fully, at present, into the internal evidence, which is very strong, I shall not enter upon it. I shall rest to-day at this point. To-morrow, if it be the will of God that we meet together, I shall proceed to internal evidence, and endeavour to shew that the books in question have no right upon any evidence, external or internal, to be received as canonical Scripture. We shall afterwards have occasion to consider other branches of the Roman Catholic rule of faith.

THE REV. T. J. BROWN.

We have had a long dissertation upon the Apocrypha, and we are threatened with a longer one on the same subject to-morrow. May I be allowed to say that the question of the Apocrypha bears very little upon the subject before us. The question to be discussed was the rule of faith, and it was understood that it was the Protestant rule of faith which was to be discussed, and not the Catholic; for when I had the private interview which led to this discussion, I said to the delegates of the Reformation Society, "I am willing to meet you upon fair terms: if you choose to attack any point of our doctrines, allow me to impugn a point of a point of your doctrines." This was agreed to; and the point selected by me was the rule of faith; and certainly it was understood that I was to attack; I was not to be put on my defence to-day. Next week the Catholic doctrine was to be impugned, but this week the Protestant Rule of Faith is to be discussed. I will leave it to the honourable feelings of my opponents, whether my explanation is not correct. Upon this question of the Apocrypha, then, I ought to have, strictly speaking, nothing to say, for my arguments are against the Protestant rule of faith. I shall have something, however, to say of the Apocrypha, but not to-day.

I stated that I would adhere closely to my line of arguments, because each argument adds force to the other. I shall, however, notice briefly a few objections which were brought against me, in the last address of Mr. Tottenham. He tells me that he will not be contented with my answer to his texts; that they must be more particular.

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I am, however, addressing myself now, not to Mr. Tottenham, but to the meeting; and the reporters present will state his arguments, and my answers. Whether they are too general or sufficiently particular, whether they do or do not meet the points in dispute, will then be seen, when they go forth before the public. But I rest satisfied that the general answers given are sufficient to set at rest the objections from Scripture which he has adduced. Were I to follow him through all his texts, the three days would elapse before I should be able to bring out the arguments which I esteem essential to impugn the doctrine of the Protestant rule of faith. Premising this, I go to consider other charges which he has brought against me.

He taunts me with putting myself in opposition to the Council of Trent. I said, he tells you, that the unwritten traditions are not equal in authority to the written word; whereas the Council of Trent says both are to be received "with equal reverence." If I did say so, I expressed myself obscurely; my meaning was different, and I do not think my words were such as they are represented to have been. I said that in the written rule were contained the essential doctrines of Christianity, but that there are matters of less essential moment handed down by tradition. This I stated to shew how we reverence the written word of God; but I did not affirm that the unwritten traditions were not equal in authority to the written word in the sense that the Council of Trent means. The Council of Trent says we are bound to receive both "with equal reverence;' and I put it to you, whether, whatever doctrines Christ communicates, be they the doctrine of redemption, without explicit belief in which we cannot be saved, or any less important doctrine, whether one or the other is not to be received with equal reverence. Both are to be received "with equal reverence," though one is not so important and vital as the other.

Mr. Tottenham argued most sophistically, that presumptive evidence produces a moral certainty, equal to a metaphysical certainty. I deny, however, that upon presumptive evidence, or metaphysical certainty, you can ground an act of divine faith, or that there can be any divine faith, unless where there is the word of God,unless you allege the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Faith does not rest upon presumption, nor metaphysical certainty, but it rests upon that certainty (to the exclusion of all

doubts whatsoever), which originates in and is founded upon the unerring word of God, and that only.

Again, Mr. Tottenham insinuated against me a charge of infidelity, for not admitting that inspiration to write, was equal to a command, on the part of Christ. Now, I did not say that inspiration was not equal to a command; I admitted that it was equal to a command. But I held that we are not assured that there was any inspiration given to the Apostles, or command issued by Christ, to communicate by writing all the doctrines delivered by our Divine Saviour. On this, then, turns the controversy, not whether the Apostles were commanded or inspired to write at all, because I acknowledge that they were inspired, so far as they did write; but whether they were commanded, or whether they were inspired, to hand down by writing all the doctrines received from Christ, for the instruction of the faithful? No proof, I maintain, can be adduced to this effect from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, nor from any declarations of Christ.

