Protestant controversialists assail the Catholic religion, that I will give a brief sketch of it.

Du Plessis had written a book, not to prove his own religion, but to refute the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist and the Mass. The Catholics were startled, as usual, with the number of falsehoods it contained, and spoke so freely of them, that the author in his rashness challenged any one to point out a single false quotation in the whole book. M. Du Perron, then Bishop of Evreux, and afterwards Cardinal, undertook to show as many as FIVE HUNDred and fifty. The parties met before the king. Judges were appointed by him, some of whom were Catholics and some Calvinists. Fifty passages were to be examined every day; but after the examination of nine of them, in which he was unanimously convicted, Du Plessis became sick at the stomach, and the investigation proceeded no farther. "Every one knows," says Sully, (a Protestant,) "how the dispute was terminated. Du Plessis' defence was weak, and ended in his disgrace." One of the commissioners, Fresne-Canaye, a Calvinist, and Sainte Marie Du Mont, another eminent Protestant, were roused from the "delusion" of Protestantism, by the issue of this controversy, and soon after embraced the divine, but calumniated religion of the Catholics.

Having disposed of your anecdotes in reference to the priests in Kentucky, with the citation of a few instances, in which Protestant disputants had the privilege of speaking for themselves,-in which they fought long, died hard, and were always (substantially) beaten," I shall now proceed to follow you through the heterogeneous materials of which your letter is composed.

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You have called until you are weary for my reply to the admission of the Rev. Mr. Maguire." But pray by what right do you call on me to adopt the language used by Mr. Maguire? Supposing I were to call on you to adopt and defend the language of some Presbyterian brother, would you, on that account, feel yourself bound to answer? Not that I mean to decline answering your call, but to intimate that I am able to meet you in my own words, without having recourse to those even of Rev. Mr. Maguire. The sum of the quotation is this "You (Mr. Hughes) prove the authenticity and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures by the testimony of the church." But how do you prove the authority of the church? Mr. Maguire says, it is by your private judgment on the Scripture proofs." And therefore you (Mr. Hughes) are obliged to have recourse for the proof of the church to the principle of private interpretation." Is not this what you mean?

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Answer 1st. Protestants admit the testimony of Scripture, and on this account I quote it to prove the authority of the church. 2. I quote it, not as an inspired book, if you prefer to take the ground of a Deist, but I quote it, in that case, as historical evidence of the fact, in which sense you will be obliged, even as a Deist, to admit its testimony. 3. The history of Christianity proves the authority of the church. From the days of the Apostles, the church proscribed heresies,preached the doctrines of Christ to all nations,determined, by a final decision, all controversies,--and in all matters of religion ex

e cised SUPREME authority. So that the authority of the church is proved with, or without, the Scripture. It seems that you cannot comprehend the distinction between a fact and an opinion. When I quote Scripture to show that Christ appointed a ministry in his church, or that he was crucified, I merely furnish historical evidence bearing on a fact, with which private interpretation has nothing to do. But when Protestants quote Scripture to support their private opinions, which they call their doctrines, then it is that they use it, not to establish facts, but to support speculations, and thus degrade the written word of God, by making it a book of contradictions, as various as their minds, or their sectarian prejudices. This is manifest, from the multitude of your sects, and your endless disputations among yourselves about the meaning of the Bible.

But I should have proved, you say, my own rule of faith. I answer that I have done so, and as long as you are pleased to shun a struggle with the reasoning and facts of my letters, I need not repeat what has already been said. You complain of my monotonous reference to them; but you should remember, that although you have catered industriously for the prejudices of Protestant readers, by indulging in the antiquated calumnies of your predecessors against the Catholic Church and the Bishops of Rome, you have not had the courage TO CLOSE WITH ME in a single argument. Even in your last epistle, although our discussion professes to be on the rule of faith, you tell us with great self-complacency, that "you had supposed at least that I would defend the SACRAMENTS of our church"-and with the happiest versatility of talent, you wind up by expressing a desire to pass to "other topics,' -as if you had not confused your letters on the "rule of faith," by the introduction, pell-mell, of every topic that has been discussed since the days of Martin Luther.

