UUSB LIBRARY X- A DEBATE ON THB ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION HELD IN THE SYCAMORE-STREET MEETING BOUSE, CINCINNATI, FROM THK 13th TO THE 21st UF JANUARY, 1837. ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, OF BETHANY, VIRGINIA, RT. REV. JOHN B. PURCELL, BISHOP OF CINCINNATI. > TAKEN DOWN BY REPORTERS, AND REVISED BY THF. PARTUaft NEW YORK AND CINCINNATI: x BENZIG-ER BROTHERS PriNTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE. We the undersigned, having sold and conveyed to J. A. James and Go., ot Cincinnati for a certain sum per'copy, (to be paid by them to us, or to our or der, and to be appropriated to two public charitable institutions, as agreed on between ourselves, 1 ! for all that shall be printed ; the exclusive right of printing and publishing the DEBATE on the ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION, held in th! Sycamore Street Meeting House, Cincinnati, from the 13th to the 21st. of January 1837, inclusive, between ourselves, and taken down by Reporters, em- ployed by the said J. A. James & Co., and revised, corrected, and approved by us, do hpreby make known that the edition or editions published by J. A. James & Co., or by their authority, and revised by us, must be considered the only cor- rect and authorized editions of laid DEBATE. CINCINNATI, FEB. lit 1887. * JOHN B. PURCELL, Bp. Cin. A. CAMPBELL. N PREFACE. IT has been judged expedient to insert, by way of preface to the following Controversy, the subjoined notice, from a pa- per published in Cincinnati, by Protestant proprietors, of the circumstances under which the debate originated. We regret that it is not in our power, at the same time, to present to the public the remarks of Bishop Purcell, in the College of Teach- ers, to which exception was so wantonly taken by Mr. Camp- bell. But we have not now before us a file of the Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph, in which they originally appeared, or of the Cincinnati Gazette, into which they were subsequently copied. The annexed account, however, which is from the dni'innufi (l'tte of the 7th of February, 1836, will, it is thought, be sufficient to satisfy the curiosity of readers gene- rally. They who desire more ample information on the sub- ject will consult the periodicals named, or the " Transactions of the College of Teachers" for the year 1836, in which the discourses of Bishop Purcell, Dr. Joshua Wilson, and Mr. Campbell have been published. " Some few years ago, a manufactory of public opinion was got up ' down, East? the object of which was to put Catholics back to their old position. This manufactory manufactured a moh to burn a Convent, and the coinage of various books, which a man could not read in the presence of his daughters. Our city of Cincinnati is fast becoming a manufacturing city ; consequently this Eastern manufactory notion respecting Ca- tholics began to gain foothold, and was making headway amongst us. In this state of things, an occasion was soon found for going to work. " There is one Alexander Campbell, of considerable notori- ety in this country, of no mean capacity learned, self-confi- dent, and indefatigable. This gentleman, as we have under his own hand, in Saturday's Gazette, took upon himself many years ago, '0 unite all Protestant Christians as one great bond of union, as CntJinll<\ as Protestantism? Such an undertaking is abundant proof of the undertaker's self-confidence. It is well known that Mr. Campbell labored in this o-re.-U work with iv PREFACE. assiduity. He was himself the operative manufacturer. He knew his tools, kept them in excellent order and in constant use hut he produced no such 'union* as he was seeking to manufacture. On the contrary, his efforts very soon manufac- tured disunion in the Baptist church, of which he was a mei\j- ber. And then, again, his next manufacture was an addition- al Protestant sect, of which he was the founder and head. Like all ardent projectors, he was nothing discouraged. His fancy that, he was to become the great 'MILLENNIAL HARBIN- GER,' for effecting his contemplated Protestant ' y the two 'Jour- nals' of Cincinnati. Still, howeA'er, he retained amongst us a number of ardent, respectable supporters, so that a visit to Cincinnati was quite a matter of course. " Opportunely, the College of Teachers met in October last, of which the Catholic Bishop Avas a member, and Mr. Camp- bell also. Here, Avith his usual tact, he manufactured an oc- casion for exhibiting once more his manufacturing poAvers. Mr. Campbell advanced certain positions and employed certain arguments that Avere used to furnish materials for commencing a manufacturing of public opinion, hereabouts ; not on the 'union of all Protestant Christians,'' \)\it on the errors and mischief of ' .Ronm/nxm .' ' The most approved method of the day Avas resorted to. Some sixty citizens unite together to put the work in motion. Mr. Campbell is requested to enforce and enlarge, in a public discussion, his ' exposure find Illustra- tions of the al>ttiir in(jer below. It is about the last half of Mr. C.'s reply to the communication of " W. A.," a Romanist of Spring- field, 111. We ask again, who will try to sustain the claims of the Pope and Popery ?' Editor of the Preacher. ' But as the gentleman has not attempted (and as it is pre- sumed no man will fairly attempt) to show either scriptural or logical discrepancy in my essay alluded to, I will not again re- peat what I have written on the conversation at Ca-sarea Phi- lippi. That view of the passage I stand ready to sustain against the Pope himself, or any Bishop under his jurisdic- tion, in the old world or new. They shall have as much anti- quity as they please, and as many of the traditions of the Apos- tolic Fathers as they can hang upon any two of the longest pins in St. Peter's Church provided only these traditions do not fairly and flatly contradict each other, and both Peter ami Paul into the bargain. It is high time that the American peo- ple should be enlightened upon this subject, and every drop of oil in my lamp is at their service whenever a trustworthy son of the modern St. Peter appears ready for the discussion. ' If I can prove to any Jew that Jesus of Xazareth is the true Messiah if I can prove to any sceptic, Greek or Roman, French or English philosopher, that he is the Sou of God, and the only Saviour of the world, and the author of eternal sal- vation to all who obey him then can I prove to any impartial jury that the Pope of Rome is " t/t<> inn of sin" foretold by Paul, and " the son of perdition," whose ruin is predicted by St. John. ' Hut I must have a a'ni, n fnU-w<>tf not defensive, whether the operator be Rebec- ca Reed, Maria Monk, or Alexander Campbell ; whether it be waged under color of defending Protestantism, or of checking the advance of Catholicism ; and it is a war as unwise, in its, commencement and in its continuance, as it has been discredit- able in most of the agents and the weapons it has employed. " One of the most gratifying results of this controversy is, the interchange of good feeling and Christian regard which it elicited from Catholic and Protestant. \Ve were delighted to see and hear the congratulations which parsed between men hitherto unfortunately esti'anged. The mists of prejudice have been dispersed, and we all were happy to behold each Xll PREFACE. other in the pure light of love, benevolence, and charity. It was gratifying to observe the warmth and sincerity with which Bishop Purcell was greeted by his Protestant fellow-citizens, and we feel assured that he responded in the fulness of his heart to their kind felicitations upon the virtuous triumph which he has achieved." It is thought unnecessary to add to these extracts the testi- mony of other periodicals to the same effect. APPENDIX. CORRESPONDENCE. (From the Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph of February 28, 1837.) PRESENTATION OF PLATE. A COMMITTEE waited on the Right Rev. Bishop Purcell last week, and in the name of the English Catholics of Cincinnati, presented him with various articles of plate, among which were two large and beautiful silver pitchers, bearing the following inscription : Presented to the RT. REV. BISHOP PURCELL, D.D., By the Roman Catholics of Cincinnati, as a testimonial of their grati- tudefor his late eloquent and triumpJiant vindication of their Holy Religion. The following correspondence tdok place on the occasion between Bishop Purcell and the Committee : CINCINNATI, WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY, 1837. RT. REV. DR. PURCELL, Bishop of Cincinnati : DEAR SIR : The members of the Roman Catholic Church in Cincinnati request you to accept of the accompanying present as a testimonial of their gratitude lor your late triumphant defence of their holy religion. We are well aware that an imperative sense of duty could alone have induced you to depart from the Retirement so congenial to your feelings, and appear as a controvertist before the public eye. You no doubt felt, in common with your Catholic fellow-citizens, that the sacred subject of reli- gion is better suited to private study and meditation than the turmoil and acrimony with which its public discussion is frequently attended. Occa- sion, however, will arise when Truth may be injured by silence, and for- bearance almost cease to be a virtue. Such was your situation previous to the late controversy, into which you were forced by the unjust re- proaches with which your faith, and that of an immense majority of Chris- tians, was so recklessly assailed. But Truth, though always modest and unassuming, has an overwhelming power at her command, whenever she chooses to exert it, in vindication of her character. Of this \ve had illus- trious proofs during the late discussion. The gratification which wo feel at the result of the debate is not be- cause a "wanton assailant" has been rebuked, but because Truth lia achieved 8O signal a triumph. To exult over any of our fellow-creature^ would be indicative of feelings as foreign to your heart as they would b to ours : we can pity the advocate of error, and regret his delusions ; bu the feeling which his exposure elicits is the exclusive property of reli gious charity. Catholics have long endured persecution for conscience' sake. Extra- ordinary au'l wicked doctrines have been published as a part of thei creed, aud the land has been flooded with fabrications which are sai the foundations of morality, though ostensibly designed to ridicule C'aih licism. Your eloquent and convincing exposition of our doctrin. dis:ibni'nxt minds of their erroneous impressions respecting our rc^ gion. This happy consequence of tin- discussion is already widely diffu?- throughout the community in which we dwell. Even the minister o. , XIV APPENDIX. large and respectable body of our dissenting friends has publicly avowed, thut "his charity for the Catholic communion is considerably enlarged." We sincerely trust that similar sentiments will pervade the breasts of our fellow-citizens throughout the western country, and in every place to which the controversy shall extend. We yield to none of our fellow- citizens in love and veneration for our republican institutions, and this devotion to our country you have always cherished and enforced. On this point, notwithstanding the harsh accusations which have been brought against us, we feel that we do not deserve reproach. May God preserve, many years, the '" peace and good-will " so dear to every sincere Chris- tian, and induce the heart which animosity has withered to bloom and flourish with kindlier feelings. That you may long survive to promote this heavenly harmony, and thus confer new benefits upon society, is the fervent prayer of YOUR FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS. CINCINNATI, 22d February, 1837. BELOTED FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS : I receive, with peculiar satisfaction, on the anniversary of the birthday of Washington, this splen- did and unsolicited testimonial of your gratitude for my late vindication of the principles and conduct of Roman Catholics. I did not seek the controversy to which you allude. From nature and habit, I am now, as I have ever been, averse to such exhibitions. Religion is not in need of them : and, in my judgment, it is more congenial -with her mild and holy spirit faithfully to practice what we sincerely believe, than to seek to ex- pose the unsoundness of our neighbor's convictions, or to obtrude our own, unbidden and unwelcome, upon him. But there are men who are neither at rest themselves, iu their faith, nor will they, if they can, suf- fer others to be so. One of these I have lately-met ; and although I take no merit to myself for his humiliation, I think I may say with truth, he by this time sincerely repents of his rashness. Quern Dens milt perdere, prius dementat Whom God intends to de- stroy, he first dements. How perfectly this maxim has been verified in the failure of my opponent, n, reference to the printed report of the con- troversy will demonstrate to every candid mind. The present I consider, however, a very suitable occasion for at least an allusion to the prominent points of his defeat. These I reduce, for brevity's sake, to twenty-four. 1st. He pledged himself to prove that the " Institution sometimes called the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church is not now, nor was she ever, Catho- lic, apostolic, or holy ; but is a sect, in the fair import of that word, older than any other sect now existing, but not the mother and mistress of all churches, but an apostasy from the only true, holy, apostolic and Catho- lic Church of Christ." He also pledged himself to show the time when (i/id the place wliere her apostasy commenced. This remarkable event, he assigned, in the first instance, to the 10th of July, 1054 ; but when he was ii.sked, which was the true Church of Christ from which the Roman Catholic Church had apostatized, at the period just mentioned, he could only reply by contradicting his previous assertion, and stating that the apostasy took place " some time about the ycai'250 \" When the question was again uryed upon him to name the true church from which the Roman Catholic then apostatized, he had no answer to give, nor has he given one ! I predicted that this would puzzle him, and it has done so most effectually. 3d. He insulted Protestants, whose champion he affected to be consider- ed, by making a monster-church of ail the jarring, and many of them, impious sects, that rose and fell during the iirst fifteen centuries. These APPENDIX. XV he recommended to their veneration, saying, " Protestants, behold our mother 1" 3d. lie undertook to show when the Church of Rome obtained the primacy of all the churches, and stated that this took place when Gre- ry the Great crmcned the usurper, Phocas, king, in the church of t. John tlie Baptiat at Gonttantimople ; and that Gregory received from the gratitude ot Phocas the title of Universal Bishop as a reward for his share in the infamy of the entire procedure. The gentleman quoted Gib- bon as his authority for a statemei-t which I venture to assert no man in the assembly, learned or unlearned, had ever heard beiore. I challenged its glaring inaccuracy, and proved from Gibbon, that Gregory had neither lot nor part in the elevation of Phocas ; that he did not go from Rome to Constantinople to crown him ; that this was done by Germauus, the Patriarch of Constantinople, after the abdication of Mauritius ; that Gre- gory, in all probability, knew nothing of the accession of Phocas until after that event ; finally, that the soldiery and the people, not the Pope, nor the Patriarch, raised Phocaa to the throne I My learned opponent had to confess that " lie might have been mistaken." 4th. He boasted that he could produce a Bible taken from a manuscript copy of the Scriptures " icJtich had never been soiled by the hand of a, monk." To prove this assertion he quoted the Codes Alexandrians pre- served in the British Museum, and containing the Old Testament of the Septuagint, and the New Testament, in Greek, with the Apocrypha, which Protestants most unreasonably reject I It happened, however, most un- fortunately for his reputation as a scholar, and to his own utter confusion, that in reading from Home's Introduction to the study of the Scriptures, he traced the origin of this manuscript to ONE OF TUK 22 MONASTERIES ON MOUNT ATIIOS 1 It was there that this manuscript was written, and appended to it as a part of the same scroll ia a Psaltery of one of the Acoemets.* It was thus the gentleman established this proposition ! 5th. My opponent insisted that it \vas as easy to distinguish genuine from spurious Scriptures, as it was to distinguish the meridian sun in J,he heavens. On this point he was shown to be diametrically opposed to the most learned Protestant divines, who maintain that we can no otherwise determine the books, of Scripture than by the authority of the primitive Church. History attests that the most serious difficulties have been en- countered in determining the Canonical books of Scripture, but in the theory of my opponent, the existence of any such difficulty would have been impossible. He forgot that Luther found no such evidence for the Epistle of St. James, which he called " an Epistle of straw," and that, as the learned Protestant Bishop of Kentucky says, " There is not a ' Thus saith the Lord,' to vouch for the authenticity of any book of Scripture." 6th. He charged the Catholic cree.l with immorality, because the priest says. " I absolve thee," not recollecting that the English Episcopal Book of Common Prayer directs the Minister of that Church to say the same and with same intent, viz. : to release the penitent from his sins, in virtue of a divine power. He could not discover any greater immorality or assump- tion of divine power in the words of the Catholic priest, " I absolve (loose) thee f.om thy sins, or thy sins from thee, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," than in his own words when he goes into the river with a Campbellite Catechumen, and says, while he immerses him, " I baptize (wash) thee from thy sins, in the *The Actemets were a class of monks in the ancient church, who flourished, par'i- cularly iu the Bast, during the fifth century. They were, so called becau>'.- they had Divine service pei formed without interruption in their churches. They divided them- selves inro three bodies, each of which oilimti'd in turn, and relieved" the others. so that their churches \ve-c iieve.railent, eitherday or nijjht. Wetstein adopts the opinion of Casinxir Oudin, iliut the. (,',.;I-\ A! use it contai, "cry hour of the day and uikt. Proleg. in Nov. Te*r. vul. p. 10. (.Home's Introduction, p~. i*J.) XVI APPENDIX. name," etc., and coining out of tlie stream says, "The Ohio has carried away his sins !" 7th. He said, in the hearing of nearly 8000 persons, that the Bardstown ' -, and by implication the Catholic Bishop of Bardstown, had admitted that the Jansenist Du Piu was an authentic Catholic his- torian ; whereas, as I have shown him, so that he had not a word to say for himself by way of excuse, the Bardstown Adcocate, as I shall publish in tho appendix to the controversy, says no such thing, but says the very contrary ! 8th. He asserted that I could not adduce the testimony of a single Catholic historian to prove that Osins presided as the Legate of Pope Sil- vester at the Council of Nice. I quoted the most explicit and convincing testimony to this effect, from Baronius, Noel, Alexander, Floury, etc.; and thus, before the public, showed his learning at fault, on this point, as on many others. 9th. He confounded the two men named Scotus, both remarkable per- sonages in Ecclesiastical history ; one living in the 9th, the other in the 14th century, one a heretic, the other an orthodox divine ; and when challenged by me to say who Scotus was, he replied, " I presume he iras some Father of the Church !" 10th. He denied that there could have been any truth in the Catholic Church, because there were a few bad Popes in the Apostolic succession at Rome ; and I confounded him by showing that the succession of the Saviour's blood was not pure ; that there were murderers and drunkards and adulterers in David's royal line, and among the Patriarchs, whom God had chosen as the sole depositaries of truth, the witnesses of the truth, the heralds of the truth, under the written and the unwritten law! and that his argument was still more subversive of the Bible and of Chris- tianity than of the Catholic Religion ; that her divinity was never more evident than in the fact that the number of those bad Popes was so very email, that none of them ever tonight false doctrine ; that they faithfully spread the linht of the Gospel-truih through Pagan and Infidel climes ; that by a special providence of God, no heresy or defection of any con- siderable body of Catholics afflicted the Church during their jnmtificates ; that it matters not so much to us, greatly as we desire the ministers of our holy religion to honor their exalted station, and strongly as we con- demn them if they do not, whether the conduit that conveys to us the pure and crystal stream of heavenly doctrine be of gold, of silver, or of some baser metal ; finally, that Jesus Christ foretold that such scandals should come, but that THEY SHOULD NOT PREVAIL ; and that in the ex- emplar, the first tribunal of Ecclesiastical authority in his newly found- ed Church, in his own College of Cardinals, he allowed us to behold a traitor, a profaner of the sacraments, a suicide, a perjured apostle, and a band ot coward disciples, who fled frotii the stricken shepherd, that when scandals not quite so bad should come to pass, we should not vacillate or waver in faith, for that he was still with us, and that with him we had all things, and could see the power of his grace in hundreds and thousands of the clergy and saints, in the very worst of times who never bowed tho knee to Baal ; that storms are as necessary in the spiritual as in the phy- sical world, to purify the face of Heaven ; that as the d >ctrine of Jesus Christ could never need to be amended, reformation should have taken place in the Church, not oiit of it; that God permitted our faith to be tried like that of Abraham, that we may know that He who founded the Church was able to preserve her, and that, as in past times, no cloud had ever lowered orcr the Church, that tJtc ruiuhmr ( ,f , /,t shine through the gl->"Ht, so neither would His mercy fail us, till we reach- ed the consummation of ages, in the unity or faith. " The heavens and the earth shall pass away, but His word shall never pass away." llth. lie held up a strip of soiled and smoked 'newspaper, which after APPENDIX. XV 11 years of safe-keeping some enlightened friend of the gentleman produced " to do battle" in this debate ; and he was so ignorant that he told the audience, with an air of triumph, that he held in his hand the actual form of ii'fsing used in the Catholic Church, aye, by the Bishopot Philadelphia in the United States, against a fallen priest. Now, what were tlie facts of tho case ? Why that a Catholic never wrote the like ; that the Catho- lic Church never used the like ; that a Protestant minister, Sterne, wrote it; tin it it it. all to be found in Tristram Shandy, one of the most obscene bonks in the English language, which, however, I procured from a book- store before the gentleman had finished his speech, exhibited and in part read to the audience, with the LILLIBULLARO of his hero, Dr. Slop, at the beginning of tlie^e curses, until the whole assembly was convulsed, at the expense of my fnend and to the glory of truth (quid vetat ridentemdicere verum ?) with inextinguishable laughter. He did not intentionally, but by a mistake, honor the Catholic Church with this decent composition. The whole is an injurious caricature of the curses in the 28th ch. of Dent. 3. 12th. He produced, as an authentic and approved Catholic Testament, an edition thereof with notes, published by a band of Protestant parsons in New-York (who no doubt, like the Maria Monk coterie, are condemned by their brethren). I exposed this fraud, read the names of some of the parsons aloud, and the condemnation of those very notes by the Arch- bishop of Dublin. 13th. He quoted the Veu. and sainted Liguori, translated by a New- York religious changeling 1 , for a charge of the most indecent kind against the Catholic Church. Mr. Alex. Kinmont, an honorable man, a scholar, and, as I have learned, u Swedenborgian, generously, at the solicitation, I may presume to say, of the entire meeting, came on the platform and showed there was nothing of it in the place of Liguori's works to which Smith referred ; that the contrary was in another place, with a citation of the chapter in the Council of Trent, which Mr. Kinmont translated for the house, which condemns and denounces, in the strongest language it could employ, the imputed immorality. 14th. He quoted a work "decorrupto Ecclesia? Statu," for a description of Catholic immoralities, and gave into the stale slander, as if it had been written by a Catholic Archdeacon, Nicholas de Clemangis, whereas the author was never known, being ashamed to put his name to the in- famous production. All critics agree that the Archdeacon had nothing to do with the work. John de Chelin and John of Bavaria, not to Bpeak of many others, have had successively the honor or shame of its author- ship. loth. He quoted Bellarmine, as saying that St. Peter was " probably" Bishop of Rome, thus making this universally acknowledged fact a mere probability ; whereas Bellarmine says positively that he was Bishop of Rome, and that it was very probable that he transferred his See from Antioch to that city by the express command of Jtsus Christ, which, you perceive, is a very different proposition. Kith. He charged Catholics with being hostile to civil and religious liberty ; whereas, as I proved to him. Catholics werethe first tliat ever pro- claimed Libert;/ of Conwioice in the Western Hemisphere, viz., the Catholic colony of Maryland, ttmomj irhmn Protestants, when persecuted by Protest- a nix, for conscience' sake, souyht and found a refuge. I told him of Venice for so many centuries a Catholic and a glorious republic the commercial Britain of former ages San Marino South- American Republics, William. Tell, Kosciusko, and the free Cantons of Switzerland. 17th. He accused the Catholic Church with holding persecuting doc- trine-', the Inquisition, etc. , etc. I refuted this oft-repeated charge by showing him that no general council had eoi.r enacted a single canon au- thorizing persecution ; that Catholics would not be bound by their religion XVI 11 APPENDIX. to obey it. if it did, for that such legislation would be a manifest trans- cending, on the part of the Church, of the powers granted ber by Jesus Christ ; that it is, consequently, no part of Catholic faith. That we ac- knowledge no doctrine as an article of Catholic faith but what has been believed " ALWAYS, EVERYWHERE, AND BY ALL," and that the Inquisi- tion was unknown and has tu '<:< r been received in many parts of the Ca- tholic Church, which could not be the case if it were Catholic doctrine ; that, where the <'i>:il pmcer established it, as iu the instance of Spain against the desolating ravages of Mohammedans and Moors, by whom that rich and luxuriant country had been so oiten swept, as with the be- som of destruction, it did not altn/ys exUt and never was held to be so much as a frnr/ment of Catholic faith ; that a Protestant country has had, and lias still, as bloody, if not a bloodier, Inquisition and other persecuting enactments, tribunals, institutions, and laws, as ever disgraced the annals of Spain. To prove these allegata, I quoted, not Catholic historians, but Hume, in his account of the Star-Chamber, Taylor in his history of Ireland, Cobbitt's Protestant Reformation, Dewey, a Unitarian, etc., etc. From these incontrovertible evidences, and would to God theie were no others, it is clearly seen that there was an Inquisition, and that there now is persecuiion under the Protestant Government of England, not to mention others, which have slain their tens of thousands, and keep EIGHT MILLIONS of people in a state of gall- ing slavery to which death itself would, until late partial mitigations, have been mercy ! There, still, that system of making the poor Catholic peasantry pay the tithe of all they possess to support the luxurious, fox- hunting preachers of a different religion, for defaming their own, subsists in all its blushing horrors. My friend called it a dying system ; and so it is. It has dyed the green fiehis red, over which I have strayed, as he has done, in boyhood's careless hour; it has made a icidoic irantic for the death of her last, her only son ! It has made her kneel down, a maniac, in that sou's blood, and having drunk it, curse, with ensanguined lips, his Reverend murderer ! This is but a solitary case. Can the annals of cruelty furnish a parallel? 18th. He made a mighty bluster about Antichrist, and G66, and mon- sters, and kingdoms, and eyes and horns, etc., etc., and I proved to him that as one of the most clearly revealed marks of Antichrist is to " <': Father and Ike >$vn," the Pope, who acknowledges both, cannot be Anti- christ. That all the prophecies of the downfall of a church, against wi.ich Christ promised that the gates of hell should never prevail, predicated upon the texts referring to this mysterious character, have failed of their accomplishment, although they were excessively eloquent, and very minute in incidents and circumstantial in details. I have not time to show si ill more how ridiculous the whole theory appeared, but particularly the admis- sion that the reign of Antichrist, the mystery of iniquity was int( rin-ily irorkinfi in the time of St. Paul, and that it was to last l^Ot.) years. Whereas the Papacy, as the gentleman calls our holy religion, has lasted eighteen hundred years, and bids fair for a few more hundreds, brf"iv she reach the consummation of ages ! The numerals on which so much stress was laid by my opponent are the product of every one of fourteen names, and among the rest of God him.itlf ; the winged mon- sters were used by Ezekiel as th< j imagery of the divine, messengers ; the devastations of Mohammed show the ravages of the man "f Sin ; and the various sects and schisms that have afflicted the Church, and torn from it large portions of some nations, while in others she extended her conquests and received new nati >r.s into her fold, are plainly enough marked as the forerunners of Antichrist, who, towards the end of all things, is to war more formidably than ever upon the saints. This is the dread time to which Christ alluded when he said, " When, the S-m nf man will come, think you will he find faith upon the earth ?" (Luke xviii. APPENDIX. XIX 8.) That coming event casts its shadow before I Opinion "has supplant- ed faith. Every mountebank, too idle to work, and having just learning enough to deceive, but too proud himself to learn, scales the walls of the sheepfold, usurps the place of pastor over credulous and deluded congre- gations, and, unsent and uncommissioned, preaches his own crude fancies for the word of God. They proscribe authority and arrogate a power which no Pope has ever yet pretended to, and make dupes of whom no ori- ginal can be found among the members of the Catholic Church. They believe an isolated, inconsistent, and often ignorant preacher, whose hand is against every sect, and every sect's hand against him, while Catholics hear the Church of all nations and ages, founded by Christ, and perpetu- ally assisted unto the teaching of all truth by his holy Spirit. It is thus that the Methodists of this city, while Mr. Campbell is fighting against Catholics, as the soi-disant champion of Protestantism, are actually ex- posing himself and " Campbellisin " in stereotype, at the very office where the late discussion is being published. We have seen how the Episco- palians have spurned his advocacy and eschew his errors and yet he is a Bible Christian ; that is to say, he puts it to the rack and makes it say whatever he pleases. This is the antichristian audacity with the words of Scripture, the mystery of iniquity inwardly working, the volcanic lique- faction melting the hills of human pride, and preparing the grave, the catastrophe to which all sectarianism tends, namely, the abyss of infide- lity. ''Think you," says Jesus Christ, "when lie comcth, the Son of man will find faith upon the earth?" 19th. Waiving the arguments from the history of the Church, or tradi- tion, and as far as the test of reason could be applied to revealed religion, I defied my opponent to find so many clear texts of scripture against any one of our tenets, as I could allege in its favor, and although he labored hard, and became quite hoarse, he could not do so. He most egregiously failed, and took to talking about "drops of grace and scuttle-fish, and JMi ! f" 30th. He says : " It is then without law, precedent, or authority to say that the passage ' thin is my body' means that bread is converted into flesh ;" that is to say, that Christ means what he says, and that, too, at the most solemn crisis of his mortal life ! This very argument the Uni- tarian will retort upon him, for the words " this is my beloved Son," and my opponent must either give up the great dogma of the divinity of Christ, or turn Catholic, to be able to defend it. 21st. He says : "St. Clement, St. Ignatius, and St Irenaeus, and all the other saints in the Roman Calendar (did he reflect that the apostles are of the number V) were born too late to sanction any article of faith, or morals, by their vote." And yet We can no otherwise than "by their determine the most important of all questions for a Protestant What, /.y S>'r/f)t>tre f By the side of the foregoing, place the other horn of the dilemma, viz.: "Luther insisted that the epistle of St. James was not inspired Scripture at all, that it was no better than straw ;" and the gentleman will stay sticking on these two horns until doomsday. " The sun and moon and planets " can neither help nor extricate him. Besides, the foregoing language concerning the holy Fathers is offen- sive to Episcopalians us well as to Catholics. What will they say of their " champion "? Will they not say that Alexander Campbell was born too late to teach Bible-readers the religion of the Bible ? 'JJd. My opponent borrowed largely from the Sermons published in England on "/,/ " He granted himself a plenary license to ap- propriate the " oteriilns of thf, furnign tin(n' g'>'l tr<'f;s," in abusing Catholics on this subject,. But does the gentleman not recollect that then- are Catholic divines who furnish us useful hints for despoiling these new-fangled saints of a few of their rays'.'' Mast I tench him a new lesson in theology on Protestant indulgences grunted for money, or XX APPENDIX. something worse, by all the Protestant sects ? Let us come to the proof, and begin with the jolly patriarch Luther. The Scripture says, that they who break their vows Juive damnation, and that it is better not tovow x Dei," should be considered the voice of God. But if, by this adage, he means every separate congregation must settle their doctrines and discipline for themselves, then the voice of one congrega- tion will be the voice of the Devil, and not of God, or they will both be the voice of God, and contradict one another ! ! 