THE TWO BROTHEl 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS; 
 
 ■OR — 
 
 Why are You a Protestant? 
 
 — BY — 
 
 0. A. BROWNSON, LL.D. 
 
 KIMTKI) I'.V 
 
 HENRY F. BROWNSON, A.M., LL.D. 
 
 DKTIUHT, Mini.: 
 
 n. f. BROWHsrsoisr., 
 38.
 
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 h 
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS ; OR, WHY ARE YOU 
 A PROTESTANT ? 
 
 [From Brownson's Quarterly Review for 1847—8.] 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 My old master, Jeremiah Milwood, as I have told you, had 
 but two children, both sons, and with only about two years' 
 difference in their ages. They were his pride, and he spared 
 no pains or expense in their education. He was a standi 
 Presbyterian ; and his highest ambition for his two sons 
 was, that they should become earnest, devoted, and distin- 
 guished Presbyterian ministers. He seemed likely to be 
 gratified. Both were of a serious turn, studious and piously 
 inclined. Before the elder had completed his seventeenth 
 year, both became subjects of grace, and both, on leaving 
 college, entered the seminary. 
 
 During the second year of their residence in the semi- 
 nary, their mother, a woman of great strength of character 
 and sweetness of disposition, fell ill and died. From that 
 moment, a striking change was observed in the tone and 
 manner of John, the elder brother. He was his mother's 
 favorite, and shared especially her confidence. At her re- 
 quest, he had spent several hours with her alone just pre- 
 viously to her death, and, though none of us knew what 
 transpired to affect him, it was subsequently surmised, from 
 one or two words which escaped him, that she had expressed, 
 in that trying moment, to him, as the only member of her 
 family she could hope to influence, or to whom she felt able 
 to open her heart, some misgivings as to the truth of Pres- 
 byterianism, and had begged him, by his love of her and 
 his regard for the welfare of his soul, to examine thorough- 
 ly its foundations before entering the ministry. However 
 this might be, it is certain he was never again what ho had 
 been. Ho returned, after the obsequies, to the seminary, 
 and even remained there several months; but ho lost his 
 reliafa tor tin- prescribed GOnrBe Of Studies, and became un- 
 willing to attend tin; services in the chapel. Finally, he 
 wrote to his father, informing him that he did not wish to
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 become a Presbyterian minister, and, indeed, could not, 
 without binding himself to profess what he did not then 
 believe and in all probability never should believe, and beg- 
 ging permission to return home and take some other calling. 
 My old master, you know, was never remarkable for his 
 sweetness and amiability, and the recent affliction he suf- 
 fered in the loss of his wife had rendered him doubly sour 
 and morose. His wrath was terrible. His son had disap- 
 pointed him, disgraced him, and he replied to him, that, 
 unless he continued at the seminary and returned to his 
 original faith and resolution, he was henceforth no son of 
 his, and must seek a home, father, and friends where lie 
 could find them. John, knowing explanation or expostula- 
 tion would be vain, took the only alternative left him, and 
 suffered himself to be exiled from his home. James, the 
 younger brother, who in many respects resembled his father, 
 remained at the seminary and completed his course. 
 
 John withdrew to a distant part of the country, assumed 
 his mother's name, and supported himself for three or four 
 years by teaching at an academy. While teaching he con- 
 trived to study law, in the practice of which he subsequent- 
 ly engaged, distinguished himself, and, in a few years, 
 amassed a fortune adequate to his simple wants and tastes. 
 Having done this, he retired from business and went abroad. 
 James, on completing his course, was licensed to preach, and 
 in a few months was called and ordained to the pastoral 
 charge of a wealthy and influential congregation in one of 
 our principal Atlantic cities, and was soon known and es- 
 teemed as one of the leading ministers of his denomination. 
 About a year after his settlement, his father died and left 
 him the bulk of his estate, which was considerable ; and a 
 year later he married the beautiful and accomplished daugh- 
 ter and heiress of his richest parishioner, who brought him 
 a still more ample fortune, and became the mother of five 
 children, two sons and three daughters. Every thing pros- 
 pered with him, and he had all that heart could wish. IJut, 
 after a while, the tide of prosperity began to ebb ; death 
 visited his home, and his children, one by one, all, save the 
 youngest, who was deformed, sickly, and partially idiotic, 
 were taken from him, and at length his wife followed them. 
 He bore up with stoical fortitude against these repeated 
 blows, but lie felt them, — was forced to reflect on the cer- 
 tainty of death, the uncertainty of life, and the perishable 
 nature of all earthly goods, more seriously than he had ever
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 5 
 
 done before, and to some extent his heart was softened and 
 his spirit bowed. 
 
 Time had hardly worn off the wire-edge of his grief and 
 begun to heal the wound in his heart, when he was sur- 
 prised by a letter from his brother, whom he had neither 
 seen nor heard from for nearly thirty years. The letter 
 offered him such sympathy and consolation as befitted the 
 occasion, and brought him the intelligence that its writer 
 was about to revisit his native land, and, following the 
 yearnings of his heart, would hasten to embrace the brother 
 he had never for a moment forgotten, or ceased to love. 
 James received the letter with mixed emotions, but upon 
 the whole without displeasure, and looked forward even 
 with interest to his brother's return. In a few weeks after 
 sending his letter, John embarked, and, favored with a short 
 and pleasant voyage across the Atlantic, landed in the city 
 in which James was settled, and without delay drove with 
 his baggage to his brother's residence. The brothers met ; 
 but so altered in appearance was each, that it was -with dif- 
 ficulty that either could recognize his brother in the other. 
 The meeting was frank and cordial on the part of the elder, 
 and less cold and restrained on the part of the younger 
 than could have been expected from his general character. 
 Perhaps he had recently had some compunctious visitings 
 <>f conscience for having so long forgotten even to think of 
 one he was hound by the ties of nature to love; perhaps 
 be bad a vein of tenderness in his nature which had not 
 hitherto been observed, and that early scenes and early 
 recollections revived, and for the moment half subdued, 
 the sectarian and minister. Bat be this as it may, he was 
 not displeased to meet his brother. They were soon seated 
 in a well-furnished apartment, engaged in five and familiar 
 ion. They recalled their hoyish days and boyish 
 frolics, spoke of their college life and college companions, 
 and anally of their mother and her lamented death. The 
 tone of both was sabdned, and they fumed their oonver- 
 on upon death, -in, redemption^ the resurrection, and 
 immortal life. Wnile speaking on these awful and sublime 
 
 topics, John referred to the change which early cai >ver 
 
 him with I to his religious news, and stated that ho 
 
 was, and for years had been, a member of the Roman Gath< 
 olio Church. This was unexpected as well as unwelcome 
 news to James. If his brother had told him that, he had 
 •ome a Bociniau or even an uubeliever, be would not
 
 g TIIE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 have been surprised, and could have borne it; but to be 
 told that he, the principal mover of the Protestant league 
 for the conversion of the pope and the overthrow of 
 popery, had himself a brother who had turned Papist, was 
 more than he could bear. He was thunderstruck, and 
 seemed for some minutes as one bereft of thought and 
 sense. Never had he been known to be so overcome. At 
 length, he partially recovered, and said to his brother, — " Mr. 
 Mil wood, your room is ready ; I must wrestle with God in 
 prayer for you before I can speak to you again." John 
 bade him good night, and quietly retired to his room. It 
 was already late in the evening, and, offering a prayer for 
 his brother, another for the repose of the soul of his 
 mother, and commending himself to his heavenly Father 
 and the protection of our Lady and all the saints, he com- 
 posed himself, with a subdued but serene mind, to rest. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The brothers met again in the morning in the breakfast- 
 parlor. James was exteriorly composed, and greeted his 
 brother in his blandest tone ; but a careful observer would 
 have suspected that he intended to play the part of the civil 
 and courteous host, rather than that of the warm and affec- 
 tionate brother. Breakfast passed pretty much in silence. 
 John was disposed to wait the motions of his brother, and 
 James was undecided whether to broach the Catholic ques- 
 tion or not. But he could not converse freely with his 
 brother on indifferent matters ; he felt that sooner or later 
 he must discuss the question, and perhaps the sooner the 
 better. Revolving the matter for some time in his mind, 
 he at length, throwing aside the morning paper he had been 
 pretending to read, broke the silence oy remarking to his 
 brother : — 
 
 " So it seems the result has been that you have turned 
 Papist?" 
 
 "lama Catholic" replied John, with a slight emphasis 
 on the last word, intended as a quiet rebuke to his brother 
 for employing a nickname. 
 
 " It is strange ! "What in the world could have induced 
 the son of a Presbyterian father, piously brought up, well 
 instructed in the Protestant religion, and not wanting in 
 natural ability, to take a step so foolish, not to say so 
 wicked?"
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 7 
 
 " Let me rather ask my brother why he is a Protestant ? " 
 
 " Why I am a Protestant ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I am much mistaken, or that is the harder ques- 
 tion of the two to answer." 
 
 " I am a Protestant because the Romish Church is cor- 
 rupt, the Mystery of Iniquity, the Man of Sin, Antichrist, 
 the Whore of Babylon, drunk with the blood of the saints, 
 a cage of unclean birds, cruel, oppressive, tyrannical, super- 
 stitious, idolatrous " 
 
 " But you are simply telling me why you are not a Cath- 
 olic ; my question is, Why are you a Protestant ? " 
 
 "Protestantism is a solemn protest against Rome, and 
 my reasons for not being a Catholic are my reasons for 
 being a Protestant." 
 
 "Jews, pagans, Mahometans, deists, atheists, protest as 
 earnestly as you do against Rome ; are they therefore Prot- 
 estants ? " 
 
 " Protestantism is, indeed, a protest against Rome ; but it 
 is also a positive religion." 
 
 " Unaffected by supposing the Catholic Church to have 
 never been or to have ceased to be ? " 
 
 " Yes ; Protestantism is independent of Romanism." 
 
 " A Protestant is one who embraces Protestantism in this 
 independent, positive sense?" 
 
 " Yes, if we speak properly." 
 
 " Before telling me why you are a Protestant, it will be 
 necessary to tell what, in this sense, Protestantism is." 
 
 " It is the religion of the Bible ; — the Bible is the re- 
 ligion of Protestants." 
 
 "And the religion of the Bible is ?" 
 
 " The truths revealed in the Bible." 
 
 " And these are ? " 
 
 "The great evangelical doctrines asserted by the reform- 
 ers against the false and corrupt doctrines of Rome, and 
 which we commonly call the doctrines of grace." 
 
 "These doctrines are Protestantism?" 
 
 "They are." 
 
 "So rrote tantism is the religion of the Bible, and the rc- 
 [orj <>f tlir, Bible is Protestantism ! " 
 " There is nothing absurd or ridiculous in that. Protes- 
 tantism, sir, is the religion of the. Bible, of the whole Bible, 
 
 the Bible alone, -that precious gift, of < w < »< J t an,— the 
 
 word of God, the charter of our liberties, the source of re- 
 rip tion, the ground of the CliristianV hope, carrj iug light
 
 g THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 and life, the blessings of truth, freedom, and civilization, 
 wherever it goes ; and which you Papists, with character- 
 istic cunning, lock up from the people, because you know 
 full well, that, were they once to read it for themselves, 
 they would make short work with the pope and his 
 minions, break their covenant with death and hell, and put 
 an end to their blasphemies, idolatries, and oppressions." 
 
 " I suspect, brother, you have accommodated that from 
 the speech you made at the last anniversary of the Ameri- 
 can Bible Society. It may do very well to address to the 
 mob that collects on ' anniversary week ' ; but can you not 
 
 five me a clear, distinct, and precise statement of what 
 'rotestantism really is ? " 
 
 " Protestantism is the great truth asserted by the reform- 
 ers against Rome, that the Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testaments contain all things necessary to salvation, and 
 that they are the sole and sufficient rule of faith and 
 practice." 
 
 " If I believe the Scriptures are sufficient, and are the 
 sole rule of faith and practice, do I believe the whole of 
 Protestantism ? " 
 
 " No ; you must also believe the word of God as contained 
 in the Scriptures." 
 
 " And this word consists of certain credenda or proposi- 
 tions to be believed % " 
 
 " It does ; and these may all be summed up in the text, 
 — ' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
 saved.' " 
 
 " To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is to believe ? " 
 
 " The truths he has revealed, whether of himself, or 
 other things." 
 
 " These truths are ? " 
 
 " The great evangelical doctrines asserted by the reform- 
 ers." 
 
 " That is, they are Protestantism. Therefore, Protestant- 
 ism is — Protestantism 1 But can you not be a little more 
 particular, and tell me what these truths or doctrines are ? " 
 
 "You will find an excellent summary of them in the 
 Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Larger and 
 Shorter Catechisms." 
 
 " That is, they are Presbyterianism ? Protestantism, then, 
 is Presbyterianism." 
 
 ""What else, from my profession as a Presbyterian minis- 
 ter, should you infer to be my belief 2"
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 9 
 
 " I am rather slow to infer a Presbyterian minister's be- 
 lief from his profession. But, if Protestantism be Presbv- 
 terianism, none but Presbyterians can be Protestants. Is 
 this your belief ? " 
 
 "Not exactly; for there are Protestants who are not 
 Presbyterians." 
 
 " These, of course, differ more or less from Presbyterians, 
 or else they would be Presbyterians. Consequently Protes- 
 tantism must differ more or less from Presbyterianism." 
 
 " In non-essentials, but not in essentials. All who em- 
 brace the essentials are Protestants." 
 
 " Do Catholics embrace the essentials ? " 
 
 " According to the general opinion of Protestants, they 
 do." 
 
 "Then, according to the general opinion of Protestants, 
 Catholics are Protestants ? " 
 
 " But I think differently, and our General Assembly will 
 soon, I hope, solemnly declare that Rome does not retain 
 even the essentials of the Christian faith." 
 
 " That will be a sad dav for Rome, no doubt : but what. 
 in your judgment, are the essentials?" 
 
 " They are the great evangelical doctrines of the refor- 
 mation, embraced by all orthodox Protestants." 
 
 " And orthodox Protestants are ? " 
 
 "All who agree in accepting the sufficiency of the Scrip- 
 tures, and the great essential aoctrines of revelation." 
 
 "Which means that the essential doctrines are the essen- 
 tial doctrines, and orthodox Protestants are orthodox Protes- 
 tants." 
 
 " The essential doctrines are substantially what is held by 
 Presbyterians." 
 
 "Those orthodox Protestants who are not Presbyterians 
 differ from Presbyterians only in relation to non-es6entials \ " 
 
 "That is all." 
 
 "Presbyterian ism, or, what is the same tiling, the ortho- 
 dox faith, then, is made up of two parts, one essential, the 
 other Hon e ential ? " 
 
 M All parts of tin; orthodox faith are not alike essential. 
 But there in iv he differences which are not, differences of 
 faith. 'I he Congregationalists, Evangelical Episcopalians, 
 hutch [informed, the Calvinistic Baptists, Ac., differ from 
 us in matters of discipline and church government, whil< 
 they embrace substantially the game faith we do." 
 
 "Is infant baptil in a matter of faith I "
 
 10 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " Not strictly." 
 
 " Then you do not baptize infants because you believe 
 Almighty God commands you to baptize them?" 
 
 " we do ; but the point is not so essential, that those 
 who differ from us must needs err essentially." 
 
 " One may, then, reject a positive command of God, with- 
 out essential error ? " 
 
 " We think our Baptist brethren err grievously ; but, as 
 they hold the great cardinal doctrines of the Gospel, we do 
 not think their error is absolutely essential. In the present 
 6tate of the religious world, it is the duty of God's people 
 to make the platform of Christian union as broad as possi- 
 ble, to discountenance theological wranglings, to seek to 
 heal sectarian divisions, and to follow after the things which 
 make for peace." 
 
 " But if you had no fears of popery, and felt that your 
 own sect had the power to make converts, I suppose you 
 would regard the Baptists as of the number of those who 
 bring in ' damnable heresies.' " 
 
 " You are ungenerous ; I regret the unsoundness of my 
 Baptist brethren, but I do not consider them as essentially 
 wrong." 
 
 " ]N ot even when they deny you the Christian character, 
 by denying that your baptism is baptism, — and when they 
 refuse to commune with you, on the ground that you are 
 unbaptized persons ; that is, infidels, in the proper sense of 
 the word ? " 
 
 " There they are wrong ; but still not essentially so, be- 
 cause baptism itself is a non-essential." 
 
 " Then you do not agree in opinion with our Lord, who 
 says, k Unless a man be born again of water and of the Holy 
 Ghost, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven % ' " 
 
 " Christian doctrines are distinguishable into fundamen- 
 tals and non-fundamentals. The fundamentals are the es- 
 sentials, the non-fundamentals are the non-essentials. All 
 who believe the former are substantially orthodox, though 
 they may differ about the latter." 
 
 " The non-fundamentals are either revealed truths, or they 
 are not. If they are not, your distinction of fundamentals 
 and non-fundamentals is simply a distinction between what 
 is revealed and what is not revealed, between the word of 
 God and the words of men or of devils ; and, on this sup- 
 ion, the essentials will be what God has revealed, and 
 the non-essentials what he has not revealed. If they are
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 11 
 
 revealed truths, you imply that a portion of the revealed 
 word is unessential, and may be disbelieved or rejected 
 without essential error. Which do you say ? " 
 
 "Suppose we say they are no portion of the revealed 
 word ? " 
 
 " You cannot say that, because you have declared them 
 to be revealed truths, by asserting that Christian doctrines 
 are distinguishable into fundamentals and non-fundamentals. 
 But pass over this. If you say the non-fundamentals, that 
 is, the non-essentials, are not revealed truths, you imply, by 
 making the fundamentals essential to be believed, that the 
 w/tole revealed word is essential to be believed, and there- 
 fore deny that there can be any differences of opinion as to 
 any portion of what is revealed, without essential error, 
 which renders your distinction between fundamentals and 
 non-fundamentals of no avail ; since no one, unless a Prot- 
 estant, is likely to contend that any thing more than 
 what is revealed is essential to be believed. Is it not 
 so?" 
 
 " So it appeals." 
 
 "Then again, you say, men, though differing about the 
 non-essentials, that is, about what is not revealed, are sub- 
 stantially orthodox, if they believe the essentials, that is, 
 what is revealed. Now they may differ about the non-es- 
 sentials, by believing, some, that they are, and some, that 
 they are not, revealed truths, or portions of the word of 
 God, as we see in the case of you and the Baptists concern- 
 ing infant baptism; you believing it to be revealed and 
 commanded by (rod himself, they believing it not revealed 
 and implicitly forbidden. Now, if men may believe the 
 non-essentials to be revealed, they may, according to you, 
 without essential error, believe that to be the word of God 
 which is the word of men or of devils. Do you admit 
 this?" 
 
 M 0f course not. 'Cursed 18 every one thai addeth to the 
 word- of this book.' The condemnation of Rome is not 60 
 much that, .-he denies the csM-ntial truths of the Christian 
 religion, as that she overlays them by her corrupt addition.-, 
 and renders them of none effed through the traditions of 
 
 men. Ii i.T a- much an BITOT to add to the word as to take 
 from it." 
 
 "Then you abandon this supposition, and take the other, 
 — that the non essentials are revealed truths, portions of the 
 Wold of < rod : "
 
 12 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " Be it so, for the present." 
 
 " Then you must say, since you allow men to believe or 
 reject them, without essential error, that a portion of the 
 word of God, of the truth Almighty God has revealed, may 
 be denied without essential error. Do you hold that one 
 can be substantially orthodox, and yet deny a portion of 
 God's word?" 
 
 " Even your own doctors distinguish between fundament- 
 als and non-fundamentals, and teach that faith in the fun- 
 damentals suffices for salvation." 
 
 " This, even if true, would not avail you ; for our doctors 
 are no authority for you, and you cannot urge them against 
 me in this discussion, since I am not defending the church. 
 But it is not true. Our doctors distinguish between the 
 articles of the creed which are logically fundamental or 
 primary, and those which are secondary, I admit ; but they 
 do not teach that faith in the primary alone suffices for sal- 
 vation. They teach that the whole must be believed, either 
 explicitly or implicitly, and simply add, that explicit faith 
 in the primary articles, with implicit faith in the secondary, 
 is all that is necessary, necessitate mediiP 
 
 " That is all I ask. He who believes explicitly the prima- 
 ry believes implicitly the secondary ; for the primary imply 
 the secondary." 
 
 " So, on the other hand, he who explicitly ^believes the 
 secondary, implicitly disbelieves the primary ; for the sec- 
 ondary presuppose or imply the primary. No man believes 
 implicitly what he explicitly denies. But you hold the 
 non-fundamentals may be explicitly denied without essen- 
 tial error ; therefore, you cannot assume that they are im- 
 plicitly believed." 
 
 " But do you pretend that every thing, however unim- 
 portant or insignificant, is essential to be believed ? " 
 
 " Your faith, not mine, is the matter in question." 
 
 " As a Catholic, you are bound to hold that the book of 
 Tobias is the word of God. In that book I read that Toby 
 had a dog, and that the dog came to his master, wagging 
 his tail. Is it essential to your salvation, that you believe 
 with a firm faith that Toby really had a dog, and that the 
 dog actually did wag his tail ? " 
 
 " That is not precisely the question. Assuming the in- 
 spiration of the book, can you deny the fact without essen- 
 tial error \ " 
 
 ""Why not 1 Common sense teaches us that the fact is 
 no' md cannot be in itself essential."
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 13 
 
 " And do you hold that there can be essential error only 
 where the matter denied is in itself essential ? " 
 
 " How can there be ? " 
 
 " What, in religious or divine faith, is the immediate ob- 
 ject believed ? " 
 
 " The truth of the particular proposition, whatever it may 
 
 Uvi 
 
 " Not exactly ; for the faith is religious only where the 
 proposition believed is a revealed proposition." 
 
 " The truth of the particular revealed proposition, then, 
 whatever it may be." 
 
 " In believing, does the mind perceive the truth of the 
 proposition believed, or only the proposition itself?" 
 
 " Explain yourself." 
 
 " "What is faith, as distinguished from knowledge or sci- 
 ence ? " 
 
 " Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence 
 of things not seen." 
 
 " Or, as says St Augustine, — Fides est credere quod non 
 vides, — Faith is to believe what you do not see. But you 
 must see or mentally apprehend the proposition, or you can- 
 not assent to it. What, then, is that in the proposition 
 which you assent to, but which you do not see ? " 
 
 " The truth of the proposition." 
 
 " As in the proposition, ' God exists in unity of essence 
 and trinity of persons,' you distinctly and immediately ap- 
 prehend the proposition, but not its truth ; otherwise, it 
 would be a proposition, not of faith, but of knowledge or 
 science, — knowledge, if perceived intuitively ; science, if 
 perceived only by means of discursion. Hence, rationalists, 
 when they refuse to believe the mysteries of faith because 
 they cannot immediately perceive their truth, deny, vir- 
 tually, the possibility of faith, and fall into the absurdity of 
 contending that they cannot have faith, unless it be knowl- 
 edge or science ; that is, they cannot have faith unless faith 
 be impossible! Where there is sight, there is not Faith. 
 Hence W6 say, faith will Lose itself in sight, hope be swal- 
 lowed in fruition, but charity abideth for ever. I immedi- 
 ately perceive the propositions of faith, or the oredenda} 
 but not their intrinsic truth. Therefore, the truth of the 
 revealed proposition cannot l»e that which is immedia(< hj 
 believed or assented to." 
 
 '' So it Would e,-MI." 
 
 "If it is qoI immediately believed, it must he mediately
 
 14 THE TWO BRO'lHERS. 
 
 believed ; that is, must be believed in some thing else, on or 
 by some authority at least formally distinct from itself." 
 
 " That must be true ; for faith is always by some author- 
 ity distinct from the believer and the proposition believed." 
 
 " Then the immediate object believed will be, not the 
 intrinsic truth of the proposition, but this authority in, on, 
 or by means of which it is believed ? " 
 
 "Be it so." 
 
 "Now, in religious faith, what is this? " 
 
 " The Bible, as all Protestants contend, in opposition to 
 Romanists, who say it is the church." 
 
 " Catholics do not say the church is the authority for be- 
 lieving the truth of the revealed proposition, but simply for 
 believing it is a revealed proposition ; and, if you reflect a 
 moment, you must admit that the Bible is at best only au- 
 thority for believing this or that is revealed, not authority 
 for believing that what is revealed is true." 
 
 " We recognize no authority above the Bible." 
 
 " Then you place the Bible above God himself, which I 
 own is what you who call yourselves Protestants often have 
 the appearance of doing ; but this cannot be your meaning. 
 All you can mean is, that, in determining what God has 
 revealed, the Bible is the highest authority you recognize. 
 But the Bible, although assumed to be the highest author- 
 ity for determining what God has revealed, is yet no author- 
 ity for saying what he reveals is true. Why do you believe 
 what God reveals in or through the Bible is true ? " 
 
 " Because it is his revelation, his word." 
 
 "That is, you believe it because God says it. But, in 
 believing it because God says it, what is it you immediately 
 believe 2 " 
 
 " God himself." 
 
 " That is, you believe the proposition because it is God's 
 word, and you believe his word because you believe him. 
 But why do you believe him ? " 
 
 " Because it is impossible for him to lie." 
 
 " That is, because he is infinitely true, is truth itself, and 
 can neither deceive nor be deceived ? " 
 
 " I have no objection to that." 
 
 " Then the object immediately believed, in believing a 
 revealed proposition, is the infinite truth or veracity of (rod 
 who reveals it." 
 
 "Be it 60." 
 
 "Which, in religious faith, then, shall we say is the more
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 15 
 
 essential point to be believed, — the matter revealed, or the 
 infinite veracity of God who reveals it ? " 
 " What is the difference ? " 
 
 " The difference, perhaps, will appear, if you tell me what 
 it is that makes the faith religious faith, or distinguishes it, 
 as religious faith, from all other kinds of faith." 
 
 " It is religious faith because the proposition believed is 
 a revealed proposition." 
 
 " If I believe the proposition, ' God exists in unity of 
 essence and trinity of persons,' because you teach it, or be- 
 cause I think I have discovered and demonstrated it by my 
 own reason, is my belief religious belief ? " 
 
 " "Why not, since the proposition in either case is the 
 same ? What difference can it make, if it be believed, for 
 what reason or on what ground it is believed ? " 
 
 " If I believe it because you teach it, I believe you, and 
 what I immediately believe is that you are a man of truth 
 and worthy of credit. Is there any thing religious in my 
 believing you ? " 
 " Not necessarily." 
 
 " If I believe it because I think I have discovered and 
 demonstrated it by my own reason, I simply believe my own 
 reason. Ts to believe my own reason religious belief ? " 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " For, if it were, every belief, whether intuitive or scien- 
 tific, would be religious, and the belief of falsehood as much 
 as truth ; since, in every act of belief, whether the belief be 
 well founded or not, I believe my reason. But if I believe 
 the proposition, not because you teach it, not because I dis- 
 cover or demonstrate it by my own reason, but because 
 God says it, and therefore because I believe him, and that 
 he is infinitely true, and can neither deceive me nor be de- 
 ceived, and, furthermore, because he commands me to believe 
 it, is ray act now religious?" 
 " It is." 
 
 " Then it would seem that it is believing and obeying 
 ( to 1, which makes the belief religious belief {" 
 "That appears to be so." 
 
 "Then the more essential point in religious belief is not 
 simply belief of the matter revealed, but of God who re- 
 reals it?" 
 
 • Very well, let it be so." 
 
 " In every proposition, be it what it may, which T believe 
 because { '^A reveals it, 1 do believe him, ao I not? M
 
 16 
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " So it follows from what we have said." 
 
 " But if the more essential point is to believe God, the 
 more essential error must be to disbelieve him, must it not ? " 
 
 " Certainly, to disbelieve God is the most heinous offence 
 of which man can be guilty. The grossest insult we can 
 offer even to a fellow-mortal is to call him a liar ; and we 
 call God a liar, whenever we disbelieve or refuse to believe 
 him." 
 
 " But do I not disbelieve or refuse to believe God, and 
 therefore make God a liar, whenever I refuse to believe a 
 proposition because I have only his word for it ? " 
 
 " You do, and are guilty of the sin of infidelity." 
 
 " Then, if God has told me, no matter for what reason, 
 that Toby had a dog and the dog wagged his tail, and I re- 
 fuse to believe it, do I or do I not err essentially % " 
 
 " You err essentially, as it appears from what we have 
 said." 
 
 " Then there may be essential error, where the matter or 
 proposition denied is not in itself essential ? " 
 
 " So it would seem." 
 
 "Then you will concede what you call the non-funda- 
 mentals, if revealed truths, can no more be denied without 
 essential error than the fundamentals themselves ? " 
 
 " Not at all. Doubtless, where the matter is clearly and 
 manifestly revealed, refusal to believe is essential error; 
 but it does not therefore follow that it is essential error to 
 refuse to believe, where it is not clearly and manifestly 
 revealed, where it is uncertain that God speaks, and, if he 
 does, what is the exact meaning of what he says." 
 
 " This uncertainty, not the fundamental or non-funda- 
 mental nature of the matter in question, then, is that which 
 saves the refusal to believe from being essential error ? " 
 
 " That seems to follow." 
 
