us that honor to what belonged to another, because it belonged to him, is a pious and affecting mode of honoring him. Hence the universality of funeral ceremonies, the marks of respect which all men show to the relics of their deceased friends, especially to the remains of those held to be deserving of honor for their rank, their virtues, their services, their heroic deeds; and surely none are more deserving of honor than the saints of God."

"Your feasts, fasts, and external observances are all superstitious."

"How do you prove that?"

"They are all external and mechanical; and to expect spiritual effects from them is to look for effects from inadequate causes."

"The law of nature commands us to worship God externally as well as internally, and an external worship must needs be external. The fact, that what you object to is external, is, therefore, no ground of objection. Feasts or festivals are merely days set apart for public thanksgiving to God for his mercies and favors to us, in becoming man for us, in suffering and dying for us, in rising again for us, in sending us the Holy Ghost, in raising up and giving to us such or such a saint, &c. If kept according to the intent of the church, internal as well as external thanks are rendered by each worshipper, and therefore the observance of the festival is not and cannot be mechanical. The law of nature commands the giving of thanks to God; and perhaps even the mere external observance of appointed seasons for public thanksgiving is better than no observance at all. Fasts are for the mortification of the body; they are admirably adapted to that end; and the light of nature teaches us that the mortification of the body is wholesome for the soul. Moreover, to fast, as required, is also to fast with proper interior dispositions. You cannot, then, say, either that in them there is only a mechanical action, or that we look for effects from inadequate causes."

"But the idle ceremonies and vain observances of your public worship are superstitious."

"If idle and vain, superstitious of course; but how do you know that they are idle and vain? Our public worship. consists of the holy sacrifice of the Mass, prayers, and singing the praises of God. These you have no right to pronounce idle or vain. Our sacrifice we hold to be a real sacrifice, in an unbloody manner, of a real victim; and prayers

and the singing of praises have, by the common consent of mankind, the authority for determining what is the law of nature, always been held to be appropriate parts of public worship. Much of what you call idle ceremony and vain observance is integral in the worship itself; and what is not absolutely essential is adopted for the sake of decency, solemnity, and the edification of the faithful."

"I am not edified by it."

"Because you are not one of the faithful, and do not worship. Satan, no doubt, could himself bring the objection to our worship which you do. Our worship is adapted to the edification of those who worship, not of those who do not."

"But your worship is calculated to lead the weak and ignorant into idolatry and superstition."

"It will be time to consider that objection when you have shown that a Catholic, by practising what the church enjoins or permits, is rendered superstitious."

"Your worship is exceedingly offensive."

"To whom? To Protestants? Then let them become Catholics, especially since they have no warrant from Almighty God to be any thing else."

"Your church is exceedingly impolitic. The practices to which we object may have been very well in dark and superstitious ages; but men in this enlightened and scientific age demand a more pure and spiritual worship."

"The policy you would recommend to the church, then, is, to be superstitious with the superstitious, and irreligious with the irreligious? If her practices could have a superstitious tendency, it is precisely in a dark and superstitious age in which they would be dangerous, and when it would be least proper to insist on them. If this age be what you suppose, it is precisely now that they are most appropriate, as being in opposition to dominant tendencies. But the church is not reduced to the necessity of taking the advice of those who despise her, and very possibly the age is not so enlightened as it appears to those whose eyes are accustomed only to the twilight. Have you any thing more to add?" "There is no use in continuing the discussion. Let me say what I will, you will dispose of it by declaring it irrelevant, or by a sophistical distinction."

"Do you keep your word, and give up the reformers and the reformation?"

"You have not made me a Romanist."

"I have not attempted to do that; I have simply demanded of you a reason why you are a Protestant."

"I have given you reasons which satisfy me, and that is enough. Each of us must answer for himself, and not for another."

"You pledged yourself, if you failed to convict the church of idolatry and superstition, to give up the Protestant cause. Do you regard yourself as having made out your case?" "There is no use in multiplying words. My mind is made up."

"You have no right to make up your mind without reason."

"My choice is made. I was born a Protestant; I have lived a Protestant; and I will die a Protestant."

"If you choose death, you, no doubt, can have it. Almighty God forces no man to enter into life."