24th. But the most astonishing of all the gentleman's forced admis- sions remains to be told. He, wuo accused Catholics of being hostile-to free governments, declared General Washington and the officers and soldiers of our revolutionary army and all who aided and abetted them, perjurers ! And as nwjJit can never give right, and there is no prescrip- tion where there has been fraud, we are still in a state of perjury and damnable revolt against the mother country, according to the theology of my opponent. I do not believe he thinks so but I drove him, step by step, into the abyss, and, down there, have we heard him make this politico-ecclesiastical profession of faith " Quod optanti mild nemo pro- mittere anderet, en diee attulit ultra." I thought, before the debate began, this would be a poser; but I had no idea he would have so com- mitted himself before the American public, in his zeal to criminate my creed. The different situations in which the Pope was placed, when reference was made to him by the Catholics of England and Germany, when their kings had become tyrants, will be found fully stated in its proper place in the debate. I should never end if I undertook to enumerate all the blunders and vices of the gentleman's logic. They are, many of them, transparent to healthy eyes. Such as this logical phenomenon "The Pagan Em- perors and Christian Princes sometimes decided who was the true Pope, when a faction strove to oppose to him an Antipope. But these emperors and kings were not infallible," etc. Now, my friends, it so happened that the Pagan and the Catholic historians, who narrate these facts, take care to state at the same time, as if their hand was guided by the Almighty, for our instruction, that those princes snid, "Let him be Pope whom the majority of the Bishops shall agree to accept." They applied the Catholic principle. In the case of an inferior bishop, they answered, " Let the Bishop of Rome and Italy decide! lie shall be bishop whom tJtcy sliall say." In speaking of the vices of Popes, my worthy opponent always took care to exhibit the darkest side of the picture. I notice this, that, from one case, the audience may learn all, in the instance of Vigilius, who resolutely refused, when made Pope, to do the wrong' which ambition had tempted him (for Satan tempted Christ himself by ambition, when he promised to give him all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory thereof) to promise to the Empress of Constantinople. He suffered every kind of persecution and ill-treatment sooner than acquiesce in her wicked designs. Of the justice of the above remark, we have another illustration in the case of Benedict IX. who was obtruded by his father, Albert, Count of Tusculum, into the Papal chair, at the age of twelve years th> a-je t tclii<-li, Jesus CJirist disputed -trith the doctors in the Y'< tuple, for people then, as now, quoted Scripture for every thing. Now, what are the data of history respecting this matter'.' Why, that the Roman people, clergy, and laity drove him from Rome ; that he retired into a monastery, where he died doing penance for his sins. This con- siderably alters the question. , My friends. I must bring this letter to a conclusion, although I have yet many things to say to you and the public But they are enlightened judges, and they will not shut their eyes to the truths which this dis- XX 11 APPENDIX. cussion was tlic first fair opportunity afforded them of seeing. All their lives, they have had odious misrepresentations of our Holy Religion in their hands, Peter Parley, Fox's Book of Martyrs, Key to Popery, etc., etc. They will now learn how much they have been imposed upon ; and if they do not become, what I earnestly pray God they may become, sound, practical, and pious Catholics, they will, at least, perceive that it is perfectly possible to be attached to Protestantism, and yet allow that tlie Catholics have been grossly slandered. .When such men as Southey and Waddington, and Parr and Johnson, not to speak of many others, do us justice, no orthodox disbeliever in our doctrines need to find them or their professors less good than they ought to be. Tl.is city has had lucid proofs what good people the Catholic Religion makes : old Mr. M. Scott, Mr. Patrick Reily, Dr. Hugh Bonner, whose honesty, kind- heartedness, industrious habits, and unblemished morals are embalmed in the memories of all our fellow-citizens. (I was called to the death- bed of the last mentioned exemplary Christian and skilful physician, while writing this letter. Hence I resume and complete it, barely in time for this week's paper.) " By their fruits you shall know them,'' was one of the tests proposed by the Saviour. We appeal to ours. Never has a polemic been allowed more advantages than I have allow- ed my opponent. The propositions which he brought into the debate were all of his own choosing. The mode and order of their presentation to the public and in which they were afterwards changed to and fro on the very morn ing <>f the first day's debate were, his ; I did not attack his creed, or any other man's. I waived all the advantages of carrying the war, in military phrase, into the "enemies' territory." I received all his fire, and he affected to consider himself " the great gun of Protes- tantism." If he received a few ghastly wounds, and every one of them fatal to his whole system, it was in the rewound, or because his jnetal was overcharged. His arguments would prove too much. They would annihilate the Bible, because some of its Patriarchs and Kings, and other personages, were bad men. They would destroy Christianity, lor its professors have not always done it credit. They would destroy the Protestant sects, for they included them who are very much like the rest of their frail fellow-creatures. You have heard this discussion with a calm, a dignified, and an imper- turbable confidence in the goodness of our cause, which reflect honor upon you, while they have conciliated the esteem of your fellow-citizens, and enhanced my affection for so good a flock. You showed no signs of exultation, hold no meetings, forestalled no man's opinion of the parties, or the questions at issue ! This was as it ought to be. Continue this virtuous, this truly Christian line of conduct Love sincerely and OT- dially your neighbors of every denomination give them good example. Be faithful friends, affectionate husbands, fond fathers, upright business men in a word, be always good Catholics. Praying that God may pour down upon you all his choicest blessings, both in this life and that which is to come I am, etc., Your devoted Bishop, \ J. B. PUHCELL. (From the Catholic Telegraph.) IT appears that there are a few honest minds which have not been able to see through the ntyxtiji'-ntiiin craftily thrown around the Liguori affair, in the account given of it by the seven >ri*e men of New- York. The following letter, and particularly the short but pithy statement of Mr. Kimiiont. will effectually expose the fraud of the fraudulent, and dispel the mist from the eyes of the sincere and the unsuspecting. We ask for both an attentive perusal. APPENDIX. XX111 CINCINNATI, 27th May, 1837. To THE EDITORS OP THE CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH : tliinin;n >, after having been, far more for Mr. C.'s interest than for mine, excluded from the printed report of the debate, call for a large proportion of the censure which it is now my turn to inflict. And 1st. OF THE DISPUTED PASS.UJK FROM LIGUORI. I must confess that I was exceedingly shocked by the coarseness :md indelicacy of the charge made, on the pretended authority of the saint, by Mr. Campbell, in presence of so promiscuous an audience, and of so many ladies. He certainly must have felt that his cause was growing desperate when he resorted to such an ungentlemanly stratagem to hide his overthrow. It is painful for me to proceed in the duty of exposing all its foulness ; but I must not shrink from a task which the gentleman's ignorance, whether sincere or counterfeit, has imposed upon me. On his own head the penalty. I beg the reader to have the patience to examine this matter thorough- ly, and for this purpose to refer to the first introduction of the imputed doctrine of Liguori, touching clerical concubinage, as found towards the einl of Mr. Campbell's speech, p 218 of the "Debate." The text and the comment there read as follows: " A bishop, however poor lie may be, cannot appropriate to himself pecuniary fines without the license of the apostolical see. But he ought to apply them to pious uses, which the Council of Trent has laid upon nou-resident clergymen, or upon those clergymen who keep nieces," Ligor. Kp. Doc. Mor. p. 444. (Synopsis, p. 294.) " Now, if a priest should keep a niece, it is a very expiable and trifling offence, but .should he marry a wife he must be excommunicated for- ever ! Thus the Roman Catholic rule of faith treats the Bible, and annuls at pleasure every law and institution of heaven !" The kccyiny of it niiicc is the horrid crime of INCEST, a species of guilt XXIV APPENDIX. still more atrocious than concubinage, bad as that most assuredly is. I now ask the reader to look mew at the extract from the Moral The- ology of Liguori, as endorsed by the seven New-York pardons, or at any other produced by Mr. Campbell daring or since the debate, and see let, whether there is one ir>>nl to make good the infamous allegation that the Catholic Church allows priests to keep uicns, that is to commit, the enormous crime of Incest, on payment of a, fine? I ask for a " yes" or " no." Is such a word to be found in any of the Extracts? And if not, what must he begin to think of my friend's intentions in subs it u - ing for one base crime another far exceeding it in enormity and moral turpitude ? 2d. Where, in the Extract from Liguori, is it called " n-ry exp cud trifl in;/ offence," I will not say, " to keep a niece," but to be guilty of the sin of (oncubinage ? By a reference to p. 219 of the Debate, it will be seen that I emphatically denied that a solitary passage could be found in any part of the works of Liguori, of which there were three editions in my possession, from which it could be either proved or fairly inferred that the Church allowed priests to keep concubines on payment of a line, or that she considered a single sin of that nature as a very > .r; >i< t!>l<- and trifling offence? I now repeat the declaration, and ask again, where, in the extract purporting to be from Liguori, does it appear that the Church looks on such a crime as a trifling, an expiable, or, under any drc u in- stances whatsoever, an allowable offence? Professor Biggs having seen at a glance what party was likely to triumph by tiie translation of a pas- sage in Liguori's works, to which I referred him, and apprehensive of that storm of indignation which, as I shall presently show, burst from Mr. Campbell on the intrepid and the honest Kinmont, prudently declined to favor the audience with the English version. None of the other five learned and independent citizens whom I took the liberty of calling upon to decide the issue of the fact, heard or cared to accept the invitation. Mr. Kinmont being a professional teacher, favorably known to the com- munity, and, above all, at least as much opposed to Roman Catholicism as to Campbellism, was, all things considered, the fittest person that could be selected to allay the intense anxiety of the audience by the de- sired translation. But I prefer to narrate the circumstances under which Mr. K. appeared on the stage, in the words of Mr. Campbell, as I find them in the Harbinger of the present month. A more uncalled-for and wanton outrage than what Mr. C. thus gratuitously offers to a gentleman who, to oblige the audience and the parties interested, as- sumed a task which I was far from believing to b* congenial to his feel- ings, has, perhaps, never been paralleled in the annals of literary or re- ligious controversy. It only evinces the uncontrollable character of Mr. Campbell's mind, the violence of his passions, and the feebleness of the restraints which Religion and courtesy have been able to impose upon a man of his pretensions to usher in the new gospel light a Millennium of more than human virtue on a benighted and corrupt world. ' The bishop, for effect, called first on Professor Biggs to examine nine volumes of Liguori for the reference. The pro:cssor seeing a clashing between the pages of the edition of the copy on the table and tliat from which Mr. Smith quoted, prudently declined the examination. He then called upon Mr. Kinmont, of high classical standing, and handed to him the volumes in question. He was to have a day to examine and re- port. In due time, after an emphatic annunciation or two, on the part of the bishop, Mr. Kinmont appears upon the sstage. An awful silence reigns, the Bishop holds the candle erect by the side of the Roman Oracle. A breathless suspense, as when a judge is about to pronounce sentence of death upon some unfortunate criminal, shows how the pub- lic mind can be wrought up to intense feeling, to a glowing heat, by a single spark. What an ebullition ! Mr. Kiuinoiit coughs, throws his APPBXDIX. XXV eloquent eyes around the crowded galleries, and, before he reads the ratal doom Of ' Smith, Slocura and Co.,' and justifies the St. Liguori from r-uch ].n itanc hands, he, by virtue of the authority with which he was in- v.-strd by the Baron Swedenborg, Prince of Corresponding Shadows, kindly says, ' These gentlemen (the bishop and myself) are fighting about shadows.' What a consolation! And by candle-light too! How easy then to find them ! After this free-will offering to the illustrious Baron, Mr. Kinmont read as reported by the bishop." To give to this subject all the connection and continuity to enable the reader, having all the i'acts of the case spread out lucidly before him, to conic to a correct conclusion, I here subjoin the remarks of Mr. Kin- moat. " Mil. KIXMOXT. I am called in my professional character simply, a:id have no part or lot in this debate. (Mr. K. is understood to be a Sweden- borgian.) 1 sincerely believe theyarw disputing about shadows, and that both parties are equally in the wrong ; but I will do what I can to assiso in clearing up the difficulty of fact, I find it stated in Samuel Smith's work, and marked as a quotation from Liguori under the article headed ' concubines of clergy. ' '' Mr. K. here read from the Synopsis as translated by Smith, and thus continued : " Tliis is the text and commentary as I find it in Mr. Smith's book. This is marked as Liguori, p. 444. If taken from Liguori at all, it is taken from a different edition. The present purports to be a complete copy of the works of Liguori. It bears no mark of being an expurgated edition. It is said to be an edition of ichdt ic is said and written before with additions. On turning to the place where he treats of fines and punishments inflicted for concubinage, he says that priests guilty of this oifeuee were, after two ineffectual reprimands, to be degraded from their functions, lie refers to the Council of Trent, and states what that coun- cil decreed ; Smith throws us on Liguori, and Liguori ou the Council of Trent There is nothing in Liguori relating to that subject but this. The council was called about the year 1342. This edition of the decrees of the council was edited by t'.ie council itself. 1 have had an abstract taken which I will read. It would take some time to read the original, and I have a translation made by one of my scholars. I will read this. " In the records of the decrees of the Council of Trent, Session 23th, chap. 14th, there is described the method of proceeding iu the cases of clergy who are guilty of concubinage. " After showing the scandal and enormity of this sin, especially in clergy, whose integrity of life should recommen 1 and impress the pre- cepts of religion and of the church, the sacred synod forbids that any individual holding the clerical office shall keep at his house, or else where, any mistress or unchaste woman, or cohabit with any such, under the penalty of having enforced against him tae sacred canons and ecclesiasti- cal statutes regarding that matter. It is, then, especially enacted that if, when admonished by their superiors, they shall not desist from all such unlawful and forbidden acts, they shall be deprived of the third pnrt of all their revenues and ecclesiastical dues ; and if, still persevering in their course, they shall not even heed a s(ri>>td admonition, they shall be deprived of (ill their ecclesiastical revenue, and suspended from the ad- ministration of ecclesiastical functions ; and if, during this suspension, they shall continue obstinate and incorrigible they shall be declared alto- gether unfit and incompetent to exercise any spiritual office whatever be- longing to the church ; unless after a clear and unequivocal amendment of life, the church should think proper to withdraw the disqualification, and allow them to resume their former station of honor and trust. But if, after the resumption of the duties of their office, they should resort to those impure practices which they had abandoned, besides the inflic- XXVI APPENDIX. tion of the above-named penalties, an act of excommunication with its sword of justice shall cut them off, as dead branches, from the body of the faithful and church of the living God, And it is farther enacted that no appeal or exemption shall hinder the execution of any of these de -rees, but that they shall be summarily executed, at the will of the bishop, after he has ascertained the existence of the enormities. A simi- lar provision in its effect and spirit is made with relation to bishops themselves, but the order of proceeding is different. " This is in substance the provision of the decree of the Council of Trent, Ses. 2o, chap. 14." Is there in this re pert of the horror inspired and the dread penalties d< creed by the Council of Trent, as quoted by Liguori, and translated by Mr. Kinmont, aught to give as much as a shadow of truth to the allega- tion of Mr. Campbell, thfit the Catholic, Church considers the sin of con- cubinage to b a veryexpiablt and trifling offence, or allvwtUc on payment n- gregation, in the Treatise respecting the Diocesan Synods, Book 10, Chapter 10, Number 2."] Here, we have not only the authority of St. Liguori, but also that of the " Holy Congregation of Rites." Since the subject is now to be probed to the bottom, we will also translate the contracted words which I transferred into the " Synopsis," as I found them in the original. The words to which I allude are the terminating ones of the disputed passage, as follows : " Ligor. Ep. Doc. Mor. p. 444," which, translated, stands thus: "From the work of Liguori, under the head of ' An Epitome of the Moral Doctrine,' page 444." In order to render the testimony still more striking, it is important to observe that this " Epitome of the Moral Doctrine," to which Liguori al- ludes, is an epitome compiled by no less a personage than Pope Benedict XIV. , as we are informed by Liguori himself, in the 301st page of the 8th volume of his " Moral TlMology." That the previous Latin words are truly and faithfully the words of St. Liguori, and fairly extracted from 8th volume, p. 444, is duly certified by the following learned gentlemen. " We, the undersigned, have carefully examined the foregoing extracts from the Moral Theology of St. Liguori, and having compared them with the original Latin copy of that work, now before us, we do hereby certify that the said extracts are verbatim, truly and correctly given by Mr. Smith. " In this certificate, we include, particularly, the passage disputed by Bishop Purcell, which is contained in Mr. Smith's "Synopsis," p. 294, par. 7; headed " Concubines of the Clergy." " DUNCAN BAKU, Pastor of the M'Dougal street Baptist Church. JNO. KENNADAY, Pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church. SPENCER H. CONE, Pastor of the, Oliver street Baptist Church. SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, Prof. e f c., in the University of the City of New- York. WM. GREEN, JR., Deacon in the Sixth Free Cong. Church, N. T. C. G. PINNEY, Pastor of the Church in the Broadway Taber- nacle." The first sentence of this letter contains a nickname and a fault of grammar, evincing, from the outset, the anger and perturbation of the writer's mind. But let these small matters pass. I now repeat the ques- tion, where in these extracts is it said that concubinage is a trifdng offence and allowable on payment of a fine ? Read the letter attentively ; examine it minutely ; is there one word in it that sanctions such an im- putation ? " Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou ma vest be long-lived upon the land " is a divine commandment, from which ir would be just as fair to conclude that we may dishonor fathers and mothers on the condition of being short-lived in the land, as to force upon the above extracts a signification which they were never intended to convey to which they are diametrically opposite. But I have not yet said what, to most readers, as well as to all who have taken an interest in this controversy, will, probably, appear more start- ling than all that has preceded it, namely, that Smith and the seven New- York parsons and Mr. Campbell have either deceived or been deceived themselves, in representing this extract as taken from the Moral Theo- XXVUI APPENDIX. logy of St. Liguori. IT is NOT TAKEN FROK IT. Mr. Smith knew tliis, bat unwilling to expose either himself or Mr. Campbell, and yet afraid tlsat I would expose both them and their Rev. accomplices, mark what he does. He gets the seven parsons to sign a certificate that the forego- ing extracts are verbatim, truly and correctly given by Mr. Smith, from the Moral Theology of Liguori, and yet, in the inexplicable confusion of hie mind, tells us, on the self-same page, that " it is important to ob- eerve that this ' Epitome of the Moral Doctrine,' to which Liguori AL- LUDES, was not composed by Liguori at all I That it was compiled by Pope Benedict XIV. ! ! and that too we are informed/' says Mr. Smith, " by Ligaori himself (which is utterly incorrect) in the 301st page of the 8th volume of his Moral Theology ! ! ! " Now, the Epitome, or Synopsis, was not composed by Liguori, nor yet was it compiled by Benedict XIV., but from the works of Benedict XIV., by a personage different from either, viz., Mansi, Archbishop of Lucca, as, not Liguori, BUT THE PRINTER, who had this Synopsis stitched to the work of Liguori, to make the* eighth volume of a uniform size with the other volumes of the series, informs us (Typographus Lectori) on the 300th (not 301st) page of the 8th volume. Thus it is seen, 1st, what a dishonorable farce has been played off on the parsons and all concerned ; 2d, that the extract is not from Liguori's Moral Theology ; 3d, that such as it now confessedly is, a fragment of a selection made by Mansi from the works of Benedict XIV., stitched by the printer at the end of the Moral Theology, it does not, EITHER IN LETTER OR IN SPIRIT, give the slightest coloring of truth to the odious representation which none but a polluted mind could make, that the Catholic Church looks 011 clerical concubinage as a very expiable and trifling offence, or ever did permit it on payment of a fine. No ! were the erring individuals as dear to her as Lucifer, the brightest angel in Heaven before his fall, was to God, the Catholic Church would pluck him from the sanctuary which he profaned, and from the administration of sacraments which he dared to consecrate with sacrilegious hand, and cast him, as Michael did the rebel angel, " from the body of the faithful, and Church of the living God." The second certificate is that of Mr. Kinmont. The joy which it gave to Mr. Campbell must have been affected : it cannot last forever. What follows must quickly put an end to it. " Since the publication of the debate on the Roman Catholic Religion, between A. Campbell and Bishop Purcell, many persons have asked me several to make the statement in writing whether the Latin passage quoted from Liguori, in the last page in the book (and a translation of which is given), is to be regarded as a tacit permission of the Council of Trent, that clergymen may keep concubines, on the condition of paying a stipulated fine? Most unquestionably it is not so to be regarded ; and any person may satisfy himself on that point, who will turn to pages 319-20, where, on being called on, I gave an abstract of the decree of the Council here referred to by Liguori. If he finds any thing in the decree in the shape of encouragement or connivance, in regard to the offence, his mind must be strangely warped by prejudice. " It might be surmised by the insulated extract, that the Church drew a revenue from the vices of her priesthood, and therefore winked at them ; but read the extract and the decree together, and you will be convinced that the inference is entirely gratuitous. There is certainly nothing in the passage here quoted, or in any one in Liguori (which I could find), to countenance the allegation, that Priests may keep Concu- iines by paying a fine, unless it be considered that to punish an offence is to permit or encourage it. A. KINMONT. " CINCINNATI, May 22, 1837." Grateful, gentlemen, for the use of your columns, I remain, etc., f JOHN B. PURCELL, Bislwp of Cincinnati. TO THE PUBLIC. The Publishers being well aware of the importance of obtain- ing a full and correct report of this discussion, have spared no pains nor expense to effect this object. They employed two gentlemen well qualified as reporters. From the joint notes of these, they furnished each of the parties with a copy of his part of the report for revision, with the express understanding, that nothing should be added or sub- tracted to make their speeches different from what they were when originally delivered. After being put in type, a proof sheet of all was sent to each, for his last corrections. Believing, that by this means, the desideratum sought, has been obtained, this work, is now commended to an enquiring, intelligent, and reading community. THE PUBLISHERS. CINCINNATI, Feb. 1837. INTRODUCTION To introduce the following report to the reader, we lay be- foie him the correspondence of the parties, which immediately preceded the debate. LETTER FROM MR. CAMPBELL. CINCINNATI, JAN. llth, 1837. Bishop Pur cell Respected Sirt At two o'clock this morning, after a tedious and perilous journey of ten days, I safely arrived in this city. The river having become innaviga- ble in consequence of the ice, I was compelled to leave it and take to the woods, about two hundred miles above. By a zigzag course which car- ried me to Chillicothe and Columbus, sometimes on foot, sometimes on a sleigh, and finally by the mail stage, I accomplished a land tour of two hundred and forty miles, equal to the whole distance from Wheeling to Cincinnati. After this my travel's history, I proceed to state, that it was with pleas- ure I received either from you or some of my friends, a copy of the Daily Gazette, on the 22d ult. intimating your fixed purpose of meeting me in a public discussion of my propositions, or of the points at issue between Ro- man Catholics and Protestants. This, together with your former declara- tions in favor of full and free discussion, is not only in good keeping with the spirit of the age, and the genius of our institutions, but fully indicative of a becoming confidence and sincerity in your own cause. Thjs frank and manly course, permit me to add, greatly heightens my esteem for you. Now, sir, that I am on the premises, I take the earliest opportunity of informing you of my arrival, and of requesting you to name the time and place in which it may be most convenient for you to meet me for the pur- pose of arranging the preliminaries. It has occurred to me, that it would be useful and commendable to have an authentic copy of our discussion, signed by our own hands, and published with our consent and that, is might have all the authority and credit which we could give it, it would be VI INTRODUCTION. expedient to sell to some of the publishers in this city, the copyright, and let them employ a stenographer or stenographers to report faithfully the whole matter. It will also secure for such a work a more extensive reading, and conse- quently a wider range of usefulness, and I have no doubt, be most accep- table to our feelings, and every way reputable, to devote the profits, or the proceedss of the copyright, to some benevolent institution, on which we may both agree ; or in case of a difference on a fitting institution, that we select each an object to which we can most conscientiously assign all the profits of such publication. In order to these ends, it will be necessary, that we timously arrange all the preliminaries, and as many persons are now in waiting, I trust it may be every way practicable, during the day, to come to a full understanding on the whole premises. Very respectfully, Your ob't. serv't. A. CAMPBELL. BISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. CiirciifHATT, llth JANUARY, 1837. Mr. Alexander Campbell My Dear Sir t I sincerely sympathise with you on the tediousness and perils of your journey, from Bethany to Cincinnati. This is truly a dreadful time to embark on our river, or to traverse our state. The sun's bright face I have not seen for several days ; I hope when the forth-coming discussion is once finished, our minds, like his orb, will be less dimmed by the clouds, and radiate the light and vital warmth without which this world would be a desert waste. If it meet your convenience, I shall be happy to meet you, at any time in the morning, or in the afternoon, at the Athen.Tum. Your proposition respecting the sale of an authentic copy of the discus- sion to a publisher, and the proceeds, all expenses deducted, applied to the benefit of some charitable institution, or institutions, meets my hearty con- currence. And I propose that one half the avails of sale be given to the " Cincinnati Orphan Asylum," and the other half to the " St. Peter's fe- male Orphan Asylum," corner of Third and Plum streets, Cincinnati. With best wishes for your eternal welfare, and that of all those who sin- ceiely seek for the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, I remain Very respectfully yours, f JOHN B. PURCELL, Bishop of Cincinnati. INTRODUCTION. VU The parties met in the Athenaeum at 2 o'clock, P. M. of Jan. lith., when after some debate on the question, Who sliall b& the reapondejit ? they finally agreed to the following RULES OF DISCUSSION. 1. We agree that the copy-right of the discussion shall be sold to some bookseller, who shall have it taken down by a stenographer, and that all the avails of the copy -right shall be equally divided between two such public charities as Bishop Purcell and Mr. Campbell shall respectively designate, 2. That the discussion shall take place in the Sycamore-street meeting house ; and it shall continue seven days, exclusive of Sunday, commencing to-day, (Friday, 13th) from half past 9 o'clock, A. M. to half past 12, and from 3 to 5 P. M., each day. 3. Mr. Campbell shall open the discussion each session, and Bishop Pur- cell respond. During the morning session the first speech of each shall not exceed an hour, nor the second half an hour. In the afternoon each speaker shall occupy only half an hour. 4. This discussion shall be under the direction of a board of fire modera- tors; of whom each party shall choose two, and these a fifth: any three of whom shall constitute a quorum. 5. The duties of the moderators shall be to preserve order in the assem- bly, and to keep the parties to the question. f JOHN B. PURCELL, A. CAMPBELL. In order to meet, as far as possible, the arrangements entered into for conducting the contemplated debate for seven days, Mr. Campbell, according to agreement, sent to bishop Purcell, on Thursday morning, Jan. 12, the following statement of the POINTS AT ISSUE. 1. The Roman Catholic Institution, sometimes called the 'Holy, Apos- tolic, Catholic, Church,' is not now, nor was she ever, catholic, apostolic, or holy ; but is a sect in the fair import of that word, older than any other sect now existing, not the ' Mother and Mistress of all Churches,' but an apostacy from the only true, holy, apostolic, and catholic church of Christ.'' 2. Her notion of apostolic succession is without any foundation in the Bible, in reason, or in fact ; an imposition of the most injurious consequence*, built upon unscriptural and anti-scriptural traditions, resting wholly upon the opinions of interested and fallible men. 3. She is not uniform in her faith, or united in her members ; but muta ble and fallible, OF any other sect of philosophy or religion Jewish, Turk- yiii INTRODUCTION. ish, or Christian a confederation of sects with a politico-ecclesiastic head. 4. She is the "Babylon" of John, the "Man of sin of Paul, and the Empire ofithe "Youngest Horn" of Daniel's Sea Monster. 5. Her notions of purgatory, indulgences, auricular confession, remission of sins, transubstantiation, supererogation, &c., essential elements of her sys- tem, are immoral in their tendency, and injurious to the well-being of soci- ety, religious and political. 6. Notwithstanding her pretensions to have given us the Bible, and faith in it, we are perfectly independent of her for our knowledge of that book, and its evidences of a divine original. 7. The Roman Catholic religion, if infallible and unsusceptible of reforma- tion, as alleged, is essentially anti-American, being opposed to the genius of all free institutions, and positively subversive of them, opposing the general reading of the scriptures, and the diffusion of useful knowledge among the whole community, so essential to liberty and the permanency of gocJ government. A. CAMPBELL CIHCIKXATI, 12th January, 1887, DEBATE ON THE ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. REPORT. The parties met according to appointment, on the 13th January, 1837, at the Sycamore Street Meeting House, at halt" past nine o'clock, A. M. MODERATORS. MESSRS. SAMUEL LEWIS, THOMAS J. BIGGS, WILLIAM DISNEY, JOHN RO- GERS AND J. W. PlATT. WILLIAM DIBNEY CHAIRMAN. Mr. Samuel Lewis, having called the meeting to order, read the rules of th Debate, as agreed upon between the parties, and the propositions advanced by Mr. Campbell for discussion. He requested the audience to refrain from any audible signs of approbation or disapprobation, as it would interrupt the debate. Mr. Campbell then opened the debate as follows: JHy Christian friends and Fellow- Citizens I appear before you at this time, by the good providence of our Heavenly Father, in defence of the truth, and in explanation of the great redeeming, regenerating and ennobling principles of Protestant- ism, as opposed to the claims and pretensions of the Roman Catholic church. 