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RELIGIOUS AND MORAL DISCUSSIONS.

The following communication has been received from a respectable clergyman living in the western part of this state.

OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO MODERN CATHOLICISM.

MR. EDITOR,

I HAVE taken up my pen under the discouraging influence of the idea, that my sentiments on this interesting subject are too unpopular, with a number of professing christians, to obtain a favourable reception. But convinced, that Truth disdains the trembling advocate, who degrades her cause, by a timorous, freezing, sceptical process, I shall express the sentiments of my head and heart, with that unreserved and honest freedom which becomes a man conscious of the integrity of the motives by which his conduct is governed.

When we pass in review the histories of the christian church, candour constrains us to assent to the lamentable truth, written in blood, that as soon as the members of any sect or denomination of christians obtained the ascendancy, so far as to be able to enlist the civil government on their side, they had their own denomination established, under the plausible idea of establishing the true religion, and all other christians were pronounced hereticks. Bigotry, unrelenting tyrant, thirsting for blood, and hostile to God and genuine christianity, ascended from the gloomy caverns of barbarous Ignorance, and assuming the garb of zeal for true religion, with a brow of brass and an heart of adamant, demanded that hecatombs of supposed or real hereticks should be immolated on her altars, for daring to see with their own eyes in matters of religion. Nor were her sanguinary commands disobeyed; for too many of the christians of those days, in direct opposition to the precepts, to the spirit, and to the temper of the christian religion, appear to have been stupid enough to believe, that their service was never so acceptable to the Prince of Peace, as when their offerings on his altar, were soaked in heretical blood mingled with the tears of the widow and the fatherless. And it is worthy of observation, that as different denominations predominated alternately, and the ruling party always claimed the exclusive privilege of being infallibly orthodox, it frequently happened, that those persons were persecuted as hereticks, who had formerly persecuted others under the same appellation. The truth is, that all parties agreed that the true religion ought to be established, and that those persons who did not conform to the esta VOL. II. 36

blished system, were to be considered as hereticks, and punished as such by the civil magistrate. And as it was natural to expect, that every denomination would consider their religion to be the true one, and endeavour to have it established as such, then, whatever the tenets of the governing denomination were, whether true or false, persecution on a higher or a lower scale, followed as a thing of course; and frequently men were murdered for heretical opinions, in one country, whose religious tenets were established as orthodox in another. Under the influence of these principles, as might have been expected, from the operations of the depravity of human nature, error was more frequently esta blished than truth, and thousands of the best of christians were butchered as hereticks. But Persecution, that arch demon, which stained the throne and the altar with human blood, debasing human nature and the christian name to the lowest point of degradation, unable to bear the genuine light of revelation and reason, and anticipating the complete overthrow of civil and religious tyranny, has fled to the infernal regions; while the few remaining enemies of religious toleration, lament her absence and sigh for her return. The great majority of christians are at length convinced, that the benevolent author of christianity, who prayed for his murderers on his cross, saying, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do," has not required human sacrifices to atone for heresy, nor instituted torture and murder, as ordinances for the conviction and conversion of hereticks. Therefore they now believe, that as God exercises no exclusive providence towards any one denomination of christians in his dominions, but extends his protection to all, civil government ought to profit by his example, and extend protection to all denominations within its bounds, who are obedient to the laws, leaving their errors in opinion to be corrected, by reason, argument and divine grace. This pleasing revolution in the human mind and conduct, so consistent with humanity and the spirit of the christian religion, has thrown Bigotry into convulsions; but, consistent with herself in the agonies of death, she continues to demand the blood of hereticks and protest against toleration.

Sweet to the taste and soothing to the heart of man, is the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty. Under their benign influence, the powers of the human mind are developed and acquire their proper tone: conscience finds her long lost rights restored, feels her native dignity, looks up to God as her only Lord and lawgiver, and beholds with indignant contempt, the men who ignobly wish to chain her to the footstool of any human tribunal.

Liberty is an inestimable blessing when we are governed in its enjoyment by proper principles; but such is the depravity of human nature, and such its tendency to extremes, that liberty will degenerate into licentiousness, if the passions are not kept in subjection to the government of a well-informed understanding.. Therefore, whenever the friends of civil and religious liberty take the church or the state on board, cut the cables of revelation, reason and experience, commit the helm to a fervid imagination, and launch into the trackless ocean of eccentrick speculation, in search of an ideal state of happiness, which the imperfection of our nature forbids to be realized in this world, they will inevitably be wrecked on the rocks of disappointment, or ingulfed in the vortex of frenetic enthusiasm. But the well-meaning promoters of that modern catholicism, which charitably embraces men as good christians, who hate and oppose some of the most important doctrines of Christ, have determined to make the experiment. Impatient under the slow process of reason, argument, and divine grace, in bringing christians to uniformity, and inattentive to the insuperable obstacles which the existing state of human nature places in their way, they have passed the lines which divide truth from error, and piety from enthusiasm; and expect to be able to carry the church into those elysian fields created by their own romantick imaginations. This scheme they intend to accomplish, by an amalgamation of all parties into one common mass, which they hope to facilitate, by bringing Calvinists, Arminians, Antinomians, Pelagians, Arians, and Socinians, each party retaining their distinguishing tenets, to join together in commu nion in sealing ordinances, as often as it may be convenient. If a catholic church could be composed of such materials, it would not be without a scripture emblem, as it would be analogous to Noah's ark, the terms of admission being similar, and the members of the one as heterogeneous, as the inhabitants of the other. But we will venture to predict, that when the friends of the catholic scheme have done their utmost to bring it to perfection, they will find, that instead of advancing to the object of their destination, they have been steering their course for the regions of Utopia; and that while they imagined themselves to have been employed in erecting the temple of Concord, they were really engaged in endeavouring to build a modern Babel. We grant, that the practice of uniting in communion in sealing ordinances, by christians who hold different opinions on some subjects, while they maintain unity of faith relative to the fundamental doctrines of the christian religion, is consistent with scripture and reason;

