Sebring, in this city in 1826, p. 16, is the whole congregation of the faithful; "all that profess and call themselves Christians. Of course the "Protestant Church," is the whole congregation of all who profess or call themselves Protestants; and a Protestant being one who protests against the errors of the Roman Catholic religion, the errors of that religion must be in actual existence before the existence of a Protestant individual or church, unless, what I do not believe you will assert, all the early Protestants were prophets. Now, Right Reverend Sir, we have in

2. p. 6. Q. 28. Which is the most ancient church? A. The Protestant: for, instead of being founded lately, as the Roman Catholics pretend, it is, in fact, much more ancient than their own: being a true, primitive, apostolical church, "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." (Eph. ii. 20.)

the other separatists from the Roman Catholic Church in the West got the same name, from acting upon the same principle.

Now in page 5, q. 26, I find it asserted, that the Protestant church was not founded by Luther. I believe, sir, you know at least, as well as I do, the origin of the name, and indeed it is natural to suppose that no one knows it better than you. If the origin be as I described, and as all our historians state, is it not a third inconsistency to deny to Martin Luther the honour which he so frequently receives from his own followers, of being the founder of the Protestant church? Indeed Calvin only followed where others led; he was too young to appear in sufficient time to be, properly speaking, a founder of the Protestant church. It was only in 1536 he received his first appointment at Geneva. But if he who gave a renovating impulse to a sinking cause, who gave to chaos something like form, and whose disciples had more or less to do in

regulating Protestantism wherever found,

deserves to be called a founder of that

sition.

Of the Church.

"The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same."

But I am at a loss how this is reconcilable to the second part of the definition in the exposition, which is all that profess and call themselves Christians, unless you will allow that in every congregation that professes and calls itself Christian, the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments are duly administered according to God's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same; and that all those are congregations of faithful men, provided they profess and call themselves Christians; and if such be the case, how can there be erroneous sects in Christianity? Probably some persons whose minds are more clear and acute than is mine, could explain and reconcile those positions.

Upon this point, too, if the definition in 4. 4 of the little book be correct, it will be necessary for us to have new histories written, because all those that exist, whether written by Catholics or Protestants, state that the name Protestants was first given in the year 1529 to the disciples of Martin Luther, who with six princes of the empire at their head, protested against the decree of the Emperor at the Diet of Spires, and appealed to a general council; and gradually

entitled to the appellation; and as yours, sir, may be considered a daughter of the English Protestant church, and as the doctrine of that church was principally regulated under the influence of Calvin, it would appear to me inconsistent for those who teach that doctrine, to deny his proper title to the teacher of their teachers. Again, Right Reverend Sir, though it be fashionable in these latter days, at this side of the Atlantic, to deny that King Henry VIII. had any share in the foundation of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and to assert that he was more a Roman Catholic than a Protestant, I scarcely thought that you would be led away from the principles to which I understand you firmly adhere: and from the credit given in the English and the American Protestant Episcopal Churches to the Books of Homilies, I naturally inferred that you respected their contents. I quote from the New York edition of 1815, which is the first American from the last Oxford edition.

"Honour be to God, who did put light in the heart of his faithful and true minister of most famous memory, King Henry VIII., and gave him the knowledge of his word, and an earnest affection to seek his glory, and to put away all Christ invented, and set up against the true word such superstitious and pharisaical sects, by Antiof God, and the glory of his most blessed name, as he gave the like spirit unto the most noble and famous Princes, Josophat, Josias, and Ezechias." p. 47.

I scarcely expected that those great leaders of the Protestant religion would, with your approbation, be treated thus.

3. p. 5, Q. 26. Was not the Protestant Church founded by Luther and Calvin and King Henry the Eighth?

A. No: "Jesus Christ himself is the author and finisher of our faith." (Heb. xii. 2.) The reformers set up no new religion, but restored the old one to the purity and perfection it had before it was corrupted by the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Catholic religion. I was aware, sir, that you knew the difference between a church, which is a congregation of persons, and a religion, which is a collection of doctrines and practices: and I believed that neither the soundness of your logic, nor the candour of your disposition, would permit you to sanction the dishonest shuffling which questions concerning church and answers concerning religion. It is an evident fact that Martin Luther, John Calvin, King Henry VIII., and others, were the founders of the Protestant church: but it is altogether a different question whether the religion of that Protestant church was the ancient doctrine and discipline restored, instead of Roman Catholic corruption; or novelty and error, unwarrantably substituted for Roman Catholic, primitive truth. Upon this question I do not mean to enter; but you will, I am sure, allow that whatever might be said as to religion, the Protestant church did not exist before the year 1529: and thus I had another ground for hoping you had not given your sanction to disseminating this deceitful little work. 4. p. 2, Q. 4. A Protestant is one who, besides protesting against the errors of the Roman Catholic religion, admits no rule of faith and practice but the Holy Scriptures.

