Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

"That is for you to prove."

"God proposed to teach mankind by writings, not by a

body of men.

That, also, is for you to prove."

"It is evident from the word itself."

"You must prove that you have the word, before introduce it as evidence."

you can

"No one can read the New Testament and believe otherwise."

"Not true in fact; for the great mass of all who do read the New Testament actually believe otherwise. But you must get legal possession of the New Testament, and establish your right to interpret it, before you can quote it in a sense the Church denies. Till then, the denial of your assertion by the Church is primâ facie evidence against you.

"I do not care for the Church. I deny her authority."

"I know that; but her authority is to be presumed, till reasons are set forth for denying it. You are not at liberty to deny it without a reason.

[ocr errors]

"I have given a reason."

"What is it? ""

"Why, I tell you she is condemned by the word of God." "You tell me so, but that is not enough. You must prove that it is so."

"You do not suffer me to do so. You will not suffer me to quote the Bible against her."

"No such thing. When you have proved that the Bible, in the sense you adduce it, is the word of God, you may quote it to your heart's content.

"Why, I have told you again and again that the Church herself admits the Bible to be the word of God, and therefore it is not necessary, in arguing against her, to prove that what I adduce from it is the word of God."

"The Bible plus her interpretation, or rather in the sense she authorizes, she admits to be the word of God, I grant; minus that interpretation, or in any other sense, she denies it to be the word of God. Consequently, since you would adduce it in a sense she does not authorize, if you adduce it at all, she denies what you would adduce is the word of God. You must, then, prove that it is, before you can legally adduce it."

"But you will not let me prove it." "I do not hinder you."

66 Not so.

“ I offer to prove it by the word itself.”

“ That is not logical ; for it assumes the word to prove the word.”

Here are the Scriptures, admitted by the Church, when taken in their genuine sense, to be the word of God. I simply propose from them and by them to show what is their genuine sense ; and if I do so, I prove by an authority which she herself concedes all that I am required to prove."

" You cannot do that, because in doing it you assume that the Church is not the authorized interpreter of the word, which is the point you must prove ; and that you are the authorized interpreter, which is also a point you must prove. The Church simply admits that the Scriptures, taken in the sense she authorizes, are the word of God. This is the full extent of her admission. But taken in another sense, she denies them to be the word of God; for the word of God, as we have agreed, is not the words, but the sense, of the Scriptures. Consequently, before you can allege them in a sense contrary to hers, nay, before you can go into any inquiry as to their sense, you must, on the one hand, dispossess her of her prescriptive right to declare their sense, and establish your own authority as their interpreter. Till you have done

. one or the other, the sense of Scripture is not an open question, and you cannot open it without assuming the point in dis

pute.

" That denies absolutely my right to quote the Scriptures against the Church."

“ Not absolutely. You may quote them in her sense against her, if you can ; and in your own sense, when you have proved it to be the word of God.”

“ But the first would be of no avail, because she has taken care to explain the Scriptures in her own favor ; and I cannot prove them to be the word of God in any other sense, unless I am at liberty to explain them by themselves.”

" That is, you cannot prove your point, unless you are at liberty to prove the same by the same! Prove that you are authorized to declare the sense of Scripture, and then you will have no difficulty.”

“ But I cannot prove that I amı, save from the word itself.”

" That is to say, unless you are at liberty to assume and exercise the authority to declare the sense of Scripture, as the

[ocr errors]

condition of proving that you have such authority! That will not do, brother. It would be proving idem per idem, the

, same by the same, which is bad logic."

“ How, then, am I to proceed ? " " That is your affair, not mine."

“ The Church spreads her claim over every thing, and leaves me, according to your principles of logic, no possible means of adopting any line of argument against her, which does not, in some sense, assume the point to be proved. So subtle and crafty is her tyranny, that it leaves absolutely nothing to those who would resist it. This to me is only another evidence of her wicked origin and pernicious inAuence."

