Presbyterian Church changes, very much like the Paris and London fashions, it is probable that there is one more recent than this now before us; but this must suffice for our present purpose, and the more so, because it is the one adopted by both the Old School and the New School Presbyterians before their schism in 1837.

Some may think that it is altogether useless to discuss the inconsistencies and errors of the Presbyterian Constitution, and that any attempt at argument against them would be only time and labor lost, since Presbyterians and Calvinists, from their intense hatred to every thing Catholic, seem to be inaccessible to reason and argument, when presented by Catholics; and we confess that this to a great extent is true, and has almost decided us to desist from our present ungrateful undertaking. We know there is a sin for which St. John said, "Non pro illo dico, ut roget quis"; we know there is a spiritual pride which renders men as headstrong and insensible as old Satan himself; and we fear that no small portion of it has fallen to the lot of the followers of the sour, morose, selfish, hating, and hateful Calvin. Still, the fear that some may not profit by the truth is no good reason for concealing it, or for refusing to advocate and support it by arguments. The ways of God are mysterious, and he can, even from stones, raise up children to Abraham. Moreover, had we no other reason for undertaking a review of the Presbyterian Church Constitution and Confession of Faith than a simple sense of justice to ourselves, it would be amply sufficient. The Calvinistic pulpits and press resound with hardly any thing but declamatory and incendiary invectives against the Catholic Church. The General Assembly never meets, without appointing a preacher to deliver, ex officio, a solemn address against Catholicity, and it has been customary for it to proclaim hypocritical fasts for the downfall of Popery. This propagandism against us may be met with everywhere, not only in the pulpit and lecture-room, but even in the railroad-car and the steamboat, where, orally or by tracts, the most insipid and absurd tales against our institutions and people are circulated. The virulence of this Calvinistic opposition to Catholicity shows itself chiefly in the Presbyterian newspaper press. It is there we are sorry it has been our duty to look into such disgusting trash-Calvin still disgorges, in filthy streams, the venom and rancor with which his disappointed ambition and revengeful pride filled him. These attacks, constantly repeated,

demand always a new resistance. This unholy warfare against the true Church we must try to put down, not by calumny, insult, vituperation, and the like, but by solid argument, by discussions based on sound logic, by the exhibition of that brilliant aureola of sanctity, unity, miracles, and other irresistible evidences which must for ever encircle the brows of truth; and by unravelling the contradictions, inconsistencies, paralogisms, sophisms, misrepresentations, and other tortuous arguments, which must always form the hideous train of error.

Nothing appears to us more likely to effect this end than the critical examination and discussion of the formularies which the most numerous sect of Protestants present us, as containing the foundations of that religious system which they would substitute for the dogmas, doctrines, and government of the Catholic Church, with their reasons for rejecting the latter and embracing the former. We propose, therefore, in what follows, to discuss the plan of religious doctrines and ecclesiastical government, as understood by Presbyterians. We shall confine ourselves chiefly to the Confession of Faith, the first and most important piece in the work we have quoted, that from which all the rest is deduced, and on which the whole fabric of Presbyterianism rests.

Before entering upon our main subject, it may be well to premise, that, if but one point of doctrine contained in a confession of faith be unfounded, and unsupported by any motive of belief, — much more, if but one point be evidently false and reprobated by Scripture, good sense, and whatever else must serve as the vouchers of the truth,-it follows, immediately and inevitably, that the Confession is an imposition, the work of men who either were deceived or meant to deceive, and that the church or society admitting it as its standard of belief is not the Church of Christ, or the true Church; for a religion that contains one plain falsehood is not a religion of heaven, but of men, rather of Satan himself; since a confession of faith in which there is one error can have no ground for admitting firmly any of the articles it may contain. Any society proposing such a confession betrays its human origin. No matter what good things may be found in such a symbol or formulary of faith, it is deprived of the seal of Heaven, which is incompatible with the least error; and the society imposing it on its members is only a human, not a divinely constituted society, therefore, not the society founded by Christ, and consequently not the Church of Christ. If not the Church of

Christ, then not that society in which salvation is to be found. This is only the expression of reason and common sense. All Christians, for instance, agree, that, if one error were found in the Bible, the Bible could not be the work of God. So, also, if a church enjoin any one article of faith which is a falsehood, it is not and cannot be the Church of Christ. Thus, the Catholic Church would consider all her titles to divinity and truth forfeited, if a single error had crept into her creeds, and formed one, even the least, of her articles of faith. But if only one error professed by a religious society destroys all its titles, what shall we say, if the confession, instead of containing only one error, contains scarcely a single truth, and is nothing but a tissue of false reasoning, unwarranted assertions, palpable contradictions, wilful misrepresentations, and gross corruptions of the word of God and divine traditions? This last is the fact with regard to the Confession of Faith now under consideration; and we trust to make good to every unprejudiced mind, before we close, that it has no other support than that of the authority of the prince of that empire where no order but "everlasting horror dwelleth."

