.
The second is equally unfounded. The destruction of the
414 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
constitution is the destruction of the state itself, its resolution
into anarchy or despotism, either of which is fatal to civilization.
What should we think of the physician who should undertake
to restore a man to health, or to increase his soundness and
vigor, by destroying his constitution ? What we should think
of him is precisely what we ought to think of the statesman
who seeks to advance civilization by subverting the constitution
of the state. The progress of civilization is inconceivable with-
out the progress of the state, and the progress of the state is in-
conceivable without the existence of the state. How, then, can
the subversion, that is, the destruction, of the state tend to ad-
vance civilization ? If you will listen either to common sense or
to the lessons of experience, you will grant that revolutions tend
only to throw men into barbarism and savagism. The passions
they call forth are the lowest, fiercest, and most brutal of our
nature, and your patriot so called, he who seeks to advance his
country by destroying its constitution, is usually a tiger for his
ferocity.
But it is said that the existing constitution is destroyed only
in order to make way for a new and better organization of the
state. When you have shown/ us an instance, in the whole his-
tory of the world, in which the destruction of an existing consti-
tution of a state has been followed by the introduction and
adoption of a new and better one, better for the particular na-
tion, we mean, we will give up the point, acknowledge that we
have been in this whole matter consummate fools, and become
as mad revolutionists as the best of you. But such an instance
cannot be found. How often must we tell you that a constitu-
tion cannot be made as one makes a wheel-barrow or a steam-
engine, that of the constitution we must say, as we say of the
poet, "Nascitur, non fit?" It is generated, not constructed,
and no human wisdom can give to a state its constitution. The
experiment has often been tried, and has just as often failed.
Shaftesbury and Locke tried it for the Carolinas. They failed.
France tried it in her old revolution; she is trying it again.
Her former experiment resulted in anarchy, military despotism,
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 415
and the restoration ; her present experiment in four short months
has reached military despotism. England has tried it, and sent
out from her mills at home, along with her other manufactures,
a constitution cut and dried for each of her colonies, and in what
instance has the constitution not proved a curse to the colony for
which it was made and on which it has been imposed ? Who
are these men who now come forward and ask us to credit them
in spite of philosophy, of common sense, uniform experience,
and experiment ? Surely they must be prodigies of modesty, or
else count largely on our simplicity and credulity.
But we are referred to our own country, to the American
Revolution. Be it so. In reply, we might refer to the Spanish
American revolutions, as a case much more in point. But our
own country is the case on which the modern revolutionists
chiefly rely for their justification. We do not contest the right
of the Anglo-American colonies to separate from the mother
country ; we are not the men to condemn the Congress of 1776 ;
and we cheerfully concede the prosperity which has followed the
separation. But what is called the American Revolution was
no revolution in the sense in which we deny the right of revet
lution, and in it there was no subversion of the state, no destruc-
tion of the existing constitution, and no assertion of the right to
destroy it. The colonies were held by compact to the crown of
Great Britain. The tyranny of George the Third broke that
compact, and absolved the colonies from their allegiance. Ab-
solved from their allegiance to the crown, they were, ipso facto,
sovereign states, and the war which followed was simply a war
in defence of their independence as such states. No abuse of
terms can convert such a war into a revolutionary war. Then
there was no civil revolution. The internal state of the colonies
was not dissolved, and there was no war on the constitution of
the American states. They retained substantially the very polit-
ical constitutions with which they commenced, and retain them
up to this moment. We have never undergone a revolution in
any sense like the European revolutions which have followed
since the war of our independence. Slight alterations have from
416 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
time to time been, wisely or unwisely, effected in the State con-
stitutions, but none which have struck at essential principles.
Nor was the formation of our Federal Constitution any thing
like what the French National Assembly are attempting. It
was similar in its character to what the German Diet at Frank-
fort have just done, or are still engaged in doing. It was not
making and giving a constitution to a people who had just over-
thrown an old government, destroyed the old constitution, and
resolved the state into its original elements, but was the act of
free, sovereign states, already constituted, and exercising all the
faculties of sovereign states. Here are vast differences, which
are too often overlooked, and which should prevent our conduct
in throwing off the crown of Great Britain and forming the
Federal Union from being regarded as a precedent for those who
would destroy an existing constitution for the purpose of reor-
ganizing the state. We never did any thing of the sort, and
from the fact that the result of what we did do has been great
national prosperity it cannot, be inferred that such will be the
result of revolutions in the European states. Revolutionists both
at home and abroad, especially abroad, do not sufficiently con-
sider the wide difference between colonies already existing as
bodies politic, exercising nearly all the functions of government,
separating themselves politically, under the authority of their
local governments, from the mother country, and setting up for
themselves, and the insurrection of the mob against the existing
constitution, destroying it, and attempting to replace it by one
of their own making. We were children come to our majority,
leaving our father's house to become heads of establishments of
our own ; the revolutionists are parricides, who knock their aged
parent in the head or cut his throat in order to possess them-
selves of the homestead.
But however this may be, it is clear that the doctrine we put
forth is not favorable to despotism ; for despotism is as destruc-
tive of the legitimate constitution as revolutionism in favor of
what is called Liberalism. Radicalism and despotism are only
two phases of one and the same thing. Despotism is radicalism
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 417
in place ; radicalism is despotism out of place. Both are un-
constitutional, and to preserve the constitution requires us to
oppose the ore as much as the other. Liberty demands the
supremacy of the law, and law is will regulated by reason, res-
trained by justice ; and to preserve law in this sense, we must
resist every attempt, come it from what quarter it may, to sub-
stitute for it the government of arbitrary will.
Nobody denies the right to correct abuses. The doctrine we
set forth not only concedes our right to correct abuses, but makes
it, as we have seen, our duty to correct them. All that it for-
bids is our right to correct them by illegal, and therefore unjus-
tifiable means. We must obey the law in correcting the abuses
of the law, the constitution in repelling its enemies. This re-
striction is just, and good ends are never attainable by unjust
means. Needs it be said again and again, that iniquity can
never lead to justice, tyranny to liberty ? But observing this
restriction, you may go as far as you please. The doctrine we
contend for does not, indeed, allow you to change a legal mon-
archy into a democracy, nor a democracy, where it is the legal
order, as with us, into a monarchy ; but it does allow you to
change the individuals intrusted with the administration of the
government. Kings, as long as they reign justly, reign by di-
vine right ; and in this sense, and in no other, we accept the
doctrine of the divine right of kings ; but when they cease to
reign justly, become tyrannical and oppressive, they forfeit their
rights, and the authority reverts to the nation, to be exercised,
however, in accordance with its fundamental constitution. The
nation may depose the tyrant, even dispossess, for sufficient rea-
sons, the reigning famil} 7 , and call a new dynasty to the throne ;
for no nation can be rightfully the property of a prince, or of a
family, or bound to submit to eternal slavery. Thus far we go ;
for we hold with the great Catholic authorities, that the king is
not in reigning, but in reigning justly.
But we have said enough to vindicate our doctrine from the
charge of being hostile to liberty and favorable to despotism.
We yield to no man in our love of liberty, but we have always
418 LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM.
felt that just ends are more easily gained by just than by unjust
means, and that the truth is much more effectually defended by
arguments drawn from sound than from unsound principles. It
is not that we are indifferent to liberty, but that we reject the
grounds on which modern politicians defend it, and disapprove
of the means by which they seek to secure it. We have shown
that those grounds are untenable, and that those means are fitted
only to defeat the end for which they are adopted. He who
wants more than justice will give him wants what he cannot
have without injustice to others. Our doctrine will satisfy no
such man, and we should be satisfied with no doctrine that
would. He who wishes for liberty without obedience to law
wishes for what never has been and never can be. An authori-
ty which does not restrain, which is only an instrument to be
used when it serves our purpose, and to be cast off the moment
it can no longer serve it, is no legitimate authority, is not a gov-
ernment at all. If we have government, it must govern, and we
must obey it, even when to obey it may be a restraint on our
private feelings and passions, for it is only at this price that we
can purchase immunity from the private feelings and passions
of others. Nothing is, then, in reality more unwise than to
cherish an impatience of restraint and a spirit of insubordination.