1 come not here to advocate the particular tenets of any sect, but to defend the great cardinal principles of Protestantism. Considerable pains appear to have been taken by the gentleman who is rny opponent on this occasion, to impress upon the minds of the public the idea that he stands here in the attitude of a defender of Catholicism, and to represent me as its assailant. I am sorry to say that even some Protestants have contributed to give that color to this debate; for I saw in this morning's Gazette an article, in which I am represented as conducting a crusade against the Roman Catho- lics. Its editor appears to have his sympathies morbidly enlisted in their cause. He is very sympathetic indeed, in behalf (if the Roman Catholic religion. Every agony the mother church feels is a pang to him ; for every groan she heaves he has a bottle full of tears ready to be poured out. I will not stop to enquire whether they are politi- cal or religious tears. I have to do with the worthy gentleman here, who has represented me as having volunteered to come forward with an attack upon the Catholic chu.ch. I need Scarcely inform that portion of my audience, who were pre- sent at the last meeting of the College of Teachers in this city, that B) far from its being true that I made an attack in the first instance, 2 a 10 DEBATE ON THE upon the Roman Catholic church, the gentleman did first assail the Protestants. He says in the Gazette of the 19th of Dec. 183G, thatlamabold and wanton challenger; but a word of comment on this document will shew that it is quite the other way. The issue was made in the first instance in the College of Teach- ers. You will recollect that when Dr. J. L. Wilson read an oration on the subject of universal education, the gentleman arose, and in that Protestant house, and before a Protestant assembly, directly and pos- itively protested against allowing the book which Protestants claim lo contain their religion, to be used in schools. He uttered a tirade against the Protestant modes of teaching, and against the Protestant influence upon the community. This was the origin of the dispute. Had it not been for the assertions made by the gentleman on that oc- casion, we should not have heard one word of a discussion. It is true that the propositions just read may present me in the at titude of what he is pleased to call an assailant of the Roman church. But the question is how has the controversy originated ? And let me ask, how is it possible for the gentleman to prove that, because, a year ago, I made some answer to an attack on Protestantism from the state of Illinois, and called for some more reputable antagonist, that on this account he did not assail Protestantism, and that I am the assailant in this case? Does my having been plaintiff in that case make me necessarily plaintiff in every other case? Does my having told him that I stood prepared to discuss the question at large with any creditable gentleman [Here Mr. C. was interrupted by the moderators as not speaking to the point.] I submit to the decision of the moderators. I thought it dne to myself, that the public should know precisely the attitude in which the gentleman and myself stand in this matter. I stand here as the defender of Protestantism, and not as the assailant of Catholicism. I wished to exonerate myself from such an imputation. But as the gentlemen have decided that we proceed at once to the question, let us begin and examine the first proposition. It is as follows : " PROP. I. The Roman Catholic Institution, sometimes called the Holv, Apostolic, Catholic, Church,' is not now, nor was she ever, catholic, apostolic, or holv ; but is a sect in the fair import of that word, older than anv other sect now existing, not the ' Mother and Mistress of all Churches,' but an ajiostacy from the only true, hoi) 1 , apostolic, and catholic church of Christ." As this is the place and time for logic rather than rhetoric, 1 will proceed to define the meaning of the important terms contained in this proposition. The subject is the Roman Catholic Institution. This institution, notwithstanding its large pretensions, 1 affirm, can be proved clearly to be a sec/, in the true and proper import of the term. Though she call herself the mother and mistress of all churches, she is, strictly speaking, a sect, and no more than a sect. We now propose to adduce proof to sustain this part of the proposition. In the first place, the very term Roman Catholic indicates that she is a sect, and not the ancient, universal and apostolic church, the mo- ther and mistress of all churches. If she be the only universal or Catholic church, why prefix the epithet Roman? A Roman Catholic church is a contradiction. Trve word Catholic means universal the vord Roman means something local and particular. What sense or HUMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 11 meaning is there in a particular universal church? It is awkward on another account. If she pretends to be considered the only true and universal church of Christ among all nations and in all times, why call herself Roman? To say the Roman Catholic church of Ameri- ca, is just as absurd as to say the Philadelphia church of Cincinnati, the London church of Pittsburgh, the church of France of the United States. The very terms that she chooses indicates that sue cannot be the universal church. It will not help the difficulty to call her the Church of Rome. These words indicate a sect and only a sect, as much as the words Roman Catholic. They signify strictly, only the particular congregations meeting in that place. The Roman Catholic historians endeavor to reconcile this discre- pancy of terms by saying that, though those particular congregations are meant, in their larger sense the terms are used to designate all those congregations, scattered throughout the world, who are in com- munion with the church of Rome. Thus testifies Du Pin " It is true, that at the present time, the name of the church of Rome, is giv- eo to the Catholic church, and that these two terms pass for synonymous. " Hut in antiquity no more was intended by the name of the church of Rome, than the church of the city of Rome, and the popes (bishops) in their subscrip lion? or superscriptions, look simply to the quality of bishops of Rome. Tne Greek schismatics seem to be the first who gave the name of the church of Rome to all the churches of the west, whence the Latins made use of this to dis- tinguish the churches which communicated with the church of Rome, from the Greeks who were separated from her communion. From this came the custom to give the name of the church of Rome to the Catholic church. But the other churches did not from this lose their name or their author'!)'. " I shall hereafter give the day and date of this separation, when she received this sectarian designation and became a sect, in the proper acceptation of that term. It may, perhaps, appear that it was not only unscriptural, but dishonorable ; as opprobrious as ever were the terms Lutheran or Protestant. But suppose we call her " Catholic" alone; and her advocates now endeavor to impress the idea that she is no longer to be called " Ro- man Catholic," but Catholic, this term equally proves her a sect ; for in the New Testament and primitive antiquity there is no such de- signation. It is simply the church of Christ. It is one thing for us to choose a name for ourselves, and another to have one chosen for us by our enemies. Societies, like persons, are passive in receiving their names. It is with churches as it is with individuals ; they may not wear the name they prefer. She wishes now to be called no lon- ger Roman Catholic, but Catholic. She repudiates the appellation of Roman ; and claims to be the only Catholic church that ever was, and is, and ever more shall be. But we cannot allow her to assume it ; and we dare not, in truth, bestow it, for she is not catholic. But, as tbere is no church known in the New Testament by that name, oould we so designate her, still she would be a sect. But let me ask, what is the church of Rome of the nineteenth cen- tury, or rather, what is the present Roman Catholic institution 1 Permit me here to say, most emphatically, that I have not the slight- est disposition to use terms of opprobrium in speaking of this church ; or of the worthy gentleman who is opposed to me in this debate. 1 <1o not wish or intend to use the slightest expression which could be construed into an unfriendly tone of satire, irony or invective towards 12 DEBATE OK THE the respectable gentleman, or towards his chnrcu. I shall spoak freely of her pretensions to be the only true church, &c. but 1 shall observe a scrupulous respect in all my language towards the present representatives of the Catholic church in the nineteenth century. Are we then to understand her as the immutable, universal, ancient primitive, apostolic church of Christ? Are we to understand this b) the Roman Catholic church of the nineteenth century, with her popes her cardinals, her patriarchs, primates, metropolitans, archbishops, archdeacons, monks, friars, nuns, &c. &c. teaching and preaching tho use and worship of images, relics, penances, invocation of departed men and women, veneration for some being whom they call " the mo. ther of God," teaching and preaching the doctrine of priestly absolu tion, auricular confession, purgatory, transubstantiation, extreme unc tion, &c. &c. Is this the ancient, universal, holy apostolic church ] Not one ol these dogmas can be found in the bible. 4 They originated hundreds of years since, as I am prepared to sho\v from the evidence of Roman Catholic authors themselves. How then can we call it the ancient apostolic church ? Not one of these offices nor dogmas is mentioned in the New Testament. Hear Du Pin on this point. In exposing the imposition, practised, by an effort, so late as the ninth century, to foist into the history of the church certain pretended decrees or writings of those called the first popes, Du Pin, an authentic Roman Catholic historian, proves these decrees and writings to be spurious, because in them there are numerous allusions to offices and customs not yet existing in the times referred to. " The following proves them spurious. 1st. The second epistle of St. Clement directed to St. James, speaks of the Ostiarii or doorkeepers, archdeacons and other ecclesiastical officers, that were uot then introduced into the church." 2nd. " This letter mentions *u6-deacons, an order not then established in the church." p. 584. 3d. " In the first Epistle attributed to St. Sixtus, he is called an ' archbishop,' a word not used in this time." 4th. " The second, attributed to the same pope, mentions consecrated vessels, and appeals to Rome, the grandeur of the church. It is there pretended that ail bishops wait for the pope's decision, and are instructed by his letters ; modes of speaking never used by the first bishops of Rome." 5th. " The epistle attributed to Teleiptiorus calls him an archbishop, a name unknown in the first ages." 6th. " There is a decree in it, to enjoin three masses on our Savior's nativity, a custom not so ancient." 7th. " We find several passages in the letter attributed to Anicetus, which does not agree with the time of that pope ; as, for instance, what is there laid down concerning the ordinations of bishops, sacerdotal tonsure, archbishops anJL primates, which were not instituted till long after ; besides many things of the same nature." p. 585. How, then, can we suppose that this church of the nineteenth cen- tury, with so many appendages, is the apostolic church the only original, primitive, universal institution of Christ? But she glories in the name of mother and mistress of all churches rhroughout the world. This astonishes me still more ; for with the bible in his hand and history before him, who can stand up and say, that this church ever was the mother and mistress of all churches ! The most ancient catholic church was the Hebrew. She was the mother, though not the mistress of all churches; for the Christian church has no reigning queen on earth, to lord it over her as Paul says, on another occasion " Jerusalem is the mother of us all." ROMAN CATHOLIC RELICT'*! 13 If the gentleman admit Luke to be a faithful historian, he must not only place the Hebrew church first, but the Samaritan, Phenician, Syrian and Hellenist churches as older than the church in Rome. I say if we speak of churches, as respects antiquity, the Hebrew, Sa- maritan, Syrian and Phenician churches must be regarded as prior to her. The Acts of the Apostles close with Paul's first appearance in Rome. But that the Roman Catholic institution may stand before you in bold relief as a sectarian establishment, I will give you a definition of her pretensions, from an authentic source, one of her own stan- dards. The Douay catechism, in answer to the question " What are the essential parts of the church 1" teaches " A pope, or supreme head, bishops, pastors and laity." p. 20. These, then, are the four constituent and essential elements of the Roman Catholic church. The first is the pope, or head. It will be confessed by all, that, of these, the most essential is the head. But should we take away any one of these, she loses her identity, and ceases to be what she assumes. My first effort then shall be to prove that, for hundreds of years after Christ, she was without such a head ; the most indispensable of these elements ; and consequently, this be- ing essential to her existence, she was not from the beginning. Be- cause no body can exist before its head. Now, if we can find a time when there was no pope, or supreme head, we find a time when there was no Roman Catholic party. By referring to the scriptures, and to the early ecclesiastical re- cords, we can easily settle this point. Let us begin with the New Testament, which all agree, is the only authenticated standard of faith and manners the only inspired record of the Christian doctrine. This is a cardinal point, and I am thankful that in this we all agree. What is not found there, wants the evident sanction of inspiration, and can never command the respect and homage of those who seek for divine authority in faith and morality. I affirm then, that not one of the offices, I have enumerated, as be- longing to the Roman Catholic church, was known in the days of the apostles, or is found in the \ew Testament. On the contrary, the very notion of a vicar of Christ, of a prince of the apostles, or of a universal head, and government in the Christian church is repugnant to the genius and spirit of the religion. We shall read a few passa- ges of scripture, from the Roman version, to p.ove that the very idea of an earthly head is unscriptural and anti-scriptural. The version from which I am aTaout to quote was printed in New York, and is cer- tified to correspond exactly, with the Rhemish original, by a number of gentlemen, of the first standing in society. If it differs from any other and more authentic copy, I will not rely upon it. I am willing to take whatever bible the gentleman may propose. I read from the twentieth of Matthew. " Jesus said to his disciples, You know that the princes of the Gentiles overrule them, and those that are the grea- ter exercise power against them. It shall not be so among you, but whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister !" Does this convey the idea of a prince among the apostles, a vicar of Christ, a lord over the people of God 1 Does it not rather say there shall not be any lordship amongst you! This command is express, hat th;re shall not be a pope, a supreme lord of the Christian church. AgSk'n, Matt. 23. 8. "' Be not you called liabbi, for one is your Master B 14 DEBATE ON THE and al] ye are brethren : and call none father (i. e. pope) for one is your father, be that is in heaven. Neither be you called masters, for one is your master, Christ. He that is the greater of you shall be your servitor !" If the very question about a pope had been before the Messiah at this time, he could not have spoken more clearly. This expression indicates the most perfect equality of rank among the apostles and disciples of Christ, and positively forbids, in a re- ligious sense, the assumption of the title of father or pope. The com- mandment which says " thou shall not steal," is not more clearly laid down than the command " call no man father." Now will the gentleman deny that " pope" (in Greek " pappas," in Latin, " papa") means " father ]" and that the case clearly comes within the command. Jesus Christ says, "call no man pope;" yet they ordain a bishop and call him pope ; and this pope claims the title of " universal father" supreme head and governor of the church of Christ. He is sometimes called Lord God the pope. This testimony of Christ will outweigh volumes. Put all the fo- lios and authorities, which the gentleman may bring, on one side, and this text of Jesus Christ on the other, and the former, in comparison, will be found light as the chaff which is blown away by a breath. Can any one, then, who fears God and believes in the Messiah, call the pope, or any human being " father" in the sense here intended. The Lord anticipated the future in all his precepts, and spoke with an eye to it as well as to the men of his own time. He had the pride and assumptions, of the Rabbis of Jerusalem, in his eye, who cove- ted renown, who loved such greetings in the market place, and re- ceived such compellations in the synagogues. Describing these men to his disciples, he cautions them against their example, and teaches them to regard each other as brethren. I hope the gentleman will pay particular attention to this point in his reply to these remarks. The third testimony on which we rely will be found in Ephesians iv. 11. This passage sums up all the officers or gifts which Jesus gave the church after his ascension into heaven. " And " says Paul " he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors, and doctors " or teachers. In this enumeration, which contains the whole, there is no pope. The highest or first rank is given to apostles. In every other enumeration found in the epistles, there is the same clear reference to the apostles as thejirst class. 1 Cor. xii. 28. But let Peter himself speak as to his rank. We see that in his own 1st Epistle, ch. 1, he calls himself an apostle, not the apostle of/ Jesus not the prince of apostles, not the supreme head of the church. Pe- ter had no idea of such headship and lordship. Again in addressing the "seniors" or elders, chap. v. 1. he says, "I myself am a fellow senior." They were all co-elders, co-bishops, co-apostles, as respected each other ; and as respected all other offi- cers the apostles were^Zrs/. The thought of a supreme head amongst them is not found in the New Testament ; only as reprobated by our Savior. I will not, at present, advance any more scriptural authority upon the point, but shall proceed to examine what foundation this element of the Roman church, has in ancient history. But I would here ?ay distinctly, once for all, that I will not open a single document to prove any doctrine, tenet, or principle of Protestantism, other than this holy ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 15 fecod of the prophets, and apostles, the holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. On these I rely, and I af- firm that these contain no authority for the assumption of the doctrine of a universal father, pope, or head of the church. There was no such person mentioned no such idea cherished until hundreds of years after the death of the apostles. I will read the following general remarks by this learned historian The title page is as follows : A New History of Ecclesiastical Writers, containing an account of the authors of the several books of the Old and New Testaments ; of the lives and writings of the primitive Fathers : an abridgment and catalogue of their works ; their various editions, and censures, deter- mining the genuine and spurious. Together with a judgment upon style and doctrine. Also a compendious history of the Councils; with Chronological Tables of the whole, written in French by Lewis El- lies Du Pin, doctor of the Sorbonne, and Regius Professor at Paris. 3 vols. Folio. The Third Edition corrected, Dublin, printed by and foi George Grierson, at the Two Bibles in Essex Street, MDCCXXIV. I am happy to find, appended to the preface, the seals and signatures of men high in the church, which I cannot now stop to read. From this work I will proceed to read some passages in proot of the proposition I have advanced, that there is not a vestige of evi- dence in favor of the cardinal idea, of the Roman Catholic religion, that there was a pope in the first ages of the church. At the close of the third century the highest advance yet made towards any supremacy in the church on the ground of metropolitan standing, is thus describ- ed by Du Pin. " The bishops of great cities had their prerogatives in ordinations, and in coun- cils; and as in civil affairs men generally had recourse to the civil metropolis, so likewise in ecclesiastical matters, they consulted with the bishop of the metro- politan city. The churches of the three principal cities of the world were looked upon as chief, and their bishops attributed great prerogatives to themselves. The church of Rome, founded by St. Peter and St. Paul, was considered as first, and its bishop as first amongst all the bishops of the world ; yet they did not be- lieve him to be infallible: and though they frequently consulted him, and his advice was of great consequence, yet they did not receive it blind-fok! and im- plicitly, every bishop imagining himself to have aright to judge in ecclesiastical matters." p. 590. Observe the bishops of the principal cities attributed to themselves great prerogatives* And Rome, the chief city, began to assume the chief prerogatives. But the general character of the clergy as detail- ed by this writer was not yet favorable to such assumptions for, says he, " The clergy were not distinguished from others by any peculiar habits, but by the sanctity of their life and manners, they were removed from all kind of avarice, and carefully avoided every thing that seemed to carry the appearance >f scandalous, filthy lucre. They administered the sacrament gratis, and believed it to be an abominable crime to give or receive any thing for a spiritual blessing. Tithes were not then appropriated to them, but the people maintained them vol- untarily at their own expense." "The clergy were prohibited to meddle with any civil and secular affairs. They were ordained against their will and did not remove from one church to another out of a principle of interest or ambition. They were extremely chaste and re- gular. It was lawful for priests to keep the wives they married before they were ordained." Nothing indeed like an ecclesiastical establishment was yet in ex- istence : for says Du Pin, speaking of these times. After all, it must be confessed, that the discipline of the church has beeu so 16 DEBATE ON THB extremely different and so often altered, that it is almost impossible to saj any thins: positively concerning; it." p 590. So stood the matter at the close of .the third century. But we have still more definite and positive testimony, in the great councils of the 4th and 5th centuries. Let us then examine the early councils. The famous council of Nice which sat in 325, is the first general council that ever assembled ; for although they call the con- sultations of the apostles Acts 15., a council, yet in the enumeration of general councils, of which they establish eighteen, that of Nice ia called the first. At this council there were present 318 bishops. It was called by the Roman emperor in order to settle certain discords in what was then called the church. By the sixth canon of this first council it ap- pears, according to Du Pin, that the idea of a pope, or supreme head, had not begun to be entertained. The sixth canchi of the council of Nice is as follows. ' The 6th canon is famous for the several questions it has occasioned. Th* most natural sense that can be given to it, is this: ' We ordain that the ancient custom shall be observed, which gives power to the bishop of Alexandria, over all the provinces of Eg-ypt, Libya, and Pantapolis, because the bishop of Rome has the like jurisdiction over all the suburbicary regions (for this addition must be supplied out of Rufinus;) we would likewise Dave the rights and privileges of the church of Jlntioch and the other churches preserved; but these rights ought not to prejudice those of the metropolitans. If any one is ordained without th consent of the metropolitan, the council declares, that he is no bishop: but it any one is canonically chosen oy the suffrage of almost all the bishops of the province and if there are but one cr two of a contrary opinion, the suffrages of the faj greater number ought to carry it for the ordination of those particular persons This canon being thus explained has no difficulty in it. It does not oppose th primacy of the church of Rome, but neither does it establish it.' " In this sense it is, that it compares the church of Rome to the church of Alexandria, by considering them all as patriarchal churches. It continues also to the church of Jlntiock and all the other great churches, whatsoever rights they could have; but lest their authority should be prejudicial to the ordinary metropolitans, who were subject to their jurisdiction, the council confirms what had been ordained in the fourth canon concerning the authority of metropo- litans in the ordination of bishops. This explication is easy and natural, and we have given many proofs of it in our Latin dissertation concerning the ancien* discipline of the cnurch." " This canon," says Du Pin, who be it remembered was always anxious to find some authority for the pope's supremacy, " DOES NOT ESTABLISH THE SUPREMACY OF THE CHURCH OF Ro.ME." Willing 3S he was to have this primacy traced to the beginning of Christianity, he is constrained to admit, that even the council of Nice does not es- tablish it. Nay more it is in truth against it; for it gives the Bishop of Alexandria like jurisdiction with the church of Rome; and also preserves to the church of Antioch its metropolitan dominion. It would be too tedious to go into an exposition of the causes, why so much power was accumulated in the hands of four or five bishops It originated in the divisions of the empire. In Roman jurisdiction, there were four great political dioceses, (for diocese was then a politi- cal term) and to these the church conformed. Hence the patriarchal sees of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria. In process of time. Jerusalem was added, and these all became radiating centres of ecclesiastical power and patronage. The bishop of each dioces* assumed a sort of primacy, in his own district ; and as various inter- ferences and rivalries in jurisdiction occurred, the council of Nice s< far decided that the same power should be given to them all that al ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 17 primates should be co-ordinate. Hence Du Pin could not finJ in that council authority for the supreme primacy of Rome. In the canons of the second and third general councils there is no reference to these matters whatever. I shall therefore proceed to the great council of Chalcedon, of pre- eminent authority, the greatest of the first for general councils. From all the canons of the council relating to government, it is evi dent that they had not yet excogitated the idea of a supreme head. Says Du Pin, "The 28th canon grants to the church of the city of Constantinople, which \s called New .Rome, the same privileges with old Rome, because this city is the se- cond city in the world. It also adjudges to it, besides this, jurisdiction over the dioceses of Pontus,Jlsia, and Thrac,and over the churches which are out of the bounds of the emperor, and aright to ordain metropolitans in the provinces ot these dioceses." p. 678. Thus this council, composed of 340 bishops, and assembling in the year of our Lord 451, gave the same power.to the patriarch of Con- stantinople as to the patriarch of Rome, and makes the supremacy of the one equal to the supremacy of the other. I have examined the proceedings of all the councils of the first six centuries, of which I find about 170, promulgating in all about 1400 canons. J have read and examined the twenty creeds of the fourth century with all their emendations down to the close of the sixth ; and I affirm, without the fear of contradiction, that there is not in all these a single vestige of the existence of a pope or universal head of the church down to the time of Gregory the great, or John the Faster of Constantinople. I shall now proceed to show from the same learned historian when this idea began to be divulged. And be it emphatically observed that the title of pope in its peculiar and exclusive sense was first assumed by the patriarch of Constantinople, and approved by the patriarch of Rome. Du Pin says in his life of Gregory, chap. 1, " He did of- ten rigorously oppose the title of universal patriarch, which the patri- archs of Constantinople assumed to themselves." Indeed he calls the title, " proud, blasphemous, anti-christian, diabolical," and says, the bishops of Rome refused to take this title upon them " lest they should seem to encroach upon the rights of other bishops." But the following document or remonstrance against the title shews what a novelty the idea of an universal head, father, or pope was even at Rome, A. D. 588 : " St. Gregory does not only oppose this title in the patriarch of Constantino- ple, but maintains also, that it cannot agree to any other bishop, and that the bishop of Rome neither ought, nor can assume it. John the younger, patriarch of Constantinople, had taken upon him this title in a council held in 586, in the time of pope Ptlagius, which obliged this pope to annul the Acts of this coun- cil. St. Gregory wrote of it also to this patriarch ; but this made no impression on him, and John would not abandon this fine title, B. 4. Ep. 36. St. Gregory addressed himself to the emperor Mauritius, and exhorted him earnestly to employ his authority for redressing this abuse, and force him who assumed this title to quit it. He remonstrates to him in his letter, that although Jesus Christ had committed to St. Peter the care of all his churches, yet he was not called universal apostle. That the title of universal bishop is against the rules of the gospel, and the appointment of the canons : that there cannot be an universal bishop but the authority of all the other will be destroyed or diminished ; that if the bishop of Constantinople were universal bishop, and it should happen that be should fall into heresy, it might be said that the universal church was fallen into Instruction. That the council of Chalcedon had offered thia title to J.ta, B2 2 18 DEBATE ON THE but neither tic nor his successors would accept it, lest by giving something pe. culiar to one bishop only, they should take away the rights which belong to all the bishops. That it belongs to the emperor to reduce by his authority him who despises the canons, and does injury to the universal church by assuming this singular name." B. 4. Ep. 32. But at this time the patriarchs of Constantinople and Rome were contending for the supremacy, and while it appeared to Gregory thai his rival of the east was likely to possess the title, he saw in it, eve- ry thing anti-christian and profane. When a new dynasty, however, amended the throne and offered the title to a Roman bishop, it lost all i : s blasphemy and impiety, and w T e find the successor of Gregory can wear the title of universal patriarch when tendered him by Phocas, without the least scrupulosity. It is then a fact worth}- of much consideration in this discussion, that John bishop of Constantinople first assumed the title of univer- sal head of the whole Christian church, and that the bishop of Rome did in that case oppose it as anti-scriptural and anti-christian. Concerning the reputation of Saint Gregory I need not be profuse Of the Gregories he is deservedly called the Great. Renowned in history as one who stamped his own image on the Roman world foi a period of five hundred years, yet he could not brook the idea of a pope, especially when about to be bestowed on his rival a/ Constan. tinople. St. Gregory, be it remembered, says Du Pin, did not only oppose the title in the case of John the Faster, as proud, heretical, blasphe- mous, &c. but could not agree to its being assumed by any other bishop ; he affirmed that the bishops of Rome ought not, dare not, cannot assume this pompous and arrogant title. Thus stood matters as respects a supreme head up to within 14 years of the close of the 6th century. [Time expired.] Eleven o'clock A. M. BISHOP PURCELL rises I thought it likely, my respected and beloved fellow citizens, that I should have to day a difficult task before m*- But' I perceive that I shall have an easy one. I expected from the reputation of my antag- onist as a debater, that he was going to argue so closely, and to press me so hard, that he would, to use a common expression, make mi need meat of me, and not leave one bone of me unbroken. I thought that my creed, so ancient, so venerable, so holy, was to be torn into tat- ters and scattered to the four winds of heaven I was mistaken ! The gentleman occupied ten minutes of his time in endeavoring to bias the judgment of his hearers in favor of the idea, that this contro- versy originated not with himself, but that I was the aggressor, in doing which he was called to order. I will not trespass more than two or three minutes on your patience in answering his preliminary observations. I am willing to let that matter rest on its own merits. As to the question of assailant and defender in this controversy, the public have the data, and it is for them to judge. My worthy opponent begran the pn seivt debate by representing himself as the staunch defender p*" Pro- testantism, endeavoring thereby to enlist the sympathies of Protestants in his favor. And what, I would presume to inquire, are his pnnci- ples ? What are his claims, his pretensions, or his ri^rt to a->ear before this assembly as the defender of Protestantism I Y t * *11 ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 19 aware vrhat sad pranks have been lately played off before high Hea- ven by men styling themselves Protestants, which all classes of Pro- testants unite in deprecating, which they all condemn. I know not whether there be not some Protestants here, who will not admit his gratuitous advocacy of their principles who will not believe that the principles of Protestantism which he volunteers to defend will be ful- ly or fairly represented by him. For one, I think the Episcopalians, a numerous and respectable class, will not consent to be represented by him ; for he denies, if I am rightly informed, that there is proper- ly any ministry in the Protestant church so called th*at a divine call should precede the assumption of the sacred office. [Here the mod- erators interrupted, by requesting the speaker to confine himself to the question.] Well we are so far even, [a laugh.] The gentleman, then, began by.^he assertion that the term Roman Catholic was an incongruity. But I deny it to be an incongruity. Terms, we all know, are used the mo-e clearly to designate the idea or object which they represent. " Catholic" is the name of our church ; and we only prefix the word Roman to signify that she is in communion with the see of Rome. We acknowledge there a primate of superior, ecclesiastical jurisdic- tion, and in his communion we do abide. He says the word Roman is incongruous ; yet his own authority, Du Pin, says it 'was synonymous with Catholic. It was so under- stood formerly. And here I may observe that I deny the authority of Du Pin to be competent to the settlement of questions to be called up for decision in the course of the present controversy. Du Pin was a Jansenist, removed from his place of Regius Professor at the Sor- bonne for his doctrinal errors, by Louis XIV. to whom Clement XI addressed a brief on this occasion, commending his zeal for the truth. The claim of Rome was undisputed in the early ages, and it was only when her preeminence was contested that the term " Roman" was used before the word Catholic. Hence it was no incongruity, but a clearer designation of the see in whose communion were all the churches. He has stated an inaccuracy in saying that the word cath- olic was not found in the bible. Is not the episUe of St. James cal- led catholic 1 And will he presume to say the word was not placed there in the very first age of Christianity ? The gentleman says he will use no words that may convey an op- probrious meaning. God forbid that I should set him the example. I shall debate this question with earnestness, but not with passion. As soon as the discussion closes, I can meet the gentleman without a single unkind or unfriendly feeling. But in enumerating various doctrines of the Catholic church, I was shocked to hear him use the language " some being called the mother of God." Great God ! didst thou not send into the world thy Son, Jesus Christ, to save perishing man, and didst thou not select one of all the daughters of Eve,to be the mother of that child of benedic- tion, and was not Mary this holy one, to whose care was committed his infancy, and to whom he was subject 1 ? Was she not the chosen one of heaven, to whom its archangel was sent with the communica- tion " Hail, full of Grace," or as it is in the Protestant version " thou that art highly favored the Lord is with thee," and do we now hear her stigmatized in such language, and designated as " some being called the mother of God 1" 20 DEBATE ON THE The gentleman then contests the doctrine of a hierarchy in the church ; and says what he asserts is proved by the scriptures. 