persons, and in no case is any thing gained by indulging in personalities. Whether the writer is a great and distinguished man or not is not the point to be considered. If Mr. Derby uses as good arguments and brings as pertinent and forcible objections as Bramhall or Barrow, as Chillingworth or John Henry Hopkins, he is equally deserving of a refutation. We selected his book for refutation, not because it was the best or the worst that might have been selected; but because accident threw it in our way, and it could serve our purpose as well as another. Its author is welcome to all the distinction or importance he can derive from our dissection of his book. We fear neither a loss of our own dignity nor the imparting of an undiscovered dignity to him. We shall, however, take our leave of him with our present article.

In our previous articles on Mr. Derby's book we have disposed of his first ten Letters, which in reality cover the whole ground occupied by the author. His eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth chapters are taken up with further attempts to disprove the Papacy from the Scriptures and the Fathers, and to set aside the arguments usually adduced by Catholics in support of the Primacy of Peter. I do not perceive that he has added any thing of importance to what he had advanced in his previous Letters, and which have been already sufficiently answered. A few general remarks will close all we choose to say. Mr. Derby commits the grave mistake of supposing that he can conclude against the Papacy and the Primacy of Peter from the silence of the Scriptures and of particular Fathers. He proceeds on the assumption that the Scriptures are the charter of the Church, and that nothing can be affirmed of her that cannot be deduced by strict construction from the letter of the charter. He even gives his son to understand that in this both Catholics and Protestants agree; but this is a great mistake. Whether his assumption of the Bible as the charter of the Church be well-founded or not, he has no right in an argument against Catholics to make it, for they deny it, and he must, if he would conclude any thing against them, prove it, before undertaking to found an argument on it.

According to Catholic doctrine, the Bible, though the inspired and authoritative word of God, is not the charter oract of incorporation of the Church; for the Church existed

prior to the written word. It is historically certain that the Church existed with all her rights and powers before one line of the New Testament was written. It is evident, from the very face of the New Testament, that its books and epistles were written after the institution of the Church, and addressed to the Church as already existing. This much is undeniable. Catholics therefore deny that the Church was founded by the Scriptures, or that she is obliged to consult them as her act of incorporation. They hold that the Church was founded immediately by our Lord in person, that her charter is in the commission or authority which he gave to the Apostles, and which derives from his continued presence with her all days to the consummation of the world. The Church, in their view, is the body of Christ, as St. Augustine says, is Christ, and the body of believers in union with him are the whole Christ, totus Christus, as the soul and body united in their living union are the total man. The charter of the Church is in her internal constitution and life, as the living body of our Lord, and her rights and powers are in and from him living in her, and speaking and operating in and through her as his own body, or the visible continuation or representation on earth of the Incarnation. I say his own body; for the Church is not a foreign body, having relation with him only through the medium of an external commission, or, if Mr. Derby pleases, a written power of attorney. She is his spouse, flesh of his flesh and one with him, having her personality in his Divine person. She has no more need on her own account of appealing to the Bible to prove that she is God's Church than a man has of appealing to an external authority to prove to himself that he is a man, not an ox or a horse. The evidence is in her own intimate consciousness, for she is the living impersonation on earth of the Incarnate Word, and can no more mistake her rights and powers than he can mistake his.

The question at present is not whether this view of the Church be true or not, for it is no part of our present purpose to prove the truth of Catholicity. We are simply showing that Mr. Derby's reasons, addressed to his son to dissuade him from joining our Church, are not good reasons. It is sufficient for this purpose, that the view we have given is the Catholic view,-is the Catholic doctrine,

and therefore, in an argument against Catholics, a doctrine the Protestant must recognize as their doctrine, and as one which he must disprove before he can assume, even if he can then assume, that the Bible is the charter of the Church, and can have no rights or powers not deducible by strict construction from its letter. The consideration is of high importance, and intimately affects the principle of interpretation. On the Protestant hypothesis the Church is nothing, has no rights or powers not positively affirmed in the Scriptures; on the Catholic doctrine, she must be conceded to be and to possess all she claims, unless expressly, or by necessary implication, denied or forbidden in the written word.

