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AUTHOR OF "LIGHT ON THE CLOUD," "THE MORALS of evolution,” etc

SECOND EDITION.

(Corrected.)

BOSTON:

GEO. H. ELLIS, 141 FRANKLIN STREET.

1891.

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INTRODUCTION.

WE have had no end of discussion over the questions, Who are Christians? and What is Christianity? And, so long as the present indefinite methods are followed, there is no apparent reason why there ever should be any end. No first principles or fixed starting-point being held in common, each one chooses his own premises, according to the law of affinity, and then sails easily on to the conclusion he prefers. While very satisfactory to one party, it naturally has little effect on the other. Beecher said, some years ago, that most people go through the Bible like a magnet through a dish of sand containing iron filings, and "come out of it with the texts they like sticking all over them." No better illustration of this can be found than the current discussion about Christianity. Let us see if there is not a method, or a few principles, that all intelligent and honest persons must accord as guides.

To the Catholic, the ultimate authority is the Church. The Church's word is as divine as any recorded utterance of Jesus himself. And, in any case, it is the Church that must decide what Jesus meant, what the Apostles meant, and what the Fathers To a Catholic, then, Christianity is what the Church, in the properly constituted way, pronounces it to be.

meant.

When we come to the Orthodox Protestant, the matter at first sight would seem to be equally clear. The Bible is held to be infallibly inspired, and Christianity is simply what the Bible declares it to be. But now we are met with an element of confusion. The principle of Protestantism asserts the "right of private udgment" as to what the Bible means; and the history of Prot

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