The sooner we learn the difficult lesson of obedience, the better
will it be for us. We cannot, if we would, have every thing our
own way ; and perhaps it would not be to our advantage, if we
could. Life has, and as long as the world stands will have, its
trials, and, however impatient we may be, there is and will be
much which we can conquer only by learning to bear it. It is
easy to stir up a revolution, to subvert a throne or a dynasty ;
but to reestablish order, to readjust the relations of man with
man, of prince with subject and subject with prince, so as to re-
move all evils and satisfy every wish, this is labor, this is work,
which no mortal man has ever yet been equal to. A man
could lose paradise, bring sin, death, and all our woe into the
world ; only a God could repair the damage, and restore us to
the heaven we had forfeited.
LEGITIMACY AND REVOLUTIONISM. 419
Our doctrine, just at this moment, may be unpopular, and
we know it will put no money into our pocket, and bring us no
applause ; but this is not our fault, nor a reason why we should
withhold it. Having never yet pandered to popular prejudices,
or sought to derive profit from popular passions and fallacies,
we shall not attempt to do it now. We love our country, per-
haps, as much as some others who make much more parade of
their patriotism ; and we love liberty, it may be, as well, and
are likely to serve it as effectually, as our young revolutionists
in whom reason "sleeps and declamation roars." We have,
indeed, a tolerable pair of lungs, and if not a musical, at least
a strong voice ; we know and could use all the commonplaces
of our young patriots, and reformers, nay, we think we could,
if we were to try, beat them at their own trade, grave and staid
as we have become ; but we have no disposition to enter the
lists with them. We have never seen any good come from the
declamatory speeches and fiery patriotism of boys just escaped
the ferula of the pedagogue, and who can give utterance to
nothing but puerile rant about liberty and patriotism. We
have never seen good come to a country whose counsellors were
young men with downy chins, and we set it down as a rule,
that the country in which they can take the lead, whatever else
it is fitted for, is not fitted for the liberty which comes through
popular institutions.
We can weep as well as our juniors over a nation robbed of
its rights, on whose palpitating heart is planted the iron heel of
the conqueror, and have the will, if not the power, to strike, if
we can but see a vulnerable spot, or a chance that the blow will
tell upon the tyrant. But, as a general thing, we have a great
distaste for the valor that evaporates in words, though they be
great and high-sounding words, well chosen, skilfully arranged,
and admirably pronounced ; and an equal distaste even for
deeds which recoil upon the actor, and aggravate his sufferings,
already too afflicting to behold. We believe it wise to bide
one's time, and to take council of prudence. In most cases,
the sufferings of a people spring from moral causes beyond the
420 NATIVE AMERICANISM.
reach of civil government, and they are rarely the best patriots
who paint them in the most vivid colors, and rouse up popular
indignation against the civil authorities. Much more effectual
service could be rendered in a more quiet and peaceful way,
by each one seeking, in his own immediate sphere, to remove
the moral causes of the evils endured. St. Vincent of Paul
was a far wiser and more successful patriot than the greatest
of your popular orators, declaimers, and songsters. He, hum-
ble-minded priest, had no ambition to shine, no splendid scheme
of world or state reform. He thought only of saving his own
soul, by doing the work that lay next him ; and he became the
benefactor of his age and his country, and in his noble institu-
tions of charity he still lives, and each year extends his in-
fluence and adds to the millions who are recipients of his boun-
ty. O ye who would serve your country, relieve the suffering,
solace the afflicted, and right the wronged, go imitate St. Vin-
cent of Paul, and Heaven will own you and posterity revere
you.
NATIVE AMERICANISM*
JANUARY, 1845.
WE have read this pamphlet with pleasure and instruction.
It is written in good temper, and with a good share of ability.
It triumphantly refutes the oft repeated slander, that the Roman
Catholic Church is incompatible with republican institutions and
popular freedom ; and, though it contains expressions, and, if by
a Catholic, concessions, which we do not approve or believe war-
ranted, we commend it to the American Protestant Society, and
especially to the so-called Native American party. Neither can
hardly fail to profit by its careful and diligent perusal.
* Catholicism compatible with Republican Government, and in full
Accordance with Popular Institutions. By FENELON New York:
Edward Dunnigan. 1844. Svo. pp. 48.
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 421
We have introduced this pamphlet simply as the text of some
few remarks the subject of NATIVE AMERICANISM. We are
ourselves native-born, and we hope not deficient in true love of
country. Though not blind to the faults of our countrymen,
and endeavoring on all occasions to place the love of God before
the love of country, we believe we possess some share of genuine
patriotic feeling. We know we have loved American institu-
tions ; and we are ready to vindicate them, with what little abil-
ity we may have, on any occasion, and against any and every
sort of enemies. But we confess that we have and have had,
from the first, no sympathy, with what is called Native Ameri-
canism. We have seen no necessity for a movement against
foreigners who choose to make this land their home ; and we
have felt that such a movement, while it could lead to no good,
might lead to results truly deplorable.
We have been accustomed to trace the hand of a merciful
Providence in reserving this New World to so late a day for
Christian civilization ; we have been in the habit of believing
that it was not without a providential design, that here was re-
served an open field in which that civilization, disengaging itself
from the vices and corruptions of the Old World, might display
itself in all its purity, strength, and glory. We have regarded
it as a chosen land, not for one race, or one people, but for the
wronged and downtrodden of all nations, tongues, and kindreds,
where they might come as to a holy asylum of peace and char-
ity. It has been a cause of gratulation, of ardent thankfulness
to Almighty God, that here was founded, as it were, a city of
refuge, to which men might flee from oppression, be free from
the trammels of tyranny, regain their rights as men, and dwell
in security. Here all partition walls which make enemies of
different races and nations were to be broken down ; all senseless
and mischievous distinctions of rank and caste were to be dis-
carded ; and every man, no matter where born, in what language
trained, was to be regarded as man, as nothing more, as noth-
ing less. Here we were to found, not a republic of Englishmen,
of Frenchmen, of Dutchmen, of Irishmen, but of men ; and to
422 NATIVE AMERICANISM.
make the word American mean, not a man born on this soil or
on that, but a free and accepted member of the grand republic
of men. Such is what has been boasted as the principle and
the destiny of this New World ; and with this, we need not
say, Native Americanism is directly at war.
The great principle of true Americanism, if we may use the
word, is, that merit makes the man. It discards all distinctions
which are purely accidental, and recognizes only such as are per-
sonal. It places every man on his own two feet, and says to
him, Be a man, and you shall be esteemed according to your
worth as a man ; you shall be commended only for your per-
sonal merits ; you shall be made to suffer only for your personal
demerits. To each one according to his capacity, to each capa-
city according to its works. This is Americanism. It is this
which has been our boast, which has constituted our country's
true glory. It is this which we have inherited from our fathers ;
it is this which we hold as a sacred trust, and must preserve in
all its purity, strength, and activity, if we would not prove
" degenerate sons of noble sires ; " and it is this, which Native
Americanism, so called, opposes, and because it opposes this,
no true American can support it.
There is something grateful to all our better feelings in the
thought, that here is a home to which the oppressed can come,
and find the rights, the respect, and the well-being denied them
in the land of their birth. The emigrant's condition is not a
little improved by touching upon our shores ; and the condition
of his brother-laborers, whom he leaves behind, is also not a lit-
tle ameliorated, and the general sum of well-being is greatly aug-
mented. On the simple score of philanthropy, then, who would
not struggle to keep our country open to the emigrant, and be
prepared to welcome him as a brother, and to rejoice that
another is added to the family of freemen ?
But even as a question of our own interest as a people, we
should welcome the foreigner. If we would sit down and reckon
up what we lose and what we gain by foreigners coming to set-
tle among us, we should find the gain greatly overbalances the
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 423
loss. Naturalized citizens constitute no inconsiderable portion
of our population, and by no means the least important portion.
Without these, what would have been our condition now?
Whose labor has cleared away many of our Western forests,
dug our canals and railroads ? and by whose labor and practical
skill have we introduced our manufactures, and brought them to
their present high state of perfection ? In all the branches of
manufactures, in nearly all branches of mechanical industry, the
head workmen, if we have been rightly informed, are foreigners.
