authors, illustrating the meaning of the words time and koinoneo. We omitted these quotations, in order to obviate the quibble that they were used by uninspired men: those we have adduced are the words of the Holy Spirit. The brethren can now see that the "high offence" was in reality abridging the most forcible ments; and with regard to the crime of " delu argu ties of poor saints, or poor people. Ask any of the officers of the churches if they do not feel more pleasure in giving their own money, than in giving the alms of the church since they are always restrained by the scanty resources of the church, if it be poor, or if otherwise by the know-ding," they will perceive that in hastily abridgledge that other demands may soon be made on the alms of the church; whereas they can give-and we happen to know some who Do give-their own substance liberally, without any one to call them to account. ing the latter part of the argument, we substituted the word misthos instead of time, though both the words commonly signify a pecuniary recompense; consequently the illustrative texts were chosen to match. This article is to be read instead of that article on the subject, commencing at the 5th line of the 2nd column, 118th page, March HARBINGER. The brethren will also be able to judge concerning the correctness of the affirmation, "That no divine law exists for supplying a salary or a maintenance to elders, and that the New Testament contains neither precept nor example for it." J. G. L.] LETTERS ON ROMANISM. ON THE EXCLUSIVENESS OF THE ROMISH CHURCH. MY DEAR SIR,-In the present letter I wish to place before you another of my reasons for not returning to the church of my fathers, drawn from the exclusive claims of your church-claims which, if well found But again some one may say, if elders are supported they will be afraid to rebuke faithfully if So, it is the fault of the church, who are commanded to elect men already proved to be faithful. So, then, by the law of God, elders and evangelists are entitled to pecuniary support from the congregation. But, says some one, this opens a door through which covetous men may enter the office. No, it does not--and why? Because the church is forbidden to elect a covetous man as an elder. But, says another, he may deceive us by hypocrisy. No, it is impossible for you to be deceived, if you obey God's law: God, by im-ed, consign to eternal damnation all posing that law on the congregation, has thereby declared that the congregation has the ability to judge. No covetous man can be elected to the pastor's office, unless the congregation violate the express law of God, which says that an elder is to be "proved" before he is elected. And if the congregation elect a covetous man to the elder's office, which is to be blamed, God's law, or the congregation? Will any church dare to blame God's law, if it suffer the punishment due to its transgression? Such is the law of God God enunciates law -- but leaves man to discover a reason for it. J. G. LEE. Nottingham, June 20th, 1849. [NOTE. The article above contains the whole of our argument in its original state, with the exception of a number of passages from Greek you who refuse to obey its doctrines, or to submit to its authority. That these claims are put forth, you will not deny. You glory in them-Milner and Butler assert them, and seek to sustain them by Scripture and reason. "The Poor Man's Catechism," from which I like to quote, because it is the channel through which seek to impress the common mind, says, "those who submit not to the doctrine and authority of the Holy Catholic Church are all out of her communion; as Pagans, Infidels, Turks, Jews, heretics, and schismatics." And by the Holy Catholic Church is meant that church whose head is the Pope. This is sufficiently explicit. So that in your estimation, and in that of your church, the Protestant churches are no better than Jewish synagogues, or Pagan temples-the people that wor ship in them, are no better than Turks or Pagans-and such men as the late excellent Milner, as Spring, Knox, Bangs, Williams, Wainwright, Skinner, your co-temporaries, and equals, and fellow-citizens, are no better than Hume, Voltaire, Gibbon; or at least than Jewish rabbies, Turkish mufties, or Hindoo priests who mingle their blood with their sacrifice. That such is your belief is apparent in your conduct. You and your priests so treat them. The belief of your people is, that all beyond the pale of your church are devoted to destruction. I remember the day when I had no more doubt of it than of my own existence. If there are Papists who believe otherwise, and who exercise a charitable hope as to the salvation of Protestants, as I believe there are many, so far they are not Papists. But if we admit your unity, what follows? Does the agreement of numbers in maintaining error and superstition prove that in which they are united true? Then Paganism, and Mahometanism, and Budism, may be proved divine. These systems have more followers than you can boast. You are not agreed as to the authoritative councils of your church. You are not yet agitated by controversies of this subject. Nor are you agreed in the doctrines of the Bible. Never were Arminians and Calvinists more widely separated on these matters than you are. Look at the fierce contentions of your Jansenists and Jesuits, unsettled to the present hour. If united, what meant the fierce controversies of your Scotists and Thomists, of your Canonists and Schoolmen, The process by which you reach of your Nominalists and Realists. this terrible dogma is a very short But I cannot weary you or my readers one. There is no salvation out of on this matter. You talk about the the true church-and therefore, there differences among Protestants; they is no salvation out of the Roman are not to be compared to those among Catholic Church. Here is your Papists. "You put into my hand logical and theological guillotine by Bousset's Variations of Protestants;" which you sever the hopes which I put into your's "Edgar's Variations bind millions of your race to God of Popery." Where Protestants