of seeing the same 37th psalm verified in the fates of Roman Catholicism.

Every sect and individual, as I said before, is passive in receiving a name. Sectarian names are generally given in the way of reproach; thus the disciples were first called christians at Antioch, most probably in derision; yet it was a very proper name. Call us what you please, however, it does not change nature or race. The disciples of Christ are the same race, call them Christians, Nazarenes, Galileans, Novatians, Donatists, Paulicians, Waldenses, Albigenses, Protestants, or what you please. A variety of designation affects not the fact which we allege; we can find an unbroken series of Protestants—a regular succession of those who protested against the corruptions of the Roman church, and endeavored to hold fast the faith once delivered to the saints, from the first schism in the year 250, A. D. to the present day; and you may apply to them what description or de signation you please.

The gentleman spoke of these sects as waves passing by while the true church remained like a wall, immoveable and unchangeable. History refuses him her suffrage in this assumption: for it deposes that she has changed, in whole, or in part, her tenets and her discipline, no less than eighteen times in all-that is, once, at least for every general council. She is the mutable immutable church, contending for uniformity in faith and variety of discipline.

My opponent has quoted the apostles' creed. Du Pin, and a learned host prove that the apostles never wrote it. The doctrine contained in it, I admit is apostolic. And it is worthy of remark that like all old creeds, it states facts; whereas modern creeds are human expositions of doctrines. For my own part, I can adopt every article of that creed, ex animo; except, perhaps, I would change one expression, and say that I believe in a Catholic church.' I believe that there does exist such a thing as a truly Catholic church of Christ. But as for human creeds, I make no such platforms a bond of union among christians. We, like the Romanists, differ about church discipline among ourselves: but all the Protestant world believes this apostles' creed, as it is called; and are as uniform in this faith as the "mother church" herself.

6

I was sorry to hear the election of the pope, the pretended vicar of Christ, as respects riots, and blows, and carnage, compared to that of the president of the United States, and to have the excesses complained of in Rome, excused on the ground, that sometimes we have mobs, and perhaps a fight on a presidential election. Is the presidential chair of such dignity and sanctity as that of the vicar of Christ?! And is a riot or murder no more incongruous in the one case than in the other? We opine, that he who holds that exalted station should come into it without blood. And yet in all these political elections, since the Protestant reformation, there is nothing to equal half the uproar, and tumult, and murder, that happened in filling the chair of St. Peter, at the conflict between Damasus and Ursinus, not to mention a second. Can it be compared to the election of the president so as to transfer to the one the language which is pertinent to the other? As, for example, "Take heed to the flock over which the HOLY SPIRIT has placed you!"

The gentleman is glad that his church is so liberal as to authorize

every sort of baptism, even that performed by heretics, provided only the proper name be pronounced! This is certainly a modern excess of liberality. If I am rightly informed, his predecessor, in this very charge, was not so liberal as he-in one case, at least, which occurred at Portsmouth in this state. There were two members of the Episcopal church, one of the parties the son of an Episcopalian minister, desirous of entering into matrimony. Bishop Fenwick desired to know of what party they were, and on learning that they were Episcopalians, refused to marry them, unless previously baptized by himself. There may be many other instances of the same sort, certainly, in former times there were many, and so far as they prove that the church is not immutable, are hopeful indications of the possibility of reform. But this is not the question before us. We are not discussing baptism, or the eucharist, or any of the "seven sacraments," or any ordinance of the church. Will the gentleman inform us whether his church regards the administration of the eucharist, or any other of her seven sacraments valid, unless at the hand of those whom she authorizes to minnister them. Let him not wave the question by a reference to a practice which he knows can be explained on other principles.

I shall not now stop to dispute about Sylvester and the council of Nice: but shall resume my general argument where I left off.

All agree that if primacy or supremacy reside in the church at all, it must reside in some person. If Jesus Christ intended to make Peter the prince of apostles, the vicar of Christ; the title will prove it clearly. If this headship, on the other hand, was not given to Peter; none can derive it from him by succession. Was Peter invested with this authority? If not, none can pretend to it as his successors, The whole question rests on this. My learned opponent cannot show that Peter ever had such an office. He affirms, indeed, that Peter was superior to the rest of the apostles: but does he show in what respect? How many kinds of superiority might there have been in his case? I will answer for him and say that there are, at least, four. 1st. of age, 2nd. of talents, 3d. of character, and 4th. of office. These are clearly marked in holy writ, and fixed in society. Admit then that Peter is head of the list; can he decide which of these four has placed him first. The bishop asserts that he was first in office. But how can he take this for granted, when there are three other ways in which Peter might be at the head? Is this the reasoning that logic or Catholicism sanctions or requires ?