 " If the same uncertainty existed with regard to what is 
 fundamental, the refusal to believe it would, then, no more 
 be essential, than the refusal to believe the non-funda- 
 mentals ? " 
 
 " That seems also to follow." 
 
 " In order, then to determine what are the essentials, that 
 is, what must be believed, and cannot be denied without 
 essential error, and what are the non-essentials, that is, what 
 without essential error may be either believed or denied, it 
 will be necessary to inquire, not what are the fundamentals 
 
 Vol.. VI— 17.
 
 THE TWO BKOTHKBS, 
 
 17 
 
 and what the non-fundamentals, but what is or is not clearly 
 and manifestly revealed." 
 
 " Since the fundamentals are all clearly and manifestly re- 
 vealed, I have no objections to saying so. " 
 
 " "WTiether the fundamentals are all clearly and manifestly 
 revealed or not, you must so say, or abandon the ground you 
 have taken. The essentials, then, are what is clearly and 
 manifestly revealed ? " 
 
 " Be it so." 
 
 " The non-essentials what is not clearly and manifestly re- 
 vealed ? " 
 
 " Agreed." 
 
 " He who believes all that is clearly and manifestly re- 
 vealed believes all the essentials, is free from essential error, 
 is substantially orthodox ? " 
 
 " Agreed, again." 
 
 " He who rejects any truth clearly and manifestly revealed 
 errs essentially ? " 
 
 "He does." 
 
 " But he who rejects only the non-essentials b does not err 
 essentially ? " 
 
 " Stop there a moment. Men may differ as to the non- 
 essentials without essential error ; but to differ in opinion 
 about a point is not necessarily to deny it ; for botli parties 
 may intend to believe it, and would, if they could only ascer- 
 tain the truth involved." 
 
 " But individuals may differ in some respects, even as to 
 matters of faith, from Presbyterians, without erring essen- 
 tially?" 
 
 "I do not deny it." 
 
 "The points on which thej r differ must be non-essentials, 
 otherwise the difference would be essential. In regard to 
 these points they must differ from Presbyterians, either by 
 holding some things to he revealed truths which Presbyterians 
 do not, or by denying some things to bo revealed truths which 
 Presbyterians believe are revealed truths?" 
 
 u Tney may also differ from them by simple ignorance." 
 
 "That is true; but then they differ only negatively, not 
 positively. Presbyterians in this respect must differ from 
 one another; for some are better informed as to what. Pres- 
 ltyt«Tiani.~.m Lfl than others are or can be; but they arc, nev- 
 ertheless, all alike Presbyterians. Bo I,- as a Catholic, may 
 be ignorant of si pom • points of the Oatholic faith, and in tin i 
 respect differ from the one who knows them all ; but 1 am
 
 18 
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 as true a Catholic as he, because I intend to believe all the 
 Church teaches, because I am ready to believe all as soon as 
 explicitly propounded to me, and because the points on which 
 I am ignorant I believe implicitly, since they are implied in 
 what I believe explicitly. This is, therefore, a mere nega- 
 tive difference, and amounts to nothing. The differences in 
 question are positive differences, and these must consist, eith- 
 er in believing things to be revealed which you deny to be 
 revealed, or in denying certain things to be revealed which 
 you believe to be revealed." 
 
 " I do not see how that follows." 
 
 u The differences we are considering concern matters of 
 faith ; and nothing, I suppose you will grant, is or can be 
 matter of faith which is not a divinely revealed truth. Or, 
 rather, no man can hold any thing to be matter of faith, un- 
 less he holds it to be matter of revelation, that is, a revealed 
 truth." 
 
 " I do not know about that." 
 
 " But you do ; for the faith we are speaking of is religious 
 faith, and we have agreed that there can be religious faith 
 only where the proposition believed is a revealed proposi- 
 tion." 
 
 " Yery well, proceed." 
 
 " If, then, you admit differences as to matters of faith may 
 exist without essential error, you must admit that the non- 
 essentials may be either believed or disbelieved without es- 
 sential error, unless you choose to admit that you yourselves 
 are in essential error." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " You certainly deny some things, which you call non-es- 
 sentials, to be revealed truths ; such, for instance, as the di- 
 vine institution of the episcopacy, which is asserted by Prot- 
 estant Episcopalians. But, if the non-essentials cannot be 
 denied without essential error, then you err essentially in 
 denying it. On the other hand, you assert infant baptism to 
 be a divine command, which your Baptist brethren deny. 
 Infant baptism, you say, is a non-essential ; if, then, non-es- 
 sentials cannot be positively denied without essential error, 
 your Baptist brethren err essentially, and are not, as you have 
 admitted, substantially orthodox. Moreover, unless you ad- 
 mit the non-essentials may be either believed or disbelieved 
 without essential error, your distinction between essentials 
 and non-essentials avails you nothing, and you must come 
 back and assert that none, who differ positively in any mat-
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 19 
 
 ter from Presbyterians, have or can have the essential faith ; 
 and then you must recall your denial, and say that Presby- 
 terianism and Protestantism are one and the same thing, and 
 that Presbyterians are the only Protestants." 
 
 " Very well, I will not insist on the point. Say the non- 
 essentials are matters which one may either believe or disbe- 
 lieve without erring essentially." 
 
 " We now seem to be in a fair way of determining what 
 Protestantism is. It is, you say, the essentials, and the essen- 
 tials are all the truths clearly and manifestly revealed in the 
 Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Tell me what 
 these truths are, and you tell me what Protestantism is, and 
 take the preliminary step towards answering my question, 
 "Why are you a Protestant ? " 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 Much to the relief of James, while he was considering 
 what he should reply to John's last demand, the conversation 
 was suspended by the entrance of Mr. Wilson, a brother 
 Presbyterian minister, settled over the oldest Presbyterian 
 congregation in the city. He was of Scottish descent, and 
 upwards of seventy years of age, — a man of antiquated no- 
 tions, with little respect for the vounger ministers of his de- 
 nomination. Presbyterianism, in his view, had nearly lost 
 its original distinctive character. Wesley and Whitefield, 
 by their appeals to heated passion and mere animal excite- 
 ment, instead of reason and voluntary affection, had well 
 nigh ruined it. Presbyterians were now Methodists, Armi- 
 oians, in all except name and outward organization and gov- 
 ernment ; and the new methods and measures lately adopted 
 for the conversion of sinners appeared to him likely to prove 
 in the end its total destruction. He saw with pain the lec- 
 ture-room and rostrum superseding the pulpit, strolling evan- 
 gelists and revival preachers the regular pastors, and "in- 
 quiry" and "anxious" meetings the orderly ministrations of 
 the word. 
 
 M. bween him and James there was little sympathy. James 
 was a man of his times, lie understood the tendencies of 
 li is age and country, and held that it was the part of wis- 
 dom, if riot indeed of duty, to yield to and obey them. To 
 luive power over the people, he held it to be necessary to 
 consull them, to change with them, to take the direction they 
 indicate, to be always just in advance of them, and never to
 
 20 
 
 TIIE TWO .BROTHERS. 
 
 lag behind them. He availed himself of their passions and 
 tendencies as the readiest way of occupying the post of lead- 
 er, and, if he could only occupy that post, the direction he 
 followed or the final goal he might reach was comparatively 
 indifferent. He was adroit, shrewd, unscrupulous, but he did 
 not know that he who leads the mob only by yielding to 
 them leads them only by being their slave. The true leader 
 is he who makes the multitude follow him, not he who fol- 
 lows them. He who has principles and will stand by them, 
 though he stand alone, or be hewn down by the maddened 
 multitude for his fidelity to them, is by many degrees supe- 
 rior to him who sacrifices his principles, if he have any, to 
 popularity, or who has no principles but to ascertain and 
 yield to the passions and tendencies of the age or country. 
 But of all this James knew, at least, cared, nothing. He lived 
 in an age and country of demagogues, and he did not aspire 
 to be thought superior to his age and compatriots. The great- 
 est modern achievement in the state, he was accustomed to 
 hear it boasted, had been to establish the rale of demagogues ; 
 and why should it not be as glorious to establish this rule in 
 the church as in the state ? 
 
 Little as James sympathized ordinarily with Mr. Wilson, 
 he welcomed him in the present instance with great cordial- 
 ity, and introduced him to his brother. After some com- 
 monplace remarks, he told him he had just learned that his 
 brother, who had been absent for many years, had become 
 a Catholic. He recapitulated the conversation they had just 
 had, stated the point at which it had arrived, and begged 
 Mr. Wilson to answer the question they were debating. 
 Mr. Wilson was not pleased with the course adopted by 
 James, and replied : — 
 
 "If I had had the management of this discussion from 
 the beginning, I should have given it another direction. 
 Your brother has, doubtless, been under the training of the 
 Jesuits, is versed in all their scholastic refinements and sub- 
 tilties, and a perfect master of all the sophistical arts by 
 which they entrap and bewilder the simple and unwary. 
 When you dispute with such a man, mind and keep the 
 management of the argument in your own hands. Consent 
 to ply the laboring oar yourself, and you are gone. The 
 great secret of dialectics is in knowing how to put your 
 questions. You gentlemen of the modern school are far 
 abler demagogues than logicians, and much better skilled in 
 exciting the passions of the mob than in managing a dis-
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. «l 
 
 cussion. I have often told you the folly and madness of 
 neglecting severer studies. You have studied only to con- 
 form to the multitude ; you have made the mob supreme, 
 and taught them to lord it over their pastors, loosened them 
 from their old moorings, set them adrift upon a stormy and 
 tempestuous sea, without helm or helmsman, or rather with 
 the helmsman bound to obey the helm. Their passions are 
 a favorable gale for you to-day ; but what certainty have 
 you that they may not make the port of Rome, or be strand- 
 ed on the rock}' beach of popery, to-morrow ? Attempt to 
 guide or control them, cross in any thing their prejudices 
 or their wishes, and where are they, — where are you { How 
 often must I tell you, it is hard making the port of the Gos- 
 pel with the devil for pilot? If you had had a grain of 
 common sense, you would have insisted on your brother's 
 answering your question, why he had become a Catholic, 
 instead of consenting, as a great fool, to answer his question, 
 why you are a Protestant. If you had been acquainted 
 with the old Protestant controversialists, you would have 
 seen that they leave Protestantism to take care of itself, # 
 while they reserve all their forces for the attack upon 1101110/' 
 Never mind that now, Brother Wilson. I could hard- 
 ly f the turn the conversation would take, for those 
 holies I have baown have generally contented themselves 
 with replying to the charges brought against their church, 
 without going fur in their attacks upon Protestantism ; and 
 , it is QO more than right, since Protestantism is a 
 itive religion, that they who profess it should define 
 what they meat) by it, and give their reasons for believing 
 it." 
 
 "If the old Protestant masters of whom Mr. Wilson 
 
 t n interposed John, "had thought of that, and) before 
 
 Qolieity, bad defined ana established a religion 
 
 of their own, my brother would have had an easy task now, 
 
 if indeed an-. t ,dl." 
 
 M The true polemical policy is always to keep yourself and 
 party on the offensive ; bat if you imagine that Protestant- 
 tive religion, is indefinable and indefensible) 
 you iy mnch mi rtaken." 
 
 "The readiest way to convict mc of that will be to dl 
 
 fine it, and give nn- good and valid reasons for believing 
 "In becoming a Oatholio yon abjured Proteetantianx Am 
 
 I to infer that yon abjured you knew not what?"
 
 22 
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " Mr. "Wilson pays me but a sorry compliment, if he sup- 
 poses I shall voluntarily surrender what he terms the true 
 polemical policy. The question is not what I may or may 
 not know of Protestantism, what I may or may not have 
 abjured, on becoming a Catholic, but what Protestantism is, 
 as understood by those who profess it ? " 
 
 " But, if you were not fully informed as to what Protes- 
 tantism really was, how could you know that in abjuring it 
 you were not abjuring the truth ? " 
 
 " He who has the truth has no need of knowing the sys- 
 tems opposed to it, in order to know that they must be false. 
 But suppose you proceed with your definition. You profess 
 to be a Protestant, and so able, experienced, and learned a 
 man cannot be supposed to profess to believe he knows not 
 what. If you know what it is, you can easily tell me." 
 
 " I will give you Dr. Owen's definition. I dare say your 
 brother James has never read Owen's works, nor Boston's, 
 nor those of any other man who was in breeches fifty years 
 ago. It is a shame to think how the old worthies are neg- 
 lected. Nobody reads them now-a-days. The study of 
 school divinity is wholly neglected. Our theologians are 
 frightened at a folio, tremble at a quarto, can hardly endure 
 even an octavo. The demand is for works, ' short, pithy, 
 and pungent.' It is the age of petty Tracts, Penny Maga- 
 zines, Peter Parleys, Robert Merrys, trash, nonsense, and 
 humbug." 
 
 " And yet it is the glorious age on which the glorious sun 
 of the glorious reformation beams in all its effulgence. If 
 the reformers were here, they would exclaim, Et tu, Brute!" 
 
 " I hope Mr. Wilson will not heed my brother's sneer," 
 interposed James ; " but proceed with his definition." 
 
 " Brother Mil wood, have you Owen's works ? No ? No,. 
 I dare say not. But I presume you have Dowling, D'Au- 
 bigne, and the last new novel." 
 
 " I do not read novels." 
 
 " The best thing you have said for yourself yet. "Well, I 
 see I must quote from memory. Protestantism, — remem- 
 ber I quote the great Dr. Owen, one of those sound old 
 English divines who cared as little for prelacy as for papa- 
 cy, and would no more submit to king than to pope. They 
 were the men. It will be Ions: before we shall look upon 
 their like again. They were God's freemen. The pomps 
 and vanities of the world could not dazzle or blind them. 
 They cared not for crown or mitre, and the blood of a king
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 23 
 
 was to them as the blood of a common man. They went 
 straight to their object. England was not worthy of them. 
 The Lord directed them here. Here they laid the founda- 
 tions of a noble empire. This is their work ; this land is 
 their land, and their children's after them, and a crying 
 shame is it, that a miserable, idolatrous Papist should be suf- 
 fered to pollute it with his accursed foot." 
 
 " But you are thinking of the Independents, rather than 
 of the Presbyterians. The Presbyterians were for king and 
 covenant, and pretend to have disapproved of the execution 
 of Charles Stuart." 
 
 u Xo matter. The Independents only completed what 
 the Presbyterians began, and soon sunk into insignificance 
 when left to struggle alone. In the glorious war against 
 prelacy and papacy they were united as brothers, as I trust 
 will always be their children." 
 
 " But the definition." 
 
 " Remember, I quote the words of the great Dr. Owen, 
 great and good, notwithstanding he left the Presbyterians 
 and became a Congregationalist ; — excepting in matters of 
 church government, rigidly orthodox, and as much superior 
 to the degenerate race of ministers in our day, as a huge 
 old folio is to a modern penny tract, and whose works I 
 recommend to both of you to read. Protestantism is, — ' 1. 
 What was revealed unto the church by our Lord and his 
 apostles, and in the whole of that religion which the Lord 
 doth and will accept. 2. Sofa/r ax Deeded unto faith, obe- 
 dience, and salvation of the church, what they taught, re- 
 vealed, and commanded is contained in the Scriptures of 
 
 the New Testament, witnessed unto and continued by the 
 Old. 3. All that is required, that we may please (Jod, and 
 
 be accepted with him, and conic to the eternal enjoyment 
 of him, is that we truly and sincerely believe what is so re- 
 Jed and taught, yielding sincere obedience unto what is 
 commanded in the Scriptures. 1. If in any thing they 
 Protestants] be found to deviate froiu them, if it [what 
 they teach] exceed in any instance what is so taught ami 
 
 commanded, if it be defective in the faith or the practice of 
 
 any thing BO revealed or commanded, they are ready to re- 
 nounce it.' What do yon ask more clear, brief, comprehen- 
 . and | than thai 1 
 
 " I >id our Lord and hie apoi I le reveal any religion which 
 they did not reveal to the church, or which Qod doth not 
 
 and will not accept 1 "
 
 24 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 " Then Mr. Owen might have said simply, Protestantism 
 is what was revealed by our Lord and his apostles unto the 
 church." 
 
 " Perhaps he might." 
 
 " What was so revealed is the true religion, is it not % " 
 
 " It is." 
 
 " Then he would have said all, if he had said, Protestant- 
 ism is the true religion." 
 
 " Be it so." 
 
 " If you will now tell me what is the true religion, you 
 will tell me what Protestantism is." 
 
 " Mr. Owen tells you in his second article." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. He tells me in that where the true 
 religion is, so far as needed ; but not what it is." 
 
 "In his third article, then." 
 
 " Not in that ; for in that he simply tells me, that, if I be- 
 lieve and obey the true religion, so far as contained in the 
 Scriptures of the New Testament, I have all that God re- 
 quires of me." 
 
 " Well, in the fourth." 
 
 " But that simply informs me, that, if Protestants have 
 mistaken the true religion, if they contend for more or for 
 less than is contained in the Scriptures, they are ready to re- 
 nounce it: although whether by it is to be understood true 
 religion, the mistake, the excess, or the defect, he does not 
 inform me. So, you perceive, I am not as yet told what 
 Protestantism is." 
 
 " But you are told where it is, and that is enough." 
 
 " That may or may not be. The cook knew where the 
 teakettle was when it fell overboard, but nevertheless he 
 could not get it to make the captain's tea." 
 
 " It is in the New Testament, witnessed unto and con- 
 firmed by the Old. You can go there and find it for your- 
 self." 
 
 " Has it any mark by which I may recognize it when I see 
 it?" 
 
 " If you seek, you shall find. Our Lord himself says that, 
 and I hope you will not dispute hira." 
 
 " Does he say, if you seek in the Scriptures of the New 
 Testament, you shall find % " 
 
 " Not expressly." 
 
 " Do all who seek in those Scriptures find ? "
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 25 
 
 " All who faithfully study them and rightly understand 
 them." 
 
 " Do all who attentively read them rightly understand 
 them ? " 
 
 "No; some wrest them to their own destruction, and 
 bring in damnable heresies." 
 
 "You have faithfully studied and rightly understand 
 them ? " 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 " Lest I should be one of those who wrest them to my 
 own destruction, suppose you tell me what is the true relig- 
 ion which they contain, or which I ought to find in them." 
 
 " If you are one who would wrest the Scriptures to your 
 own destruction, you would dp the same with my statement 
 of what they contain. I should do you no good by com- 
 plying with your request. If you believe not Moses and 
 the prophets, neither will you believe me." 
 
 "How, then, am I ever to know certainly what this thing 
 you call Protestantism, and say is the true religion, really 
 
 18?" 
 
 "Head your Bible, Sir, with humble submission, without 
 any reliance on yourself, with sincere and earnest prayer to 
 the Holy Ghost to enlighten you, and you will be led into 
 all truth." 
 
 " Perhaps so. But our question is not, What is truth ? 
 but, "What is Protestantism?" 
 
 M Have I not told you Protestantism is the true religion ? 
 He, then, who is led to the truth must needs be led to Prot- 
 estantism." 
 
 " I stand corrected. But since some do wrest the Script 
 ures to their own destruction, and bring in ' damnable here- 
 gies,' how do you determine infallibly that you may not 
 yourself be one of them?" 
 
 u I am accustomed, Sir, to being treated with respect, ami 
 I trust you mean me no insult." 
 
 "They who are accustomed to be treated with respect 
 
 neral, slow to think themselves insulted. If Mr. 
 
 Wilson doei not know infallibly thai he rightly understands 
 
 the Scriptures, I annotdeny that it is possible he maybe 
 
 wn : hem t<> his own destruction." 
 
 "Through God's distinguishing grace vouchsafed to me, 
 fur do worth q< of mine, I have been enabled to see and 
 know the truth." 
 
 "Is tli vouch afed to .-ill I "
 
 26 
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " To all whom God has preordained unto everlasting life ; 
 but those whom he has from all eternity reprobated to ever- 
 lasting death, for the praise of his vindictive justice, he 
 leaves to their reprobate sense, to their own blindness, and 
 even sends them strong delusions, that they may believe a 
 lie and be damned." 
 
 " And these never had it in their power to come to the 
 knowledge of the truth and be saved ? " 
 
 " If they had willed." 
 
 " Were they ever able to have willed ? " 
 
 " Naturally, yes ; morally, no." 
 
 "But actually?" 
 
 " No. Those whom God ordains to everlasting death he 
 ordains to sin, that they may be damned justly." 
 
 " That is a hard doctrine, Brother Wilson. It was taught 
 indeed by the great Calvin, whom God so highly favored, 
 but it is not now generally taught by Presbyterians. The 
 doctrine of God's decrees is, indeed, full of sweet comfort 
 to the elect, but it needs to be handled with great prudence, 
 and is to be meditated in our closets rather than made the 
 basis of our instructions to others. Sinners do not and can- 
 not understand it. They only make a mock of it, and it 
 proves to them the savor of death unto death." 
 
 " There it is ! The time has come when the people will 
 no longer hear sound doctrine, when it is imprudent to de- 
 clare the whole counsel of God. Hence the race of weak 
 and puny saints, who must be fed on milk, and that diluted. 
 Yery well, I must leave you to manage the discussion in 
 your own way ; but be on your guard. The time is not far 
 distant, if things proceed as they have done for a few years 
 back, when you will have no Protestantism to define or de- 
 fend, but each man will have a gospel of his own. Good 
 morning, gentlemen." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The conversation was not resumed for several days. 
 James found it a less easy task to define Protestantism than 
 he had imagined. He had been accustomed to take the 
 word in a very loose and indefinite sense. As chief of the 
 Protestant League, he had meant by it little else than the 
 denial of Catholicity ; in his warfare against Socinians, ra- 
 tionalists, and transcendentalists, he had made it stand for 
 doctrines and principles which logically imply the Catholic
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 27 
 
 Church ; in his own pulpit, addressing the people of his 
 charge, he had understood by it simply Presbyterianism, 
 •with a slight leaning, perhaps, towards Arminianism. But 
 he had never given the terra a clear, distinct, and uniform 
 meaning, which he was willing to stand by in all places and 
 on all occasions. He saw that to define it in a negative 
 sense, and make Protestantism merely a protest against 
 Rome, was not necessarily to distinguish it from paganism, 
 Mahometanism, Judaism, deism, or even atheism ; and to 
 restrict it to simple Presbyterianism, if not against his con- 
 science, was in the present state of the world, bad policy. 
 It would bo tantamount to saying that Protestantism is an 
 empty name ; that there are indeed Presbyterians, Episco- 
 palians, Baptists, Methodists, etc., but no Protestants; that 
 there is a multitude of sects, indeed, sometimes arranged 
 under one common name, but without any common faith 
 or principles, except that of hostility to the church. It 
 would, moreover, too openly expose his weakness to the 
 enemy, and confess that the great and mighty Protestant 
 party, which had begun by assuming such lofty airs, and 
 threatening to become commensurate with Christendom, 
 had dwindled down to the little handful of Presbyterians 
 in Great Britain and the United States, — those on the Con- 
 tinent having pretty generally lapsed into Socinianism, ra- 
 inalism, and transcendentalism, — divided into four or five 
 . if !i' it hostile, communions, and their numbers 
 day relatively diminishing, which would create mirth 
 rather than dread at Rome, against whom he wished to 
 carry on a war of extermination. On the other hand, to 
 
 end its meaning so as to embrace all the so-called I'rot- 
 
 frona Dr. Pnsey down to Theodore Parker, 
 
 i i »rd to the MLelodeon, was hardly leas inconvenient. 
 
 lb- would never march through Coventry at the head of 
 
 sh a motley company. Rome would declare thai all mot- 
 
 dom and all devildom had broken loose. He should 
 nev< r hear the last of it. Bui to find a definition which 
 .should extend beyond the narrow boundaries of Presbyte" 
 
 idoin without, including all sectariandom was the dilli- 
 . tv. //>•>■ opu8 t /"'•■ labor est. 
 
 iral daya in meditating on this problem, 
 
 I without hitting upon B solution quite to his mind ; but 
 
 having obtained a few hinta from some of the earlier Prot- 
 troversialisl , and trusting to the chapter of acci- 
 dents, he took occasion, finding himself in hia Library alone 
 with Join
 
 28 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " I think, 1 ' said he, addressing his brother, " that, if you 
 review our former conversation, you will own, my last an- 
 swer to the question, What is Protestantism ? is all that you 
 have any right to demand." 
 
 " I have no wish to make any unreasonable demands," 
 John replied. " What I want is to find out precisely what, 
 in its distinctive features, this thing or this no-thing which 
 you call Protestantism really is. If your answer tells me 
 what it is, and distinguishes it, or enables me to distinguish 
 it, from what it is not, it is unquestionably sufficient." 
 
 " Protestantism is the essentials, and the essentials are all 
 the truths clearly and manifestly revealed in the Scriptures 
 of the Old and New Testaments." 
 
 " If to believe the essentials be all that is necessary to 
 constitute one a Protestant, then all who believe all the 
 truths clearly and manifestly revealed in the Scriptures 
 must be Protestants." 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " If Catholics, as is very supposable, to say the least, be- 
 lieve all that is clearly and manifestly revealed in the Script- 
 ures, then Catholics are Protestants. 
 
 " But Catholics do not believe all that is clearly and man- 
 ifestly revealed in the Scriptures." 
 
 " They profess to do so, and they say with you, all that is 
 clearly and manifestly revealed is essential to be believed, 
 and no point of it can be disbelieved without essential 
 error." 
 
 " But they hold that other things than those clearly and 
 manifestly revealed in the Scriptures are also essential to be 
 believed." 
 
 " That is, they believe all that you define to be the essen- 
 tials are essentials, but do not believe that these are all the 
 essentials. But this does not hinder them from being good 
 orthodox Protestants ; for your definition excludes only 
 those who believe less, not those who believe more, than the 
 essentials." 
 
 " Say, then, Protestantism is to believe all the essentials, 
 and that what, and only what, is clearly and manifestly re- 
 vealed in the Scriptures is essential, or, without essential 
 error, can be believed to be essential. That excludes Cath- 
 olics, by asserting the sufficiency of the Scriptures, which 
 they do not admit." 
 
 "But besides the essentials, are the non-essentials, which 
 m.ty without essential error be either believed or disbe- 
 lieved, to be the word of God ? "
 
 THE TWO BEOTHER8. 29 
 
 " That is what I contend." 
 
 " But they who believe them to be the word of God mu6t 
 believe them to be essential." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 "Remember Toby and his dog. He who believes a thing 
 to be the word of God must either believe it essential to be 
 believed, or else believe that it is no essential error to dis- 
 believe God. Can I, without essential error, believe it is 
 no essential error to disbelieve God ? " 
 
 " No, for that is tantamount to making him a liar, since 
 there is no essential difference between believing that it is 
 no essential error to disbelieve God, and actually disbelieving 
 him." 
 
 " Then they who believe the non-essentials to be the word 
 of God must believe them to be essential, or else virtually 
 make God a liar ? " 
 
 " That follows." 
 
 "But it is essential error to believe any thing to be essen- 
 tial which is not essential ? " 
 
 " So I have implied." 
 
 "Then it follows, does it not, that he who believes any of 
 the non-essentials to be the word of God errs essentially?" 
 
 " So it would seem." 
 
 "All who dilTer from Presbyterians diiTer from them 
 either by believing some things to be the word of God 
 which Presbyterians denvto be his word, or vice versa?" 
 
 " True." 
 
 " If the latter, they err essentially, assuming Presbyte- 
 rians to be right, by aot believing all the essentials." 
 reed." 
 
 '•It the former, they err essentially by believing some 
 things to I": c-.-iitiil which are nut." 
 
 •1 tmj also folio* 
 
 "Then all who <1 i lT<r from Presbyterians in matters of 
 faith err essentially. Therefore, none who differ from them 
 as to matters of faith can be essentially orthodox. It", then, 
 yon say none can be essentially orthodox who believe an\ of 
 the con eoaontinlfl to be essential, you exclude all who diiTer 
 from P , make Pn nanism and Protestant- 
 
 ism equivalent and convertible terms, and declare cone but 
 Pre byteriana are Protestants, which I understand jron to 
 dei 
 
 "I do deny it ; for Preebyteri re not tin- only essen- 
 tially orthodox I 'rote tants.
 
 30 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " How, tli en, can you say that Protestantism is to believe 
 the essentials, and that only the essentials can, without essen- 
 tial error, be believed to be essential ? Do you insist on 
 saving this still ? " 
 " I do." 
 
 " Is infant baptism an essential or a non-essential ? " 
 " A non-essential, as I have told you more than once." 
 " But Presbyterians believe it to be a revealed command ? " 
 " They do." 
 
 " Therefore believe it to be the word of God." 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " Then they believe it essential, and therefore err essen- 
 tially by believing a non-essential to be essential. Hence, if 
 you insist on saying that they who believe any thing but the 
 essentials to be essential err essentially, you will exclude 
 Presbyterians themselves from the number of essentially or- 
 thodox Protestants." 
 
 " But I have just told you Presbyterians hold infant bap- 
 tism to be a non-essential." 
 
 u Then they hold it is no essential error to disbelieve God, 
 which is itself a most essential error, for it virtually makes 
 God a liar, as you have conceded. In either case, then, 
 Presbyterians are excluded ; in the one case, by believing a 
 non-essential to be essential ; and in the other, by believing 
 it no essential error to make God a liar. Do you still insist 
 that it is essential error to believe any thing in addition to 
 the essentials to be essential ? " 
 "I do." 
 