difand to heaven, who serve the one, fer in one point, Papists differ in five and deserve the other, at least as well-where they differ in minor matters, as you do. And then, the marks of you differ in the veriest essentials. your's being the true church, you Protestants agree as to the Head of parade before us with as much con- the Church, Christ; and as to the fidence as if they were true; and with rule of the Church, the Bible. You as much assurance as if they were differ as to both. never, instead of being a thousand times, refuted. Permit me in the briefest manner to consider each of these marks. They are Unity, Sanctity, Catholicity, Apostolicity, and Infallibility. Your first mark is Unity. Has your church this mark? In what one thing are you united? Not in the head of the church? You have a Pope-some say, others deny, that he is the head. One goes for the Pope-another for a general council -a third for both united. Is this unity? True, you have an apparent, external unity. But how have you gotten it? What is it worth? You set up monstrous claims, and all who do not admit them you cut off. Milner's "Apostolical Tree" shows how the work of lopping off has progressed. You have laid the axe upon every green and fruitful branch, and the old stump and withered branches remain in unity! And what is your unity worth? If I return to your church "I must believe whatever the Holy Catholic Church believes and teaches." This I must do without knowing, and without ever being able to know, all that she believes and teaches. I must put myself into your hands, and give you power to think for me, and to believe for me; and then I must believe, and swear to what you thus think and believe for me, at the peril of being cut off and cast into the fire. Sir, this is horrible slavery. Do you think men will long submit to it? You Your boasted unity is a fable, your apparent unity is slavery. present a united front in opposition to Protestants; but never were the bowels of the victim of the Asiatic cholera more terribly convulsed, than is the bosom of your church by distracting controversies. The Kilkenny cats may fight as they may, but they are in unity as long as they remain cooped up in the same barrel? If one of them jump out, if you cannot kill him, you damn him for the sake of unity. Your next mark is Sanctity. I admit that sanctity, or holiness, is a mark of a true disciple, and of a true church. The people and church of Christ should be holy in all manner of conversation. But Sanctity you claim for your church as one of its distinguished marks. But in what is it manifested? You reply, first, in her doctrines. But what doctrine of the Bible has not your church corrupted? What institutions has it not perverted? And so conscious is your church of this, that it withholds the unadulterated word from the people. You reply again, in the means of holiness. By these you mean the sacraments. But you have grievously perverted the only two sacraments instituted by Christ, and you have added to them five, which have no divine authority, and whose only object is to give you power, and to obtain for you "the alms and suffrages of the faithful." You reply again, in her fruits of holiness. By these you mean the virtue practised by papists. I could not for a moment deny the true piety of many papists, the exalted piety of some; but will you, Sir, assert that the piety and virtues of your people are so much more resplendent than those of any, or all other people, as to mark yours as the true church? If so, it seems to me that you would assert that Jupiter surpasses the moon, and the moon the sun in brightness. The evidences to the contrary are no more apparent in the one case than in the other. Look at the mass of your clergy in the sunniest days of your church, and what were their fruits of holiness? Your own historians being witnesses, your monasteries, your monks, and your other orders, when there were no Protestants to unveil their enormities? What are now the fruits of your religion in the States of South America? Have you seen the testimony of Mr. Thompson our late minister to Mexico, as to the Papal clergy of that country? As to the fruits of holiness compare Spain, Italy, with Scotland or New England. But I will not proceed with the comparison further than to ask you to compare the Protestant ministry of New York with the Papal-the congregation of St. Patrick's with any large and wealthy Protestant congregation in the city, as to the fruits of holiness, and you yourself will be astonished at the difference. The general rule is that purely Papal countries are those most debased and immoral, and purely Protestant countries are those most enlightened, and most abounding in every good work. The tenth century, the noonday of Popery, was the midnight of our race. Nor does the history of the world present such evidences of unbridled overgrown depravity as does the history of your church. Your next mark is Catholicity. You claim this title for your church as to time, persons, and places. As to time your church rose upon the ruins of that founded by Christ and his Apostles, and centuries after their death. The peculiar doctrines and succession, without apostolical docceremonies of Popery are derived trine. Read it; but though we, or from the heathen, and were engrafted an angel from heaven, preach any on Christianity. Instead of your other gospel unto you, than that we church, as you claim, being identical have preached, let him be accursed. with that of Christ and his Apostles, Sir, if I try your succession by your there is not an essential particular, in doctrine, the true test of succession, which it is not in opposition to it. II could soon place you among those admit, as to the persons, that yours is who said they were apostles and were a very numerous church—but it never not. From what apostle, save Judas, formed a third part of Christendom. many are descended, who are crying Is the standard of truth the numbers out apostolical succession, I cannot that profess it? Then Christianity conceive. was a lie whilst in the minority; and so it is a lie because, taking