I would request the gentleman to tell us, how he knows which of these four sorts of superiority to ascribe to Peter! He assumes one, and is bold in asserting the Catholic doctrine of a supreme head of the church on this assumption. Peter may have been the oldest, or the first called of all the apostles: or his character or talents may have given him a decided superiority; why then assume one, to the exclusion of the others. The greatest empires have been built on the most bold assumptions. But never was there a more baseless monarchy in the annals of time than that of papal Rome. I wish my opponent would for once assume, or take up some one of these grand points, on which his church rests, and not waste his time in fighting about shadows or peccadillos. Let him come at once to the great principles of the debate. I challenge him to show cause, why he assumes for Peter a supremacy of office, rather than of age, of talent, or of character;

any one of which is much more feasible and probable than that which he has begged.-[Time expired.]

BISHOP PURCELL rises—

Half past 3 o'clock, P. M.

I was far from charging Mr. C. with a wilful dereliction of the truth, when he stated, what he now confesses to be untrue, that Gregory crowned Phocas. The imputed motive was very base, but he now sees that it was not the pope's. I attribute this extraordinary mistake, on the part of my friend, to the fact of his having been too apt to believe that every thing written against Catholics must be true, and to his memory's not having been lately refreshed in his early readings. But it is due to the public that he should apologize for having, through want of care on a matter of so much importance, fallen into so very serious a mistake in what was calculated so deeply to injure the truth. He should first have inquired whether all he said was true. I repeat, then, that Gregory did not crown Phocas at all, much less for the express purpose of eliciting from the gratitude of the sovereign an acknowledgment of his "papal supremacy" for this recognition was as old as Christianity. Order was restored in Constantinople. He then sent him words of compliment on his accession. It is contrary to the rules of sound argument to presume that Gregory approved of the circumstances which led to the change of dynasty. Napoleon grasped the Iron crown of Italy, from the altar and put it on his brow, for he acknowledged no Donor thereof but his sword. So would Phocas, very probably have done with the crown of C., whatever Gregory might have thought of the act. Moreover, Phocas did not hurl Mauritius from the throne. Mauritius abdicated, and the people, not the bishop of C. P. made Phocas king, in the place of Mauritius, a miser, and a tyrant; and Gregory rejoiced, not at the disturbances but at the restoration of order. My friend now treats these matters as light, and incidental. It was he himself who made then principals, by the manner in which he introduced them. He was arguing a knotty point, the manner in which Rome came to "assume" her high prerogative over the church. The plain, scriptural truth, that she came to it by divine appointment was before his eyes, but he would not see it. Is it to be wondered at that he saw in history what was not there! I will say no more on the subject of Joshua. Eusebius confirms, p. 46, what I have said. The object of the ministry of the old or of the new law, of the coming of Christ, of the shedding of his blood, and all the institutions of his religion, was not the setting up of a tabernacle in the wilderness, or the crossing of the Jordan, or the surveying of a piece of land and dividing it among a few tribes, but the SALVATION OF MANKIND, without any exception, or distinction of age, or clime; and this great work of regeneration and redemption is just as important now, and will continue so while there are IMMORTAL SOULS to be enlightened and saved, as it was in the days of the apostles. Their office must remain, and their successors are charged with it. The bishops and their assistant brethren watch over the safety of the fold, and the sovereign pontiff sees that they and their flocks persevere in unity. He watches over all.

Mr. C. persists in saying that the Novatians, Donatists, Paulicians &c. &c. agreed in doctrine, and may be considered as the Catholie