 " Then you abandon your distinction between the essen- 
 tials and non-essentials ? " 
 " Not at all." 
 
 " You still say, there are portions of the revealed word 
 which may be either believed or disbelieved to be the word 
 of God without essential error ? " 
 
 " I do. To deny this would be to place myself in oppo- 
 sition to the whole Protestant world, from the time of the 
 reformation down to the present moment. It is by means 
 of this distinction that we nave met and repelled the charge 
 which Papists bring against us, that there is no unity of faith 
 amongst us. In non-essentials we have always admitted we 
 do not agree ; but in essentials we have always contended 
 we do agree ; and, tlieref ore, that there is among us substan- 
 tial unity as to faith." 
 
 " These non-essentials, as to which Protestants have dif-
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 31 
 
 fered and still differ, have they been held to be non-essen- 
 tials alike by those who believed and those who disbelieved 
 them to be the word of God ? " 
 
 " They have." 
 
 " All have agreed, then, that there is a portion of the word 
 of God which it is no essential error to disbelieve ? " 
 
 " Such is the fact." 
 
 " Are you not mistaken ? " 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 " Then you hold that the whole Protestant world, from 
 the time of the reformation down to the present moment, 
 have believed it no essential error to disbelieve God, that it 
 is no essential error to make God a bar ; in a word, you hold 
 that all Protestants always have been, and still are, virtual 
 infidels. Will you still insist on the distinction between 
 essentials and non-essentials ? " 
 
 " I tell you I cannot surrender that distinction without 
 placing myself in opposition to the whole Protestant world." 
 
 " You still say that there are portions of the word which 
 are not essential ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " And these may be believed to be the word of God? " 
 
 " They may." 
 
 " And some who are essentially orthodox do so believe 
 them, or at least some of them, to be the word of God ? " 
 
 " They do." 
 
 " Yet no one is essentially orthodox who believes any 
 thing but the essentials to be essential?" 
 
 " No one." 
 
 " And no one can believe any thing to be the word of 
 God without believing it to be essential, as we have proved 
 in the case of Toby and his dog ? " 
 
 " Unless it be no essential error to disbelieve God." 
 
 " Some essentially orthodox Protestants believe, then, the 
 Baiuf thing at the same time to be both essential and not es- 
 sential?" 
 
 '• That is not possible.'* 
 
 "Then it will be convenient to drop the distinction be- 
 tween essentials and dob essentials, and say that all who be- 
 lieve any thing to he the word of < lod, except what Lfl clearly 
 
 ami manifestly revealed, err essentially, will it not ?" 
 
 '• No; for all thai i revealed in the Scriptures evidently 
 i not dearly and manife tly revealed, and it. would be 
 absurd to say thai a man can err essentially in believing, 
 when what be believes is the word <>f God."
 
 32 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " Then you will take the ground, that all essentially ortho- 
 dox Protestants are, and always have been, virtual infidels, 
 believing it no essential error to make God a liar ? " 
 
 " Not that, by any means." 
 
 " You fall back, then, on your former ground, and say 
 Protestantism is the essentials ; he who believes these, what- 
 ever else he believes or disbelieves, to be the word of God, 
 is essentially orthodox." 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 " But the non-essentials, or matters it is lawful to believe 
 or disbelieve to be the word of God, are not the words of 
 men or of devils, but revealed truths, as we agreed in our 
 former conversation ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " But to believe the words of men or of devils to be the 
 word of God is. as you have said, essential error." 
 
 " True." 
 
 " Then, after all, we cannot say that he who believes the 
 essentials is essentially orthodox, whatever else he believes 
 or disbelieves to be the word of God ; for this would imply 
 that it is no essential error to add to the word of God the 
 words of men or of devils." 
 
 " Say, then, he who believes the essentials is essentially 
 orthodox, whatever else he believes or disbelieves to be the 
 word of God, provided he believes nothing to be the word 
 of God which is not his word." 
 
 " Then none of those who believe any thing to be reveal- 
 ed which Presbyterians deny are essentially orthodox." 
 
 " I do not see that." 
 
 " What they believe which exceeds what you believe, you 
 hold to be either revealed or not revealed. If revealed, you 
 are guilty of the sin of infidelity in not believing it ; if not 
 revealed, you must hold they err essentially, for you hold 
 they believe that to be the word of God which is not his 
 word. The last is what you do hold, and therefore you 
 cannot hold that they are essentially orthodox Protestants." 
 
 "Be it so." 
 
 " You must also deny those to be essentially orthodox 
 who believe less than you do. If the matters you believe 
 which they do not are not revealed truths, you err essen- 
 tially in believing them to be revealed ; if they are revealed, 
 you must believe they err essentially in disbelieving them ; 
 since in disbelieving them you must hold they disbelieve 
 God." 
 
 Vol. VI-18.
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 33 
 
 " That seems to be so." 
 
 " Then yon exclude from the essentially orthodox all who 
 believe more or less than yourselves ; that is, all but your- 
 selves. If, then, you insist on the proviso you have 
 adopted in your definition, and say no one can be essentially 
 orthodox who believes any thing in addition to the word, 
 you must either give up your distinction, as I have said, be- 
 tween essentials and non-essentials, or else say it is no essen- 
 tial error to disbelieve God ; which will you do ? " 
 
 "Neither." 
 
 " But you either believe the non-essentials to be revealed 
 truths, that is, the word of God, or you do not. If you do 
 not, your distinction between them and the essentials avails 
 you nothing, as we have seen. Hence you have insisted 
 that they are revealed truths. But if you hold them to be 
 revealed truths, you must hold them to be not non-essential, 
 but essential, as Toby and his dog have proved to us, since 
 to disbelieve tliem would be to make God a liar. This you 
 admit, do you not ? " 
 
 " I have admitted it over and over again. " 
 
 u Then on no ground whatever canyon admit any portion 
 of revealed truth to be unessential, and, willingly or unwill- 
 ingly, \<>u must abandon j'our distinction between the es- 
 sentials and non-essentials, and either say Protestants have 
 n and are virtual Infidels in teaching that it is no essen- 
 tial error to disbelieve God, or else that they have never 
 meant that any portion of the revealed word, clearly and 
 manifestly revealed or not, can be disbelieved without es- 
 sential error. Which alternative do you elect?" 
 
 u If either, the latter." 
 
 "Presbyterians, then, are the only essentially orthodox 
 
 J'r it ' i' ' 
 
 - Very well." 
 
 U P rim- are fallible, liable to be mi-taken 
 
 "We do not, like Romanists, set up a claim to infalli- 
 bffil 
 
 are fallible, it. is possible they take that to D6 
 
 the word of ( ""l which is not his word, or deny thai to be 
 
 hi- word which is his word. In either <• ., .-, they will he 
 
 Itv of essential error. Oon eqnently, it. is po ible that 
 Presbyterians themselves are in essential error, and there- 
 fore impofl ible for them to say with certainty thai they are 
 • entii illv orthodox, and therefore they musl admil that it 
 is uncertain whether there are any essentially orthodox Prot- 
 estants at all !"
 
 34 'l' JIE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 "But you forget that the essentials are clearly and mani- 
 festly revealed, and therefore may be known with all neces- 
 sary certainty." 
 
 " You also forget that "we have just agreed that all reveal- 
 ed truth is essential, and that you have surrendered the dis- 
 tinction between essentials and non-essentials. You assum- 
 ed, as you were obliged, the non-essentials to be revealed, for 
 otherwise they would be simply the words of men or of 
 devils, which it is not lawful to believe to be the word of 
 God ; but the moment you admit them into the category of 
 revealed truths, you must either concede them to be essen- 
 tial, or else that it is no essential error to disbelieve God ; 
 that is, to be an infidel, and make God a liar. This last you 
 could not do ; therefore you were obliged to say all that is 
 revealed is essential. But, if you say this, you must say, 
 either that the essentials are not restricted to what is clear- 
 ly and manifestly revealed, or else that nothing but what is 
 clearly and manifestly revealed is revealed at all. Which 
 will you say ? " 
 
 " For the present, that nothing is revealed but what is 
 clearly and manifestly revealed. Almighty God is good, 
 and natural reason suffices to prove that he cannot have 
 made that necessary to be believed which is obscure or 
 doubtful. If he has made his whole word necessary to be 
 believed, the whole must be clearly and manifestly revealed, 
 and what is not so revealed can be no part of his word." 
 
 "His word, being clear and manifest, cannot be mistaken, 
 or, at least, there can be no difficulty in determining what 
 it is?" 
 
 " None." 
 
 " But clear and manifest are relative terms. A thing may 
 be clear and manifest to you, and not to me. To whom, 
 then, do you say the word is clearly and manifestly re- 
 vealed I " 
 
 " "What is clear and manifest is clear and manifest, and 
 can be honestly mistaken by no one." 
 
 " That is, what is alike clear and manifest to all men." 
 
 " But I mean what is alike clear and manifest to all men." 
 
 " The word is revealed in the Scriptures, and in the Script- 
 ures alone, and these alone are sufficient ? " 
 
 " Yes ; that is what all Protestants assert. " 
 
 " The word is revealed in these alike clearly and mani- 
 festly to all men % " 
 
 "Yes."
 
 THE TWO BKOTIIEKS. 
 
 35 
 
 " To those who cannot read, as to those who can ? " 
 
 " There should be none who cannot read." 
 
 " But nineteen-twentieths of mankind, at the lowest cal- 
 culation, cannot read, and nearly as large a proportion of 
 those who can read cannot read so as to understand what 
 they read. Do you say the revealed word is clearly and 
 manifestly revealed to all these ? " 
 
 " Of those to whom little is given little will be required." 
 
 " That is tQ say, Almighty God does not require faith in 
 his word of the immense majority of the human race?" 
 
 " I say not that. Those who cannot read he instructs by 
 his pastors and by his Holy Spirit." 
 
 "But if the instructions of pastors and the direct revela- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit are necessary in the case of the 
 larger part of mankind, how can you say the Scriptures are 
 sufficient?" 
 
 " The Scriptures are sufficient." 
 
 " That is, for whom they suffice, and when and where 
 they are not insufficient ! That can hardly be questioned. 
 But let us confine ourselves to those who can read, and who 
 claim to be teachers among Protestants, so called. These 
 all admit the Scriptures contain the whole revealed word ? " 
 
 " They do. " 
 
 "That they are the sole and sufficient rule of faith and 
 practice V s 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 " And that the word revealed in them is clear and mani- 
 fest I '" 
 
 " Unquestionably." 
 
 "And that only what is clear and manifest is revealed?" 
 
 " Be it so." 
 
 " Then they all agree as to what the word is? " 
 
 " No; I am BOlTy to say they do not." 
 
 "T1mt<: is disagreement, then, — some saying the word is 
 one thing, others saying it is not that, but something elso? " 
 
 " Bat there i no honest disagreement; for the matter is 
 r and manifest, sod none who <]<> not wilfully cloao 
 their eyes t * » the truth can mistake it." 
 
 M Ajre all parties dishonei I I " 
 
 « W 
 
 " Which is the honest, which the dishonest party?" 
 
 "The orthodox party is the honest party." 
 Which party is that!" 
 
 "The one which believes what, and only what, is clearly 
 and manifestly revealed."
 
 36 
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " So say all parties ; but which is that party ? " 
 
 " The Scriptures must decide." 
 
 "But the dispute is as to what the Scriptures teach. 
 They, by the very terms of the supposition, have already 
 been appealed to, and each party has obtained a decision in 
 its own favor. The question now is, Which is the true 
 answer ? What is the decision of the court ? " 
 
 " Let the Scriptures be appealed to again." 
 
 " That avails nothing ; for they decide always in precisely 
 the same terms, and the dispute remains always the same. 
 
 " But the dispute is not honest." 
 
 " Be it so. But who is honest, who dishonest, you or 
 your opponents ? You charge them with dishonesty, and 
 say the matter is clear and manifest as you believe ; they re- 
 tort and say it is clear and manifest as they believe. Which 
 am I to believe % " 
 
 " Neither ; but read the Scriptures and decide for your- 
 self." 
 
 " And suppose I decide against both of you ? There will 
 then be three sects instead of two. Why shall I be counted 
 the honest party rather than you or your opponents, they 
 rather than you, you rather than they, either of you rather 
 than I?" 
 
 " But the matter is clear and manifest to all who do not 
 wilfully close their eyes to the light." 
 
 " With all my heart ; but who are they who wilfully 
 close their eyes to the light ? " 
 
 "The Scriptures B 
 
 " They have given their decision, and nothing is decided, 
 for the dispute is as to what they decide." 
 
 "Evidently they cannot be good orthodox Protestants 
 who teach doctrines repugnant to those of the Protestant 
 reformation." 
 
 " Do you abandon the sufficiency of the Scriptures, then, 
 and call in the aid of Protestant tradition ? " 
 
 " I do not abandon the sufficiency of the Scriptures, but 
 I maintain that what is clearly and manifestly repugnant to 
 the doctrines of the reformers cannot be clearly and mani- 
 festly revealed in the Scriptures." 
 
 " Your rule of faith, then, is the Scriptures understood 
 according to the reformers ? " 
 
 " I hold the Scriptures alone are the rule of faith, but I 
 compare my understanding of the Scriptures with the teach- 
 ings of the reformers."
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 37 
 
 " And if it coincide with what they taught, you hold that 
 you rightly understand the Scriptures, and believe what is 
 clearly and manifestly revealed ? " 
 
 " Verv well." 
 
 " If the Scriptures alone are the rule, this appeal to the 
 reformers is, if admissible, unnecessary ; if it is necessary, 
 and you cannot say that you rightly understand the Script- 
 ures till you have brought your understanding of them to 
 the test of the reformers, you cannot say the Scriptures 
 alone are sufficient, or are alone your rule of faith. You 
 then make the reformers, not the Scriptures, the test of the 
 word." 
 
 " I do not make the reformers the test of the word. I 
 love, honor, and revere the reformers as great and good men, 
 raised up by God in his providence to deliver his people 
 from the bondage of Rome, to arrest the tide of papal cor- 
 ruptions, roll back the darkness which was gathering over 
 the world, restore the preaching of the word, and save the 
 Christian religion from utter banishment from the face of 
 the earth ; but they were men, subject to the common frail- 
 ties of our nature, and I follow tnem only so far as they 
 follow Christ, who bids me call no man father upon earth, 
 for one is my Blaster in heaven." 
 
 ■ In order to ascertain when and where the reformers fol- 
 low Christ, you bring the reformers to the test of theScript- 
 i " 
 
 " Precisely. I am to obey God rather than men." 
 
 on subject your understanding of the Scriptures to 
 the teal of the reformers, and the reformers to the test of 
 your understanding of the Scriptures. If you agree with 
 them, yon are right; if they agree with yon, they are right. 
 Thus yon prove your understanding by theirs, and theirs by 
 
 are I " 
 
 " I do no such thing. The Bible is the religion of Prot- 
 the Bible alone, and I am nol obliged to consult tho 
 irmen in order to ascertain what is clearly and manifestly 
 ealed." 
 
 "Then you have nothing to do with the reformers, and 
 may at dismiss them to their own place." 
 
 "That is, yon would say tin- reformers, those great and 
 v men, are gone to hell j n 
 
 " If thai is their own place, not otherwise." 
 
 " This is too bad. Von know I love, honor, and revero 
 the reformers, and it La no more than what you owe aa a
 
 38 
 
 THE TWo BROTHERS. 
 
 gentleman, not to say a Christian, while conversing with me r 
 to treat them and my own feelings with some little respect." 
 "Very well said, my most courteous and gentlemanly 
 brother. Happy is he who practises as well as preaches. 
 You know I love and revere the Holy Catholic Church, the 
 immaculate spouse of the Lamb, and the joyful mother of 
 all the faithful ; and yet you have not hesitated to call her 
 the ' Mystery of Iniquity,' ' Antichrist,' ' the "Whore of 
 Babylon,' ' a cage of unclean birds,' &c. Where was your 
 regard for my feelings ? And what right have you to com- 
 plain, if there be meted to you the measure you mete? 
 But you will not receive such measure from Catholics, for 
 they have studied in the school of Christ, and learned, when 
 reviled, not to revile again. I said nothing against the 
 reformers, offered no opinion as to their final doom. It is 
 not mine to judge them. But if they, Judas-like, betrayed 
 their Master, rebelled against the church of God, and re- 
 fused to obey the pastors the Holy Ghost had set over them, 
 and died unrepentant, I need not tell you what is and must 
 be their doom, or that of all who partake in their evil deeds, 
 if they die unreconciled to God. It is no pleasant thought, 
 but you called it up, not I." 
 
 " So Catholics send all Protestants to hell ! " 
 " All good Catholics do all in their power to prevent their 
 Protestant friends and neighbours from sending themselves 
 there. But suppose we waive questions of this sort for the 
 present. "We shall be better able to discuss them after we 
 have determined what Protestantism is, and when inquiring 
 whether it is true or false, from heaven or from hell, — is a 
 safe way of salvation, or only the way that leadeth to per- 
 dition. It is no idle question, my brother, we are discussing. 
 It involves eternal consequences. If Protestantism be not 
 of God, if it be not that one, true, holy religion which he 
 revealed from the beginning, which he has commanded to 
 be taught to all nations, and which he has promised to be 
 with, to protect, and to bless all days unto the consum- 
 mation of the world, I need not tell you what must in- 
 evitably be your doom, if living and dying where and as 
 you are, or what you have but too much reason to fear is 
 the doom of those you have nursed in your bosom, so 
 tenderly loved, and for w r hom your tears are still flowing." 
 " Are you a priest ? You talk like one." 
 " Perhaps nearly as much of one as yourself." 
 "Singular! I never thought of that before. Bpon my
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 39 
 
 word, I believe you are a Romish priest, perhaps even a 
 Jesuit." 
 
 " If either, you must believe me able to keep my own 
 counsel. It is enougli at present for you to see in me plain 
 Jack Milwood, your elder brother, who, may be, knows a 
 great deal more about you than you do about him." 
 
 " I wish, John, you would give me the history of your 
 life since you left home. It must be full of interest, and I 
 should really like to hear it." 
 
 " Rather than exert all your wit and skill in defining 
 Protestantism? But when we have disposed of Protestant- 
 ism, perhaps, — but at present we must return to the ques- 
 tion." 
 
 " No, no, I insist on the life and adventures of John Mil- 
 wood, eldest son of the late Jeremiah Milwood " 
 
 " And brother of the distinguished James Milwood, the 
 
 Reverend pastor of , and chief of the Protestant League 
 
 for the conversion of the pope and the suppression of 
 popery, and who. when questioned, could not tell what he 
 meant by Protestantism. No, no, brother, let us finish our 
 definition of Protestantism first" 
 
 "I have given you definitions enough and more than 
 enough already, and. you ought to be able to suit yourself 
 witli BOme one of them." 
 
 '• I Jut it is not what suits me, but what suits you. AVhich 
 of these numerous definitions do you finally settle down 
 upon i" 
 
 " Protestantism is what and only what is clearly and man- 
 ■ I." 
 And wli:it La that? Is it what you teach or what Mr. 
 Silvertone h aches i " 
 
 •• Mr. Silvertone is a Sodnian." 
 
 •• W'i it then 1 I toes he not believe all that is clearly and 
 manifestly revealed 1 " 
 
 •• No, he doea not." 
 
 •• !!■■ sayfl In' does; and why am 1 to believe yon rather 
 than him ' 
 
 •■ Re id and decide for youn elf." 
 
 "Thentheword i whal is clearly and manifestly revealed 
 to ,//. ; hut why what i clearly and manifestly revealed to 
 me rather than to you, or to you rather than to Mr. 
 Silvertone I " 
 
 •• Mr. Silvertone, I t-ll you,ie a Socinian, and denies what 
 have always and everywhere been held t<> be the greal 
 fundamental doctrines of the ' h
 
 40 THE TWO BBOTHERS. 
 
 " If you say that, you appeal to Catholic tradition. Is 
 your rule of faith incomplete without Catholic tradition? 
 But if you allege Catholic tradition against Mr. Silvertone, he 
 alleges it against you ; for the same tradition that condemns 
 him condemns you. You cannot say he errs because he 
 teaches what is repugnant to Catholic tradition, without 
 condemning yourself and all Protestants." 
 
 " But the points on which he is condemned are funda- 
 mental points; those on which we are condemned, if we 
 are condemned, are not fundamental." 
 
 " You forget Toby and his dog." 
 
 " No more of Toby and his dog." 
 
 " Honestly, brother, have so-called Protestants ever been 
 able to agree as to what is clearly and manifestly revealed ? " 
 
 " In truth, they have not." 
 
 " And are as far from agreeing as ever ? " 
 
 " Apparently so." 
 
 " Then, in point of fact, they have never been able to> 
 agree among themselves as to what Protestantism really is ? " 
 
 " Such, it must be owned, is the fact." 
 
 " The great reason, then, why you have found it so diffi- 
 cult to tell me what it is, is that what it is has never yet 
 been determined ? " 
 
 " Possibly." 
 
 " Since I would rather relieve than aggravate your em- 
 barrassment, allow me to suggest that you define Protes- 
 tantism to be what all who assert the sufficiency of the 
 Scriptures, and maintain them to be the sole and sufficient 
 rule of faith and practice, agree to accept as clearly and 
 manifestly revealed. This would make agreement the 
 test of clear and manifest, and then you can say the word 
 is that which is clearly and manifestly revealed, and which 
 nobody disputes, which never has been disputed, and is not 
 likely to be disputed." 
 
 " There is, undoubtedly, a tendency among those com- 
 monly regarded as orthodox Protestants to say this, and 
 several distinguished actors in the recent movement against 
 Home have proposed that we should say this and make it the 
 basis of our alliance. It has, I own, some plausibility, and 
 one would naturally say what is disputed cannot, while 
 what is not disputed must, be clear and manifest. But 
 though I am far from being a bigot, and would encourage 
 the largest liberty compatible with essentially religious faith, 
 I cannot accept your suggestion. It is the Socinian ground,
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 41 
 
 and would place all sects who profess to be Christians on the 
 same level. The Unitarian, who denies the Holy Trinity 
 and Incarnation, would be as orthodox as he who believes 
 them ; and the Universalist, who denies future rewards and 
 punishments, would be as sound in the faith as they who 
 believe the righteous will enter into life eternal, but the 
 wicked will go away into everlasting punishment. Nor is 
 this all. I am unable to find any distinctively Christian doc- 
 trines which all, who would in such a case be rallied under the 
 Protestant banner, really agree in accepting; for I am not 
 aware of a single one which some professed Protestant has 
 not controverted. So, were we to adopt the suggestion, 
 there would be no revealed truth which would not bo 
 abandoned as non-essential, and nothing above mere natural 
 religion to be held to be essential." 
 
 " So the various Protestant sects, taken altogether, have 
 denied the whole Gospel, and left nothing but mere natural 
 religion undisputed." 
 
 " Not even that, in fact, for German and American tran- 
 scendentalists question essential portions of even natural 
 religion." 
 
 " it is a hard case, brother, and I do not see that I can 
 help you." 
 
 CIIAPTER V. 
 
 Protestant controversialists are well hit off in Lessing's 
 Fable of the Poodle and QreyhowruL " ' How our race is 
 degenerated in this country!' said one. daya far-travelled 
 poodle to his friend the greyhound. ' In those distant re- 
 ins which men <m11 the Indies, there is still the genuine 
 ed of hounds, — hound-, my brother, (you will Dotbelieve 
 it, and >•<•! 1 have sen it with mj own eyes,) who do oot fear 
 attack the lion and grapple with him.' ( Do they over- 
 come him r asked the prudent greyhound. w ( Overcome him ! 
 Wl to thai I cannol exact!) say; bu1 only think, a lion 
 
 eked!' ( But,' continued the greyhound, ' if these bo 
 ed houndc of yours do not overcome the lion when they at* 
 . him. they are do better than we, bul a great deal more 
 stupid."* Only think, the church attacked I Attack her 
 
 boldly, With or without -n> • . and you arc sun' of the ad 
 miration of all the po< 111 , 
 
 When the infamous Danton wt ed by what means the 
 pitiable minority he headed were able to maintain their
 
 •1- THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 Reign of Terror and paralyze the millions opposed to him, 
 he answered, — " By audacity, audacity, audacity." Prot- 
 estant leaders understand very well the advantages of audac- 
 ity, and that, if one is only bold and unprincipled enough 
 to throw out grave charges against the purest and noblest 
 cause which ever existed, he will not fail of multitudes to 
 credit him. Groundless objections, if not susceptible of an 
 easy or a popular refutation, are as much to their purpose as 
 any. They serve to attack the lion, to put Catholics on their 
 defence, and that is the same as a victory. A child may start 
 an objection which the ablest and most learned divine can- 
 not answer — to the child. A very ordinary man may urge 
 an objection to some article of faith which will demand, in 
 him who is to receive the answer, as well as in him who is 
 to give it, for its refutation, the most rare and extensive eru- 
 dition, and familiarity with the deepest principles and nicest 
 distinctions of scholastic theology and philosophy. No small 
 part of the objections urged against the sacred mysteries of 
 the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the 
 Real Presence, and Transubstantiation, are objections which 
 an ordinary mind may understand, but which it is impossi- 
 ble to answer to the general reader, — especially if the gener- 
 al reader be a Protestant. Such objections are exactly to the 
 purpose of the Protestant controversialists, and gain them the 
 applause of — the poodles. 
 
 These controversialists it is not to be presumed are igno- 
 rant that all the objections of past and present times to the 
 church have been refuted, and unanswerably refuted ; but, 
 from the nature of the case, they have, in numerous in- 
 stances, been refuted only to the professional reader. The 
 nature of the objection, though itself popular, precluded a 
 popular reply. In all such cases, Protestant controversialists 
 have only to deny that any reply has been given, or to assert 
 that the one given is inconclusive, and they come off 
 triumphant. This is their common practice. Nothing is 
 more common than to meet, in Protestant controversial 
 works, objections, which have been refuted a hundred times, 
 reiterated without a hint that any reply has ever been even 
 attempted, and urged in a tone of confidence, as if Catholics 
 themselves conceded them to be unanswerable. The impu- 
 dence of Protestant polemics in this respect is notorious and 
 undeniable. 
 
 That this method of conducting a controversy, on matters 
 in which no one has any real interest in being deceived or in
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 43 
 
 deceiving, is fair, honorable, or just, it is not presumed any 
 Protestant is silly enough to pretend ; but, filled with an in- 
 veterate hatred of the church, and having decided that it is 
 the church of Antichrist, Protestant leaders, apparently, re- 
 gard themselves at liberty to make use of any means for its 
 overthrow which promise to be successful, and have no scru- 
 ple in resorting to artifices which would shock the moral 
 .-'■use of an ordinary heathen. The Catholic writer who 
 should give a faithful account of their nefarious conduct in 
 their war on the church, would find it harder to sustain him- 
 
 E with his friends than against his enemies; and he would 
 hardly fail to he condemned by his own communion as a 
 calumniator. Their conduct is so foreign to all the habits 
 and conceptions of a simple-minded, honest Catholic, that 
 one needs to have been a Protestant a great part of his life 
 to be able to conceive it possible for beings having the hu- 
 man form, and pretending to some respect for religion and 
 morals, to he guilty of so wide a departure from all that is 
 true, just, and honorable. Hence the great tenderness and 
 forbearance with which Catholics usually treat Protestants, 
 and the undeserved credit they are accustomed to give them 
 for a partial degree, at least, of fairness and candor. 
 
 At first view, one is at a loss to account for thr sudden 
 rise and rapid Bpread of the Protestant rebellion in the six- 
 
 ith century. Knowing by infallible faith, that the church 
 i- of I iod, the immaculate spouse of the Lamb, and that she 
 has truth, wisdom, justice, sanctity, reason, evidence, on her 
 side, the Catholic is astonished al 30 singular a phenomenon; 
 but as he penetrates deeper into that mystery of iniquitv, 
 and becomes familiar with the character of the rebel chiefs, 
 and the means they adopted, his astonishmenl ceases, and his 
 ider is, not thai the success was bo great, but that it was 
 not greater, — thai the revolt was so boos arrested and con- 
 fined within limits that it has not afl yel been aide to over- 
 lb ithing marvellous in the success <'\ thi 
 ! chiefs, hut he is Btruck with the manifesl interposition 
 livine Providence to confound their language, to divide 
 their coun idefeal their plans, to arresl t heir progress, to 
 hi- church, to show Ins unfailing love for her, and to 
 ment her power and glory. Proti tantism, as relates to 
 mfined within narrower limits than it w 
 
 after the death of Luther, while the church has 
 
 gone on enlarging her borders, and never al any former pe- 
 riod mi- ot the faithful sogreal as it is n<
 
 44 
 
 TIIK TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 They who .attack existing institutions, especially if those 
 institutions are wise and salutary, may always count on the 
 admiration and applause of all the poodles. Fixed and au- 
 thoritative institutions are offensive to the natural man. 
 They are a restraint, and no man, save so far as assisted and 
 subdued by grace, loves restraint ; and there is no one that 
 has not a natural repugnance to whatever curbs his lawless 
 desires and licentious passions, or interposes an obstacle to- 
 his living as he lists. In every community, — because in every 
 natural man, — there is always a predisposition, more or less 
 manifest, to rebel against the existing order, and to welcome 
 and adhere to those who are prepared to war against it, es- 
 pecially to credit whatever may be advanced to its prejudice. 
 They who attack the existing order, appealing to this pre- 
 disposition, have the appearance of attacking tyranny and 
 oppression, and of being champions of freedom and Justice. 
 This fact renders them respectable, almost sacred, in tlie eyes 
 of the multitude. Their position, moreover, permits them 
 to assume a bold and daring tone, to make broad and sweep- 
 ing assertions, and to forego clear and exact statements, and 
 close and rigid logic. They can declaim, denounce, be im- 
 passioned, and affect all the eloquence of virtuous indigna- 
 tion. The eloquence of denunciation is the easiest thing in 
 the world to command ; for it appeals directly to those ele- 
 ments of our nature which lie nearest the surface and which 
 are the most easily moved, and weak men prefer it and 
 excel in it. 
 