And why foreigners, rather than native-born ? Surely, not be-
cause there is any partiality for foreigners over native Americans,
but because they are more thorough masters of their business.
Then, who man our navy, of which we are so justly proud ? and
who constitute, in time of war, the rank and file of our army ?
Not all foreigners, truly ; but not a few who were not born on
American soil. No small portion of our hardy seamen are of
alien birth ; but they are none the less true to our flag on that
account, nor any the less freely do they spill their blood for our
national defence or national glory. We do not agree with the
assertion said to have been made by a foreigner residing amongst
us, that native Americans are cowards , and if we did, we have
still too much of the old Adam, and of the narrow feeling of
former times, to suffer him, without rebuke, to tell us so. Amer-
icans are not deficient in courage, and will, when necessary, face
the enemy as boldly as any other people on the globe. Never-
theless, our ranks are not dishonored by foreigners, and no na-
tive-born citizens have ever done our country's flag more honor
or fought more valiantly in its defence, than the brave and warm-
hearted Irish ; and none would do us more efficient service again,
were we so unhappy as to be involved in a war. In the Rero-
lution, we found men not born in America could fight manfully
for us, and then they were not considered as in the way of the
native-born. It was no loss to us to reckon in our army a
Montgomery, a Gates, a De Kalb, a Steuben, a Pulaski, a La-
fayette. No ; man is man, wherever born ; and every freeman
is our brother, and we should clasp him to our bosom.
424 NATIVE AMERICANISM.
As a party movement, the Native American party is con-
temptible. As a movement of native American citizens against
foreigners who come amongst us to claim the rights and to per-
form the duties of citizens, it is founded on low and ungener-
ous prejudices, prejudices of birth, which we, as a people, pro-
fess to discard. We, as a people, recognize no nobility founded
on birth ; for our principle is, that all who are born at all are
well-born. But what is the effort to confine the political func-
tions incident to citizenship to native-born Americans, but the
attempt to found an aristocracy of birth, even a political aristoc-
racy, making the accident of birth the condition of political
rights ? Is this Americanism ? The American who pretends it
is false to his American creed, and has no American heart.
We, of course, do not oppose Native Americanism on the
untenable ground, that every man has a natural right to be a
citizen, and to take part in the administration of the govern-
ment. The right of suffrage is a municipal right, not a natural
right. But we, as a people, have adopted, with slight restric-
tions, the principle of universal suffrage. We, as a people, hold
that the government is safest where all the people have a voice
in saying what it shall be and who shall be its administrators.
We adopt universal suffrage, not indeed as a right, but as a
dictate of prudence. We hold that we select better men to
rule us, and enact wiser and more equitable laws, by admitting
the great body of the people to a participation of political sov-
ereignty, than we should by confining the sovereignty to one
man or to a few men. We hold that the people are best gov-
erned, when they constitute and manage the government them-
selves. This is the political creed of the country; and he is
false to his country, who would abolish it, or defeat its practical
application. Foreigners, who come here, have, then, in view of
the acknowledged principles of the country, a right to be ad-
mitted to citizenship, to the rank and dignity of freemen ; and
could rightly complain of injustice, if not so admitted.
But we are told that the Native American party does not
propose to exclude foreigners from the country, nor from citi-
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 425
zenship. It only wishes to prevent them from coming here
and exercising the rights of citizens before being properly in-
structed in the duties of citizens. This plea is specious, but not
solid. It is the public ostensible plea ; but not the private, real
one. The real design is, to exclude foreigners, to prevent them
from coming here, by denying them the right to become citi-
zens. We have never conversed with an advocate of the party
who did not avow this. But take the plea as publicly offered.
It is contended that foreigners, brought up under monarchical
or aristocratical governments, cannot be expected, on arriving
on our shores, to understand the nature of our peculiar form of
government, and that it is necessary for them to serve a long
novitiate before they can be prepared to enter upon the duties
of freemen. The necessity of intelligence, of understanding well
our peculiar institutions, on the part of every man who is to ex-
ercise the rights and to discharge the duties of a citizen, we
certainly shall not dispute, whether the man was born at home
or abroad. But the ignorance of the foreigners who come here
is greatly exaggerated. Brought up under monarchical or aris-
tocratical governments, one would naturally expect them to be
averse to our democracy, and in favor of institutions similar to
those with which they had been accustomed. But no com-
plaint of this kind is ever made against them. Foreigners who
come here and condemn our institutions, show contempt for
them, and wish to exchange them for institutions similar to
those they have left behind, are in general cordially welcomed,
and treated with great consideration. The complaint is the re-
verse of this, their offence is in being too democratic, and in
wishing the government to be administered on stirctly demo-
cratic principles. It is not their ignorance of the real nature of
democracy, but their intelligence of it, that constitutes their dis-
qualification.
But pass over this. The naturalization laws, as they now are,
require a foreigner to reside in the country five years before he
can become a citizen, or be legally naturalized. This is, in gen-
eral, five years after the man has become of full age. Now, it is
426 NATIVE AMERICANISM.
fair to presume that at emigrant to this country, intending to
come here and to make this his home, has before coming made
some inquiries respecting the country, the character of its peo-
ple, its government, and laws ; and he may be judged to know-
as much of them as in general one of our own boys at the age
of sixteen. In most cases he knows much more, but assume
that he knows as much. Then he and the native-born are
placed on the same footing. Each must wait five years before
entering upon the discharge of his duties as a citizen ; and who
will pretend to say that a man from the age of twenty-one to
twenty -six cannot learn as much of what those duties are, as the
boy from sixteen to twenty-one ? The law, as it now stands,
exacts in reality as long a novitiate of the foreign-born as of the
native-born ; and even on the ground of time to be instructed in
one's duties, no more needs to be altered in the case of the one
than of the other.
But, politically speaking, this objection is not the real one.
The political leaders, of the Native American party, are opposed
to naturalized citizens solely on the ground that these citizens do
not uniformly vote on their side. We do not discover that our
politicians of either party object to the votes of naturalized citi-
zens when given for them, nor to naturalizing them, if they feel
sure of their suffrages. Why not say so, then, and let the hon-
est truth come out ? Surely, honest men, high-minded men,
the true nobility of the earth, as all our political leaders are, can
have no objections to avowing their real intentions, and the
real motives from which they act. Such men will never show
false colors !
But the objection to foreigners is not exclusively political, nor
chiefly political. Below this is another objection, which operates
chiefly amongst the laboring classes. The mass of the people,
especially of those who live on from father to son in the same po-
sition and pursuit, retain almost forever their primitive prejudices.
These in this country are of English descent, for we are all of
foreign extraction ; and they have inherited from their ancestors,
and still retain, two strong prejudices, contempt of the Irish
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 427
and hatred of the French. There is no use in disguising the
met. The assistance the French rendered us in the Revolution
has mollified our feelings somewhat towards them, but we still
bear them no real good-will. But the national English con-
tempt for the Irish has been reinforced in America. The Yan-
kee hod-carrier, or Yankee wood-sawyer, looks down with ineffa-
ble contempt upon his brother Irish hod-carrier or Irish wood-
sawyer. In his estimation, " Paddy " hardly belongs to the
human family. Add to this that the influx of foreign laborers,
chiefly Irish, increases the supply of labor, and therefore appar-
ently lessens the demand, and consequently the wages of labor,
and you have the elements of a wide, deep, and inveterate hos-
tility on the part of your Yankee laborer against your Irish la-
borer, which manifests itself naturally in your Native American
party. But this contempt of the Irish, which we have inherited
from our English ancestors, is wrong and ungenerous. The
Irish do not deserve it, and it does not become us to feel it. It
is a prejudice disgraceful only to those who are governed by it,
and no words of condemnation are sufficiently severe for the
political aspirant who would appeal to it. Every friend to his
country, every right-minded man, must frown upon it, and brand
as an incendiary, as a public enemy, the demagogue, whether in
a caucus speech in old Faneuil Hall or elsewhere, whether ad-
mired by the whole nation for his transcendent abilities or not,
who should seek to deepen it, or even to keep it alive.
