REPLY TO THIRD LETTER OF "TRUTH." it would affect the present discussions, if he did, is a question as to the result of which we would not agree in his assertion. We now assume that he is not Protestant. Indeed he could not hold the principle which he laid down, if he were: but another question arises-does he believe in fact that God did reveal any doctrine? If he does, what is the doctrine? And upon what' ground does he believe that God revealed it? These are questions which would also very materially aid in the discussion. At present, we know of no principle save one upon which he and we agree. That we shall advert to presently. Now; before we proceed farther, we would beg to correct a few mistakes as to fact, and what we consider to be mistakes as to principle, in the above Letter. fact, we did not argue. If he thought we argued so, he mistook; if we made the mistake, and did argue so, we shall feel obliged to him to exhibit the fact. 66 We are very anxious to make reparation for any mistakes which we occasionally commit. We acknowledge then, first, that we did mistake in writing that the fourth paragraph of our correspondent was hastily written. He says it was not: we believe him; but it would be as well to inform our correspondent that he would not have suffered any thing in our estimation by the fact's being as we supposed. He stated: "Suppose the infallibility of the Catholic Church fully established," why, then it would, upon the supposition, be certainly infallible," how am I to become infallibly assured that this attribute belongs to that body of Christians who maintain external communion with Rome?" Suppose there are thirty-nine Churches calling themselves each the Christian Church. First, our correspondent took some very I take infallibility, now fully established, as unnecessary trouble to shew that our arguone mark of the Catholic Church. I going would be in a circle, if we argued, as, in successively to thirty-eight, who all say, "We are not infallible.” But I have found the Catholic Church certainly was what you say certainly you are not. The thirty-ninth says, "I certainly am infallible." We may Next, when he says It is only the infalliadmit the ingenuity of our correspondent. ble certainty of the fact which is established But we did hope he was in haste, when he and not the infallible veracity of any one witwrote equivalent to this: "There are thirty-ness to that fact;” he mistakes our meaning nine men, one of whom I am told by good authority, is my relative. I find neither of thirtyeight of them to be that relative; the thirtyninth tells me that he is, but I must not believe him, because the others said that they were not related to me, and also can not prove that he is, although he does prove it himself.” We were taught that when there was a good disjunctive proposition of which all the members except one were denied of the attribute, the remaining one must agree with it, if it was asserted originally that this attribute must agree with one or the other of the members. Our correspondent will be good enough to recollect that his difficulty could not arise until he should have found that some Christian Church was infallible. We look not for proof of our infallibility, but of its absence from others, in their disclaimer. We will also remind him that before we come to meet the tremendous evils which he so generously flings back upon us, we must also have settled the main question: "Is any Church infallible?" When that shall be disposed of, we promise him, his two difficulties will be very quickly dispatched. But as we love order, we shall begin at the beginning. One guess however we made, in regard to which, we are left in uncertainty of its correctness-that our correspondent does not belong to any Protestant Church. Whether when we wrote: "Therefore he has a correct declaration of the fact, there is no doubt upon his mind, because he has the testimony of an infallible witness, that is the whole body of persons, and circumstances taken as one, making him certain," &c. There is such a thing as a bad disjunctive proposition, viz: where the enumeration of all the alternatives is imperfect. Such is the case here. Besides establishing the truth of the fact, and the veracity of any one witness, there is what we stated to be, “knowing the truth of the fact because of the infallibility of the witness." And this infallibility was known from the nature of the witnessand this witness was not any one individual, but a collection of persons and circumstances taken as one that is viewed together. Thus not only was the truth of the fact, but also the veracity of this ag gregate witness, seen; and the impossibility that the fact should be otherwise, because of the infallibility of the witness. Another mistake, we believe, is, to consider the evidence of the Christian system, as viewed in a general light, the same as the evidence of each special doctrine. Moral arguments would tend to establish the first; but nothing short of positive, direct testimony will exhibit proof of the last; because the question to be answered is, “What did God reveal?" This question is to be answered by undoubted testimony, not by highly probable conjecture. Our correspondent has confounded the two cases. Generally speaking, the mind must be satisfied of the high probability that a system is true, by good moral evidence, and then receives testimony of the special facts. We believe our correspondent made another mistake, when he assumed, against the fact, that we argued the Church to be infallible, because we could prove by his admitted rule that she never did teach error. We think too respectfully of our correspondent to suppose that this mistake is not owing to haste in reading what we wrote. But we perhaps wrote obscurely. If he can shew that we argued as he insinuates, we shall retract and apologize. We certainly