1 would ask has he read the bible ? Has he read the book of Leviti- cus ? Does he not find there the example set of a distinction of ordera in religious affairs ? Did not the Lord speak to Moses, saying, " ' Take Aaron with his sons, their vestments and the oil of unction,' and he poured it on Aaron's head he put also the mitre on his head. And after he had offered his sons, he vested them with linen tunics and girded them with girdles," &c. &c. " And Nadab and Abiu were consumed with fire for opposing them, and they died before tho Lord." Did not Moses lead ! Did not Aaron assist ? Were there not councillors appointed by the Lord, to divide the burden of their ministry ? Did not king Josaphat send Zachariah and Nathaniel and Michael, and with them the Levites, Senneias, &c., to teach the peo- ple 7 Paralip. 17. 7. What is this but a distinction of orders and of authority in the Jewish dispensation 1 He says there was no distinction of orders in the early Christian church ; and he refuted himself by appealing for a solution of the dif- ficulty to St. Paul. Were there no ordera, no hierarchy? What saya St. Paul in 4th Ephesians ? " And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors, and teachers, for tiie perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ ; until we all meet unto the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ." We must here remark a gradation of authority in the church of God. Fot what? For the work of the ministry. There never has existed a so- cial body without subordination, or distinction of ^ank. The church of Christ is a social body. It needs to be subjected to order, even more than a political body; and as if St. Paul anticipated the objec- tion, which we have, not without surprise, heard this day urged, he expressly states the object of the institution of a hierarchy by him, who ascending on high gave gifts to men, to be the perfecting of the saints the unity of faith. " Are all," he asks, (what my friend would make them) " prophets ! Are all pastors ?" He elsewhere asks, " How can they preach unless they be sent ?" By whom ? By an ecclesiastical superior. So much for the evidence of the Old Tes lament, and the New Testament. They both teach a head, a hierar- chy and subordination among the people of God. This takes me to the examination of the title, assumed by the Cath- olic church, of mother and mistress of all the churches. He says Jerusalem was the mother church at first and then the Samaritan, and so on, I need not follow him. I will explain what we mean by the terra. We call her mother because she guides, she cherishes us. We call her mother, because we feel a filial reverence for her just as an orphan calls her who protects her, educates her, and guides her wandering feet, by the same tender appellative. There is no blasphe- my in this comparison. It is the Son of God that established the authority of that church. The name is its designation. But the word ' mistress' is never used in speaking of the church, in the sense of lordship, or queenship. It is the way in which chil- dren address their teacher. They frequently use the expression, as we read in Cordery's Colloquies, "salve magister." Magistra here is addressed to her in her capacity of teacher, and such she is, and, as I ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 21 shall prove, by the appointment and the express institution of Jesus Christ. He next referred to the Doway catechism to show from the defini- tion of the Catholic church, that she consisted of four elements, viz. the pope, bishops, pastors, and laity. Now the catechism of this diocese defines the Catholic church to be the congregation of all the faithful, professing the same faith, re- ceiving the same sacraments, and united under one. visible head, the pope, or vicar of Jesus Christ, on earth. It is defined to be the congregation of all the faithful. This is the definition which most authors give. It is that of the catechism from which my friend has quoted. But let us adopt his definition, and I am prepared to show that the idea of a supreme head has its origin in the bible, and is supported by the earliest ecclesiastical authority. I must here take notice of the promise he gave to put his finger on the precise day and date when the church called the Roman Catholic church, ceased to be the church of Christ. He has left us as much in the dark as ever on this most important of all events. It is a point which has puzzled the world, and will for ever puzzle it, to fix that date. It will, I am sure, puz- zle my friend. The whole world has never been able to state at what particular moment the Catholic church lost her prerogative and the favor of God when she ceased to be in the true sense tl}e Catholic Church. The reason of this is obvious. She has never forfeited her prerogative. But to the matter before us. It is opposed to scripture to assert that the church in apostolic days had no head. What did Christ say to Peter when he addressed him the mysterious question " Lovest thou me more than these" 1 ? Peter says he does -love him. Jesus gives him the order, " feed my lambs." A second time he asks the question, and receives the same reply. The third time he repeats the same question. Peter, troubled that his Lord should doubt his affection, replies, " Oh Lord, thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee," and Jesus repeated the command " feed my lambs" " feed my sheep." Thus Christ establishes the headship of the church in Peter, and him he makes his vice-gerent, or common pastor, to feed both lambs and sheep both clergy and laity. Mr. Campbell quarrels with the doctrine of the pope's headship because it carries a power and an authority with it : and he quotes the New Testament to prove no such power to have been exercised in the days of the apostles. I have disproved his argument upon this point already. Christ did institute a body of leaders, a ministry to guide his people, " that henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive. But doing the truth in Christ, we may in all things grow up in him who is head, even Christ; from whom the whole body being compac- ted and fitly joined together, by what every part supplieth, according to the operation in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in charity." Must not the body have a head, the house a foundation ? He objects that we call the sovereign pontiff Pope, or father, whereas Christ says, "call not any man Father." But is this prohibition of our Savior to be taken liter- all J ^ Is there any guilt or imoiety in calling a parert " Father!" 22 DEBATE ON THE Many of Christ's commands are similar. He commands us to call no man good.- for God only is good. But do we not, in saluting a friend in common life, say " Good Sir," " my good friend?" &c. In there any impiety in this ? It is the using these terms in that sense in which they are peculiar to the divinity, which Christ forbids. And the pope when he corresponds with the bishops, does not assume these proud titles, but addresses them as an elder BROTHER. We Jo not call him " Lord God the Pope." Mr. C. says, St. Paul did not lord it over the clergy. Neithei does the pope. He is to govern the church according to the canons, He can make no articles of faith. He cannot, he does not act arbi- trarily in proposing articles of belief unknown to Catholic antiquity. But neither will he suffer innovation. His language is like St. Paul's, "Were I or an angel from Heaven to preach to you any other gospel, than what has been preached, let him be Anathema !" This expres- sed the sense the great apostle entertained of his own responsibility, and the danger of novelty in religion. He would not suffer altar to be raised against altar, on the ground of private interpretation of the bible. He would not suffer the wolves of heresy and error to prowl around the fold, and tear, and scatter the sheep entrusted to him by Jesus Christ. It would be horrid blasphemy to apply to man the title Father, in the sense in which it is addressed to God. We never call the pope in any sense God. When the pope writes to the bishops, he begins by " Dilecti Fratres" " BELOVED BRETHREN," a republican, and if you please democratic address. The bishops are all brethren undei one common father. The pope is accused of letting himself be wor- shipped. This is not so. But when the Pope comes before the altai he bows down like the humblest of his people. " I confess," says he, "to Almighty God, to the blessed Virgin Mary, the holy Apostles. and to all the Saints," the least of whom he therefore acknowledges to be greater than himself, " that I have sinned ;" and this is what is called setting himself up to be a God ! See how you have been de- ceived by the invidious representations you have had of the pope, and of our doctrine, my friends. 1 assert again that the authority quoted by my friend, Mr. C.. viz. Du Pin, is no authority. He was the rank enemy of the Roman see, a Jansenist, reproved and censured by the Catholic church. Mr. C. knows this, for I have read to him the documents that prove it, and he was confounded by them. It is neither good faith, nor good logic, to quote him as an authority against my argument. As for the signa- tures appended to the English translation, I care not for them ; they may have been wrongfully placed there, or those certificates suborn- ed. This makes nothing for the authority of the book, and no argu- ment can be drawn from them. But, my friends, I am sure you dis- covered his discomfiture when he appealed to Du Pin. There was a stumbling block in his way, something he could not get over. Did you not notice how with the rapid speed of a rail-road car dashing suddenly on an obstruction, he fled the track, when he found to his as- tonishment that the testimony adduced by his author, was not imfa- vorable to the supremacy of St. Peter, and his successors ! I will examine his writings to show that even in the third century, the bish- ops of Rome claimed this prerogative, and Du Pin tells you that this was acknowledged. He says there were three principal bishops. ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 23 This is a great admission, and I am thankful for it. He says that event-then, bishops came from inferior sees, and laid their conflicting claims before the see of Rome; and submitted to the chair of Peter, doubts in religious matters ; and urged it to proclaim a solution of their difficulties; but he says, they did not believe the pope of Rome infallible. This is granting to the Catholics the whole mooted ques- tion. The question is clearly settled by this admission. Appeals were lodged before the bishop of Rome, though he was not believed to be infallible. Neither is he now. No enlightened Catholic holds the pope's infallibility to be an article of faith. I do not; and none of my brethren, that I know of, do. The Catholic believes the pope, as a man, to be as liable to error, as almost any other man in the uni- verse. Man is man, and no man is infallible, either in doctrine or morals. Many of the popes have sinned, and some of them have been bad men. I presume my worthy antagonist will take his brush in hand, and roll up his sleeves, and lay it on them hard and heavy ; so will I ; and whenever he uses a strong epithet against them, I will use a stronger. But let us return to the gentleman's authority, Du Pin. We come to the council of Nice, which was held A. D. 325, and where 318 bishops were assembled. This council was convoked oy the first Christian emperor Constantine the Great, at the suggestion, I might have more correctly said the instigation of Sylvester, bishop of Rome, and of course, with his consent. Osius, bishop of Cordo- va, and two legates, Vitus and Vincentius, presided in it, in the name of the Roman pontiff. The principal doctrine on which the council was assembled to decide, was the divinity of Jesus Christ denied by the Arians. From the manner of the convocation of the council, the circumstance of its having been presided over by the representatives of the pope, or bishop of Rome, the submission of the entire Chris- tian world to its decrees, and the authentic records of its transactions which have reached us, we have the most convincing evidences of the reverence which was even then entertained for the successor of St. Peter ; and the best practical illustration of the wisdom that estab- lished his pre-eminence of rank among his brethren, to watch over the purity of doctrine, the soundness of morals, the uniformity of discipline, and the maintenance of union among the churches. \Vhat more direct and satisfactory testimony could we require of the supre- macy of the see of Rome, than the distinct recognition of its authori- ty by so venerable an assembly ? And what if rival claims were ad- vanced by other sees ] This ambitious spirit is as old as Christiani- ty, as ancient as the origin of the human race. The apostles, them- selves, strove for the mastery. They contended which of them was the greater. But this rivalry only served, in the end, to establish more firmly the precedency of the claim of St. Peter. In answer to the pretensions of the bishop of Alexandria, the council says to him, " As the bishop of Rome has his primacy in Rome, so the bishop of Alexandria has his primacy in Alexandria." It says to him, " you have no cause to complain if he has his authority, you have yours ; in your respective sees, or churches, you have the chief control ; but it is his prerogative, as occupying the place of Peter, to watch over the welfare of all." " Neither," says Du Pin, " DOES IT DISPROVE THE PRIMACY OF ROME." The council offered a sedative to the pride of the bishop of Alexandria, or asserted his authority in his own see, out it does not disprove the primary of Rome. 24 DEBATE ON THE What more do you want than what God has caused to be thus re- corded here? The dissension first originated among the patriarchal sees. The counsel took cognizance of it, and decided according to the rules and usages of the apostolic and immediately subsequent ages. From this, whatever follows, it surely does not follow that there was no primacy in Rome. He says that the bishop of Constantinople assumed to call himself the universal bishop, and that the emperor winked at it. What does this mean 1 Why that the crafty emperor, and the more subtle bishop intended to compel Rome to acknowledge Constantinople as hei equal. This attempt of the emperor and the patriarch illustrates the point at issue, and clears it in fact of any difficulty. They knew that Rome was referred to on every occasion ; and that her decision was final. They were jealous of her authority. The manner of this as- sumption of the bishop of Constantinople, and of the emperor wink- ing at it, are in fact proofs of the supremacy of Home. Now, thought the proud Greek, I will bring this haughty pontiff of Rome crouching to my feet, I will make him surrender all his authority, and we, the emperor and myself, will divide the earth between us. It was there- fore that the bishop made this assumption, and that the emperor winked at it. It was in this unjust and intolerable sense of the term UNIVERSAL FATHER, that Gregory who deserves all the praise which has been given him, and more, objected to its assumption. It was thus that he reprobated the title of universal father. If the bishop of Rome now claims to be called the first pastor in Christendom, he pretends to be no lord of the consciences of his breth- ren, or dictator of the terms of salvation to the servants of God. He acknowledges with humility his own intrinsic nothingness, unless supported by God, and guided and guarded by him in the administra- tion of his eminently responsible office. He is a father because he breaks the mystic bread, and dispenses the spiritual nourishment of sound doctrine to the souls of the people of God. He is a father because to him we appeal in our doubts, and to him refer in every emergency, as to the vicar of Christ. The term Universal Father was likewise worthy of the condemna- tion of Gregory, in the bad sense in which it was assumed by the pa- triarch of Constantinople, viz. that of lord and master of spiritual power and of the consciences of the brethren, so as not to need or ask the advice of the bishops. The pope never gives a decree without taking counsel from his constitutional advisers, a%-ailing himself of the light of present wisdom and past experience. He takes all human means to weigh the subject well and to come to a sound and scriptural conclusion. Discard the pope sever from the communion of the church of Rome, and you lose all claim, or shadow of claim to a con- nexion with the apostles. Hear Waddington speaking of the Vaudois " In our journev back towards the apostolic times, these separatists conduct us a* far as the beginning- of the twelfth century; but when we would advance farther, we are intercepted by a broad region of darkness and uncertainty. A park of hope is indeed suggested by the history of the Vaudois. Their origin is not ascertained by any authentic record, and being immemorial, it may have been coeval with the introduction of Christianity. " But since there is not one direct proof of their existence during that long space; since they have never been certainly discovered by the curiosity of any writer, nor detected by the inquisitorial eye of any orthodox bishop nor ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 25 nmneii by any pope, or council, or any church record, chronicle, or memorial' we are not justified in attaching- any historical credit to their mere unsupported tradition. \t is sufficient to prove, that they had an earlier existence than tli twelfth century; but that they had then been perpetuated through eight or nine centuries, unconuueniorated abroad, and without any national monument to attest their existence, is much more than we can venture, on such evidence to assert. Here then the golden chain of our apostolic descent disappears, and though it may exist, buried in the darkness of those previous ages, ana though some writers have seemed to discern a few detached links which they diligtntly exhibited, there is still much wanting to complete the continuity.' [ Page 5j4 nf the History of the Church from the earliest ages, by Rev. Ceo Waadington, Jl. M. fellow <>f Trinity College, Cambridge, and Prebendary of Ferrin/f, in the cathedral clnirch of Cnichester, JVeio York edition, 1835. l Well if Christ established a church on earth, that church must b catholic. " I believe in the holy catholic church," is the language of the apostles and of councils, of Protestants as well as of Catholics. The tr,ue church must be catholic. What church then is catholic 1 The universe answers the question Italy, France, Spain, Austria. Ireland, South America, Canada, five hundred churches lately erected in England, Calcutta, Ceylon, Oceana, all the islands of the Pacific and the Atlantic : even in every country where Protestantism is dom- inant, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the testimony is ^iven, and tha words " I believe in the holy catholic church" are used by the mem- bers of the Roman Catholic church, who alone have a right to use them. Applied to any other church they are a misnomer. Protestants cannot employ such language. They are cut up into a thousand dis- cordant and chaotic sects. As no other church but ours is now cath- olic, so no other but ours ever has been or will be catholic. " Chris- tian is my name and Catholic my surname," said Pacian. With love and charity to all men the Roman Catholic church subsists throughout all time, teaches all truth, and gathers into her communion the children of every clime. What she lost in one region, she gained in another. The axe of persecution that lopped off some of her branches, made the vigorous trunk produce the more luxuriously. " Investigating," says Fletcher, "in those countries, where either Christianity has once subsisted, or where it subsists at present the monuments which thev exhibit, and interrogating these (monuments have voices, my brethren, that speak plainly,) it will be. found that they all loudly attest the greatness and the an- tiquity of our religion. "We are Catholics," the venerable ruins say, "and the emblems even, which still adorn us, shew it." It is so, likewise, not only in the monuments, which were once, or are yet, sacred to religion, but in a grea* variety of other vestiges. The proofs of the ancient splendor of Catholicity are legible on almost every object, that has seen the tide of ages roll away, on the palaces of princes, -on the castles of the great, on the gates of cities, on the asylums of charity, on the tombs of the dead. They may be read in the con- stitutions and laws of kingdoms in the foundations and rules of universities, in the customs and peculiarities of the vulgar. * ***** It is indeed, possible that prejudice may object to those arguments, that "they are very general and indistinct, proving, it is true, that in almost every nation, and in every age, there has existed a widely diffused religion, a Catholic religion, but not proving that this religion, its principles and doctrines, were - every a - e the same in every age, the identical religion, which the Catholic be- lieves at present." It is the essence of the true religion to remain unchanged ; and to have descended, and to descend always, down the stream of time, without corruption or alteration. If, therefore, I undertake distinctly to prove, that th-; Catholic religion of the present period is indeed, the true religion, then shoul-'* I also distinctly prove that it has never undergone any alteration, and that it is the same, which, revealed originally to mankind, has, during the course of eigh- teen centuries, formed always the object of the veneration of the orthodox bt- liever." vol. 2, p. 173 C 4 *l> DEBATE (XV 1HE " As it was the design of God, that the true church shouM be Catholic; so it "as also his desisrn. that the true church should always be distinguished by the LonoraWe appellation of Catholic: as it was the will of Jesus Christ, that the establishment which he formed, should extend through every nation, and subsist through every age; so alto it was his will, that this establishment should be dig- nified \>y a itaroe corresponding to these great characteristics. " I bf lieve." the apostles commarded the faithful in every age to say, "in the holy CATHOLIC Churcn, ' "by this name CATHOLIC," says St. Austin, "7 ttm retained in the Catholic church," * my name," adds St. Pacian, "is Christian; my surname CATHOLIC; and BY THIS SURNAME, / am diitinguishcd from all the sects of heresy. Sermon on the catholicity of the church, page 195, vol. ii. Baft. edit. 1830. It is certainly, my beloved friends, a very animating circumstance, to view the immensity and the long duration of our church; to see it stretching out its em- pire througn every climate; consoliagby its benefits, and enlightening by its doc- trines, the remotes* corners of the universe: to see it existing through the long lapse 01 so many ages, unmoved, while the strongest empires sink to rnin ; and unshaken, while all things fall in decay around it. It is animating to remark it triumphant over ail the powers of darkness,aod the exertions of human malice, combating often, it is true, with the storms of persecution and the artifices of heresy; yet combating, always, to come off with victory; riding throngh the tem- pest, ana exalted by the very means which had been levelled at its depression Ibid, page 198. From this contemplation, my Christian friends, we may derive the consoling assurance, that happen or befal what may, though the billows of persecution swell and the tide of error rage; every effort to destroy the church shall turn out fruitless. The church, these scenesassare you, fs an edifice protected bv the hand of the Almighty, a rock fixed on the basis of the divfne power amid th sea of human life. The billows of persecution shall swell, the tide of error dash against it in vain. They will no more move it, although they may, in- deed, sweep away many of its unguarded members, than the gentk st *pray will move the firmest mountain that the ocean laves. I should be sorry to see the misfortune happen, yet could I behold the most 'furious tempest gathering without one feeling of anxiety for the stability of the chtrrch. As the Psalmist my s, "if should rome to nothing, like the running water," (Pa. Ivii.) It. would prove but the preparation for fresh coaquests. The security of the church amid storms, during the long' interval of eighteen centuries, is alone sufficient assur- ance of its security, amid the fury of future tempest. Ibidem, pa^e 193. If it can be proved that the Catholic chnrch had not these characteristics, we admit she is not the church of Christ. I shall go to trial on this point. If she has ever ceased to teach the whole doc- trine of Christ, to diffuse over all nations, the true Christian precepts, or if she has not had a larger body of professors, than any of the sects, that separated in every successive age from her communion, then will I yield the question. Bnt it will try the ingenuity of the gentleman- to prove any such thing, and still more, to show in that case, what church was catholic. This difficulty meets him at the very threshold. [Time expired] Three o'clock, P. M. Mr. CAMPBELL rises Mr learned and worthy opponent commenced his forenoon speech, spying that he found before him a more easy task than he had expect- ed. Were it a question of rhetoric rather than of logic, I confess I should have mort to fear. He has been more accustomed than I, to the djtpiay of that art. I am rather a matter of fact man, and logic more than rhetoric has occupied my attention. I apprehend, however, before this discussion is ended he may find his task not quite so easy as he would seem to anticipate. And to me the good book has suggested a caution which I hope always to remem- ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 27 ber. It is happily couched in these words, " Let not him that buck- leth on his armor boast as he that taketh it off." But to examine his defence, so far as in it there is reference to my speech, has he not made in the very first effort an unfortunate admis- sion ? The name Catholic he admits is generic and the name Roman specific, and that the term Roman only indicated the church in which this catholic communion is to be enjoyed : that the universal church is found in the particular, the genus in the species. Thus we can have Greek catholic, English catholic, American catholic, as well as Roman catholic. These particular universals are susceptible of indefinite multiplication. And so the catholicity of Rome is specifi- cally the same with that of England ! ! His second admission is equally unfortunate. He did not seem to perceive that .he argued for me rather than against me, on the word father. He said that it could not be understood literally. So said I. How then must it be used but religiously 1 Call no man your religious, or ecclesiastic Father. He has then fully conceded all that I ask. It is then an absolute prohibition of the Roman Catholic notion of a supreme holy father. To designate any person pope is then a viola- tion of Christ's command. The gentleman has admitted, somewhat reluctantly however, that the Doway catechism is a standard work, and that the definition of the church is infallibly correct. My argument hitherto has berrn to shew that the supreme head called pope, being of the essential ele- ments, nay the chief element of the Roman Catholic church, and not found either in the bible or ecclesiastic history for ages after the Chris- tian era, the church of Rome is a sect in the true import of that word, and not the mother and mistress of all churches, for she cannot be older than her head, unless a body can exist without and before its head, which is impossible. It is not the nature of that head, whether political or ecclesiastic or both, but the simple fact of its existence concerning which we enquire. The nature and claims of the head may hereafter be the subject of examination. That the Roman sect is divided into four parties, touching the supremacy one affirming that the pope is the fountain of all power political and religious another teaching that he has only ecclesiastic supremacy a third party affirming that his ecclesiastic dominion is over all councils, per- Bons and things spiritual, and a fourth party limiting his jurisdiction to a sort of executive pjesidency is a proposition susceptible of ample proof, and of much importance, but we wish it to be very distinctly stated that the question now before us is the fact that a head, or universal father, pope or patriarch, is not found in the Roman empire, east or west, for six hundred years, and consequently that during that time that church did not exist, whose four essential ele- ments, are a pope or supreme head, bishops, pastors and laity. I am the more diffuse on this point because my learned opponent eeems to mistake the question or to confound it with another of a diffe- rent category. He seems to be squinting at infallibility, authority, order in the ministry, rather than looking in the face the simple ques- tion, was there a pope in any church for the first six centuries ? Authority is not infallibility, nor is order, supremacy. I go for authority in the president of the United States, but who infers thence that I hold the president to be infallible ! I go for order in the Christian church, but what has this to do with the supremacy of the bishop of Rome' 1 28 DEBATE ON THE Why, I emphatically ask, does the bishop of Cincinnati confound the question of fact before us with that concerning the Levitical priest- hood. I have not agitated such a question. And what have my views of church order and government to do with the question before us. Why drag these matters into discussion. Did I not distinctly say that I came not here to defend the tenets of any party of Protestants, but the great principles of Protestantism 1 And what have my views of church order to do with the questions at issue ! Of these however the gentleman is wholly misinformed. I am the advocate of order, of a Christian ministry, of bishops and deacons in the church. Without order no society can exist, and therefore no reasonable man can object either to order or authority in the church But again I ask what is this to the question in debate ! He gave us too a dissertation on the passage, " lovest thoumemore than these." This is certainly gratuitous at this time. I am glad however the gentleman has delivered himself on this text. But this is not the question now. We are seeking for a head for the church, a papal head for the church in the first ages, while our friend is ex- pounding scriptures on other themes. To the authority of Du Pin the gentleman seems to except. But on what authority does he object ? His works are certified by the doctors of the Sorbonne and by the guardians of the Catholic press. Will he say that he is not an authentic historian ? Du Pin was born and educated, lived and died and was buried in the Roman Catholic church. The gentleman proved, two or three months ago, that general La Fayette was a Roman Catholic because he was baptized in the church of Rome and buried in consecrated ground. Certainly then Du Pin was all this and more ! It matters not whether he was a Jan- senist or Jesuit. Both orders have been at different times in good and bad repute. Jansenists have sometimes been proscribed, and Jesuits have been suppressed. But the question is not, was he a good Ca- tholic, but was he an authentic historian ? For a good Catholic is one thing, and a good historian is another. I wish the gentleman to answer. (Bishop Purcell. 1 answer emphatically, he was not an au- thentic historian.) Then this gentleman and the bishop of Bardstown are at variance. The latter gentleman, if I mistake not, admitted in a discussion pub- lished in the Catholic paper of that place, that Du Pin was an authen- tic historian. I have seen this work repeatedly quoted in discussions between Romanists and Protestants, and I do not recollect to have seen any thing advanced against his authenticity. Mr. Hughes of Philadelphia, but on different grounds than those stated by my opponent, did indeed object to him as a faithful witness in his controversy with Mr. Breckenridge. However while I wish it to go to the public that bishop Purcell has objected to Du Pin as an authentic historian, I will distinctly state that I rely upon him in this controversy only so far as he is sustained by other historians, and therefore I will only quote him in such matters as I know can be sustained from other sources. Other historians record the same fact, and many of the works which Du Pin quotes are not only extant but accessible. The word catholic the gentleman has stated that it is of high anti- quity and found at the head of some books of the Xew Testament. But how came it into the Xew Testament ? Was it Robert Stephens of Paris that placed it there in the 16th century as a sort of genera] ROMAN CATHOLIC KELIGIOX. 