In my last I took occasion to protest against the injustice of those who represent me as arguing against the Bible: and instead of admitting my protest, you return to the charge, and employ nearly the whole of your second column to show that my arguments and those of Unitarians coincide in our estimate of the Bible! Whether or not you have done justice to their doctrines, it is not for me to determine. My reference to them was not for the purpose of canvassing their doctrines, but merely to show that they and you are children of the same parentage-your rule of faith is the same-not the Bible, but your own respective opinions as to the meaning of the sacred book: to show farther, that, under the guidance of this fallacious principle of private opinion, they have the same right to hold their doctrines that you have for yours. I have multiplied arguments to show that Protestant Christianity, whether it be Presbyterian or Unitarian, rests not on the Bible, but on opinion, as its basis, and that every article in the superstructure of belief shares the uncertainty of the foundation. What is heresy among Protestants? Opinion. What is orthodoxy among Protestants? Opinion. Every thing is opinion; and yet it is certain that opinion formed no part of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, and that there is not a single opinion in the whole Bible ! !— Now, if this be so, is not the Protestant rule of faith a mere prelude to infidelity? Does it not destroy the certainty of Revelation, and

the sacred character of the divine volume, which, with insidious embrace, it affects to cherish? But if it is not so, why do you not deny it, and show your Protestant readers, how they may have, by your rule, a better foundation for their religious belief, than they have for their politics, viz: opinion. To illustrate the truth of these observations, I will insert a "few facts" taken from an article in the Vermont Chronicle, the production, evidently, of a Protestant pen. 1. " Out of about one hundred and eighty Unitarian Societies in England, about one hundred and seventy are orthodox Presbyterian Societies revolutionized. 2. In Ireland a large number of Presbyterian ministers and churches have become Arian. 3. A large proportion of the Unitarian Societies in Scotland were once Presbyterians. 4. The Presbyterian churches in Geneva and in Switzerland generally have gone over in a body to Unitarianism, or to something equally hostile to vital piety." One thing more I have to say, that you will do well never to engage in a controversy with an educated Unitarian, unless it be for the improvement of your logic. Not that I would side with him against you on doctrine, but because it is the inevitable misfortune of all those who adopt the Protestant rule of faith to have no better foundation for true doctrines, even Christ's Divinity, than their brethren have for the contrary opinion.

Now for your remarks on the canon of Scripture, in which you are as unfortunate as before. You say, "it was shown that the Jews, the Lord Jesus and his apostles, the early fathers, the Council of Laodicea, and the ancient church at large, rejected these books"(meaning what Protestants call Apocryphal books.) Now I reply boldly, that you cannot furnish proof of what you have asserted.-— That there is not a single evidence on record, that they were "rejected" either by our Saviour, or his apostles; and if you assert thus inconsiderately what is untrue, can you blame me for reminding you of it? With regard to the "fathers,' ," "councils," and "church at large," when you appeal to them to determine what books are canonical, and what books are not, you act as a rational man; and I take your invocation of their testimony on the matter as a tribute paid to the Catholic principle of belief. If, therefore, their authority moves you in your selection of Scriptural books, then I hail you as the child of tradition, no less than myself. But, then, what becomes of your rule of faith? The Scripture alone does not determine the canonical books. Our Lord and the apostles are silent on the subject, notwithstanding your assertion to the contrary. And lo! you are constrained to invoke the aid of " fathers" and "councils" to tell you what is Scripture and what is not. But what say you of the later "fathers?"-of Father Luther, for instance, for having rejected the Epistles of St. James, and St. Jude, and that of St. Paul to the Hebrews? What say you of Father Calvin, for having expunged the Apocalypse from the canon? Were these apocryphal? If not, why did these " fathers" reject them? And the two Gospels and Acts, written by St. Luke and St. Mark-were they apocryphal? Their authors were not apostles, and you have told us, that none but the apostles were inspired. I had pressed this difficulty before, and instead of meeting it, you accuse me of a disposition rather to injure

the cause than spare the Protestant." You certainly injure my intentions in this charge, whilst you indirectly invoke my forbearance. Still, you try to extricate yourself. "Mark's writings received," you say, "the sanction of Peter, and Luke's of Paul." So did those of Barnabas and Clement. But what then? Again, the Apostle Paul says in his epistles,"Timotheus our brother." But what then? and "Sosthenes our brother." What then? I really cannot imagine what you mean by all this. But to come to the point-were St. Mark and St. Luke inspired to write, or were they not? If they were then you were wrong in saying, that none but the apostles were inspired: and for the sake of the Gospel of Christ, you should not leave your testimony to that effect on record.