 But he who defends authority labors always under a dis- 
 advantage. He has an unpopular cause. To the superficial, 
 — and they are always the great majority, — he is the advo- 
 cate of tyranny, the enemy of liberty, warring against the 
 best interests and true dignity and glory of his race. He 
 can appeal to no popular passion, use no burning words, and 
 pour forth no strains of indignant eloquence. He cannot 
 speak to the multitude. He must speak to sober sense, to 
 prudent judgment, and aim to convince the reason, instead 
 of moving the sensibility, or inflaming the passions. His 
 words, to all but the few, are cold and spiritless, tame and 
 commonplace. For the foaming tankard or sparkling gob- 
 let, with which the popular declaimer regales his auditors T 
 he has only simple water from the spring. He must be 
 subdued in hi.- tone, measured in his speech, exact in his 
 statements, rigid in his reasoning, and few only will listen 
 to him, and fewer still can appreciate him. lie who for
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 45- 
 
 years lias been on the side opposed to authority, and by his 
 bold and daring declamation roused up a whole ocean of 
 popular passion, and at every word brought an echo from 
 the universal heart of humanity, no sooner finds himself 
 on the other side, than all his marvellous eloquence is lost, 
 and he is pronounced, by the very public which had hailed 
 him as a second Cicero or Demosthenes, cold and weak, 
 a Samson shorn of his locks and grinding in the mill of 
 the Philistines. No matter how true and just his thought, 
 how deep and searching his wit, how wise and prudent his 
 counsel, how lucid and exact his statements, how clear and 
 cogent his reasoning, he can excite no passion, move no 
 sensibility, and bring no popular echo. The spell is broken ; 
 his magic is over, and his power to charm is gone for ever. 
 He is no Indian hound, fearing not to attack the lion, and 
 the poodles see nothing in him to admire. 
 
 Then, again, the poodles regard the lion attacked as the 
 lion vanquished. They hold every objection boldly and 
 confidently made to be true, till it is proved to be false. 
 In this fact, in the tendency of the great majority to regard 
 every objection made to existing authority as well founded 
 till the contrary is shown, lies the secret of the Protestant 
 reformation. To this the reformers owed their brilliant 
 success. They well understood that their objections to the 
 church would be credited by multitudes, till refuted. It 
 was a matter of little importance, so far as their success was 
 concerned, whether their objections were true or false. 
 What they wanted was simply objections easily made, but 
 not easily refuted, — susceptible of being proposed in a pop- 
 ular form, but not susceptible of a popular answer. Such 
 objections they employed their wit in inventing, and their 
 skill and activity in circulating, A lie, happily conceived, 
 adroitly told, and well .-tuck to, was in their case hardly, if 
 at all, inferior to the truth; and it must, be conceded that 
 they had a marvellous facility in inventing lies, and in ad- 
 hering to them when they had once told them. Whoever 
 coolly examines their objections to the church will readily 
 perceive that they are all framed with respect, not to truth, 
 but to the difficulty of refutation, and on the principle that 
 a lie i id i the truth till it, is contradicted. Glo- 
 
 riously did they chuckle, we may fancy, when the "Father 
 
 of lies" helped them to a popular objection, to which no 
 popular answer could be returned. Boldly, or with brazen 
 impudence, they threw it out, sent it, forth on its errand of
 
 *6 THE TWO BE0THEB8. 
 
 mischief, and then laughed at the heavy answer which, in 
 process of time, came lumbering after it. The objection 
 waa made in a few words, on a loose sheet, and wafted by 
 the wind of controversy through every land, town, village, 
 ami hamlet, to every door, and became universally known ; 
 the answer followed in a ponderous quarto or folio, all 
 bristling with scholastic formulas and scholastic distinctions, 
 formidable even to the professional reader. Its circulation 
 was necessarily limited; few only heard of it; fewer read 
 it, and still fewer were able to appreciate it. The authors 
 of the objection safely ignored it, or, if they could not, they 
 misrepresented it, denied its conclusiveness, and even made 
 it the occasion of a new triumph with their followers. Or, 
 when they could neither conceal the fact of the answer nor 
 its conclusiveness, they could still count on all the poodles, 
 who would insist that there must have been something ..in 
 the objection, or else it would not have required so elabo- 
 rate and so learned a refutation. The lion had been at- 
 tacked, — and that was something. 
 
 " Where there is much smoke, there is some fire," says 
 the popular proverb. Surely there must be something 
 wrong in the church, or so much would not, and could not, 
 be said against her. Whether, therefore, the objections 
 actually urged be precisely true or not, it is evident the 
 church is not unobjectionable, and if not unobjectionable, 
 we are justified in rejecting her. So reason the poodles, — 
 forgetting that our blessed Lord himself was everywhere 
 spoken against, was called a glutton and a drunkard, the 
 friend of publicans and sinners, a blasphemer, a seditious 
 fellow, a fool, said to be possessed of the devil, and finally 
 crucified between two thieves as a malefactor. Here was 
 smoke enough, — was there also some fire ? Here were ob- 
 jections enough raised, charges enough preferred, — was 
 there also some truth in them 'i Where is the blasphemous 
 wretch that dare think it? If they have called the Master 
 of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his house- 
 hold ! If so they have accused the Lord himself, how much 
 more his church ? To one competent to reason on the sub- 
 . the grave character and multiplicity of the objections 
 !*ed against the church are an evidence that she is God's 
 church. "Will you tell me what books I may read to 
 jome acquainted with the Catholic faith?" said, the 
 other day, an intelligent Protestant to the writer. "I am 
 wholly ignorant of the Catholic Church, but I hear, every-
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 47 
 
 •where, so much said against it, that I cannot help thinking 
 there must be something good in it, and that possibly it is 
 the true church." This lady, brought up a rigid Calvinist, 
 through God's grace, had learned to reason far more justly 
 than she had been taught by her Protestant masters, and, if 
 true to the grace she has received, will ere long be admitted 
 into the " Communion of Saints." But she is not one of 
 the r oodles ; and the reformers preferred, and their succes- 
 sors prefer, the admiration of these to the approbation of 
 the sober and prudent greyhounds. 
 
 The policy of the reformers was indicated by Luther, 
 when he took the discussion of theological questions out of 
 the schools and from the tribunal of professional theolo- 
 gians, and brought it before the unprofessional public. I 
 picked up, the other day, in a steamboat, a flaming quack 
 advertisement. It appeared that the advertiser had, as he 
 alleged, discovered an entirely new medical system, which 
 placed all the regular mediciners, from JEsculapius down, 
 quite in the wrong. lie had challenged the regular prac- 
 titioners to a discussion of the merits of their respective 
 systems. The challenge had been accepted, but on condi- 
 tion that the discussion should be before a jury of medical 
 men. The advertiser scorned this condition. It proved 
 that the "regular doctors" had no confidence in their own 
 system ; for if otherwise, they would not shrink from a 
 public discussion. It was an insult to the public, and he 
 would not submit to it. He was ready and anxious to dis- 
 cuss the question ; but he would do it before no prejudiced 
 jury of professional men ; he would do it openly before his 
 free and enlightened fellow-eitizens, who were the only 
 proper tribunal, lie trusted his fellow-citizens, the free 
 and enlightened public, would appreciate his motives in 
 refusing to be a partner in offering BO gross an indignity to 
 their intelligence and impartial judgment, and would be at 
 qo Loss to understand why the regular practitioners had an- 
 ted to their acceptance of his challenge so insulting a 
 condition. 
 
 Now here am I, said I to myself, throwing down the ad- 
 rertisement, at least a fair average of the popular intelli- 
 gence. I have oven studied, with considerable attention, 
 several branches of medical science ; and yet how utterly 
 unqualified I should be to sit as judge on the respective 
 merits of rival systems! I might listen to the statements 
 of either | arty, but I am t<>o ignoranl of the general subject
 
 48 
 
 THE TWO BKOTIIKKS. 
 
 to be able to perceive the bearing and real value of the state- 
 ments of one or the other. I might, indeed, if such should 
 happen to be the case, perceive that this pretended discov- 
 erer silenced his opponent ; but I could draw no inference 
 from that, for nothing is more common than for a man to 
 triumph through impudence, or because too ignorant to be 
 refuted. The proper judges of a controversy like the one 
 here proposed are medical men themselves, as lawyers are 
 the proper judges of law questions. Indeed, tne very 
 fact, that this advertiser refuses to argue his case before 
 an audience of professional men, and appeals to the unpro- 
 fessional public, is to me full proof that he is a quack, 
 and sufficient to decide me, without further examination, 
 against him. If I need medical advice, I am sure I shall 
 not call him in, any more than I would a miserable petti- 
 fogger in an important and intricate law case. I can con- 
 fide my health and that of my family to no practitioner 
 whose science and skill are not superior to my own, and 
 vouched for by those who know more of medical matters 
 than I do, and are far better judges of medical systems than 
 I am. 
 
 Just so would I have reasoned, if I had been present, 
 when Luther made his appeal to the unprofessional public. 
 Why did he make such appeal ? . Because the public at 
 large are the proper tribunal for professional questions ? 
 Because they can really judge better, discriminate more ac- 
 curately, and decide with more wisdom and justice, than 
 they who by their profession are at least somewhat ac- 
 quainted with the matters in controversy ? Because he really 
 believed them the best qualified to be judges ? No one can 
 be so simple as to believe it, so senseless as to pretend it. 
 Luther knew that loose statements, confident assertions, 
 bold allegations, and impassioned appeals would avail him 
 nothing before a jury of theological doctors. He knew that 
 there he could not lie with impunity, and that his " bellow- 
 ing in bad Latin " would win him no laurels. He may have 
 persuaded himself, or suffered the devil to persuade him, — 
 and if we may believe his own statements, his colloquies 
 •with the devil were frequent, and intimate — that the church 
 was wrong ; but he must have known that the particular 
 objections he brought against her were groundless, and that 
 it was only by disregarding the established rules of reason- 
 ing, and resorting to falsehood and sophistry, confident as- 
 sertions and bold and daring denunciations, that he could 
 
 Vol. VI— 19.
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 49 
 
 sustain himself or his party. And these could avail only 
 with the unprofessional public, who could never understand 
 the exact points in question, perceive the bearing, or feel 
 the force, of strict logical arguments. With them eloquence 
 would pass for reason, and invective for argument. This 
 he knew, and hence his appeal from the schools to the pub- 
 lic at large. Hence have his followers continued to appeal 
 to the multitude, and to leave truth and justice to take care 
 of themselves. 
 
 This policv, however, is not without certain drawbacks. 
 It answers admirably while the party adopting it have noth- 
 ing of their own, and are mere Bedouins of the desert, free 
 to attack when and where they please. But when and 
 where they have acquired a partial success, and wish to 
 abandon their wandering life and predatory warfare, and 
 settle down in fixed dwellings, with something established 
 and permanent of their own, they find it unavailing. Men, 
 as Carlyle remarks, cannot live without clothes, and surely 
 in this bleak, wintry world it is not convenient to go naked. 
 They must and will have something to cover their naked- 
 ness, — some sort of institutions for their protection. They 
 will cover themselves with aprons of fig-leaves, and build 
 them a hut with broken branches, seek out a cavern in the 
 rocks, or a hole in the earth, if they can do no better. They 
 must and will have something they call religion, some estab- 
 lished mode of communion, real or not real, with the Invis- 
 ible. Even the atheist fabricates to himself a god of nature, 
 and renders it a species of worship, and the sceptic seeks to 
 convert his scepticism into a creed. It is horrible to feel 
 one's self alone in the world, abandoned to the blind work- 
 ings of the elements, with do Father in heaven, no brothers 
 on earth, standing on a mere point, surrounded by a univer- 
 sal blank Wo cannot endure it. Nature recoils from her- 
 self, and the soul shrieks out, "O thou Great Unknown, 
 have me from myself] leave me, O, leave me not to the 
 solitude of my own being 1" There is a God, and a God 
 
 to be worshipped, Is written in golden letters OD nil nature, 
 
 and engraven as with the point of a diamond on every 
 
 heart. In vain would man tear himself away from his 
 
 Maker. < to where he will, be and do what he will, Bleeping 
 or waking, the God that made him and seeks his heart wooes 
 him with his love, or pursues him with his justice. The 
 boldesl recoil from his justice, and quake before the unde- 
 fined dread of his vengeance, and seek some medium of
 
 °0 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 yielding the love, or of providing a substitute for the love 
 lie solicits. 
 
 Protestants went on gloriously, while they aimed at noth- 
 ing hut to attack the existing ecclesiastical order. The 
 means they had chosen were just fitted to their purpose. 
 But when a large number had been seduced from their al- 
 legiance, and found themselves homeless, and shelterless, 
 and naked in this bleak world, a new class of wants sprung 
 up to be provided for. Some substitute for what had been 
 thrown away in their madness was to be sought out. Their 
 old arts and methods were useless now. As soon as they 
 had something with which they were unwilling to part, 
 something, in a word, to defend, the weapons which they 
 had forged were no longer adapted to their purpose, and 
 could be turned against them with murderous effect. Thus 
 short-sighted and self-destructive is iniquity ever. 
 
 Poor James experienced the truth of this, the moment he 
 was called upon to answer why he was a Protestant. The 
 question was a novel one, and he soon found that he was 
 wholly unprovided with a satisfactory answer. He had 
 sought long and earnestly for specious objections to the 
 church, but he had entirely neglected to furnish himself 
 with arguments for Protestantism as distinguishable from 
 Socinianism or infidelity. Nay, he was unable even to tell, 
 save in a negative sense, what he meant by Protestantism. 
 Adopt what definition he would, it would include either too 
 much or too little. It was too bad. Yet his natural pride 
 would not permit him to yield to the obvious truth, that he 
 must either be a Catholic or reject all revealed, if not all 
 natural, religion. With the multitude he might, indeed, 
 sustain himself. There his audacity and his eloquence would 
 serve him, but they were lost upon his cool and logical 
 brother. John was no poodle, that was certain, and could 
 never be made to regard the lion attacked as the lion over- 
 come, or even to admire the rashness of an attack where 
 there could be no victory. What was to be done ? Give 
 up the point? That would never do, and he the virtual 
 chief of the Protestant league for the conversion of the 
 pope and the suppression of popery ! What then ? Surely 
 he was the equal of his brother in acquirements, and he had 
 always, in their school days, been regarded as his superior 
 in natural gifts. He would not believe that he had the 
 weaker cause. His failure, thus far, must be owing to his 
 yielding the management of the argument to his brother,
 
 TIIE TWO BROTHERS. 51 
 
 and his not having been sufficiently on his guard against his 
 sophistry and Jesuitical cunning. Could he not correct this ? 
 Could he not contrive to change the issue, and throw the 
 burden of proof on the Catholic '( He pondered the matter 
 for several weeks, and finally concluded, that, if he could 
 not define and establish Protestantism, he might at least dis- 
 prove Catholicity, and thus justify the reformers in separat- 
 ing themselves from the church. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 As soon as James had come to this sage conclusion, an 
 opportunity was found of renewing the discussion. This 
 time it was John who opened it. 
 
 " Well, brother, he said, have you succeeded in finding a 
 definition of Protestantism to your mind ? " 
 
 " I wish to consider Protestantism, now, only as a protest 
 against the errors and corruptions of popery. Here you 
 affirm and I deny, and consequently the laboring oar is in 
 your hands." 
 
 " JSTot exactly, my prudent brother. You affirm Catho- 
 licity is corrupt. You are, then, the accuser, the plaintiff 
 in action, and must set forth your charges and sustain them. 
 The principle of law is, every man is to be presumed inno- 
 cent till proved guilty. The church must, therefore, be pre- 
 sumed innocent till the contrary is made to appear." 
 
 " The church claims to be an ambassador from God, and 
 to have the right to command ine in his name. She must 
 bring credentials from God, before I can be held to hear or 
 obey her. I demand her credentials." 
 
 ■• All in good time. But not too many things at once. 
 You shift the <|iiestion before you get it fairly stated. You 
 be.L'in by charging the church with being corrupt, and, with- 
 out offering any proofs of her corruption, you proceed im- 
 mediately to demand her credentials as the ambassador of 
 God. This will not do. Corruption implies integrity j and 
 
 the plea that the church is corrupt concede.-, her credentials, 
 and merely charges her with exceeding her authority, or 
 with having abased it. This plea concedes her authority; 
 but the demand for credentials denie.s it. You cannot, 
 therefore, plead, at one and the Bame time, want of author- 
 ity, and corruption or abuse of authority. You must elect 
 one or the other, and confine yourself to the one you elect."
 
 52 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " I am no lawyer, and do not understand special plead- 
 
 ing," 
 
 But you are an educated man, and are to be presumed 
 to understand, at least, the ordinary rules of logic, and 
 therefore that the same thing cannot be both conceded and 
 denied in the same breath. You cannot say that the church 
 is corrupt, has abused or misused her authority, and yet 
 deny her authority. When you deny that she has ever re- 
 ceived authority from God, you declare her, in quantum 
 Ecclesia, a nullity from the beginning, and to allege the 
 corruption of a nullity is absurd. 
 
 " Be it so. The Romish Church never received author- 
 ity from God, or, in other words, was never divinely com- 
 missioned." 
 
 " Possession is in law prima facie evidence of title. The 
 church is in possession, and has been so from time imme- 
 morial. The presumption is, therefore, in her favor, and 
 you must admit her title, or set forth good and valid reasons 
 for contesting it." 
 
 " Prescription does not apply in the case of the church." 
 
 " It is admitted in law, and therefore, by the reason of 
 mankind, as a general principle. If you deny its applica- 
 tion in the case of the church, you allege an exception to 
 the general rule, and must show a reason for it." 
 
 "Prescription does not give an absolute title, but simply 
 a presumptive title against adverse claimants. It presup- 
 poses the existence of the estate to be conceded, the title of 
 which is vested in some one, and presumes it to be in the pos- 
 sessor, unless the contrary is shown. But where the exist- 
 ence of the estate is the matter in question, it is idle to plead 
 possession or prescription. What is not cannot be possess- 
 ed. The estate, in the present case, is the divine commis- 
 sion. Supposing it conceded that such a commission has at 
 some time been issued, possession may, I grant, be pleaded 
 as prima facie evidence of title in the possessor. But I 
 deny that such a commission as the Romish Church claims 
 to have received has ever been issued. You must prove, 
 therefore, the fact of such commission, before you can 
 plead possession or prescription." 
 
 u Possession implies the object possessed. Evidence of 
 the possession is, therefore, evidence of the existence of that 
 which is possessed. Consequently, just in proportion as 
 there is evidence that the church has possessed, or claimed 
 and exercised, with the general consent, the commission in
 
 THE TWO BROTIIEKS. 53 
 
 question, and as her having claimed and exercised it with 
 this consent is presumptive proof of title against adverse 
 claimants, is there presumptive proof that the commission 
 has been issued." 
 
 " Quod nimis probata nihil jprobat. Your argument, if 
 it prove any thing, proves too much. A pagan or a Ma- 
 hometan may say as much." 
 
 " If either paganism or Mahometanism claims a similar 
 ■commission, and can, as the church, be said to be in posses- 
 sion, the fact is, in like manner, presumptive evidence of 
 title till the contrary appears, I both concede and contend. 
 Nothing can generate nothing. The claim to a divine com- 
 mission must nave had some origin, and, on the principle of 
 law, that every man must be presumed innocent till proved 
 to be guilty, must be presumed to have had a good origin 
 till the contrary is proved. False religions imply the exist- 
 ence of the true religion, as counterfeit coin implies the 
 genuine. The claim to divine commission, if it be really 
 made by either paganism or Mahometanism, is therefore 
 prima facie evidence that at some time, to somebody, a 
 divine commission has issued. If no such commission 
 had ever been given, it is not conceivable that it could have 
 been claimed. Xo one would ever have falsely claimed to 
 be an ambassador from one court to another, if no genuine 
 ambassador, or nothing in the same order, had ever been 
 known or heard of; and the sending of ambassadors must 
 have become a general custom, before any one, not duly 
 commissioned, could have conceived the project of palming 
 himself off as one, or could have hoped for any success in 
 the attempt to do it. The fact of possession, where it could 
 be pleaded, would he a presumption of title in the Mahom- 
 
 ■I or the pagan, m like manner as it is in the case of the 
 Catholic, Hence the church, where she has never been in 
 
 I ion, when presenting herself as an adverse claimant-, 
 
 always produces her credentials, and gives good and valid 
 one why the presenl occupanl should be ousted and she 
 
 placed in possession. I admit, therefore, all that, the argu- 
 ment implies, and deny that it proves too much." 
 
 " But admit it, and every mad enthusiasi who claims to 
 be divinely commissioned must he presumed to bo so till 
 the contrary is shown." 
 
 " Not at all Bis claim to a divine commission is, if you 
 will, a presumption that at some time, to somebody, a di- 
 vine coiiim: ion ha ed;but not that it has issued to
 
 64 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 him ; for lie is not and never has been in possession. lie must 
 show a reason for his claim, before it can be admitted." 
 
 " At least, the principle applies to Protestants as well as 
 to pagans and Mahometans, and you can no more plead pre- 
 scription against us than against them." 
 
 " I have admitted the plea of prescription, in the case of 
 paganism and Mahometanism, on the supposition that they 
 are really in possession, — a fact, however, which I let pass, 
 but do not concede. But Protestants cannot plead prescrip- 
 tion, because they are not and never have been in posses- 
 sion, and because they do not even claim to be, since you, 
 in their name, deny that the commission in question has ever 
 issued." 
 
 " But conceding that there was a presumption in favor of 
 the church at the epoch of the reformation, and that the 
 reformers were not at liberty to separate from her without 
 cause, this cannot be said now. The church is not now in 
 possession. The reformers gave good and valid reasons for 
 separating from her communion, and she has been con- 
 demned as a usurper by the judgment of mankind. The 
 question is not now on ousting her from a possession which 
 she has held from time immemorial, but on reversing the 
 judgment rendered against her, and readmitting her to a 
 possession from which she has been ejected by due process 
 of law." 
 
 " "When was the judgment you speak of rendered ? and 
 where is the record of the court ? " 
 
 "The fact is one of public notoriety, and all the world 
 now laughs at the ridiculous pretensions of Rome." 
 
 " Do you include in all the world the pagan and Mahom- 
 etan worlds?" 
 
 "Why should I not?" 
 
 " It may be doubted whether the question has really ever 
 come before them in such a shape that they can be said to 
 have pronounced judgment upon it ; and as they reject 
 Protestantism, whenever it pretends to be Christian, no less 
 than Catholicity, they might possibly be as unsafe witnesses 
 for a Presbyterian as for a Catholic, — perhaps even more 
 so." 
 
 " Let them go. I mean by all the world all the Christian 
 world, Christendom so called." 
 
 " You mean to assert, then, that Christendom has pro- 
 nounced judgment against the Catholic Church ?" 
 
 " Yes, against the Romish Church."
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 55 
 
 " You distinguish without a difference. The church in 
 communion with the church of Home, acknowledging its 
 pontiff for its supreme head on earth, is the only church 
 which, by the consent of mankind, is or ever has been de- 
 nominated the Catholic Church." 
 
 " She should be denominated the mother of harlots." 
 
 " So that Protestant communions might claim to be her 
 daughters. But no more of this. Have Catholics, who re- 
 main in her communion, pronounced judgment against the 
 church ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not." 
 
 " And they are as two, if not three, to one of all who bear 
 the Christian name." 
 
 " I am sorry to say they are." 
 
 " And I am not sorry, and would to God there were none 
 but Catholics on the earth ! " 
 
 " That is, you would, if you could, exterminate all Prot- 
 estants." 
 
 " Yes, if making them sincere and humble Catholics were 
 exterminating them. But if Catholics are the great majority 
 of Christendom, how can you tell me that Christendom has 
 pronounced judgment against the church ? " 
 
 " I do not reckon Papists amon^ Christians." 
 
 "And I regard what you call Papists as the only true 
 Christians; and I have, to say the least, as much right to my 
 reckoning as you have to yours. You mean, then, by Chris- 
 tendom those who protest against the church?" 
 
 " You may have it so." 
 
 "Then your position is, the church is condemned by all 
 by whom she is condemned 1 This may be granted. But 
 these are a Bmall minority, a mere handful, of those who 
 bear the Christian name. By what right do you pronounce 
 their judgmenl the judgment of mankind?" 
 
 "Protestanl Qatione are the more enlightened and ad- 
 vanced portion of mankind." 
 
 " Is that ; Deeded fact?" 
 
 "Is it QOi \ n 
 
 " Do < latholics concede it?" 
 
 " Perhaps cot." 
 
 "They are thegreal majority, and, as they deny it, how 
 
 cm von |.ut it forth cerally conceded 1 
 
 "The denial of Catholics amounts to nothing, — the fact 
 ; I allej 
 
 "Id '. hi ent?"
 
 56 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " In the judgment of all who are competent to judge io 
 the premises." 
 
 " Who says so ? " 
 
 " I say so." 
 
 "On what authority?" 
 
 " The fact is evident, and cannot be questioned." 
 
 " But it is questioned and denied by Catholics, who are as 
 five to one to your Protestants." 
 
 " They will swear to any thing their priests tell them. 
 Their denial is not to be counted. They are not to be per- 
 mitted to testify in their own cause." 
 
 " As much as you in yours. Their denial is as good as 
 your assertion, till you show some reason why your assertion 
 is to be preferred." 
 
 " I tell you Protestant nations are the most enlightened 
 and advanced portion of mankind, as is well known." 
 
 " Well known to whom ? To themselves ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you will." 
 
 " By w r hat right are they both witnesses and judges in 
 their own cause ? " 
 
 " By the right of being the most enlightened and ad- 
 vanced portion of mankind." 
 
 ""What is it to be truly enlightened and advanced?" 
 
 " Those nations are the most enlightened and advanced 
 that are the most enlightened and advanced in what is of 
 the greatest importance and utility to man." 
 
 " And what is that ? " 
 
 " Religion, the ' one thing needful.' " 
 
 " True religion, or false ?" 
 
 " True religion, of course." 
 
 " The most enlightened and advanced nations are, then,, 
 those who are the most enlightened and advanced in the re- 
 quirements of true religion '{ " 
 
 "They are; and therefore I claim Protestant nations as 
 the most enlightened and advanced." 
 
 " And therefore beg the question. If Protestantism be the 
 true religion, you are right ; if Catholicity be the true re- 
 ligion, you are wrong. Consequently, you must determine 
 wnich is the true religion, before you can determine which 
 are the more enlightened and advanced nations." 
 
 "But it cannot be denied that Protestant nations are more 
 intelligent, more industrious, and better instructed in the 
 science and art of government." 
 
 •• What you say may be questioned ; but even conceding
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 57 
 
 it, it amounts to nothing. Because a man is a good cobbler 
 it does not follow that he is a good sculptor. Because a na- 
 tion is enlightened in mere earthly matters, it does not fol- 
 low that it is in religious matters. It would be a solecism 
 to say the Athenians were a more enlightened and advanced 
 nation than the Jews, or that a Socrates is better authority 
 on religion than David, Solomon, or Isaias." 
 
 " But I have always considered it undeniable that Protes- 
 tant nations are in advance of all the others." 
 
 " If to advance consists in shaking off Christian civiliza- 
 tion and in returning to that which is superseded, you may 
 have been right ; otherwise, the probability is, that you have 
 been altogether wrong. You must prove Protestantism to 
 be true religion, before you can claim Protestant nations as 
 the more enlightened and advanced nations ; and till you 
 can so claim them, you cannot claim their judgment as the 
 judgment of mankind, even if you could then ; and till you 
 can claim their judgment as the judgment of mankind, you 
 cannot say the judgment of mankind has condemned the 
 church. This you have not yet done. Consequently, you 
 cannot 6ay the church has been ejected from her pos- 
 session by the judgment of mankind. She is, as it appears, 
 from the fact that the overwhelming majority of those who 
 bear the Christian name continue, as they have always con- 
 tinued, to adhere to her, still in possession. She has lost 
 nothing, and you have gained nothing, by the lapse of three 
 hundred years. The question stands to-day as it did in 1517, 
 and she may plead the olim possideo, as she could then, and 
 with even additional force ; and you must set forth in your 
 declaration good and valid reasons for ejecting her, before 
 you can compel her to plead any other title than that of 
 cription. 
 
 " Bui you forget that the reformers did set forth such 
 reasons." 
 