would not be correct in arguing that because an event has not occurred, therefore it never can occur:-the refutation of such a doctrine has nothing to do with the question. We shall not now dwell at much length upon that passage of the Letter in which he makes one of his Protestant Churches say: "I am not infallible and yet I am certain of many truths. I may err, not only respecting the truths which I do not, but those also which I do know." Probably we should have to retract, did we assert this was written hastily-but we cannot understand its meaning, because it appears to us to lead to this absurdity-"I am certain, and yet I may err concerning that of which I am certain, that is, I am certain of that of which, I ought not to be certain because I ought not to be certain in a case where I might err." We believe that certainty excludes the possibility of error, and that the possibility of error excludes certainty. ty. We may approach nearer to certainty or be Neither are we inclined to agree with our We We think there are a few other mistakes made by our correspondent; for instance when he understands "by moral certainty, only an indefinitely near approximation to truth," and then assumes that it means what we called "infallible certainty." We Having now set ourselves free from the called our certainty by a very different name: mistakes to which we have drawn our cor"there can be no higher certainty," was our respondent's attention, we will mention a expression. Any approximation to truth a distinction well known amongst philosomust be something different from truth. phers, regarding the meaning of " moral cerMoral certainty, he calls only an approxima- tainty." By it is sometimes meant “ "very tion, therefore not what it does approximate; high probability," or an indefinitely close therefore, it is only indefinitely high proba- approximation to truth, yet with a possibibility of truth, but not certainty of truth.lity of error. In this view, what we meant Now we distinguished these from each other, by "Certainty," or "Infallible Certainty," when we wrote "Certainty is an indivisible was not "Moral Certainty;" because that point: when I am certain, I have no doubt; would admit some doubt, some possibility when I have any doubt, I am not certain. of error, which is totally incompatible with Probability may be more or less; but we "Certainty;" or that state of the mind which cannot have greater certainty and less certain- | admits of no doubt. But "Moral Certainty" is sometimes, and generally by philosophers, used for "Certainty;" that state of the mind which admits of no doubt; and is distinguished from metaphysical certainty only because of the difference of their origin, not of any difference of grade. Neither allows doubt; but the one is derived from the contemplation of the nature of its object; as in numbers, two and two make four, and cannot make five: moral certainty is derived from the contemplation of the manners, habits, and circumstances of men. Thus fifty surgeons testify to me that they have examined the body of a man whom I knew, and that he is dead; and one hundred persons who saw that body placed in a coffin and carried to the grave, and interred, testify to me that he was interred: he was a public officer of the state, and the proper authorities substituted a person in his stead, having declared his place vacated by death: I find his family in mourning, and his heirs in possession of his property; and I see the monument which has been erected to his memory: his death created the necessity of an inquest, and the coroner exhibits to me the proceedings, which I find enrolled in the proper office-my certainty of his death cannot be greater than it is, nothing can increase it. I have no doubt, viewing the nature, the morals, and the circumstances of mankind, that this man must be dead:it cannot be otherwise. The scepticism which would raise a doubt upon this could never be certain of any fact: it would be exact Pyrrhonism, into which, we trust, our correspondent has not fallen. Infal libility, in its passive sense, is the impossibility of being deceived; certainty is the absence of doubt. Perhaps we will be considered weak in admitting that, in this case, we would have infallible certainty. Our meaning being now we trust made clear, we briefly say-notwithstanding our correspondent's doubts upon the subject, there is faith upon the earth; but that faith cannot exist without an infallible witness to the fact which is believed-we deduce the necessity of such a witness from the nature of faith; and should our correspondent desire to continue his inquiry, we intreat him to pay his attention exclusively to this point first, and we promise him, if he admits our definition of Faith, we will, when he shall have answered our argument, answer his objections, as many as he pleases; but as we love order, we must first require this argument to be solved. "Faith is the belief of what God has revealed." By belief we mean, an assent to the truth Faith is then founded upon certain knowledge; certain knowledge must be founded upon infallible testimony. Therefore faith cannot exist without infallible testimony of what God has revealed. We humbly submit to our correspondent, that, if he differs from us in the definition of faith, we never can agree in any results which would be affected by that difference. If he agree with us in the definition, we would request him to confine his attention to our conclusion. If he will not admit it to be true and legitimately drawn, it would be useless to go farther, until that proposition would be disposed of. If he positively admit its truth, it might then be usefully applied; but, if our inquiry were now spread over too wide a field, we should soon become confused. TRUTH is best served by short and close examinations of successive propositions. FOURTH LETTER OF “TRUTH." To