of the church. We allow her baptism, and admit her orders; Luther, in the view of the Church of England, was a minister lawfully called; in the reign of Elizabeth, we sought consecration for our bishops at the hands of those who were in vassalage to the see of Rome. The objection of course arises, and it is as old as the days of Bellarmine,* that thus conceding to them, that they embody a church, Protestants are guilty of schism in their separation. We reply by meeting the objection, while we do not concede to them an inch of ground: separation was necessary; the growing mass of corruption under which the Romish hierarchy groaned, forced upon the sound portion of the church such a measure; the systematized errors of Rome ejected from her communion all who would not bow beneath the yoke imposed upon them by papal infallibility. Is she then a church still, seeing that we thus quitted her for her corrupt state? We must examine the meaning of the term. In the language of our Nineteenth Article, the visible church is "a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the sacraments are duly administered, &c." This, Mr. Editor, characterizes a true church, and a pure church also; but, for controversial purposes, and in searching for a church amidst its ruins, we must descend to more minute particulars. I shall follow the definition of Dean White,† in his argument with the Jesuit, and further state the term as applicable to believers in all ages, and more particularly to those under the New Testament dispensation, (Heb. xii. 23, and Rev. v. 9,) comprehending the church, militant and triumphant, (Ep. v. 25); or, as denoting particular societies and congregations of Christians, (Rev. i. 4, and ii. 1.) either pastors, (Mat. xviii. 27.) or people, (Acts xx. 7,) or both (Rev. iii. 6); -or lastly, as describing the common and universal multitude of Christian people of any one or more ages, who are baptized, and externally profess Christianity, denoting both good and bad, clean and unclean of that profession. (2 Tim. ii. 20, Matt. xiii. 25 &47, Matt. iii. 12 & 22, 10.) It is in this last sense that I would conclude the Church of Rome to possess the characteristics of a church she has the marks laid down by our renowned Hooker in his Ecclesiastical polity, viz. profession of faith and baptism. "In whomsoever," says he, "these things are, the church doth acknowledge them for children ;......for want of these it is that Saracens, Jews, and infidels, are excluded out of the bounds of the church ......others we may not deny to be of the visible church, so long as these things are not wanting.-Christian's by external profession they are all, whose mark of recognizance hath in it these things, yea, although they be impious idolaters, wicked heretics, persons excommunicable, and even cast out for notorious improbity." "Members," he calls them, "not of the mystical body," but "of the visible body and church of Christ.” To the like purpose is the opinion of Calvin; and, following in the footsteps of two such men, we need feel no particular appre

• De Rom. Pont. lib. iii, cap. 13. White's Reply to Fisher, p. 49, fol. ed.

Lib, iii. sec. 1.

hension of attaining too near an affinity to the mystic circle of Romish iniquity. Calvin thus expresses himself:*" When I assert that the remnants of a church are in the Papacy, I do not restrain my meaning to the elect who are therein dispersed, but I understand that the ruins of a shattered church remain there; and to cut short the dispute, we should be satisfied with the authority of Paul, who declares that Antichrist will sit in the temple of God; though I think that I have also proved this by reasons sufficiently strong, that a church, be it crazed, or, if you will, quite broken and mishapen, that some church nevertheless, remains in the papacy." It is thus, Sir, that men, the most determined exposers of the apostacy of Rome, have yet ever held her up to public gaze in the situation in which she is left by the Providence, and denounced by the declarations of the Word of God, as a church amidst her apostacy; a church they have considered her, not simply but secundum quid; as to external profession, not as to internal integrity or goodness; as morbid, languid, leprous, corrupt, and in a state of dissolution; 'consuming with the breath of the Lord's mouth, and to be destroyed by the brightness of his coming.' There will, it appears, be believers in her up to the very time of her final judgment. (Rev. xviii. 4.) "As phrenzy," says Hooker,+ "though it take away the use of reason, doth notwithstanding prove them reasonable creatures which have it, because none can be frantic but they; so antichristianity being the bane and overthrow of Christianity, may nevertheless argue the church where Antichrist sitteth to be Christian."-A murderer is a true man as to his nature and essence, for he is a creature endued with reason, he is not a true man as regards justice and the law of God, for he is destitute of every mark of goodness and worth; and thus the Church of Rome is a true church as regards her essence, but not as regards her soundness of doctrine, or her purity of manners. She possesses the initiatory seal of the covenant, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,-she acknowledges the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ, professing belief in him as the Redeemer, and as the Judge of quick and dead, and she thus maintains certain true principles of faith;- she has the Scriptures, which testify of salvation, if she would but unlock them to her people,—she has the Creeds, and the Lord's Prayer, and she therefore possesses the means of imparting salvation; she has ministers, though corrupt and impure ones, men who may such actually and effectually to others, though they finally be lost themselves. It is one thing to hew out the timbers of the ark, and another to be wafted in it from the destruction which besets the ungodly, up to the heights of heaven.

be

Thus, holding the foundation directly, she is a Church, as the Jewish people were so, till the final judgment upon their temple, amidst all their apostatizing idolatries and subsequent persecution of the followers of Christ; but, injuring as she does, by consequent, the foundation of the faith, to its very overthrow, she is a

Epist. 101, alias 85.

