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Yet there are many good people in this Babylon, many sincere and earnest Christians; and the principal doctrines of Christianity are all taught in its approved books and in its pulpits. Some of its ministers have, in all ages, been the lights of their times, and the benefactors of their race; and the annals of its missionaries contain some of the brightest examples of Christian heroism that the world contains.

Alas, that so much good, and so much of the glorious, should be mixed with so much evil! Its system of despotism is its fundamental sin; and will, ultimately, prove its ruin. It is not fit that fallible and erring men should be invested with unlimited power. With the best intentions, they are liable to commit great errors. And their intentions cannot always be depended upon to be the best.

This is the case with the Catholic hierarchy. They have usurped greater powers than they know how to use. In a dark age, and in an evil day, they have adopted a system of despotism which only the Creator is competent to exercise with safety. They have aspired above the medium of man's capacities, and they must recede to lower and safer ground. The prerogatives of God must be left to himself alone. He tells us to call no man master, for one is our Master in heaven. We easily infer, therefore, that no man, and no body of men, under any pretext whatever, may assume to be called master, and to exercise lordship over their fellow-men.

The actual working of the Papacy is the most extended and conclusive demonstration of the inexpediency of despotism that the world has ever seen; and is destined to open the eyes of the world, not excepting Catholics themselves, to the essential viciousness of the system.

Many think that despotism is very well, if it is only exercised right. They do not object to it, either in church or state. They only object to the abuse of it. That is the difficulty; if it is only exercised right, it is well indeed. Man is not fit to be an irresponsible master of his fellow-man. His natural and moral

qualifications are both inadequate to the demands of that office. Men cannot be intrusted with an unlimited authority over their children, much as they generally love them. Such authority would often be abused; sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. And children, when they arrive at a proper age, are intrusted with the general direction of their own affairs. They are not always under tutors and governors.

What is true in respect to personal and individual liberty, is true of the liberties of communities, and of all communities, civil and religious. No community ought to have unnecessary restrictions laid on its liberties. Every civil community ought, as far as may consist with the general good, to have the regulation and direction of its own affairs. It knows best, as a general rule, how to order them. It has the highest interest in ordering them right, and the most to lose by ordering them wrong. So of spiritual communities. Every spiritual community ought to have the greatest possible liberty to order its own spiritual concerns and interests. It ought to admit no masters over it, because none can understand its interests, all in all, as well as itself; and they cannot be as important to a master as to itself.

It is one of the results of the Papacy to prevent the greatest possible elevation, dignity and prosperity, of its subjects, instead of promoting them. By repressing a spirit of free inquiry in religion, by abridging unnecessarily the liberties both of the local church and the individual church-member, by encouraging gloomy superstitions, and accustoming its subjects to accept the plausible for the real, the traditionary for the authentic and well supported, and by denying the right and competency of the judgment of individuals in religious matters, it interposes a barrier between the subject and his God, and holds him back from the independent and resolute exercise of his faculties to such a degree, as, in many cases, to do him great injury. Taught that he cannot be more than a child, he does not attempt to be the man he might and ought to be, and accordingly is not.

The highest possible dignity of human nature is only to be

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attained under a system of liberty and independence. favors this, and makes it the greatest possible. The Pope abridges it, and so does the civil and military despot, and makes it the most limited possible. Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American energy and elevation of character never could have existed under the universal and unrestricted reign of Popery, or of civil despotism. They are the growth of liberty in church and state; and are among its noblest products.

PART IV.

REVOLUTIONARY CHURCHES.

THE principal of the modern revolutionary churches may comprehended under the following divisions:

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1. The Consistorial. 2. The Episcopal. 3. The Presbyterian. 4. The Congregational.

The Lutheran churches of Germany are principally consistorial.

1, The church of England; 2, The Protestant Episcopal church of the United States; and, 3, The Methodist Episcopal churches, are episcopal.

The Presbyterian and Congregational churches embrace numerous ecclesiastical bodies, called by different names, which agree in the adoption of their polities respectively. Most of these churches had their origin in the great Protestant reformation, in Germany, in the sixteenth century. Congregationalism has sprung up since. But all are based on revolutionary principles. They are reörganizations and secessions from the Papal church; and, of course, cannot derive from it, or through it, any of their prerogatives and powers.

A seceding state may establish for itself new authority; but it cannot derive any authority whatever from the state departed from. Seceders from independent societies may establish new and other independent societies, but they cannot derive any powers whatever from the societies which they leave.

It is so with the churches which originated in the Protestant

reformation, and which have been organized since. They are out of the succession and out of the communion of the Papal church, and derive from it, and through it, no powers and no authority whatever. Whatever authority and whatever powers they have, they must create and base on revolutionary principles. An attempt has been made by the Episcopal churches to derive their powers from the Papal church, on the principle of an orderly succession and transmission of authority. But, to have any validity in this claim, they must desist from their rebellion and secession, and come into the communion of the Papal church. The branch must belong to the vine, in order to derive support from it; and churches which wish to derive any powers whatever from the Papal church, or through it, must belong to it. The Papal church gives no authority to seceders or schismatics. They may have been in its communion; their ministers may have been ordained by its bishops, and may have officiated by its authority; but, when they secede and rebel, they are excommunicated, and all their powers taken from them. Their ordination is no longer of any effect; they are deposed from the ministry, as heretics and schismatics, and no longer have any authority to minister from their previous ordination. The Episcopal orders, and others, are in the same predicament. They can derive no powers for their organization generally, nor for their ministers in particular, from the Papal church. Their bishops are as destitute of any powers, derived from the Papal church, to officiate as Christian bishops, after their deposition and excommunication by the Papal authorities, as if they had never been ordained. The doctrine of apostolical succession, therefore, in Protestant churches, and in all modern churches not in communion with some of the ancient churches, is entirely unfounded, and ought not to command the confidence of a child.

Whence, then, do the Protestant churches derive their authority? And have they any valid authority to act as churches? And whence do the Protestant ministers derive their authority? And have they any valid authority to act as ministers?

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