the Editors of the United States Catholic Miscellany. SAVANNAH, Sept. 1825. In my last Letter your printer has done me injustice, or I must at least for once submit to the charge of having written hastily. I have no copy upon which to rely, and consequently cannot be certain whether the error is owing to the printer or myself. The sense of the passage, as it now appears in print, is incomplete, if it be not indeed wholly unintelligible. The passage is on the first column of the eighty-first page, near the bottom. I will transcribe it, with the substance of what was or should have been added to convey the meaning for which it was designed. A period being placed before the first words, it should have read to this effect: "My object was to shew, that if nothing short of strict or absolute infallibility could be a sufficient ground for faith, then indi vidual Roman Catholics must be as far removed from faith, as any others; unless this infallibility should extend to every individual See page 81. who teaches and every one who is taught that Religion. But only admit my principle that strict infallibility is not essential to faith, which must be true, if indeed, there be Faith on the earth; and then, these " inevitable results, which were so frightfully marshalled,' &c. the rest is correct. The words underscored, or words of similar import, were or should have been inserted, to evince my meaning in the passage. If the manuscript is not destroyed, and the mistake proves to be on the part of the printer, I beg you will have the goodness to correct it in some early number. If it occurred on the part of myself, I am content it should remain uncorrected. It is not my design to intrude further upon your courtesy, in relation to this subject, nor is it my wish that you should publish this letter. For the attention you have bestowed upon the subject at my request, you will please to accept my thanks. I am convinced that minds, trained in different habits, cannot always see the truth in the same light. I beg you however to be assured that I have not designedly drawn erroneous inferences from any of your statements. My objections as stated, are such as appear to me really to be drawn from the natural meaning of what you wrote. If they are illegitimate or unsound, I shall always be glad to see them fairly met and confuted. I too have thought that my sentiments in some cases were not fairly stated in your replies-particularly when you make me say in your last reply, that moral certainty is only "an indefinitely near approximation to truth." By reference to my letter you will see I used the word infallibility and not Truth, which in my mind materially alters the sense. But I am far from thinking you had any design to state the passage incorrectly. We cannot yet see alike. But we can, I trust, both believe in the same Lord, and seek to be guided by him into the way of all TRUTH. REPLY TO FOURTH LETTER OF "TRUTH." UFON this letter, we have to state, that we do not consider the expression of our correspondent's absence of a wish that we should publish it, to be a prohibition of its publication; it is only declaring that he does not require its publication. Using our own discretion, therefore, we have published it, because we thought it proper, 1st, In order to give room for our explanation; and 2d, that we might not be charged with suppressing any, even the most trivial of the objections against us. We have had no opportunity of communicating with our correspondent, because we neither know who he is, nor how a letter could reach him; and his correspondence is not on any private business, for we know him only as a public writer. He will acquit us of having suppressed the passage in question, when we inform him, that the compositor in our printing office set up his letter, from his own manuscript, without having any mark whatever upon it save as we got it from the Post Office; and without having any part taken from the two sheets upon which it was contained. That the correctors in the office, neither of whom is a Roman Catholic, compared it when set up with his MS. and that it was subsequently compared therewith by one of the Editors. In this last comparison, one line was found omitted, and was supplied. Of these facts, as well as that no wilful omission was made, our correspondent can, if he will, be satisfied by the evidence of those concerned. After the publication, the manuscript was put aside and has not yet been found. 66 The second change was not made in the letter: the text was given correctly; but in the comment, the word truth was substituted for infallibility, by that liberty which in reasoning frequently substitutes the words which must in the process of the statement mean the same idea. In this statement, Moral certainty is an indefinitely near approximation to infallibility" must mean, if it has any meaning, that it is an approximation to what is "known to be infallibly true;" that is to "Truth." As we have supplied this, at his suggestion, we will claim that he shall allow us to supply for ourselves, not to change, but to exhibit the process of our act. It would indeed be a very blundering mode of imposition on our part, to print his expression in his letter, if we meant to evade its force. Now respecting his supply, we will suppose, against our conviction, that the omission was on the part of our compositor, and overlooked by our correctors and by ourselves. It will be perfectly immaterial, until the first argument shall have been admitted or answered; and with this argument our correspondent now appears to have done. But suppose the Church infallible-we would say that certainty might be had from the teaching of a fallible instructor given under the view and by the authority of an infallible witness, who would be able and bound to correct the mistakes of the teacher, and we would shew that such is