church. I have already refuted this theory, but here is Protestant testimony again to destroy it, and I hope we shall not waste any more time on it, for it is too absurd. "No heretic," says Waddington, p. 154, "was as likely as the Donatist to lay claim to the name Catholic; yet even a Donatist, while he maintained that the true spirit and purity were alone perpetuated in his own communion, would scarcely have affirmed that that was bona fide the universal church, which did not extend beyond the shores of Africa, and which had not the majority even there." Speaking of the sects in Dauphiné and other errorists condemned at Arras in 1025, the same author says, (p. 554) "It is proper to mention what these opinions really were, which were con demned at Arras, lest it should be supposed that they were at variance only with the Roman Catholic church, and strictly in accordance with apostolic truth." "It was asserted that the sacrament of baptism was useless and of no efficacy to salvation, (what does Mr. C. think of this?) that the sacrament of the Lord's supper was equally unnecessary. It appears that the objections of the heretics on this point went beyond the mere denial of the change of substance that the sacred orders of the ministry were not of divine institution-that penance was altogether inefficacious-that marriage in general was contrary to the evangelical and apostolical laws-that saint-worship is to be confined to the apostles and martyrs, &c. &c. so mixed and various is the substance of those opinions to which learned writers on this subject appeal with so much satisfaction." Again, "they were all tainted more or less deeply by the poison of Manichaesism: and since it is our object to establish a connexion, with the primitive church, we shall scarcely attain it through those whose fundamental principle was unequivocally rejected by that church, as irrational and impious.” 555. Mosheim says, 1st vol. p. 328, "Among the sects that troubled the Latin church, this century, (the 12th) the principal place is due to the Cathari, or Catharists, whom we have had already occasion to mention. This numerous faction, leaving their first residence, which was in Bulgaria, spread themselves throughout almost all the European provinces, where they occasioned much tumult and disorder. Their religion resembled the doctrine of the Manicheans and Gnostics, on which account they commonly received the denomination of the former, though they differed in many respects from the genuine primitive Manicheans. They all indeed, agreed in the following points of doctrine, viz. that matter was the source of all evil; that the creator of this world was a being distinct from the supreme deity; that Christ was neither clothed with a real body, nor could be properly said to have been born, or to have seen death; that human bodies were the production of the evil principle, and were extinguished without the prospect of a new life. They treated with the utmost contempt all the books of the Old Testament, but expressed a high degree of veneration for the New." Speaking of the Waldenses, p. 332, Mosheim says, "They committed the government of the church to bishops, presbyters and deacons, but they deemed it absolutely necessary that all these orders should resemble exactly the apostles of the divine Savior, and be like them illiterate, &c. &c. The laity were divided into two classes, one of which contained the perfect and the other the imperfect christians." Of another sect, the Pasaginians, Mosheim says, p. 333, "They circumcised their followers, and held that the law of Moses, in every thing but sacrifice, was obligatory upon Chris

tians." What the same Protestant historian says of the brethren of the free spirit is too horrid. It is the foulest of the many foul pages he has stained with the history of sects. "They maintained that the believer could not sin, let his conduct be ever so horrible and atrocious." The celebrated Ziska, not a Roman Catholic inquisitor, but the austere general of the Hussites, another sect of Protestants, falling upon this miserable sect in 1421, "put some to the sword and condemned the rest to the flames." Mosheim, 428. "A sect of fanatics called Caputiati, infested Moravia and Burgundy, the diocese of Auxerre, and several other parts of France, in all which places they excited much disturbance among the people. They declared publicly that their purpose was, to level all distinctions, to abrogate magistracy, to remove all subordination among mankind, and to restore that primitive liberty, that natural equality, which were the inestimable privileges of the first mortals." Mosheim, p. 333. Luther repeatedly declared that he stood alone, that all antiquity was against him. Here are startling facts and no less startling admissions by sound Protestants. Will my friend insult this enlightened assembly by making up a monster-church, a very chimera, of all these sects, and give modern Protestants all the honors present and prospective of being the tail of the beast? I would counsel him not to dream of doing so, and them to look out for more reputable religious ancestors.

But the Roman Catholic church has changed at least in discipline. Grant it. And what of that? Is it not the very nature of discipline that it must be modified by times, places, peculiarities of nations and other circumstances, in order to be adapted to the wants of man in all the varieties of his being? Truth is unsusceptible of change. Like God it is always the same. But the form of the dress of the clergy, the color of the wine to be used at mass, days of fasting and abstinence, and of public meetings for prayer and certain unessential rites in the administration of the sacraments, may be changed. The constitution of the church should possess this element of good government. She has the power to make these changes, and she has made them as the wants of her children seemed to require. But the doctrine is invariable. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but, of it, not an iota shall change. As to the deaths occasioned in the election of a pope, I ask again, what has that to do with the constitutionality of the office? The pope did not slay those people. According to the gentleman's theory, the president of this union would have to answer for the blood, if any, spilled at his election. I am astonished that such arguments should be repeated. I can say with certainty of my venerable predecessor that he would not have pursued the course, he did, if the story be true, if he had had reason to believe the individuals had never been baptized-and if any two or more young people will come to me, who have been rightly baptized in Protestant communions, I warrant them, if there be no other obstacles, they shall be quickly bound together in the indissoluble bonds of matrimony.

I am perfectly willing to revert to the point of the supremacy of St Peter and the continuance of his high authority in his successors, for it is a cardinal doctrine. It solves a thousand lesser points of difficulty, and I am happy to argue it again from the New Testament, from church history, from reason. I have already quoted scripture for the dogma of the supremacy of Peter-" upon this rock will I build my church." My friend does not like to approach that rock,-He takes