29 neading to certain epistles, or was it placed there by the apostles themselves 1 ? Touching the council of Nice and whether Sylvester had any thing to do with its convocation, may hereafter be worthy of discussion ; at present this is not before us. The decree of the council and its convocation are distinct things. Of the texts relied on by me to dispose of the pretensions of supre- macy, the gentleman has taken special exception to Ep. iv. 11. and would have different orders of ecclesiastic powers, rather than gift for the edification of the church and the fitting of saints for the work of the ministry, to be contained in that passage. But the text says n;ifts and not lordships. Of these gifts vouchsafed by the ascended Savior the first was apostles. " He gave first apostles, secondarily prophets," and here again " he gave some apostles and some pro- phets." No supremacy is expressed of an individual. It is not ranks of authorities like civil or military functionaries, such as magistrates, aldermen, constables, &c., but gifts of light and knowledge and grace, the splendid gifts of the Holy Spirit ; gifts of teaching, preaching, ex- horting, and setting- up the tabernacle or church. The apostles had all authority and all gifts themselves; but they needed assistants and a distribution of labor, and not an hierarchy, in laying the foundation and in fitting saints for the work of the Christian ministry. Having now touched all the relevant points in the Bishop's opening speech, I hasten to my argument. On examination of the New Testament, the primitive fathers, the councils both provincial and general, down to the close of the 6th cen- tury, we do not find in the whole territory claimed by our opponents as yet, the idea or name of a supreme head, pope, or vicar of Christ. My learned antagonist has not produced any such document, and doubtless he knows if there be any such authority now extant, and would produce it. The strong expressions of Saint Gregory in opposition to the title shew what a singular novelty it was in Rome during " his pontifi- cate," and his bold declaration not only of the arrogance and blas- phemy of the title, but of its aspect to all the bishops, as annulling their equality, sufficiently prove that he rightly appreciated its true meaning and its hostility to the genius of that simplicity and humility which comported with the servants of Christ. So far then as we have examined the evidence on hand, the defence of the Bishop, the argu- ment as now developed stands thus : a pope, or universal patriarch, is the first essential element of the Roman Catholic sect. But there was no such personage in existence for 600 years after Christ, there- fore there was no church of Rome, in the sense of the creed, during the first six centuries. We are now prepared to narrate the circumstances which ushered into being the pope of Rome. Mauritius the emperor of the East died Ht the hand of Phocas a centurion of his own army. Mauritius fa- vored the pretensions of the bishop of Constantinople, and turned a deaf ear to the importunities of Gregory on the subject of taking from bishop John the title of universal father, so painful to the pride and humility of the great Gregory. For the saint- had written to the em- peror on the arrogance of John, metropolitan of the great diocese of the east. Mauritius was supplanted and the throne usurped by Puo- cas. Gregory re : oiced at his death, and hailed the elevation of his c 2 DEBATE ON THE murderer to the throng. Gregory consecrated him, in the church of Si. John the Baptist at Constantinople, and Phocas, as a re ward for his consecration and favorable regards, conferred upon the successor of Gregory, Boniface the third, the title of universal patri- arch in the very sense in which it had been repudiated by Gregory. Thus in the year 606 two years after the death of the saint, the first pope was placed in the chair of the Galilean fisherman, if in- deed Peter had ever sat in a chair inRome. Concerning the consecration of Phocas, Mr. Gibbon thus remarks : " The senate and clergy obeyed his summons, and as soon as the patriarch was assured of his orthodox belief, he consecrated the successful usurper in the church of St. John the Baptist. On the third day, amidst the acclamations of a thoughtless people, Phocas made his public entry in a chariot drawn bv four white horses: the revolt of the troops was rewarded by a lavish donation, and the new sovereign, after visiting the palace, beheld from his throne the games of the hippodrome." Gibbon's Decline and Fall Rom. Emp. vol. viii, p. 269. But the infidel has good reason to laugh at the saint, where he re- cords the exultation of Gregory at the death of Mauritius. " As a subject and a Christian it was the duty of Gregory to acquiesce in the established government; but the joyful applause with which he salutes the for- tunes of the assassin, has sullied with indelible disgrace the character of the saint. The successor of the apostles might have inculcated with decent firm- ness the guilt of blood, and the necessity of repentance: he is content to cele- brate the deliverance of the people and the fall of the oppressor; to rejoice that the piety and benignity of Phocas have been raised by Providence to the imperial throne; to pray that his hands may be strengthened against all his enemies ; and to express a wish, perhaps a prophecy, that after a \ons and triumphant reign, he mav be transferred from a temporal to an everlasting kingdom." Id. ib. p. 211. It looks indeed as if Gregory had permitted the recollection of the conduct of Mauritius towards his rival to mingle with his exultations at the elevation of Phocas. When we recollect that Mauritius, his wife, four sons and three daughters were immolated at the shrine of the ambition of Phocas because be feared a rival, we are astonished that saint Gregory could have called heaven and earth to rejoice in his exaltation to the throne of the Caesars. His words are : " Bt-nignitatem ve?trae pietatis ad imperiale fastigium perveni himself, " on this rock will I build my church," refers not 32 DEBATE ON THE to the divine head of the church in Heaven, hut to the representative cf his divine commission on earth. I affirm that what Christ thought necessary in the days of the apostles, is necessary now ; and the more remote we are from that day, the more necessary does it become. Jesus Christ well knew that there must be scandals and errors ; and he determined his church should not be left headless. We know this head exists and where it resides ; but we are not slaves in the Ca- tholic church. We acknowledge no mere human authority between us and God. We are as free and untrammeled as any people under heaven. It is not the man, but the authority, we respect. The man may err, and if the pope claims a power not belonging to him, we soon remind him of his mistake. How this lesson has been taught to a few popes, the history of the church will show. My friend now contradicts the statement he made to-day. He first argued that the introduction of patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, deacons, and so on, into the church, was of exotic growth and, as if he had forgotten what he had previously denied, he turns round', and tells us,*nearly in the same breath, that he goes for bishops and deacons and orders. So far then, Mr. Campbell is a good Catholic, and I congra- tulate him on this advance towards the truth. [Symptoms of applause in the andience, were here manifested, but were immediately checked by the moderators ; and bishop Purcell besought them, once for all, to abstain from the least demonstration of the kind during the debate. It was improper in a discussion of this character, and the house being greatly crowded, much inconvenience would follow, and the debate could not go on.] As to the authority he has produced here (Du Pin's Ecclesiastical history) I will remark that I consider Du Pin a learned man. I would even select him as a splendid illustration of the strength imparted to the human intellect by the Catholic intellectual discipline. He was truly a prodigy of learning and of precision of style. But there was a plague spot, a gangrene upon him, which must forever neutralize his authority as a Catholic. Before the gentleman pronounced his name we had a flourish of rhetoric, and a labored eulogy upon my tact in managing this controversy. For my part, I must say that 1 am quite a novice in these matters I am not accustomed to debate. My friend has complimented me upon oratorical powers to which I lay no claim. If I have any advantage, I owe it not to practice but to the force of truth. Du Pin, on whom my friend relies as Catholic authority, recognized by the church, was in constant correspondence with Wake, the arch- bishop of Canterbury. He tried every stratagem to bring about a re-union of the church of England, and ihe church of Rome. Leib- nitz, and many a distinguished name, had previously labored in the same vocation. But Revd. Dr. Du Pin's motives were, unfortunately, suspicious. He proposed as the basis of the re-union, the abolition of auricular confession, of religious vows, of the Lenten fast and ab- stinence, of the pope's supremacy, and of the celibacy of the clergy. He was himself, like Cranmer, secretly married ; and after his death, his pretended wife came publicly forward to assert her right to his goods and chattels. And this is Catholic authority ! It is said these papers were discovered in his study after his death. But he was censured by pope Clement XL even during his life-time; and when, as I have stated, Louis XIV. removed him from among the Doctors of the Sorbonne, Clement approved the act. ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 33 If my friend can produce Roman Catholic authority, l*t him do so. But let him not produce one that approaches with a mask. The authority of Du Pin I have challenged on just grounds; but this has nothing to do with the views I have stated upon the great question we are discussing. We are told that the commission spoken of in Ephesians, 4th chapter, " To some he gave apostles, &c." confers, not powers, but simply gifts. This I deny. St. Paul tells us authority was given to the rulers of his church by Christ, not for their sakes but that we may be no longer children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. They were not, then, merely gifts, they were powers and authorities to re- gulate the church, and to rule the people of God. These commissions are the foundation of the church established on earth by Christ, before he ascended on high. They were necessary, as the more solid parts of a temple are first laid, that the whole building may afterwards have strength, consistency, and symmetry. I deny that the church, ever has been or could be without a foundation. The. foundation is at least as necessary as the superstructure. Christ made Peter, there- fore, the rock of his church, and was himself the corner stone whereon that rock rested, as did the whole edifice securely rest upon the rock. Why has Mr. Campbell anticipated the subject of the third or fourth day of this discussion, and brought up the pope as the man of sin the sea monster of Daniel the youngest horn of the beast ? &c. For aught I know, he may prove the pope to be the sea serpent no doubt his powers of logic are adequate to the task. We shall see. Again the pope is not a tyrant, nor does he claim the title of Uni- versal Father, in the sense in which Gregory rebuked John for claiming it. Mr. Campbell has solved the question beforehand, in stating the arrogant pretensions of the bishop of C. P. who pretended that all au- thority proceeded from him. I do not derive all my authority from the pope. The bishops of the United States consult together. They propose candidates for the vacant sees ; and they send to Rome the names of three clergymen, marked according to their judgment, "Worthy, Worthier, Worthiest." The pope generally trusts to their wisdom, and acquiesces in their choicf . It was thus that a certain testimony of my fitness to succeed the venerable Fenwick, as bishop of this diocese, was forwarded to Rome. The sovereign pontiff, Gregory XVI. ratified the selection of the prelacy of the United States, and expedited the brief, or letters, in rirtue of which I was ordained a bishop ; but my power to consecrate, to baptize, and to perform other episcopal functions, comes not from the pope ; it comes like that of the apostles, directly from God. There are other denominations, besides the Catholic, that contend for the necessity of apostolical succession of orders and mission, and these too are the objects of my friend's sarcasm. I select only two the Episcopalians and the German Reformed. In the last number of his Millennial Harbinger, in speaking of the Episcopalian bishop Otey of Tennessee, he asks "why is bishop Otey silent ] He either feels that his castle of Episcopalianism has been demolished by the editor of the Harbinger (Mr. Campbell) or he does not. If he feels that it has been overthrown, as an honest man he ought to acknowledge it. But if he still thinks that he is adorning ' the doctrine of God" by sustaining Episcopalianism, let him shew his strength to such as wish to read both sides of the question. It is 3 34 DEBATE ON THE an apostolic admoni'ion to "contend earnestly foi the faith delivered to -the saints." If he is sent of God, as he professes to be, as a faith- ful \vatchman on Zion's walls, he should not remain mute ; hut cry aloud, seeing his opinions have been politely assailed. Percontator." Answer. Many reasons might be imagined for bishop Otey's si- lence, but I will venture upon only one, viz. that like M. de La Motte (I presume the witty and pious bishop of Amiens) he is waiting for a reply (o his silence. How, &c. Again Mr. Lancellot Bell, addressing the editor, Mr. Campbell (yid. Mil. Harbinger, p. 570.) says "I accompanied brother L. to Cavetown, where he addressed the citizens, &c. Two of the " called and sent" of the German Reformed church, considering, I suppose, their " craft in danger," came to the place, and I spoke against these things, contradicting, who were going to express^ it in the language of some of the people, to "lick us up like salt," ic. &c. Mr. Campbell, therefore, has changed his tone ; he is now in favor of orders; a"nd this change has apparently taken place' within a few days. I have proved that the headship of t u e church was no new thing in the beginning of the fourth century. Du Pin spoke of the decision of the council of Nice, respecting the contest between the bishops of Alexandria and of Rome, but said that this decision of the council did not disprove the primacy of Rome, so that this doctrine is at least as old as the year 318, when Sylvester of Rome presided by his legate Osius of Cordova at the council of Nice. This shows that the authority of Rome was then recognized. He spoke of the council of Chalcedon. I have here an authentic historian recognized by the Ca- tholics, and one who tells sharp truths of individual Catholics, when he conceives them to be in the wrong. It is Barronius. In his Annals, year of Christ 451, of pope Leo, 12th, twenty seventh of Valentine and 2nd of Mareian, he says that in this council the authority of the see of Peter was recognized. 360 bishops met in this council. Circum- stances not permitting pope Leo to assist at it in person, he sent three legates, two bishops and a priest, to preside in his -name. At the first session Paschasinus, bishop of Lillibeum, and one of the legates of the pope, preferred charges against Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, for his uncanonical conduct in the conventicle of Ephesus. Dioscorus, thus accused and convicted, was compelled to leave his seat and sit in an inferior. place in the middle of the assembly. Sub- sequently a sentence of deposition was pronounced against him ; and as his guilt was manifest, he left the assembly and appeared no more. The fathers of the council unanimously exclaimed that the doctrinal decisions of Leo were those of Peter himself " Petrus per Leonem locutus est" Peter hath spoken by the mouth of Leo. (vid. Reeves, 1st vol. 263.) the fathers of the council directed to St. Leo a synodical letter, in which they acknowledge him for the interpreter of St. Peter, for their head and guide." (vid. Barronius, ibid.) Now here is the au- thority of the first general council of Nice, as quoted by Labbe. Greek bishops say : COUNCILS. "The Roman church has always had the primacy." (Labbe, t. 2. p. 41.) The second general council and first of Constantinople says : " Let the bishop of Constantinople have the first share ot honor after the bish op of Rome." (Alexandria was emitted to the sccouu rank.) ROMAW CATHOLIC RELIGION. 35 The third general council of Ephesus says: " St. Peter, the prince and head of the apostles, the foundation of the Catho!ic church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, and the power of loosing and of binding sin was given to him, which to the present time, ns it ever has done, subsists and exercises judgment in his successors." The fourth general council of Chalcedon, writing to St. Leo, says : " We therefore entreat you, to honor our judgment by your decrees; and as we have, adhered to our head in good things, so let your supremacy supply what becometh (or is wanting) for thy children." The council of Florence in which the Greek and Latin bishops were present, thus speaks : " We define that the holy apostolic see and the Roman pontiff hold the prima- cy over the entire earth, and that he is the successor of the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, the true vicar of Christ, and the head of the whole church,' tc. T. 13. p. 515. The general council of Trent, speaks in the following terras : . "The sovereign pontilts, in virtue of the supreme power delivered to them over the entire church, had a right to reserve the judgment of certain more grievous crimes to their own tribunal." Melancthon holds the following language, as quoted by Bossuet in his history of the variations. L. 5, n. 24. "Our people agree, that the ecclesiastical polity, in which are recognized supei ior bishops of many churches and the bishop of Rome superior to all bish- ops, is permitted. Thus there is uo contest respecting the supremacy of the pope and the authority of bishops, and also the pope and the bishops could pasi- ly preserve this authority, for it is necessary for a church to have leaders to maintain order, to keep an eye upon those called to the ecclesiastical state, and upon the doctrine of the priests, and to exercise ecclesiastical judgment, so that if there were no bishops we would have to make them. The monarchy of the pope would also serve much to preserve amongst many nations the unity of doctrine; wherefore we could easily agree as to the supremacy of the pope if we could agree in every thing else." Leibnitz, as quoted by De Starck, p. 22, speaks as follows: " As God is the God of order, and as by divine appointment, the body of the only, apostolic, Catholic church can be maintained by a single, hierarchical and universal government, it follows, that there must be a supreme spiritual chief, who shall be confined within proper bounds, established by the same (divine) right, and invested with all the power and dictatorial authority necessary for the preservation of the church." FATHERS. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, the disciple of St. Polycarp, who himself ap- pears to have been consecrated by St. John the Evangelist, repeatedly urges this argument against his contemporary heretics. He says : " We can count up those who were appointed bishops in the churches by the apostles and their successors down to us, none of whom taught this doctrine. But as it would he tedious to enumerate the succession of bishops in the differ- ent churches, we refer you to the tradition of that greatest, most ancient, and universally known church, founded at Rome by St. Peter and St. Paul, and which lias been preserved there through the succession of its bishops, down to the present time." Tertullian, who also flourished in the same century (year 150), argues in the 'same manner and challenges certain heretics in these terms : 'Let them produce the origin ol their church ; let them display the succession of their bishops, so that the first of them may appear to have be'en ordained by an apostolic man, who peri the dread anathema. After a fruitless attempt to bring over the patriarch by mild means, they entered the church of St. Sophia, at noon day, on the l(Uh of July, in the year 1054, and mounting the altar read aloud the bull of excommunication, before the people, wi then departed, ehakinir off the dust ot their feet against the patrlaieh, his city and people. The bull speal s on this wise : 40 DEBATE ON THE " The Holy Apostolic see of Rome, which is the chief of the whole world, to which as to the head belongs in a more especial manner the care of all th churches; has S( nt us to this royal city in the quality of its legates, tor the welfare and peace of the church, that as it is written, we should go down and see whe- ther the cries which pierce its ears from this great city be true or no. Let therefore the emperors, clergy, senate and people of this city of Constan- tinople know, that we have here found more good to excite our joy, than evil to raise our sorrow. For as to the supporters of the empire, and the principal citizens, the city is wholly Christian and orthodox: but as for Michael, who look upon him the false title of patriarch, and his adherents, we have found that they have sown discord and heresy in the midst of this city * * * because they rebaptized, as (fid the Arians, those who had been bap tized in the name of the blessed trinity, and particularly the Latins; because with the Donatists they maintain that the Greek church is the only true church, and that the sacrifices and baptism of none else are valid." ** * * * * * * The Greek church, be it noted with all distinctness, did stand upon this point, that she was the only true church ; and that no ordinance, baptism or the eucharist. was at all valid, unless administered by her from the nature of me apostolic office. ,**-tt did we concede that the apostolic office was communicable, and ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 51 that Christ did appoint a president of the apostles, and place his chair in Rome, there is no document on earth, from which we can learn with any degree of certainty, that Peter was ever bishop in Rome. And yet Catholics themselves, contend that it is essential to the cause of the succession and supremacy that Peter placed his see at Rome by Christ's commandment. Bellarmine positively affirms ; " The right of succession in the popes of Home isfounded in this, that Peter by Christ s appointment, placed his seat at Rome, and there remained till hit death." Lib. TI. c. 1. This resolves the controversy into a single question of fact, viz. Did Peter, by Christ's appointment, place his seat at Home and there re- main It'll death? Barronius, however says; " It is not improbable that our Lord gave an express command that Peter shoulil so fix his see at Rome, that the bishop of Rome should absolutely sue ceed him. [Id. Ib. Only probable ! But there is no such succession in fact. In the first place, there is no proof from scripture that Peter ever was at Rome, much less, bishop of Rome ; and secondly, if he were an apostle, he could not be the bishop of any church. A king, a justice of the peace, the bishop of London, the vicar of Bray ! It is, on these premises, impossible to prove this most fundamental question. Various efforts have been made by the bishop of Cincinnati to ex- cite Episcopalians and others on this question, as if they were likely to be involved in the same common ruin with my opponent's preten- sions. There is no need for any alarm on this account. The office of pope and his succession, certainly, are not identical with that of Episcopalian bishops in England or America ! There is no body cf men who have done more to elevate English aterature and science, than the English clergy, none whose writings I have read with more pleasure than theirs, on all subjects pertaining to general literature, morality and religion. In some of them, indeed, we find weak as well as strong places, and a too great timidity in contending against the Romanists, lest they should endanger their right of Episcopacy. I incline to the opinion, that the pretensions of the church of Rome may be fully canvassed without at all jeopardizing the simple question of the divine right of Episcopacy. But if we at- tempt to bring a clean thing out of an unclean ; or expect to find a di- vine warrant in the commission given to the apostles ; or in the Ro- man Catholic traditions ; we shall never find it to the day of eternity. Successors must be successors in full, or they are not successors at all. To illustrate this does not the existing president of the United States inherit all the power and authority of George Washington, by virtue of constitutional succession 1 Does he not possess the same power, in all. its length and breadth, its height and depth, as dii his predecessor, from the first to the last 1 This is true of every constitu- tional office in the civilized world. All the power which any prede- cessor can have, belongs to every incumbent : So in the church ' it have constitution at all. If the apostles have successors, they have successors in full. But the Roman Catholics themselves give up the controversy, by admitting that none of the bishops or popes inherit the power and functions be- stowed upon the apostles by the commission. I do not, indeed, found my argument for the divine right of bishopa &2 DEBATE ON THE or elders, and deacons, on the commission, which Jesus Christ gives to his apostles; and 1 am prepared for all the consequences of this ad- mission. For by every rule of interpretation, I must apply every word of the commission to the apostles ; because it addresses them only. But let none he alarmed at this declaration : nothing is jeopardized rather, indeed, all is secured by it. In the presence of the apostles alone, he pronounced these words ; " All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me ; go you .there- fore and convert all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things which I have commanded you ; and lo, / am with you al- ways, even to the conclusion of this state," or to the end of the age or world. This commission created plenipotentiaries : it reared up ambassa- dors, and gave to the apostles the same power of erecting the church, which God gave to Moses for raising the tabernacle in the wilderness. They had all the authority of Christ to set up what orde.rs they pleas- ed. They created both bishops and deacons ; and as they had a di- vine right to do so, so those created by them have a divine right to officiate in the duties of those offices. A true interpretation of the promise, "lam with you," will go far to confirm the declaration, that they neither had, nor could have successors in office. Of this, how- ever, again Meanwhile, it may be objected that Paul was an apostle, and ac- ted without this commission. He had, indeed, a special commission, and the qualifications of an apostle. He had seen and heard the Lord. For to this end the Lord appeared to him. But as respected time, he acknowledged he was born rather two late to be an apostle he was " born out of due time" How, then, could any of them have succes- sors at this day ! The gentleman mentioned some two persons in the Old Testament. They could have no successors in office, according to the argument on hand. It was absolutely impossible that Moses could have a succes- sor. His office and commission were really from God, and strictly peculiar to himself. He brought the Jews out of Egypt, and erected the tabernacle ; this was his peculiar office, which, in its very nature, expired when once its duties were fulfilled. The commission of Joshua, in iTfce manner, was also peculiar to himself, and could not possibly de- scend to a successor. When he led Israel across the Jordan, and di- vided the land by lot amongst them, his works and office naturally ex- pired. So when the apostles preached the gospel, revealed the whole will of Jesus Christ, and erected his church and all its proper officers and duties, their work was done, and they, like Moses and Joshua, be- ing officers extraordinary, could have no successors.-[Time expired.] Half past 10 o block A. M. BISHOP PURCEI.T. rises. Here is, beloved friends, as plain and logical a case for argumenta- tion, and as fair an opportunity afforded for refutation, as ever the annals of controversy exhibited. The. first argument of my friend amounts to this, viz: That for reasons he has given, the Greek church has superior claims upon our attention to the Roman. I have quoted councils, general and particular laws, usages, appeals ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 53 the authority of Greek and Latin fathers, that is to say, the most au- thentic testimony of the first figes, to show that with Rome was the primacy of all the churches. This, at once, upsets all that he has said. He says the first seven councils were Greek; and that therefore the Greek church had the preeminence. But, I ask, who convoked those councils 1 Who approved them ? Who sanctioned their canons, and gave throughout the entire church the force of law to their decisions I Who guarded them against errors, and set them right when they were going, or had gone astray? It was the pope. I 'have already said, that Sylvester, hishop of Rome, aware of the danger that menaced the faith in the east, convoked the great council of Nice that the emperor Constantine, the ruler of the east and west, of Rome and of Constantinople, the man, consequently, upon whom as chief magis- trate of the Roman empire it devolved, afforded the necessary facilities to the various bishops to come to the council. Again, who presided as legate of the pope ? Osius of Cordova, in Spain, a western man, assisted, as is and has been customary, by two inferior ecclesiastics. The jealous Greeks beheld all this, and surely they would not have permitted Rome thus to assume the supremacy, if her right to it had not been universally admitted since the days of her founder St. Peter. Is it not the most splendid proof of the correctness of my argument 1 ? The strongest evidence that could be desired of the discomfiture of my adversary? I thought to have seen a more powerful display of logic from the strong and disciplined mind of my friend Mr. C.; but 1 attributed the poverty of his argument to indisposition on his part, or to the weak- ness of his cause. Well, another reason is stated, to prove the supremacy of the Greek church, viz. : that the questions discussed in these councils were of Greek origin. Is it then to be wondered at, that as almost every error in the old church originated in the East, it shpuld be there corrected * that the remedy should be applied where the disease existed? The Greeks were at all times a curious, inquisitive, restless people. The passion for disputation displayed in the schools of the philosophers was, as by contagion, communicated to many of the professors of Christianity. But the manner in which it operated upon the one and the other was essentially different. With the philosopher such ques- tions were objects of understanding only, subjects of speculation ; whereon the ingenuity of a minute mind might employ or waste itself. But with the Christian they were matters of truth and falsehood, of belief or disbelief, and he felt assured that his eternal interests would be influenced if not decided by his choice. As soon as the copious language of Greece was vaguely applied to the definition of spiritual things, and the explanation of heavenly mysteries, the field of conten- tion seemed to be removed from earth to air, where the foot found nothing stable (nothing like the rock of Rome new and striking proof of its necessity) to rest upon ; where arguments were easily eluded, and where the space, in which to fly and rally, was infinite. Add to this the nature and genius of the disputants ; for the origin >/ these disputes may be traced without any exception to the rest/ess inia.sinn- tions of the East. The violent temperament of the orientals, as it \vvs highly adapted to the reception of religious impressions, and admitted them with fervor and earnestness, intermingled, so closely, passion r '3 54 DEB ATI: o\ THE with piety, as scarcely to conceive them separable. The natural ardor of their feelings was not abated by the natural subtilty of their under- standing, which was sharpened in the schools of Egypt; and when this latter began to be occupied by inquiries in which the former were so deeply engaged, it was to be expected that many extravagances would follow. Vid. Waddington, p. 92. Yet, because it was in the east that the heresies in the ancient day of the church commenced, and in the east the councils met to correct those heresies, the Greek church must therefore have heen the mother church! Such is my friend's argument! and it is now plain, that a feebler, a more inconclusive, and a more irrational one, he could scarce- ly have advanced before this enlightened assembly. But what is still more remarkable, did not these very councils, these Greek councils, establish by their own acts, and these of the most solemn and authentic character, the supremacy of the Roman seel Did they not solicit the pope's approbation of their decrees, and acknowledge that without his sanction their proceedings were void of effect 1 ? He says that the emperor presided. I have already answered that tfie emperor did not preside. He distinctly acknowledged the spiritual to be independent of the temporal power, he alleged that he pretended to no right to preside. He knew that God never told the emperors, his predecessors, to preside over the deliberations _of his church. The constitution of that church had been established three hundred years before Constantine became a proselyte to Christianity. It is unheard of that a temporal monarch ever presided over the deliberations of the church, or ruled in ecclesiastical matters. At least we catholics submit to no such dictation such a confusion of things divine and human such an anomaly ! I am sorry it is allowed in England. In that coun- try even a woman may be, for a woman has been, the head of the church, as in the instance of queen Elizabeth; nay, a little child, as in the case of Edward. It is contrary to reason, to scripture, to human rights and divine ordinances, that such as these should presume in any situations, to give or withhold authority to the ministry, to preach th gospel of Christ, or to dispense the mysteries of God. It outrage* every feeling of sanctity, it degrades, it vilifies the priesthood, to see bishops and archbishops kneeling at the feet of women and boys, and praying them to grant a license to preach. My friend has charged me with making professions of respect for Episcopalians and Episcopal methodists, &c., but do I suppress the truth, and do I fail to censure them where they too are wrong. My friend has gratuitously presented himself before this assembly as the champion of Protestantism; and I have shown that he is, if at all, but little less opposed than I am to the denominations I have named, on the vital point of orders and a called and sent ministry. He would amuse them with an equivocal defence of their principles to-day, and then present them with his own views in theology with Campbell- ism, baptized Protestantism, [Here the moderators called Bishop Purcell to order.] My friend, learnedly, (and I give him credit for it.) showed how it came that there were so many errors and questionable doctrines in the Greek church. I hav(; stated the causes, humanly speaking, of tin errors. It is then, an undisputed tact, t,hat they were more numerous in the Grt-ek than in the Roman church ; that tha SoTian church was VOMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 55 omparatively free from them. But he has plaimy misconceived the inference to be drawn from the fact; and it is this: that as Rome was the primary see, the centre of unity, the mother and mistress of all the churches, God watched over her with peculiar care, and pre- served her from the errors and heresies that proved infinitely more fatal than the pagan persecutions, to the churches of the east. While they weie distracted, the Roman church was united in faith; while they were in danger of breaking to pieces the edifice of faith, she was consolidated, herself, and laboring to consolidate them under one creed. If any thing did prolong the gospel life in the cast, it was the authority of Rome. By her was the doctrine of the Savior vindicated, and kept pure from the foul admixture, the contamination of heresy. By her were Arianism, Nestorianism, Eutychianism, Monotholism, and a hundred other novelties, the spurious progeny of dangerous opinions in the east, successively condemned. And now, having disposed of the argument which appears in the van of the gentleman's remarks, I will go on with a question of fact, to which he ha? again referred, touching the word Catholic. He says that it is not found in the New Testament. Admitting that it is not in the body of the eanon^ which I did cot contend for, yet it is prefixed to some of the epistles, and as old, if not older, as a word belonging to the household of faith, than they are. He said the word K.