LETTER XVII.-FROM JAMES BROWN, ESQ. OBJECTIONS TO THE CLAIM OF EXCLUSIVE Reverend siR I AM too much taken up myself with the present subject of your letters, willingly to interrupt the continuation of them: but some of the gentlemen who frequent New Cottage, having communicated your three last to a learned dignitary, who is upon a visit in our neighborhood, and he having made certain remarks upon them, I have been solicited by those gentlemen to forward them to you. The terms of our correspondence render an apology from me unnecessary, and still more the conviction that I believe you entertain of my being, with sincere respect and regard, Rev. sir, &c. JAMES BROWN. Prebendary of It is well known to many Roman Catholic gentlemen, with whom I have lived in habits of social intercourse, that I was always a warm advocate for their emancipation, and, that so far from having any objections to their religion, I considered their hopes of future bliss as well founded as my own. In return, I thought I saw in them a corresponding liberality and charity. But these letters which you have sent me from the correspondent, of your society at Winchester, have quite disgusted me with their bigotry and uncharitableness. In opposition to the Chrysostoms and Augustins, whom he quotes so copiously, for his doctrine of exclusive salvation, I will place a modern bishop of my church, no way inferior to them, Dr. Watson, who says: "Shall we never be freed from the narrow-minded contentions of bigots, and from the insults of men who know not what spirit they are of, when they stint the Omnipotent in the exercise of his mercy, and bar the doors of heaven against every sect but their own? Shall we never learn to think more humbly of ourselves and less despicably of others; to believe that the Father of the universe accommodates not his judgments to the wretched wranglings of pedantic theologues; but that every one, who, with an honest intention, and to the best of his abilities, seeketh truth, whether he findeth it or not, and worketh righteousness, will be accepted by him?"* These, * Bishop Watson's Theolog. Tracts, Pref. p. 17. sir, are exactly my sentiments, as they were those of the illustrious Hoadley, in his celebrated sermon, which had the effect of stifling most of the remaining bigotry in the Established Church. There is not any prayer which I more frequently or fervently repeat, than that of the liberal-minded poet, who himself passed for a Roman Catholic; particularly the following * stanza of it: "Let not this weak and erring hand Presume thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land I hope your society will require its popish correspondent, before he writes any more letters to it on other subjects, to answer what our prelate and his own poet have advanced against the bigotry and uncharitableness of excluding Christians, of any denomination, from the mercies of God and everlasting happiness. He may assign whatever marks he pleases of the true church, but I, for my part, shall ever consider charity as the only sure mark of this, conformably with what Christ says: "By this shall all know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." John, xiii. 35. LETTER XVIII.-TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., &c. DEAR SIR OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. In answer to the objections of the reverend prebendary to my letters on the mark of unity in the true church, and the necessity of being incorporated in this church, I must observe, in the first place, that nothing disgusts a reasoning divine more than vague charges of bigotry and intolerance; inasmuch as they have no distinct meaning, and are equally applied to all sects and individuals, by others, whose religious opinions are more lax than their own. These odious accusations which your churchmen bring against Catholics, the dissenters bring against you who are equally loaded with them by the Deists, as these are, in their turn, by the Atheists and Materialists. Let us, *Bishop Hoadley's Sermons on the kingdom of Christ. This made the choice of religion a thing indifferent, and subjected the whole business of religion to the civil power. Hence sprung the famous Bangorian controver sy, which was on the point of ending in a censure upon Hoadley from the Convocation, when the latter was interdicted by ministry, and has never since, in the course of a hundred years, been allowed to meet again. + Pope's Universal Prayer. then, dear sir, in the serious discussions of religion, confine our、 selves to language of a defined meaning, leaving vague and tinsel terms to poets and novelists. It seems, then, that Bishop Watson, with the Rev. N. N., and other fashionable latitudinarians of the day, are indignant at the idea of "stinting the Omnipotent in the exercise of his mercy, and barring the doors of heaven against any sect," however heterodox or impious. Nevertheless, in the very passage which I have quoted, they themselves stint this mercy to those who "work righteousness," which implies a restraint on men's passions. Methinks I now hear some epicure Dives or elegant libertine, retorting on these liberal, charitable divines, in their own words: "Pedantic Theologues, narrow-minded bigots, who stint the Omnipotent in the exercise of his mercy, and bar the doors of heaven against me, for following the impulse which he himself has planted in me!" The same language might, with equal justice, be put into the mouth of Nero, Judas Iscariot, and of the very demons themselves. Thus, in pretending to magnify God's mercy, these men would annihilate his justice, his sanctity, and his veracity! Our business then is, not to form arbitrary theories concerning the Divine attributes, but to attend to what God himself has revealed concerning them and the exercise of them. What words can be more express than those of Christ on this point: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned!" Mark, xvi. 16: or than those of St. Paul: "Without faith it is impossible to please God," Heb. xi. 6. Conformably with this doctrine, the same apostle classes heresies with murder and adultery; concerning which he says: they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God, Gal. v. 20, 21. Accordingly, he orders that a man who is a heretic, shall be rejected, Tit. iii. 10; and the apostle of charity, St. John, forbids the faithful to receive him into their houses; or even to bid him God-speed, who bringeth not this doctrine of Christ, 2 John, i. 10. This apostle acted up to his rule, with respect to the treatment of persons out of the church, when he hastily withdrew from a public building, in which he met the heretic Cerinthus, "lest,' as he said, "it should fall down upon him."