and to this practice, under proper regulations, we have no objec tion. But to the scheme in question, we are decidedly opposed, and are avowedly hostile to the principles from which it derives its support and influence. The ground upon which our opposi'tion is founded will be disclosed in the following propositions.

That union is essentially necessary to real communion, and will precede it, until the order of nature is changed, and effects precede their causes; but as this will never take place, communion without union, and harmony without concord, will remain unintelligible terms, incapable of conveying any idea to the rational mind, except that of profound nonsense.

That the only terms of communion in the christian church, of divine appointment, are repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ; that the faith required, includes a firm persuasion of the truth of the following doctrines, together with their governing influence on the heart and life. That mankind by nature are in a state of condemnation and slavery, from which they are neither able nor willing to extricate themselves; that justification before God, is obtained by faith in the obedience and atonement of the divine Mediator, as the only ground of pardon and acceptance; that regeneration and sanctification are the works of the divine spirit on the human soul, by which it is brought to the active, cheerful, and pertinent exercise of all its powers in the service of God; that christians are under the strongest obligations to render obedience to the moral law as a rule of life, and to abound in good works, as the proper fruits and evidences of saving faith; and that it is the duty of all men, to use the means which God has appointed for the obtaining of salvation, with diligence, urgency, and perseverance. That the repentance required, includes unfeigned sorrow of heart for sin, an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, and reformation of heart and life. Now, as these doctrines are plainly taught in the scriptures, we believe that those persons, and those only, who give credible evidence, that they are the subjects of the faith and repentance required, the leading features of which we have described, are entitled to christian communion in sealing ordinances. But, the distinguishing sentiments of Calvinists, Arminians, and Antinomians, relative to the above-mentioned doctrines of the gospel, are so diametrically opposite, that they cannot give satisfactory evidence to each other, that they are the subjects of the faith and repentance, which Christ has appointed to be the terms of communion in his church; therefore they cannot join together in communion in sealing ordinances, on any scriptural or rational ground. Can two walk together except they be agreed?"

That errors fatal to the souls of men have always existed in the christian church, but in whatever shape they may have appeared, they may all be traced to the ignorance, the pride, and the sloth of depraved human nature, of which Arminianism and Antinomianism are the genuine offsping, whose pernicious influence is not confined to any one denomination, the one being the Charybdis, and the other the Sylla, between which all must pass, who enter the haven of eternal rest. Therefore we ought not to join in communion in sealing ordinances, with known Arminians, or Antinomians, of any denomination. And it may be proper to observe, that Pelagians and Arians, are also Arminians of a higher or lower grade; but as to the Socinians, the lines between them and infidelity are so hard to be traced, that it is not necessary to consider them as christians of any description.

That infants, idiots, and the invincibly ignorant, may be the subjects of divine grace, though we are strangers to the mode of its operation, but that with respect to all other persons, a competent knowledge of the scriptural doctrines of depravity and grace, and a firm persuasion of their truth, are among those things which are essential to genuine christianity. Therefore, the opinion, that ignorance and error are such innocent and harmless things, that a man's head may be filled with them, and his heart filled with grace at the same time; or in other words, that the understanding of a christian may be under the government of Satan, and his affections under the government of Christ, and consequently, that we ought to join in communion with christians of this fantastical description, is an unscriptural, irrational, and pernicious sentiment, calculated to injure the souls of men, and expose religion to contempt.

That the doctrines, experience, and practice of true religion, are so connected in the nature of things, and by divine appointment, that under the operation of divine grace, genuine religious experience and practice, owe their existence and growth, to the influence of the doctrines of the gospel on the human heart. But the catholic scheme in question, is calculated to strike at the root of this connexion, and to weaken our attachment to the doctrines of the gospel, by placing some of the most important of them on the back ground, as objects of so little importance, that men may reject and abhor them, and yet be good experimental christians; therefore, whatever the pretensions of this scheme may be, it must be considered as hostile in its tendency to the existence of genuine christianity.

That truth and error are derived from very different sources, and are so hostile in their nature to each other, that it would be

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