not on our own individual notions or peculiar theories of government. We must accept the Church precisely as Christ organized it; not as our crude and earthly ideas of order and polity would have it to be. The Church, like the Religion of which it is the divinely constituted guardian, is based upon a fact,-Christ so established and so organized it;-and we are not at liberty to go beyond that fact in our investigations.

From what I have said, it follows that the Church is marked by precisely the same qualities as the Religion which it contains, as the casket does the precious jewel. Like that, it is essentially one; it is clearly defined in all its parts and principles; it is obligatory upon all; it may be easily ascertained by all. Whoever would possess the Religion of Christ, must find out the Church, must go to the Church, must be taught by the Church, and must hear and obey the Church. The Church is the living, and breathing, and speaking organ, by which, and by which alone, Christ holds communication with the world, and manifests his truth and his will to mankind. The Church is HIS BODY, of which he himself is the great HEAD. You cannot sever the head from the body, without depriving the latter of life; and you cannot sever the Church from Christ, its Head, because both are essentially full of life, and both are essentially and divinely united; and "whom God hath united, let not man put asunder." If you would, then, be a member of Christ, you must be a member of his body, the Church; he recognizes none other. All members severed from that body, are cut off from all communication with the Head, and are, therefore lifeless. "No one can have God for his Father who has not the Church for his Mother,”—is an adage as true as it is ancient.

Such, then, is the nature; such is plainly the office of the Church. And, as we value our eternal salvation, we are all bound to inquire diligently into this momentous question,which is the one true Church of Christ; and having ascertained which is that Church, we are all bound to enter it, and to hear its voice; to believe what it believes, to reject what it rejects, and to practice what it commands; to listen to its

St. Matthew xix.

teaching as to that of Christ himself, of whose truth and will it is the living and authoritive interpreter.

All this, my beloved brethren, I will endeavor, with the divine grace, to unfold more fully in the following Lectures, in which I will lay before you a number of facts and arguments tending to show which, among all the claimants to that high honor by which the religious world is now distracted, has really the best founded title to be considered the one, original, and only true Church of Christ. Whatever may be your own peculiar religious views or prejudices on the subject, I earnestly entreat your attention to the evidence which I will endeavor to spread before you. In the language of the inspired apostle, I beg you, to prove all things, but to hold that which is good.” * How great soever may be your feeling of opposition to the venerable Church of your forefathers, as well as of mine, you are bound, in common fairness and justice, to hear what she has to offer in her own defence. You have been taught to protest against her; you are surely bound to inquire seriously whether your protest be well grounded. If, after all the clamor that has been raised against this time-honored Church during the last three centuries, it should still turn out, that she is now and always has been, the one true Church of Christ, what answer would you make at the bar of Christ, when he will ask you in judgment for the reason of your protest against her authority, and of your refusal to hear and obey her voice? You should look to this while it is yet time. Time is short; eternity is long. We will be judged, not by the errors and prejudices of our early education, but by the unvarying standard of eternal truth; and our doom once pronounced by the lips of Christ will be irrevocable, eternal. "What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" +

May Almighty God, "who wills that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth," grant us his heavenly light and guidance, that we may all learn the truth, embrace it, no matter at what sacrifice, and thereby save our immortal souls, for which Jesus Christ died on the cross! Amen.

*I Thessalonians v, 1.

St. Matthew xvi, 26.

LECTURE II.

THE APOSTOLICAL COMMISSION-THE RULE OF FAITH.

THE FIRST EVIDENCE OF CATHOLICITY.

The commission-Its general scope-Its objects most difficult of attainment-Its four leading features-It embraces two things— The argument stated-Its positions evolved-Division of the subject-The inquiry narrowed down to a simple question of factThe Rule of Faith-The Protestant and Catholic Rules statedStrong presumptive evidences against the former-Its positive difficulties-The scriptural arguments in its favor examined-A popular theory exploded-The inspiration, canon, version and interpretation of the bible-What is faith?-Can an act of faith be made consistently with the Protestant Rule? The vicious circleScriptural proofs of the Catholic Rule-Both Rules tested by the four great principles laid down in the previous Lecture-Recapitulation-The conclusion reached-The first evidence of Catholicity.

