guide. I shall leave you to conjecture, to probability, to speculation, and to doubt."

Our doctrine, then, is, that God did establish this infallible guide; and that, in the new law, the great majority of the bishops who succeed to the apostolic commission, together with the Bishop of Rome, either in council assembled, or teaching in their sees, form this tribunal.

They have no authority to change what God has revealed; they have no authority to add to what God has revealed; but they will, in all cases of doubt, lead us with infallible certainty to a knowledge of what God has taught. Individuals amongst them may err, and have erred, but the great majority will infallibly guide us to truth.1

II.

I now proceed to show the grounds of my assertion, that the great majority of the bishops of the Church, together with the Bishop of Rome, form that tribunal which will, with infallible certainty, give to us those doctrines which are of faith.

I feel that it is unnecessary to prove that there can be no faith without having an infallible certainty of what God has revealed. We cannot have this certainty unless we can find a witness whose testimony of that revelation will be infallibly correct. Thus we are brought to the dilemma: There can be no faith or there must be an infallible witness of doctrine. Hence, we are reduced at once to total want of evidence of what God did say (for conjecture or opinion is not evidence); or, we must find an infallible witness. We must place upon the same level the Pagan, the Deist, the Socinian, the Arian, the Macedonian, the Mahometan, the Roman Catholic, the Jew, the Nestorian, the Presbyterian, the Quaker, the Methodist, the Anabaptist, the Baptist, the Sabbatarian, the Church-ofEngland-man, the Protestant Episcopalian, the Sub-Lapsarian,

1 Since Bishop England wrote this, the Vatican Cuncil of 1870 has passed the decree of Papal Infallibility. For a full explanation of its extent and limitations, see vol. ii of Newman's Difficulties of Anglicans," p. 179 et seq.

the Lutheran, the Swedenborgian, the Southcothonian, the Shaker, and the thousands of others whose names and systems vary. Yet all profess to hold truth and all contradict each other; still, truth is single and not contradictory. Has God revealed truth and commanded us to believe His Word, and yet placed it out of our power to know with certainty what He said? He said? This clearly must be the case if we have no infallible witness to tell us what He said. However, a thousand of those divisions will arise, and with one accord say: "We have an infallible witness. God is good and wise and merciful. and wise and merciful. He has given us this witness; stand aside-move from amongst us, you Pagans, Deists, Jews, Mahometans, and Papists, you will not receive this witness; it is the Bible."

Obedient to the mandate, I move aside with my companions. I ask not how they know that Book to contain the doctrine of God to man, because the experience of centuries gives me the plain certainty of what will occur. At an humble distance I listen. One of the persons who remained now calls upon his fellows to adore the Lord Jesus; another protests against such idolatry. The Book is produced; pages are read; each explains them in contradiction to the other. Their associates interpose to allay the ire of the disputants. One voice is heard, calling on them to hear the opinion of an English bishop; another voice asks whether his ordination can be proved good; a shrill rebuke of tyranny is now issuing from another quarter; whilst another solemnly advises reference to a synod of presbyters and elders. "Why not each congregation decide for itself," cries another voice; "Scripture does not warrant the subjection of the freedom of the Gospel to such a yoke." Before the lapse of an hour there will be as many contradictions as there are individuals. All appeal to the Book; yet the Book is silent, but is made by each to speak in favor of his opinion.

The Deist calmly asks: "Is this the consistency of the Christian religion? Is this the manifestation of evident

truth? Is this the uncontradictory code to which I am to sacrifice my reason?"

"Great Allah!" cries the Mahometan, "I bless Thee for the words of Thy prophet. They are light to mine eye; they are fountains in the desert; they are wafted in perfumes from Arabia; they are lovely as the houris of paradise; they sound in my ears as the first music with which Thou wilt greet my soul, when it will be borne from the angel of death."

The Pagan looks first at the crowd in mute astonishment, and then asks whether the God of the Christians was He who sowed the teeth of the Dragon, and whether this Book partakes of the same qualities as were found in those teeth; and he runs to unlock the temple of Janus.