*AOMX.>, (rff//W/A-) was prefixed to the Epistle of James in the year 1549, by Robert Stephens, or Robert Etienne, by which name that famous French printer is better known about 300 years ago. Yes, and I will show you that here again his learning is at fault, that to the 300 years must be added a thousand more, and then that the origin of the word is coeval with Christianity. Before quoting the testimony of St. Gregory Nazianxen, a writer of the 4th century, I will observe, that seven of the epistles found in the Catholic or Protestant Testaments, are call- ed catholic, or canonical, as not having been addressed to any particu- lar church, or person, if we except the 2d and 3d of St. John, but to all the churches. Five of these epistles, viz. that of St. James, the 2d of St. Peter, the 2d and 3d of St. John, the epistle of St. Jude, as also the epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse, or book of Revelation of St. John, were doubted of, and not always and evefy where received -in the three first ages, till the canon and catalogue of the books of scripture were determined by the authority of the Catho- lic church, the supreme judge of all controversies in matters of faith, and religion, according to die appointment -of our Savior, Christ, ex- pressed in many places in the holy scriptures. These I have men- tioned were certainly, for some time, doubted of; they are still doubt- ed of by some of the late reformers. Luther, the great doctor of the reformation, is Rot ashamed to say, that this epistle of St. James, is no heller than straw, and unworthy an apostle. Speaking of these epis- tles, then, Gregory Nazianzen, at that earlyperiod, uses the word Cath- olic, and designates them by that name : " T/vec pvi MA qxru, 01 Jt T " Xjjw*/ ftpartixj TXV ]jta',5s (fUBtt << Mm ft n*rg*, Tvlt laavM* f*.i*.v. n (;. *\u:ianz<:n, Curmtn de Canon. Script. Ir. English "Some say there are seven Catholic epistles, othejs 56 DEBATE 03f THE that there are only three one of James, one of Peter, and one of John *' So much for the fourth age. Does not .ay friend say his prayers 1 Does not every Protestant unite A'.in every Catholic in saying, "I believe in the holy Catholic church," as we are taught in the apostles' creed 1 Speaking of this most ancient formula of faith, com >osed, as it is believed, by the apostles themselves, before they separated for the great work of preaching to all nations, that it may be for ever a bond of union and an abridgment of sound apostolic belief, Wddding- ton says, p. 46. "The creed which was first adopted, and that perhaps in the very earliest age, by the church of Rome, was that which is now called the apostles' creed ; and it was the general opirion from the fourth century downwards, that it was actually the production of (host blessed persons assembled for that purpose; our evidence is not sufficient to establish that fact, and some writers very confidently reject it. But there is reasonable ground for our assurance that the form of faith, which we still repeat and inculcate, was in use and power in the very early propagation of our religion."* Now will the gentleman telJ us that the word Catholic was unknown to antiquity ] You will perceive, my friends, that until the very minute Mr. Camp- bell speaks, I know not what he is going to say. You will not won- der that following him, my discourse should be desultory and rambling, lam here under every disadvantage to which- a speaker can be subject. Obliged to leave the beaten highway and follow him through the thickets into which, he finds it useful to plunge so frequently. I have at this moment in my hand, a copy of the New Testament, a beautiful edition, published in Glasgow, a Presbyterian city, and also an edition of Robert Etienne. Behold (displaying them) the title " Catholic," prefixed in both, to these epistles. I have now established the fact that Catholic was the ancient name of the church that no other than the Roman Catholic was entitled to that name that the Roman Catholic church is the Catholic church of all ages, that in all ages it has had a head. For we may call the pope by any name we please, the name is nothing. It is the station, and the incumbent thereof, that it is important to ascertain, and the nponday is not clearer than that both existed from the very origin of the cnristian religion in Rome. He argues against the supremacy of Rome from the circumstance that all the ecclesiastical words are Greek. This is not at all surprising. There was not a particle of the Scrip- tures originally written in Latin. Surely my friend must be hard pres- sed for want of argument, when he grasps at such a floating, improba- ble, airy one as that! Words are but the signs of ideas. But he af- firms that all the epistles are written to Greek cities. Was then none of these epistles written to Rome ! And was Rome a Greek city ? Does not Paul surpass himself does he not reason most deeply in that epistle ? Does he not style the Romans the " Called of Jesus Christ; the beloved of God ?" Does he not say, 1st ch. v. 3, "I give thanks to my God, through Jesus Christ, for you all, because your faith is spoken of in the whole world" ] Is it not in that epistle that A note to Wadding-ton on this subject, contains th? folio.'. : "Ig- natius, Justin, and Irenaeus, make no mention of it, but thej occasionally repeal 5iue words, contained in it, which is held as a proof th&t they knew it by heart." ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 5? he confounds tlie Jews, by proving that the ceremonial works of the law avail them nothing towards salvation, and the Gentiles by shew- ing that their shameful excesses, notwithstanding the boasted lights of philosophy, involved them equally with the rejected Jews in the divine malediction 1 Does he not devote eleven chapters of this epis- tle tr> establish solidly the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith? Finally T was not the church of Rome at least as ancient as the church of Corinth ? My friend spoke of transubstantiation, and purgatory. These wil come in their proper place in the debate. The conclusion of all his arguments is, that the Roman Catholic church is a sect. This, I may venture to say, he has failed to prove. Indeed he has done any thing but prove it; for he has in fact strengthen- ed my grounds of defence, for the more he has questioned my authori- ties and arguments, the more signally have I established them. My friend is correct in saying that to prove the church not Catholic, is to prove her neither holy nor apostolic. Had he acted on this hint, and compressed his first three propositions into one, and condensation is all important in discussion, he would have greatly abridged his own labor, and saved this audience and myself much loss of time. I have proved that the Roman Catholic church is NOW the only church that is, as a church, (and not as a band of sailors or travellers without any fixed habitation,) spread over the entire world ; that she only has been so from the beginning, to the exclusion of every sect : that she alone now bears, that she alone has ever borne the name of Catholic; that no other denomination, no sect now has or ever had a right to it and that, as she is Catholic, she is also holy, she is apostolic, she is divine, and consequently the only true church of Christ. By the same strictness of investigation and of reasoning, by the same eplendid evidence of fads, I will prove that she alone is united in faith and government as the true church should be ; for Christ prayed for his disciples the night before he suffered, " that they may be ONE, as thou Father in Heaven and I are one." Now in what church shall we seek for this unity 1 We shall see that, later in the de- bate, for notwithstanding the admission of my friend, we must plod our weary ro jnd, debating these propositions as he has penned them. But the gentleman says, " the Roman Catholic church assumes every thing." No, my brethren, it is not so. When she can so validly establish her claim, she does not, she has no occasion to assume any thing. She proves all things, and holds fast to them because they are good. In the first place we prove from scripture that Christ did establish an earthly head to his church, and that that head was the apostle Peter If not, why did he say to Peter, " Tfiou art Peter, (a rock) and upon this rock ivill I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it"? Again, he did give him a preeminence over the other apostles. If not, why did he say to him, Luke, xxii. 32, " Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you (in the plural, that is. all the apostles) that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and thou being converted, confirm thy brethren" >' He told Peter that he would deny him that he would fall but he at the same time cheered him by the divine assurance that his fall should not be for ever, that he would arise from it, and that after his transitory humiliation, no longe* presumptuously confiding in his own sttength, 58 DEBATE ON THE but placing all his trust in God, he should not only securely stand him- self before both Jews and Gentiles, but likewise strengthen and sup- port his brethren. For this Christ prayed for Peter, and the Father who also loves the church, heard and he will ever hear that prayer. The faith of Peter hath never failed. When did he ever say this to the other apostles ? Peter is named first, when the apostles are enu- merated ; he speaks first in the meeting of the apostles and brethren, and gives instructions to proceed to the choosing an apostle in the place of the Iscariot. He is the first to reproach the Jews with deicide, and at his preaching eight thousand are converted. He is sent by an angel from heaven, to the gentile Cornelius ; is released from prison by an angel ; confirms the Samaritans with St. John : healeth JEneas at Lyd- da : raiseth Tabitha from death at Joppa ; founds the first see among the gentiles at Antioch. He speaks first in the council at Jerusalem, "men, brethren, &c." Acts, xv. "and all the multitude among whom there had been previously, much disputing, held their peace." " Then after three years" says St. Paul, Gal. i. 13. "I went to Jerusalem to see Petei, and I tarried with him fifteen days." And ch. 2. v. 1. " Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem, and I went up ac- cording to revelation, and conferred with them the gospel which I preach ^mong the gentiles, lest perhaps I should run, or had run in vain." My friend says that this assumption is followed by injurious effects, ?.igious and political, inconsequence of the power wielded by a single .ndividual. This directly impeaches the foreknowledge and sanctity of Christ. He established the power, and from its exercise within the just limits, which he has prescribed, I maintain that no consequences injurious either to religious or civil society can ever ensue. History attests, and I have quoted some striking instances from the records of the Greek church, that the power of the popes was CONSERVATIVE. Their influence has ever been most favorable to the best interests of society as well as of religion. They were the friends of peace, the patrons of learning, the umpires of angry princes and hostile nations on the one hand, while on the other they preserved pure and uncontaminated, the holy deposit of the truth and proscribed error. Confined to its pro- per sphere, the influence of the head of the church must needs be salu- tary .; must, if God was wise, be beneficial and far above reproach. This power has been exerted for the welfare of society under every form of government, monarchical, aristocratical, mixed, and republican. It is the friend of all. It is irreconcileable with none, but of the tempo- ral influence of the popes it will be time enough to speak in its proper place. I will now proceed to show that the want of an ecclesiastical superior, whom all are bound to obey, lets in a deluge of evils, and these irremediable, on every religious body that wants a head. Reason, alone should attest this truth, without further illustration. The sheep- fold over which there has been placed no shepherd, will soon be the prey of the wolf. The school in which no teacher presides, the soci- ety which recognises no chief magistrate, will not fail to exhibit a scene of confusion, and must finally be dissolved. Let us appeal to experience. What has multiplied the (so called) Christian sects to such an excess that neither the evil nor the remedy can be any longer endured in Protestant communions'? It is the principle contended for by my opponent. It is this, as bishop Smith justly observes, more prolific than the knife that divides the polypus, that daily multiplies ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 59 Jivisions and produces new sects in christiaHity. Hear a late numbei of the Baptist Banner, speaking of this controversy. It says : " !>ut to IK MTIOIIS, we cannot hi IK vf.- that any good will follow this debate But too much excitement is attempted to be gotten up against the Roman Ca- tholics an excitement bordering o:> intolerance. Could we feel assured, either from his course iu this instance or from a retrospect of his past life, that Mi-. Campbell sought this discussion soiely to vindicate truth and expose error, and not ostentatiously to exhibit his tact in debate and to reap a pecuniary harvest by a new publication, we might feel less distrust of consequences, and should have some faint hope that probably good would ensue; but credulous, nay, stu- pid must be the man, who in looking over the circumstances which have con- lurred in originating this debate, can suppose that any religious or commendable niDtive prompted him to throw the gauntlet and provoke the controversy. In looking over his past career, a love of truth and a desire to promote the pea<'e *uid prosperitr of Zion, have not been the prominent traits which have marked his character and rendered conspicuous his course. [Bishop P. was here called to order; Mr. Campbell also here observed, that as he had read the worst p:.rt of the article he might read the balance; and the point of order being examin- ed, the board decided that he was in order.] We do not speak for othri places, but in Kentucky he has caused more serious injury to the cause of reli e;ion. more disturbance, more wrangling, collision, and division in societv, in a few years, than in our humble judgment, the Catholics can ever do. Bat we forbear. The debate will take place. The Campbellites will sip delicious wis- dom from the lips of their leader. A new impulse will be given to their now drooping state. They wilt again wage his high claims to competency to reform religion and introduce the Millennium. And Mr. Campbell will have the prottd tatisfaction of rendering great good to himself by the sale of another book! This will be about all that will result from this discussion." I knew not iiatil yesterday that the Baptists were opposed to Mr. Campbell ; but as necessarily as the stream flows from its source, do these disastrous effects which the Baptist Banner deprecates, flow from the system which acknowledges no head in religious matters, but allows every individual, qualified or disqualified, to give his own crude fancies for the revelation of heaven. The Zion's 'Advocate of the 28th ult. and the Palladium of the 7th inst. give similar testimony against the radicalism of my friend. But I spare him the reading. You can now judge of the tree by its fruits ; his are bitterness and confusion, those of the Catholics, admitting a supremacy in the church, are order, unity and peace. His rule neces- sarily creates enmities and endless altercations in the church; the Ca- tholic rule cuts them up by the very roots, and not only arrests their growth, but renders their very existence impossible. Mr. Campbell said that the Roman Catholic church was an apos- taey from the true Church, and that this event, so important in the an- nals of the world, took place precisely on the 16th of July 1054, when she separated from the Greek church. It is a pity, as he intended to be so particular, that he did not tell us whether it was old style or ncn". But perceiving the terrible effect of this admission, upon his arp-u- ment, he retraces his steps, and taking us all aback, he says that the Greek church was not after all the true church of Christ, and thus lie has left us as much in the dark as ever. Remember I told him how much it had puzzled the world and would puzzle him to settle that point. I ask him again then, if the Roman Catholic church apostatiz- ed from the church of Christ at the period in question, and the Greek church, from which she separated, was as corrupt as herself, whore was. at that time, the true church 1 God's covenant with her, Ezech. xxxvii. r>-2, \v;is an everlasting covenant of peace, a covenant, like thai of day and night, to last for all generations. .Tre. xxxiii. 20, 21, al- 60 DEBATE ON THE ways visible, Is. n. 2. 3..:-.,i; .*,- ivr-ii*; rt xx. xxrays \x2 5 66 DEBATE ON THE described the commencement of the degeneracy of the Roman diocese from the true faith, I will turn back to about the year of our Lord '250. Then the controversy between Cornelius and Novatian, about the bishopric of Rome, embraced the points at issue, which separated the true church from that which was then grievo*usly contaminated with error and immorality. It'was, indeed, a controversy ahout the purity of communion and discipline, rather than about articles of doctrine. And it is worthy of remark, that such was the principal issue made at that time, although the doctrine of Christianity will not long continue pure in a degenerate community. I have here, before me, Eusebius, the oldest of ecclesiastical histo- rians, who informs us that Novatus and his party were called Cathari'oT Puritans. And, although he appears greatly incensed a- gainst Novatus and his party, he can record no evil against them ex- cept their " uncharitableness" in refusing to commune with those of immoral and doubtful character. The gentleman has given you his definition of orthodoxy and hete- rodoxy : my definition is the strong party is the orthodox, and the weak party is the heterodox. I hold in my hand one of the latest and best historians Wadding- ton. My learned opponent has already introduced him to your ac- quaintance. He is a Fellow of Trinity college, Cambridge, and Prebendary of Ferring, in the cathedral church of Chichester. The account he gives of these reformers is sustained by Jones and other ecclesiastical historians. I prefer Waddington for his brevity and perspicuity. He says : " We may conclude with some notice of the sect of the Novatians who were stigmatized at the time both as schismatics and heretics; but who may perhaps be more properly considered as the earliest body of ecclesiastical reformers They arose at Rome about the year 250, A. D. and subsisted until the fifth cen tury throughout every part of Christendom. Novatian, a presbyter of Rome was a man of great talents and learning, and of character so austere, that he was un- willing, under any circumstances of contrition, to re-admit those who had beer once separated from the communion of the church. And this severity he would have extended not only to those who had fallen by deliberate transgression, but even to such as had made a forced compromise of .their faith under the terrors of persecution. He considered the Christian church as a society, where virtue and innocence reigned universally, and refused any longer to acknowledge as mem- bers of it, those who had once degenerated into unrighteousness. This endea- vor to revive the spotless moral purity of the primitive faith was found inconsis- tent with the corruptions even of that early age; it was regarded with suspicion by the leading prelates, as a vain and visionary scheme; and those rigid princi- ples which had characterized and sanctified the church in the first century, were abandoned to the profession of schismatic sectaries in the third." This sounds a little like Protestantism. Our author proceeds : "From a review of what has been written on this subject, some truths may be derived of considerable historical importance; the following are among them : 1. In the midst of perpetual dissent and occasional controversy, a steady and dis- tinguishable line, both in doctrine and practice, was maintained by the early church, and its efforts against those, whom it called heretics, were zealous and persevering, and for the most part consistent. Its contests were fought with the 'sword of the spirit,' with the arms of reason and eloquence; and as they were always unattended by. personal oppression, so were they most effectually success- ful successful, not in establishing a nominal unity, nor silencing the expression of private opinion, but in maintaining the purity of the faith, in preserving the attachment of the great majority of the bel'evers, and in consigning, either j.o im- mediate disrepute, or early neglect, all the uuscriptural doctrines which wera juccessively arrayed against it." ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 67 Other truths are here stated, as consequent from the premises. 1 will however for the satisfaction of my Episcopalian friends read what follows, ii this connection on church government. "There was \et no dissent on the subject of church government. It was uni- versiillv and undisputably Kjiiscopal , even the reformer Novatian, after his ex- pulsion from the church, assumed the direction of his own rigid sect under the ti- tle, of bishop; and if am dissatisfaction had existed as to the established method of directing the church, it would certainly have displayed itself on the occasion of a schism, which entirt ly. respected matters of practice and discipline." Hiit. oft/ie chit. p. 79. These Puritans or reformers spread all over the world, and continu- ed to oppose the pretensions of those who, from being the major par- ty, claimed to be the Catholic or only church. They continued undei the name of Novatians for more than two centuries ; but finally were merged in the Donatists, who, indeed, are the same people under ano- ther name. These Donatists were a very large and prosperous commu- nity. We read of 279 Donatist bishops in one African council. Of these Donatists the same historian deposes : " The Donatists have never been charged with the slightest show of truth with any error of doctrine, or any defect in church government or discipline, or anv depravitv of moral practice ; they agreed in every respect with their adver- saries, except one they did not acknowledge as legitimate the ministry of the African church, but considered their own body to be the true, uncorrupted, uni- versal church.'' Mark it. The Donatists considered their own body to be the true, uncorrupted, universal church! "It is quite clear," our author pro- ceeds : ' It is quite clear, that they pushed their schism to very great extremities, even to that o( rejecting the communion of all. who were in communion with the church which they called false ; but this was the extent of their spiritual oflence, even from the assertions of their enemies." Wad. Hist. p. 154. The Donatists, in some two centuries, were amalgamated with the Paulicians. They, too, were called Puritans. Jones, who has been at the greatest pains to give thjeir history, gives the following account of them : " About the year 660, a new sect arose in the east, under the name of PAULI- CIANS, which is justly entitled to our attention. " In Mananalis, an obscure town in the vicinity of Somosata, a person of the name of Constantine entertained at his house a deacon, who having been a pris- oner among the Mahometans \va returning from Syria, whither he had been carried away captive. From this passing stranger Constantine received the pre cious gift of the ISew Testament in its original language, which even at this ear- ly period, was so concealed from the vulgar, that Peter Siculus, to whom we owe most of our information on the history of the Paulicians, tells us the first scrupleg of a Catholic, when he was 1 ad vised to read the bible was, "it is not lawful for us profane persons to read those sacred writings, but for the priests only." Indeed, the gross ignorance which pervaded Europe at that time, rendered the generality cf the people incapable of reading that or any other book; but even those of the laity who could read, were dissuaded by their religious guides from meddling^ith the Bible. Constantine however, made the best use ot the deacon's present he studied the .New Testament with unwearied assiduity and more particularly the writing! of the apostle Paul from which he at length endeavored to deduce a s\ stem of doctrine and worship. He investigated the creed of primitive Christianity,' says Gibbon, ' and whatever might be the success, a Protestant reader will applaud the spirit of the enquiry.' The knowledge to which Constantine himself was, un- der the divine M< ssiiiji t nabled to attain, negladly communicated to others around him, and a Christian church was collected. In a little time, several individuals Wose among them qualified for the work of the ministry ; and several other cliurch- P.S were collected throughout Armenia and Cappauocia. It appears from the whole of their history, to have been a leading ob l ct with Constantine and his 68 DEBATE ON THE brethren to w-store as far as possible the profession of Christianity to all its prim- itive simplicity." Jones' Hist. Christian chh. p. 239. Again : "The Paulician teachers," says Gibbon, "were distinguished only by their scriptural namts, by the modest title of their fellow pilgrims ; by the austerity of their li gift of the thej- strongly censured." Id. ib. p. 240. I might read almost to the same effect from Waddington and D* Pin. True they are called heretics by those who call themselves Ca- tholic and us heretics ; but what does this prove ? Until the appearance of the Waldenses and Albigenses, these Pro estants continued to oppose the church of nations in the east, and in the west, until at one time they claimed the title of Catholic. We read of hundreds of bishops attending the different councils in which they met to oppose the violent assaults of their enemies. It is sometimes difficult to say which were the more numerous party, those in communion with the Cathari, or Puritans, sometimes called Novatians, sometimes Donatists, sometimes Paulicians, sometimes Waldenses ; but always, in fact, Protestants. The spirit of true religion seems to have fled from Rome from the first appearance of the Novatians. The first schism at Rome acknow ledged and recorded by the Roman Catholic historians, is that which occurred at the election of Cornelius over Novatus. Hence Novatus is called the first anti-pope. Du Pin and Barronius amply testify of the violence by which St. Peter's chair was often filled with a vicar after this schism. In the election of Damasus many were killed in the churches of Rome. One hundred and thirty four persons, beaten to death by clubs, were carried out of a single house at this election. Had the Holy Spirit any thing to do in thus filling the chair of St. Pe- ter with a vicar of Christ! Is the church which permits such things and which has been sustained by such means, the true church of God ? Is the person thus elected, the supreme head of Christ's church the proper vicar of Christ! ! May we not then say that the spirit of God on that day, had departed from Rome? And may we not add, from the documents before us, that if there be any truth in history, we have found a succession of witnesses for the ancient faith against Rome, from the days of the first schism till the present hour ? There is but another point in the speech of my opponent, to which 1 will now respond. I called on him to explain the difference between the claim of the title of pope, or universal father, (as St. Gregory op- posed it,) and the same claim as now maintained by the head of the church. The name pope, indeed, has in modern times, much changed its meaning; for once it was applied to all bishops, and is now ap- plied to every priest in the Greek church. But when has the title " universal father," been changed ? He alluded, in reply, to the schism between the Greek church and the Roman church. The Greek church, it seems, would not allow that the ordinances of religion with- out their sanction, were validly administered. Is not that the very plea of Rome at this hour? Does she not say, that the bishops and clergy of the English church are all laymen, because Xhnt church se-^ parated from the Roman church ; and that all the authority she had from her has been since revoked by the authority that gave it ? How ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 69 often are we told that the pope has the power of resuming all authority given him that he can create, and afterwards destroy 1 ? that whatever ecclesiastical power he gives, he can take away ; and that therefore all heretics excommunicated and anathematized have no power left to perform the ordinances of religion] The ground upon which the gen- tleman stands as to his defence of the authority of the pope, is precise- ly the ground of Gregory's opposition to the title, as claimed by Boni- face in. if I can understand his attempt to explain it. But I must advert, before I sit down, to a single point on which I touched in my speech of this morning, viz. that of the councils. The gentleman asks, did not Sylvester the pope preside in the first general council by his legate 1 I affirm that .he cannot show documents to prove that fact. Nay, let him show, if he can, that the first seven councils were called by the bishops of Rome, or that his legates were there to preside. What would the gentleman prove by the fact, if it be a fact, that a Roman bishop presided over one of these councils 1 That, therefore, they were Roman councils 1 How would such logic pass with us with regard to the house of representatives ? His argument runs thus : Mr. Henry Clay was once speaker of that house, Mr. Clay is from Ken- tucky, therefore, the house of representatives were all Kentuckians ! This would be exactly the pith of the logic we have heard. My opponent admits the history of the first seven councils which I have given to be correct: but explains it by asserting that all the busi- ness was eastern. But there were western heresies, as well as eastern, and western business as well as eastern transacted in these councils. I therefore object to his exposition of that matter. It would have been impolitic on his exposition to call together eastern men to decide upon eastern heresies. They ought to have sent western men, who would have been more impartial judges. But he has not yet adduced one document, showing that these councils were called for such purpo- ses, or that the east only was concerned in these q estions. On the prefix " Calhnlic" to the epistles, the .rentleman did not hear me, or did not apprehend my meaning. The argument is not a- bout its antiquity but its authority! He has not proved, and cannot prove that it was so prefixed in the first ages, nor that it was ever so applied by any inspired writer. Having brought no documents to prove this, his reasoning is wholly irrelevant. But you have been treated, my friends, to a feast from the "Baptist Banner" one of the party ephemerals opposed to reformation. Un- fortunately for the cause of religion, every age has produced a crop of these special pleaders for party tenets. Many such a banner was un- furled against Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley and all re- formers : for they were all heretics and controversialists. Indeed there never was a good man on earth who was not a controversialist. From the days of Abel and Noah till the present hour, the friends of truth have been heretical and controversial. But what has the Baptist Ban- ner to do with tue present points at issue ? Is the gentleman so hard pressed as to form such alliances, to deliver himself or cause from ruin ? I trust he will either keep, or be kept to the question in debate, and leave Protestants to settle their own controversies. [Time ex- j-irt-d.] 70 DEBATE ON THE Twelve o'clock, M. BISHOP PURCELL rises I thought we should be placed under considerable obligations to my friend, for putting his finger upon the historic page that records the day and date of the apostacy of the Roman Catholic church from the true and holy Apostolic church, wilh so much precision. But now we are adjourned back nearly 1000 years, and yet nothing more definite than a "some time about the year 250!" Some time about! He does not tell us whether it was in one year, or another, that the church began to be corrupt. It was some time about, and so on. About this time, it seems, the Novatians separated from the church well, Paul foresaw that such events would occur in the church's history he foresaw that " ravenous wolves would enter the fold ;" that dissensions would exist, at all successive periocfs, to the end of time that every day new heretics would start up, who would deny the truth, introduce false doctrine, and trouble the people of God. The Novatians were one of these sects and what did they teach? Why the most revolt- ing and horrible doctrines ; among others, the doctrine that a convert to Christianity, who, in times of peril and temptation, nay even when compelled by physical force, should forsake his creed, could never be restored, no matter how sincerely penitent. Who that feels his frailty and knows that his heart in an evil hour might stray from duty, does not revolt at such a doctrine, that for one offence would cut him off forever! God dealt not so with Adam, nor Christ with Peter, when at the voice of a woman, and in an evil hour, even his strong heart failed him. He admitted him to mercy, received him back to his bosom, and made him the rock of his church. But if all heretics are right, and this among the number if the church was wrong in separating herself from these men if it is her duty to say to the upholder of false doctrine "all hail," you areas free from error, as incorrupt and immaculate, as we are, come partake with us, we are of one communion; the rule should, according to the gentleman's logic, work both ways, and Rome has as good a right as anyother to be called thy church of Christ. On the other hand, if the Novatians were right, as he says they were, in excluding others, the church was right in excluding them. The speech of heretics, St. Paul tells us, 2d Tim. ii. 17, spreadeth like a cancer; he elsewhere says, that evil communication corrupts good manners; and the Pagans were not 'nsensible to the wisdom of the distich " Frincipiis ohsta ; sero inedicina paratur "Cum mala per lons^as iuvaluere moras." My friend must have forgotten his argument of this morning, when he said that the church of the living God should include none but the pure and holy. If this be true, we must all give it up; for WHO is holy ] Which of us can lay his hand upon his heart and say I AM WITHOUT sin ? No, we are only holy in acknowledging our sinfulness and guilt in the sight of God, with humility and prayer. " If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us! If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to clear us from. all iniquity." St. John, Ep. If such be the gentleman's re- quisitions, there can be no church of Christ in this erring world. There Is none pure from defilement, says Job, and all are included as the ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 71 objects of divine displeasure, from which only the blood of Christ, with faith, repentance and good works, can save us. If the gentleman insists on applying a test which would require absolute perfection to enable us to endure it, there is no such holiness, that I am aware of, exhibited in this probationary state. My friend may feel a proud con- sciousness that he is a happy instance of its existence, but for my part, 1 cannot, I should not think it safe to lay the flattering unction to my soul. I would advise no man to do so, while the great St. Paul com- mands us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling; and tells us, he chastised his own body, lest while he preached to others he himself " should become a reprobate," 1st. Cor. ix. 27. It is our duty to acknowledge that we are frail and sinful mortals even like the rest of men. Establish a contrary rule, and pride digs one abyss after another beneath our feet, and there will not be left one virtuous feeling, one sound principle upon which we can take our stand to make a last appeal to heaven for mercy ! When Christ empowered the church to throw her nets into the sea of human life, as the apostles did into _ the lake, she gathered into it fishes, both good and bad ; when the nets are hauled ashore, the good fish will be selected and the bad thrown back into the sea. So will it be at the end of the world. The angels of God will come forth and select the elect from the reprobate they will gather the wheat into the garner, but the tares they will burn with unquenchable fire. The Catholic church with a consciousness of man's true condition in this life, and a liberality which does her honor, and which, all agree, ought to belong to the fold of Christ, permits all to -join in her religious festivals and exterior communion who profess the same faith, and are willing to submit to her decisions as her children. But mark the distinction between the body and the soul of the church, all who profess the true faith, assist at the same religious exercises and obey the same pastors, belong to the body of the church and are therefore numbered among her children ; but to faith and exterior com- munion of which alone man can take cognizance, must be added hope and love and grace with God, that we may belong to the soul of the church. Of the latter the church does not undertake to decide. This she leaves to God who alone can see the heart. She, herself, judges not the in- scrutable things of the spirit of a man, but contents herself with know- ing and teaching that nothing can escape the piercing and all-seeing eye of God, who will render to every man according to his works, on that day when the hope of the hypocrite shall perish. Hence, as long as one of her members disqualifies not himself for the communion of the faithful by flagrant impiety notorious depravity, or scandalous excess, she rejects him not; but like" that charity of which St. Paul speaks, 1st Cor. xiii. "is patient, is kind, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth aot in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, with modesty admonishing men, if per- adventure God may give them repentance." The gentleman quoted from Waddington the history of the Nova- lians. He says, they continued, how long I know not, but TILL. ! (forget not the word,) till they merged in the sect of Donatists. The expressive word //// is enough. There is no such fatal and termiiiatinor word in Catholic history. The Catholic church is universal, and not sectarian. It is perpetual in duration, and is not merged as one wave of error is mergv-1 in or obliterated by another. The gentleman asserts. 