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Show Cbe two Brothers. JtKRSon i i Controversial Dialogue Between a Presbyterian and His ! Catholic Brother, Leading Up to Former's Conversion. ! i I Cornered by his Catholic brother, who asks him to name what part or division of the Presbyterian faith is without error in its definition of truth. th clergyman replies: "Individual members and particular churches may err, but God always preserves some individuals in-dividuals who do not err, who are witnesses wit-nesses for him in the darkest and worst of times. Consequently the whole I church never falls into error." John Mil.vood, Catholic, begins the discussion discus-sion this week. Editor Internlountain Catholic XIX. "But your Confession declares the visible Catholic church to be a kingdom. king-dom. Jesus Christ, it says, 'hath erected erect-ed in this world a kingdom, which is his church.' Now, to a kingdom it is ess-ntial that there be a supreme au- thoWtV. Thpva muv- irAvin,.!.,: 1 communal governments with local authority, au-thority, customs and usages, but they must all be subordinated to one supreme su-preme central authority, or else you have not one kingdjm. but as many separate kingdoms as you have separate sep-arate local governments. The kingdom erected by our Lord is one, not many, and therefore must have somewhere, somehow constituted. v a supreme central cen-tral authority, from which all the sub-oidinate sub-oidinate authorities derive their authority, au-thority, and to which they are respon- j sible. This supreme central authority is. in the case of the church, the church teaching and governing, and is what is specially meant by the church, when speaking of its fallibility or infallibility. infallibil-ity. Now, my question is, whether the church herself, that is, - the supreme central authority from whom all the particular and local authorities are de- rived, is subject to error, or by grace rendered infallible?" "I know no such authority as you speak of but that of Jesus Christ himself, him-self, who is the head and husband of the faithful, and he of course cannot err." "You admit that the church is a kingdom?" "Yes." "And a kingdom erected in this world?" t "I do." "And that where there is no supreme central authority there is no kingdom?" king-dom?" "There much be such authority, but it may be in Jesus Christ, who is the invisible head of the church." "It is the authority that constitutes trie Kingdom, not tne Kingumu me authority, au-thority, for prior to the authority, tho kingdom is not. The authority and kingdom must be in the same order. If, then, the kingdom is in the visible order, the authority which makes it a visible kingdom must be in, the visible visi-ble order, and therefore itself be visible. visi-ble. You could not call Great Britain or France a visible kingdom, -if one or the other had no visible supreme authority. The most you could say-would say-would be, that there is an invisible kingdom. So of the church. If it is a visible kingdom, it must have a supreme su-preme visible authority: if not, it is not a visible, but an invisible kingdom. The individuals might be visible as individuals, in-dividuals, but not as members of the church, or subjects of the invisible authority. au-thority. In such case, the distinction your Confession makes, and which you contend for. between the visible church and the invisible, would be a distinction without a difference. When, therefore, you tell me. as you do in your Confession, Confes-sion, that the visible church is a kingdom king-dom in this world, you necessarily tell me that it has in this world a supreme visible central authority. And in point of fact, Presbyterians themselves do. recognize such authority; for they regard re-gard their church as a polity, and it has its constitution, its officers. Its supreme su-preme legislature and supreme judicatory. judi-catory. If not, what means the general assembly, which 'represents in one body' all the particular churches of the Presbyterian denomination, and to which belongs 'the power of deciding in all controversies respecting doctrine and discipline; of reproving, warning, of bearing testimony against error in doctrine, or immorality in practice, in any church, presbytery or synod: of erecting new synods when it shall be judged necessary, of superintending the concerns of the whole church: . of suppressing schismatical contentions and disputations," etc., and to which every candidate for ordination must promise obedience and subjection? "There is a supreme visible government govern-ment of the church, under God, I ad- m,i'Under God; and whoever dreamed tVio church of a supreme guei uuurm - over God?" "The Papists." "Nonsense! Do you not know that Catholics hold Jesus Christ to be the supreme invisible head of the