"I take the responsibility; and nothing shall move me.” Here the conversation ended, and the two brothers separated. John entered a religious house, where he resides, devoting himself wholly to religion; James remains the minister of his congregation. He has recently married again, and he appears to have forgotten his domestic afflictions. He continues at the head of the "Protestant League," is louder than ever in praise of the reformers and the glorious reformation, and more violent than ever in his denunciations. of Catholics and Catholicity. Humanly speaking, there is no hope of his conversion. It is to be feared that James. Milwood is the type of a large class of Protestant ministers. I would judge no individual, but it seems to me that the notion many people have that Protestants are generally in good faith, and ready to embrace the truth, if presented to them, rests on no adequate authority. So far as I have known Protestants, they are ready to say, as said a Protestant minister to me the other day, "I would rather be damned than be a Catholic."

PROFESSOR PARK AGAINST CATHOLICITY.*

[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for October, 1845.]

THE periodical here introduced to our readers is a quarterly review, somewhat larger than our own, published at Andover, Massachusetts, and "edited by B. B. Edwards and Edwards A. Park, Professors in Andover Theological Seminary, with the special co-operation of Dr. Robinson and Professor Stuart." It is the most elaborate, erudite, and authoritative organ of the Puritan or Calvinistic denomination of Protestants we are acquainted with, though it wants the lively and interesting character of The New Englander, another organ of the same denomination, which is published at New Haven, in Connecticut. It is able, but, upon the whole, rather heavy. It appears to be made up, in great part, from translations, learning, and ideas from the modern rationalists, supernaturalists, and evangelicals of Germany, and its pages bear very unequivocal evidence that its contributors have made considerable proficiency in "High Dutch."

But our present concern is not with the journal, but with the third article in the number before us, on the Intellectual and Moral Influence of Romanism,-a Dudleian Lecture, delivered before the University of Cambridge, last May, by Professor Edwards A. Park, of Andover Theological Seminary, and one of the editors of the Review itself. We have heard Professor Park spoken of as a profound thinker, an able reasoner, and an eminent scholar, and been assured that he holds a high rank among his brother professors. His Lecture has evidently been elaborated with great care, and, considering the importance of the question it discusses, and the distinguished body before whom it was prepared to be delivered, we may reasonably presume it to be a fair specimen of what he is able to accomplish. He has done here, probably, the best he could. If so, we cannot help thinking that it requires no extraordinary abilities or attainments to be a distinguished professor in Andover Theological Seminary ; for

*Bibliotheca Sacra and Theological Review, No. VII., Andover. August, 1845.

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the Lecture, though it makes some pretensions to a philosophical appreciation of principles and tendencies, is characterized by no remarkable depth or acuteness of thought, force or justness of reasoning, extent, variety, or accuracy of scholarship, novelty of view, originality of illustration, clearness of method, precision, strength, or beauty of expression. From a commonplace lecturer against "Popery " it would be respectable; but we are not able to discover in it any thing to indicate the distinguished professor, or that in the seminary in which its author can be a distinguished professor there prevails any but a low tone of thought and feeling.

In a community accustomed to close, vigorous, and just reasoning, accustomed to demand a reason before believing, and not to believe without a tolerable reason for believing, and in which the real principles and history of Catholicity were passably known, this Lecture could only excite a smile at the author's simplicity or temerity, and would deserve and receive no answer. But, unhappily, ours is not such a community. Our enlightened community has a remarkable facility in disbelieving against reason, and in believing without reason. It will believe any thing against Catholicity, on the bare assertion of an individual whose oath, in a case involving property to the amount of five dollars, it would not take, and not believe any thing in its favor, though sustained by evidence the most conclusive. Consequently, we have heard this Lecture, in which there is nothing from beginning to end but bare assertion, unsustained by the least fact or argument, highly commended, as a masterpiece of philosophical investigation and of logical argument, a triumphant refutation of the claims of the Catholic Church; and one of our editors, a most malignant enemy of Catholicity, goes so far as even to intimate in one of his papers, that, if its reasoning should be fairly met and refuted, he would almost or quite turn "Romanist " himself. We hope, however, in this the editor is joking; for we should be sorry to gain a convert on such easy terms, fearing he would hardly be worth having, and that he would be one in whom the word would soon wither away. Nevertheless, this indicates the state of our community, and shows, that, however intrinsically undeserving a serious reply the Lecture may be, it yet, under existing circumstances, requires to be refuted, so far as what is without principle can be refuted.

The design of the Lecture, as the author himself tells us