72 DEBATE ON THE that the Donalists did not differ from the Novatians. This is incor- rect. The Donatists fell from schism into errors which the No- vatians had never adopted. They employed the "savage Circum- cel/ions," as the protestant historian Waddington calls them, to pillage churches, murder Catholics, and perpetrate other acts of barbarity unheard of among the meek followers of Jesus Christ. What, too, will my friend say to the uncontrollable propensity to sui- cide, which ihey were accused of encouraging and indulging with dreadful frequency? Not so the true church she comes like Jesus Christ to call sinners to repentance, and heal the contrite of heart she employs his own inviting, and attractive, accents of pity and compassion : " Come to me all you that labor and are heavy bur- dened, and /will refresh you, not drive you to despair, to acts of self destruction ; and you shall find rest for your souls." Matthew xi. 28. A hard heart will fare badly in the end, says the scripture, and conse- quently every feeling of justice and humanity revolts at the idea that the Novatians could have been animated by the meek spirit of Jesus Christ, when they condemned to eternal exclusion from the church for a single, and that, frequently, a compulsory fault, as when an individ- ual was condemned by brute force to offer incense to the idols, or the Donatists, who revolted against the authority of the African bishops, and ravaged the countries where they prevailed with a lawless soldiery. Is this the meek church of him who came to preach deliverance to captives'? Must we palliate these and a hundred similar excesses, to criminate a church which would, if her mild counsels were obeyed, have averted these evils from mankind 1 Is it candid, is it just, to blame her without cause and to withhold praise where it is due 1 ? The Roman Catholic church has never given the example of such cruelty. She o.n the contrary admits all sinners to repentance, she counts as belonging to her communion, all the children baptized in Protestant communions who die before they are capable of committing mortal sin, or who living in invincible ignorance that they have been bred up in error, keep the commandments of God, and love him, as far as their knowledge of his divine nature will permit. All these belong to the soul of the church ; and are consequently among the most precious of her fold. Even among the unenlightened Indians if any there be that keep inviola- bly the natural law and serve their Creator according to the best lights which they possess, these she enrolls among her children, and teaches us to consider them as objects of God's special mercy, whom he will not, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, fail to illustrate with the light of divine ^truth. For this purpose the resources of his wisdom, are like that wisdom, infinite. Thus while the Catholic church watches with the most scrupulous fidelity over the purity of faith, in her has the beautiful saying of the psalmist been fulfilled, " Mercy and truth have met one another, justice and peace have kissed." Ps. Ixxxiv. 11. By what ingenuity can the gentleman flatter himself he will estab- lish the claims of the discordant and evanescent sects of these early ages to the title of Catholics. Sisyphus-like, these sects which he is laboring so hard, so vainly, to roll up to the summit of that "moun- tain placed upon the top of mountains," spoken of by Is. ii. 2. and which is the aptest figure of the Catholic church, to which all na- tions flow, will fall upon him and crush him. He can never prove ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 73 them Catholic in time, in place, or in doctrine. The Novatians did not slip into the Donatists, nor the Donatists into the Paulicians ; there was no common bond of union, no identity of doctrine, among these heterogeneous sects. As it is the same sun which took its station in the heavens at the creation that now shines over us, so it is the same religion that was taught eighteen hundred years ago by Jesus Christ, that irradiates us at this very day with the light of truth ; and not more difficult would it be to count all the vapors, mists and clouds, that passed athwart the bright luminary of day since he first gladdened the universe with his beams, than to enumerate the numberless sects that have cast their shadows on the light of Catholic holiness, and purity, and truth, since the origin of Christianity. They have passed, or are fast passing away for ever, while she lasts on, and will last till the end of time. " I have seen the wicked," says the Psalmist, xxxvi. 35, " highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon. And I passed, and lo ! he was not, and his place was not to be found." This is a glorious indication of the stability of the Catholic church of the truth of the power that sustains her. And as she signalized her triumph over all the false gods of Paganism, by establishing the church of All Saints, and of the God who made them saints, on the ruins of the greatest of idolatrous temples, so does she signalize her triumph over all sects and heresies, falsely professing to be Christian, by the august pontiff who speaks to the eternal city and the Catholic world. From the inspiration of scripture, and of splendid facts, I pass to the inspiration of poetry, I care not whose, and close the words of my argument in the words of Byron : "But thou of temples old, or altars new, Standest alone with nothing like to thee Worthiest of God, the holy and the true! Since Zion's desolation, wnen that He Forsook his former city, what could be Of earthly structures in his honor pil'd Of a subhmer aspect ? Majesty, Power, glory, strength, ancfbe<-utv, all are aisl'd, In this eternal ark of worship uncfefil'd." * * * * * My friend has dwelt eloquently upon riots in the church in particu- lar seasons of excitement. But shall a society forfeit all claims to regard, because, in seasons of high excitement, differences of opinion proceed to violence 1 ? or a few bad people come to blows? It has happened, and may happen among all denominations, even the most peaceful sects, and everybody of men; (instances were here specified.) A riot may take place at an election of president, and blood be shed ; but does this affect the title of chief magistrate of this union ? Is he to lose his office because blows were struck during the election? and if the pope could not always be elected peaceably, by reason of the disturbances created by men, was the succession to cease, and was there never to be a pope again, or a bishop, or any other pastor in the church ? was Christ not God because Peter, the servant Malchus, shed blood for him? See the terrible effects of my friend's bad reasoning. The deist has availed himself of it, and denied the God of the Old Testament, because exterminating wars, as we there read, were waged at his command. We must make allowances for the passions and G 10 J4 DEBATE OW THE weaknesses of hnman nature; but the aim of religion is to correct, ff heal, if she cannot entirely remove them. When the pope was olected, in the case alluded to, he restored order. As Christ said to Peter, so said he to the mob excited by Novatian, " Put up again thy sword into its place, for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword." Matthew xxvi. 62. The gentleman asked me to tell him in what objectionable sense the bishop of Constantinople claimed the title of Universal Father. Ii was in a sense never used before; he had no title to it; he assumed too much in claiming it. Again, it was he who pretended that no> sacrament could be administered but by his authority. The Catholic church teaches that, however illicitly: he may exercise it, no anthority on earth can take even from a degraded prrest the power of consecrat- ing. Schismatical bishops, when duly ordained themselves, could ordain bishops, priests and inferior clergy. We admit the baptism of Methodists and Baptists by aspersion, or knrnersioB, as I have- already explained; and even the orders of the English Episcopal church are contested, on the ground of the very serious doubt whether the first of their bishops was, himself, consecrated by a bishop, or if so, by a valid formulary. My friend was not at all accurate in stating the number of bishops present at some of the first councils. There were more present at them, as I can easily shew, than he has stated. He draws a parallel oetween the council of Nice and the house of representatives. I da not understand the force of his analogy. If that council belonged ex clusively to the Greeks, why did they permit a Latin to preside 1 ? But it was to shew the world that they admitted the authority of Rome that Osius, the pope's legate, presided and without his signature, and the pope's approbation, their acts would have had no force as rules of Catholic faith. What analogy is there between Henry Clay and Osius? Did they stand in the same relation to their respective assem- blies 1 Did they ever dream that they would be placed in juxta posi- tion 1 If the speaker of the house, or the president of the senate, were to object to the passing of a law, would his veto avail anything*? would not the majority rule? My friend said, first, that Catholic was a new term ; and next, when he found it impossible to prove that, insisted it was not used" to designate the church, by inspired writers. I have abundantly disproved both of these assertions. The apostles were inspired writers, and it dates from their time; and they alone, according to the rule of St. Augustin, had the right to institute it. Besides, what are all the glorious pro- phesies of the universal diffusion of the church by Isaiah, &c. &c. but the evidence that it should be what its name imports! In fact, it was Catholic before all the New Testament was completed. And the apostles, aware of che doubts that error would originate on the autho- rity of the. church, gave a sure and unerring guide to every sincere be- liever, teaching him to say, next after the profession of his belief in v>iia my church." My friend does not like to approach that rock, lie take* 6 82 DEBATE ON THE care to keep shy of it. I also quoted "feed my lambs, feed my sheep" " To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven," *' Blessed art thou, Simon," and " when thou art anointed confirm thy brethren," &c. All these texts, and more, did I quote, and the gentle- man has had my authority before him. I shall now strengthen my quotation from the fathers, adducing overwhelming facts to prove that Peter was bishop of Rome and that the bishops of that see have EVER been regarded in the Catholic church as his successors. Many of. my hearers may suppose that this matter is buried in the night of time- that history is either silent, or not sufficiently clear upon it. But when they hear the splendid testimonies I am going to adduce, they will change their minds on this subject, and confess that, from time immemorial, in the very earliest ages, the church was precisely the same, in its faith, its sacraments, its hierarchy, its clergy, &c. &c. that the Catholic church is at the present day. (Here bishop Purcell held up the map of the succession of popes from the first, Peter him- Belf, down to the present pontiff, Gregory XVI. ; the names of all the most eminent men in the church ; the date of the establishment of the gospel in the various countries of the world, the origin and authors of the various heresies and schisms, their condemnation by general coun- cils, or synods, &c. &c.) let any other exhibit such an array ! Christ Jesus said to his disciples " go, teach all nations.'* They went ! they preached every where, and the world believed ! before their death they ordained others whose names are here faithfully re- corded. Here is the ecclesiastical history of Eusebius, and according to the pun upon his name (you see by us) you will see by him whav a flood of light irradiates this subject. Eusebius wrote in the 4tL century, and to remove all suspicion I bring before you the translation of his history by a Protestant minister. C. F. Cruse, A. M. Assistant Professor of the university of Pennsylvania, 2d. edition, revised and corrected by the author. [The reading was interrupted by the half hour's expiring.*] Four o'clock, P. M. MR. CAMPBELL rises Is the original Greek of Irenaeus extant ? [The bishop intimates, * .A 7 o.'] Of what authority, then, is the version from which he reads? I have never read in Irenaeus nor seen quoted from him a warrant for the assumption that Peter was ever bishop of Rome? But of this again- After raising such a dust as the gentleman has about Phocas and Gregory, it has become necessary for me to re-state my argument. Gregory the great wrote to Mauritius, requesting him to induce John, bishop of Constantinople, to give up his claim to the title of universal father. Mauritius would not do it. Gregory the great, is supposed by all antiquity to have harbored a grudere, or bad feeling towards Mauritius, because of this ; and therefore his exultation at his death, and his easy recognition of the pretensions of his murderer, which acquiescence, on his part, secured the compliance of Phocas with the wishes of Gregory, and secured to his successors the title of ID versal patriarch, or pope ; Bishop PURCELL here observed, that Phocas was not the murderer oi Mauritius.] * The extract referred to will be found in a subsequent speech. ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. {S3 Very well, I have the authority of Gibbon for my assertion not for saying that he killed him by his own hands : but by his authority, as he lays to Phocas the blood of Mauritius and his seven children, on the principle, quifacit per alterum, facit per se. He does himself what he does by an other. The said Phocas did afterwards, Barronius being a faithful witness, give the title of universal bishop to Boniface, Gregory's successor, and who can infer any thing else from all the circumstances, than I have done 1 ! I thought the gentleman was about to produce authority to prove that Sylvester did call the council of Nice. This, I again assert he cannot do. If he think he can, let him attempt it, and we will show tie cannot. We, however, do assert on the authority of Eusebius, and all ancient history, that Constantino the great did call the council of Nice ; and we affirm on equal authority, that the pope's legate did not preside in that council. Whether Hosios did is problematical. It is inferred from the fact of his being present : but there Is no historic authority for it. But all this is very subordinate and of little value. The whole question rests upon the inquiry, What office had Peter ? What was his ecclesiastical power and patronage 1 Was Peter the prince of the apostles? Was he made the vicar of Christ t Ay, this is the question ! It requires explicit nay, positive scripture authori- ty where is it 1 The gentleman offers several passages to this point. I shall exa^ mine the prominent texts, and begin with the 16th chapter of Mat- thew. I read from Griesbach's Greek Testament. In this chapter, Christ asks his disciples the question, " Who do men say that I am ?" and afterwards asks them, " But who say ye that I am *" and Peter answered : " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God ;" " and Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father, who is in heaven : and I say also to you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my congregation and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it." Matth. xvi. 13 18. " Upon this rock :" was Peter this rock * The words sound much alike, (Petros and Peira). Let us examine the passage. One of the internal evidences of the truth of the apostolic writings fs, that each writer has something peculiar to himself. So has every speaker and teacher, that has appeared amongst men. Jesus Christ himself had his peculiar characteristics. One of his peculiarities most clearly marked by the four evangelists is, that he consecrated every scene and circumstance and topic of conversation to religion or morality. A few examples, out of many that might be given, must suffice. When standing by the sea of Galilee, he says to the fishermen, who were easting their nets into the sea: "follow me, and I will make you Jishtrs of men." At the well of Samaria, ho says to a Samaritan w;im- an, from whom he asked a drink *' Whoever shall drirk of this wa- ter shall thirst again ; but whoever drinks of the watei that I shall give him, shall never thirst: but it shall be in him a well of v. 'cr springing up to eternal life." While with his disciples in the temple, and seeing the sheep going up to be sacrificed, he says : " My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me ;" and he speaks of himsnll as the true shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep. His dis ciples having forgotten to take bread, when embarking on the !-.:. and when talking about it, he took occasion to say : " Beware o> th' 8-1 DEBATE ON THE leaven of the Pharisees." When on Mount Olivet, among the vines and olives, he says, " I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine- dresser." And when .looking at the temple, he says : "Destroy tins temple, and I will build it in three days." So in the passage before us. He asks his disciples an all important question, in rep'y to which, one of them who happens to be named Peter, utters the ^reat truih, upon which he is to found his church forever : " THOU ART THE CHKI.-T, (THE MESSIAH), THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD." Jesus turns to him and says : " Thou art stone, and upon this rock (on this great truth vhich flesh and blood has not revealed to thee), I will build n ; y church." Ei rirrgiC) utt rri TXVT>I T imf* " ei su Pefros, kai epi tuute te petra" You are Peter and upon this pefra,' strikes the ear of a Grecian as ' thou art stone and upon this rock,' strikes the ear of an English man ; and as we have seen is a part of the Savior's peculiarity. The construction of language requires that the word " fA;V should refer to something antecedent different from Ihnu, or you. They are different in person and in case. But not only does the Savior's peculiar characteristics, and the change of person from " fhou" the personal, to this the demonstrative, fix the sense : but other considerations of freat moment, forbid any other interpretation. For let me ask. why id Je>' T propound the question to his apostles why did he elici 4 from them so great a truth, if in the solemn declaration which imme diately follu-vs, he meant to pass by that truth and allude to Petei alone. This would be a solecism nnprecedented acasf unparalleled The whole authority of the Christian religion and all its excellency is embraced in the radical ideas which had been for the first time pro- nounced by the lips of man. There are, indeed, but three cardinal ideas in all Christian doctrine : for there can be but three cardinal ideas about any being. Two of these are distinctly embodied in Pe- ter's confession of faith. The whole three are, 1st the person, 2nd the otEce, and 3rd the character of Christ. Beyond these person office and character, what conception can mortals have of our Redeemer 1 Peter mouthed of these, the two which gave value to the third The person and the mission of Jesus. He was the first mortal who, dis- tinctly and intelligibly avowed the faith, in the person and mission of Jesus the Nazarene, upon which the empire of the ransomed race shall stand forever. This is the good confession spoken by Jesus himself at the hazard of his life, before Pontius Pilate, of which Paul speaks in Inns of the highest admiration. This great truth deservedly stands forward under the bold meta- phor of the Rock. But still more creditable to this truth, not " flesh and blood," but the Heavenly Father first uttered it from Heaven. On the banks of the Jordan, when Jesus had honored his Father in his baptism, his Father honored him ; and was it not worthy to be honor- ed by proclaiming it from the opening sky, " This is my Son, the be- loved in whom I delight," while the descending Dove marked him out ? A Pagan poet said, " Xcv. r introduce a (iod unless upon an occasion worthy of him:"* And who feels not the propriety of such an introduction here ; for when first spoken, no angel in heaven, nor man on earth, could intro- duce the Messiah, in his proper person, but his own Father. Nov>, * Nee Deus mtersit nisi ciignus vkidice nodus- -Incident. //or. EOMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 85 because Peter was the first to utter it, Jesus says to him : " I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." What a controversy there has been about these keys. Jesus gave them to Peter alone not to him, his heirs, and successors forever ! I was denoted as heterodox a few years since, because I alleged that the opening of the reign or kingdom of heaven, by Peter to Jews and Gentiles, was the true exposition of the keys. But I am glad to see this view promulged now from various reputable sources, even from Trinity College, Dublin. Peter opened the kingdom of heaven on the day of Pentecost, and by divulging a secret never told to that day, viz. " Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." This annunciation of the coronation, or Christing, that is anointing of Je- sus king and governor of the universe, was a new revelation made on the Pentecostian morn by Peter. He declared remission on that day to 3000 souls, and introduced them into the kingdom of the Messiah Again, when it pleased God to visit the Gentiles in the family of Cornelius, a Roman centurion; an angel sent from heaven, command- ed him to send for Peter to Joppa to come and tell him and his rela- tions "words by which himself and his friends might be saved." He did so. He sent, and Peter came. Why thus call upon Peterl Be- cause Christ's gifts are without repentance. He had given him the keys. He therefore must open the two-leaved gate, and introduce both Jews and Gentiles into the kingdom. This being once done, needs not to be repeated. The gates of heaven have not since been locked. There is no more use for the keys. Peter has. them yet. He took them to heaven with him. He did not will them to any heir or successor. The popes are fighting for shadows. Heaven never trusted such gentry with the keys. They might take into their heads to lock the heretics out. I thank God that he gave them to Peter, that Peter opened the gates of the kingdom of heaven to us all, and that as the popes cannot shut them, we do not need them a second time. Peter will guard them, till he who has the key of David, who opens and none can shut, will appear a second time. Thus we dis- pose rationally, and I think scripturally, of this grand text. The next text upon which confidence is placed by my opponent, is where Christ says to Peter, " Feed my sheep, feed my lambs." Language has no meaning but from the context. Every word serves to fix the meaning of its contextural associates. We must read the 21st chapter of John's Testimony, from the beginning, if we would correctly understand this passage. The facts are: Peter and some of his brethren had returned to Galilee, disconcerted and overwhelm- ed with the events of the day. They felt themselves destitute, forsa ken, and in need. While their master was with them he provided for them in some way. He could say, when I sent you without scrip or staff or money, did you lack any thing 1 They answered, no. But he was gone, and they knew not what to do. In this distress, Peter says " I am going a fishing," and the rest accompany him : but they toiled all night and caught nothing. In the morning they see the Sa- vior walking on the shore ; they know him not. He says to thorn, " Children, have you any meat?" They answer,"no." He tells them \o cast on the other side of the bark. They do so and take a larg* H 86 DKBATE Oy THE number of fish. Peter, when he knew it \vis the Lord, girt his nsh erman's garment around him, leaped into the lake, and swam ashore. They dine together, arid after they had eaten to satiety, Jesus says to Peter, ".Do you lave me more than these ?" My construction of these words is, "Do you love me more than these fish, or these victuals." He then says to Peter, " Feed my lambs :" and the fact before him and all the circumstances say, I will f(ed you. The bishop's construction is, "Do you love me more than these dis- ciples love me'?" But how could Peter answer such a question! Was he omniscient to know how much his companions loved his mas- ter. In that case he would hive said, "Lord I love thee, but I do not know how much my brethren love thee ; they also love thee, but I know not whether I love thee more than they do." But suppose he could have known, then I ask, was it comely to ask so invidious a question? Would not they have felt themselves disparaged, if Peter had said, "Yes Lord, I love thee more than all my fellow apostles love thee !!!" Peter had erred. He had become discontented had forgotten his duty to his master, and had betaken himself to his former occupation of fishing, and induced the rest to join him. Christ asks him sol- emnly, " Do you love me more than these fish, these boats, nets, ap- paratus, or these victuals, this worldly employment? if so, cease to spend your time in providing food for yourself; but feed my sheep and lambs, and I will provide for you." Besides, he having caught nothing till the Master appeared, was a very striking lesson, which I presume Peter never forgot. I confess, I think the gentleman's inter- pretation of sheep as bishops, and lambs as laity, most singularly ar- bitrary and fantastic, and needs not a grave reply. So we dispose of 'he second grand text on which the church of Rome has leaned with so much confidence for so many ages. My learned opponent has not yet afforded us evidence for his as- sumption of official supremacy for Petf.r. These texts reach not the case. They dc not institute a new office bestowed on Peter but are tokens of esteem, for reasons personal. Every privilege he received was on account of some personal pre-eminence, not because of an of- fice which he held. The canon law has decreed that a personal priv- ilege doth follow the person and is extinguished with the person. No^y as all the honors vouchsafed Peter were in consequence of hia promptness, courage, penitence, zeal, &c. they never can become the reasons of an hereditary office. His supremacy, or rather superiori ty, or primacy, most naturally arose from his being one of the first, if not ihe first convert the oldest of Christ's disciples ; because he was prompt, decided, courageous, zealous, ardent, and above all, he was a married man, had a wife and family. And although this fact might not comport with his being the fountain of papal authority, it obtain- ed him an honor above John the bachelor, and all the bachelor? of that age !! Once more on this subject let me ask, who made a more volunta- ry surrender of himself to his master who more promptly foisook all that he had, than he who, when his Lord asked, will ye also leave me, with more ardor said ; " Lord, to whom shall we go but to tbee for thou hast the words of eternal life ?" Who more courageously in the time of peril, drew his sword to defend his Master'? who, when HOMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 87 the Savior foretold his own sufferings and indignities, more affection- ately and devotedly exclaimed, in the warmth of his heart, " Lord, it shall not be so done unto thee !" It is true that this ardor of disposition, this promptness, this deci- sion of character, sometimes betray their possessor into errors ; yet who will not say, give me the man of energy and decision, and ardor of character ? John was meek as a dove ; he was innocent and amia- ble as a lamb, and the Lord loved him ; but those bold and stern, and manly virtues he wanted, which gave so much interest to the charac- ter of Peter ; and so admirably fitted him to stand forward and fore- most, amongst his colleagues and fellow apostles. [Time expired.] Half-past 4 o'clock, P. M. BISHOP PURCF.LL rises Do you love me more than these fish!! My brethren, if the subject were not too serious, I should call my friend's construction a fish story ! Jesus Christ said to Peter, " lovest thou me more than these ?" plus his what, if fish ] (i^i/as) plus quam hos. There is an end to all that argument. MR. CAMPBELL. That is the Latin version. Let us have the Greek. BISHOP PURCELL. The Greek is not more plain, nor will it prove your interpretation less revolting, less contrary to the obvious and more common interpretation of the text. Sad conclusion this, which my learned opponent reserved as his main reliance, for the last hour of the day ! And is it thus that he v proves the church of Rome to be neither catholic, apostolic, nor holy, but an apostacy from the only true, holy and apostolic church of Christ 1 ? He is heartily welcome to the proselytes this argument may gain to his tottering cause. Let learned Protestants now claim their champion's services in the difficult task of interpreting the scripture or let them, as I have pro- phesied they would do, repudiate his advocacy. The change of name from Simon to Peter, shows that Christ chose him to be, beyond the other apostles, a rock, or more firm, more con- stant, more immoveable than they and that forever in the confession of his divinity, his real presence with his church and all the other truths he had vouchsafed to reveal to the world. A rock does not melt. The winds may beat and the rains may fall, but the house built upon a rock will stand, not for a few years, but forever. And as the rock, in the physical order loses not its nature, so neither do the promises of Christ lose their efficacy. " Thou art Peter, (or a rock) and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Matthew xvi. 18. A professor of Andover College has published a volume, I think it is entitled " Elements of Sacred Criticism." I have examined this work, but my memory retains not the author's name, perhaps some of the learned gentlemen present may aid it by the suggestion how- ever, he substantiates my interpretation, or rather that of all ages, by incontrovertible argument. And I confess the American College has, in this instance, a decided superiority, both in sound criticism and or thodoxy, over the " dumb sister," as the English and Scotch universi- ties have invidiously, or facetiously, named Trinity College, Dublin There is one plausible difficulty, against the testimony of Peter's having fixed his residence at Home, which the gentleman has overlook- 1, viz. that Paul does not mention Peter in his epistle to the Romans. 88 DEBATE ON THE TD explain this, it is oi^y necessary to observe, Paul wrote A. D. 57. in the reign of Claudius, when Peter was absent from Rome ; and this the illustrious convert of Damascus knew. But why waste time on a subject undisputed for fifteen hundred -years. Pearson, Grotius, Usher, Hammond, Blondel, Scaliger, Casaubon, Dumoulin, Petit, Basnage, all agree that Peter transferred his see to Rome and there suffered martyrdom. And here another objection is overruled ; he said there had been contests among the apostles, who should be greatest. He said that if Peter had confessed that he loved him most, a greater controversy would have arisen. But there was good cause to the contrary. An- drew saw him first John reposed on his bosom, &c. for many rea sons, these disputes may have arisen surely such objections after so great a mass of testimony deserved not serious attention. I have long ago seen, in a little work written in Philadelphia, the remarks of my friend about the Savior's saying he was the vine, when among the vines, on mount Olivet, &c. &c. This is not therefore orig- inal or new. I now take up a connected argument on the apostolicity of the church, for I wish this matter to go before the public in its peculiar strength. I look upon it as the most powerful argument that can be advanced in favor of the Catholic church. I read from Fletcher. His style is good. "'Christ Jesus had'called the apostles 'fishers of men,' he had told (hem to * go and preach the gospel to every creature,' assuring them, at the same time, that 'all power was given to him in heaven, and on earth,' and that * himself would be always with them.' Animated by this commission, and these as^uiances, and fired too with the love of God, and an ardent charity for men, these heroic victims of benevolence, did ' go forth and preach.' They preached; and although the world with all its passions, prejudices and superstitions was leagued against them; although its doctrines, which they preached, were repugnant to ali the bad propensities of the heart, and exceeded far the measure of the human under- standing; yet did an immense portion of the public, of the corrupted and the vicious, of the learned and the enlightened, near them, and believe. They preached; and the love of vice was converted into zeal for innocence; prejudice, into the desire of truth: superstition, into the warmth of piety. \ ire itself was exalted into the heroism of sanctity; and every defilement done awav, which cor- ruption had introduced into the sanctuary of the heart. They prtached; and Satan, like a thundei bolt, was hurled from his throne; his temple* razed ; his altars overturned; and idolatry, abashed and trembling, fled from those set nes, which it had so long disgraced by its follies, and infected by its abominations. They preached; and the Universe was changed! The spectacle which thev\hi- biteil was new; the spectacle of exalted virtue and consummate wisdom. .