“ If the Scriptures alone are the rule, this appeal to the Reformers is, if admissible, unnecessary ; if it is necessary, and you cannot say that you rightly understand the Scriptures till you have brought your understanding of them to the test of the Reformers, you cannot say the Scriptures alone are sufficient, or are alone your rule of faith. You then make the Reformers, not the Scriptures, the test of the word.”'

" I do not make the Reformers the test of the word. I love, honor, and revere the Reformers as great and good men, raised up by God in his providence to deliver his people from the bondage of Rome, to arrest the tide of Papal corruptions, roll back the darkness which was gathering over the world, restore the preaching of the word, and save the Christian religion from utter banishment from the face of the earth; but they were men, subject to the common frailties of our nature, and I follow them only so far as they follow Christ, who bids me call no man father upon earth, for one is my Master in heaven.”

" In order to ascertain when and where the Reformers follow Christ, you bring the Reformers to the test of the Scriptures ? »

Precisely. I am to obey God rather than men.” “ So you subject your understanding of the Scriptures to the test of the Reformers, and the Reformers to the test of your understanding of the Scriptures. If you agree with ihem, you are right; if they agree with you, they are right. Thus you prove your understanding by theirs, and theirs by

" I do no such thing. The Bible is the religion of Protestants, the Bible alone, and I am not obliged to consult the Reformers in order to ascertain what is clearly and manifestly revealed.”

“ Then you have nothing to do with the Reformers, and may at once dismiss them to their own place.”

“ That is, you would say the Reformers, those great and godly men, are gone to hell ? "

"If that is their own place, not otherwise.”

“ This is too bad. You know I love, honor, and revere the Reformers, and it is no more than what you owe as a gentleman, not to say a Christian, while conversing with me, to treat them and my own feelings with some little respect.”

“Very well said, my most courteous and gentlemanly brother. Happy is he who practises as well as preaches.

yours!”

You know I love and revere the Holy Catholic Church, the Immaculate Spouse of the Lamb, and the joyful Mother of all the faithful ; and yet you have not hesitated to call her the · Mystery of Iniquity,'" Antichrist, the Whore of Babylon,'

' a cage of unclean birds,' &c. Where was your regard for my feelings ? And what right have you to complain, if there be meted to you the measure you mete? But you will not receive such measure from Catholics, for they have studied in the school of Christ, and learned, when reviled, not to revile again. I said nothing against the Reformers, offered no opinion as to their final doom. It is not mine to judge them. But if they, Judas-like, betrayed their Master, rebelled against the Church of God, and resused to obey the pastors the Holy Ghost had set over them, and died unrepentant, I need not tell you what is and must be their doom, or that of all who

partake in their evil deeds, if they die unreconciled to God. It is no pleasant thought, but you called it up, not I.”

" So Catholics send all Protestants to hell !"

“ All good Catholics do all in their power to prevent their Protestant friends and neighbours from sending themselves there. But suppose we waive questions of this sort for the

. present. We shall be better able to discuss them after we have determined what Protestantism is, and when inquiring whether it is true or false, from heaven or from hell, — is a safe way of salvation, or only the way that leadeth to perdition. It is no idle question, my brother, we are discussing. It involves eternal consequences.

If Protestantism be not of God, if it be not that one, true, holy religion which he revealed from the beginning, which he has commanded to be taught to all nations, and which he has promised to be with, to protect, and to bless all days unto the consummation of the world, I need not tell you what must inevitably be your doom, if living and dying where and as you are, or what you have but too much reason to fear is the doom of those you have nursed in your bosom, so tenderly loved, and for whom your tears are still flowing.”

" Are you a priest? You talk like one.”
“ Perhaps nearly as much of one as yourself.”

" Singular ! I never thought of that before. Upon my word, I believe you are a Romish priest, perhaps even a Jesuit.”

“ If either, you must believe me able to keep my own counsel. It is enough at present for you to see in me plain

Jack Milwood, your elder brother, who, may be, knows a great deal more about you than you do about him.” “ I wish, John, you would give me the history of your

life since you left home. It must be full of interest, and I should really like to bear it."

“Rather than exert all your wit and skill in defining Protestantism? But when we have disposed of Protestantism, perhaps, – but at present we must return to the question."

6. No, no, I insist on the life and adventures of John Milwood, eldest son of the late Jeremiah Milwood

“ And brother of the distinguished James Milwood, the Reyerend pastor of —, and chief of the Protestant

League for the conversion of the Pope and the suppression of Popery, and who, when questioned, could not tell what he meant by Protestantism. No, no, brother, let us finish our definition of Protestantism first."