"And Jesus coming, spoke to them, (the apostles) saying: all power is given to me in heaven, and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world."-St. Math. xxviii. 18, 19, 20.

"And he said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that be lieveth not, shall be condemned."-St. Mark xvi, 15,16.

"And he said to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you."-St. John, xx, 21.

ENTERING, my beloved brethren on the investigation of that most important of all questions,-which, among all the Christian denominations now existing on the face of the earth, is the one, original, true Church of Christ,-I take, as my starting point, the farewell address of our beloved Lord and Master to

his apostles, before he was taken up into heaven. Already had he sealed the great work of our redemption with his own precious blood shed on the cross; already had he triumphed gloriously over death by his resurrection. And now, about to return to the bosom of that Father who had sent him on his divine errand of mercy to the world, he turns his eyes to those dear disciples whom he had raised to the apostolate, and he imparts to them the commission to convert the whole world to his Religion, and to make all mankind his humble followers. Wonderful to relate, he commissioned eleven poor Jewish peasants or fishermen,—one of the original twelve had already turned traitor and betrayed his master,―men without human learning, without wealth, without worldly influence,⚫ or natural eloquence, without any human qualifications whatever for the undertaking,-to do what? No less than "to teach all nations," to "preach the gospel to every creature," to confound the learned philosophers and rhetoricians of Greece and Rome, to silence the oracles, to destroy the impure orgies of paganism, and to plant, on the ruins of a gigantic idolatry, which then bestrode the world, the glorious and unsullied banner of the cross! And more wonderful still, this commission was fully and faithfully executed bythem, obstacles humanly insuperable were overcome, the world was actually converted, heathanism was made to give way to Christianity; and we are now, after the lapse of full eighteen centuries, reaping the blessed fruits of that change.

A commission, which thus exercised so potent an influence on the destinies of the world, is surely deserving of our most serious consideration. What, then, are the most striking cir cumstances or features of this last solemn charge of Jesus Christ to the first incumbents of the ministerial office? I will endeavor briefly to state and unfold them.

The first feature that strikes us in the commission, is the fact, that our blessed Lord was pleased to choose frail men as instruments for executing his purpose of converting the world. He might have converted it himself, without the intervention of secondary causes; one single ray of that "Light, which enlighteneth every man who cometh into this world,"

gleaming and flashing across the world, would have been sufficient to light up its darkness, to dispel all mists and errors from the human soul, to reveal the hideous deformity of paganism, and powerfully to attract men to the truth. But this light would have been too bright and too dazzling for mere human eyes; mortal man could not have seen Christ in all his glo ry, and have lived; and it was meet that he should be addressed and won over to the truth by men naturally weak like himself, but all powerful when clad in the armor of God and the panoply of heaven. Such a method was much better adapted to the condition of mankind, and it left man's free will wholly unimpaired in its choice between good and evil. God, as I have already said, will compel no one into heaven; he will award the crown to those only who will have fought the good fight, and will have finally triumphed over error and sin, with the assistance of his freely proffered grace strengthening the natural weakness of their free will. The truth is clear enough to enable us to see it if we will but open our eyes, look attentively for it, and humbly implore the divine light to assist us in our inquiries; it is not bright enough to flash conviction into our minds, whether we will or not; else there would be no merit in faith. These and similar considerations may serve to explain to us the very remarkable fact, that our divine Savior made comparatively very few converts himself, but left the conversion of the world mainly to his apostles and disciples. He sowed the seeds and watered them with his blood; they were to reap the harvest! He took the labor, they were to receive the honor of converting the world;-but they were to lay their crowns at his feet.

The next prominent feature in the commission, is, that it was unlimited as to space, to persons, and to time. It was as wide as the world, as universal as mankind, as lasting as time. It reached from one end of the earth to the other, embraced all the children of Adam of every country and clime, and looked forward to all coming generations even to the end of the world. Nay, it had a retrospective, as well as a prospective influence and action; it originated divine institutions destined for the salvation of mankind, from the fall of Adam to the final dissolution