* I have given, in a former letter, some of the numberless passages, in which the holy fathers speak home to the present point; and, as these are far more expressive and emphatical than what I myself have said upon it, I presume they have chiefly contributed to excite the bile of the reverend prebendary. *S. Iren. 1. iii. Euseb. Hist. 1. iii. However he may slight these venerable authorities, yet as I am sure that you, sir, reverence them, I will, on account of their peculiar appositeness to the point in question, add two more similar quotations from the great doctor of the fifth century, St. Augustin. He says: "All the assemblies, or rather divisions, who call themselves churches of Christ, but which, in fact, have separated themselves from the congregation of unity, do not belong to the true church. They might indeed belong to her, if the Holy Ghost could be divided against himself; but as this is impossible, they do not belong to her."* In like manner, addressing himself to certain sectaries of his time, he says: "If our communion is the church of Christ, yours is not so: for the church of Christ is one, whichsoever she is; since it is said of her: My dove, my undefiled is one; she is the only one of her mother." Cantic. vi. 9. But setting aside Scripture and tradition, let us consider this matter, as Bishop Watson and his associates affect to consider it, on the side of natural reason alone. These modern philosophers think it absurd to suppose, that the Creator of the universe concerns himself about what we poor mortals do or do not believe; or, as the bishop expresses himself, that he "accommo dates his judgments to the wrangling of pedantic theologues." With equal plausibility, certain ancient philosophers have represented it as unworthy the Supreme Being to busy himself about the actions of such reptiles as we are in his sight; and thus have opened a door to an unrestrained violation of his eternal and immutable laws! In opposition to both these schools, I maintain as the clear dictates of reason; that, as God is the author, so he is necessarily the supreme Lord and Master of all beings, with their several powers and attributes, and therefore of those noble and distinguishing faculties of the human soul, reason and free-will;-that he cannot divest himself of this supreme dominion, or render any being or any faculty independent of himself or of his high laws, any more than he can cease to be God;-that of course, he does, and must, require our reason to believe in his divine revelations, no less than our will to submit to his supreme commands ;-that he is just, no less than he is merciful;-and therefore that due atonement must be made to him for every act of disobedience to him, whether by disbelieving what he has said, or by disobeying what he has ordered. I advance a step further, in opposition to the Hoadley and Watson school, by asserting, as a self-evident truth: that, there being a more deliberate and formal opposition to the Most High, in saying, I will not believe what thou hast revealed, than * De. Verb. Dom. Serm. ii. in saying, I will not practise what thou hast commanded; so, cateris paribus, WILFUL infidelity and heresy involve greater guilt than moral frailty. You will observe, dear sir, that in the preceding passage I have marked the word wilful, because Catholic divines and the holy fathers, at the same time that they strictly insist on the necessity of adhering to the doctrine and communion of the Catholic Church, make an express exception in favor of what is termed invincible ignorance; which occurs, when persons out of the true church are sincerely and firmly resolved, in spite of all worldly allurements on one hand, and of all opposition on the other, to enter into it, if they can find it out, and when they use their best endeavors for this purpose. This exception in favor of the invincibly ignorant is made by the same St. Augustin, who so strictly insists on the general rule above quoted. His words are these: "The apostle has told us, to reject a man that is a heretic; but those who defend a false opinion, without pertinacious obstinacy, especially if they have not themselves. invented it, but have derived it from their parents, and who seek the truth, with anxious solicitude, being sincerely disposed to renounce their error, as soon as they discover it, such persons are not to be deemed heretics."* Our great controvertist, Bellarmine, asserts that such Christians, "in virtue of the disposition of their hearts, belong to the Catholic Church."+ Who the individuals, exteriorly of other communions, but, by the sincerity of their dispositions, belonging to the Catholic Church, who, and in what numbers they are, it is for the Searcher of hearts, our future judge, alone to determine. Far be it from me and from every other Catholic "to deal damnation" on any person in particular!-still thus much, on the grounds already stated, I am bound, not only in truth, but also in charity, to say and to proclaim, that nothing short of this sincere disposition, and the actual use of such means as providence respectively affords those who are ignorant of the true church for discovering it, can secure their salvation:—to say nothing of the Catholic sacraments and other helps for this purpose, of which such persons are unavoidably deprived. I just mentioned the virtue of charity and I must here add, that on no one point are latitudinarians and genuine Catholics more at variance than upon this. The former consider themselves charitable in proportion as they pretend to open the gate of heaven to a greater number of religionists of various descriptions; but, unfortunately, they are not possessed of the keys of that gate; and when they fancy they have opened the gate as * Epist. ad Episc. Donat. + Controv. Tom. ii. lib. iii. c. 6. |