IV. PROTESTANTISM ENDS IN TRANSCENDENTALISM Margaret, a Tale of the Real and Ideal, Blight and Bloom, in- cluding Sketches of a Place not before described, called Mons A Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion. By THEODORE II. PRESBYTERIANISM AND THE HOLY SCRIPTURES The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, containing the Confession of Faith, the Catechisms, and the Directory for the Worship of God; together with the Plan of Government and Discipline, as ratified by the General Assem- 1. A New Version of the Four Gospels, with Notes Critical and 2. The Four Gospels, translated from the Greek, with Prelimi- nary Dissertations and Notes Critical and Explanatory. By George Campbell, D. D., Principal of Marischal College, and one of the IV. FLETCHER WEBSTER ON WAR AND LOYALTY An Oration delivered before the Authorities of the City of Bos- ton in the Tremont Temple, July 4, 1846. By FLETCHER WEB- STER. BROWNSON'S QUARTERLY REVIEW. JANUARY, 1846. ART. I. The Episcopal Observer. Boston and Baltimore. August, 1845. THE Episcopal Observer does not appear to comprehend what it is it must do, in order to refute the argument urged against Protestants in the article headed The Church against No-Church, in our Review for April last. That argument, formally stated, is, According to the admissions of Protestants themselves, it is not possible to be saved without eliciting an act of faith. But it is not possible to elicit an act of faith without the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, without the Roman Catholic Church, it is not possible to be saved. As Protestants concede the major, it is evident they can set aside. the conclusion only by denying the minor, and proving affirmatively that an act of faith can be elicited without the Roman Catholic Church. The impossibility of being saved without eliciting faith, that is, without the act of faith, assumed here and throughout the whole argument, is, of course, to be restricted to adults, or persons in whom reason is so far developed as to render them morally responsible for their acts. It is true, universally, that it is impossible to be saved without faith, "for without faith it is impossible to please God," Heb. xi. 6, and "he that believeth not shall be condemned," St. Mark, xvi. 16; but it is not universally true that it is impossible to be saved without eliciting faith; for infants are saved by the infused habit of faith received in the Sacrament of Baptism, without the act of faith, of which they are not capable. Nevertheless, restricted to those who have attained to that age in which they become morally responsible for their acts, the assertion in the text is strictly true; and it is only as so restricted we understand it, or wish to have it understood. The Episcopal Observer, however, contends that it will refute us, if it succeed in proving that an act of faith cannot be elicited with the Roman Catholic Church. It supposes the argument may be retorted, and the question made to turn on the merits of Catholicity, instead of the merits of Protestantism. But in this the editor labors under a mistake; for the point at issue is not what is possible with Catholicity, but what is possible without it. The argument puts Protestantism on the defensive, and requires her to vindicate herself. She cannot retort upon her accuser; because, even were she to prove her accuser guilty, she would not establish her own innocence. The Protestant denies the Catholic Church, and does all in his power to destroy her. Be it so. We do not, in our argument, undertake the defence of the Church against him; but call upon him to establish the sufficiency of Protestantism for salvation. He dare not affirm that salvation is possible without faith. But faith, we tell him, out of the Catholic Church, is not possible. He must deny this, and prove that it is possible out of the Catholic Church, or else admit that in denying the Catholic Church he denies the possibility of faith, and, therefore, of salvation. It avails him nothing, even if he prove that faith is not possible with the Roman Catholic Church; for, until he proves its possibility without it, he can conclude from the fact that it is not possible with it only that it is not possible at all. 66 The Observer cannot deny this, but it imagines that in an argument with us it can relieve itself of the necessity of proving affirmatively that faith is elicitable without the Church, by adopting the argumentum ad hominem. "Mr. Brownson," it says, p. 325, assumes in the outset, as well as we, that an act of faith can be elicited in some way. . . . . . If we shut the mouth of his witness, he must fall back on Protestant ground, or become a faithless infidel." If we were so disposed, we could concede the Observer's premises and deny its conclusion. If faith be possible in some way, and not possible on Catholic ground, it must be possible on Protestant ground or on some other, we admit. But, for aught the Observer shows to the contrary, there may be some other than the Protestant ground on which it is elicitable. Therefore, it does not follow, that, even were it to shut the mouth of our witness, we must either become Protestants or infidels. But the Observer has no