Now to post the books with my friend on the subject of the bible, I ask him if he was not infatuated, for I really cannot call it by any other name, when he said he could show us a bible never soiled by the thumb of a monk, and took us right into the midst of twenty two monasteries, on mount Athos, for the proof? Horne in his Introduction to the study of the Bible, vol. 1. p. 222, quotes Oudin and Michaelis, for the opinion that it was written by an Aecmet-and written tco, say Burber and Wetstein, for a church or a monastery. Horne says the Aecmets were a class of monks in the ancient church, who flourished particularly in the east in the fifth century. They were so called, because they had divine service performed without interruption, in their churches. They divided themselves into three bodies, each of which officiated in turn, and relieved the other so that their churches were never silent either night or day. This very Mss. Codex Alexandrinus, in the British Museum, contains a list of the Psalms sung by these monks!

My friend says that our getting the bible from monks, does not leave us beholden to them for its spirit. This is a disingenuous evasion. I did not say that it did, but this last question belongs to quite another category. My opponent says that the bible, like the universe, must testify to its own divine origin-it is the work of God. In this he is completely at issue with one of the most enlightened Protestants of the day, bishop Smith, of Kentucky. "These christians," says the bishop, in his review of Van Dyck on christian union," have done well in agreeing upon those sound principles of investigation which lead them to substantial, and sufficient agreement, what the canon of scripture is. The principle is correct, and therefore all honest minds rest satisfied, in the same results. Abandon the question of the oneness of the bible, to be agitated and kept afloat on the perturbed ocean of expedience, as the question is, respecting the oneness of the church, and very soon we should have amongst us almost as many books claiming to be bibles, as we have sects claiming to be churches. And what are the laws of evidence, guided by which, all christians come to such a desirable agreement as to the canon of the scripture? Do we settle that grave point by appeals to the scripture alone? Do we require a "thus saith the Lord," for the admission of any book within the compass of the bible?" Ay, this is the question, do we take up the bible from the shelf, and putting it to our ear, ask it what it has to say for itself? If we do, we shall lay it aside without receiving the desired answer, pretty much as the Indian chief did, when the Spanish missionary handed him the good book."It says nothing," said the Indian. How then shall we proceed in this investigation? "We select," says bishop Smith, "some period of christian antiquity by universal consent anterior to great corruptions, and that we may be safe, anterior to great causes tending to corruption; the year 300 for example, prior to the conversion of Constantine; or the year 250, when the documents of the then existing christianity were abundant; or the year 200, when men were living who had conversed with the disciples of John, and we ask, what books were received by christians, every where, and with one consent, as sacred books; and these, and no others, we admit into our canon. Then with the utmost care we look into every previous writer, for concurring or for opposing evidence. Finding every thing nearly clear and satisfactory, we repair to the books of the New Testament themselves for acci

dental and internal evidence, to endorse for and confirm the whole. And here we rest satisfied that we have grasped the TRUTH."

How will the champion of Protestantism extricate himself from this dilemma? Does he confess his ignorance of the leading doctrines of eminent Protestant divines? They find a unanimous consent.

He talks of two great lies! I like strong language, but this is such as Milton's Satan would have better used, than a professing christian. How Jews and Infidels will triumph, when assured by my opponent that Christ's preaching and miracles, so signally failed, that the largest body of christians in the entire world, have been based upon two great lies, since the year 250, or about that period! Take away the 2,000,000 Catholic and Greek christians that believe in these two great truths, and think it blasphemy to call them lies, and what becomes of the few stragglers that remain in the valleys of the Alps, or where you please—the "rari nantes in gurgite vasto?" Did Christ expend all his labor, all his blood, to give mankind, one kind of idolatry for another? Credat Judæus.

Now, my friends, dispossess your minds of prejudice; forget your religious education, if possible; take up the Bible, and see if it be wholly silent upon these two great truths, not lies. For 2, or 3,000,000 who have not all lost their reason, adhere to these divine doctrines, which they find in this blessed volume. I speak unto you as wise and pious men. Judge you, yourselves, and do not let others judge for you, what I say. I quote the Bible which you all admit, as I have hitherto quoted Protestant authority, which you admit on all cases, to be not over friendly to Roman Catholic doctrines. I disdained to avail myself of the weeds which you threw over your garden walls, I mean immoral and degraded ministers, as my opponent has done with discarded priests, to cast your doctrine with them. With such, we hold no fellowship. The pure of life, the men of honor and of learning, whom we receive from your ranks, we cherish. From the Bible, then, the fathers, the most eminent Protestants, I shall select my proofs, that, on these two imputed lies, the Catholic church, like St. Paul, so Christ is her witness, speaks the truth in righteousness.

