wanted the balance, the sober common sense, and roposition. grasp of principle, which belonged to the Roman molic." or apprehenthis is a topic we cannot now discuss. Schiller's translator thinks that the nearer in ose to take (as tion means any thing else than the anticlightenment, freethe approximates), or if salvadom, and spiritualizing of the soul (as distinct from the deliverance from impending torture in the flames of hell), you must be aware that such other interpretations of these words require some authorized interpreter to sustain them. You cannot suppose I am ready to accept such interpretation without proof; and you would hardly be guilty of such a paralogism, as to make use, in argument, of a proposition sustained by an authority which it is the very purpose of your argument to lead me to accept. And if you quote Scripture (as Mark xvi. 16 and Heb. xi. 6), you must be aware, that, even granting absolute authority to every word of Scripture (which is the utmost limit of intellectual faith a non-Romanist can have), I am at perfect liberty, by my own principles, to give any such explanation to any of the words as is in accordance with my general belief and prevailing habits of thought. As a matter of logic, then, whatever else your arguments may be, they cannot have any force to draw me towards accepting your position. As I said before, logical Romanism and logical Liberalism are each complete and consistent in itself, and there is no passage-way of reasoning between them. As for illogical Protestantism, you may seize on its inconsistencies, and force it logically to one or the other of these two positions; but when it has reached either of them, it takes something besides argument to bring it over to the other.

your argument,

"III. There is another difficulty in the way of hich you have not met to my own satisfaction. To accept the claims of the Roman Church either involves an act of faith,' or it does not. If it does, this is the same as saying that an act of faith (granting your own definition and usage of the phrase) is required, preliminary to any possible, or even supposable, act of faith; which is absurd. If, on the other hand, such acceptance does not involve an act of faith, then the investigation of the claims of that Church becomes a purely intellectual process, requiring only the clearness of mind and moral honesty which any other intellectual process requires. And on my ground (I do not say on yours), it is utterly wicked and absurd to denounce any penalty beforehand upon any result deliberately and candidly arrived at. Such denunciation would be a defiance of the first and simplest axiom of all reasoning together between man and man; namely, that no threats must be introduced, or any extraneous element whatever, to influence the determination either way.

"I do not say that no Protestant can ever become a Romanist.

a.h.

Sargent

T60-109942

1846.]

Liberalism and Catholicity.

275

This would be to contradict well known facts. But I do say that no purely logical process can suffice for such a result; and this impossibility your own arguments have abundantly shown. Of course, until your proposition of the authority of the Roman Church is accepted, your deduced assertions or corollaries (such as the impossibility of faith without it, the superiority of its culture, and the peculiar blessedness of its belief or ritual) must go for nothing at all. You must be logician enough to see this, and its bearing on the minds of your Protestant readers. And I do not see how you can avoid perceiving that your whole train of reasoning is a paralogism; because the authority and necessity of the Roman Church are assumed in every single step, and consequently your arguments can have no logical weight with one who does not accept them.

"I do not blame you for thus assuming and continually bringing forward what has become the principle and groundwork of your faith. It would be inconsistent with my own principles not to welcome, or at least respect, every evidence of faith and sincerity, coming from any quarter of that Holy Catholic Church or spiritual communion, which includes every pure thought, and righteous desire, and holy life of every age. It would be painful to meet one who differs from me, even in grave matters, as perforce an antag onist. The Roman hierarchy, not the faith of Romanists, is what, with my understanding, I am steadily opposed to; and far be it from me to reproach any one for his adherence to that which gives him life and strength. But I do wonder a little that you should use the arguments and appeals you do, supposing they can have effect on those you mean to influence; or else that by a false show of logic you should seek unfairly to bewilder, and perhaps convert, those who are not prepared to understand or appreciate the real points of difference. You could not much value such conversion as that.

You rightly speak of this as (on your ground) the gravest question that a man can propose to himself. You cannot consent that it should be answered in a bewildered, sophisticated, and hurried state of mind. And the real answer to it, as you must know, is through the history of the Church and the world. A profound historical investigation, a thorough appreciation of the grounds of historical evidence, a familiarity with the events and lessons of past ages, and especially a clear and systematic understanding of the religious and intellectual culture, as well as political and social institutions, of the human race, are the essential preliminaries to the intelligent and independent determination of that question. My argument (III.) must convince you that this is the only way to answer it; at least, the only way in which I should be willing to answer it. And for those who have not ability or leisure for such an inquiry, we need not imagine their case must be hopeless. As I believe the

Roman Church itself acknowledges unavoidable ignorance will be pardoned; and the true condition of salvation is, that each should act up to the measure of faith or of light he has.

"There are two methods of argument by which one may be led from his own to another form of belief. The one is purely logical, proceeding from certain common principles, known and acknowledged on both sides. I think I have abundantly shown that this method can have no weight with a consistent and intelligent Protestant. The other is historical; based on a critical investigation of past facts and institutions, and involving an amount and kind of labor and learning, which must, from the nature of the case, be attainable by very few. As to this latter, which I maintain to be the only legitimate method of establishing your position, you must be aware how very incompetent I am at present to carry it to a certain conclusion. In the mean time, it is only laying claim to that amount of honesty which every opponent of common sense must allow (or else all his arguments are but worthless bullying and sophistry), to say, that whatever shall seem to me established I shall acknowledge and profess, whether Romanism or No-Church.' And from the axiom (which every religious inquiry demands), that a just and merciful God presides over the issues of human life, I cannot possibly feel any alarm or distrust in pursuing such an investigation with perfect independence of mind; or feel the smallest hesitation or scruple in acting consistently with my present convictions, until a course of reasoning like that I have indicated shall compel me to abandon them.

