1142. The diversity of opinion existing between Romanists and Protestants, are briefly exhibited in the subjoined quotations from the controversy between Archbishop Hughes and the Rev. Mr. Breckinridge. They have already been cited by me in a pamphlet on the better employment of the first day of the week. Here are the opinions of two men highly qualified to judge. In one, we have an eminent champion of Romanism; in the other, a no less able champion of Calvinism. To the latter belongs the distinction of having persecuted the Quakers and witches, and of having roasted Servetus; to the former, putting some hundreds of thousands to death or torture by the sword, the rack, or the fagot. 1143. Agreeing with each of the parties that the other is in the wrong, I, of course, assume that they are both in error. Taken together, they may be considered as proving that there is no evidence in favour of Christianity, which I have not the authority of eminent Christians for rejecting. In the 29th page of the controversy between himself and Breckinridge, Bishop Hughes speaks as follows: 1144. “My fourth argument was, that the Protestant rule of faith actually undermines the authority of the Scriptures, by extinguishing the proofs of their _authenticity_ and _inspiration_, and consequently terminates in moral suicide. Just imagine to yourself an ordinary will or testament, written but twenty years ago, purporting to be the last will and testament of a wealthy deceased relative, and designating you as _heir_, but without either signature or probate, and ask yourself what it would be worth? Could such a document establish its own authenticity? And yet this is precisely the situation to which the Protestant rule of faith reduced the Scriptures, by which, and _by which alone_, their authenticity could have been established. St. Augustine, of whom Presbyterians are sometimes wont to speak with respect, declared that it was the testimony of the church which moved him to believe in the Scriptures. But _now_ the order of belief is ‘reformed.’ Men pick up (pardon the phrase) the sacred volume, as they find it floating on the sea of two thousand years, and by one great but _gratuitous_ act of belief, which flings all intermediate church authority and tradition to the winds, they say ‘the Bible is the Bible, and we are its interpreters, every man for himself.'” 1145. It seems not to have occurred to the right reverend champion of the Catholic creed, that it is not more true that a testament without witnesses is of no validity, than it is true that the testimony of witnesses claiming under the will, cannot be admitted. A document written after the death of the testator would not be considered in a court of justice as entitled to the name of a testament. But were persons to write a will after a man’s death, and bring it forward, claiming under it supremacy, would their claim produce any result beside derision?