church and that they call the pope his vicar? If the pope is the vicar of Jesus Christ, how can he be above him? God is su-rreme su-rreme the sovereign of sovereigns, and there is no power not from him and subject to him. So no more of this nonSe. But you hold the church to be a kingdom or polity, do you not . " A.nd as such it has its government, its supreme authority for, if not, it Is no kingdom or polity." "Be it so." "Now, what I ask is, does this supreme su-preme authority, such as it is in the Presbyterian church, claim to be infallible infal-lible i.i all that concerns faith and morals?" "It does not." "Then vour r.lea of an adverse title amounts to nothing: the title you allege al-lege is not the negative of that claimed by the church. The title she claims is that of an infallible teacher of God's word, the title you set up is that of a fallible teacher, w hich you may well be, without prejudice to her claim; for you can claim to teach fallibly without with-out denying her claim to teach infallibly." infal-libly." "But were I to grant this, it would not follow that the claim ofVRome must be conceded." "Not from this fact alone: but as you have conceded that the title was issued, is-sued, and must vest somewhere, in seme one, it follows necessarily that it vests in the Roman Catholic Church, if in possession, you must concede it to her, unless you can produce and establish estab-lish an adverse title." "The Greek church has as good a title a the Romish." "That is not to the purpose. The Greek church has either a valid title, or none at all. It is not enough to say that she has as good a title as the Roman church; you must say that she has a perfect title, or say nothing." "I say, then, she has a perfect title." "Then she :s the church of God. Why, then, are you not in her communion?" com-munion?" i "That is neither here nor there. You I have no right to conclude anything to her prejudice from my practice. I may be inconsistent. What then?" "But she condemns you, and has solemnly sol-emnly anathematized every one of your doctrines, with a single exception, in which you depart from the teachings of the Roman church." "Be it so: what then? That may-pi may-pi eve that we Protestants are wrong, but not that she is wrong, or you right." "Moreover, she does not' claim to be the one holy Catholic church, and to have, the supreme central authority over the whole bodv of the faithful throughout the world. She does not pretend to unchurch the church :' Kerne, or even that the Roman church does or ever did owe subjection to h-r. b'he admits, even to this day. the Roman Ro-man Catholic church to be' truly the Church of Christ in what was originally the patriarchate of the west, that the pope is the legitimate patriarch or" the west, and rightfully exercises patriarchal patri-archal authority over that patriarchate. Sin- does not claim, and never has claimed for herself the title she denies to Rome. Sh. denies the supreme authority au-thority over tile whole church claimed and exercised by the pop.-. ii"t because she claims the supremacy for herself, but because sh- denies that any such supremacy was conferred on any one in the original constitution of Cue church. She is. then, no adverse claim-ant. claim-ant. and, in all essential respects, ex- cent this one. she concedes virtually, j ii not expressly, the title claimed by i Rome, at least so far as it is now in j I question. So you cannot get an ad- ' 'xutiiu ill uu- cji cck i iiurni. ! I:;deed, when you have once conceded that our Lord founded such a church as the Roman claims to be. you must con- j code that the Roman is that chuivn. for there is no other that even claims to be "That is hardly true. The Anglican church claims to be it." '"Tin; Angeiican church, as well as I your own. puts ou lofty airs, and she now and then tells us gravely that she is Catholic not Roman, but Catholic and lets off her double battery of pop-I pop-I guns on the "one hand against Rome, and the other against Presbyterians, iRaptists. Congrega tionalists, Methodists, Metho-dists, etc.; but she has not courage enough to claim to be the Catholic church in its unity and integrity. She claims, at most, to be only a branch of it, which implies that the root and trunk are elsewhere: and she does not even pretend that the sup.-eine visible central authority she obeys or exercises is the supreme visible authority of the whole church of Christ. Moreover, she confesses that she is fallible, that she has heretofore erred grievously in doctrine doc-trine and manners, and may err again. Her claim, therefore, is not the same as that of the Roman church, and her title is not, strictly speaking, an adverse ad-verse title. So you can succeed no better with her than with the Greek church, or than with your own." (To Be Continued.) |