 "I cannot have forgotten what I never knew. Bat what- 
 ever reasons the j set forth, the presumption is that they were 
 insufficient: foi they nave been so regarded byOhristendom 
 generally, since the church continues m possession, and the 
 
 greal majority Of all who are called Christians still adhere 
 
 to her communion." 
 
 " But they were in reality sufficient, and ought to have 
 been so regarded." 
 
 "That, ls a point to be proved. What were those Tea- 
 s', n- I "
 
 58 THE 'IW*> BROTHERS. 
 
 " The first in order, if not in time, was, that our Lord 
 founded no authoritative church such as the Romish claims 
 to be." 
 
 " We have seen she was in possession, and the presump- 
 tion was in her favor. What you state was an allegation 
 which needed to be proved." 
 
 " The reformers proved it." 
 
 " By what evidence ? " 
 
 " By the word of God." 
 
 " Had they the word of God ? 
 
 " They had." 
 
 " Did the church concede that they had it? " 
 
 " They had the Holy Scriptures, and she admitted that 
 they were the word of God." 
 
 " That the mere letter was the word of God, or the sense 
 in which the Holy Ghost dictated them ? " 
 
 "The sense, of course; for words are nothing without 
 their sense." 
 
 " Did she admit that the reformers, in having the letter 
 of Scripture, had its sense, which is the word of God ? " 
 
 " She did not." 
 
 "Was, according to her, the Holy Scripture the word of 
 God. if understood in any sense different from hers % " 
 
 " No ; she claimed the right to declare its sense." 
 
 " Did the reformers adduce the words of Scripture, in 
 support of their allegation that our Lord had founded no 
 such church as she pretended to be, in the sense she gave 
 them ? " 
 
 " They did not ; for she explained them in her own fa- 
 vor." 
 
 " Then she did not admit that what they adduced in sup- 
 port of their allegation was the word of God. Then, as the 
 burden of proof was on them, they were bound to prove that 
 it was his word." 
 
 " They quoted the Scriptures, and they were the word of 
 God." 
 
 " In the sense of the church, not otherwise. The reform- 
 ers pleaded the word of God in support of their allegation. 
 The church replied by denying that what they set forth as 
 the word of God was his word. Her reply was sufficient, 
 unless they proved that it was his word." 
 
 " But their plea was evident on its face, for they alleged 
 the very won!- of Scripture." 
 
 •• That they alleged the very words of Scripture may be
 
 THE TWO BROTIIEKS. 59 
 
 denied, for in point of fact there are no words of Scripture 
 which say that our Lord did not found such a church as the 
 Catholic Church claimed and claims to be ; but let that pass 
 for the present. They pleaded the word of God, and the 
 word of God is not the words, but the sense, of Scripture. 
 To adduce the words, therefore, availed them nothing, unless 
 they proved that the sense of the words, as intended by the 
 Holy Ghost, was what they pretended ; for till then they 
 could not assert that they had adduced the word of God." 
 
 " But the matter was so plain, that there could be no ques- 
 tion as to the genuine sense of the words adduced." 
 
 "But there was a question as to the sense, by your own 
 admission. The church attached to them one sense, and the 
 reformers another." 
 
 " But the words themselves necessarily mean what the re- 
 formers asserted." 
 
 " We cannot go into that question at present. The right 
 to declare the word of God is included in the possession of 
 the church, and the fact that she denied the reformers' 
 sense is prima facie evidence in her favor and against 
 them." 
 
 " I do not admit that." 
 
 " You have admitted it ; for you have conceded that pre- 
 scription was in favor of the church, and is prima facie evi- 
 dence of title. You must, therefore, admit the word of 
 God as the church declares it, till you can assign a good and 
 valid reason for not doing so." 
 
 " The fact that the express words of Scripture are against 
 her is such a reason." 
 
 •• The express words of Scripture you cannot allege; be- 
 canse, as a matter of fact, no such words are to be found ; 
 and because, if there were such words, they still could not 
 be adduced against the church, for the Scriptures are in her 
 possession, and denied to have authority save as she under- 
 stands them." 
 
 "That would be to deny that the Scriptures are legiti- 
 mate evidence in support of an allegation against the 
 church." 
 
 "That is not my fault The reformers could not, of 
 
 course, legitimately quote the Scriptures as the word of < »od 
 
 inst the church, Bave in the sense she authorized, unless 
 
 they succeeded in removing the presumption she derived 
 
 from prescription, and in getting themselves legal possession 
 
 of the,,!."
 
 GO THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " I do not admit that. The Scriptures were the law, to 
 which the church and all were accountable." 
 
 u As declared by the church, transeat; but that they were 
 the law in any other sense the reformers were bound to 
 prove." 
 
 " Bat the reformers had the word of God as well as the 
 church, and therefore were not bound, even presumptively,, 
 by the sense she declared." 
 
 " Had they legal possession of the word of God ? " 
 
 " I care nothing about that. They had the Scriptures,, 
 and that was enough ; for they had in them the rule of faith, 
 both for them and for the church." 
 
 " But you must care for that ; for it is conceded that the 
 church was in possession, and, being in possession, she had 
 the presumptive right to declare the law ; and they were 
 bound to take it from her, unless they could prove that they 
 had legal possession of the word." 
 
 " They received the Scriptures from God himself." 
 
 " They were, then, the legal depositaries of the word ? " 
 
 " Yes, as much as the church." 
 
 " Had they the right to declare its sense ? " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " If you say that, you concede the point you dispute. 
 You allege against the church, that our Lord founded no 
 such church. The essential character of the church, so far 
 as concerns the present controversy, is, that she has the word 
 of God, and is its legal keeper and expounder. If, then, 
 you say the reformers had legal possession of the word, and 
 were authorized to keep and expound it, you make them 
 essentially such a church as you assert our Lord did not 
 found. You contest the claims of the church on the ground 
 that our Lord founded no church with the authority she exer- 
 cises ; you must, then, unless you would concede what you 
 deny, disclaim that authority on the part of the reformers." 
 
 " I do disclaim it on their part." 
 
 " Then you grant, in the outset, that they had no legal 
 possession of the word, and were not its authorized keeper 
 and expounder ; therefore, that they had no word of God 
 which they had authority to quote against the church. What 
 they had not they could not adduce. Consequently, they 
 did not, for they could not, adduce the word of God in sup- 
 port of their allegation." 
 
 " But they had the Scriptures, as a matter of fact, and 
 could read and understand them for themselves."
 
 THE TWO BROTHER?. 01 
 
 "They had the Scriptures as. a private citizen has the 
 statute-book, it may be ; but as they were not the authorized 
 keeper and expounder of the word of God, their under- 
 standing of it was without authority, and not to be enter- 
 tained. 
 
 " They had the right from God himself to read and un- 
 derstand the word for themselves." 
 
 ''Then they were authorized to keep and expound it, at 
 least for themselves." 
 
 " They were." 
 
 " But I understand you to deny that any body was au- 
 thorized to keep and expound the word." 
 
 " I do not say so. Almighty God, in revealing his word, 
 has authorized every one to keep, read, and expound its 
 sense." 
 
 " Then, so far from its being true, as you have alleged, 
 that our Lord has founded no church with the authority the 
 Catholic Church claims, he has constituted each individual a 
 church with the same authority. Decidedly, brother, you 
 must give up this, or withdraw your allegation. If you ad- 
 mit that our Lord has anywhere authorized any body, indi- 
 vidual or collective, to keep and expound the word of God, 
 you admit that lie did found, essentially, such a church as 
 your allegation denies. You cannot deny such authority to 
 the church on the ground that no such authority was ever 
 given, and then claim it for each and every individual." 
 
 " Be that as it may, 1 do claim it for each and every indi- 
 vidual." 
 
 " That is a bold stand for a Presbyterian, but necessity 
 sometimes compels us to be bold. But did the church admit 
 I" 
 
 " No, she denied it." 
 
 " Then the reformers were bound to prove it." 
 
 "They did prove it." 
 
 " By what authority?" 
 
 •■Tli.' word of GocL" 
 
 " By what the church admitted to be the word of God? v 
 
 " No matter what she admitted. They proved it by the 
 word it »elf." 
 " W"ho ■■ of" 
 "They said »." 
 "On what authority I " 
 » On the authority of God'a word." 
 
 "Oil what authority did they say that that was the word 
 
 of God which authorized them to say so j "
 
 ,,_> THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 "The word itself." 
 
 "But by what authority did they prove the word itself?" 
 
 " The word of God is the word of God, and is in all cases 
 ■supreme. "Would you deny the word of God ? " 
 
 " But as the church denied what they adduced as the word 
 of God to be his word, they were then bound to prove that 
 it was his word." 
 
 11 What did Almighty God give us his word for, if it was 
 not that we should read and understand it for ourselves ? " 
 
 " Your first business is to prove that he has given you his 
 word. The church asserts that he has given it to her, and 
 that she permits the faithful to read the Scriptures for their 
 edification, but always with submission to her authority, and 
 the reservation that no doctrine is to be deduced from them 
 which she does not authorize." 
 
 " There she is wrong." 
 
 " That is for you to prove." 
 
 " God proposed to teach mankind by writings, not by a 
 body of men." 
 
 " That, also, is for you to prove." 
 
 " It is evident from the word itself." 
 
 " You must prove that yew have the word, before you can 
 introduce it as evidence." 
 
 " No one can read the New Testament and believe other- 
 wise." 
 
 " Not true in fact ; for the great mass of all who do read 
 the New Testament actually believe otherwise. But you 
 must get legal possession of the New Testament, and estab- 
 lish your right to interpret it, before you can quote it in a 
 •sense the church denies. Till then, the denial of your as- 
 sertion by the church is prima facie evidence against you." 
 
 " I do not care for the church. I deny her authority." 
 
 " I know that ; but her authority is to be presumed, till 
 reasons are set forth for denying it. You are not at liberty 
 to deny it without a reason." 
 
 " I have given a reason." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " Why, I tell you she is condemned by the word of God." 
 
 " You tell me so, but that is not enough. You must prove 
 that it is so." 
 
 " You do not suffer me to do so. You will not suffer me 
 to quote the Bible against her." 
 
 " No such thing. W/ien you have proved that the Bible, 
 in the sense you adduce it, is the word of God, you may 
 quote it to your heart's content"
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 6% 
 
 " "Why, I have told you again and again that the church 
 herself admits the Bible to be the word of God, and there- 
 fore it is not necessary, in arguing against her, to prove that 
 what I adduce from it is the word of God." 
 
 " The Bible in the sense she authorizes, she admits to be 
 the word of God, I grant ; in any other sense, she denies it 
 to be the word of God. Consequently, since you would 
 adduce it in a sense she does not authorize, if you adduce it 
 at all, she denies what you would adduce is the word of God. 
 You must, then, prove that it is, before you can legally ad- 
 duc-it." 
 
 " But you will not let me prove it.", 
 
 " I do not hinder you." 
 
 " I offer to prove it by the word itself." 
 
 " That is not logical ; for it would be to assume the word 
 to prove the word." 
 
 "Not so. Here are the Scriptures, admitted by the 
 church, when taken in their genuine sense, to be the word 
 of God. I simply propose from them and by them to show 
 what is their genuine sense ; and if I do so, I prove by an 
 authority which she herself concedes all that I am required 
 to prove." 
 
 " You cannot do that, because in doing it you assume that 
 the church is not the authorized interpreter of the word, 
 which is the point you must prove; and that you are the 
 authorized interpreter, which is also a point you must prove. 
 The church simply admits that the Scriptures, taken in the 
 sense she authorizes, are the word of God. This is the full 
 extent of her admission. But taken in another sense, she 
 denies them to be the word of God ; for the word of God, 
 we have agreed, is not the words, but the sense, of the 
 Scriptures. Consequently, before you can allege them in a 
 sense contrary to hers, nay, before you can go into any in- 
 quiry ae to their sense, you must, on the one hand, dispossess 
 Ber of her prescriptive right to declare (heir sense;, and es- 
 tablish your own authority as their interpreter. Till you 
 have done one or the other, the sense of Scripture is not 
 
 BH open question, and you Cannot open it without assuming 
 the point in ili pute." 
 
 >- That denies absolutely my right to quote the Scriptures 
 
 again -t the church." 
 
 "Not absolutely. Von may quote them in her seiiso 
 
 againsi ber, if yon can ; and in your own sense, when you 
 
 have proved it to he the won! 01 God."
 
 fi4 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 "But the first would be of no avail, because she has taken 
 care to explain the Scriptures in her own favor ; and I 
 cannot prove them to be the word of God in any other 
 sense, unless I am at liberty to explain them by themselves." 
 
 " That is, you cannot prove your point, unless you are at 
 liberty to prove the same by the same ! Prove that you are 
 authorized to declare the sense of Scripture, and then you 
 will have no difficulty." 
 
 " But I cannot prove that I am, save from the word it- 
 self." 
 
 " That is to say, unless you are at liberty to assume and 
 exercise the authority to declare the sense of Scripture, as 
 the condition of provin'g that you have such authority ! That 
 will not do, brother. It would be proving idem per idem, 
 the same by the same, which is bad logic. 
 
 " How, then, am 1 to proceed ? " 
 
 " That is your affair, not mine." 
 
 " The church spreads her claim over every thing, and 
 leaves me, according to your principles of logic, no possible 
 means of adopting any line of argument against her, which 
 does not, in some sense, assume the point to be proved. So 
 subtle and crafty in her tyranny, that it leaves absolutely 
 nothing to those who would resist it. This to me is only 
 another evidence of her wicked origin and pernicious in- 
 fluence." 
 
 " So you are of opinion, that, if Almighty God should es- 
 tablish a church, he would take good care to leave it open 
 to attack, to give its enemies a fair and solid ground on 
 which to carry on their operations against it ! I am of a dif- 
 ferent opinion, and predisposed to believe the Almighty to 
 be more than a match for the devil, and that, if he should 
 establish a church, he would so constitute it that no attack 
 could be made upon it which should not recoil upon those 
 who made it, — no argument be framed against it which 
 should not serve to demonstrate the folly and absurdity of 
 its f ramers. It is unquestionably a very difficult matter to 
 make an action lie against the church, or to find a court 
 in which an action can be legally commenced against her; 
 but I have yet to learn that this is her fault. The church is 
 in possession of universal and supreme authority under God, 
 has & prescriptive right to that authority, and must be pre- 
 sumed to have a valid right to it till the contrary is shown. 
 You cannot assume the contrary, but are bound to prove 
 it. Now you must prove it without authority, or with 
 
 Vol. VI— 20
 
 THE TWO BKOTHEKS. 65 
 
 authority. "Without authority you cannot prove it; for 
 proofs which are sustained by no authority prove noth- 
 ing. You must, then, prove it with authority, or not 
 prove it at all. That it is difficult to find any authority 
 whose assertion does not assume the nullity of the supreme 
 authority which is to be presumed, is undoubtedly true. 
 You wish to arraign the actual possessor of the supreme 
 authority, but you cannot do so unless you have some 
 court of competent jurisdiction. But any court which 
 Bhould claim authority to issue a precept against the posses- 
 sor of supreme authority, and summon him to answer at its 
 bar, would assume authority over him, and by so doing 
 prejudge the case. This is in the nature of things, and can- 
 not be avoided ; but whose is the fault ? The reformers, if 
 they had been lawyers, would have seen that what they at- 
 tempted was against law, and a prima facie crime on their 
 part, for which they were liable to suffer the full vengeance 
 of the law. If they had been even tolerable logicians, they 
 would have seen that they could urge no argument which 
 did not assume what was in question. But surely the church 
 is not to be censured, because they were miserable pettifog- 
 gers and shallow sophists." 
 
 " But there is a court competent to institute proceedings 
 against the church." 
 
 " What court ? " 
 
 " The court of conscience." 
 
 " You must prove that conscience is supreme, before you 
 can say that ; for the church, as the vicegerent of the Al- 
 mighty, claims and possesses jurisdiction over conscience, and 
 ia supreme judge in foro conscientice. This is an integral 
 part of her y ion to which she has a prescriptive right. 
 
 You must dispossess her, before you can compel her to plead 
 at the bar of conscience." 
 
 But she is at least bound to answer at the bar of the 
 Bible, interpreted by private reason." 
 
 '• Not till yon di pot ess her, or place the Bible interpret- 
 ed by private rea on in poi a ion; for she possesses juris- 
 diction over them." 
 
 u At the bar of reason, then." 
 
 "Reason has and can have no jurisdiction in the premises; 
 for the quesl ion tarns on a Bupernatnra] fact, lies within the 
 supernatural order, and therefore out of the province of rea- 
 
 son." 
 
 "The general .-ens*; of mankind."
 
 fifi 
 
 TIIE TWO BKOTIIKKS. 
 
 " That is against you, and in favor of the church, as we 
 have already seen, and is conceded in the fact that tli3 
 church is allowed to plead prescription." 
 
 " Then to the written word, interpreted and its sense de- 
 clared by the Holy Ghost." 
 
 " Establish the fact of such a court, and she will not re- 
 fuse to appear and answer. But she claims to be that court 
 herself, and is in possession as that court ; you must dispos- 
 sess her by direct impeachment of her claims, or by estab- 
 lishing, before a competent tribunal, the rights of an adverse 
 claimant, before you can allege such a court." 
 
 "The reformers were aided by the private illumination of 
 the Holy Ghost, and what they did, they did in obedience 
 to his commands." 
 
 " That was for them to prove." 
 " They did prove it." 
 « How ? " 
 
 " From the written word." 
 
 " But they could prove nothing from the written word, 
 for they had no legal possession of it." 
 
 " They had legal possession of it. The Holy Ghost gave 
 them legal possession of it." 
 
 " What and where was the evidence of that fact, if fact 
 it was?" 
 
 " In the Scriptures." 
 
 " That is, they proved by the Holy Spirit that they had 
 legal possession of the Holy Scriptures, and by the Holy 
 Scriptures that they had the Holy Ghost ! But this was to 
 reason in a vicious circle" 
 
 " The reformers set forth other and conclusive reasons for 
 rejecting the church, which I will reproduce on another 
 day ; but you must excuse me now, for I have some paroch- 
 ial duties to which I must attend." 
 
 " So you give up the first reason, namely, our Lord found- 
 ed no such church as the Catholic ? " 
 
 " Not by any means. I may have erred in bringing that 
 forward before the others. I ought not to have departed 
 from the example of the reformers. They did not allege 
 that reason first, and I see now that they were wise in not 
 doing so. They first proved that the church had forfeited 
 her rights, by having abused her trusts. Having thus eject- 
 ed her, they took possession of the word, and easily and 
 clearly demonstrated that she had been null from the be- 
 ginning, by showing that our Lord never contemplated 
 such a church."
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. G7 
 
 " That is, they dispossessed themselves by acquiring pos- 
 session. Very good Protestant law and logic. " 
 
 " You may spare your sneer, for perhaps it will soon be re- 
 torted with seven-fold vengeance." 
 
 " O, not so bad as that, t hope." 
 
 "We shall' see. I will, God willing, prove that the re- 
 formers were rigid reasoners, and sound lawyers." 
 
 " An Herculean task. Clearing the Augean stables was 
 easy compared with it." 
 
 " The reformers were great and glorious men, rare men, 
 the like of whom will not soon be seen again." 
 
 " Some consolation in that." 
 
 " To call such men miserable pettifoggers and shallow 
 sophists is " 
 
 " To use soft words, which turn away wrath." 
 
 " To outrage common sense and common decency." 
 
 " Why, would you censure me for not calling them by 
 harder names ? I might have easily done so, but I wished 
 to spare your prejudices as much as possible." 
 
 "I tell you, John, that, in becoming a miserable idolatrous 
 Papist, and drunk with the cup of that sorceress of Baby- 
 lon, the mother of every abomination, you seem to have lost 
 ill sense of dignity, all self-respect, and all regard for the 
 proprieties of civilized life." 
 
 " Because I do not rave and rant, every time I have occa- 
 sion to allude to the chiefs of the Protestant rebellion? " 
 
 "No; you know that is not what I mean. You degrade 
 yourself in speaking so contemptously of the glorious re- 
 forms 
 
 • .\ii', what does my most excellent, amiable, polite, and 
 sweet-spokeo brother do, when he calls God's Holy Church 
 the Borcereaa of Babylon, &o., and brands the members of 
 her holy communion with the name of idolaters?" 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ( * .i.v.-i few days elapsed before John, finding his brother 
 apparently at leisure, pressed him to redeem his promise. 
 
 •• You are prepared, brother, by this time, I presume, to 
 undertake your vindication of the reformers, and to prove 
 that they were Bound lawyers and rigid reasoners." 
 
 "Tlio church has bo spread out her claims over every 
 thing, tli.it it, is bard toconstrud an argument against her, 
 which does not apparently take for granted sumo point
 
 <>s 
 
 TI1E TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 which she contends is the point to be proved; but the devil, 
 though cunning, can be outwitted." 
 
 "What! by heretics?" 
 
 " Protestants are not heretics." 
 
 " The church is in possession ; and since Protestants break 
 away from her and contend for what she declares to be con- 
 trary to the faith, they are at least presumptively heretics, 
 and are to be treated as such, unless they prove the con- 
 trary." 
 
 " The church is in possession de facto, not de jure. She 
 is a usurper." 
 
 "Possession de facto, we have agreed, is prima facie evi- 
 dence of title. The reformers were, therefore, as we have 
 seen, bound either to admit it, or show good and valid rea- 
 sons for questioning it." 
 
 " True ; but they showed such reasons." 
 
 " So you have said, but you have not told me the reasons 
 themselves." 
 
 " I gave you as one of those reasons, the fact that our 
 Lord founded no such church as the Romish." 
 
 " But that was a reason you could not assign, because the 
 simple fact of the existence of the church in possession was 
 vrima facie evidence to the contrary." 
 
 " I offered to prove my position from the word of God." 
 
 " But could not, because the church was in possession as 
 the keeper and interpreter of the word, and you could not 
 adduce it in a sense contrary to hers without begging the 
 question." 
 
 " I have the word as well as she, and it interprets itself." 
 
 " That you have the word, or that it interprets itself, you 
 were not able to prove. Moreover, the argument may be 
 retorted. The church has the word as well as you, and the 
 word interprets itself. She alleges that the word is against 
 you, and her allegation, at the very lowest, is as good against 
 your position as yours is against hers." 
 
 "I deny her infallibility." 
 
 " Do you claim infallibility for yourself ? " 
 
 " I claim infallibility for the word of God." 
 
 " That is what logicians call ignorantia elenchi. But do 
 you claim infallibility for your own private understanding 
 of the word ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then you are fallible, and may fall into error ? " 
 
 " I do not deny it."
 
 T1IE TWO BROTHERS. 69 
 
 "The church, at the very worst, is only fallible, and 
 therefore, at the very worst, is as good as you at the very 
 best, for at the very best you are not infallible. Consequent- 
 ly, your allegations of what is the word of God can never be 
 a sufficient motive for setting aside hers. Nothing, then, 
 which you can adduce from the Scriptures, even conceding 
 you all the right to appeal to them you claim, can be suffi- 
 cient to invalidate her title. As she, at worst, stands on as 
 high ground as you can even at best, her simple declaration 
 that the word of God is in her favor is as good as any dec- 
 larations you can make to the contrary. The proof, then, 
 which you offered to introduce, would have availed you noth- 
 ing, even if you had been permitted to introduce it." 
 
 •■ I do not admit that. I offered to prove, and I am able 
 to prove, from the Holy Scriptures, that our Lord founded 
 no such church as the Romish." 
 
 " It is certain that you can introduce no passage of Script- 
 ure which expressly, in so many words, declares that our 
 Lord founded no such church. If, then, you can prove it 
 from the Scriptures at all, you can prove it only by means 
 of the interpretations you put upon the sacred text. But, 
 at any rate, and on any conceivable hypothesis, the church 
 has as much right to interpret the sacred text as you have, 
 and her interpretations have, to say the least, as high au- 
 thority as, granting you all you ask, yours can have. But 
 she interprets the word in her favor, and, according to her 
 interpretations of the word, it is clear and undeniable that 
 it is in her favor, and that our Lord did found such a church 
 as she claims to be. Since, then, your interpretations can 
 never be a sufficient motive for setting aside hers, for they 
 at b i be no better than hers at worst, it, follows ueces- 
 
 .-.n-ily that you can never, under any hypothesis, prove from 
 the Scriptures againei her, that our Lord did not found such 
 achurcn as she assumes to be. All this I could say, even 
 waiving the argument from prescription. Bat I do not 
 wai jrument STon have conceded that the church 
 
 was in po n. She is, then, presumptively uli.it she 
 
 1ms to be. Then her interpretations are presumptively 
 the true interpretations, and yours against her presumptively 
 false. For yon to say, then, thai no such church was ever 
 instituted, is a plain begging of the question, and bo is every 
 
 argumenl you can COnstrUCi against her, drawn from the 
 
 1 Inly Srri|)tUIV-." 
 
 "But I may disprove the claims of the Romish Church by
 
 70 TIIE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 proving positively that some other church is the one actually 
 founded by our Lord." 
 
 " Unquestionably ; but you cannot plead at one and the 
 fame time an adverse title, and that no such title was ever 
 issued. If you plead that there was no such church ever in- 
 stituted, you are debarred from pleading an adverse title ; 
 for you plead that the church has no title, because none was 
 ever issued. If none was ever issued, there can be none in 
 an a i verse claimant. On the other hand, if you plead an 
 adverse title, you concede, what you have denied, that our 
 Lord did institute such a church as the Catholic Church 
 claims to be ; that the title she possesses has been issued and 
 vests somewhere. This changes the whole question. There 
 is no longer any controversy between us as to the fact wheth- 
 er our Lord did or did not found a church in the sense al- 
 leged, but simply a question whether it be the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church or some other." 
 
 " Grant that our Lord did found such a church as is pre- 
 tended, — and I believe in the Holy Catholic Church as well 
 as you, — still I deny that it is the Romish Church." 
 
 " You join a new issue, then, and plead now, not no title, 
 but an adverse title ? " 
 
 " Be it so, for the present." 
 
 "And what is the adverse claimant you set up against 
 Rome ? " 
 
 " The church of which, by God's grace, I am an unworthy 
 minister." 
 
 " That is to say, the Presbyterian ? " 
 
 " Yes. The Presbyterian Church is the visible Catholic 
 Church, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of sal- 
 vation." 
 
 " So says the Westminster Confession of Faith. But 
 which Presbyterian church do you mean ? " 
 
 " I do not understand you." 
 
 "There are, vou know, brother, quite a number of Pres- 
 byterian churches , for instance, in Scotland, the Kirk by 
 law established, the Free Kirk, and the Seceders ; in this 
 country, the Old School, the New School, and the Cumber- 
 land Presbyterians ; in England, the Presbyterian Dissent- 
 ers, for the most part Unitarian ; and on the Continent, the 
 Dutch Reformed, the Reformed German, the Genevan, and 
 the French Huguenots, all virtually Presbyterian churches, 
 and very generally fallen into Socinianism, rationalism, 
 deism, or transcendentalism. Which of these, not to men- 
 tion several others, is the one you mean ? "
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 71 
 
 " It is not necessary to particularize ; I mean the Presby- 
 terian Church in general." 
 
 " Do you include even those who have become Socinian, 
 rationalistic, deistical, transcendental?" 
 
 " It is to be regretted that in many of the old Presbyte- 
 rian chu relies grievous, and, as I hold, damnable, errors have 
 crept in." 
 
 •• But are those which have lapsed into these damnable er- 
 rors still integral portions of the Presbyterian Church ? Do 
 you claim the English Presbyterians, the Genevan, and 
 French?" 
 
 " The church is never free from error, taken as a whole, 
 but there are always in the church a remnant who are faith- 
 ful, and somewhere in it there is always the pure preaching 
 of the word, as well as the maintenance of the true ordi- 
 nances of God's house." 
 
 " You forget that you have just conceded that our Lord 
 did found such a church as the Roman Catholic claims to 
 be ; but the Roman Catholic Church claims to have author- 
 ity from God to teach, and to teach everywhere, and at all 
 times, one and the same doctrine, free from all admixture of 
 
 error." 
 
 " I do not forget what I have conceded. I say, in the lan- 
 guage of the Westminster Confession of Faith, that 'the 
 purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture 
 ;ui<l error; and some have so degenerated as to become no 
 churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, 
 there shall be always a church on earth to worship God ac- 
 o his will.' " 
 •• I ;nt thi- does nol relieve you, for it says positively the 
 purest churches under heaven arc subject to mixture and 
 error. Then there isno church not liable to error and cor- 
 ruption. Then, whatever your Presbyterian church may 
 claim, it does not claim, evi n a the church, to be able to 
 h infallibly ; therefore does not even claim to be such a 
 church as the Roman Catholic church claims to he. Con- 
 icntlv she cannot he get up as an adverse claimant. Tlio 
 title she claim ie not the title the Catholic Church claims, 
 and therefore, if established, does not necessarily negative 
 hers, [f, then, you concede thai our Lord did founasuch 
 a church as the Roman Catholic Church claims to be, you 
 must concede that it is not the Pre byterian." 
 
 rot at all; for does not the < !oni< ly, ' Neverthe- 
 
 , there shall be always a church on earth which shall 
 wor hip C"<l according to his will C "
 
 72 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " True ; but this either amounts to nothing, or it contra- 
 dicts what you have just alleged. If it means that there 
 shall always be on earth a church which teaches God's word 
 infallibly," then it is false to say that the purest churches 
 under heaven are subject to mixture and error ; but if it 
 means that the church which worships God according to his 
 will is not free from mixture and error, it amounts to noth- 
 ing, for it proposes no church claiming to be what the Cath- 
 olic Church claims to be, since it is undeniable that she 
 claims to teach without the least mixture or error." 
 