“ So you are of opinion, that, if Almighty God should establish a church, he would take good care to leave it open to attack, to give its enemies a fair and solid ground on which to carry on their operations against it! I am of a different opinion, and predisposed to believe the Almighty to be more than a match for the Devil, and that, if he should establish a church, he would so constitute it that no attack could be made upon it which should not recoil upon those who made it, no argument be framed against it which should not serve to demonstrate the folly and absurdity of its framers. It is unquestionably a very difficult matter to make an action lie against the Church, or to find a court in which an action can be legally commenced against her ; but I have yet to learn that this is her fault. The Church is in possession of universal and supreme authority under God, has a prescriptive right to that authority, and must be presumed 10 have a valid right to it till the contrary is shown. You cannot assume the contrary, but are bound to prove it. Now, you must prove it without authority, or with authority. Without authority you cannot prove it ; for proofs which are sustained by no authority prove nothing. You must, then, prove it with authority, or not prove it at all. That it is difficult to find any authority whose assertion does not assume the nullity of the supreme authority which is to be presumed, is undoubtedly true. You wish to arraign the actual possessor of the supreme authority, but you cannot do so unless you have some court of competent jurisdiction. But any court which should claim auihority to issue a precept against the possessor of supreme authority, and summon him to answer at its bar, would assume authority over him, and by so doing prejudge the case.

a

This is in the nature of things, and cannot be avoided ; but whose is the fault? The Reformers, if they had been lawyers, would have seen that what they attempted was against law, and a primâ facie crime on their part, for which they were liable to suffer the full vengeance of the law. If they had been even tolerable logicians, they would have seen that they could urge no argument which did not assume what was in question. But surely the Church is not to be censured, because they were miserable pettifoggers and shallow sophists.”

“ But there is a court competent to institute proceedings against the Church.”

" What court ?
« The court of conscience."

“ You must prove that conscience is supreme, before you can say that ; for the Church, as the vicegerent of the Almighty, claims and possesses jurisdiction over conscience, and is supreme judge in foro conscientiæ. This is an integral part of her possession to which she has a prescriptive right. You must dispossess her, before you can compel her to plead • at the bar of conscience.”

" But she is at least bound to answer at the bar of the Bible, interpreted by private reason.”

“ Not till you dispossess her, or place the Bible interpreted by private reason in possession ; for she possesses jurisdiction over them.”

“ At the bar of reason, then.”

“ Reason has and can have no jurisdiction in the premises ; for the question turns on a supernatural fact, lies within the supernatural order, and therefore out of the province of reason."

“ The general sense of mankind.”

“ That is against you, and in favor of the Church, as we have already seen, and is conceded in the fact that the Church is allowed to plead prescription.”

“ Then to the written word, interpreted and its sense declared by the Holy Ghost."

• Establish the fact of such a court, and she will not refuse to appear and answer. But she claims to be that court herself, and is in possession as that court; you must dispossess ber by direct impeachment of her claims, or by establishing, before a competent tribunal, the rights of an adverse claimant, before you can allege such a court.”

“ The Reformers were aided by the private illumination of NEW SERIES - VOL. I. NO. II.

21

the Holy Ghost, and what they did, they did in obedience to his commands."

"That was for them to prove."

"They did prove it."

"How?"

"From the written word."

"But they could prove nothing from the written word, for they had no legal possession of it."

"They had legal possession of it. The Holy Ghost gave them legal possession."

"What and where was the evidence of that fact, if fact it was ?"

"In the Scriptures."

"That is, they proved by the Holy Spirit that they had legal possession of the Holy Scriptures, and by the Holy Scriptures that they had the Holy Ghost! But this was to reason in a vicious circle."

"The Reformers set forth other and conclusive reasons for rejecting the Church, which I will reproduce on another day; but you must excuse me now, for I have some parochial duties to which I must attend."

"So you give up the first reason, namely, our Lord founded no such church as the Catholic?"

"Not by any means. I may have erred in bringing that forward before the others. I ought not to have departed from the example of the Reformers. They did not allege that reason first, and I see now that they were wise in not doing so. They first proved that the Church had forfeited her rights, by having abused her trusts. Having thus ejected her, they took possession of the word, and easily and clearly demonstrated that she had been null from the beginning, by showing that our Lord never contemplated such a church."

"That is, they dispossessed themselves by acquiring possession. Very good Protestant law and logic."

"You may spare your sneer, for perhaps it will soon be retorted with seven-fold vengeance."

"O, not so bad as that, I hope."

"We shall see. I will, God willing, prove that the Reformers were rigid reasoners and sound lawyers."

"An Herculean task. Clearing the Augean stables was a fool to it."

"The Reformers were great and glorious men, rare men, the like of whom will not soon be seen again."

« AnteriorContinuar »