But, after all, the competition, which our native American
laborers so much dread, is far less than they imagine. The for-
eign laborers do not, in general, come directly into competition
with them. A great part of the labor they perform is labor
which native Americans could not or would not perform them-
selves. Then, the increased demand for labor in other branches
of industry, caused by the works carried on mainly by the labor
of foreigners, fully compensates, perhaps more than compensates,
the native American laborers for any loss they may sustain in
the few cases of competition which there really may be. View-
ed in all its bearings, the influx of foreign laborers has very little,
428 NATIVE AMERICANISM.
if any, injurious effect on our own native laborers. The hn-
mense internal improvements completed or in process of comple-
tion would never have been attempted, if the reliance had been
solely on native labor, and, consequently, none of the additional
labor employed in the various branches of industry, which these
improvements have stimulated, would have been in demand.
The laboring class, as a class, has really gained in tlie amount of
employment by the increase of laborers, and of course, in the
price of labor. Labor begets the demand for labor. Individu-
als may have suffered somewhat, in some particular branches,
but upon the whole the laboring class has been benefited.
But the real objection lies deeper yet. The Native American
party is not a party against admitting foreigners to the rights of
citizenship, but simply against admitting a certain class of for-
eigners. It does not oppose Protestant Germans, Protestant
Englishmen, Protestant Scotchmen, nor even Protestant Irish-
men. It is really opposed only to Catholic foreigners. The
party is truly an anti-Catholic party, and is opposed chiefly to
the Irish, because a majority of the emigrants to this country are
probably from Ireland, and the greater part of these are Catho-
lics. If they were Protestants, if they could mingle with the
native population and lose themselves in our Protestant sects,
very little opposition would be manifested to their immigration
or to their naturalization. But this they cannot do. They arc
Catholics. They adhere to the faith of their fathers, for which
they have suffered these three hundred years more than any
other people on earth. Being Catholics, they hold religion to
be man's primary concern, and the public worship of God an
imperative duty. They accordingly seek to settle near together,
in a neighborhood, where the Church may rise in their midst,
within reach of the altar where the " clean sacrifice " is offered
up daily for the living and the dead, and where they can receive
the inestimable services of the minister of God. Hence, they
seem, because in this respect their habits differ from those of our
Protestant countrymen, to be a separate people, incapable even
in their political and social duties of fraternizing, so to speak,
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 429
with their Protestant fellow-citizens. Here is the first and im-
mediate cause of the opposition they experience.
But deeper yet lies the old traditionary hatred of Catholicity.
The majority of the American people have descended from an-
cestors who were accustomed to pray to be delivered from the
flesh, the world, the devil, and the Pope ; and though they
have in a great degree rejected the remains of faith still cherish-
ed by their Protestant ancestors, they retain all their hatred of
the Church. If they believe nothing else, they believe the Pope
is Antichrist, and the Catholic Church the Scarlet Lady of Bab-
ylon. When the Catholic Church is in question, all the infidels
and nothingarians are sure to sympathize with their Protestant
brethren. Pilate and Herod are good friends, when it concerns
crucifying the Redeemer of men. This is, perhaps, as it should
be. Hence, the great mass of the American people, faithful to
their traditions, are inveterately opposed to Catholicity, and it is
this opposition that manifests itself in Native Americanism, and
which renders it so inexcusable and so dangerous.
We presume there are few who will question this statement.
The " Native Americans " with whom we have conversed, all, to
a man, avow it, and the late disgraceful riots and murder and
sacrilege in Philadelphia prove it. There, no harm was done to
Protestant foreigners. Hostility was directed solely against
Catholics. They were Catholics, who were shot down in the
streets, Catholic churches, seminaries, and dwellings, that were
rifled and burnt. Even the most active members of the Native
American party, if we may be pardoned the Hibernianism, are
in many cases foreigners. The notorious ex-priest Hogan, a
foreigner and an Irishman, deposed for his immoral conduct, is,
if we are rightly informed, a most zealous Native, and has been
lecturing in this city and vicinity in favor of Native American-
ism, and we have heard no Nativist object to having men like
him exercise the rights of an American citizen. The Orange-
men, foreigners as they are, did the Natives substantial service
in Philadelphia, as it has been said, and they threaten to do the
same here, if occasion serve. All this proves that the opposi-
430 NATIVE AMERICANISM.
tion is not to foreigners, as such, hut simply to Catholics, and
especially to Irish Catholics.
Now against this, we hardly need say, we protest in the name
of the Constitution, and the good faith of the country. The
Constitution of this country does not merely tolerate different
religious denominations, but it recognizes and guaranties to all
men the free exercise of their religion, whatever it may be. It
places all denominations, however great or however small, on
the same footing, before the state, and recognizes the equal
rights of all and of each. To this the faith of the country is
pledged. We say to all, of all creeds, Come here and demean
yourselves, in civil matters, as good citizens, and your respective
faiths and modes of worship shall all alike be legally respected
and protected. This is what we have professed ; of this we make
our boast ; and this we consider our chief title to the admira-
tion of the world. We have promised to all the fullest con-
ceivable religious liberty. For this we have solemnly pledged
our faith before the world and before Heaven. Are we pre-
pared to break our faith?
But in getting up a party against any one religious denomi-
nation, are we not breaking our faith, and perjuring ourselves
in the sight of God and of men ? What matters it to honest
men, whether we do this directly or indirectly ? What is the
difference in principle between passing a law excluding, under
severe penalties, the exercise of the Catholic religion in this
country, and, by our political and other combinations, rendering
its exercise impossible? What is the difference between exclud-
ing Catholics directly, and treating them in such a manner that
they will be forced to exclude themselves ?
Then, again, the wisdom of the policy of combining for the
expulsion or exclusion of Catholics may be gravely questioned.
Where there is a multiplicity of denominations, there is safety
for any one only so far as there is safety for all. Combine and
suppress Catholicity to-day, and it may be some other one's
turn to be suppressed to-morrow. The precedent established,
the Catholics disposed of, a new combination may be formed
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 431
against the Methodists, then against the Baptists, then against
the Unitarians and Universalists, and then against the Episco-
palians, or for the revival of the Classis of Amsterdam, or the
Kirk of Scotland. Cannot all see that the safety of each is in
protecting all, and suffering a combination to be formed against
none?
Moreover, why should Protestants combine against Catholics ?
Have they not the Bible and private reason ? and with these
what has a Protestant to apprehend ? Is he not abundantly
able to meet and vanquish in the fair field of controversy the
benighted and idolatrous Papist? Does he not believe that he
has truth, reason, and revelation on his side? Does he not
know that he has all the prejudices and nearly nineteen twen-
tieths of the whole population of the country on his side ? Are
there not here odds enough in his favor ? What, then, does he
fear ? With all these advantages, does he tremble before the
Papist, and fear the meeting-house may give place to the
church, the table to the altar, the bread and wine to the Real
Presence ? A sorry compliment this to Protestantism ! a sorry
compliment to reason, to distrust its encounter with error in open
field and fair combat ! Were we Protestants, as we once were,
but, God be praised, are no longer, we should blush to ap-
peal against Popery to any other arguments than Scripture and
reason. If with these we could not resist the spread of Cath-
olicity, we should be led to distrust the sacredness of our cause,
and to fear, that, after all, we had not the Lord on our side.
These political combinations betray the weakness of Protestant-
ism, not its strength ; the doubts, not the faith, of its upholders.
If they are right in their premises, they need not these com-
binations to suppress Catholicity ; if they are wrong in their
premises, then they are warring, not against a superstition, an
idolatry, as they pretend, but against God, and we leave it to
them to decide what is the proper name by which they should
be designated.
