inevitably be imparted to its successive recruits. The character of no one man can be more indelibly stamped by a long life of consistent, systematic conduct, than that of a collective body which, for many centuries, has practically learnt the true source of its power. If, on the other hand, it should appear that, in describing the moral character of that body which Catholics consider as the only depositary of divine authority on earth, I bring a charge of guilt against the whole succession of men who have composed, and compose it at present; I must observe, that individual conduct, modified by corporate influence, cannot be judged by the common rules which guide us in estimating private character. That every true Roman Catholic, every man whose religious tenets are in strict conformity with those of Rome, must partake the spirit of his standard of faith, in proportion to his sincerity; my own experience would compel me to aver, independently of any theoretical conviction. But the same experience teaches me that the natural disposition of every person, has a certain degree of power to modify, though not to neutralize, the Roman Catholic ré

ligious influence.-This being premised, I will openly, before God and man, declare my conviction, that the necessity of keeping up the appearance of infallibility, makes the church of Rome, essentially and invariably, tyrannical; that it leads that church to hazard both the temporal and the eternal happiness of men, rather than alter what has once received the sanction of her authority; and that, in the prosecution of her object, she overlooks the rights of truth, and the improvement of the human understanding.

In the proof and substantiation of these charges I will strictly observe the conditions proposed for similar cases by the author of the Book of the Roman Catholic Church. "I beg leave to suggest," says Mr. Butler, “that, in every religious controversy between Protestants and Roman Catholics, the following rule should be observed: THAT NO DOCTRINE SHOULD BE ASCRIBED TO THE ROMAN CATHOLICS AS A BODY, EXCEPT SUCH AS IS AN ARTICLE OF THEIR FAITH*" Now, it is agreed on all hands, that a canon of a general council, approved by the Pope-i. e. a rule

*Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 9.

an infalible judge in his church, lest, by the existence of doubt as to the sense of the Scriptures, there should be diversity of opinion among his flowers-instead of taking it for granted that

the victory of hell depended on the diversity of abstract doctrines among Christians, and not in the prevalence of dark works of wickedness, provided they were wrought in the unity of Papal faith-he should, in the spirit of philosophical reasoning, have penetrated to that part of the argument which conceals the gratuitous assumptions whence the whole Roman Catholic theory has sprung. When Catholics have proved, without the aid of church authority, that the church of Christ must be infallible, then, and not before, they may object their variations to the Protestants.

The Protestants have varied in search of the divine simplicity of the Gospel, which Rome had buried under a mountain of metaphysical notions. The Protestants have varied, because they could not at once divest themselves of the habits of tilking which they had acquired in the Roman Catholic schools. The Protestants have varied, because they had the honesty not to imitate the

contrivances by which the Roman church gives to her new decisions the appearance of unity with the preceding. The Protestants have varied, because they would not, upon the fanciful notion of a perpetual miracle, claim for any of their churches the supernatural gift of unerring wisdom, nor counterfeit by obstinacy in error, the conscious certainty of inspiration. The Protestants, in fine, have varied, because, by restoring the Scriptures to their full and unrivalled authority, they perceived the intrinsic power of settled, recorded, invariable revelation; and were aware that, in spite of doubts and divisions, the light of tho divine records needed no help to withstand the b of the gates of hell.

If mere extrometry were my shoes, I

propose to you what I conceive to be the true scriptural notions on the unity of the church of Christ.

In reading the New Testament with a mind carefully freed from the prejudices of schooldivinity, it is impossible not to perceive that the assemblies of men who are called to obtain salvation through Christ, cannot either singly or collectively constitute the church, whereof the Roman see has tried to appropriate the qualities and privileges to herself. Wherever men assemble in the name of Jesus, there he has promised to be by means of his spirit; and certainly the works of that spirit are more or less visible in the Christian virtues, which never yet failed to spring up in these particular churches, though mixed with the tares, and other evils, which are not separable from "the kingdom of heaven" in this world. But there is a structure of sanctity in perpetual progress, towards the completion of which the Christian churches, on earth, are only made to contribute as different quarries do towards the raising of some glorious building. The churches on earth partake, in various proportions, of the attributes of