To begin from the Bible. If there is a single tenet of christian faith, clearly established in the Bible, I contend that it is the real presence of Jesus Christ, in the adorable sacrament of the Eucharist. And if we cannot take in the literal sense, the words of Christ, "This is my body; This is my blood," the plainest that God or man could utter, but must adopt, instead of this, some one of the two thousand meanings, invented by the sacramentarians, and the antisacramentarians, for this text, we may bid adieu to the doctrine of the intelligibility of scripture. I distinguish two principal epochs in the Gospel narrative; the first, when Jesus Christ promises to give us his body and blood in the Eucharist; the second, when he gives them to Before announcing his desire of bequeathing to the world this divine legacy, as we read in the 6th chapter of the Gospel of St. John, he wrought a splendid miracle, even the feeding of 5000, with a few loaves, in the wilderness, to prove himself the God whom the heavens and the earth obey, and thus conciliate the faith of the multitude in the divinity of his mission, and the truth of his doctrines. He speaks of the absolute necessity of this faith-of its scarcity, and expressly declares that the sight of his miracles, or the testimony of the sense, cannot beget faith. In a word, that no man can come to him, unless

us.

his father draw him. He then continues his divine instructions, by alluding to the miracle which he had wrought, in which was a most striking resemblance to the greater miracle which he designed to work, viz. the multiplication of his own body and blood, for the daily, the super-substantial bread, or food, of men, with whom, as he elsewhere assures us, in scripture, it is his delight to dwell. He reminds his hearers of all the wonders wrought in their favor, in the old Law, shews them all the wisdom, the power, the love of Heaven, displayed in their behoof, from the commencement of their history; how dear they were to God, and further and better gifts, which, if want of faith opposed no obstacle, so many divine pledges gave them a right to anticipate. The greatest of Kings, even Solomon, in all his glory, had nothing better to give them than gold and silver, a city, a tract of land. No earthly king can compete with God, in conferring benefits. This the history of the Jews sufficiently attested; and the miracle of the loaves brought affectingly to their minds, what their fathers had told them, what they, themselves, had read in the testimony, of the manna or miraculous bread, which, for so many years had been showered down from heaven, to feed their ancestors in the desert. They were thus prepared for all that GoD could accomplish to show his EXCESS OF LOVE. They whom his father called, who are taught of God, hear with faith; they whom his father called not, hear with incredulousness, while he thus announces his own intended benefactions.

"This is the bread which came down from heaven. If any eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, "how can this man give us his flesh to eat Then Jesus said to them, Amen, amen, I say to you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed; and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. This is the bread that came down from Heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead; he that eateth this bread shall live forever.' These things he said, teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. Many, therefore, of his disciples, hearing it, said, this is a hard saying, and who can hear it? But Jesus knowing, in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them, doth this scandalize you? If then, you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. But there are some of you that believe not.' For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was that would betray him. And he said, therefore no man can come to me unless it be given him by my Father.' After this many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said to the twelve, will you, also go away? And Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and know that thou art the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus answered them, 'have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil.' Now he meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for this same was about to betray him, whereas he was one of the twelve."

We have here a continuous argument, and faith and infidelity, pictured to the life; murmuring at impossibilities then, as well as now, rebuked by the Savior, and acquiescence in his word and his love, by Peter, as the first believer of the divinity of the SON OF GOD-of HIS REAL PRESENCE in the Eucharist. If he spoke figuratively, would he have suffered his disciples, who understood the reality, to leave him; he who came to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel? Would he have suffered all his disciples to perish, rather than tell them this single fact, that they misunderstood him? If he spoke of a figurative presence, the words, "how can you believe when you see the Son of man, ascending up to Heaven, where he was before," would have had no sense. In the Catholic view of the Eucharist, it is divinely strong. If you cannot believe, now, that my flesh and blood are visible, palpable objects of every sense, that I can give them to you for food, how much less can you believe it, when you see the Son of Man ascending up to Heaven, &c. The flesh surely profiteth nothing to understand this mystery-it requires the faith and the spirit of faith, to impose silence on the senses, and say, with St. Peter, "Lord, to whom should we go-Thou hast the words of eternal life." This is the bread which strengthens us to live out successive ages. This is not an immoral doctrine. It elevates man to know that he is THUS loved. That he is of a holy race, a purchased people, a royal priesthood, the especial object of incessant wonders. That he beholds God with him, Immanuel, in Bethlehem, house of bread, hid beneath the sacramental veil, but destined, and prepared by this nourishment, to enjoy him hereafter, without a veil, in the rich effulgence of the beatific vision. [Time expired.]