On this point, Protestants fall, consciously or unconsciously, into a miserable sophism. The Catholic asserts, the Church has always asserted, the divine inspiration and authority of the written word, and with a distinctness and emphasis that no Protestant sect does or can. Therefore, says the Protestant, the Catholic does and must found the Church on the Bible. Not at all. If both the Church and the Bible are from God, there can, of course, be no discrepancy between them, as there can be none between revelation and reason; but it no more follows from this that the Bible is the foundation of the Church, than it does that reason is the basis of revelation. Revelation is made to reason and presupposes it; the written word is addressed or communicated to the Church, and presupposes her existence and constitution. If the Church did or could teach any thing contrary to the written word, her claims would, indeed, be refuted; not because the authority of the written word is greater than hers, but because she would thus be convicted of contradicting herself, since she herself declares the written word to be the word of

God, and therefore infallibly true. But on her principle nothing can be concluded against her from the silence of Scripture. So long as there is no positive contradiction in Scripture of her teaching, her claims stand good. By declaring the written word to be the word of God, she necessarily includes its teaching in hers, and if she teaches elsewhere any thing incompatible with what she teaches in it, she of course contradicts herself, and must be rejected; but no argument can be framed against her, from the fact

that she teaches things not in the written word, so long as these things are in harmony or capable of being harmonized with it; for it may well be that the whole doctrine of Christ is not contained in the Scriptures, that all was not written, and that even what was written, can be properly understood only through the light of the fuller, more explicit, and more complete revelation made primarily to the Church, without any written medium.

On Catholic principles, it is not necessary to prove from the Scriptures that our Lord conferred the Primacy on Peter and established the Papacy in his successors in the See of Rome. The uniform teaching and tradition of the Church suffices for that, in case the contrary cannot be shown from the written word. This rule applies to tradition universally. In no case are we required to prove the tradition from the Bible, and all we can be required to do is to show that the Bible does not contradict it, or necessarily exclude it. The same principle must be adopted in interpreting the texts of Scripture adduced in favor or against any particular doctrine or claim of the Church. The presumption, in law, Mr. Derby must be jurist enough to be aware, is on the side of the Church. Suppose a text is adduced, which may without violence to the letter be understood either against or in favor of the Church; in which sense must it be taken ? The Protestant assumes, against the Church, and that he has the right to assume that it is might not be wrong, if the Protestant rule that the Bible is the charter of the Church were once solidly established; but till then, it must be understood in favor of the Church. She has the right to claim as not against her every text which can without violence be explained in a manner compatible with her claims, and also as decidedly for her every text which can without violence be explained in her favor. Suppose that the Protestant succeeds in showing that one of our proof texts is susceptible of a sense which does not prove our doctrine; he does nothing to his purpose, if we are able at the same time to show that it is fairly susceptible of a meaning in favor of the Church. The presumption being on our side, and against the Protestant, determines the text in favor of the Catholic.

Mr. Derby goes into an examination of the texts usually cited by Catholics from the New Testament, to

prove that our Lord did confer the Primacy of order and jurisdiction on Peter, and shows, or thinks he shows, that they do not of themselves necessarily prove it. I am far from conceding that he succeeds in this; but even supposing he does, he has effected nothing, because he has done it only by virtue of his Protestant assumption, that nothing can be affirmed of the Church not positively affirmed in Scripture, and because there is no question that these same texts may easily and naturally be understood in the Catholic sense. He also alleges other passages, which he regards as contradicting the claims of the Church. But all of these may be explained easily and naturally in accordance with those claims, and therefore prove nothing against us, even supposing they could without violence be understood, as he professes to understand them. So in explaining the Fathers. Nothing can be alleged against us from a particular Father, that is susceptible of a sense compatible with Catholic doctrine, and every thing must be taken as for us that is susceptible of being explained in our favor.

I do not deny that this rule gives apparently the advantage to the Catholic, and denies that in the use of Scripture and tradition he and the Protestant stand on an equal footing. The reason is, because the Church is in possession, and the presumption is in her favor. Protestants and Catholics stand on equal footing only when they reason from a common principle; but they do not reason from a common principle when Mr. Derby assumes that the Church derives her authority from God through the medium of the written word, for the Catholic asserts that she derives it immediately from our Lord in person, who continues with her all days to the end of the world. Mr. Derby, as seeking to disprove the Church, can avail himself of no presumption against her, while she having from time immemorial asserted what she now asserts, and had her assertion admitted, has the right to every presumption, and to throw the onus probandi on every one who rises up to contradict her claims, and oust her from her possession. The Protestant can restore equality in interpreting the testimony of Scripture and tradition only either by positively disproving her existence and constitution in the sense she alleges, or by positively establishing his rule that the Church is founded