Still further, as preliminary to our main design, it will not be amiss to state summarily the history of the introduction of the Presbyterian Confession into the world. During the civil anarchy in which ended the reign of the unfortunate Charles the First; the Scotch Presbyterians having obtained a decided ascendency, there was convened by order of parliament an assembly of divines, who for many years held theological sessions at Westminster, and, with a view to obtaining a thorough godly reformation," concocted there that precious code of doctrine, government, and discipline, which was to unfetter the whole world, and carry out fairly the principles of the glorious Reformation, which had almost sunk under the mitigated Papism of Elizabeth and James the First. It belongs to the history of England to record the disputes, quarrels, tricks, frauds, and various manipulations which characterized the sittings of these divines; but, after a protracted and stormy discussion, at last came out the Confession of Faith, and other formularies of Presbyterian orthodoxy, which received, in 1649, the full sanction of the parliament of England, -the great judge of English Protestant controversies.

The confession of faith given by the Westminster divines, and hence often called the Westminster Confession, is nearly the same with the Scotch confession of faith which appeared

in 1560. The immediate lineage of the Presbyterians from the goodly Calvin thus clearly appears; for John Knox, whom the Presbyterians represent as having "lighted his torch at the candle of God's word," was the friend and pupil of Calvin, and he was the master spirit who, through fas et nefas, introduced the Reformation into Scotland, and determined its confession. Of the character of this apostate priest it is not necessary to speak; for, if it be a disgrace to humanity to have produced a Nero or a Robespierre, Presbyterianism is not to be envied the glory of having produced a John Knox.

The confession of faith framed by the Westminster divines is the standard of the various hues of Presbyterians found in the United States, the Old School Presbyterians, who perhaps justly claim the unenviable privilege of being the true, lawful, and uncompromising children and successors of Calvin and John Knox, the New School Presbyterians, the Associate Presbyterians, the Associate Reformed Church, and the Cumberland Presbyterians. It is also implicitly, if not explicitly, the confession of faith of the Congregationalists and of the Dutch Reformed, who are strong Calvinists in doctrine. The population adhering to it the world over may, perhaps, be set down at about fifteen millions; the Catholic population over the whole globe, we may add by the way, is not much below two hundred millions.

The Confession opens with a chapter on the "Holy Scriptures," no doubt to make the doctrine given in that chapter the foundation of what is to follow. But the subject of the authority of Scripture is beset with insuperable difficulties for Protestants; and although they continually boast of following the Scriptures, although they wish to have the name of receiving the Bible above all men, and of making the Bible a voucher for all they say, still it is impossible for them, on their own principles, to come at any thing positive concerning its authority. They cannot prove its inspiration; so, with all their pretended respect for it, they have undermined its authority, and are compelled, on their own principles, to view it merely as a human book which may be correct on the whole, but only after the manner of other human books written on human subjects by judicious authors.

We begin with the first paragraph of this chapter, which runs thus:

"Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and

providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation; therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his Church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing, which maketh the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased."

The doctrine laid down in this paragraph it is then attempted to support by arguments; but what kind of argument can be given in an introduction to the belief of Scripture, and in support of its authority? Common sense tells us that it cannot be Scripture itself; else, one might as well quote the authority of the Koran to prove the Koran, and the forger of a will might adduce the very will itself as a proof of its genuineness. Yet, notwithstanding this plain dictate of common sense, the framers of the Confession quote Scripture all at once, and thus open the way to that long string of false, inconsistent, and absurd proofs with which the book abounds. The plainest rules of logic seem to have been quite beyond the reach of these powerful geniuses. Faith must be reasonable, that is, founded on reasonable motives, or motives capable of forcing the assent of a judicious mind; for if not, it becomes fanaticism, superstition, credulity, downright nonsense. It is this reasonableness of motives which makes the distinction between Christianity and Mahometanism or paganism.

But waiving this want of logical strictness and propriety, and taking up the Scripture proofs adduced, we shall find that the Scripture says nothing at all of what it is made to say. We select from the passage quoted the three following propositions which it contains, and which we maintain are unsupported by Scripture, utterly false, and even contradicted by others in the same passage. 1. That what the Lord revealed at sundry times and in divers manners was committed wholly to writing. 2. That this makes the Holy Scripture most necessary. 3. That the former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people are now ceased.

1. The first position assumed, that "it pleased the Lord to