My opponent in commencing observed, that almost the whole circle of Catholic tenets came in review in my last speech. If such be an error, whose fault is it? I have no respondent. How many hours has the gentleman spent in reading against time, without any relevancy to the questions at issue, or to the proposition before us. when he does reply, it is frequently to something said a day or two ago.

And

I selected two points yesterday afternoon as comprehending the substance of the error opposed in my fifth proposition, and even to the present moment he has not presumed to meet me on these vital matters to discuss them. In my last speech, I therefore not only recapitulated some important items; but argued one or two specifications, in proof of the proposition legally before us. I also introduced in part my seventh proposition, and so far discussed its bearings as to show the anti-American, and anti-Republican theories of the Latin church.

The bishop has, indeed, this time, selected the doctrine of transubstantiation: but has he adverted to the various points of argument I have made? Ought he not, at least, to have glanced at these points,

in order?

1. The incongruity of the idea of a sacrament with that of transubstantiation.

2. The unreasonableness of preferring the literal to the figurative, in the interpretation of a phrase common in scripture, which in no other case is so interpreted by the party themselves.

3. The arrogance of the priests in assuming the power of working miracles, for the sake of a forced interpretation of a phrase without precedent or analogy.

4. The belief of such a transubstantiation destroys the credibility of all testimony, human and divine, and necessarily tends to atheism. 5. That the institution of the supper is commemorative and not expiatory, having nothing of the nature of a sacrifice for sin.

To which of these important considerations has the gentleman replied in his last speech? Has he formally and specifically met any one of them?

It was also alleged, that the admission of such a pretension, on the part of any priest, was debasing and paralizing to the human understanding, and subjected to imposture and fraud those who implicitly acquiesced in it. There are few persons, who so observantly trace moral effects to their causes, as to be able duly to appreciate how much influence in the formation of human character may philosophically be ascribed to such idle, absurd, and irrational pretensions. We sometimes see with what little power, reason, philosophy, and experience combat the belief in witches, ghosts, apparitions, and other legendary tales, the effect of the nursery and early impressions. When the imagination is once filled with such tales and delusions, it requires a power equal to the dispossession of demons to rectify it, and elevate it above such a tormenting infatuation.

The gentleman, indeed, with a show of respect for scripture, seemed to appeal to the 6th chapter of John, as though it spoke of the same thing. Now, unless this discourse relates to the last supper, and was delivered with respect to it, how idle to seek to prove from it what was never said in it! It was a discourse upon loaves and manna, delivered to the people of Capernaum in their synagogue, on the occasion of our Lord having fed five thousand men in the desert, upon a few loaves and fishes. And as at the well of Jacob he spoke of the water of life; so here, when the miracle of loaves is the topic, he speaks of the bread of life and of eating that bread, as to the woman of Samaria, he spoke of drinking that water. He goes on to speak figuratively of coming to him, eating him, never hungering, never thirsting again, &c., and in the most figurative style, continues his discourse, till at last, after he had spoken of their eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he told them that the words he spoke "were spirit and life," not literal flesh and blood-that flesh and blood could not profit the soul. And so the apostle Peter understood him when he said, "Lord thou hast the words of eternal life." In metaphorical language, it is usual to say 'one hungers and thirsts after knowledge, righteousness,' &c.; and to say that one eats what he believes and receives into his mind. Thus says David: "I found thy word, and I did eat it." The transubstantiation of John vi. is the very opposite of the transubstantiation before us. It was flesh into bread, as the figure given in John; and bread into flesh, as the figure given in the Eucharist. "I am the living bread.” “My flesh is meat, indeed," "My blood is drink, indeed." "The bread which I give is my flesh."

But the gentleman relies upon the Savior's leaving them in error, suffering them to go away in a mistake. If this were true; I can find a similar case. To the proud and captious, he often deigned no reply. Hence, when some went away from his discourse, alleging that he