But we are told that Catholics are opposed, not because they
are Catholics simply, but because, being Catholics, they owe
432 NATIVE AMERICANISM.
allegiance to a foreign power, and therefore cannot be good citi-
zens. No Catholic, it is assumed, since he owes allegiance to
the Pope, can be bound by any obligation he may contract as a
citizen. If we really supposed that any one among us could be
so simple as to believe this, we would contradict it. But there
are charges too absurd to need a reply. The Catholic does, in-
deed, owe allegiance to the Pope as the visible head of the
Church, but not as visible head of the state. Whoever knows
any thing at all of the obligation of the Catholic to the success-
or of St. Peter knows that it would be as absurd to conclude
that the Christian, because he owes allegiance to God, cannot be
a good citizen, nor true to the obligations he contracts as a citi-
zen to the state, as to infer that a Catholic cannot be a good cit-
izen because he owes allegiance to the visible head of his Church.
So far as this allegiance is a fact, and so far as it is operative on
the heart and conscience of a Catholic, it binds him to be a
peaceful and obedient subject to the state, a faithful and consci-
entious citizen
But the Roman Catholic religion, we are further told, is in-
compatible with republicanism, hostile to popular institutions ;
from which it is to be inferred, we suppose, that Protestantism,
as the negative of Catholicity, is compatible with republican in-
stitutions and friendly to popular freedom. It would, perhaps,
be difficult to prove this. The most despotic states in Europe
are the Protestant, and in Switzerland, for instance, the Catholic
cantons are the most democratic. Despotism was hardly known
in Europe prior to the Reformation, save in that portion not in
communion with the Church of Rome ; an^ we very much doubt
if there be at this moment as much popular freedom in the Prot-
estant states of Europe as there was in the twelfth, thirteenth,
and fourteenth centuries. There are really fewer checks on ar-
bitrary power, and there is more heartless oppression.
In this country, the only republican government that Protest-
antism can pretend ever to have founded has been established,
but it has not been founded solely by Protestantism. It owes
its origin to the circumstances in which the first settlers cams
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 433
here, and to the impossibility, after independence of the crown
of Great Britain was proclaimed, of establishing any other than
a republican form of government. We have existed as a repub-
lic between sixty and seventy years. But it needs no very sharp
observation to perceive that our republic has virtually failed to
accomplish the hopes of its founders, and that it is, without some
notable change in the people, destined either to a speedy disso-
lution, or to sink into a miserable timocracy, infinitely worse than
the most absolute despotism. Protestantism, if it could origi-
nate, has not proved itself able to sustain it.
We need but glance at our electioneering contests, becoming
fiercer and fiercer, more and more demoralizing, with each suc-
ceeding election, to be convinced of this. The election of our
presidents costs us more than the whole civil list of Great Brit-
ain. We have heard it suggested that the election of General
Harrison cost the Whigs more than fifty millions of dollars, the
expenditures of the opposite party in attempting to reelect Mr.
Van Buren were no trifle. Hardly less has been expended in
the campaign just closed. This is a tax no people can bear for
any great length of time, without ruin, and the complete pros-
tration of public and private morality.
Protestantism, by its principle, liberty of private judgment,
may undoubtedly seem to favor civil freedom ; and that it
often attempts to establish free popular institutions we do not
deny ; but it wants the virtue to sustain them. By this same
principle, it multiplies sects without number, and virtually des-
troys, by dividing, the moral force of the nation. We see this
with ourselves. Religion has little force in controlling our pas-
sions or pursuits. No one of the sects possesses a commanding
influence over the people. The great mass of the people are
left, therefore, to the corrupt passions of their own depraved na-
ture. They cease to live for God, and live only for the world,
to live for eternity, and live only for time. They become wed
ded to things of this world, their hearts bent only on wealth and
honors. In business the ruling passion is to get rich, in public
life to rise to places of honor and emolument, in private life to
434 NATIVE AMERICANISM.
gain ease and pleasure. Now, how long can a government,
which rests for its existence on the virtue and intelligence of the
people, exist, or, if exist, answer its end, in a community where
the great mass of the people are carried away by the dominant
passions, wealth, place, and pleasure ?
We may be told that enlightened self-interest will suffice,
that only instruct the people what is for their interest, and they
will do it. This is plausible, but all experience proves to the
contrary. Who does not know that it is for his real interest,
both for time and eternity, to be a devout Christian ? And yet
are all devout Christians ? The wisdom and prudence of men's
conduct cannot be measured by their intelligence. A corrupt
man uses his intelligence only as the minister of his corruption.
The more you extend intelligence, unless you extend the moral
restraints and influences of the gospel at the same time, the
more do you sharpen the intellect for evil. The people of the
United States are far more instructed than they were fifty years
ago, and yet have not half so much of the virtue necessary to
sustain a republican government. We are never to expect men
to act virtuously, simply because their understandings are con-
vinced that virtue is the best calculation. You must make them
act from a higher motive. They must be governed by religion ;
act from the love and the fear of God, from a deep sense of
duty; be meek, humble, self-denying; morally brave and he-
roic ; choosing rather to die a thousand deaths than swerve from
right principle, or disobey the will of God; or they will not
practise the virtues without which liberty is an empty name, a
mere illusion.
Now, Protestantism never has, and never can, produce the vir-
tues without which a republican government can have no solid
foundation. It may have good words; it may say wise and
even just things ; but it wants the unction of the spirit. It
does not reach and regenerate the heart, subdue the passions,
and renew the spirit. It has never produced a single saint, and
the virtues it calls forth are of the sort exhibited by the old
heathen moralists. It praises the Bible, but studies the Greek
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 435
and Koman classics ; boasts of spirituality, but expires in a vain
formalism. For the three hundred years it has existed, it has
proved itself powerful to destroy, but impotent to found ; ready
to begin, but never able to complete. Whatever it claims that
is positive, abiding, it has inherited or borrowed from the ages
and the lands of faith. Its own creations rise and vanish as the
soap-bubbles blown by our children in their sports. It has never
yet shown itself able to command human nature, or to say to
the roused waves of passion, Peace, be still. It lulls the con-
science with the forms of faith and piety ; soothes vanity and
fosters pride by its professions of freedom ; but leaves the pas-
sions all their natural force, and permits the man to remain a
slave to all his natural lusts. It never subdues or regenerates
nature. Hence, throughout all Protestantdom, the tendency is,
to reproduce heathen antiquity, with all its cant, hollowness, hy-
pocrisy, slavery, and wretchedness, to narrow men's views down
to this transitory life and the fleeting shows of sense, and to make
them live and labor for the meat that perisheth. We appeal to
England, Sweden, Denmark, Protestant Germany, Holland, and
our own country, for the truth of what we say. They were
Protestant traders who trampled on the cross of Christ to gain
the lucrative trade of Japan. It is in no spirit of exultation we
allude to Protestant worldly-mindedness and spiritual impotency.
Would to God the sketch were from fancy, or our own diseased
imagination !
We do not mean to deny, that, in words, Protestantism teaches
many, perhaps most, of the Christian virtues. It has even some
good books on morals and practical religion. Its clergy give
good exhortations, and labor, no doubt, in good faith, for the
spiritual culture of their flocks ! No doubt, much truth, much
valuable instruction, is given from Protestant pulpits. The Prot-
estant clergy take no delight in the state of things they see
around them. They would gladly see Christ reign in the hearts
of men ; they, no doubt, would joyfully dispense the bread of
life to their famished people ; and they do dispense the best they
have. But alas ! how can they dispense what they have not
436 NATIVE AMEITTCANISM.
received ? The living bread is not on their communion table.
They communicate, according to their own confession, only a
figure, a shadow ; and how shall the divine life be nourished with
shadows ? What we mean to say is, not that Protestantism
does not aim to bring men to Christ, to make them pure and
holy, but that it has no power to do it. It does not control
human nature, and produce the fruits of a supernatural faith,
hope, and charity. Its faith is merely an opinion or persuasion,
its hope a wish, and its charity natural philanthropy. It nec-
essarily leaves human nature as it finds it, and no pruning of
that corrupt tree can make it bring forth good fruit. It is of
the earth, earthy ; and it will bear fruit only for the earth.
With unregenerated nature in full activity, we can have only
sensuality and mammon-worship.