right to say that we assume in the outset that an act of faith can be elicited in some way, and therefore must admit, that, if not elicitable in the way we allege, it must be in some other way; for we assume no such thing. We assert in the outset, and we labor throughout the argument to prove, that an act of faith is elicitable in no way, but by the authority of the Roman Catholic Church; and, if in any part of the argument we reason on the assumption of its possibility, it is only on the ground that its possibility is conceded by Protestants in their assumption of the possibility of salvation. An analysis of the whole argument of the article in question, so far as it bears directly against Protestants, will give us the following: 1. According to the admissions of Protestants, it is not possible to be saved without eliciting an act of faith. But it is not possible to elicit an act of faith without the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, without the Roman Catholic Church, it is not possible to be saved. 2. According to the admissions of Protestants themselves, it is possible to elicit an act of faith, since they admit the possibility of salvation, and that salvation is not possible without faith. But it is not possible to elicit an act of faith without the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, it must be possible to elicit an act of faith with the Roman Catholic Church. The major, in both instances, is assumed to be conceded by Protestants. The dispute, then, must turn on the minor; for, admitting both premises, no one will dream of denying the conclusion. The Observer, then, evidently cannot refute us in the way it imagines. The argument with which it proposes to refute us, if we may be allowed to reduce it to form, is, It is impossible to be saved without eliciting an act of faith, transeat, or we concede it. But it is not possible to elicit an act of faith with the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, it is possible to elicit an act of faith, or to be saved, without the Roman Catholic Church. But this argument is faulty, for the conclusion does not follow from the premises; because faith, if not elicitable with the Roman Catholic Church, may not be elicitable at all. The Observer, in order to refute us, must go a step further, and maintain this argument, namely:- It is impossible to be saved without eliciting an act of faith, transeat, or we concede it. But an act of faith is elicitable without the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, it is possible to be saved without the Roman Catholic Church. This argument, if sustained, would be good against the argument we adduced, because it is its direct negative; but it would not, after all, be conclusive against Catholicity. The conclusion follows ad hominem, not necessarily; for there may be something besides faith necessary to salvation, and which is attainable only through the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, if sustained, it would unquestionably refute the argument on which we in our essay relied to establish the insufficiency of Protestantism. But the Observer does not sustain it; does not even seriously attempt to sustain it. It merely attempts to retort upon us, and show that it is as difficult to elicit an act of faith on Catholic ground as we allege it is on Protestant ground. We tell it, therefore, again, since what it attempts to prove is not the negative of our proposition, even assuming that it has done all it has attempted, which it of course has not, it has not refuted us, or relieved Protestantism in the least of the very grave objections we urged against it. We are rather surprised that even the editor of the Observer, who, though by no means a theologian or a disciplined reasoner, is yet a man of at least ordinary natural ability, should think of controverting this. He must know that the whole question, as we presented it, turns on the sufficiency or insufficiency of Protestantism to the eliciting of an act of faith, and that, till he has proved its sufficiency, he has proved nothing to his purpose. Protestantism, if good for any thing, must be able to stand on its own merits, and be capable of being sustained, not by the assumed error of some other system, but by its own positive truth. Its advocates show but little confidence in its intrinsic strength, when they refuse to bring forward positive arguments in its defence, and seek to sustain it solely by abusing the Church, calumniating her sovereign Pontiffs, misstating her history, and misrepresenting her teachings. They themselves admit that faith is a condition sine qua non of salvation, and therefore must admit, that, if faith be not elicitable on Protestant ground, no man living and dying a Protestant can be saved. Why, then, do they not see the necessity, before all, of establishing the fact that faith is elicitable on their ground? Why do they so studiously evade the question? The question is for them a question of the gravest magnitude. Their eternal all is at stake. If they are wrong in assuming that they can have faith as Protestants, as we think we have proved they are, they have and can have no well grounded hopes of salvation. How, then, can they treat |