"Friend of the old Christianity," said the Israelite, turning to me, "when I shall be too idle to labor or poor enough to become a hypocrite and shall go to the new farm which the good Christians of America have purchased, to ameliorate my condition, which of those people shall I join?"

"None of them," was my answer.

"Then are we to give up that blessed Book?" asks the Deist, with a sneer.

"No!" was my reply.

"Shall we go and join in the fray?" said the Pagan. "Stop!" cried the Mahometan, "there is serenity in that man's countenance: lo! he is about to speak; the multitude is appeased."

There arose, indeed, a man who stilled the tumult; and, as the noise subsided, his words were more plainly caught. The following passages I plainly heard :

"Let even the Catholic be invited to the holy work. We all agree that the Book contains the Word of God; so does he. Let each take and read it for himself; let us have no strife; let us send it to the Mahometan, to the Jew, to the Pagan, to the poor, benighted Deist. Let each read for himself; let each interpret for himself; let each

believe as he likes; we will all be Christians; we will all agree. It contains one precept which we can all practice, 'Love one another;' this is enough."

"Now," said the Deist, "there can be no necessity of a Bible. Love one another,' is, it appears, all the necessary part of its contents; why print any more?"

"Why," said the Mahometan, "there is the great principle of Freemasonry. I have learned this in my lodge; the Koran teaches more than the Bible. Alas! how ignorant are those Christian dogs!"

"And, brother," said the Jew to the Pagan, "you know that in our lodge we teach that Pythagoras, and Hiram, and Solomon, knew this principle as well as any sublime master since the day of Noe or even of Adam. Of what use, then, is Christianity?"

To be serious: we must choose between an infallible guide to truth, who can speak and decide, or we must give up the cause of Christianity, of divine revelation; and though it is fashionable to profess to be a Christian, we unhesitatingly assert, that a vast portion of the more intelligent and enlightened of those who make this profession cannot see their way through the difficulties which surround them, any more than could the Jew, or the Pagan, or the Mahometan, or know what sect they should join in the contest; and the peaceful plea of distributing the Scripture, leaving to all the interpretation, is but, in other words, making a very rational compact not to fight about what they do not understand. But this sentence destroys the authority of revelation.

We want an infallible guide; the Bible is not and cannot be that guide; because, although it contains the words of truth, those words are susceptible of contradictory interpretations; and, in fact, are interpreted contradictorily.

I stated that we could leave unquestioned the fact that this Book, which is thus triumphantly appealed to, was the communication of God's will to man. But why should we 2ssume or admit this fact without evidence; and, if we have no infallible witness to testify this to testify this to be such a

divine communication, how shall we have this evidence? Several of those divisions above enumerated contend that this Book differs in several places from the original which is supposed to have been given. Several assert that it contains books never given by God. Several contend that it is quite defective. What authority have we to side with one in preference to the other unless we have some argument superior to those which they adduce? They adduce opinion. We want fact; and fact which will be fully, indisputably established by infallible authority; because, if our authority be fallible, we might be led into error; and, if we are liable to be led into error, we have no certainty that we are not so led.

This view of the want of foundation for Christianity leaves it as baseless as any chimerical vision of fancy. This view has produced, and still produces, more infidelity than any other cause that I know of. I avow, that if I had nothing more substantial than opinion to rest upon, I would not be a Christian.

What, then, is my view?

I find an unquestioned fact; and upon that fact I

build.

The fact is, that there now exists in the world one very large society of Christians, spread through all its nations and forming but one body. I build upon this fact, by a series of others, equally plain. 2. That body has now a uniform code of doctrine. 3. That body has existed during several centuries. 4. All the other divisions of Christians have gone out from this body, either by separating from it or by sub-dividing from some division which had previously separated. 5. These divisions all oppose each other upon the matter of doctrine, i. e. respecting the fact of what God told man to believe and to practice. 6. Though they all agree in asserting that the great body from which the separation has been made did err in faith, no two of them are agreed as to what those errors precisely are, though many of them concur in stating that the doc