For  the  rest,  he  says  that  the  Presbyterians  learned  persecution
from  the  church  of  Rome;  and  if  so,  it  must  be  confessed  that
they  remembered  the  lesson  a  long  while,  and  practised  it  so  uni-
formly, that  it  never  would  have  been  forgotten,  had  they  not  been
obliged,  in  the  development  of  national  events,  to  submit  to  the
influence  of  extrinsic  liberality.  He  says,  however,  that  the  Pres-
byterian Church  is  not  infallible,  of  which,  indeed,  there  is  sufficient
evidence.  Now  when  it  shall  be  my  privilege  to  investigate  "  the
doctrines  and  principles  of  the  Presbyterian  religion,"  I  pledge
myself  to  prove  that  persecution,  for  conscience  sake,  has  been
their  doctrine.  And  as  they  are  fallible,  they  may  discover  in  due
time,  that  in  disavowing  this  doctrine  out  of  compliment  to  the
American  Constitution,  they  were  guilty  of  a  departure  from
the  "  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints."  Hence,  their  fallibility
in  doctrine  is  a  very  suspicious  argument  to  prove  that  they  will
never  relapse  into  their  old  habits.  The  gentleman  says  that  the
Catholic  Church  is,  or  claims  to  be,  infallible.  This  is  true.  She
claims  to  have  received  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  from  Christ
and  his  apostles.  She  claims  to  have  received  divine  commission
to  teach  and  transmit  these  doctrines,  unchanged  as  she  received
them.  Hence  she  claims  to  have  been  constituted  a  witness  of
what  they  are — with  authority  to  expel  from  her  communion  those
who  would  add,  or  diminish,  or  pervert.  She  makes  no  doctrine  ;
she  repudiates  none  that  was  originally  committed  to  her  testi-


82

mony.  In  giving  that  testimony,  she  claims  to  be  protected  from
the  attestation  of  falsehood,  by  the  promise  of  him  who  said  '*  I
am  with  you  all  days  till  the  consummation  of  the  world."  In  this
sense,  therefore,  and  in  this  sense  alone,  she  claims  to  be  "  infal-
lible." If  she  teach  as  *'  a  tenet  of  fafth  »r  morale  revealed
BY  Almighty  God"  that"  civil  and  religious  liberty," or  either  of
them,  issinful,  then  I  ambound  as  a  Catholicto  believe aceordingly,
and  I  should  he  guilty  of  heresy  were  I  to  deny  it.