 " But one may be subject to error, and yet not err in fact. 
 The church is not exempt from the liability to err, but there 
 is always a portion of it which, as a matter of fact, does not 
 err." 
 
 " What prevents it?" 
 
 " The grace of God ; for God will not suffer the gates of 
 hell wholly to prevail against his church." 
 
 " Very well ; but is the church, what your Confession calls 
 the ' visible Catholic Church,' herself always preserved by 
 this grace from error ? and if so, can she be said to be sub- 
 ject to error ? " 
 
 " The visible Catholic Church consists of all those persons 
 throughout the world who prof ess the true religion, together 
 with their children. There is always a portion of these who 
 are, though grace, preserved from error ; and therefore there 
 is always a church or body of worshippers who worship God 
 according to his will. In some periods the number of these 
 is very small, in others it is large." 
 
 " But you do not answer my question. Individuals may 
 err, particular branches of the church may fail ; but does the 
 church, the teaching and judging authority of the church, in 
 matters of faith and morals, ever err ? " 
 
 "Individual members and particular churches may err, but 
 God always preserves some individuals who do not err, who 
 are witnesses for him in the darkest and worst of times. 
 Consequently, the whole church never falls into error." 
 
 "But your Confession declares the visible Catholic Church 
 to be a kingdom. Jesus Christ, it says, ' hath erected in this 
 world a kingdom, which is his church.' Now to a kingdom 
 it is essential that there be a supreme authority. There may 
 be provincial and communal governments with local author- 
 ity, customs, and usages, but they must all be subordinated to 
 one supreme central authority, or else you have not one 
 kingdom, but as many separate kingdoms as you have sepa-
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 73 
 
 rate local governments. The kingdom erected by our Lord 
 is one, not many, and therefore must have somewhere, some- 
 how constituted, a supreme central authority, from which 
 all the subordinate authorities derive their authority, and to 
 which they are responsible. This supreme central authority 
 is, in the case of the church, the church teaching and gov- 
 erning, and is what is specially meant by the church, when 
 Bpeaking of its fallibility or infallibility. Now my question 
 is, whether the church herself, that is, the supreme central 
 authcity from which all the particular and local authorities 
 are derived, is subject to error, or by grace rendered infal- 
 lible." 
 
 " I know no such authority as you speak of but that of 
 Jesus Christ himself, who is the head and husband of the 
 faithful, and he of course cannot err." 
 
 " You admit that the church is a kingdom f r 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And a kingdom erected in this world ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " And that where there is no supreme central authority 
 there is no kingdom?" 
 
 u There must be such authority, but it may be in Jesus 
 Christ, who is the invisible head of the church." 
 
 " It is the authority that constitutes the kingdom, not the 
 
 kingdom the authority for prior to the authority, the king- 
 
 q is not. The authority and kingdom must be in the 
 
 ie order. If, then, the Kingdom is in the visible order, 
 
 the authority which makes ii a visible kingdom must be in 
 
 the risible order, and therefore itself be visible. You could 
 
 ••all < irr.it Britain or Prance a visible kingdom, if one or 
 
 the other had no visible Bupreme authority The most you 
 
 lid Bay would ,e, that there is an invisihle fingdom in 
 
 it Britain or Prance, not tnat either is itself a visible 
 kingdom. So of the church. If it is a visible kingdom, it 
 mi, ea supreme visible authority; if not, it is not a 
 
 visible, but an invisible Kingdom. The individuals might 
 he risible as individuals, but not as members of the church, 
 abjects of the invisible authority, in such thedia 
 
 tinrtiun your < lonfession makes, and wnich you contend for, 
 between the risible church, and the invisible, would be a 
 tinction without a difference. When, therefore, yon tell 
 nir, b you <lo in your Confession, that the risible church is 
 a kingdom vn this icorld, yon aecessarily tell me that it has 
 in this world a supreme visible central authority. And in
 
 74 TITE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 point of fact, Presbyterians themselves do recognize such 
 authority ; for they regard their church as a polity, and it has 
 its constitution, its officers, its supreme legislature, and su- 
 preme judicatory. If not, what means the General Assem- 
 bly, winch 'represents in one body' all the particular 
 churches of the Presbyterian denomination, and to which 
 belongs 'the power of deciding in all controversies respect- 
 ing doctrine and discipline ; of reproving, warning, of bear- 
 ing testimony against error in doctrine, or immorality in 
 practice, in any church, presbytery, or synod ; of erecting 
 new synods when it shall be judged necessary ; of superin- 
 tending the concerns of the whole church ; of sup- 
 pressing schismatical contentions and disputations,' tfcc, and 
 to which every candidate for ordination must promise obedi- 
 ence and subjection ? " 
 
 " There is a supreme visible government of the church, 
 under God, I admit." 
 
 " Under God; and who ever dreamed of a supreme gov- 
 ernment of the church over God ? " 
 
 " The Papists." 
 
 " Nonsense ! Do you not know that Catholics hold Jesus 
 Christ to be the supreme invisible Head of the church, and 
 that they call the pope his vicar ? If the pope is the vicar 
 of Jesus Christ, how can he be above him ? God is supreme, 
 the sovereign of sovereigns, and there is no power not from 
 him and subject to him. So no more of this nonsense. But 
 you hold the church to be a kingdom or polity, do you not ? " 
 
 "I do." 
 
 " And as such it has its government, its supreme author- 
 ity ; for if not, it is no kingdom or polity." 
 
 "Be it so." 
 
 " Now, what I ask is, Does this supreme authority, such 
 as it is in the Presbyterian Church, claim to be infallible in 
 all that concerns faith and morals ? " 
 
 " It does not." 
 
 " Then your plea of an adverse title amounts to nothing ; 
 the title you allege is not the negative of that claimed by 
 the church. The title she claims is that of an infallible 
 teacher of God's word , the title you set up is that of a fal- 
 lible teacher, which you may well be without prejudice to 
 her claim ; for you can claim to teach fallibly without de- 
 nying her claim to teach infallibly?'' 
 
 "But were I to grant this, it would not follow that the 
 claim of Koine must be conceded."
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS 75 
 
 " Not from this fact alone ; but as you have conceded 
 that the title was issued, and must vest somewhere, in some 
 one, it follows necessarily that it vests in the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church, if it vests in no one else. And as she is in 
 possession, you must concede it to her, unless you can pro- 
 duce and establish an adverse title." 
 
 " The Greek Church has as good a title as the Romish." 
 
 " That is not to the purpose. The Greek Church has 
 cither a valid title, or none at all. It is not enough to say 
 that 6he has as good a title as the Roman Church ; you must 
 say she has a perfect title, or say nothing." 
 
 "'I say, then, she has a perfect title." 
 
 " Then she is the church of God. Why, then, are you 
 not in her communion ? " 
 
 "That is neither here nor there. You have no right to 
 (■•include any thing to her prejudice from my practice. I 
 may be inconsistent. What then? " 
 
 " But she condemns you, and has solemnly anathematized 
 every one of your doctrines, with a single exception, in 
 which you depart from the teachings of the Roman Church." 
 
 " Be it so ; what then ? That may prove that we Prot- 
 estant- are wrong, but not that she is wrong, or you right." 
 
 " Moreover, she doea not even claim to be the One Holy 
 < latholic Church, and to have the supreme central authority 
 over the whole body of the faithful throughout the world. 
 She does not pretend to unchurch the church of Rome, or 
 even that the Unman Church does or ever did owe subjec- 
 tion to her. She admits, even to this day, the Roman ( latho- 
 Hc Church to be truly the church of Christ in what, was 
 
 originally the patriarchate of the West, that the pope is the 
 legitimate patriarch of the West, and rightfully exercises 
 patriarchal authority over that patriarchate. She does not 
 
 claim and never has claimed for herself the title she denies 
 
 to Rome. She denies the supreme authority over the whole 
 church claimed and exercised by the pope, not because 
 she claims the supremacy for herself, hut because she 
 denies that anj buce supremacy was conferred on any one 
 
 in the original < BtitUtlOE of the church. She is, then, no 
 
 ml-. laimant, and in all essentia] respects, except this 
 
 one. -In- concedes virtually, if DOt expressly, the title claimed 
 
 by Rome, al leas! so far a- it is now in question. So von 
 cannol gel an adverse claimant in the Greek Church. In 
 deed, when von have once conceded that our Lord founded 
 
 >h a chmch a- the Roman claim to be, you must concede
 
 <0 THE TWO BROTH ER8. 
 
 that the Roman is that church, for there is no other that 
 even claims to be it." 
 
 "That is hardly true The Anglican Church claims to 
 be it." 
 
 "The Anglican Church, as well as your own, puts on 
 lofty airs, and she now and then tells us gravely that she is 
 Catholic, — not Roman, but Catholic, — and lets off her 
 double battery of popguns on the one hand against Rome, 
 and on the other against Presbyterians, Baptists, Congrega- 
 tionalists, Methodists, &c. ; but she has not courage enough 
 to claim to be the Catholic Church in its unity T and integrity. 
 She claims, at most, to be only a branch of it, which implies 
 that the root and trunk are elsewhere ; and she does not 
 even pretend that the supreme visible central authority she 
 obeys or exercises is the supreme visible central authority 
 of the whole church of Christ. Moreover, she confesses 
 that she is fallible, that she has heretofore erred grievously 
 in doctrine and manners, and may err again. Her claim, 
 therefore, is not the same as that of the Roman Church, and 
 her title is not, strictly speaking, an adverse title. So you 
 can succeed no better with her than with the Greek Church, 
 or than with your own." 
 
 CHAPTER Vin. 
 
 " But you told me the other day," replied James, after a 
 short pause, "that the essential character of the Romish 
 Church is, that she claims to have received a divine com- 
 mission or authority to teach, or to keep and declare the 
 word of God." 
 
 " To keep and expound or teach the word of God, I 
 grant ; but I conceded this only so far as concerned the 
 special controversy in which we were engaged, as I then 
 told you. Nevertheless, I admit now that the essential 
 claim of the church is, that she has been divinely commis- 
 sioned or authorized to teach the word of God.'" 
 
 " Then you must concede that any other church claiming 
 to be divinely commissioned is an adverse claimant." 
 
 " Divinely commissioned to teach, granted." 
 
 " Then it is not true that there is no adverse claimant 
 against Rome, as you so confidently assert ; for, in point of 
 fact, the Greek Church, the Presbyterian, and the Anglican 
 each claims for itself to be divinely commissioned." 
 
 " The Greek Church claims the commission for herself in
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. . i 
 
 no sense in which she does not concede it to Rome, and 
 therefore is not an adverse claimant. The Presbyterian 
 and Anglican Churches do not in reality claim it at all ; for 
 both deny the fact of a divine commission in denying the 
 infallibility of the church." 
 
 "But to deny the infallibility is not necessarily to deny 
 the divine commission of the teacher ; and, therefore, not to 
 claim the infallibility is not to fail to claim the commission." 
 
 "The commission in question is the commission to teach, 
 and must be the warrant of infallibility in the teacher, un- 
 less God can authorize the teaching of error." 
 
 " That proves too much. All the teachers of your church, 
 you hold, are divinely commissioned ; but you cannot hold 
 that each is infallible ; for, if you should, you would be 
 obliged to hold that Luther himself did not err, since, as is 
 well known, he was at first a Romish doctor." 
 
 "The teachers of the church are all divinely commissioned 
 to teach in communion with and in subordination to the 
 sovereign pontiff, the successor of St. Peter, I admit, and so 
 long as they so teach, they teach infallibly ; but when they 
 break away from that communion, and as-ume to be inde- 
 pendent teachers, they are fallible ; for then they have no 
 divine commission." 
 
 "Is there any of these teachers, taken individually, who 
 may not break from that communion, and assume to be an 
 independent teacher 1 " 
 
 u No one except the pope himself." 
 
 ""What, then, i- your warrant that your particular teacher 
 
 does oot err '." 
 
 " The fact that he teaches in communion with and in sub- 
 ordination to the sovereign pontiff." 
 3o the pope is his voucher ?" 
 
 " ( 'ommiinion with the pope." 
 
 "AVho voucIk for i be pope ?" 
 
 "The divine commission, which gives him, as tie' successor 
 of St. Peter, plenary authority to teach and declare the 
 word of God 
 
 "If the pope should fail, your whole church mighl fall to 
 the ground." 
 
 •• Not necessarily ; bul the pope cannot fail, because he is 
 
 divinely commit ioned. A- the snoce or or St. Peter, he 
 
 in I,- be authority of St. Peter, and the promise made to 
 
 him. 'Upon this rock will I build my church, and the 
 
 if hell shall not prevail against it.' The pope, there
 
 - 
 
 TUE TWO HKoTIIKRS. 
 
 fore, since lie has the promise of God, cannot fail, unless 
 God himself can fail, which is not supposable." 
 
 " But your argument, nevertheless, proves too much ; for 
 all legitimate civil governments are divinely commissioned, 
 and yet no man can pretend that they are infallible." 
 
 " Commissioned to govern, but not to teach or declare the 
 word of God. There is a difference between the commis- 
 sion to govern and the commission to teach. Teaching has 
 reference to the conscience, to the internal act of the man ; 
 government only to external acts. The teacher is commis- 
 sioned to teach the truth ; government is commissioned 
 simply to control and direct the external acts for the general 
 good, according to the rules of prudence ; and to attain its 
 end, it is not essential that it should be able to propose 
 measures which are absolutely in all and every respect the 
 wisest and the best ; nor is it necessary, in order to believe 
 it for the general good, and to obey all its commands, that 
 the subject should believe it infallible, or that it can never 
 err in any one of its measures. He can obey an unwise 
 order, and it may be for the general good that sometime he 
 should do so. But the end of teaching is the proposition 
 and belief of the truth. All teaching is in order to truth. 
 If the teacher be fallible, the end of teaching is not secured ; 
 for he may propose, and I may believe, on his proposition, 
 what is not true. The commission is authority from God 
 to teach, and a command to those the teacher is commis- 
 sioned to teach to believe as the truth, and nothing but the 
 truth, what he teaches. If fallible, then, he may propose 
 and I believe, on divine authority, what is false ; and then 
 God may authorize the teaching and the believing of false- 
 hood, — which cannot be ; for he is infinitely true, and can 
 neither be deceived nor deceive, which would not be the 
 fact, if he could authorize the teaching or the believing of 
 falsehood. Therefore, the divine commission to teach — 
 and it is only of the commission to teach that I speak — 
 must necessarily be the warrant of infallibility in the 
 teacher." 
 
 " Though the divinely commissioned teacher be assumed 
 to be infallible, the commission is not itself necessarily and 
 essentially a warrant of his infallibility." 
 
 " To the full extent of the matter covered by the commis- 
 sion it is, you yourself do and must admit." 
 
 " I do not admit it. A commission, by the simple fact 
 that it is a commission, does no such thing ; for a govern-
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 70/ 
 
 ment may commission an ambassador, and yet that ambas- 
 sador may misrepresent its will and intention." 
 
 " Commissions in general may not, but the divine com- 
 mission to teach does. Human governments have no power 
 to secure the infallibility of their ministers ; but you cannot 
 say this of God. He can make his ministers infallible." 
 
 " He can ; but it does not therefore follow that he does." 
 
 " I have shown that he must, because he cannot authorize 
 either the teaching or the believing of error, without con- 
 tradicting his own nature, which is infinitely and essentially 
 true ; and that he does, to the full extent of their commis- 
 sion to teach, you yourself do and must hold, or give up all 
 belief in external revelation." 
 
 "Not at all." 
 
 " Why do you believe our Lord was the Son of God ?" 
 
 " J-Sfcause he himself so declared." 
 
 " Why do you believe his declarations ? " 
 
 " Because he was the Son of God, and could not lie." 
 
 "A good reason, after it is proved that he was the Son of 
 God ; none at all before." 
 
 " I believe him because the miracles he performed proved 
 that he was from God ; for no man could do the miracles he 
 did, unless God were with him." 
 
 " \\ iiw'/v,/// (;<>d, that is, sent or commissioned by God as 
 a teacher, hut not that he was God." 
 
 "The miracles proved him to be God. He raised the 
 dead, and none hut God can raise the dead." 
 
 " None hut God <-an raise the dead as efficient cause; but 
 nun afl '/'■'-//•'///"///'//cause may raise them, as is shown by 
 the fact that the apostles and many of the saints have raised 
 the dead. How, then, from the miracle alone conclude that 
 our Lord raised the dead, not as instrumental cause, but as 
 u nt cause I " 
 
 " Tlie efficient cause was the divine power." 
 
 "Granted. But the divine power inherent in Jesus, as 
 
 his own proper power, Or the divine power merely displayed 
 
 on the occasion of his saying to the dead, Arise? Moses 
 emote the rock, and the water gushed out. Was it Moses, 
 or God who stood behind Moses, that caused the water to 
 
 flow from the rock I n 
 
 "God who stood behind him." 
 
 "So, for anghl the miracle itself says, it may have been, 
 Dot J elf , but God who stood behind him, that 
 
 ed the dead to live. The miracle does not prove the
 
 SO THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 proper divinity of our Lord. It only proves that he was 
 sent from God, and that God was with Trim, and displayed 
 his almighty power at his word." 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 " The miracles having proved that our Lord was from 
 God, that God sent him and was with him, you therefore 
 believe what he said. He said he was the Son of God, and 
 therefore you believe he was the Son of God, and there- 
 fore God himself." 
 
 ''Be it so." 
 
 " The miracles, then, simply proved his divine commis- 
 sion, that is, accredited him as a teacher sent from God. 
 But how from the fact of his commission conclude the truth 
 of what he said, if the divine commission be not the war- 
 rant of infallibility ? If one who is divinely commissioned 
 to teach, notwithstanding his commission, may err, how can 
 you say that our Lord himself did not err, and that you do 
 not err in believing him to be the Son of God ? Indeed, it 
 is only on the ground that the divine commission is the 
 warrant of infallibility, that your profession of faith in the 
 Bible as the infallible word of God is not ridiculous and 
 absurd." 
 
 " The sacred writers were inspired, but the divinely com- 
 missioned teachers you speak of are not. Being inspired, 
 they could know the truth of what they affirmed; and being 
 honest and godly men, they would not affirm what they did 
 not know." 
 
 " That is nothing to your purpose. The inspiration was 
 nothing more nor less than God simply telling or communi- 
 cating to them what they were to teach, and they have in 
 this respect no advantage over the church, in case she be 
 fully instructed as to what she is to propose as the word of 
 God. If instructed, it matters not, as to her ability to 
 teach, whether instructed by immediate inspiration to her- 
 self, or only mediately through that of the prophets and 
 apostles. She claims to have been fully instructed, for the 
 commission under which she professes to act was, ' Going, 
 
 teach all nations ; teaching them to observe all 
 
 things whatsoever I have commayided you.'' — St. Matt, 
 xxviii. 19. The alleged defect of immediate inspiration in 
 her case, or its presence in the case of the sacred writers, 
 can, therefore, of itself, be no reason for believing one in 
 preference to the other. The real reason for believing the 
 sacred writers is, that God authorized them to teach j and 
 
 Vol. VI -21
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. Q-[ 
 
 you have the same reason for believing the church, if 
 you have equal reasons for believing her authorized by God 
 to teach his word. The commission is a warrant of infalli- 
 bility in her case, as much as it was in theirs." 
 
 " But you forget that I gave as my reason for believing 
 the sacred writers, that they were honest and godly men, 
 and would not affirm what they did not know." 
 
 " You, then, consider the personal character of the teacher 
 better authority than the divine commission ? This is a com- 
 mon Protestant blunder, and hence the worthlessness of the 
 greater part of your treatises on the evidences of Christian- 
 ity. God's authority for believing is not sufficient till man 
 indorses it ! The best men are fallible, and may be de- 
 ceived. If we had nothing but the personal characters of 
 the sacred writers on which to rely, lionest and godly as 
 they certainly were, we should have no sufficient reason for 
 believing what they wrote to be the Word of God. Their 
 personal character may be important when the question 
 turns on their credibility as witnesses to the facts they re- 
 cord, but does not enter into the account when the question 
 is on their authority as teachers of revealed truth. No 
 man's personal character is a sufficient warrant for believing 
 that any thing he asserts to be a doctrine of revelation is 
 really and truly a doctrine of revelation. If it were, we 
 should be obliged to believe whatever any man, whose 
 character, so far as we know, is honest and irreproachable, 
 chooses to teach as the word of God. I low, then, can you 
 maintain that the personal character of the teacher is a surer 
 warrant of infallibility than the divine commission ? M 
 
 "The simple fact that the sacred writers were honest 
 and godly meil may Q01 I"' alone a sufficient reason for 06 
 
 Bering them,yet,if they had been bad men, that would 
 ne nave been a Bnfficienl reason for not believing them. 
 
 For God docs not and will not speak by had men." 
 
 "Thai isnol so certain. Balaam, the son of Poor, was a 
 
 bail man ; y<t God Spokfl by him, and cansed him to utter a 
 
 gloriotu prophecy. Do yon believe his prophecy on hisper- 
 nal character, or because divinely commissioned teachers 
 
 have told yon thai it was qoI he who spoke from himself, 
 
 but the Lord who spoke by him '" 
 
 ■■ I believe t 1 ed writers because God authorized 
 
 them tO tench hi.- word. :md the EolyGhoSl was with them 
 to enable them to teach it, and to preserve them from error 
 in teaching it"
 
 S2 THE TWO BROTHEBS. 
 
 " Is not the assistance of the Holy Ghost, so far as needed, 
 necessarily implied in the commission or authority to 
 teach?" 
 
 " If the commission were the warrant of infallibility, it 
 would be so implied ; but that is precisely what I deny." 
 
 "No man can teach infallibly without it ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " But with it any man can teach infallibly ? " 
 
 " Perhaps so." 
 
 " No perhaps about it. It must be so positively, or you 
 cannot assert the infallibility of the sacred penmen." 
 
 " God leaves the will free ; any one who has the assistance 
 may teach infallibly, if he chooses ; but it does not therefore 
 follow that he must and will so teach." 
 
 " In what concerns personal morality, natural or Christian, 
 the will is free ; but in teaching at the command of God, it 
 is not. The individual speaks not as moved by his own will, 
 but as moved by the Holy Ghost. Thus, Balaam was 
 forced against his will to bless Israel, and to utter a prophecy 
 he did not intend, and which he was unwilling to utter ; for 
 it was against his interest, and he loved the wages of in- 
 iquity. Thus, too, the prophet Jonas sought to run away 
 from the Lord, and not to preach as commanded to the 
 Ninevites, but the Lord brought him back by a miracle, and 
 forced him to utter his word. Moreover, if the matter de- 
 pended on the human will, the teachings of no human 
 teacher, however authorized and assisted by the Holy 
 Ghost, could ever be regarded as infallible ; because no one 
 could ever know whether the teacher spoke as moved by 
 the Holy Ghost, or merely from his own proper motion. In 
 vain, then, would you claim to have in the Bible the infal- 
 lible word of God. Nay, you have yourself just said, the 
 Holy Ghost enables the teachers to teach the word, 2^. pre- 
 serves them from error in teaching it." 
 
 " In the case of the sacred writers, not of all men." 
 
 " For all men have not the assistance of the Holy Ghost 
 to teach the word of God, nor are all commissioned to teach 
 it ; but if it be what you define it, any one who has it must 
 be able to teach, and be preserved from error in teaching, 
 and therefore must teach the word infallibly." 
 
 " Be it so." 
 
 " But the divine commission does not necessarily imply 
 this assistance ? " 
 
 " No, it does not ; therefore, I admit the infallibility of the
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 83 
 
 sacred writer- specially, and not of divinely commissioned 
 teachers in general." 
 
 " What is the significance of the divine commission to 
 teach the word of God ? " 
 
 " It authorizes the one who receives it to be a teacher of 
 God's word, but does not necessarily enable him to teach it 
 infallibly." 
 
 "So one may have authority from God to teach his 
 word, and yet not have the ability to teach it in the only 
 sense in which God can authorize it to be taught ! What, 
 then, means the authority ? " 
 
 "Why, it is authority to teach." 
 
 " Unquestionably, but what is that?" 
 
 " He who has it is authorized to speak or teach in the 
 name of God." 
 
 " That is, to propound the word of God, not in his own 
 name and on his own authority, but in the name and on the 
 authority of God ? " 
 
 " Yes, it meanR that he is empowered to teach with divine 
 authority." 
 
 " Can any thing but truth be taught with divine author- 
 ity?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " God cannot authorize the teaching of error?" 
 
 " No ; for that would be the same as to teach it." 
 
 " Then no one not able to teach the truth, and not pre- 
 server I from error in teaching it, can be said to teach by 
 divine authority ? " 
 
 " Bo it would seem." 
 
 " You say that for God to authorize the teaching of error 
 would be the same as for him to teach it? " 
 I do." 
 
 "And on the principle that what is dono by another's 
 authority, it is virtually that other that does it? Thus, what 
 the agenl does by the authority of the principal is held to 
 \„- done by th<' principal himself, who i re ponsible for it. 
 Wii.it an am l>y the authority of his govern- 
 
 menl is done by his (government. Consequently, what one 
 does by the authority of God is done by God oimself, and 
 the responsibility re ta on him. and not, on his agent. So 
 wh.it mm>- teaches by divine authority is taught by God him- 
 ■elf, and ( ""l La responsible tor it. No one can, then, lie 
 divinely commissioned : h what God may not himself 
 •h immediately, and for which be will not hold himself 
 responsibL
 
 81 THE TWO BROTIIERS. 
 
 " I do not deny it." 
 
 " Can God teach or be responsible for error, or for any 
 thing but truth ? " 
 
 " He cannot." 
 
 Then he can authorize no one to teach any thing but 
 truth?" 
 
 "He cannot." 
 
 " Then he who is divinely commissioned can teach noth- 
 ing but truth ? " 
 
 " Apparently so." 
 
 " He who can teach nothing but truth is infallible, is he 
 not?" 
 
 " So it would seem." 
 
 " Then the divine commission is, as I have said, the war- 
 rant of infallibility, and as one cannot be infallible without 
 the assistance of the Holy Ghost, it necessarily implies that 
 assistance. Consequently, the claim to the divine commis- 
 sion to teach the word of God is necessarily and essentially 
 the claim to infallibility in teaching, and therefore to the 
 assistance of the Holy Ghost, so far as needed to enable the 
 teacher to teach the word, and to preserve him from error 
 in teaching it. Is it not so ? " 
 
 " I have been accustomed to think differently, but let it 
 pass." 
 
 " Then my position, that the essential claim of the church 
 is that she teaches the word infallibly, is not different from 
 the one I assumed the other day, when I declared it to be 
 the claim to the commission to teach, or that she had the 
 word of God and was its legal keeper and expounder ? " 
 
 " Be it so." 
 
 " Then you produce no adverse claimant, since you pro- 
 duce none that even pretends to be able to teach the word 
 infallibly." 
 
 " Very well.' ; 
 
 " But in pleading an adverse title, you conceded that the 
 title was issued, and vests somewhere ; or, in other words, 
 that there is and must be somewhere such a church as the 
 Roman claims to be. Now, as you do not and cannot pro- 
 duce an adverse claimant, you must concede that she is 
 what she claims to be ; therefore the church of God ; and 
 therefore that you and all who make war upon her are reb- 
 els and traitors to God. Is it in this way you propose to 
 vindicate the reformers ? " 
 
 Poor James was misled by his Protestant theology, which
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 85 
 
 makes every thing pertaining to religion a sham. Thus, 
 justification is with it, not making one just, but reputing 
 him just, — a forensic, not an inward, intrinsic justification. 
 It is no real justification at all, hut a mere make-believe jus- 
 tification, — to say nothing of the blasphemy of representing 
 God as accounting or reputing a man just who is intrinsi- 
 cally unjust, — for it leaves the man as foul a sinner as he 
 was before he was justified. So in the matter of the divine 
 commission to teach, this same theology teaches that one 
 may have the commission, be authorized by God to teach, 
 and yet not teach infallibly, as if God could authorize the 
 teaching of a lie ! A queer thing is this Protestant theol- 
 ogy ! Well may its authors and adherents boast themselves 
 the lights of the age ! 
 
 This notion, that the authority does not necessarily imply 
 the ability to teach, is the source of much of that prejudice 
 which exists in the Protestant community against all claims 
 to authority from God to teach his word. There is a gen- 
 eral feeling among the great majority of intelligent Protes- 
 tants, that there can be no divine authority to teach where 
 there is not the ability to teach ; and seeing nowhere among 
 themselves any teacher who has the ability, they very natu- 
 rally conclude that no one has the authority. It is absurd, 
 say they, to suppose that God authorizes a man like our- 
 
 . es to teach, a man who knows no more than we do, and 
 is no better able to teach than the rest of us. When the 
 Catholic speaks to them of the commission of his church to 
 teach, and that God gives her authority to teach all nations, 
 they turn up their noses, and ask us, if we suppose they are 
 bucu fools as to believe that God, the common Father of us 
 nil, has given to mortals like ourselves authority to teach us, 
 and commanded us to yield up our own reason and judg- 
 ment to <>wr fellow-men ! 
 
