_Ergo_, The church, which is alone of apostolic constitution and derivation, with a pure and uncorrupted faith, a duly authorized ministry, the word and sacraments of the gospel, and, with and through these, the dispensation of the supernatural grace of God, will be the church of the future in our country.
(2.) The church, which is alone of apostolic constitution and derivation, with a pure and uncorrupted faith, a duly authorized ministry, the word and sacraments of the gospel, and, with and through these, the dispensation of the supernatural grace of God, will be the church of the future in our country.
The Protestant Episcopal Church is alone of apostolic constitution and derivation, with a pure and uncorrupted faith, a duly authorized ministry, the word and sacraments of the gospel, and, with and through these, the dispensation of the supernatural grace of God.
_Ergo_, The Protestant Episcopal Church will be the church of the future in our country.
With both the premises and the conclusion of the former syllogism we presume that nearly every Christian, Catholic or Protestant, will heartily agree. But we believe the conclusion of the second to be erroneous, and its fallacy we find in what we conceive to be the utter falsehood of its minor premiss, as a simple matter of fact. We know that the writer says: "Whatever may be alleged of others, it cannot be denied that all this is true of our church." But, whether it can or cannot, it most certainly _is_ denied. We here deny it. We deny the apostolic constitution and derivation of the Protestant Episcopal Church. We deny that she holds a pure, uncorrupted faith. We deny that she has a duly authorized ministry. We deny that she possesses the word and sacraments of the gospel. We deny that through that ministry, that faith, that word, those sacraments, [Footnote 27] she retains the dispensation of the supernatural grace of God. And, in support of our denial, we point to Holy Scripture, to the unanimous tradition of the fathers, to the vast treasures of historical and theological learning which have accumulated in the past eighteen hundred years, and to the united voice of the holy Catholic Church throughout the entire world.