+ On Justification nec. 27.

:

corrupt Church, and one in which no believer can with safety be advised to remain, more than in the Greek and some other foreign communions the proclamation is, "come out of her my people." When the people of Israel served strange gods in Egypt,-(Jos. xxiv. 14) when they made and worshipped the golden calf, (Exodus xxxii. 4.) exclaiming, these be our gods which brought us up from Egypt,-when all the land (1 Kings xii. 30.) went before those set up by Jeroboam in Dan and in Bethel,— when but a remnant (1 Kings xix. 17.) abstained from bowing the knee to Baal,-when they burned incense (2 Kings xviii. 4.) to the brazen serpent, and did the same to many strange gods,-(2 Kings xxii. 17) when they were condemned of God by the mouth of his prophet, as sons of the sorceress, and an adulterous seed, who had forsaken (Jer. xiii. 11.) him, and were forsaken by him, (Isa. lx. 15.) when their prophets spake lying words, (Jer. vii. 4.) their watchmen were blind and dumb dogs, (Is. lvi. 10.) and their priests, instead of keeping knowledge with their lips, (Mal. ii. 7.) had altogether taken away (Luke xi. 52.) the key thereof-even then possessing the law of God, and retaining the seal of his covenant among the nations which had them not, they were continued his visible Church, in the depth of their disobedience of their rebellion and their ignorance. Amongst them," says Hooker,* "not only God always had his church, because he had thousands who never bowed their knees to Baal, but those whose knees were bowed to Baal, even they were also of the visible church of God." In the apostolic age the Church of Corinth questioned the resurrection, and stood rebuked in many ways, the Galatians then relied upon circumcision,-Thyatira suffered the seductions of Jezebel,-Pergamus received the doctrine of Balaam,-Laodicea was lukewarm,-Philadelphia had little strength left, and Sardis was quite dead,—yet were all these churches, as well as Rome. Though her fame and integrity (Rom. i. 8.) were then spoken of throughout the world, she was warned by the Apostle (Rom. xi. 20-22.) to stand in fear, and take heed lest she fell; but, comparing her creed now, with her doctrine then, we find that she has fallen; comparing her practice with the apostolic precepts, we find her altogether corrupt; and while we say of her, as is said in the above instances, that she is adulterous, idolatrous, feeble, lukewarm, and dead, we say yet that she is a Church, and must remain so till she be finally overthrown.†

66

I know not any objection which can be raised against the antichristian character of Rome, save that, while recognizing the foundation, she cannot be said to overthrow it; to which I shall reply in the words of Hooker,‡ that “ they all overthrow the foundation, who deny it: they directly overthrow it who, deny it directly; and they overthrow it by consequent or indirectly, who hold any one assertion whatever upon which the denial of it may be necessarily concluded." I have before noticed the Romish

* Eccles. Pol. lib. iii. sect. 1.

+ Vide J. Squire's Exposition of 2 Thess. ii. 176.

Upon Justification, nec. 25.

negation of the proper manhood of Christ by their dogma of Transubstantiation; and with Hooker again* I will say that "they join others to Christ, not in the work of Redemption itself, but in the application thereof, that it may be effectual to their salvation; that, how demurely soever they confess that they seek remission of sins no otherwise than by the blood of Jesus, using humbly the means appointed by him to apply the benefit of his blood, yet they teach so many things pernicious to Christian faith, in setting down the means whereof they speak, that the very foundation of faith which they hold is plainly overthrown, and the force of the blood of Jesus Christ extinguished: thus the Romanist by adding to, equally as the Socinian by subtracting from, the foundation, destroys the foundation; they deny the Son as he is revealed, and know not the Father; while they professedly admit the Trinity, they practically reject it from their faith."