 Now. probe the matter to the bottom, and yon will find 
 that these people object by no means to the idea that <T i < »< 1 
 
 may authorize men to teach his word, but simply to (he 
 notion that the authority can e\i-t where the requisite <pial- 
 
 ificationa to teach are wanting. Their real objection is to 
 the doctrine which Mr. James Milwood attempts to main- 
 tain, thai teachers confessedly fallible as teachers may never- 
 theless he divinely commissioned to teach. They object, 
 
 not to the Catholic <loet rinc of authority, but to the Protes- 
 tant. To really God-commissioned teachers, that is, teach- 
 ers who, in their judgment, have the intrinsic ability to
 
 $6 TTTE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 teach truly and infallibly tlic word of God, they do not ob- 
 ject, as is evident from their tendency to hero-worship, and 
 their common remark that he who is able is divinely commis- 
 sioned. Read Carlyle, Emerson, the transcendentalists gen- 
 erally, and you will find that it is always to the notion of 
 authority without the intrinsic ability that they object, and 
 that wherever they fancy the ability they are ready to con- 
 cede the commission. they err in making the ability the 
 warrant of the authority, instead of making the commis- 
 sion the warrant of the ability ; yet they are right against 
 Protestantism, and perceive a great and essential truth 
 which old-fashioned Protestantism denies, namely, that the 
 authority and the intrinsic ability to teach are inseparable, 
 and that any authority separate from the ability cannot be 
 conferred by God, and is therefore a usurpation. To one 
 who is familiar with the Protestant community, and who 
 comprehends its more recent developments of thought, it is 
 evident that Protestants are very generally growing tired 
 and sick of sham and shamming. They are rapidly becom- 
 ing unable to satisfy themselves with a religion which is no 
 real religion, but a mere ' make-believe religion. They cry 
 out from the depths of their hearts for something real, for 
 something which is, not merely seems. They see that the 
 reformers built on mere seeming, and taught and acted a lie, 
 — gave them hollow appearances, and no solid realities, — at 
 best, the mere hull without the kernel, — a symbol sym- 
 bolizing nothing, — a mere pretence ; and they grow indig- 
 nant, turn away in disgust, and say, " Give us something 
 real, something that is, if it be but the devil ; for any 
 thing that is is better than nothing seeming to be some- 
 thing. If your religion is a mere sham, call it a sham and 
 away with it ; for the oldest gospel is, that a lie is a lie, and 
 "no truth. Stop lying, stop seeming, and begin to be." So 
 deep is this feeling of the hollovvness of all Protestant pre- 
 tensions, and so strong is the craving for something real, 
 that it has almost become one of the cants of the day. 
 
 It is true, that, knowing no religion but the Protestant, 
 they to whom we refer conclude rashly that Catholicity is 
 also a sham, also a mere hollow pretence, and that no relig- 
 ion is real but that of nature. But in this they draw a con- 
 clusion quite too broad for their premises. The church 
 detests Protestantism as heartily as they do, and, in most 
 cases, for like reasons. She detests it because it is outward, 
 lifeless, empty, and no living reality ; because it contains
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 87 
 
 nothing solid, substantial, has no bottom, but is bottomless, 
 like the pit from which it is an exhalation, and into which, 
 as the religious atmosphere clears up, it subsides. She con- 
 demns with all her energy whatever is mere pretence or 
 make-believe. She tolerates no empty forms, no insignifi- 
 cant rites, no vain ceremonies. She will and can approve 
 nothing which is not real, solid, substantial. She teaches 
 the doctrine of the Real Presence, and always presents the 
 very reality she symbolizes. She can call no man justified 
 who is not intrinsically just, and recognize no teacher as 
 teaching by divine authority who does not teach God's word 
 infallibly. If these people would turn their attention to 
 her, they would soon find the truth and reality for which 
 their hearts cry out ; for, to say the least, grace is not less 
 true and real than nature. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " Unquestionably," at length James replied, " there is no 
 other church which makes the same specific claim as the 
 Romish, and if my plea of an adverse title is to be taken as 
 a concession that God has founded such a church, I of 
 course must concede that she is it, and that the reformers 
 cannot be justified." 
 
 " 1 have not confined you to her specific character ; I have 
 <»tily restricted you to her generic character, to what she 
 must absolutely be, if a church at all, with divine authority 
 to teach." 
 
 " Will, let that pass. I made the concession, not abso- 
 lutely, but provisonly; since, as you well know, I do not 
 ami cannot, ae a Presbyterian, admit that our Lord ever 
 founded, specifically or generically, such a church as the 
 Romish claims to be, and which is no church of Christ, but 
 a synagogue of Satan." 
 
 Then you refract your plea of an adverse title, and re- 
 • v<>iir concession ? 
 
 •• [do." 
 
 " Very well ; as I have do wish to take advantage of your 
 mi yon may do so. Wliat do you plead now?" 
 
 ''The Romish church is corrupt, and by her corruptions 
 forfeited her title to be the cnurch of ( l-od." 
 
 "That mr original plea, which yon withdrew for the 
 
 • of pleading thai n<> title was ever issued, or, in other 
 words, that our Lord had founded no Buch cnurch as she
 
 88 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 claims to be. You will remember that you cannot plead at 
 one and the same time the forfeiture of title, and that no 
 title ever existed. A title which never existed cannot 
 have been forfeited. The allegation, that the church has 
 forfeited her title, concedes, then, that the title originally 
 existed, and was hers. Am I to understand you as meaning 
 to concede that our Lord did originally found such a church 
 as the Roman claims to be, and that she was originally that 
 church ? " 
 
 " Not at all. 1 do not admit that such a title as she claims 
 ever existed." 
 
 " You deny, then, that our Lord ever founded such a 
 church as she claims to be, that is, a church with authority 
 from him to teach." 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " But she is in possession as such a church, and possession 
 is prima facie evidence of title. If, then, you allege that 
 no such title ever existed, the burden of proof is on 
 you. But you cannot prove that no such title ever existed, 
 as you learned in our conversation the other day. Moreover, 
 you have just alleged forfeiture of title, which concedes 
 that the title originally existed and was vested in the church 
 of Rome. You cannot now deny that it ever existed." 
 
 "I admit a title once existed, and was vested in her, 
 though not such a title as she claims ; and when I say that 
 she has forfeited her title, I mean not that she has forfeited 
 such a title as she now claims, but such a title as she origi- 
 nally had." 
 
 " That is nothing to the purpose. But what was that 
 title?" 
 
 Ci I have told you already, in declaring that she has for- 
 feited her title to be the Church of God. I do not deny 
 that the church of Rome was once a pure church, but I 
 contend that she is now corrupt, and no longer God's church, 
 or any portion of it." 
 
 " But the pure church, the church of God, is either such 
 a church as the Roman claims to be, or a different church." 
 
 " It is widely different." 
 
 " Is the church of God one, or many ? " 
 
 "Properly speaking, there is but one church, although 
 the one church may be composed of many particular 
 churches." 
 
 " But such must be the character of the particular 
 churches as not to detract from the real unity of the 
 whole '."
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 89 
 
 " Granted." 
 
 " And this one church composed of many particular 
 churches is the church and the only church our Lord 
 founded ? " 
 
 "It is." 
 
 " And it is widely different from such a church as the 
 Roman claims to be ? " 
 
 " Certainly it is." 
 
 " Then you simply deny that our Lord ever founded such 
 a church as the Roman claims to be, and merely reiterate 
 the plea you have withdrawn." 
 
 " I do not care for that ; I am not to be tied down by 
 your arbitrary rules of special pleading. The church of 
 Rome was once pure. She then belonged to the church of 
 God ; she is now corrupt, and has forfeited her title. I do 
 not say her title to be such a church as she pretends to be, 
 but to be an integral part of the church of God." 
 
 " She has degenerated from her original purity, and is 
 now a corrupt church ? " 
 
 " That is what I allege." 
 
 " But she is in possession as the pure and authoritative 
 church of God, and the burden of proof that she is corrupt 
 is on you." 
 
 " I accept it, and am ready to prove her corruption." 
 
 "Corruption implies a change from a former or primi- 
 tive state. You must know that state, or you cannot know 
 that she is corrupt." 
 
 •• She has corrupted the word of God; she teaches the 
 commandments of men for the pure word ; and has so dis- 
 figured the original gospel of our Lord, that it can be no 
 longer recognized in her teachings." 
 
 " That is for you to prove." 
 
 "1 am ready to prove it. Indeed, it needs no proof. It 
 is notorious. The world admits it. She has become a sink 
 of corruption ; is full of all manner of uncleanness and 
 filth." 
 
 ""Words, brother; mere words. Pause a moment and 
 take breath, and thru proceed to the proof. When yon tell 
 me the Catholic Church is corrupt, has degenerated, yon as- 
 Bume a primitive Btate from which she has fallen ; and it is 
 only l»v comparing her presenl Btate with thai primitive 
 state, that you can determine thai Bhe lias fallen from it. 
 What, then, was that primitive state I " 
 
 " I can show what it was from the Scriptures."
 
 <)0 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " They are not in your possession. You are not their 
 legal keeper, and have no authority to expound their sense. 
 You can therefore make no appeal to them against the 
 church who is in possession, and has, presumptively, the 
 sole right to interpret them. She interprets them in her 
 favor, and you are bound to presume her interpretations to 
 be correct, till you can prove by a competent authority to 
 the contrary. This competent authority you are not; for, 
 on any conceivable hypothesis, at the very worst her au- 
 thority is as good as yours can be at the very best. You 
 must get a commission, or at least a jpresum.ptive commis- 
 sion, from Almighty God, as the legal keeper and ex- 
 pounder of the Sacred Scriptures, before you can prove 
 any thing from them but your own arrogance and impu- 
 dence." 
 
 " I can prove from the early fathers that the primitive 
 church was essentially different from the present Romish 
 Church/' 
 
 " That is, you can prove it from early tradition ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " But the church is in possession as the keeper and ex- 
 pounder of primitive tradition, as well as of the Sacred Script- 
 ures. She interprets it in her own favor, and from it proves 
 that she conforms perfectly to the primitive model." 
 
 " But she misinterprets the fathers." 
 
 " As a matter of fact, it is undeniable that the fathers 
 may without violence be interpreted as she interprets them, 
 and that she rightly interprets them is to be presumed, till 
 the contrary is shown. Moreover, as her authority as the 
 interpreter of primitive tradition, or of the fathers, is at the 
 worst equal to yours at the best, you have and can have no 
 sufficient authority for setting her interpretation aside. So 
 the appeal to primitive tradition will avail you no more than 
 the appeal to the Scriptures; and the fact that you have no 
 authority to declare the sense of either debars you from all 
 right to appeal to either against what she declares to be 
 their sense." 
 
 " But she has corrupted the primitive faith." 
 
 " You cannot say that, unless you are authorized to say 
 
 what the primitive faith was. She has presumptively the 
 
 right to declare that faith, and she declares that it was what 
 
 now teaches, and therefore she declares that she has not 
 
 corrupted it. You are bound to presume that she has not, 
 
 : must prove that she has, before you can use an argu-
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 91 
 
 ment which assumes that she has. But what was the 
 original faith which she has corrupted ? " 
 
 " There is a great number of doctrines which she has cor- 
 rupted. It is not necessary to mention all. Take, for in- 
 stance, the doctrine of justification. The primitive doc- 
 trine was, that man is justified by faith alone; the Romish 
 doctrine is, that man is justified by works." 
 
 "The Catholic doctrine is, that man is justified by faith 
 and works, meaning thereby works done through grace 
 purchased for us by the merits of our Lord ; but on what 
 authority do you assert that the primitive doctrine was, that 
 man is justified bv faith alone ? 
 
 " The Holy Scriptures." 
 
 " On what authority do you assert that the Holy Script- 
 ures teach it ? " 
 
 11 Why, they teach it." 
 
 " You either have authority for saying so, or you have 
 not. But you have not, as is certain from the fact that you 
 have no authority to keep and expound the Scriptures. 
 Then you say it without authority. An assertion made 
 without any authority is worthless, and not to be enter- 
 tained. Here is the answer to every instance of corruption 
 of doctrine you do or can allege. In confessing the falli- 
 bility of your sect, you have confessed that you have no 
 authority from God to teach his word. Then you have no 
 authority for declaring what was the primitive faith, and 
 then none for saying that the church has corrupted it." 
 
 "But the Romish Church has forfeited her title to be 
 considered the church of God by authorizing superstition 
 and idolatry, for evidently no church that authorizes these 
 c;in bo the church of God." 
 
 "That is something to your purpose, and you will be en- 
 titled to a judgment, if the evidence sustains you. You 
 take dow the only ground from which you can legitimately 
 frame an argument against the church. Every previous 
 ground you have taken has been untenable, because it re- 
 quired the authority to maintain it which you were contest- 
 ing, and which you had not and were obliged to presume 
 to be in the church herself. STou undertook to prosecute 
 
 her under the law of grace, and tailed for the want of a 
 Court of competent jurisdiction. As she is presumptively 
 the Bupreme court, under the law of grace, you could under 
 thai law institute qo pr against ber: lor to every alle- 
 gation you could in bad only to plead want of juris-
 
 92 
 
 THE TWO BUOTIIKRS. 
 
 diction. The only possible way of prosecuting her is under 
 the law of nature, and it is only by proving her to have 
 violated some precept of that law, that you can obtain 
 judgment against her. The law of nature falls, to some ex- 
 tent, under the jurisdiction of reason, and reason, to that 
 extent, is its legal keeper and judge, and has the right to sit 
 in judgment on its infractions. As the law of nature and 
 that of grace both have the same origin, are enacted by the 
 same sovereign Lawgiver, and as the latter confessedly pre- 
 supposes the former and confirms it, it can never authorize 
 what the former prohibits, any more than the former can 
 authorize what the latter prohibits, unless we may suppose, 
 what is not supposable, that God may be in contradiction 
 with himself. The law of grace transcends the law of 
 nature, but does not and cannot enjoin what it forbids. As 
 superstition and idolatry are undeniably forbidden by the law 
 of nature, if you prove that they are authorized, or in any 
 sense sanctioned, by the church, you prove that she is not 
 and cannot be the church of God. But she does not 
 authorize or sanction them ; she strictly forbids them. 
 Thus, in her catechism for children she teaches the child to 
 ask and answer : — 
 
 " ' Wliai is forbidden by this [the first] commandment t 
 
 " ' To worship false gods or idols; or to give any thing else whatsoever 
 the honor which belongs to God. 
 
 " ' What else is forbidden by this commandment? 
 
 " ' All false religions; all dealings with the devil; and inquiring after 
 things to come, or secret things, by fortune-tellers or superstitious prac- 
 tices. 
 
 " • What else? 
 
 " ' All charms, spells, and heathenish observation of omens, dreams, 
 and such like fooleries. 
 
 " ' Does this commandment forbid the making of images? 
 
 " ' It forbids making them so as to adore them; that is, it forbids mak- 
 ing them our gods. 
 
 " ' Does this commandment forbid all honor and veneration of saints and 
 angels ? 
 
 " ' No, we are to honor them as God's special friends and servants; but 
 not with the honor which belongs to God. 
 
 " ' And is it allowable to Jtonor relics, crucifixes, and holy pictures? 
 
 " ' Yes; with an inferior and relative honor, as they relate to Christ 
 and his saints, and are memorials of them. 
 
 ' ' ' May we, tlien, pray to relfcs and images ? 
 
 " ' No, by no means; for they have no life or sense to hear or help 
 us.'
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 93 
 
 Here is evidence enough that the church denies your charge. 
 The burden of proof is on you, and you must prove her guilty 
 of superstition and idolatry." 
 
 " And I am ready to prove it. The reformers charged her 
 with idolatry, and we have never ceased from their day to 
 reiterate the charge." 
 
 " But a lie, though a million of times repeated, is none the 
 less a lie. Nobody disputes that Protestants have accused 
 the church of idolatry, but that is not to the purpose. You 
 must prove your allegation." 
 
 " Why, you might as well ask me to prove that there is a 
 sun in trie heavens. All the world knows that the church 
 of Rome is sunk in the grossest idolatry and the foulest super- 
 stition." 
 
 " "Words, words, brother ; give me the proofs." 
 
 " Proofs ! you need no proofs. The fact is undeniable, and 
 nothing but the grossest impudence on the part of the Rom- 
 ish Church could ever dream of denying it." 
 
 " No advance in the argument, brother. Have you yet to 
 learn that the unsupported assertions of a man who admits 
 that he speaks without authority are not proofs ? Here is 
 the church, on the one hand, teaching her children, in the 
 very first lessons she teaches them, to abhor idols and all 
 superstitious practices ; and here are you, on the other, accus- 
 ing her of superstition, and that worst and most abominable 
 species of superstition, idolatry, — she in possession and to be 
 presumed to be the church of God, and you presumptively 
 a rebel against God, and a calumniator, till you make good 
 your charge. Prove, then, the charge, or withdraw it. 
 
 " The reformers proved it, the greatest and best of our 
 writers have asserted it ; it is a question settled, res adjudi- 
 cata. Has it not entered into history ? Do you not read it 
 in the very elementary books for children? Look at the 
 
 freat and enlightened State of Massachusetts! she prohibits 
 y law all sectarianism in her admirable system of schools, 
 and the introduction into them of any books which show any 
 
 preference for one religions denomination over another ; and 
 v<t she does not hesitate to permit the introduction of hooks 
 whirl: teach that Papists arc idolaters and image-worshippers. 
 
 Have we not, in every land where W6 have had the power, 
 
 prohibited the Romish worship 9 Wny. have we, the only 
 friends of religions liberty, why have we who have poured 
 out onr treasure and onr blood to redeem the world from papal 
 
 tyranny ami superstition, why have W6 done this, but for the
 
 1)4 TIIE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 reason that we have not dared tolerate superstition and idol- 
 atry ? " 
 
 " Why did the Jews, God's chosen people, through whom 
 the Messiah was to come, and who were hourly expecting 
 him and praying for his coming, crucify him between two 
 thieves when he did come, but on the pretext that he had a 
 devil and was a blasphemer ? Did the fact that they falsely 
 accused him, and then crucified him on that false accusation, 
 supported by false witnesses, render them the less guilty ? " 
 
 "Do you mean to say that so many great and good men, 
 so many pure and holy men, the glory of their age, their 
 country, and their religion, have all conspired to bear false 
 witness against the Romish Church ? The thing is incred- 
 ible." 
 
 " More so than that the Jewish nation conspired to crucify 
 their God ? I know nothing about your great and good men, 
 your pure and holy men ; but I know that whoever accuses 
 the church of idolatry, or any species of superstition, utters 
 as foul a lie as did the wicked Jews who told our Lord he 
 had a devil, and that he blasphemed. No doubt, it is an easy 
 matter to prove the church guilty, if all you have to do is to 
 bring a false accusation, assume your own sanctity, and then 
 conclude it must be well founded or you coula not have 
 made it. But your logic would be more respectable, if from 
 the falsity of your accusation you concluded your want of 
 sanctity. If the character of Protestants is a presumption 
 against their conspiracy to bring a false accusation, the char- 
 acter of Catholics is a still stronger presumption against their 
 having conspired to uphold and practise idolatry ; for the 
 great and pure and holy men who have lived and died in the 
 Catholic faith, granting you all you can pretend to, are as a 
 thousand to one to those of Protestant communions. But you 
 forget that I was brought up a Protestant, and that to talk 
 to me of Protestant sanctity is ridiculous. I am acquainted 
 with Protestants, and with what they facetiously call their 
 religion. Our dear mother, too, was brought up a Protestant, 
 a Presbyterian, and yet what did she tell me on her death- 
 bed ? " 
 
 "What did she?" 
 
 " No matter now ; but she did not die a Presbyterian." 
 
 " Did not ? What mean you ? " 
 
 " Some day, I may tell you, but you are not now worthy 
 to hear." 
 
 " Did my father know ? "
 
 THE TWO BROTHEES. 95- 
 
 " As much as you, and no more." 
 
 " Did anybody know, but yourself ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Do you mean to insinuate that a Popish priest was smug- 
 gled into our house ? " 
 
 " O my wise brother, you do not know all things. Angels 
 of mercy, messengers of grace, are sometimes sent even where 
 the ministers of Satan fancy they do and can find no admis- 
 sion. All things are possible with God, and nothing is too 
 good for him to do for those who are obedient to his grace." 
 
 " Am I to understand that my mother on her death-bed 
 renounced Presbyterianism, and became a Papist ? " 
 
 " She did not die a Presbyterian. You may recollect, that 
 during the last week of her life she refused to see Mr. Grim- 
 face, her old Presbyterian pastor." 
 
 " True, and my father and I thought it strange ; but as we 
 had no doubt of her being one of the elect, it gave us no- 
 great uneasiness. But there was no Romish priest within 
 two hundred miles of us." 
 
 " I have no doubt that my mother died in a state of grace ; 
 but more I will not tell you, till you prove or withdraw your 
 charge against the church." 
 
 " But why did not our mother tell us all, as well as you, of 
 her apostasy ? " 
 
 " She knew both your father and you, and that, if she had 
 told you, she would have been denied the last consolations 
 of religion ; and after she had received them, there was no 
 opportunity, till she became unable to do so. But your 
 charge, — prove or withdraw it." 
 
 " I will prove it, but you must excuse me now. Our con- 
 versation has been Long, and I am fatigued. But to-morrow, 
 God willing, I will prove that the Ilomish Church is an idola- 
 trous ehureh." 
 
 " lie it so. But remember and prove it, or I shall require 
 you to own that Protestantism " 
 
 " Is of tin-, devil. 1 accept the alternative. If I fail to 
 
 ilili li the charge of idolatry and superstition against the 
 
 Romish ( Ihurch, I will consent that the reformers be branded 
 
 as calumniators, and that Protei tanl 3 are and have been from 
 the fir-t acting Under the delusion of Satan." 
 
 u Bee thai \ on keep your word.' 1 
 
 The brother separated for the remainder of the day, and 
 
 James, though pleading fatigue, betook himself to his library 
 
 to look up hi. proofs and prepare for the morrow, lie felt
 
 M 
 
 1TIE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 that all depended on the issue he had joined, and that, if he 
 failed to justify his charge, he could no longer pretend to up- 
 hold the reformers. Hitherto his brother had kept him dis- 
 cussing the law of the case ; but now he thought he saw a 
 chance of entering upon its merits, and of introducing his 
 witnesses. How he succeeded will be related in the next 
 chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " You will bear in mind, James," remarked John, on re- 
 suming the conversation the next day, " that you have pledg- 
 ed yourself to prove that the Catholic Church authorizes 
 superstition and idolatry." 
 
 " And if I do not prove it," replied James, " I will aban- 
 don the reformers and the reformation." 
 
 " Since you prefer the charge, it devolves on you to prove 
 it." 
 
 " That is not difficult. The fact is notorious." 
 
 "Assertions are easily made by the unscrupulous, my 
 brother ; but I ask for proofs." 
 
 " Proofs, proofs ! I have them in abundance. "What else 
 are your prayers for the dead, — your invocation of saints, — 
 your worship of Mary, — adoration of crucifixes, pictures, 
 images, relics of dead men and women ? What is all this, 
 but the most abominable idolatry and superstition ? What 
 else is your adoration of the mass, and all the vain and emp- 
 ty ceremonies of your church ? O, it is frightful to think to 
 what horrible lengths idolatry and superstition are carried 
 among you ! What more besotted, than for a full-grown 
 man to believe that the priest can make his God at will, to fall 
 down and adore a bit of bread, or to imagine that he is wor- 
 shipping God by kissing the crucifix and telling his beads ? 
 I hope, John, you, at least, avoid the superstitious practice 
 of telling your beads." 
 
 " I say my beads daily for your conversion." 
 
 " That is enough ; my charge is proved. When a man 
 like you can do that, there is no need of other evidence to 
 prove that your church favors superstition." 
 
 " It requires strong faith, no doubt, to be able to regard 
 your conversion as possible ; but all things are possible with 
 God, and he has never been known to deny his holy Mother 
 any request, for she can request nothing not in accordance 
 
 Vol. VI— 22
 
 THE TWO BIIOTIIEES. 97 
 
 •with his will. If she intercedes for you, your conversion is 
 certain." 
 
 " Worse and worse. Tou confess all I need to prove my 
 charge." 
 
 " Did you ever read the record of the trial of our Lord ? " 
 
 "Why do you ask that?" 
 
 " Because you remind me of his accusers, who pretended 
 to convict him of blasphemy out of his own mouth. Yet it is 
 nothing strange or uncommon for children to resemble their 
 parents. You say the church is superstitious ? " 
 
 " The Bomish Church, yes ; and I prove it." 
 
 "What is superstition?" 
 
 " A spurious religion or false worship ; a false system of 
 religion, credulity, vain observance." 
 
 "You would hardly be able to convict the church, or to 
 attempt to convict her, of superstition, under that definition, 
 without assuming that you have authority to determine, or by 
 which you can determine, what is true religion ; which we 
 have seen is not the fact. Allow me to suggest a definition 
 a little more to your purpose. Superstition is a vice opposed 
 to true religion, as the schoolmen say, by way of excess, as 
 irreligion is opposed to it by way of defect, and consists in 
 rendering worship to an object to which it is not due, or an 
 undue worship to the object to which it is due. It is, 
 on the one hand, the worship of false gods, and, on the oth- 
 er, the false worship of the true God, and includes all you 
 mean by both superstition and idolatry." 
 
 "Very well ; I say the Romish Church is guilty of super- 
 stition in the -in-'' in which you have defined the term. 
 
 " Superstition, in this sense, divides itself into the worship 
 of false gods, and the false worship of the true God. It will 
 In- well to consider each division separately. Let us begin 
 with the first, that is, idolatry, or giving the worship due to 
 to that which is QOl God; or, in other words, wor- 
 shipping as God what is not God." 
 
 i> Phe Romish Church worships as God what is not God." 
 
 "The proof?" 
 
 '• she paya divine worship to the Virgin Mary." 
 
 "The proof!" 
 
 "She authorizes prayers to her." 
 
 " Nonsen •• '. prayer la nothing but a request or a petition, 
 and may withoul sin or impropriety be addressed by one man 
 to another. X"ou might as well say, the constitution of the 
 United States authorizes idolatry, because it recognizes the
 
 98 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 right of petition, and forbids congress to make any law pro- 
 hibiting the people from peaceably assembling and petition- 
 ing for a redress of grievances. As well say, every subject 
 wno petitions the king, or citizen who petitions the court or 
 the legislature, is an idolater. Try again, brother." 
 
 " Your church honors her, a mere woman, as the mother 
 of God." 
 
 " Well, if she is the mother of God, where is the harm in 
 that, since it is only honoring her for what she is ? " 
 
 " But she is not the mother of God." 
 
 " That is for you to prove. You must remember, how- 
 ever, that you are to convict the church of idolatry by the 
 light of nature, and you can in your argument deny nothing 
 the church teaches, unless it is forbidden by the natural law. 
 Assuming the Blessed "Virgin to be the mother of God, — 
 as she must be, if Christ is God, — does the law of nature for- 
 bid her from being honored as such ? This is the question." 
 
 " The law of nature, which, as you have agreed, forbids 
 idolatry, forbids her being honored as God." 
 
 " Unquestionably ; but does it forbid her being honored 
 for what she is ? " 
 
 " But Catholics worship her as divine, and pay her the 
 worship which is due to God alone." 
 
 "The proof?" 
 
 " They call her our Advocate, our Mediatrix, and thus rob 
 Christ of the glory which is his due ; for he is the only Me- 
 diator between God and men." 
 
 " The only mediator and advocate, in his own right ; but, 
 for aught the law of nature says, his mother may be an advo- 
 cate and a mediatrix under him, by his will and appointment ; 
 for she would then advocate or mediate only by his author- 
 ity, and he would still be our only advocate and mediator, — 
 since that which I do mediately by another, as my minis- 
 ter or delegate, I do myself as much as if I did it immedi- 
 ately. These terms, applied to the Blessed Virgin, no doubt 
 imply that she is exalted above every other creature ; but as 
 her exaltation is that of a creature, and an exaltation not by 
 her own natural right, but by grace, it by no means places 
 her in the same rank with her Son, who is exalted above 
 every creature, by his own right, the right of his own proper 
 divinity which assumed humanity." 
 
 " But Catholics pray to her much more than they do to 
 God." 
 
 " That may be questioned ; but if so, it is nothing to your
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 99 
 
 purpose. Ton must prove that they praj to her as God, ask 
 of her what may be rightfully asked only of God, and that 
 they pay her honors which are due to him alone." 
 
 " They pray to her to have mercy on them, and mercy is 
 the prerogative of God alone." 
 
 " Mercy, in the sense of pardon or forgiveness of sin, is 
 the property of God only ; aud in this sense, Catholics never 
 ask the Blessed Virgin to have mercy on them. But mercy, 
 in the sense of pity or compassion, belongs to human beings. 
 Thus we say, ' The merciful man is merciful to his beast.' 
 To ask the Blessed Virgin to have compassion on us, and to 
 intercede with her divine Son for us, to obtain his pardon for 
 us by her powerful intercession, is nothing more than we 
 may lawfully ask of our pastors, — nothing more than what 
 the Scriptures say the Lord commanded the three friends of 
 Job to do." 
 