“ I have given you definitions enough and more than enough already, and you ought to be able to suit yourself with some one of them.”

" But it is not what suits me, but what suits you. Which of these numerous definitions do you finally settle down up

on ? »

“ Protestantism is what and only what is clearly and manifestly revealed.”

“ And what is that? Is it what you teach or what Mr. Silvertone teaches ? »

" Mr. Silvertone is a Socinian.”

" What then? Does he not believe all that is clearly and manifestly revealed ?"

“No, he does not."

“ He says he does ; and why am I to believe you rather than him?

" Read and decide for yourself.”

" Then the word is what is clearly and manifestly revealed to me ; but why what is clearly and manifestly revealed to me rather than to you, or to you rather than to Mr. Silvertone ? "

“ Mr. Silvertone, I tell you, is a Socinian, and denies what have always and everywhere been held to be the great fundamental doctrines of the Gospel.”

“ If you say that, you appeal to Catholic tradition. Is your rule of faith incomplete without Catholic tradition ? But if you allege Catholic tradition against Mr. Silvertone, he alleges it against you ; for the same tradition that condemns bim con

a

demns you.

You cannot say he errs because he teaches what is repugnant to Catholic tradition, without condemning yourself and all Protestants."

" But the points on which he is condemned are fundamental points ; those on which we are condemned, if we are condemned, are not fundamental.”

“ You forget Toby and his dog."
“No more of Toby and his dog."

“Honestly, brother, have so-called Protestants ever been able to agree as to what is clearly and manifestly revealed ? "

“ In truth, they have not.”
" And are as far from agreeing as ever ? ”
" Apparently so.”

" Then, in point of fact, they have never been able to agree among themselves as to what Protestantism really is ?"

" Such, it must be owned, is the fact."

“ The great reason, then, why you have found it so difficult to tell me what it is, is that what it is has never yet been determined ?"

“ Possibly.”

". Since I would rather relieve than aggravate your embarrassment, allow me to suggest that you define Protestantism to be what all who assert the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and maintain them to be the sole and sufficient rule of faith and practice, agree to accept as clearly and manifestly revealed. This would make agreement the test of clear and manifest, and then you can say the word is that which is clearly and manifestly revealed, and which nobody disputes, which never has been disputed, and is not likely to be disputed.”

“ There is, undoubtedly, a tendency among those commonly regarded as orthodox Protestants to say this, and several distinguished actors in the recent movement against Rome have proposed that we should say this and make it the basis of our alliance. It has, I own, some plausibility, and one would naturally say what is disputed cannot, while what is not disputed must, be clear and manifest. But though I am far from being a bigot, and would encourage the largest liberty compatible with essentially religious faith, I cannot accept your suggestion. It is the Socinian ground, and would place all sects who profess to be Christians on the same level. The Unitarian, who denies the Holy Trinity and Incarnation, would be as orthodox as he who believes them ; and the Universalist, who denies future rewards and punishments, would be as sound

a

in the faith as they who believe the righteous will enter into life eternal, but the wicked will go away into everlasting punishment. Nor is this all. Nor is this all. I am unable to find any distinctively Christian doctrines which all, who would in such a case be rallied under the Protestant banner, really agree in accepting; for I am not aware of a single one which some professed Protestant has not controverted. So, were we to adopt the suggestion, there would be no revealed truth which would not be abandoned as non-essential, and nothing above mere natural religion to be held to be essential."

So the various Protestant sects, taken altogether, have denied the whole Gospel, and left nothing but mere natural religion undisputed."

"Not even that, in fact, for German and American Transcendentalists question essential portions of even natural religion."

"It is a hard case, brother, and I do not see that I can help you."

ART. II. The Fourfold Difficulty of Anglicanism, or the Church of England tested by the Nicene Creed, in a Series of Letters. By J. SPENCER NORTHCOTE. Philadelphia M'Grath. 1846. 18mo. pp. 213.

THIS is an American reprint of a recent work by one of the distinguished converts from Anglicanism, and is one of the most interesting and valuable popular works on the Anglican controversy with which we are acquainted. Its tone is earnest and sincere, gentle and strong. It is written in a clear, chaste, and eloquent style, out from the very heart and soul of the author, with a deep sense of the magnitude of the question it discusses, and of the perilous state of those who remain attached to an heretical communion, reject the Church of God, and daily crucify their Lord anew. It gives one a favorable impression of the talents, learning, and Catholic spirit of its author, and, indeed, of the men, in general, who have recently had the happiness of being received from Anglicanism into the Holy Catholic Church. It does ample justice to its subject, and, where dispassionately and candidly read, cannot fail to be regarded as a sufficient refutation of the pretensions