really the case in our Church. And thus, the individual Catholic would have infallible certainty, when others would not. In taking our leave, we reciprocate the good wishes of our correspondent. From the U. S. Catholic Miscellany, Vol. VI. for 1826. LETTERS ON THE JUDICIAL OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: ADDRESSED TO THE REV. HUGH SMITH. LETTER I. fault arising from your want of skill. I To the Rev. Hugh Smith, A. M., Rector of must avow that I should not know how to St. Paul's Church, Augusta. REV. SIR-I am not, I trust, disposed to turn from my path to assail persons who permit me to pass unmolested; but neither am I very willing to allow myself to be assailed by an unprovoked aggressor. You, Sir, preached at the opening of the late Convention of your Church, (the Protestant Episcopal,) at Macon, in Georgia; and the Editors of the Gospel Messenger in this city, considered your Sermon worthy of the first place in their publication for this month. Had you not unnecessarily waged war upon my religion, I should have laid down the pamphlet without an observation; but your language has urged me to the remarks which I shall take the liberty of making through the columns of the Miscellany. defend the ground you occupied but as our acquaintance must be of some duration, I had better proceed at once to my business. As I love open dealing, I shall give the portion of your sermon of which I complain, and also those parts which will be necessary to place you fairly before my readers. Your text was-" With one mind, striving together for the faith of the Gospel." Phil. i, 29. You alluded to the occasion of your holding a Convention in a place which, not long since, was a wilderness. You enforced by some when attacked by others. You the necessity of having the Gospel defended enforced the obligation as considered in its reference to Christianity generally, in concluding which topic you said: "Thus, then, it appears, that there has been but one sentiment in the Christian world as to the duty of 'contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints, when that faith was assailed; and, that in reference to this general defence, those who differ from each other on minor points, may and ought to 'strive together;' not, however, by attempting that ture, and from a warm attachment to different views, union or coalition, which, from the infirmity of our nanever can exist; that union which forced, and almost ministers to strife; not by being unequally yoked unnatural, instead of tending to harmony, too frequently together, by a yoke that will prove galling to both. No, not thus, brethren, are they who believe in Chris tianity, but differ as to its peculiarities: not thus, are they to strive together; but by marching in separate columns to the defence of the truth, by separately directing their efforts to one and the same point, and causing them to meet in the same centre; thus, secu the dangers of collision. If I am correctly informed, Rev. Sir, you are no novice in polemics, and you have frequently ere now, given to the religion of my choice the full benefit of your opposition; though, if report speaks truly, you have not always been successful. I have heard it said of you, that not very many years since you asserted that the General Councils of Popery, (as your politeness has designated the religion of the vast majority of Christendom,) could not be infallible in their decisions upon articles of faith, because they were contradictory; and that when in-ring the benefits of combined exertion, while they avoid vited to point out the contradictions, you were not prepared to do so, because you had forgotten them, and could not then lay your hand upon the books which exhibited what they were. This, perhaps, is but a mere unfounded report, and I am the more inclined to believe so, from the circumstance that your present assault is upon the same doctrine of infallibility, in the attempt to destroy which you are said to have been formerly so notoriously unsuccessful; because it would appear to be a singular fatality which would lead you into the same field, with only the same weapons, against the same doctrine. However, Sir, I may be in error:-you are probably now much better armed; and you shew at least more caution. Still, your caution has not, I believe, saved you from exposing how you might be advantageously assailed; but this was probably more a misfortune arising from your position, than a "There is a general coincidence, then, brethren, as to what is the faith of the Gospel, viz: the Revelation of God, contained in the Bible, and, for this faith, it is admitted that all should, in a certain sense, strive together. But when we leave this general ground; when we ask what the 'faith of the Gospel is, in all its parts, coincidence of sentiment is at an end, and many to choose amidst all these conflicting opinions of men? 'How is this faith of the Gospel to be more minutely ascertained?' This is our second inquiry. What is to be our standard of appeal? We point you, in reply, to the Book of God. We ask you, What is there written? how readest thou? Yes, to the Bible we make our first appeal; for, in the language of the great Chillingworth, The Bible is the Religion of Protestants. In exact accordance with which, we find the Church eth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatso contradictory replies meet our ear. How, then, are we declaring in her 6th Article, Holy Scripture contain ever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.' "You may ask, however, are there not many who appeal to this standard, equally honest in purpose, and equally earnest in seeking, and who return from its perusal with widely different impressions? Does not every Christian sect profess to hold the pure faith of the Gospel,' and to have derived its doctrinal compend or digest from the Bible. |