\Un beheld the virtue and it edified them; they listened to the wisdom, and it con vinced them. In this manner did the first apostles of Jesus Chrisc completely realize the figure of the 'jfishers of men,' completely verify the assurance which their divine Master had given them, that himself icovld "be always u-ith them, completely illustrate that passage of St. Paul, in which he says, ' God employ the weak to confound the strong, and the foolith to cottfnte the u-ise.' It is tn call and mission of the apostles, which are the sources of the call and mission of the'ir successors, and it is the successes that attended the preaching of the apostles, that are the proof, not only of the divinity of their mission, but of the mission of those who have replaced, and shall yet replace them till the end of time. In religion, as every thing was originallv apostolical, so every thing to merit veneration, must continue apostolical. According to the definition and import of apostolicity. it is necessary that the church which was founded by the apostles, and the mission also which was imparted to the apostles, should, without destruction, or interruption, have been perpetuated to the age we live in, firm amid revolutions, unchanged amid changes. I have said, that to ascertain in the Catholic church this stability of duration, a more positive proof cannot be adduced, than the spectacle of its pastors (who ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 89 compose a large portion of its members, and whose functions are the most im- portant duties of religion) regularly in each age, succeeding to each other, and transmitting to each, the mission which originally had been inherited from the hands ol the apostles. The only difficulty here, is by the light of evidence to establish these important facts. Well, my brethren, and this is what, without any difficulty, the Catholic exults to do. To do it we need only to consult the records of history ; those records which the Protestant himself considers authentic. The light of history is a testimony, which, beyond the power of reasonable doubt, attests the regular and perennial succession of the Catholic ministry. The apostles, whom Christ had -sent, us his Father had sent him ; and with whom, likewise, he had promised to remain all days to the end of the world; in consequence of the above commission and assurance, c.hose for themselves co- operators and successors in their sacred ministry: co-operators, in order to assist them in the government of the churches which their zeal had planted ; tuccessors, to whom, on occasion of their departure from this scene of their labors, they might resign the burden of their functions, and the honor of their nets. Now, fortunately for the cause of religion, we have in the annals of history, and in the writings of the learned, the accounts very carefully preserved, of the resignations, which the apostles made of their functions and sees to their successors; and of the resignations also which their successors' successors made, during a series of ages, to the pastors, who, in long order, have till the present age, continually replaced each other. Among these accounts, that which of all others is the most interesting, and which religion has preserved with the nicest care, is the history of the continuation until to-day, of the apostolic powers which Christ Jesus conferred upon the prince of the apostles, St. Peter. We have, thanks to that Providence, which watches over the church, and which marks its paths with beams of light, we have the proof of this continuation so luminously attested, so evident, that not hostility can contest, nor incredulity doubt it. Important testimony! itself a bright feature in the divinity of the church; a tes- timony, which, proving immediately the apostolicity of the mission of its si-preme pastors, proves also immediately, yet directly, the apostolicity of the mission of all its other pastors. For, if you consult the rolls of history, you will find that with our supreme pastors, the Catholic pastors of every age, and of every nation, were always united in communion; acknowledging their supereminence, and revering their jurisdiction; considering them as the great source, after Christ, of spiritual power, and the centre of spiritual unity. There have been several distinguished writers, who, incapable of misrepresen- tation, and possessing the means of knowing the history of the successors of St. Peter, and the order of their succession, have carefully handed down to us, each to his own time, the lists of these illustrious men. The first of these I believe, who is known to have preserved the important catalogue, is St. Irenams. After Teriullian, the next who continues the catalogue of St. Peter's succes- sors, is St. Optatus. He brings it down to the time of Siricius; that is, to the year three hundred aud eighty-four. ' In this one chair,' says the saint, speak* ing of the see of Rome, ' sat Peter Jirst, to him succeeded Linus, to him Clement, fyc To Liberius succeeded Damasus; to Damasus, Siricius, the present ponlijf, with whom we and all the world hold communion. And now,' he adds, addressing himself exultingly to the Donatist, 'and now, do you give an account of the origin of your sees, you, that pretend to call yourselves the Catholic church.' (Contra Panuen.) St. Austin is another writer, who had attended to the succession, and has preserv- ed forus, the list of St. Peter's successors; deriving from the longorderof theircon- tinuance, the same conclusions as did Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Optatus. The list which the Saint has communicated, reaches down to his own time, to the pontifi- cate of Innocent the first, in the year four hundred and two, and in its earlier eras it exactlv corresponded with the list which I have alluded to already. ' Come,' says he to the Donatist*, ' come, brethren, if it be that you wish to be in- grafted on the vine. 1 weep to see you as you are; lopped off from its sacred stock. Count i:p the pontiffs in the chair of Peter, and in that order see which succeeded which. This is that Rock, over which, the proud gates of hell cannot prevail.' Hence, without the necessity of producing further testimonies, it follows, if men will not contest the authority, or call in question the veracity of some of the fairest characters, that the chnsi'an world reveres: it follows that from the H2 12 90 DEBATE ON THE time of St. Peter to the time of Innocent, in the fifth centuiy, there esij.ecl in the see of Rome, an uninterrupted chain of pastors, and a continuation of an apostolic mission. The continuation of that same apostolic mission which Christ Jesus had imparted to St. Peter. Only he, can doubt this, whose incredulity doubts of every thing. And has the chain of Roman pastors, for this is now the only point which w* must investigate, been continued and extended from the time of Innocent the first, to the present day; an interval, it is true, extremely long-, and filled up with storms, and changes, and revolutions and great events? Yes, the chain has been continued and extended all this whole length of period ; from Innocent, who consoled the great Chrysostom, under the persecution of an ambitious princess, to Pius the seventh, vgho himself is the heroic victim of the persecution of a re- lentless victor. Indeed, the fait is so obvious, it is not even contested. It is conceded by the met, who are interested to deny it. To be assured of it, you need only to consult the political annals of any considerable state, or to appeal in our historians to the mere tablets of chronology. You will find that all give to pur Roman pontiffs the same line and length of succession, which I hers assign them. Their conduct has been always prominent; their influence alwayi conspicuous. Few were the great events and transactions, in which, eithei from a principle of piety, or sometimes of ambition, they did not bear a part. Yes, but if prompted by curiosity, you will give yourselves the trouble to con suit the annals of the church, there you will trace, more distinctly still, the evi dence of the truth, which I am now establishing. There attending to the occur rences of each epoch, you will observe, that the helm which had been confided to the trust of Peter, is with the greatest regularity transferred from hand to hand ; and with pious care, confided to the trust of each successor. You may mark the name, and read the character of each individual, who directed it, the date of the day when it was committed to his guidance; and th* hour, almost, when he resigned. In short, admitting the accuracy of the lists which have been preserved by Irenaeus, Tertullian, &c., you trace in the annals of the church, a clear plain, and incontestible evidence of a Hue of Roman pontiffs, the succes sors of St. Peter, during the long course of above eighteen hundred years. If the ancient fathers, in their times, and at the distance only of a few years so triumphantly produced the list of these holy men, evincing by it the divinity of the church, and the apostolicity of the mission of its pastors, and by it confu ting th-? novelty and claims of heresy; if Tertullian, impressed with the force of this argument, victoriously called out to the hosts of innovators, " sheic us any thing like this. Unfold and shew us the origin of your churches; shew us the list of your bishops, in regular order from the days of the apostles, succeeding- to each other;" if he could sav to them, " Who are you? Whence is your origin de- rived? What have you to do in my estate? lam the possessor. Jlfy posses- sionis ancient. I am the heir of the apogtlet:" if he could say all this; and from this, after scarcely the lapse of two centuries and the succession of hardly a dozen pontiffs, demonstrate the apostolicity of the church; with how much more reasoil and with how much more effect, might I, or any other Catholic, demonstrate its apostolicity at present, at present when the continuance of Pe- ter's successors forms a chain, of above eighteen hundred years, and their num- ber fills up a list of above two hundred and fifty pontiffs? Oh! were only a Ter- tullian now, or an Austin, standing in the same situation in which I am placed before you, addressing^ you from this seat of truth and pressing the same argu- ment, vVhich I do to day, upon your attention; and pressing it recommended by the circumstances which I hare just referred to, how the thoughts would g ow, and the words burn, with which they would convey the exultation of these feel- ings to you! How the cause of truth would triumph in their eloquence! With what redoubled enthusiasm would they exclaim, ".let heresy shew any thing- like this?" 1 1 reaJity, if the argument which these great men have employed to prove the apostolicity of the church, proved aught in their times, it certainly proves the same, and a great deal more, at present. To the thoughtful ana the philosophic mind, there is much, I have already ob- served, to admire in the stability of the church amid the fluctuation of human things. It is the same in regard to the long continuance of the successors of St. Peter. Wisdom and reason, when they consider it, are struck with wonder ; and piety discovers in it the visible effect of an Almighty superintendance. The lustiiu'.io.u of men soon perish. The modifications of human policy do not long KOMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 91 retain their forms. Nothing human is permanent To contemplate, therefore, an order of pontiffs reaching- the whole length of eighteen centuries unchanged, whilst every thing else was changing; uninterrupted, whilst all other institutions were perishing, is a spectacle at once striking, awful, and impressive ; calculat- ed to inspire the protestant himself, if not with the conviction of its divinity, at least with a conviction of its wisdom ; with a respect for its strength ; with a veneration for its antiquity. Let only reason cast a look into the annals of time, or recall to its recollection the events and revolutions, which during the lapse of eighteen centuries, have taken place on the theatre of life. During that interval in every king lorn of the civilized world, every government has changed its form , every dynasty resigned its power ; every empire sunk to ruin. Rome iteelf, dur- ing it, has experienced in particular, all the vicissitudes of human instability : Las been ruled alternately by Consuls, Emperors, Kings and Exarchs : has been taken, plundered, sacked and reduced almost to a heapofashes. In short, during it, every thing that is human and political. the work of the power and ambition, of the wisdom and art of men, has either perished or undergone a variety of al- terations Kingdoms, states, cities, monuments, laws, opinions, customs, here- sies. IVought but the succession of our pontiffs, and the institutions of our holy religion, ^>ave remained unaltered. These alone, amid the general revolution ; amid the storms of war ; the ravages of passion ; the conflicts of heresy, subsist undecayed and unc'.ecaying. They even subsist in spite of all those evils ; though assailed by the violence of persecution ; though combated by the machi- nations of passion ; though attacked bv the artificesof error ; though assaulted by the combined efforts of vice, Satan and the world. Surely prejudice itself will own it, a succession of Pastors thus perpetuated for eighteen centuries, and per- petuated amid such obstacles, is not the effect of chance, nor of earthly policy; not the creation of ambition, northe offspring of worldly wisdom. The only method of accounting rationally for it, is to allow, that it is the result of a divine institution ; and the consequence of that assurance given by our great Redeemer to his apostles, that he would be with them all days, to the end of the world; or in other words, that it is the result and the proof of an apostolic mission. From the evidences of the apostolicity of the church of Rome, is inferred the evidence of the npostolicity of the various other Catholic churches, which are disposed throughout the universe. In reality, they are all of them the parts of one whole ; the branches of one tree ; the streams of one fountain ; the rays of one sun. They all form only one communion, whose centre and head is the church of Rome. Of these churches, some were established by the apostles themselves, and their immediate successors ; some acda very considerable part, by the successors of St. Peter, the Roman pontiffs, who in each age have with pi- cus zeal, deputed missionaries to preach the gospel in almost every region of the glooe But in every age, and in every region, the churches that were thus Clanted, were only considered as -apostolical, or as portions of the true church, om the evidence of their union with the church of Rome. It is the remark of St. Jerome ; that no bishop was ever acknowledged to be a lawful bishop, except in as much, as he was united in communion with the chair of St. Peter." And why may I not adduce as another evidence of the apostolic mission of our pastors, the venerable subsistence of a multitude of other churches, which without having lasted from the age, which saw the apostles live, have still lasted from the ages that are not long subsequent to it 1 This is the case with severa churches in Spain, Italy, France, &c. In Spain, the churches of Toledo, Cordo va, &c. in Italy, those of Milan, Naples, &c. in France, those of Lyons Tours &c. have subsisted from the early ages of Christian fervor ; from those ages which are often denominated apostolical, down to the present period of degeneracy Their annals, more accurately preserved than the annals of civil governments exhibit to our astonished, but gratified reason, a line of pastors during this whole length of ages unbroken and uninterrupted uninjured by the violence of per- secutions, as well as unimpaired by the sunshine of prosperity ; a line of pastors that in canonical succession have till the present day, replaced each other. These are monuments of stability, compared with which profane history has BOthing similar : Protestantism nothing- analogous. These too attest the apostol- icity of the mission of our pastors ; and the apostolicitv consequently of our i_""trch. Ai.d now onte more, let it be recollected, in relation to all these churches, thet their founders, and the successors of their founders, were in communion with 92 DEBATE ON THE the see of Rome: the former deputed perhaps immediately by it ; the latter ex ulting always in their union with it as the best proof ol the apostolicity ot theii own delegation." [ The above quotation was read in parts, in two different speeches ; but it has been thought proper to insert it entire, here.] I close here. To-morrow is the sabbath of our God. Let us de- vote the remainder of the day to the preparation of our souls for its holy duties. MONDAY, JANUARY 16TH, Half past 9 o'clock, A. M. ME. CAMPBELL rises It is a trite and a true observation, that the material universe is re solvable into a very few elementary principles. And not a few of our wisest philosophers suppose that the time may yet come, in"the pro- gress of chemical science,, when material nature will be resolved into some two, or three rudimentary elements. The sciences, too, mental and moral, are all resolvable into a few great cardinal principles. The papal empire itself depends also upon a few points, indeed, up- on one great point, and that relates to the office upon which the whole superstructure rests. The most fundamental question is not whether the apostle Peter was invested with the office of pope, or vicar of Christ; but rather whether there ever was such an office at all. On this question we have not proceeded in the most logical manner. I have been compelled to approach it at different times, and by different ave- nues. My opponent has not adverted to the rules of this discussion. I am compelled to lead, and he to follow. He can only lawfully reply to such matter as I introduce. But instead of replying to my argu- ments, already offered, he read you some dissertations upon succession to an office, not yet canvassed and established. This reading of for- eign discussions instead of replying to me is contrary to our rules and most illogical. I hope we shall have no more of it. What was read on Saturday afternoon on the question of succession is clearly irrele- vant. Before we contend about succession, the question is, What is to be succeeded to ? We have had seven presidents, and the succes- sion is indisputable; yet the office depends not upon the seven incum- bents, nor upon their rightful succession ; but upon what is written in the constitution upon the positive and express institution of the office. If it is not found in the constitution, succession is of no virtue : however unbroken and orderly it may be, the present incumbent has no power. The grand question then is, Is there in the constitution of the Christian church, in the New Covenant, or last Testament, a chair of primacy, or superintendcncy ? This is the logical and the cardinal question. On this single point rest all the fortunes of the papacy in an enlightened community. I wish all to perceive it, and I will pre- sent it in different forms. The first question is, Has Jesus Christ ap- pointed the office of pope? The second, Who was the first officer? Third, Was there a succession ordained? and fourth, Has that succession been preserved uncorrupt to the present day ? In this way our reason, or common sense, or logic .arranges the matter; and in this way only can it be rationally and scripturally decided. With allnnen of sense, the controversy will hang on this point. A failure here is ruin to the ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 93 cause. If this point cannot be proved, it is as useless to contest oth- ers, as it would be to finish a house that is built upon the ice. Strike off the head and the body perishes. Yet this capital point rests upon an inference ! How would an American like to be told that the office of president depended upon an inference ? that there was no provision for it in the constitution that it was inferred from twenty clauses, scattered here and there in as many sections 1 Could it be possible, that the greatest office in this nation the very head of this government, should rest on the construction of these clauses ; that there is no chapter in the constitution, expressly creating the office 1 Yet, this is precisely the case with the pope. The gentleman does not claim for him a po- sitive grant in the New Testament. He must acknowledge that there is no such office distinctly asserted that it depends on the reasonings of fallible men to ferret it out. Here I must expose the nakedness of the land and sweep from the arena the dust of tradition, which blinds the eyes of implicit believers. It is said by the Romanists that a belief in the supremacy of the pope is essential to salvation. Boniface VIII. decrees in his canon 'aw in the words following: " Moreover we declare, and say, and define, and pronounce to every human creature, that it is altogether necessary to salvation to be subject to the Roman pontirt. ' It appears, if not pedantic, at least awkward to read Latin to an English audience. However, my learned opponent, so often sets me the example, that he will allow me to quote this important decree : " Subcsse Romano Pontifiei. omnis hiimancE creatiirce declaramus, dicimus, definimus, et pronunciamus omnino este necessitate salutis." It is then solemnly decreed that a belief in, and submission to, the Roman pontiffis essential to salvation. Ought not, then, his authority to be as clearly pointed out in the Bible as the mission of Jesus Christ! for the person and mission and sacrifice of Christ are to us useless, without faith in the pope. Again, of what use is the Bible, without this belief; and especially, if so important a matter is so ob- scurely expressed in it as to rest upon a mere inference! Does the person and office of Christ depend on a mere inference 1 Is it not as- serted and re-asserted, a hundred times by the voices of all the pro- phets and apostles of both Testaments ? In the Jewish economy, the high Priest was on earth : but in our economy he is in Heaven. There was truth in the type, and there must be truth in the anti-type. Yet every thing concerning that priesthood was positively and expressly ordained. The office, the officer, the succession, and the means of keeping the blood pure. For, No man dare "take that office upon himself, but he that was called of God, as was Aaron." Aaron then was distinctly called to be a high priest. Now we argue that if we had a high priest on earth under our high Priest in heaven, and if salva- tion hang upon obedience to him : it ought to be as clear as that of Aaron. But in reference to the Old Testament priesthood, we find every thing distinctly and unequivocally stated, Exodus xxviii. 1. "Take Aaron and his sons from among the children of Israel, that he and they may minister to me in the priest's office." Again, xl. 13. "And thou shah sanctity Aaron and his sons, that he may minister to me in the priest's office; and their anointing shall surely be an everlasting pritst- hood throughout tkeir generations," How often in the books of the 94 DEBATE ON THE law, and in the subsequent history of the Jews, as it is in 1 Chron. 23d and 24th chapters, do we find the unequivocal institution and records of this priesthood ! But it is not only in a distinct and unequivocal call and consecra- tion, but in the subsequent care evinced in sustaining this appoint- ment, that we see the necessity of such a positive and express cove- nant and understanding. The rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and the destruction, by a miraculous interposition, of themselves and of their company, together with two hundred and fifty princes of Israel, for seeking to invade the office, is another solemn attestation of the divine erection of this office, and the certain call of Aaron's family. Again: The appointment of God to select an almond rod for each tribe, and to inscribe the name of each of the twelve families upon those rods, every tribe's name upon a separate rod, and the miraculous budding and blossoming and almond-bearing of Aaron's rod, in the course of a single night, was another settlement of this matter, so spe- cial, supernatural, and divine, as to put it. to rest forever. Here we ought to read in full the 16th and 17th chapters of Numbers ; but we have only time to refer to them. Thus by a positive call, and two splendid and awfully glorious miracles, was the office of the high priesthood established in Israel. And may we not ask, that if as Boniface has defined, and all Roman Catholics believe, 'that there is no salvation, but in the admission af the divine call of the popes of Rome? ought not the institution of a new order to be as clearly pointed out, and sustained in the new law, as it was in the old? ! But my opponent has to concede that there is no such positive or express institution of St. Peter's chair, nor of his call and consecra- tion, nor any law of succession whatever in the New Testament ; and that it rests wholly upon inference. Now, if no man can take this honor upon himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron, where is the office and the authority of the popes of Rome 1 ! There is for it no such call. Or will my friend say that mere inference or assump- tion is a proper foundation for such a call and office? On Saturday evening I began the examination of the premises from which is inferred this high and responsible office ; and so far, I think, proved that he cannot eren find a good logical inference for it. In Matthew xvi. we found no support to the idea that the church of Jesus Christ was to be built upon the flesh and blood and bones of Peter; neither upon his person nor office. We saw that every rule of gram- mar that the construction of language forbade such a transition as was necessary to the hypothesis. To have addressed Peter in the second and third persons as both present and absent, in the same breath, is wholly unprecedented. To have spoken of him, and to him at one time, in one period, and on a matter so cardinal as making him the foundation of his church, is not to be admitted on the autho- rity of mere assumption, without a single case parallel in all holy writ to lay along side of it. The case in no rational point of view will endure such violence. Jesus asked for a confession, Peter gave it. Tht conversation turned upon that confession, and not upon Peter. The comment ought to have been upon the text, and not upon him that gave it. It was upon the text and not unon the preacher. EOMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 95 We Protestants say that the church is founded on the thing con- fessed. Christ himself is, indeed, the rock ; hut figuratively the trutlv which represents him. I was struck with astonishment when I heard my worthy opponent say, that Peter was the rock, and Christ only a stone in this spiritual temple ! [BISHOP PURCELL here explained, ' that he had said that Christ was the corner stone which was to strengthen and give consistency to the foundation; and Peter the rock which was to strengthen and give con- sistency to the superstructure.'] Mr. CAMPBELL proceeded : Christ the corner stone! and Peter the rock ! ! Does this help the matter! What say^s 1 Cor. iii. "Other foundation can no man lay than what is already laid," very Peter ! J 1 No, indeed; hut Jesus Christ him- self is the corner stone, the rock, the foundation ? Then Peter is but a stone, as his name imports. But there were eleven other stones of equal value : for, says the Holy Spirit, the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles all the apostles; and of the prophets too! When, then, all these stones are at the foundation, and Christ the chief corner, where is the room for Peter the rock ? But, we have other expressions that illustrate Matthew xvi. Look- ing at the temple one day, Jesus said to those before him, " Destroy this temple and I will build it again in three days." Were the per- sons he addressed in the second person and the temple the same thing ]_ Here, then, are the persons addressed, the subject of conversation, and himself you, (the addressed,) and the temple, (himself.) So have we Peter, his confession, and Christ the builder of the church, in the passage before us. They understood by his question that he spoke of hid body; but his body was not himself: neither was the confession of Peter, Christ himself; nor Peter's person, the rock of ages. Surely the papal rock is not as our rock ; our enemies themselves being judges. But petros and petra sound alike, and therefore, though of different gender, case, and person, they must he identical ! Of the person and case we have said enough, (for my friend has not attempted to refute it.) Of the difference in gender, he will tell us, that it was written in Syriac, and that the word signifying stone in that language is of no ender. This is gratuitous. He can produce no copy of Matthew in yriac; the only authentic copy we have is that before me. It is the Greek version of Matthew : " Thou" is in the second person, and "this" is in the third. Petros is masculine and Petra is feminine. It is impos- sible for language to do more to prevent mistake; and he that would attempt to explain away these three gender, person and case, is not subject to the laws of language, neither indeed can be. It is commonly observed that Peter seems not to have been any bet- ter qualified after than before the confession, to he the foundation of the church : for he is reproved for his worldly notions of the Messiah and his kingdom, in these words ; " Get thee behind me, adversary} for thou relishest not the things of God ; but the things of man." The word sa- tanas signifies adversary. Jesus calls, him not ho satanas, Satan ; but simply opponent. Stand aside thou who opposes! me in this matter : .Thou dost not understand these divine things. There is another of the bishop's texts to which, out of courtesy, 1 must allude: " Peter, when thou art converted, confirm your breth- ren." The meaning of which is, Peter, as you have experienced the 9b DEBATE ON THE bitterness 01 repentance, you can hereafter comfort and strengthen your penitent hrethren. My learned opponent interprets it thus ; Peter, when you are converted, you shall be my vicar and prince of the apostles ! John xxi, "Lovest thou me more than these," is again before us. The bishop will have these to refer to the apostles. My audience will re- member that when I read the Greek of the passage, he quoted Latin (plus quam hos,} as if to correct the Greek by deciding that these was masculine and not neuter, the very point in debate- that when he was challenged to sustain his Latin comment by the original, he immedi- ately after taking up the Greek Testament laid it down. It will elucidate this passage to read the whole in the original, verse 13th. Ef%vrau o 'lia-sy? KXI KnuSdni Til ogroir, *} t*, a.yy.ira.t (*.t irKtin Tcvrter^ The grammatical antecedent to TCI/TV must be i-cy &grov and TO c^Mfi^, which makes it neuter. Now, I ask, on what grammatical authority does the Vulgate convert these into the masculine ? Ought a translator to judge for his readers, or ought he to give the same latitude of inquiry to his readers which the original gives to him. The latter, certainly. So decides the highest tribunal in the commonwealth of letters. And neither my opponent nor his Latin nor Greek supplements, nor interpolations, have any right to make that masculine, which the original makes at least doubtful, himself being judge : and according to my judgment, on the laws of language, cer- tainly, neuter. On what precarious, inferential and illogical grounds rest the proud aspirations of the pope of Rome ! He out-rivals the proudest mon- archs of the east. He that styles himself " brother to the sun and moon," and " disposer of Asiatic crowns," is modest compared with the vicar, who claims dominion over angels and saints in heaven over all the spirits in the wide domains of purgatory ; who styles him- self, or permits others to address him as a God on earth as " his holi- ness, Lord God the Pope," as holding the keys of heaven and hell, and the two swords of ecclesiastic and political justice ; and all this mighty empire resting upon the words, "petra," " strengthen thy brethren," " lovest thou me more than these," "feed my sheep and lambs," &c. Was there ever so proud a superstructure reared upon so many and so baseless assumptions 1! The gentleman quoted yet another verse from the Vulgate ; 1 Pet v. 3, " Be not lords over the clergy." Hence he infers, the apostle Pe- ter had the clergy under him. But the apostle says, " not as lords ver the clergy," there then, was a plurality of lords, not one su- preme head ! Although this passage was quoted at an early period of the discussion, by my opponent, I reserved my remarks upon it till now. It reads in the original and the common version, " not as lords over the heritage, lot, or people of the Lord." KAirgsc, the word here translated clergy, occurs twelve times in the New Testament, and in nine of these it is translated lot. In Acts, xxvi. 18, and in Col. i. 12, it is translated inheritance, and in the passage before us, it may be either lot, heritage, or inheritance . but clergy is most whimsical and arnitrary. As well might the Vulgate have said to Simon Magus, *' thou hast neither part nor clergy in this matter:" or, in Col. i. 12, " he has fitted us to partake in the clergy of the saints." In both KOMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 97 the word is the same in the original. These shew by what a stretch of power and arbitrary dominion over words, these critics would bring the clergy or Christian ministry under the bishop of Rome. So fades from the face of reason the whole evidence from the Bible, in favor of the grand office without which the papacy is as mere a fig- ment of fancy as the visions of*the prophet of Islamism ! Having found the office of vicar, or general superintendant of th* hole church, the universal episcopate of Rome, without express or pigitive precept or institution, and without even inferential probability; I proceed in the third place to show still farther, that it is anti-scrip-