our whole race together, vastly in the minority. So I admit, as to places, that Popery is very widely diffused. But is not Protestantism also? Where has a Papist gained a foothold where there is not a Protestant? So that your claim to this mark is absurd as it is groundless, your Catholicity is a vain and empty boast. There is a Catholic Church, but it is not yours. Your next mark is Infallibility. Under all the circumstances of the case this claim is truly ludicrous. Where is the seat of infallibility? Some say it resides in the Popes. But how is he made infallible? The Pope dies; an election for a new one is ordered. He is to be elected from the cardinals-all fallible men, if no worse. After endless intrigue, and boundless corruptions, and numerous balloting, the lot falls upon a fallible cardinal. Will you tell me how such an election makes him infallible? But others say that the Pope is not infallible, and that he may be deposed for heresy. So that here you are divided. Your next mark is Apostolicitythat is, a regular succession from the Apostles in the chair of St. Peter. Now, Sir, this claim is put forth by other churches as strongly as yours, and on a foundation even stronger than yours. I now refer to the Some say the seat of infallibility Armenian, Nestorian, and Syriac is the general council. But how is churches, which were founded before this? Here are three hundred fallible the gospel was preached at Rome. men assembled in general council; It is beyond the power of man to how do they become infallible? Will establish this claim. If established, you tell me the process? How must we receive as a true minister definites make an infinite? Heap every man coming to us in the regular them up as you may, are they not line, whatever be his doctrines or a heap of infinites? And crowd tomorals? What is the test of apos-gether as many fallible men as you tolicity? Is it succession, or doctrine? may, are they any thing else than a "If there come any unto you and bring crowd of fallibles? But by what not this doctrine, receive him not chemical or alchemical process can into your house, neither bid him God you deduce the infallibility from the speed." Standing upon this one text fallible? I would turn you away from my door, even had I seen the hands of all the Apostles upon your head, unless you preached their doctrines. Why, the strong language of Paul would even warrant me to curse you, coming to me with your claim of Nor is this the worst. We find one general council denouncing another; the church of one age contradicting the church of another. The seat of infallibility is thus undetermined by you, whilst the proofs of your church's fallibility fill the world. It is infallibly certain that your church is fallible. Thus is your church utterly destitute of every mark of being the true church, which you claim for it. Its unity is discord or slavery-its sanctity is corruption-its catholicity is assumption-its apostolicity and infallibility, each a lie. Could I speak of your church in the masculine and feminine gender, as do some of your writers, instead of admitting her to be the one holy, catholic, apostolical and infallible church, I would call her the mother of harlots, and the father of lies; the man of sin fully revealed with "power, and sigus, and lying wonders." THE CHRISTIAN'S BOAST. THE Jew boasted in the law, and gloried in circumcision, and in his descent from Abraham. Great and manifold were the advantages which he had in being so circumstanced and connected. But his glorying was not of the right sort. He made a righteousness to himself of these privileges, and rested secure in them, while he attained not that for which the law was given. "The law entered that the offence might abound;" and that those under it might see themselves to be the greater sinners, and be excluded from justification by its means: while the repetition of the same sacrifices year by year, continually with the annual confession of sins made, because never forgiven and forgotten, should also have led them to see that their only hope and refuge was to betake themselves to the promise, and the mercy to be manifested by the coming of the Deliverer; as it is written, "Before faith came we were kept And yet, whilst common sense rejects your claims, and common reason disproves them, and the Bible denies them, unless in the case of invincible ignorance, you cut off all beyond your pale from all communion with God-from all hope of heaven ! I regard this as simply wicked. To gain your point you rob the Father of us all of his goodness; man you drive to despair; and you convert God into a tyrant. If a boat were as rotten as I believe your church to be, I would not trust it to carry my dog across the North river. And yet it claims the entire monopoly of carrying to heaven all the souls that ever enter it, and for no reason human or divine, can I see, unless it be for the freight. My Bible tells me, Sir, that who-in durance under law, shut up tosoever believeth in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. The sincere believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, whether in your church or other churches, or in no church, form a part of that church which Christ will present to the Father without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. By setting up its claim to be the only true church-by denying salvation to all but your own members, with the exception of the invincibly ignorant, you deny this doctrine of the Bible and of my faith, you lay down a principle unsustained by sense or gether to the faith which should afterwards be revealed." Then instead of the Jew having to boast of the law, it ought to have humbled him by showing him his wretchedness, and his sole indebtedness to favor and mercy, in order to his having a pure conscience, and confidence to draw near to God. With these national views and prejudices were the apostles also originally imbued. But it is remarkable to observe, that that same apostle who was the most noted for his zeal in the Jew's religion, and who could challenge a comparison with the most |