 " The worship which Catholics pay to the saints in gener- 
 al is idolatry." 
 
 " The highest form of worship we pay to any saint is that 
 which we pay to the holy Mother of God. If that is not 
 idolatrous, then, a fortiori^ not that which we pay to the 
 other saints." 
 
 " But you honor the saints." 
 
 " And what do you conclude from that ? Does not the 
 law of nature command us to give honor to whom honor is 
 due? What authority have you for supposing that we pay 
 undue honor to the saints?" 
 
 "To honor them as God, in the place of God, is to give 
 them an honor which is not their due, and is idolatry." 
 
 " Granted ; but who so honors them?" 
 
 "Catholic " 
 
 "The proof?" 
 
 " Catholics may not honor them as the Supreme God ; but 
 tin y honor them as a species of inferior gods, as the Dii 
 Mtnoret of the heathen. 
 
 "The proof 1" 
 
 " The Eact is evident of itself." 
 
 " Not by any means. The honors the heathen paid to 
 their inferior gode were different in Kind from those which 
 we pay to the aints, and, moreover, were paid as due them 
 
 In their own natural right, and i due only to what 
 
 they became through grace. The heathen offered sacrifices, 
 
 and therefore paid (twine honors, tO their interior gods. 
 
 Catholics offer no sacrifices and pay no divine honors to the
 
 100 TIIE TWO BROTHERS- 
 
 saints ; they venerate them for what, through grace, they 
 became, and they ask their prayers and intercession, which 
 is no more than we may ask of the living, and is no more 
 than your parishioners not unfrequently ask of yon, — no 
 more than you sanction whenever you pray God for your 
 congregation, or for an individual who has requested to be 
 remembered in your prayers." 
 
 " But you have no warrant in Scripture for praying to 
 the saints." 
 
 " That were nothing to the purpose, if true. You bring 
 your action on the law of nature ; and when you find that 
 under the law of nature you have no cause of action, you 
 are not at liberty to plead some other law. If praying to 
 the saints is not idolatry by the law of nature, you cannot 
 allege it under the head of idolatry, against the church." 
 
 "But, unless the church has a warrant in the word of 
 God for praying to the saints, she has no right to pray to 
 them." 
 
 " And unless it is forbidden by some precept of the law 
 of nature, you cannot deny her right." 
 
 " The Romish Church worships crosses, dead men's bones, 
 locks of their hair, their finger-nails, and shreds of their 
 garments." 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 " Then she is idolatrous ; for we must worship God, and 
 him only." 
 
 " Worship is a word of more than one meaning ; it may 
 mean paying divine honors, and also simply paying a civil 
 respect, honoring or acknowledging worth wherever we 
 find it. In the former sense, it is due to God alone, and is 
 by Catholics paid to him alone, and never to the objects 
 you enumerate. In the latter sense, it may be paid, and the 
 law of nature requires that it should be paid, to kings, 
 judges, magistrates, to our parents, and to whosoever by 
 rank or worth is entitled to honor. In this sense, the law 
 of nature not only does not forbid, but commands us to 
 honor or to treat with respect such objects as are related to 
 eminent worth. To honor crosses and relics of the saints, 
 for the worth to which they are related, is, then, in accord- 
 ance with the law of nature, and it is only in this sense that 
 we honor, respect, or, if you please, worship them." 
 
 " But you do not honor them merely as memorials of a 
 worth which was real ; you pay them divine honors." 
 "False!"
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 101 
 
 "Not false. Witness the Holy Coat of Treves." 
 
 "What of that?" 
 
 " Multitudes, in the recent pilgrimage to it, prayed to it, 
 saying, ' O Holy Coat, have mercy on us I '" 
 
 " The evidence of what you assert ? " 
 
 " It is said so." 
 
 " By whom, and on what authority ? n 
 
 "Do you deny it?" 
 
 " Deny it ? Do you suppose Catholics are so besotted as 
 to pray to what has no life, no sense, no power to help them, 
 and that, too, when their church, as I showed you yester- 
 day, positively prohibits praying to relics? The thing is 
 impossible ; no Catholic ever did, or ever could, utter such 
 a prayer. You must not judge our people by your own. 
 We preserve, and we honor, the relics of departed saints ; 
 they remind us of the worth of the saints ; and when they 
 do so, we pray to the saints to pray God for us, and procure 
 for us the graces and favors we need. What precept of the 
 law of nature does this violate?" 
 
 " Why not pray directly to God ? " 
 
 u That question is out of place. Why do you ask a fel- 
 low-mortal to pray for you ? Why do you pray and inter- 
 cede for your congregation ? " 
 
 " But you are idolaters, for you worship images." 
 
 " If by worship you mean paying divine honors, your as- 
 sertion is false." 
 
 " Your houses and churches are full of images and pic- 
 tures, and you kneel and pray to them." 
 
 " Kneel and pray before them, I grant ; kneel and pray 
 to them, I deny. There is a difference between praying 
 "before an image and praying to it, which I should suppose 
 even ;i i 'rotestant might understand." 
 
 " But you break the second commandment ; and that your 
 dclum-d followers may not detect the fact, you have ex- 
 punged it from the Decalogue." 
 
 u We do not expunge what you call the second command- 
 ment; we only reckon it as a part of the first command- 
 ment." 
 
 M Nevertheless you break it, for it says, 'Thou shalt not 
 make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any 
 thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, 
 or that i;5 in the water under the earth.'" 
 
 "< (raven thing t not graven image, is the correct transla- 
 tion, ami more to your purpose; otherwise the precept
 
 102 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 would not forbid making statues of Jupiter, Neptune, and 
 other purely fictitious beings. But do you understand that 
 precept to forbid absolutely the making and keeping of 
 images, statues, or pictures ? " 
 
 " Of course I do ; I am not wise above what is written." 
 
 " Nobody asks you to be wise above what is written ; the 
 question is, What is written ? Then I am to understand 
 you to maintain that Moses broke that commandment when 
 he made and set up the brazen serpent in the wilderness ; 
 that Solomon broke it when he placed the brazen sea in the 
 temple on twelve brazen oxen; that it was broken by the 
 images of the Cherubim, who spread out their wings over 
 the mercy-seat where God promised to meet his people ; 
 that our stern Puritans of Massachusetts break it by sus- 
 pending the image of a codfish in their State House ; that 
 Congress break it in ordering a statue of Washington ; and 
 that it is broken by that dog's head carved on your cane, 
 and those lion's claws on the feet of your table ? " 
 
 " No, I do not say all that." 
 
 " Well, what do you say ? " 
 
 " Why, that the commandment forbids the making and 
 keeping of images, &c, as objects of religious veneration." 
 
 " That is, ' Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them,' 
 or, as the catechism says, ' It forbids making them, so as to 
 adore and serve them ; that is, it forbids making them our 
 gods.' " 
 
 " But the Romish Church commands, you cannot deny, 
 supreme religious worship to be paid to what you call tne 
 sacred Host. 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 " Then she is idolatrous ; for she commands her children 
 to pay divine honors to a bit of bread." 
 
 " False ! She commands no such thing. She commands 
 us to worship Jesus Christ, who is God and man, entitled 
 in his own right to supreme worship, and who veils his di- 
 vinity and his humanity both under the sacramental species. 
 It is not the bread, for she teaches there is no bread there, 
 but the Son who is consubstantial to the Father, and whom 
 we are to honor as we honor the Father, that she commands 
 us to adore. There is, then, no idolatry in the adoration." 
 
 "But her teaching is false, — the Host is nothing but 
 bread." 
 
 " That is a matter which you, by the light of nature, can- 
 not decide."
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 103 
 
 " But she must prove to me that it is not bread, before I 
 can be bound to adore it." 
 
 " Undoubtedly ; but you must prove that it is bread, be- 
 fore you can pronounce the adoration idolatrous." 
 
 " But I have the evidence of my senses that it is bread." 
 " You have the evidence of your senses that the species 
 of bread are there, and that the church asserts ; but that, 
 under the species of bread, there is the substance of bread, 
 you have not the evidence of your senses ; for the senses 
 never, in any case whatever, take cognizance of substances. 
 You have, therefore, the evidence of your senses against 
 nothing the church asserts. Consequently, by the light of 
 nature alone, you can neither affirm nor deny what she as- 
 serts ; and unless you can deny it, you cannot say that the 
 adoration of the Host is idolatrous. If what she teaches be 
 true, the adoration is due, and commanded by the natural 
 law, which commands us to give to every one his due. 
 Have you any thing more to adduce in support of the 
 charge of idolatry ? " 
 
 " Perhaps it is true that Catholics worship, in the strict 
 sense of the word, only God ; but, though they may wor- 
 ship the true object, they render him a false worship." 
 " That is, they worship him in an undue manner." 
 "Yes, that is what I mean." 
 
 "To be able to say that, you must first determine t\\edue 
 manner of worshipping him. But you cannot do this with- 
 out authority, and you have, as we have seen, no authority, 
 except the light of nature. Are you able by the light of 
 nature alone to determine what is the due worship of 
 God?" 
 
 "I am able, in -nine cases, at least, by the light of nature, 
 to say what is not due worship." 
 
 " Be il BO; what is there, then, in Catholic worship for- 
 bidden by the law of nature?" 
 
 •All her peculiar worship, — her saint-worship, her ven- 
 eration of relics, her beads and crucifixes, her fasts and 
 feasts, her empty forms and idle ceremonies." 
 
 "Her empty forms and idle ceremonies) By what au- 
 thority do y"ii pronounce, her forms empty, and her cere- 
 monies idle i " 
 
 " Do yon deny thai her whole worship consists of empty 
 form i and idle oeremonie 1 " 
 
 "Of course I do. Bui I »• so good as to specify what you 
 call an empty form, Or an [die ceremony."
 
 104 
 
 TUB TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 " The light of nature teaches us that God is not wor- 
 shipped by mere show, by vain pomp and parade, and that 
 no worship can be acceptable to him which is not real, in 
 spirit and in truth." 
 
 " Granted ; proceed.' 1 
 
 " Your bowings and genuflections, your fasts and your 
 feasts, are a vain mockery, if merely external, and the heart 
 be far from God." 
 
 " No doubt of it ; proceed." 
 
 " Confessions to a priest, external acts of penance, the 
 repetition of paters and aves, and even the giving of alms, 
 are vain illusions, and have no power to purge the con- 
 science, if there be not genuine repentance, deep and pun- 
 gent sorrow for sin." 
 
 " Nothing in the world more true ; proceed." 
 
 " The heart must be right ; there must be internal holi- 
 ness, or all our outward worship will avail us nothing." 
 
 " As true as preaching. Go on." 
 
 " This is enough. In conceding this much, you condemn 
 your church." 
 
 " How so ? " 
 
 " Because all she enjoins is outward, formal, mechanical, 
 addressed to the senses and imagination, requiring no inter- 
 nal purity and holiness in the worshipper." 
 
 " And where did you learn that ? " 
 
 " Is it not so ? " 
 
 " What proof have you that it is so ? " 
 
 " It is what the reformers and we have always alleged 
 against her." 
 
 " If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, 
 how much more them of his household ! I have not asked 
 what you allege, but the proof of what you allege, against 
 the church." 
 
 " Do you mean to call all Protestants false witnesses and 
 calumniators ? " 
 
 " Is it more unreasonable to believe them to be such, than 
 it is to believe that the overwhelming majority of all who 
 bear the Christian name, or have borne it, have, for eigh- 
 teen hundred years, or from the very age of the apostles, 
 been sunk in superstition, and guilty of the abominable sin 
 of idolatry ? It seems to me much easier to believe that a 
 Protestant can calumniate than that a Catholic can be an 
 idolater; and in so believing, I believe nothing worse of 
 you than you profess to believe of us."
 
 TIIE TWO BEOTHERS. 105 
 
 " What else can one see in your worship than mere out- 
 ward form ? " 
 
 " What else should you expect to see in external worship 
 but external worship ? External is by its very nature ex- 
 ternal ; and I am unable to comprehend how the church 
 should have an external worship, and yet not an external 
 worship. But if you had ever taken the least pains to in- 
 form yourself, you would have known that the church 
 teaches all her children that no external act, which does not 
 proceed from internal justice and sanctity, is, or can be, 
 meritorious." 
 
 " Tou rely on the sacraments." 
 
 " Well, what then ? " 
 
 " Are they not outward ? " 
 
 " Are they not inward ? " 
 
 " Does not the church teach that the child is regenerated 
 in baptism ? " 
 
 " She does." 
 
 " And it is no superstition to believe that a little water 
 poured upon the head of the child, and a few words mut- 
 tered over him by the priest, can regenerate the soul ? " 
 
 " If you make the water and the words the efficient cause 
 of the regeneration, it is unquestionably superstition, for 
 none but the Holy Ghost can regenerate the child ; but if 
 you understand by the water and the words simply the me- 
 dium through which the Holy Ghost is pleased to communi- 
 cate the grace which regenerates, there is no superstition ; 
 for the cause assigned is adequate to the effect. The church 
 teaches the latter ; the former is the vain fancy of her ca- 
 lumniators." 
 
 "If it is the Holy Ghost that regenerates, why can he not 
 regenerate without the water and words as well as with 
 them ? " 
 
 "That is a question which dons not fall within the iuris- 
 dictfon of tin- law of nature. You and I have no right to 
 call Almighty <iod to an account, and to ask him, Why do 
 yon M V 
 
 " But how dons the church know that the Holy Ghost re- 
 generates in baptism I " 
 
 " That is a question which pertains to positive revelation, 
 and not to the natural law. Tin; revelation is her authority 
 fur what she t Bits, concerning which, if it do not contra- 
 dict natural reason, tin' natural law enacts nothing." 
 
 " There are other sacraments."
 
 106 TnE TWO BllOTHERS. 
 
 " Certainly ; but all are founded on the same principle, and 
 are not the efficient cause of grace, but the media through 
 which the Holy Ghost communicates the graces which our 
 Lord, by his own infinite merits, has purchased for us." 
 
 " But anybody can receive the sacrament, whatever his 
 internal disposition ; and the efficacy of the sacrament does 
 not depend on the recipient." 
 
 " Anybody can receive the sacrament externally ; but no- 
 body can receive any spiritual benefit from it, unless he re- 
 ceives it with proper internal dispositions. He who should 
 approach the sacrament of penance, for instance, without all 
 you understand by repentance, would, instead of receiving 
 the fruits of the sacrament, only profane it, and add to his 
 guilt. In the sacrament of the Eucharist, he who eats or 
 drinks unworthily eats and drinks condemnation to himself. 
 The efficacy of the sacrament does not, indeed, depend on 
 the recipient ; but that the recipient may experience its effects, 
 or that it may operate its effects in him, he must take care 
 that he interpose by his malice no obstacle to its opera- 
 
 " But what is the use of your saint- worship ? " 
 
 " That is not precisely the question." 
 
 " The worship, if useless, is idle or vain, and therefore 
 superstitious. You must, then, prove that it is not useless, 
 or you do not clear your church of the charge of supersti- 
 tion." 
 
 " You must prove from the light of nature that it is use- 
 less, or you do not sustain your charge against her. You 
 bring the action, and the burden of proof is on you." 
 
 " I accuse the church of superstition ; and I adduce as 
 proof of my accusation the worship of the saints, which she 
 authorizes." 
 
 " But you cannot adduce your accusation in proof of your 
 accusation. The cultus sanctorum is conceded to be author- 
 ized by the church, and the very point in dispute is, Whether 
 that is or is not superstitious. It is only on the assumption 
 that it is, that you can conclude from it that the church is 
 superstitious. To assume that it is superstitious is to assume 
 what is in question, which you are not permitted to do. You 
 must, therefore, since the point is denied, prove that the 
 cultus sanctorum is useless." 
 
 " Reason can see no use in it." 
 
 " That, if conceded, were not enough. You can conclude 
 nothing against the church from the inability of reason.
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 107 
 
 Reason must be able to affirm its inutility, or it can affirm 
 nothing to your purpose." 
 
 " But I must have affirmative proof that it is useful, before 
 I can reasonably assent to it." 
 
 " Nothing more true ; but the authority of the church suf- 
 fices for that, unless you can divest her of her authority. 
 You are attempting to convict the church of superstition, in 
 order to be able to conclude against her authority. You must, 
 then, prove that she authorizes superstition, as the condition 
 of setting aside her authority, and, therefore, that what she 
 authorizes is superstitious, as the condition of proving that 
 she authorizes superstition. It is, therefore, not for me to 
 prove that the cultus sanctorum is useful, but for you to prove 
 that it is useless, and therefore superstitious." 
 
 " It is an undue worship." 
 
 " That is the point you must prove." 
 
 " Any worship which God forbids, does not exact, or ap- 
 prove, is an undue worship, and therefore superstition." 
 
 " Granted ; what then ? " 
 
 1 ' What is your authority for saying that God does exact 
 or approve what you term the cultus sanctorum ? " 
 
 " I our memory is apparently very short. Let me ask you 
 by what authority you assert that God forbids it, or does not 
 exact or approve it." 
 
 " I find no authority for it in the Scriptures." 
 
 " That is not certain ; but you cannot appeal to the Script- 
 ures, for you have no legal possession of them and are not 
 authorized to interpret them, and because you bring your 
 action, not on the revealed, but on the natural law. Besides, 
 the fact that you find no authority for the cultus sanctorum 
 is not sufficient for your purpose ; you must have authority 
 agaimtA it, and you can conclude nothing against it, unless 
 you find it prohibited by the law of nature." 
 
 " I know, by the light of nature, that God does not exact 
 or approve, hut, forbids, all idle and vain worship." 
 
 "Undoubtedly ; hut what m idle and vain worship?" 
 
 "Tin- Romish worship of the saints*' 1 
 
 "That is begging the question, or making your accusation 
 the proof of the truth of your accusation, — the ordinary 
 Protestant method of proving what they assert against the 
 church. Bui proceeding in this way, we Bhall never be able 
 to come to any conclu don. [s notanyworship superstition-; 
 in which the worshipper looks for effects from inadequate 
 
 '■an -'■ - '. "
 
 108 THE TWO BKOTHER8. 
 
 " Perhaps 60." 
 
 " Thus it is superstition to fear bad luck because we have 
 seen the new moon over our left shoulder, or because we 
 have begun a piece of work, put to sea, or commenced a 
 journey on Friday ; to expect to discharge what we owe to 
 God by paying divine honors to what is not God, to please 
 him by vain observances, or to obtain blessings by means of 
 prayers to inanimate or senseless objects, — objects which 
 can neither bestow the blessings nor intercede with God for 
 them ; for in these, and all similar cases, the causes are in- 
 adequate to the effects. On the contrary, in all cases in 
 which the effects feared or expected are feared and expected 
 from adequate causes, although there may be error, there is no 
 superstition." 
 
 "Be it so." 
 
 " Then in order to convict the cultus sanctorum of super- 
 stition, you must show that the effects we expect from it are 
 expected from inadequate causes." 
 
 " That can easily be done. The saints cannot atone for 
 our sins, and be our mediators." 
 
 " Granted ; nor do we expect any thing of the sort from 
 them. All we ask of them is their prayers." 
 
 " Even that is superstitious, because the saints have na 
 power to hear your prayers or to pray for you." 
 
 " How know you that ? " 
 
 " They are no longer living." 
 
 " In tne flesh, conceded ; but the church assures us that 
 they still live in the presence of God, and if they do, they 
 can hear our prayers in him, and do for us all we ask of them ; 
 and how can you, from the light of nature, say they do not 
 so live % " 
 
 " Your veneration of relics is superstitious, for you ac- 
 knowledge that they have no life or sense to help you." 
 
 " We do not expect them to help us." 
 
 "Then the veneration is idle, and therefore supersti- 
 tious." 
 
 " In the respect we pay to the relics of a saint, it is the saint 
 we honor ; and whatever we expect, we expect from the in- 
 tercession of the saint, and through that intercession from 
 God, who is honored in his saints, and who himself delights 
 to honor them." 
 
 " But the superstition is in supposing that honoring the 
 relics is honoring the saint." 
 
 " The law of nature teaches the reverse ; for that teaches
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. 109 
 
 us that honor to what belonged to another, because it be- 
 longed to him, is a pious and affecting mode of honoring him. 
 Hence the universality of funeral ceremonies, the marks of 
 respect which all men show to the relics of their deceased 
 friends, especially to the remains of those held to be deserv- 
 ing of honor for their rank, their virtues, their services, their 
 heroic deeds ; and surely none are more deserving of honor 
 than the saints of God." 
 
 " Your feasts, fasts, and external observances are all super- 
 stitious." 
 
 " How do you prove that ? " 
 
 " They are all external and mechanical ; and to expect 
 spiritual effects from them is to look for effects from inad- 
 equate causes." 
 
 " The law of nature commands us to worship God exter- 
 nally as well as internally, and an external worship must needs 
 be external. The fact, that what you object to is external, is, 
 therefore, no ground of objection. Feasts or festivals are 
 merely days set apart for public thanksgiving to God for his 
 mercies and favors to us, in becoming man for us, in suffering 
 and dying for us, in rising again for us, in sending us the 
 Holy Ghost, in raising up and giving to us such or such a 
 saint, &c. If kept according to the intent of the church, 
 internal as well as external thanks are rendered by each wor- 
 shipper, and therefore the observance of the festival is not 
 and cannot be mechanical. The law of nature commands the 
 giving of thanks to God ; and perhaps even the mere ex- 
 ternal observance of appointed seasons for public thanksgiv- 
 ing is better than no observance at all. Fasts are for the 
 mortification of the body; they are admirably adapted to that 
 end ; and the light of nature teaches 08 thai the mortification 
 of the body is wholesome for the soul. Moreover, to fast, 
 as required, is also to fast with proper interior dispositions. 
 
 You cannot, then, say, either that in them then; is only a 
 
 mechanical action, or that wo look for effects from inadequate 
 causes." 
 
 " lint the wile ceremonies and vain observances of your 
 public wor hip ire nperstitious.' 1 
 
 " If i<lle and v.i in, snper tit ions of course ; bul how do you 
 
 know that they are idle and vain | Our public worship 
 
 consists of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. prayers, and sing- 
 ing the praisea Of God. These yon have no right to pro- 
 nounce idle or vain. Our sacrifice We hold to he a real sac- 
 rifice, in an nnbloody manner, of a real victim ; and prayers
 
 110 THE TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 and the singing of praises have, by the common consent of 
 mankind,— the authority for determining what is the law of 
 nature, — always been held to be appropriate parts of public 
 worship. Much of what you call idle ceremony and vain 
 observance is integral in the worship itself ; and what is not 
 absolutely essential is adopted for the sake of decency, solem- 
 nity, and the edification of the faithful." 
 
 " I am not edified by it." 
 
 " Because you are not one of the faithful, and do not wor- 
 ship. Satan, no doubt, could himself bring the objection 
 to our worship which you do. Our worship is adapted to 
 the edification of those who worship, not of those who do 
 not." 
 
 " But your worship is calculated to lead the weak and igno- 
 rant into idolatry and superstition." 
 
 " It will be time to consider that objection when you have 
 shown that a Catholic, by practising what the churcn enjoins 
 or permits, is rendered superstitious." 
 
 " Your worship is exceedingly offensive." 
 
 " To whom ? To Protestants ? Then let them become 
 Catholics, — especially since they have no warrant from Al- 
 mighty God to be any thing else." 
 
 " Your church is exceedingly impolitic. The practices to 
 which we object may have been very well in dark and super- 
 stitious ages ; but men in this enlightened and scientific age 
 demand a more pure and spiritual worship." 
 
 " The policy you would recommend to the church, then, 
 is, to be superstitious with the superstitious, and irreligious 
 with the irreligious ? If her practices could have a super- 
 stitious tendency, it is precisely in a dark and superstitious 
 age in which they would be dangerous, and when it would 
 be least proper to insist on them. If this age be what you 
 suppose, it is precisely now that they are most appropriate, 
 as being in opposition to dominant tendencies. But the 
 church is not reduced to the necessity of taking the advice 
 of those who despise her, and very possibly the age is not so 
 enlightened as it appears to those whose eyes are accustomed 
 only to the twilight. Have you any thing more to add ? " 
 
 " There is no use in continuing the discussion. Let me 
 say what I will, you will dispose of it by declaring it irrele- 
 vant, or by a sophistical distinction." 
 
 " Do you keep your word, and give up the reformers and 
 the reformation ? " 
 
 " You have not made me a Romanist."
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. HI 
 
 " I have not attempted to do that ; I have simply demanded 
 of you a reason why you are a Protestant." 
 
 " I have given you reasons which satisfy me, and that is 
 enough. Each of us must answer for himself, and not for 
 another." 
 
 " You pledged yourself, if you failed to convict the church 
 of idolatry and superstition, to give up the Protestant cause. 
 Do you regard yourself as having made out your case ? " 
 
 " There is no use in multiplying words. My mind is 
 made up." 
 
 " You have no right to make up your mind without rea- 
 son." 
 
 • My choice is made. I was born a Protestant; I have 
 lived a Protestant ; and I will die a Protestant." 
 
 "If you choose death, you, no doubt, can have it. Al- 
 mighty God forces no man to enter into life." 
 
 "I take the responsibility; and nothing shall move me." 
 
 Here the conversation ended, and the two brothers sep- 
 arated. John entered a religious house, where he resides, 
 devoting himself wholly to religion ; James remains the min- 
 r of his congregation. He has recently married again, 
 
 ; he appears to have forgotten his domestic afflictions. 
 II.- continues at the head of the "Protestant League," is 
 loud«-r than ever in praise of the reformers and the glorious 
 reform ind more violent than ever in his denunciations 
 
 of Catholics and Catholicity. Humanly speaking, there is 
 DO hope of his conversion. It is to he feared that -lames 
 Milwood is the type of a large class of Protestant ministers. 
 I would judge no individual, hut it seems to me that the no- 
 tion many people have thai Protestants are generally in good 
 faith. and ready to embrace the truth, if presented to them, 
 - on no adequate authority. So far as I have known 
 Prot ; in1 . they are ready to said ;i Protestant min- 
 
 r to me the other day, "I would rather be damned than 
 be a Catholic."
 
 9»
 
 THE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 R] 
 
 i(S 
 
 p 
 
 )? 
 
 
 v_ 
 
 
 LU 
 
 LlU 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 <-J 
 
 , A. Brownson. 
 
 20 VOLUMES, 8vo. 
 
 Cloth, per volume, $3.00 
 
 Half=morocco, per vol., - 5.00 
 
 SENT FREE OF POSTAGE. ON RECEIPT OF PRICE. 
 
 Volumei I and il contain the philosophical or metaphysical writ- 
 ings from 1888 to 1876. 
 
 Volume :t treats of the Natural and Supernatural, Science and Faith, 
 on and Revelation. 
 
 Volume I contains the author's principal writings during his prog- 
 from Infidelity to the Catholic Church. 
 
 Volume .*» contains 'l'i<< Convert, and essays on the necessity of the 
 Church for faith and for salvation. 
 
 Volume G treats of Transcendentalism and Presbyterianism. 
 
 Volume 7 contains articles against Unitarians and Episcopalians, 
 
 Volume s contaii the Mysteries, on the Worship of the 
 
 Baints and relics, on religious orders, the commission, constitution, 
 attributes, and authority of the Church, and on Ui i 
 
 Volume 9 conts ' Rapper, and the d on of spirit 
 
 i-m and of the Hi' recent sclent! I 
 
 Volume lo contain I ••* of mi Old Van and Hit Toting 
 
 d articl i ducation, and on the relations of the 
 
 < mil and of Protestantism with civil 
 
 Volume 1 1 contains Tack and EKi Nephew, Conversation 
 
 ni .,ii On- temporal and spiritual orders.
 
 Volume 12 contains articles on Church and State, the Church and 
 the Republic, and on Education, and the philosophical essays on 
 the Reformation. 
 
 Volume I'-J treats of Church and State, Education and the State, 
 and Papal Infallibility. 
 
 Volume 14 contains articles on Development, and on Morals. 
 
 Volume 15 contains writings, from 1838 to 1847, on Government 
 and American Politics. 
 
 Volume 16 contains writings, from 1846 to 1800, on American and 
 Foreign Politics and Parties. 
 
 Volume 17 is on Slavery and the American Civil War. 
 
 Volume 18 contains The American Republic, articles on Know- 
 Nothingism, Woman's Rights, and the Roman Question. 
 
 Volume 19 is on Modern Literature, and on Novel-reading and 
 
 Religious Novels. 
 
 Volume 20 contains a number of articles to which objections were 
 made and the author's defence and explanation. This volume also 
 gives an alphabetical index of all the writings in the twenty vol- 
 umes by their titles, and another of the matters treated of. 
 
 ALSO, SOLD SEPARATELY : 
 
 THE SPIRIT RAPPER, . n 
 
 . . ' Cloth, Sl.OO 
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS, 
 
 . . ' Cloth, .60 
 
 UNCLE JACK AND HIS NEPHEW, 
 
 Cloth, .60 
 
 AN ESSAY IN REPUTATION OP ATHEISM, 
 
 Cloth, .60 
 
 HENRY F. BKOWNSON, 
 
 Detroit, Mich.
 
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