Hundreds and thousands among us, who are by no means
favorably disposed to Catholicity, see this and deplore it. They
say the age has no faith. They see the impotency of Protest-
antism ; that under it all the vices are sheltered ; that, in spite
of it, all the dangerous passions rage unchecked ; and they turn
away in disgust from its empty forms and vain words. Witness
the response the biting sarcasms and withering irony of Carlyle
brings from thousands of hearts in this republic, the echoes
which the chiselled words and marble sentences of Emerson also
oring. Witness, also, the movements of the Come-outers, the
Socialists, Fourierists, Communists. All these see that Protest-
antism has nothing but words, while they want life, realities, not
vain simulacra. They err most egregiously, no doubt ; they go
from the dying to the dead ; but their error proves the truth of
what we advance.
Now, assuming our view of Protestantism to be correct, we
demand how it is to sustain, or we, with it alone, are to sustain
our republican government. Do we not see, in this growing
love of place and plunder, with this growing devotion to wealth,
luxury, and pleasure, with these fierce electioneering contests,
one no sooner ended than another begins, each to be fiercer and
more absorbing and more destructive than the last, and each
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 43*7
drawing within its vortex nearly the whole industrial interest of
the country, and touching almost every man in his honor and
his purse, that we want the moral elements without which a
republic cannot stand ? A republic can stand only as it rests
upon the virtues of the people ; and these not the mere natural
virtues of wordly prudence and social decency, but those loftier
virtues which are possible to human nature only as elevated
above itself by the infused habit of supernatural grace. This is
a solemn fact to which it is in vain for us to close -our eyes.
Human nature left to itself tends to dissolution, to destruction,
decay, death. So does every society that rests only on those
virtues which have their origin, growth, and maturity in nature
alone. This is the case with our own society. We have really
no social bond ; we have no true patriotism ; none of that
patience, that self-denial, that loyalty of soul, which is necessary
to bind man to man, each to each, and each to all. Each is for
himself. Save who can (Sauve qui pent), we exclaim. Hence
a universal scramble. Man overthrows man, brother brother,
the father the child, and the child the father, the demagogue
all ; while the devil stands at a distance, looks on, and enjoys
the sport. Tell us, ye who boast of the glorious Reformation,
if a republican form of government is compatible with this moral
state of the people ?
Even in matters of education we can do little but sharpen
the wit, and render brother more skilful and successful in plun-
dering brother. With our multitude of sects, we may instruct,
but not educate. Our children can have no moral training, for
morality rests on theology, and theology on faith. But faith is
expelled from our schools, because it is sectarian, and there is
no one faith in the country which can be taught without excit-
ing the jealousy of the followers of a rival faith. Cut up into
such a multitude of sects, there is and can be no common moral
culture in the country, no true religious training. We give a
little instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geog-
raphy, perhaps history, the Greek and Roman classics, and in
the physical sciences ; and send our children out into the world,
438 NATIVE AMERICANISM.
to form their morals and their religion without other guide or
assistant than their own short-sighted reason and perverted
passions. How can we expect any thing from such a sowing,
but what we reap? and how, under Protestantism, which
broaches every thing, and settles nothing, raises all questions
and answers none, and therefore necessarily giving birth to a
perpetual succession of sects, each claiming with equal reason
and justice to have the truth, and the claims of all equally re-
spected, as they must be, by the government, is this terrible
evil to be remedied? Protestantism is just a-going to remedy
it ; but, alas ! it does not succeed. It reminds us of a remark
by a lady eating vegetable oysters, "I always seem, when I
eat vegetable oysters, as if I was just a-going to taste of an
oyster." So, when we examine Protestantism, hear its loud
professions, witness its earnest strivings, and observe each new
sect it gives birth to, we say it is the lady eating vegetable
oysters. It seems to itself that it is just going to light upon the
truth, and to hit upon some plan by which it can remove the
terrible evils it sees and deplores, and call forth the virtues it
owns to be necessary ; but, alas ! it is only just a-going to taste
the oyster : it never quite tastes it.
These facts, which we mention, are seen and felt by large
numbers in our midst. Quiet, peaceable, but observing and re-
flecting men look on and observe our doings, and say to them-
selves, "This republicanism, after all, is a mere delusion. It
is all very fine, no doubt, in theory, but exceedingly hateful in
practice. Washington, and Hamilton, and others, were wiser
than Jefferson and Madison. So large a republic, with such
frequency of elections, and so many thousands depending on
the fate of an election for their very means of subsistence, so
many ins afraid of being turned out, so many outs anxious to
be turned in, and the number each year increasing with the ex-
tent and population of the country, well, let the republic stand
if it can, but a change to a monarchy will soon be inevitable."
There are men who so reason, and they are neither few nor des-
picable ; nor are they fairly answered by our Fourth of July
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 439
glorifications, or hurrahs for Democracy, Vive la Repiiblique !
Vive la Democratic! Vive la Libertef We do not agree
with them ; far from it ; but we should agree with them, if we
saw nothing better for our republic than Protestantism. Prot-
estants as they are, we say they reason correctly, and if the re-
ligion of the country remains Protestant for fifty years longer,
facts will prove it.
But with Catholicity the republic may be sustained, not be-
cause the Catholic Church enjoins this form of government or
that, but because she nourishes in the hearts of her children the
virtues which render popular liberty both desirable and practica-
ble. The Catholic Church meddles directly with no form of
government. She leaves each people free to adopt such form
of government as seems to themselves good, and to administer
it in their own way. Her chief concern is to fit men for beati-
tude, and this she can do under any or all forms of government.
But the spirit she breathes into men, the graces she communi-
cates, the dispositions she cultivates, and the virtues she pro-
duces, are such, that, while they render even arbitrary forms of
government tolerable, fit a people for asserting and maintaining
freedom. In countries where there are no constitutional checks
on power, she remedies the evil by imposing moral restraints on
its exercise, by inspiring rulers with a sense of justice and the
public good. Where such checks do exist, she hallows them
and renders them inviolable. In a republic she restrains the
passions of the people, teaches them obedience to the laws of
God, moderates their desires, weans their affections from the
world, frees them from the dominion of their own lusts, and, by
the meekness, humility, loyalty of heart which she cherishes,
disposes them to the practice of those public virtues which ren-
der a republic secure. She also creates by her divine charity a
true equality. No republic can stand where the dominant feel-
ing is pride, which finds its expression in the assertion " I am as
good as you." It must be based on love ; not on the determi-
nation to defend our own rights and interests, but on the fear tc
encroach on the rights and interests of others. But this love
440 NATIVE AMERICANISM.
must be more than the mere sentiment of philanthropy. This
sentiment of philanthropy is a very unsubstantial affair. Talk
as we will about its excellence, it never goes beyond love to
those who love us. We love our friends and neighbors, but
hate our enemies. This is all we do as philanthropists. All the
fine speeches we make beyond about the love of humanity, and
all that are fine speeches. Philanthropy must be exalted into
the supernatural virtue of charity, before it can become that love
which leads us to honor all men, and makes us shrink from en-
croaching upon the interests of any man, no matter how low or
how vile. We must love our neighbor, not for his own sake,
but for God's sake, the child, for the sake of the Father ; then
we can love all, and joyfully make the most painful sacrifices for
them. It is only in the bosom of the Catholic Church that this
sublime charity has ever been found or can be found.
The Catholic Church also cherishes a spirit of independence,
a loftiness and dignity of soul, favorable to the maintenance of
popular freedom. It ennobles every one of its members. The
lowest, the humblest Catholic is a member of that Church which
was founded by Jesus Christ himself; which has subsisted for
eighteen hundred years ; which has in every age been blessed
with signal tokens of the Redeemer's love ; which counts its
saints by millions ; and the blood of whose martyrs has made
all earth hallowed ground. He is admitted into the goodly
fellowship of the faithful of all ages and climes, and every day,
throughout all the earth, the Universal Church sends up her
prayers for him, and all the Church above receive them, and,
with their own, bear them as sweet incense up before the throne
of the almighty arid eternal God. He is a true nobleman, more
than the peer of kings or Cassars ; for he is a child of the King
of kings, and, if faithful unto death, heir of a crown of life, eter-
nal in the heavens, that fadeth not away. Such a man is no
slave. His soul is free ; he looks into the perfect law of liberty.
Can tyrants enslave him? No, indeed; not because he will
turn on the tyrant and kill, but because he can die and reign
for ever. What were a mere human tyrant before a nation of
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 441
such men ? Who could establish arbitrary government over
them, or subject them to unwholesome or iniquitous laws ?