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Again, an argument was put into my mouth, thus:"Christ did not write, therefore, Scripture cannot be the rule of faith." Now, if I did contend that Christ did not write, nor give a command to his Apostles that they should write, especially that they should write ALL the doctrines which they received from him; yet still we do not deny that Scripture is a rule of faith, and that all the most essential articles of belief are contained in Scripture; but, that it is the only rule.

Here I must remove a false notion which is still entertained of what I mean by essential doctrines. By essential doctrines I mean those without belief in which it is impossible for any man to be saved; for example, we cannot be saved without faith in the Redeemer; we cannot be saved without faith in the Trinity of Persons, and the Unity of the Godhead. These are primarily essential. There are other articles less essential. With regard to these, a man who cannot come to the knowledge of such doctrines, because they are not proposed to him, still may be saved without an explicit belief in them. But suppose these doctrines are communicated to him,—that he is made sensible that Christ has revealed them,-then his refusal to believe any doctrine, however unessential it may appear, subjects him to the damnation which Christ pronounced against those who believe not :-" He that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned." This then is the

difference between what is essential, and non-essential; without belief in the essential doctrines, it would be difficult for us to plead any excuse, but with regard to the doctrines which are less essential, the ignorance of a man will excuse him. A man is not expected to have an explicit belief in every part of revelation, but every individual is highly culpable before God, who excludes from his belief any one article that is made known to him of the revelation through Christ.

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This argument also was palmed upon me :-" Scripture cannot be a rule of faith, because it is not arranged in the form of a catechism." I used no such reasoning. I only alleged, as a presumptive, not a decisive argument, that Scripture was not the only rule of faith, without a visible expounding authority, because it was not written in that form which reason suggests that the All-wise God would have inspired, had he enjoined the Scripture to be written for the only rule of faith. But, said Mr. Tottenham, as well may it be argued that the primitive Christians did not believe that the preaching of the Gospel was necessary to save mankind, or they would have sent missionaries to preach it in all parts of the world. Yes! they would have done so; they did so; and my adversary must know that the Gospel was carried by apostolic preachers to every part of the globe. The word of God was disseminated wherever there was an opportunity of its making progress in infidel nations; but there were often such obstacles (as there are now in China and other countries), that the Gospel could not be propagated therein, because the civil laws excluded the preachers.

I come now to the proofs of my second position, that it is contrary to the express language of Scripture to hold that the Bible is the only rule of faith. In the first place, all the doctrines of revelation could not be contained in Scripture. In John xxi. 25, it is said

"There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written, every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books which should be written."

Is it probable that Christ, who did so much, that the whole world could not contain the books that might be written of his actions, should have spoken so little as is contained in the few pages of the New Testament? Or does the Apostle mean to say, that all the other things which Christ spoke were of no consequence, and did not deserve to be preserved? We know that to assert this is to

assert impiety, for every word which Christ uttered was the word of eternal truth.

In Acts i. 3, it is said

"To whom (i. e. the Apostles) also he shewed himself alive after many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God."

Here again there are communications made during forty days after the resurrection; yet we find very little in Scripture, of that which Christ delivered to his Apostles during that period. "By the kingdom of God," in Scripture so frequently mentioned, we understand the Church which Christ came to establish. Now we know that the greater part of the Gospel relates to communications which Christ made before his resurrection, and very little to those which he made, and which pertained to the kingdom of God, after his resurrection. What became of the remainder? What proof have our opponents that all of them were committed to writing, and are contained in the few pages of Scripture? By rejecting the unwritten word,--by affirming that there is nothing to be believed but what is contained in Scripture, they proclaim, that much of those communications, pertaining to the kingdom of God, did not survive the first century, and thus they charge the Apostles with the enormous guilt of setting no value upon them, and of taking no means to transmit them down to future times. Just now, however, I shall have occasion to shew that the Apostles did take means to hand them down. I will shew that by tradition they handed them down.

But what do we mean by tradition? It is proper that I should explain here what we mean by that term. We do not mean, as I recollect a former champion of the Reformation Society wished to make his hearers believe, we do not mean that traditions are matters delivered down by memory from Christ to the present time; in that case you might be astonished how it was possible they could have been preserved. By traditions we mean all the revela tions communicated by Christ for the purpose of being transmitted to future ages, which are not written in the inspired books of the New Testament. We do not, however, exclude writing; on the contrary, we look for our traditions to the writings of the first and subsequent ages. There is not a doctrine of tradition which we do not find authorized by the written belief of the first ages. I apprehend there are not any that we do not find in the writings of the first, second, third, or fourth centuries, and we