This, Right Reverend Sir, I admit to be an excellent definition when taken in its plain, obvious, and unrestricted meaning, and that meaning ascertained by what is acknowledged to be the great principle which distinguishes a Protestant from a Roman Catholic.. That principle is, that in explaining the holy Scriptures, or in ascertaining the meaning of any passage in this sacred collection, the Protestant is to be guided solely by his private judgment, and is authorized to follow his own individual opinion, though he should stand alone; whereas the Roman Catholic is bound to be guided by the judgment of the universal church, and must yield his private opinion to the testimony of the great body of Christians, informing him of the fact upon the questions, what has always been held as the meaning of that passage, and what is the doctrine that it has always been known to

contain. This definition would also agree fully with that given of the church, in the Familiar Exposition, p. 16. "By the church, I mean the whole congregation of THE FAITHFUL; all that profess to call themselves Christians;" for thus, Right Reverend Sir, ALL that profess and call themselves Christians, and the faithful, are identified. And upon the Protestant principle it cannot be otherwise. Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Moravians, Unitarians, Socinians, Arians, Congregationalists, Universalists, Nestorians, Eutychians, Quakers, Swedenborgians, and hundreds of others, whom it is unnecessary to enumerate, all profess and call themselves Christians, all admit no rule of faith and practice but the Holy Scriptures; therefore they are faithful Protestants; for besides the above qualifications, they all protest against the errors of the Roman Catholic religion, as well indeed as against the errors of each other. All this is legitimate reasoning; but I feared to assert, and yet scarcely knew how to deny that you held the principle, and of course as a consistent reasoner, should admit the result. I shall now give you the grounds of my hesitating to assert that you held the principle.

In Article xx. of your church, it is asserted "that the church hath authority in controversies of faith;" that is, if I know the meaning of words, power to terminate the controversy by an authoritative decision. It is true that this power is limited by the subsequent part of the article. I shall enumerate the several limitations. 1. It has no power to decide contrary to the written word of God. 2. Nor so as to make one part of God's word contradict another, or be repugnant thereto. These are in fact the only two limiting clauses strictly taken, and to these the Roman Catholic Church fully subscribes, and the full force of those clauses every Roman Catholic is ready to maintain. But there is at the end of the article a clause which no Roman Catholic will admit. 3. That the church should not require anything to be believed for necessity of salvation, besides what the Holy Scripture contains. Now I suppose a case which every day occurs. A controversy has arisen upon the questions of faith, "Is there any difference of order between a Bishop and a Presbyter, or are they only different names for the same order?" and, "Is Episcopal ordination necessary to create a valid ministry, or will Presbyterial ordination suffice?" Your church claims the power by this article to give an authoritative decision, which she says ought to terminate the controversy. 1. Because this decision would not be contrary to the written word of God, but ac

perfect rule and a full rule of faith and practice.

I might have marked this in another class for its shuffling of terms, but I only place it here for its palpable inconsistency with the first principles of logic or reasoning. The first text is quoted from a wrong book, but that is, I suppose, the printer's error, and even if it arose from the compiler's ignorance, it would not make the argument worse. The second text I apprehend makes nothing in support of the conclusion, if it did, the argument would be thus. "Christ spoke to his disciples, and his oral instruction gave them knowledge of eternal life. Therefore the Scripture, being the word of God, is a sufficient and perfect and full rule for faith and practice." To make this argument perfect and conclusive, it would be necessary to establish two facts, which are altogether omitted, viz. That the Scriptures which we have, do contain all the oral instruction which' Christ gave, and that we can by reading it, understand our duty as clearly as did the disciples who heard the instruction from his lips. Suppose again that by the word which he spoke, was not meant the doctrine which he taught, but the baptism, conferred by his word, which washed away sin? What if by the word that he spoke, was meant the sentence of absolution from sins, pronounced upon their repentance, and which made them clean from sin before they received the Eucharist?

I now come to the other text: St. Paul means Scriptures which Timothy had known from his childhood, of course these were only the Old Testament, for no book of the New Testament was then written: if then we are to be bound by the words quoted to conclude that what St. Paul adverts to, was a sufficient, full, and perfect rule of faith; the Scriptures of the Old Testament only

are that rule.

Now, as the Christian doctrine is not contained in them except by prophecy in part, and in part also by record of the doctrines common to the Jew and the Christian, the Catechism-maker would not say that his conclusion was contained in that text; so that neither of the texts supports his position. I now come to the logical deficiency where it is most palpable. The principle of the argument in the little book is, "that whatever is the word of God cannot but be a full, sufficient, and perfect rule of faith and practice." The fact stated is, "that the Scriptures are the word of God," and from those premises the conclusion is drawn. Now, Right Reverend Sir, you will admit that if by the substitution of another undoubted fact for the one which is here, I

