THREE
ANTI-CATHOLICISM, BAPTISM AND THE LIMITS OF
CATHOLICITY
If the first major debate in the Old
School focused on its own polity, the second set of issues intersected with a
broader set of concerns. The General Assembly of 1845 argued three significant
questions in its two week sessions at Cincinnati (May 15-27, 1845). The most
famous decision affected slavery (chapter six), but the debates on marriage
(chapter four) and the validity of Roman Catholic baptism lasted much longer.
These three issues drew the church to consider its relationship to the civil
law and to other churches. All three questions had percolated in the church for
several years, and had been the objects of previous General Assembly
discussions, but the question of Roman Catholic baptism excited the widest
discussion in the newspapers following the Assembly.
The Old School General Assembly
voted 173-8 to declare Roman Catholic baptism invalid. Given the general
anti-Catholic sentiment of the times, this may not sound surprising. But this
decision is remarkable because the Old School prided itself on its
conservatism, and yet this was the first time that any Reformed church
had rejected the validity of Roman Catholic baptism.[1] Presbyterians in Scotland and Ireland had
historically followed the 1565 decision of the Scottish General Assembly
accepting the validity of such baptisms.[2] While anti-Catholicism played a significant role
(together with the traditional eschatological description of the pope as the
“beast” or “antichrist”), that alone cannot explain why the Old School chose to
reject the validity of Roman Catholic baptism. Changing conceptions of
catholicity, along with the common sense moral reasoning associated with what
Mark Noll has called a Reformed literal hermeneutic were also crucial in
developing overwhelming support for such a radical innovation.[3]
In America, the question of Roman
Catholic baptism was initially raised at the General Assembly in 1832. The
moderator, the Rev. James Hoge, pastor at Columbus, Ohio, appointed a temporary
committee, including Robert J. Breckinridge, at that time a young ruling elder.
This committee urged the Assembly to deny its validity.[4] But the committee’s report collided with Samuel
Miller’s staunch defense of the historic Reformed position, so the Assembly
referred the matter to a study committee of leading theology professors from
around the country.[5] Its geographical diffusion hamstrung this committee,
so the following year the Assembly referred the matter to a committee of
ministers and professors along the New York-Baltimore corridor.[6]
The two major Presbyterian decisions
regarding Roman Catholicism occurred in 1835 and 1845, in the midst of one of
the most rabidly anti-Catholic periods of American history.[7] The first, instigated by Robert Breckinridge’s
brother John, determined that “the Roman Catholic Church has essentially
apostatized from the religion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and
therefore cannot be recognized as a Christian Church.” John Breckinridge’s
Presbytery of Baltimore had introduced an overture on popery, and his proposed
resolution declared that Rome was apostate,
cast off from the church of
Christ; and therefore that her ordinances, acts, and administrations are not to
be recognized as valid, and that this is more especially true in regard to her
professed sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist--inasmuch as by various
profane exorcisms, idolatrous incantations and unauthorized additions,
mutilations and ceremonies, these simple sacraments have wholly lost their
original character and true design.[8]
Samuel
Miller, John Breckinridge’s father-in-law, could “not agree to all the report,
especially to the calling in question the validity of Romish baptism.” Miller
urged the Assembly to remove the reference to the sacraments, since the
Reformed churches had always acknowledged Roman Catholic baptism. In reply,
Breckinridge argued that “the moment I admit the validity of Romish ordinances.
. . I am beaten in my argument” against Rome. While he admitted that
ecclesiastical statements would not accomplish much in debate with “papists,”
he claimed that since popery was becoming more and more powerful, it was time to
act.[9] In the end, the Assembly removed the reference to the
sacraments, but retained the general statement that the Roman Catholic church
was apostate and no longer a church of Jesus Christ.
