To Pius the Ninth
          Bishop of Rome, --
By Your encyclical letter dated ____, __ 1869 you invite
Protestants to send delegates to the Council called to meet at Rome
during the month of December of the current year.  That letter has
been brought to the attention of the two General Assemblies of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.  Those
Assemblies represent about five thousand ministers and a still
larger number of Christian congregations.
     Believing, as we do, that it is the will of Christ that his
Church on earth should be united, and recognizing the duty of doing
all we consistently can to promote Christian charity and
fellowship, we deem it right briefly to present the reasons which
forbid our participation in the deliberations of the approaching
Council.
     It is not because we have renounced an article of the catholic
faith.  We are not heretics.  We cordially receive all the
doctrines contained in that Symbol which is known as the Apostles
Creed.  We regard all the doctrinal decisions of the first six
oecumenical councils to be consistent with the word of God, and
because of that consistency, we receive them as expressing our
faith.  We therefore believe the doctrines of the Trinity and of
the person of Christ as those doctrines are exhibited in the
symbols adopted by the council of Nice A.D. 321 [sic]; that of
Chalcedon A.D. ___ and more fully of the Council of Constantinople
A.D. ___.  We believe that there are three persons in the Godhead,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are the
same in substance and equal in power and glory.  We believe that
the Eternal Son of God became man by taking to himself a true body
and a reasonable soul, and so was, and continues to be, both God
and man in two distinct natures and one person forever.  We believe
that our adorable Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the prophet who
should come into world, whose teachings we are bound to believe and
in whose promises we rely.  He is the High Priest of pro----(?)
whose infinitely meritorious satisfaction to the divine presence,
and whose ever prevalent (?) intercession, is the sole ground of
the sinners justification and acceptance before God.  We
acknowledge him to be our Lord not only  because we are his
creatures but also because we are the purchase of his blood.  To
his authority we are bound to submit, in his care we confine (?),
and to his service all creatures in heaven and earth should be
devoted.
     We receive also all those doctrines concerning sin, grace,
and predestination, known ---- as Augustinianism; which doctrines
receive the sanction not only of the Council of Carthage A.D. ___
and of other provincial Synods, but of the Ecumenical Council of
Ephesis A.D., and of Zosimus, bishop of Rome A.D. ___.  We
therefore cannot be pronounced heretics without involving in the
same condemnation the whole ancient church.
     Neither are we Schismatics.  We cordially recognise as members
of Christ's visible Church on earth, all those who profess the true
religion together with their children.  We are not only willing but
earnestly desire to hold Christian communion with them; provided
they do not require, as conditions of such communion, that we
profess doctrines which the word of God condemns, or that we should
do what that word forbids.  If in any case any Church prescribes
such unscriptural terms of fellowship, the error and the fault are
with that Church and not with us.
     But although we do not decline your invitation, because we are
either heretics or schismatics, we are nevertheless debarred from
accepting it, because we still hold with ever increasing confidence
these principles for which our fathers were excommunicated and
pronounced accursed by the Council of Trent which represented, and
still represents the Church over which you preside.
     The most important of those principles are First, that the
Word of God, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testaments, are the only infallible rule of faith and practice. 
The Council of Trent, however, pronounces Anathema all who do not
receive the teachings of tradition (Latin phrase--see Trent) as the
Scriptures themselves.  This we cannot do without receiving (?) the
condemnation which our Lord pronounced on the Pharisees, who made
void the word of God by their traditions --Matt. 15, 6.  Secondly,
the right of private judgment:  When we open the Scriptures, we
find that they are addressed to the people.  They speak to us.  We
are commanded to search them. John 5, 39.  To believe what they
teach.  We are held personally responsible for our faith.  The
apostle commands us to pronounced (sic) accursed an apostle or an
angel from heaven, who should anything contrary to the divinely
authenticated word of God.  Gal. 1, 8.  He makes us the judges, and
has placed the rule of judgment into our hands, and holds us
responsible for our judgments.
     Moreover, we find that the teaching of the Holy Spirit was
promised by Christ not to the clergy only; much less to any one
order of the clergy, exclusively, but to all believers.  It is
written, "Ye shall all be taught of God."  The Apostle John says to
believers:  "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and know all
things . . . and the anointing which ye have received of him
abideth in you; and ye need not that any man teach you; but as the
same anointing  teach you of all things, and is of the truth, and
is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in it."
I John 3, 20.27.  This teaching of the Spirit authenticates itself,
as this same Apostle teaches us, when he says; "He that believeth
on the Son of God, hath the witness in himself."  I John 5, 10.  "I
have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but
because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth."  Private
judgment, therefore, is not only a right, but a duty; from which no
man can absolve himself, or be absolved by others.
       Thirdly, we believe in the universal priesthood of believers; that is, 
that all believers have through Christ access by one Spirit unto the Father.
Eph 1,18; that we may come with boldness to the throne of grace ;
that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Heb. 4, 16.  "Having, therefore, boldness to enter into the holiest
by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath
consecrated for us through the veil that is to say, his flesh; and
having an high priest over the house of God; we may draw near with
a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts
sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure
water."  Heb. 10,19-22.  To admit, therefore, the priesthood of the
clergy, whose intervention is necessary to --- for us the remission
of sin and other benefits of the redemption of Christ, is to renounce
the priesthood of our Lord, or its sufficiency to ---- reconciliation
with God.
     Fourthly, we deny the perpetuity of apostleship.  As no man
can be a prophet without the Spirit of prophesy; so no man can be
an apostle without the gifts of an apostle.  Those gifts, as we
learn from Scripture, are, plenary knowledge of the truth derived
from Christ by immediate revelation, Gal. 1, 13; and personal
infallibility as --- and ---.  And the seals of the apostleship were
as Paul teaches us, when he says to the Corinthians, "Truly the
signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in
signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds."  2 Cor. 12, 12.  As prelates
claim to be apostles, and who demand the same confidence in their
teaching, and the same submission to their authority, as that due
to the inspired messengers of Christ, without pretending to profess
either the gifts or signs of the apostleship, we cannot submit to
their claims.  This would be [to] render to erring men the
subjection due to God alone or to his divinely authenticated and
infallible messengers.
     Much less can we recognise the Bishop of Rome as the vicar of
Christ on earth, clothed with the authority of even the Church and
the word which was exercised by our Lord while here in the flesh. 
It is plain that no one can be the vicar of Christ who has not the
attributes of Christ.  To recognise the Bishop of Rome as Christ's
vicar is therefore virtually to recognise him as divine.
     We must stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us
free.  We cannot forfeit our salvation by putting man in the place
of God, giving one of like passions with ourselves the --- of our -
-- --- life which only to him in whom are all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge, and in whom dwells all the fullness of the
Godhead.
     Other and equally cogent reasons might be assigned why we
cannot with a good conscience be represented in the proposed
council.  But as the Council of Trent, whose canons are still in
force, pronounces accursed all who hold the principles above
enumerated, nothing further is necessary to show [that] our
declining your invitation is a matter of necessity
     Nevertheless, although we cannot return to the fellowship of
the Church of Rome, we desire to live in charity with all men.  We
love all those who love or Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.  We
regard as Christian brethren all who worship, love, and obey him as
their God and Saviour; and we hope to be united in heaven with all
who unite with us on earth in saying, "Unto him that loved us, and
washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings
and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion
forever and ever.  Amen.  Rev. 1, 6.

     Signed on behalf of the two General Assemblies of the
Presbyterian Church in the U. S. of America.