Nor only we. In our own country these bold assertions, and the extravagant pretensions which are based upon them, are also constantly denied. Two million Methodists deny them. One million six hundred and ninety thousand Baptists deny them. Seven hundred thousand Presbyterians deny them. Six hundred thousand Universalists deny them. Three hundred and twenty-three thousand eight hundred Lutherans deny them. Two hundred and sixty-seven thousand four hundred Congregationalists deny them. Of the one hundred and sixty-one thousand two hundred Episcopalians, how many dare maintain them? How many are at open warfare with that party, within their communion, from whom these rash and groundless allegations come? Among the extremest of "_Reformed Catholics_" how many actually believe that the ecclesiastical organization to which they protestingly belong, is, in truth, that glorious fabric which our Lord built upon the Rock, St. Peter, and to which he communicated the infallibility of his perpetual presence? Even the subtle _Churchman_ will hardly venture to affirm distinctly his belief of such an extravagant proposition, but will most likely take refuge in the declaration that his is a reformed _branch_ of the Catholic Church, a declaration that destroys the value of his whole argument, unless he also demonstrates the impossibility, to other branches, of the reformation which has sprung from within his own.
To argue that the Episcopal Church alone possesses those characteristics which indicate the true church of God, and that, as such, she must eventually predominate over all the rest, is thus as useless as it is unwise. It opens up a series of disputes which no generation would be long enough to exhaust, and no acknowledged authority be sufficient to determine. It creates in advance an adversary in every Christian outside her exclusive pale, and puts him on his guard against the courtesy and solicitude with which she seeks to win his personal devotion. It thrusts into the face of the inquirer a proposition whose absurdity annoys him, whose positiveness discourages him, whose arrogance repels him. If our Episcopal brethren wish to realize the dreams of their modern seer, they must abandon this species of argument and betake themselves to the adaptation of their church to meet, more fully, the wants and necessities which surround them upon every side.