Prussia, and the United States, * to establish an order of Protestant "Sisters of Charity!" The attempt has, indeed, proved wholly abortive in England and Prussia; and I have no doubt that it will soon share, if it has not already shared, the same fate in our own country. The reason is obvious; such an institution is above the strength and ability of Protestantism; it requires for its maintenance an abstraction from the world, and a love of voluntary poverty, chastity, and obedience, which Protestantism has never had and never can have, so long as it wil continue to look upon and to sneer at those things as useless self-torture and repugnant to the gospel. No religious order can subsist without vows of certain things connected with that higher perfection counselled in the gospel, though not of obligation on all; Protestantism discards all such vows as a delusion and a snare; therefore Protestantism can never have Sisters of Charity. These ministering angels of mercy, who watch over the sick, who quail not before the breath of disease, who shelter the helpless orphan, who spend their whole lives in prayer to God and heroic devotedness to works of charity, are essentially and necessarily Catholic. In no other commu nion, would they or could they have the grace necessary to carry out their sublime purpose. Facts have fully confirmed this conclusion, based itself on first principles; and Protestantism must change those facts, and must adopt those first principles, which it now discards, ere it can hope to have Sisters of Charity.

From what I have thus far said, my dear brethren, it is apparent, that the Catholic Church alone is marked by the distinctive characteristic of Sanctity impressed by Christ on his Church; and therefore, by a necessary inference, that it alone can rightly claim to be the one, true, original Church of Christ.

THIS IS THE FIFTH EVIDENCE OF CATHOLICITY.

In my next Lecture, if you will favor me with your kind attention, I will endeavor to show you that the Catholic Church is also, and alone, stamped with the attribute of apostolical

* See a number of the New York Observer,-for January, 1846,or an account of this attempt.

antiquity; that she alone can trace back her lineage to the time when Christ first sent his apostles to preach the gospel; that she has not become decrepid with old age, but that she is as young, and blooming, and virgin now, as she was when first washed from all stain and blemish by the blood of her divine Founder and Spouse; and that there is no wrinkle on her brow, no trace of past sorrows on her countenance, nor any evidence of present decay.

May God, in his superabundant mercy and goodness, grant to us all the grace to approach this momentous subject with a due sense of the eternal interests which are involved in its consideration; and may he vouchsafe to bestow upon us the light to know, and the strength to embrace and confess that truth, for which his well beloved Son died on the Cross; through Jesus Christ, our Lord and only Redeemer. Amen.

LECTURE VII.

APOSTOLICAL ANTIQUITY.

THE SIXTH EVIDENCE OF CATHOLICITY.

Text from Jeremiah explained-Appropriateness of its warning to our own times-A divided Christianity—Its evils deplored-The remedy left by Christ-The mark of Apostolicity unfolded-And applied as a test of the true Church-The Greek and oriental churchesThe argument stated-A cavil-Antiquity of Protestantism-Theory of an invisible Church-Its manifold absurdities-Sleeping witnesses-Theory of a regular succession of dissenters from Rome examined-A heterogeneous ancestry-A striking coincidenceTheory founded on the assumption that Protestantism is the Religion of the bible-The illustration from washing the face-The age of Protestantism fully settled-Apostolical antiquity of Catholicity established by historical facts-The line of Roman pontiffs- The unbroken succession-Tertullian and St. Ireneus-Other ancient fathers-Objections answered-Macaulay's testimony-The allegation that the Catholic Church changed the original doctrine disproved-The dark ages-Specifications called for-Motto of the early Church-Mr. Hallam and the council of Trent-The origin of the Greek schism-Doctrines of the present Greek church-The promises of Christ-The conclusion-The sixth evidence of Catho licity.

"Thus saith the Lord: Stand ye on the ways, and see, and ask for th OLD PATHS, which is the good way, and walk ye in it; and you shall find refreshment for your souls." Jeremiah vi. 16.

ISRAEL had gone astray from the right path; the daughter of Sion, "like a beautiful and delicate woman," had listened to the soft accents of flattery and seduction, her heart had been puffed up with pride, and her conscience lulled into a fatal security by the false promises of those who should have warned

her of her dangerous condition;-"from the prophet even to the priest, all were guilty of deceit," * and they cried out to her, "peace, peace, and there was no peace;" +-distracted within, and menaced with utter destruction from without, she knew not, or heeded not the perils which encompassed her on all sides. She had left the Lord her God, had abandoned the old paths which he had marked out, had entered upon new ones of her own choosing, had listened in an evil hour to the voice of false prophets who ran, though God had not sent them; and she reflected not that she was herself fast hastening to her own ruin.

In this emergency, the plaintive prophet of God implored her, with tears in his eyes and burning eloquence on his lips, to pause in her downward career; to bethink herself, while it was yet time, of those venerable OLD PATHS, hallowed by the footsteps of patriarchs and prophets and holy men of old; and to re-enter upon them at once, that thus she might find refreshment to her soul, wearied out with following the crooked paths of novelty. This impressive exhortation was introduced by the solemn, "thus saith the Lord," which came ringing into her ears and sending a thrill to her very heart, like a voice from another world.

But yet, my dear brethren,—would you believe it,—this voice did not arouse her from her fatal security, nor break the spell of that false and dangerous vision of peace with which she was then fascinated! She continued as proud and wayward as ever, and she said: "I will not walk" in those old paths; ‡ "I will not hearken" to that cry of warning uttered by the faithful watchman appointed over me by God! It was only when the rod of divine chastisement was extended over her, and when her beautiful city was overspread with gloom and desolation, that she finally bethought herself of her errors, and resolved to return once more to the old path of duty and obedience, weeping bitterly that she should ever have abandoned it for her own seductive fancies.

The lesson conveyed by this interesting passage of the old scriptures is peculiarly appropriate to our own times. Now, as then, the venerable "old paths," pressed by the footsteps of our fathers in the faith, have been abandoned in favor of new ones of men's own devising: now, as then, men "turn away their hearing from the truth, and are turned to fables; according to their own desires heaping to themselves teachers, having itching ears:"* now, as then, we are fallen upon "dangerous times, when men are lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, stuffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God; having an appearance, indeed, of piety, but denying the power thereof, . . . always learning, and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth:"now, as then, men have abandoned the old paths of unity, and are become "like children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, in the wickedness of men, in craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive :” ‡ and now, as then, there are false prophets, sent by themselves and without any lawful mission from God, who cry out, "peace, peace, when there is no peace," and thus lull their deluded disciples into the sleep of a delusive and fatal security.

Under these saddening circumstances; when the one original Religion of Christ is rent into a hundred conflicting fragments; when Christian rises up against Christian in the name of Christ himself; when, in the midst of contradictory systems all claiming to be the genuine Religion of Christ, sincere inquirers are so often bewildered in their search after the one old truth; when Christianity,-alas, my brethren, that it should be so,has been made to become a complicated and most difficult problem, instead of a plain and matter-of-fact system, easily ascertainable by all; when the question,-which is the true Church of Christ,- —can be much more easily put than answered; when the Christian Religion, once so plain to even the dullest capacity, has become, in the view of many, like a labyrinth, amid

* II. Timothy iv. 3-4. † Ibid. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7. Epesians iv. 14.