This is a great admission, and I am thankful for it. He says that even 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 question. 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 universe. 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 the 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 by 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 Cordova, 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 christian 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 established 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. What more direct and satisfactory testimony could we require of the supremacy of the see of Rome, than the distinct recognition of its authority by so venerable an assembly? And what if rival claims were advanced by other sees? This ambitious spirit is as old as Christianity, as ancient as the origin of the human race. The apostles, themselves, 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, but it does not disprove the primacy of Rome

What more do you want than what God has caused to be thus recorded here?

The

The dissension first originated among the patriarchal sees. 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? Why that the crafty emperor, and the more subtle bishop intended to compel Rome to acknowledge Constantinople as her 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 assumption of the bishop of Constantinople, and of the emperor winking at it, are in fact proofs of the supremacy of Rome. 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 therefore 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 brethren, 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 administration 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 condemnation of Gregory, in the bad sense in which it was assumed by the patriarch 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, availing 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 connexion with the apostles. Hear Waddington speaking of the Vaudois"In our journey back towards the apostolic times, these saratists conduct us as far as the beginning of the twelfth century; but when would advance farther, we are intercepted by a broad region of darkness 2.... uncertainty. A spark of hope is indeed suggested by the history of the Vaud s. 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

named 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. It is sufficient to prove, that they had an earlier existence than the twelfth century; but that they had then been perpetuated through eight or nine centuries, uncommemorated 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, and though some writers have seemed to discern a few detached links which they diligently exhibited, there is still much wanting to complete the continuity." [Page 554 of the History of the Church from the earliest ages, by Rev. Geo. Waddington, A. M. fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Prebendary of Ferring, in the cathedral church of Chichester, New York edition, 1835.]

Well if Christ established a church on earth, that church must be 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 true church must be catholic. What church then is catholic? 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 dominant, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the testimony is given, and the words "I believe in the holy catholic church" are used by the members 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 discordant and chaotic sects. As no other church but ours is now catholic, so no other but ours ever has been or will be catholic. "Christian 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 they 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 antiquity 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 great 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 constitutions 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 in every age the same-in every age, the identical religion, which the Catholic believes 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 the Catholic religion of the present period is indeed, the true religion, then should 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 eighteen centuries, formed always the object of the veneration of the orthodox believer." vol. 2, p. 173.

"As it was the design of God, that the true church should be Catholic; so it was also his design, that the true church should always be distinguished by the honorable 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 also it was his will, that this establishment should be dignified by a name corresponding to these great characteristics. "I believe." the apostles commanded the faithful in every age to say, "in the holy CATHOLIC Church,' by this name CATHOLIC," says St. Austin, "I am retained in the Catholic church," " my name," adds St. Pacian, "is Christian; my surname CATHOLIC; and BY THIS SURNAME, I am distinguished from all the sects of heresy." Sermon on the catholicity of the church, page 195, vol. ii. Balt.

edit. 1830.

66

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 empire through every climate; consoling by its benefits, and enlightening by its doctrines, the remotest corners of the universe: to see it existing through the long lapse of so many ages, unmoved, while the strongest empires sink to ruin; and unshaken, while all things fall in decay around it. It is animating to remark it triumphant over all the powers of darkness, and 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 through the tempest, and 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 scenes assure you, is an edifice protected by the hand of the Almighty, a rock fixed on the basis of the divine power amid the 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, indeed, sweep away many of its unguarded members, than the gentlest spray 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 church. As the Psalmist says, "it should come to nothing, like the running water" (Ps. lvii.) It would prove but the preparation for fresh conquests. The security of the church amid storms, during the long interval of eighteen centuries, is alone sufficient assurance of its security, amid the fury of future tempest. Ibidem, page 193.

If it can be proved that the Catholic church 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 doctrine 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. But 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]

Mr. CAMPBELL rises

Three o'clock, P. M.

My learned and worthy opponent commenced his forenoon speech, saying that he found before him a more easy task than he had expected. Were it a question of rhetoric rather than of logic, I confess I should have more to fear. He has been more accustomed than I, to the display 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

it politic to consult the vicar of Christ. He placed himself before him in this casuistic style. "Sir," said he, "whether is he that has the name of prince without the power, or he who has the power without the name, the rightful sovereign of a nation?" The pope answered him according to his wish. He was then absolved from all self crimination, he seized the crown of his master, and rewarded the pope with some temporal power:-certain states in Italy which by his son Charles the great were augmented, till he had the dominion of the ancient Heruli-the Ostrogoths and the Exarchate of Ravennah superadded to his spiritual jurisdiction. Then did he assume the triple crown and the two swords, and stood forth in full attire as filling all the prophetic characters of the supreme head of that politico-eccle siastic corporation called the church of Rome.-[Time expired.]

BISHOP PURCELL

me,

Half past 3 o'clock, P. M.

Fellow citizens-My friend objects to my explanation of the term "Roman Catholic." He observes that it has turned out no explanation at all. His difficulty of apprehension on this particular point, is to however, perfectly intelligible. The very name of our church is a proof of its unity and universality; and this, as he dislikes it, he cannot, of course, understand. The word catholic' in ancient days was used, as many other old and new words in Webster's dictionary, for more purposes than one. Its true and principal sense was easily ascertained in its application to the whole catholic church of Christ. It was also used to designate the authority of certain chief national churches, to distinguish them from inferior churches in the same districts, and to mark the superiority of archbishops and patriarchs over their brethren in the Episcopacy. The name of "Roman Catholic" shewed the bond of union which bound all these various churches in the profession of the faith of the chief see of the entire christian world. Hence it always brought to the believer's mind, in every clime, the church which was the head, the great, primitive, senior church, the church of Rome; and as more people became converted to the faith, they were called by their different and distinct appellations, as English Roman Catholics-American Roman CatholicsFrench Roman Catholics, &c.

As to the prohibition from calling any man Father,' &c. I said it was not meant literally, and this he seizes as an admission that it is a prohibition from calling "Father" in an ecclesiastical sense. This may be true or not, but it does not prohibit us from calling the head of our church" father" as one who cherishes, instructs, and otherwise acts the part of a father towards us; as he who adopts an orphan child is, in a figurative sense, his father, though not literally married to his mother. The gentleman cannot therefore understand me as admitting his argument in my previous explanation. But this is matter too insignificant to waste more time on it.

Mr. Campbell tells us the church had no head for 600 years. This is a strange representation! The church was then a headless body. I never heard of a body without a head, on which all the members depend for the vital influences. But was there indeed no head to the church? Was not Jesus Christ the head? and I say further that his servant on earth, his humble servant, was the pope. The language of Christ himself, "on this rock will I build my church," refers not