"Till then I am yours in respect, though in dissent."

The first remark we make on this letter is, that it fully concedes, what we have so often asserted, and what is becoming a very general conviction, that there is no middle ground between Liberalism No-Churchism as we call it - and Catholicity. This is much, and augurs well. It proves that the writer has good stuff in him, that he is no via media man, trying to steer his course equidistant between truth and falsehood, no time-server, no trimmer, no logical coward, shrinking from the avowal of the legitimate and necessary consequences of his own premises. It is true, he at present inclines strongly to the side of Liberalism, but this does not discourage

us.

He will hardly need to try Liberalism as long and as thoroughly as we tried it, before he rejects it, and gladly embraces Catholicity. If he retains any consciousness of a single religious want, if he ever feels himself, as all not utterly reprobate do and must feel themselves, oppressed with a load of guilt, and beset on every hand with numerous, powerful, and vigilant

enemies to his virtue; or if, in some trying moment of his life, he is forced to send an anxious glance into the darkness which for him must brood over the tomb, and which no ray from natural reason can furrow, even for a single instant, he will never be able to content himself with mere Liberalism, but must demand, whether he find it or not, something less vague and negative, something more positive, more illuminative, more effective to heal, to elevate, to protect, and to sanctify the soul.

In replying to the objections urged in the letter before us, we shall not follow precisely the order adopted by the writer, but an order which better suits our own convenience, and which will better enable our readers to perceive the bearing, connection, and force of what we have to offer. Whatever the writer of the letter intended, his objections are, strictly speaking, not so much objections to the Church, as to our method of setting forth and defending her claims; but we shall consider them both as they affect our own reasoning and as they affect the question of the Church herself. The principal objections urged are resolvable into the two following, namely:-1. The authority of the Church is, in its nature, unprovable. 2. An act of faith in the Catholic sense is impossible. These are regarded as objections a priori to Catholicity, and requiring to be removed before any argument or testimony in her favor can be introduced.

I. The authority of the Church is, in its nature, unprovable. This the writer contends is evident from our own arguments; all the arguments we have used or can use in support of the Church involve a paralogism; for they all proceed from premises which it requires the authority of the Church to furnish or legitimate. We begin with what concerns the arguments we have ourselves used. The writer alleges in effect against them: You conclude the Church, without which faith is not possible, from the necessity of faith to salvation. But the Church is as necessary to prove to me that faith is necessary to salvation, or that there are or can be such things as faith and salvation in the sense you contend, as it is to enable me to elicit an act of faith. We reply,

1. That our argument involves a paralogism, when adduced in defence of the Church against those who do not admit salvation and faith as its indispensable condition in the sense we allege, may be true; when adduced as an argumentum ad hominem against those who admit both, we deny. But it was only as an argumentum ad hominem we adduced the special argument

L

objected to. We were reasoning against those Protestant Christians who admit our premises; and our design was to show them, that, on their own principles, they are bound either to accept the Catholic Church, or to deny the possibility of salvation.

2. Though in one part of our argument we argue as the objection alleges, yet in the main argument itself we do not. By recurring to the article entitled The Church against NoChurch, in our Review for April, 1845, pp. 143, 144, the only article we have published in which we give a general argument for the Church, it will be seen that our point of departure is farther back, and that we proceed to argue to the Church from the necessity of faith to salvation not till after we have established both faith and salvation in the very sense in which we take them in the argument. That we began by assuming "the divine origin and authority of the Christian religion" we grant, because we were defending the Church against one who claimed to be a Christian, and a Christian minister; and we judged it, as we said expressly, to be discourteous to reason with him as we would with a Jew, Pagan, Mahometan, or Infidel.. We presumed we had a right to take him at his word, and that it would be superfluous to go farther back in our argument than to the simple assumption of the Christian religion as a divine and authoritative religion. Assuming the divine origin and authority of the Christian religion, we proceeded to establish, by authorities that could not be objected to without rejecting Christianity altogether, that all who receive it at all are logically bound to receive the Catholic Church, or admit that Christian salvation, whatever it may mean, is impossible. This argument is legitimate, not only against those who admit salvation, and faith as its indispensable condition, but also against all who admit the Christian religion at all as a divine and authoritative religion.

3. If only a part of our general argument be taken, it involves a paralogism when urged against those Protestant Christians who reject Christianity altogether, we concede; that it does when taken as a whole, we deny. The writer objects to the argument because he takes only that part of it which had a special purpose, and overlooks it as a whole. In the article referred to, pp. 174-179, which we shall soon quote at length, when turning to the positive proofs of the Church, or the divine commission of the ecclesia docens, we go back of Christianity itself, and point out and defend the method by which the divine authority of the Church may be established against those who