Here is our hope for our republic. We look for our safety to
the spread of Catholicity. We render solid and imperishable
our free institutions just in proportion as we extend the kingdom
of God among our people, and establish in their hearts the reign
of justice and charity. And here, then, is our answer to those
who tell us Catholicity is incompatible with free institutions.
We tell them that they cannot maintain free institutions without
it. It is not a free government that makes a free people, but a
free people that makes a free government ; and we know no
freedom but that wherewith the Son makes free. You must be
free within, before you can be free without. They who war
against the Church, because they fancy it hostile to their civil
freedom, are as mad as those wicked Jews who nailed their Re-
deemer to the cross. But even now, as then, God be thanked,
from the cross ascends the prayer, not in vain, " Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do."
As to the effect this Native American party may have on the
Church, or the cause of Catholicity in this country, we have no
fears. We know it is a party formed for the suppression of the
Catholic Church in our land. Protestantism, afraid to meet
the champions of the cross in fair and open debate, conscious
of her weakness or unskil fulness in argument, true to her an-
cient instincts, resorts to the civil arm, and hopes by a series of
indirect legislation for she dare not attempt as yet any direct
legislation to maintain her predominance. But this gives us
no uneasiness. We know in whom we believe, and are certain.
We see these movements, we comprehend their aim, and we
merely ask in the words of the Psalmist, " Why have the Gen-
tiles raged, and the people devised vain things ? The kings of
the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the
Lord, and against his Christ. Let us break their bands asun-
der, and let us cast their yoke from us. He that dwelleth in
the heavens shall laugh at them, and the Lord shall deride
them. Then shall he speak to them in his anger, and trouble
442 NATIVE AMERICANISM.
them in his rage." Ps. ii. 15. They wage an unequal con-
test who wage war against the Church of the Living God, who
hath said to its Head, " Thou art my Son, this day have I be-
gotten thee. Ask of me and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy
inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy posses-
sions. 1 " Ib., 7, S. These may combine to put down Catholicity;
form leagues against it, enlist all the powers 'of the earth against
it ; but what then ? Nero tried to crush it in its infancy. .Dio-
cletian tried it. And Nero and Diocletian have passed away,
and their mighty empire has crumbled to pieces and dissolved,
leaving scarce " a wrack behind ;" yet the Church has lived on,
and the successor of the fisherman of Galilee inherited a power
before which that of Rome in her proudest day was merely the
dust in the balance. Pagan and Saracen tried to crush it, but
Pagan and Saracen are scattered before its glory as the morn-
ing mist before the rising sun. Heretic and schismatic have
tried to exterminate it, Luther, and Calvin, and Henry of
England, like the great dragon whose tail drew after it a third
part of the stars of heaven ; and their own children are rising
up and cursing their memory. The powers of the earth have
tried to do it, Napoleon, the Colossus who bestrided Europe,
and made and unmade kings in mere pastime ; but Napoleon,
from the moment he dared lay his hand on the Lord's anointed,
loses his power, and goes to die at last of a broken heart in a
barren isle of the ocean. Jew, Pagan, Saracen, heretic, schis-
matic, infidel, and lawless power have all tried their hand against
the Church. The Lord has held them in derision. He has been
a wall of fire round about her, and proved for eighteen hundred
years that no weapen formed against her shall prosper ; for he
guards the honor of his Spouse as his own. Let the ark appear
to jostle, if it will ; we reach forth no hand to steady it, and
fear no harm that may come to it. The Church has survived
all storms ; it is founded upon a rock, and the gates of hell are
impotent against it. It is not for the friends of the Church to
fear, but for those who war against her, and seek her suppres-
sion. It is for them to tremble, not before the arm of man,
NATIVE AMERICANISM. 443
for no human arm will be raised against them ; but before that
God whose Church they outrage, and whose cause they seek to
crush. The Lord hath promised his Son the Gentiles for his
inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for his possession.
He must and will have this nation. And throughout all the
length and breadth of this glorious land shall his temples rise
to catch the morning sun and reflect his evening rays, and holy
altars shall be erected, and the " clean sacrifice" shall be offered
daily, and a delighted people shall bow in humility before them,
and pour out their hearts in joyous thanksgiving ; for so hath
the Lord spoken, and his word shall stand.
So far as the spread of Catholicity in this country is concern-
ed, we look upon this anti-Catholic party with no apprehension.
If we deprecate the formation of such a party, it is for the sake
of those misguided citizens who may unite to form it. It is
because we see the terrible injustice of which they render them-
selves guilty, and the awful judgments they may provoke.
We say to them, as St. Justin Martyr said to the Roman
emperors, "Take heed how you hearken only to unjust ac-
cusations ; fear lest an excessive complaisance for superstitious
men, a haste as blind as rash, old prejudices which have no
foundation but calumny, may cause you to pronounce a terrible
sentence against yourselves. As for us, nobody can harm us,
unless we harm ourselves, unless we ourselves become guilty of
some injustice. You may indeed kill us, but you cannot injure
us." It is for our countrymen, who will render themselves
guilty of gross wrong, of terrible sin, that we fear. They are
engaged in an unholy cause, and, if they persist, cannot fail to
draw down the judgments of Almighty God upon their guilty
heads. They can shoot us down in the streets ; they may break
up our schools and seminaries ; they may desecrate and burn
our churches. Such things have been, and may be again ; but
it becomes those who have been and may be the perpetrators
of such things to pause and ask themselves what manner of
spirit they are of; and how, in that day of solemn reckoning
which must come to us all, they will answer the inexorable
444 LABOR AND ASSOCIATION.
Judge for their abuse, their riots, their murder, and their sacii-
l<^e. As they love their own souls, and desire good, we entreat
them to beware how they plunge deeper in sin, and rekindle
the torch of persecution. For their sakes, not for ours, we pray
them to pause before they go farther, and make their peace with
the Son of God.
LABOR AND ASSOCIATION *
JANUARY, 1848.
UNLESS the estimable and accomplished translator has greatly
improved upon his author, M. Briancourt is one of the most
agreeable writers attached to the school of Association with
whom we are acquainted. He appears to be sincere, earnest,
gentle, and philanthropic ; and he writes with ability, ease, vi-
vacity, and grace. His pages have, comparatively, little of that
barbarous terminology which renders the writers of the Associ-
ationists, in general, so forbidding to all but adepts. If we had
the least conceivable sympathy with his doctrines and schemes,
we could read him with pleasure, and, at times, with admiration ;
and we cannot but regard his little work as the best summary
of the plans and hopes of his school which has as yet appeared.
But the more able, skilful, and fascinating is a writer, the
more dangerous and carefully to be eschewed are his writings,
if devoted to the propagation of false and mischievous theories.
Error, though reason be free to combat it, is never harmless, any
more than poison, because its antidote may be known and at
hand. It may, upon the whole, be more prudent to allow it
free course, than, by attempting its suppression by force, to run
the risk of also suppressing the truth ; but however that may or
* Organization of Labor and Association. By MATH. BRIANCOURT.
Translated by FRANCIS GEO. SHAW. Nfew York : Win. H. Graham,
1847. IGmo. pp. 103.
LABOR AND ASSOCIATION. 445
may not be, the publication of error is always an evil which no
freedom of its contradictory truth can ever wholly prevent or
overcome. No man ever puts forth a system of unmixed false-
hood ; and the currency his error gains is always by virtue of
the truth he mixes with it, and which he misinterprets and mis-
applies. To unravel his web of sophistry, to pick out his tangled
yarn, or separate what is true from what is false, is a task of no
small difficulty, and requires a patience of investigation, habits
of nice discrimination and of close and rigid reasoning, which
can be expected only from the gifted and thoroughly disciplined
few, and rarely even from these. An error may be stated iu a
few words, in a popular form, and clothed with a brilliant and
captivating dress, which, nevertheless, is not to be refuted, nor
its truth, which gives it currency, separated from the falsehood
which renders it mischievous, without long, elaborate, and abs-
truse reasoning, subtile distinctions, and exact definitions, beyond
the capacity of the generality, usually held by them in detesta-
tion, and of which they are always impatient. But even if the
refutation could be presented in a popular form, the majority of
those who have embraced the error would not profit by it.