In reference to what you call apocryphal Scriptures, which, you say, have been added by our church, I have to reply again, that your accusation is a manifest acknowledgment of the necessity of ecclesiastical infallibility. You pretend that the Bible alone is your rule of faith-and yet it is by tradition that you attempt to show "what is Bible and what is not." Catholics possess that canon of Scripture which has been recognised by the Christian church since the begin ning. Some of the early fathers hesitated about the canonicity of certain books, but during the same period, the same doubts were entertained respecting several books in the Protestant canon; and the fact would go to exclude the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Apocalypse, and several other books of the New Testament. Calvin on this account rejected the revelations of St. John. Why then will you not be consistent and reject all, or receive all? The Syriac version, so much praised by Protestant critics, and which, they say, dates from about the time of the Apostles, contains our canon. The council of Carthage in 397, composed of 127 Bishops, gives OUR canon, expressly naming every book, and adds, that these had been received from the fathers as divine and canonical-" A Patribus ista accepimus in ecclesia legenda." Innocent I. in his letter to Exsuperius in 405, makes the same enumeration. So does the Roman Council under Gelasius I, in 494. Melito, to whose catalogue you refer, was only an individual. He mentioned the books of the Old Testament which were then recognised every where, but did not say that the others were uncanonical. And he omits the book of Esther, which I find in your Confession of Faith of 1821. The synopsis, attributed to Athanasius, is considered by critics as the production of the 6th century. The Council of Laodicea in 375 was composed of only 22 Bishops, and if you had taken the pains to be informed on the subject, you would not have exposed yourself, by saying on its testimo

*

* When, therefore, I went to the East, and came as far as the place, where these things were proclaimed and done, I accurately ascertained the books of the Old Testament, and send them thee here below. The names are as follows. Of Moses five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.---Jesus, Nave Judges, Ruth. Four of Kings. Two of Paralipomena, ( Chronicles,) Psalms of David, Proverbs of Solomon, which is also called WISDOM, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job. Of Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Of the twelve prophets one book---Daniel, Ezekiel, Esdras. From these, I have, therefore, made the selection, which I have divided into six books, (Melito according to Cruse's Euseb p.

ny, that "your present Protestant canon coincides with that of Christian antiquity." First, 22 Bishops did not represent Christian Antiquity:" and secondly, they made no mention of the Apocalypse. So that the "coincidence" is destroyed, except in your own imagination. One of the most ancient catalogues, cited by Beveridge, gives the Catholic canon. Eusebius (lib. 3. c. 3. x. 25) says, that some rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews, and regarded as doubtful that of St. James, St. Jude, the 2d and 3d of St. John, and the Revelation. Are these therefore Apocryphal? Is not one part of the inference as well deduced as the other? As to the books of the Old Testament, the Catholic canon corresponds with the Greek version, which was used in the synagogue of Alexandria, and by the Jews in Asia Minor, Africa, and generally wherever the Greek language prevailed. Some of them were written, after the canon of Esdras had been formed and this, I trust, will account for their not being there enumerated. Origen, in his letter to Julius Africanus, speaks of them, as having been in use from the commencement of the church. And St. Augustine, writing against the semi-Pelagians, who denied the canonicity of some of these books, as you do, appeals to the authority of preceding ages in their support,-" tam longa annositate"-and if their antiquity was an argument in the 4th century against the semiPelagians, I do not see why it should not be as good, against Protestants in the 19th century. Our canon is that held by the Christians of Syria to this day, whether Maronites or Catholics, Jacobites, or Eutychians. It is used by the Cophts of Egypt, by the Ethiopians, and the Nestorians, separated as they have been from the church, for more than 1200 years, (see Perpet. de la Foi. t. 5. 1. 7. also Biblioth. Orient. t. 3 and 4.) The Greek schismatics, in their Synod held in Jerusalem in 1672, under the Patriarch Dositheus, give the Catholic canon, and add, "these books we hold to be canonical, and confess them to be sacred Scripture, since they have been handed down to us as such by ancient usage, or rather by the Catholic church." Shall we then turn aside from this mass of authority and hearken to the ipse dixit of Martin Luther, John Calvin, or the Rev. John Breckinridge, about Apocryphal books? Did not the two former gentlemen expel books even from the Protestant canon, in the most arbitrary and capricious manner? Read over, I pray you, these testimonies, and reflect how imprudent you were, in a former letter, when you asserted that our canon of scripture was framed only "in the six teenth century by the Council of Trent." And hereafter, if you should feel disposed to challenge "Priests and Bishops to the field of controversy," remember that there are other books to be consulted, besides "Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery."

In the Jewish dispensation controversies were decided by the judgment of the High Priest and Sanhedrim-in reference to which you make me say, that "of course by the same principle the Pope and Councils are the judges of controversies under the new law.' You will observe, Rev. Sir, that I did not institute any such direct comparison. I spoke of the PRINCIPLE being the same under both dispensations. I must again refer the reader to the proofs contained in letter No. 5, to show that it is not by any feeble analogy, but by the