The second consequence stated by your correspondent as flowing from this doctrine, viz. that "none dying in communion with the Church of Rome can be saved," has, I think, been answered by the way, in the above argument: it may be added, however, that our business is with the system not with individuals; our commission is to call the people of the Lord out from Babylon : to curious inquirers concerning individual salvation, the reply of the Saviour is appropriate, "What is that to thee ?"-and without exactly subscribing to the sentence of Pope Sergius IV. as to an infallible truth, that it is impossible for a pope to be damned, we can hardly err in believing that many in every age have in the Romish Church found the bread of life amidst the poisonous errors which are accumulated around it. It is manifest at the same time that the prospect of safety within her pale must vary with the age in which Romanists live, and be proportionate to the error in which they are trained up, and the degree of light by which they are surrounded. The Romish Church no where can be said to be similarly situated to what she was before the blaze of the Reformation; a peasant in Italy or Spain cannot be regarded as equally in contact with the truth as those who in this country cast out, bury, and destroy the Word of the Living God the leprous errors of Rome have now been finally systematized by the Council of Trent, and their belief propounded to each individual upon pain of damnation. In conclusion, I would assure your correspondent that I am far from meriting the praise for research which he is so kind as to attribute to me, while assuring me that the labour was altogether idly spent: the only difficulty in a case like the present is that of selection. Let any of your readers refer to Bishop Jewell's Defence of his Apology, and they will find authorities of the best stamp given for every error and abomination with which the Church of Rome was ever charged. Jewell was called upon by his Jesuit opponent, for authorities, and authority he gave, such as has left his argument unanswered, and, as it is justly remarked by yourself, can be answered only by a renunciation of the Papal life-blood-their

* Ibid. nec. 17.

infallibility. It is true, as stated by your correspondent, that the things noticed took place in times of ignorance. It was when gross darkness covered the people that the popes, after the fashion of heathen emperors, (as Nero and Domitian) attributed to themselves the term Deus, being, like them, reckoned DIVINE while upon earth: thus the emperors were lauded by heathen sycophants*, and thus panegyrics have been repeatedly (as instanced, p. 195, in my former argument) showered upon their successors at Rome upon the being whom Romanists call our Lord GOD the Pope.' Ecclesiastical tyranny had succeeded to that exercised under pagan Rome. The beast now occupies the place of the dragon. It was in times of ignorance that popes deposed monarchs, conferred kingdoms upon them from Peter's patrimony, and caused them to hold their stirrups, in sign of subjection, and to kiss their feet. It was in a day of ignorance that Pope Celestine III. crowned Henry VI. with his feet, and (whether in token of humility, or to let the monarch know by what tenure he held it) forthwith kicked the crown from his head as soon as he had placed it there. It was in times of ignorance, that popes + bound under the bond of a perpetual curse, all who should dare to think or teach otherwise of the seven sacraments, than they were taught by the Romish Church; that they denounced either king, bishop, or potentate to be highly accursed, should they imagine or suffer the sentence of the bishop of Rome to be in any way violated; that they § determined it to be altogether essential to salvation for every human creature to be in subjection to the pope. It was in a time of ignorance that the pope's personal adoration commenced at Rome; but, as we have seen, it is still continued upon his election. We have found him defined by his own communion to be between the divine and human natures both God and man, and I must here add, to prevent confusion, above angels; wherefore Clement V. once issued a bull to all the angels, to deliver from purgatory, and carry forthwith to heaven, any who might happen to die upon their way to partake of the privilege of his great popish jubilee ||; and which ought for ever

*Edictum Domini Deique nostri. Quo subsellia certiora fiunt. Mast. lib. 5, Ep. 8. “Dominus et Deus noster sic fieri jubet." Sueton in Domit. lib. 8, c. 13.

Universos qui de sacramento corporis et sanguinis Domini, vel de baptismate, seu de peccatorum confessione, matrimonio, vel reliquis ecclesiasticis sacramentis aliter sentire aut docere non metuunt, quam Sacrosancta Romana Ecclesia prædicat et observat... vinculo perpetui anathematis innodamus.Decret. Greg. lib. 5, Tit. 7, c. 9.

Generali decreto constituimus, ut execrandum anathema sit, et veluti prævaricator catholicæ fidei semper apud Deum reus existat, quicumque regum, seu episcoporum, vel potentum deinceps, Romanorum Pontificum decretorum censuram in quocunque crediderit vel permiserit violandum. Decr. Grat. caus. 25. quæs. 1. c. 11.

Subesse Romani Pontifici omni humanæ creaturæ declaramus, dicimus, definimus, et pronunciamus omnino esse de necessitate salutis. Extrav. commun. lib. i. tit. 8. c. 1.

This fact has been often denied as too gross, even for a pope, but the circumstance has been both proved by our own writers, and the existence of the bull in three separate places allowed by Cornelius Agrippa, See his Treatise de Vanitate scientiarum, c. 92. One would have thought the bull must have been issued originally in this country.