Having adopted the error and committed themselves to it, they
are unwilling to listen to any thing which may be urged against
it, lest perchance it may disturb the tranquillity of their convic-
tion, mortify their pride, or affect unfavorably their reputation.
Hence it is that nothing is more difficult than to recall or re-
press an error once fairly in circulation. Hence it is that we can
never allow ourselves to commend a work, however kindly dis-
posed we may be towards its author, which, in our judgment, or
according to the rule of judgment we are bound to follow,
teaches a false doctrine or proposes a visionary scheme. The
reading of such works, when not absolutely hurtful, is unprofita-
ble, and no man can justify it, unless it be to refute them, and
guard the public against their dangerous tendencies. The Asso-
ciationists, then, must not be surprised, if we notice Mr. Brian-
court's work only to censure it.
That Mr. Briancourt's doctrine is unsound, no argument is
446 LABOR AND ASSOCIATION.
needed to prove. No man, who proposes a doctrine which re-
verses all that has hitherto been regarded as settled, is ever en-
titled even to a hearing. He who, on his own authority, gives
the lie to all men, of all ages and nations, gives to every man
the best of all possible human reasons for giving the lie to him.
If reason is to be trusted, the reason of all ages and nations
overrides his ; if it is not to be trusted, he has no authority for
what he proposes. He places himself in an awkward position,
who, asserting the authority of reason, yet opposes his own rea-
son to the reason of all men. He must be a bold man, a man
of unbounded self-confidence, the very sublime of egotism, who
dares pretend, that, on his reason alone, the whole world may
be rationally convicted of having blundered. They have all the
attributes he can claim ; why, then, assume that they have all
blundered, and that he alone has hit upon the truth ? Truth is
revealed to the humble and childlike, not to the proud and arro-
gant ; and who is prouder or more arrogant than he who claims
to be superior to all men, to be the only man of his race who
has perceived what is .true and good ?
Discoveries, like the one Fourier professes to have made, are
not in the order of human experience. There is nothing to be
found in the experience of the race analogous to them. Discov-
eries, which reverse what the race had hitherto regarded as the
settled order, have never yet, so far as history goes, been made
in any department of life, in religion, in morals, in politics, or
in social and industrial arrangements. Every man, who has
come forward with any such pretended discovery, has failed to
gain a verdict in his favor, and in the judgment of mankind has
been finally condemned either as deceiving or as deceived, or
both at once. M. Charles Fourier, a man, if you will, of an ex-
traordinary intellect, and of philanthropic aims, although, we
confess, we find in his writings only wild extravagance, and a
pride, an egotism, which amount very nearly, if not quite, to
insanity, professes, not, indeed, to have invented, but to have
discovered, the law of a new social and industrial world. This
law he professes to have drawn out and scientifically established
LABOR AND ASSOCIATION. 447
in all its ramifications ; and he and his followers propose to re-
organize society and industry according to its provisions. Simi-
lar pretensions have often been made, now in one department
of life, now in another ; but has one of them ever succeeded ?
Is there one of them that has not been finally adjudged, at best,
to be only visionary ? Is there on record a single instance of a
fundamental reorganization of society, industry, or even of gov-
ernment, that has ever been effected ? Have not all who have
labored for such reorganization been opposed by their age and
nation ? And can the Associationists name an instance in which
posterity has reversed the judgment of contemporaries ? They
cannot do it. We are aware of the instances they will cite ; but
not one of them is to the purpose. Why, then, suppose the
whole order of human experience is reversed, or departed from,
in the case of M. Charles Fourier ? The fact is, fundamental
changes in the religious, moral, social, political, or industrial or-
der of mankind changes which throw off the old order, and
establish a new order in their place never have been, and, it
requires no great depth of philosophy to be able to say, never
can be, effected, unless by the intervention of a supernatural
cause. When attempted, they may go so far as to break up the
old order, never so far as to introduce and establish a new order.
Man can be a destroyer ; he can never be a CREATOR.
But these considerations, however conclusive in themselves,
will not, we are aware, have much weight with the Association-
ists. The Associationists are accustomed to other principles of
reasoning ; they have, underlying their speculations, a philoso-
phy of man and society which creates in their minds a presump-
tion in favor of Fourierism. With them, it is an argument in
favor of a proposition, that it is novel ; and an argument against
it, that it is ancient. Nothing seems to them more reasonable
beforehand, or more in accordance with what the order of hu-
man experience authorizes them to expect, than that such a
discovery as Fourier's should be made, and that the changes he
proposes should be practicable. It is useless, so far as they are
concerned, to controvert them on this point, and if we would
448 LABOR AND ASSOCIATION
reacli them, with the hope of doing them any good, we must
enter with them into an examination of their doctrine or scheme,
upon its merits. This we willingly attempt ; for several of the
more distinguished Associations ts in this country have been our
intimate personal friends, and we regard them as sincere, and as
honestly desirous of doing all in their power for the benefit of
their fellow-men. We believe they are men who have a certain
loyalty ; and who have no bigoted attachment to this or that
method of serving mankind, but are willing to change the
method they now insist upon for another, the moment they see
a good reason for doing so. We do not believe them unwilling
to look upon the question as still an open question, or that they
have much of that foolish pride which binds persons to a cause
simply for the reason that they stand committed to it before the
public. We propose, therefore, in what follows, to enter some-
what into the merits of their doctrine and schemes ; and, as
what we shall say is said in good faith, we trust they will receive
it in good faith, and frankly accept it, or show us good reasons
for rejecting it.
We begin by asking, What is the end the Associationists
propose, or what is it they seek to effect? The means we
understand very well ; they are, the organization of labor and
association, according to a given plan. But before we can de-
cide on the means, we must understand the end proposed, so as
to be able to determine whether the end is desirable, a good end.
After that, we may proceed to determine whether the means are
adequate, whether by adopting them we can, in all reasonable
probability, secure the end. Unless we know what is the end
proposed, and know whether it be good or not good, we walk by
conjecture, not by science. But the Associationists propose their
doctrine, not as a theory, or as a system of belief, but as a sci-
ence. They must, then, in the outset, show us clearly the end
proposed, and establish, not conjectu rally, not hypothetically, but
scientifically, that the end is good, and therefore, one which it is
lawful to seek.
1. What, then, is the specific end they propose ? We do not
LABOR AND ASSOCIATION. 449
find in tlieir writings as clear, distinct, and specific an answer to
this question as is desirable. They answer generally, not speci-
fically. Their answer, as we collect it, is, "The end we pro-
pose is, to remove the obstacles which now hinder the fulfilment,
and to gather round man the circumstances which will enable
him to fulfil, his destiny on this globe ; or, in a word, to enable
man to fulfil the purpose of his present existence." Thus stated
we of course have no objection to the end proposed. The good
of a being is its destiny, or the end for which it exists ; and to
seek to enable a being to fulfil its destiny, or gain that end, is to
seek its good. So the end for which man exists in this world is
his good in relation to his existence here ; and to labor to enable
him to gain that end is to labor for his good, and his only good
here. Thus far, we have, and can have, no quarrel with the
Associationists.
But a general answer to a specific question is no answer at
all ; for the general has formal existence only in the special.
We must, therefore, ask again, What is the specific end pro-
posed ? To answer, To remove evil, and to secure good, is not
enough ; for the question remains, What is evil ? what is good ?
Evil, you say, is that which prevents, or in some way hinders or
retards, the fulfilment of one's destiny. Very true ; but what is
it that does that ? This is the question we want answered. We
find in the writings of the Associationists graphic descriptions of
the actual state of society, what they call Civilization, and
brilliant pictures of the life men will live in Harmony, or the
new world they propose ; and it is from these we must collect
what, in their view, is evil, or opposed to man's destiny on this
globe, and what they suppose is good, that is, its fulfilment, or
favorable to its fulfilment. In regard to the latter, we find the
chief place assigned to wealth and luxury, two things which
Fourier asserts positively, again and again, a