can draw from the same principle a glaringly false conclusion, the principle itself must, according to every maxim of sound reasoning, be egregiously false. To that same principle I apply this substituted fact whose truth you will not question. "The prophecy of Joel is the word of God." The conclusion will be obviously, "That the book of Joel cannot but be a full, sufficient, and perfect rule of faith and practice," and of course that having in this book all that is necessary, we may dispense with the rest. You and I will agree in the falsehood of this conclusion, but the fact being undoubtedly true, and the conclusion perfectly legitimate, the source of the error must be found in the principle. Therefore it is untrue that whatever is the word of God, cannot but be a full, sufficient, and perfect rule of faith and practice. In what part of this does the error lie?-Evidently in drawing a universal conclusion from particular premises. If I make that part which is apparently indefinite, but really particular, become universal, the reasoning will be good: or if I confine the extent of the latter to that of the former part, the principle will be true. Thus it is true to say, that whatever is the entire word of God is a full, and perfect, and sufficient rule of faith and practice; but in this case another question would arise upon the fact, whether the book given to us by any particular Church is the entire word of God; which question I do not examine. But you will agree with me, Right Reverend Sir, that this very flippant mode of dashing through texts of Scripture, great maxims of religion and reason, and important facts, is very often the cause not only of great inaccuracy, but even of gross inconsistency, and a sure mode of producing the wreck of reason and religion.

6. p. 2 and 3. Q. 7 and 8. Christ and his Apostles have commanded us to read the Scriptures.

Now, Right Reverend Sir, I could never have suspected you would have drawn from the premises here laid down, such a conclusion as that placed before us.

Let us view the grounds of this assertion. First. Our Saviour has expressly commanded to search the Scriptures (John v. 39). The fact is not so. For there is there no command; the appeal is not made to Christians for the purpose of showing them where to find the law by which all men are to be governed and judged; nor is there a reference direct, indirect, express or implied, to the New Testament, not a syllable of which was yet written. But it is one amongst many arguments used by our Saviour to the

unbelieving Jews to show that they ought to receive him as the son of God, equal to his Father. His first argument was from his miracles, his second was from his own prophecies, some of which would be accomplished in their lifetime; his third was from the testimony of John the Baptist, whom they believed to be a true messenger of Heaven; his fourth was from the voice of his Father; his fifth from the writings of Moses, to which he refers them in these words of that verse: search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me: and verse 46 explains his meaning more fully, For if ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? Surely, Right Reverend Sir, you have too much respect for truth to assert, as the Catechism does, that this argument to convince the Jews from the writings of Moses that he was the Messiah is an express command TO US Christians to search writings which were not then penned, as the ordinary mode of discovering what from the commencement of Christianity has been otherwise ordinarily discovered. I would leave it to the honour and candour of Bishop Bowen

to declare if he believes that it is from the unaided search of the Scriptures, the great bulk of his flock have come to the conclusion of being members of his church.

St. Paul does indeed charge in the Lord that an Epistle which he and Silvanus and Timotheus wrote to the Church of the Thessalonians should be read to all the holy brethren, and what could be more natural than that the letter should be read to all those to whom it was directed? But what kind of logic would infer that because a letter written by you to the congregation of St. Michael's church was ordered by you to be read to them all, therefore every Protestant Episcopalian through the world in all time to come, was commanded to read that and all other letters and documents sent by you and by the other Bishops of your church now in the United States, as the ordinary way of learning the law by which they were to be governed and judged? This is the usual logic of the little book: doubly universal conclusions from extremely limited premises!!

The Bereans are commended, surely you will not therefore conclude that all are commanded. I would also commend [to] any person who was asked, as were the Bereans, to leave one church and to go to another, to search diligently every day the sacred documents to which a reference was made for facts, to see if the facts were so. But an examination for the record of a fact is not a

power to decide upon a doctrine, and the Bereans searched the Old Scriptures, not the New Testament, which had not yet been written, and the object of their search was to know if the statement of the fact made by him who called upon them to join the Christian Church, was recorded upon the ancient document to which he referred; but they learned the doctrines of Christianity not from the Scriptures of the old law, in which they could not be found, but from the testimony of the Christian Church through the preaching of its Apostle and his associates. I could not bring myself to believe that you would approve of bad logic and unsupported inferences such as these, and trust that I shall not be under the necessity of coupling the name of Bishop Bowen with such a publication. My work increases under my hand-meantime I have the honour to remain, Right Reverend Sir, Your humble servant, B. C.

Charleston, S. C., August 2, 1828.

LETTER IV.

To the Right Reverend Doctor Bowen, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of South Carolina, &c. &c. &c.

RIGHT REVEREND SIR-I shall in this let

ter continue to enumerate some of the indiscovery of which led me to hope that you consistencies of the little Catechism, the did not approve of its distribution. In my last letter I stated six of them, I now proceed.

7.

p. 3. Q. 10. Are not the Scriptures obscure and hard to be understood?

A. As to whatever is necessary to salvation, they are plain and easy to those who read them with due care, and suitable dispositions. "If the Gospel be hid, it is hid to those that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not." (2 Cor. iv. 3.)

Q. 11. What are those suitable dispositions?

A. An humble desire of instruction, and a resolution to practise what we find to be our duty. "Receive with

meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only." (James i. 21, 22.)

The statement here made, I take to be evidently the following: "That all persons who read the Scriptures with due care and an humble desire of instruction, and a resolution to practise what they find to be their