The Assembly had refused to reject
Roman Catholic baptism explicitly, but the Breckinridges hoped that this more
general condemnation would pave the way for a later reconsideration of the
baptism question. And they had succeeded in bringing the question of Roman
Catholic expansion to the attention of the Presbyterian Church. In a unanimous
decision, the General Assembly urged all Presbyterians to resist the extension
of Romanism “by means of the pulpit and the press, and all other proper and
Christian means,” and declared that it was “utterly inconsistent with the
strongest obligations of Christian parents to place their children for
education in Roman Catholic Seminaries.”[10]
But while the church had not
formally condemned Roman Catholic baptism, many pointed out that the
declaration that Rome was no longer a Christian church had implications for its
baptisms. As M. Maclean, editor of the Southern Christian Herald,
replied to one inquirer, “the inference from this resolution of the
Assembly seems to us to be adverse to the validity of Roman Catholic baptism.
For an association which cannot be recognized as a Christian church surely can
have no authority to administer ordinances which only the ministers of the
church can administer.”[11]
1.
The Underlying Issue: Where Was the Church?
The question at stake was the matter
of catholicity. Presbyterians generally recognized the validity of other
branches of the Christian church, but for centuries that recognition was mostly
focused on churches in other countries. The old confessional model of the
Reformed church had insisted that the sacraments must be administered by a duly
ordained minister. If the established Church of Scotland deposed a minister,
then he could no longer serve as a pastor, and therefore there was little danger
of him attempting to continue baptizing and preaching without being labeled as
a schismatic, detached from the church of Jesus Christ.
In America, the Presbyterian church
was merely one church among many, yet it attempted to retain its catholic
conception of the fellowship of the church.[12] If a Presbyterian minister became convinced of
Baptistic views, he might be deposed, but then he would merely turn to the
Baptists. Likewise, if a Presbyterian minister became an Arminian, he could
simply transfer to the Methodists. And since the Presbyterian church recognized
these other denominations as Christian churches, how could it consistently
depose a man from the ministry who merely taught the same things as others whom
the church recognized as validly ordained ministers?[13]
Several case studies presented
themselves. One of the first was the Cumberland Presbyterian schism of
1806-1810. The Cumberland ministers had been deposed in 1806, and had only
started the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1810. Since deposition removed a
man from the ordained ministry, technically his baptisms would be considered
lay baptisms–a thing not recognized by the Presbyterian church. But the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church, with its blend of Calvinism and Arminianism,
was closer to the Presbyterian church than the Wesleyan Methodists. How could
Presbyterians recognize Methodist baptism, while rejecting that of the
Cumberland Presbyterians? In a move that attempted to preserve the integrity of
Presbyterian discipline, while recognizing the validity of other denominations,
the General Assembly of 1825 declared that Cumberland Presbyterian baptisms
were invalid from 1806-1810, while the Cumberland ministers were under the
discipline of the church, but were valid after 1810, once they had their own
denominational structure.[14]
In a similar case in South Carolina
in the 1830s, the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia declared that the
Independent Presbyterian Church (a schism led by the Rev. William C. Davis in
1810) had no valid ordinations or baptisms, stating “That this Synod do not
acknowledge as valid the ordinance of Baptism as administered by a deposed
Minister, or by any one whom such deposed Minister may have ordained, or by a
Layman.” One of its presbyteries disagreed. Following the Assembly’s decision
regarding the Cumberland Presbyterians, Bethel Presbytery argued that while the
Independent Presbyterian ordinances had “a high degree of irregularity,” they
were still valid. In an intriguing argument, one presbyter from Bethel argued
that the censure of deposition did not remove Davis’ ministerial office; “the
only effect of such a sentence is to declare him no longer a Minister in our
connexion. Are we to set ourselves up as the standard, and say that as soon as
a man ceases to hold our peculiar views of doctrine, he ceases to be a
Minister?” If a Presbyterian minister left to become a Baptist or an
Episcopalian, the church generally did not depose him–or if it did, that would
not alter his ministerial character. Arguing that the Synod’s decision was
bigoted, sectarian, and high-church, he urged the church to reconsider.[15] This presbyter was attempting to articulate a way of
maintaining discipline, while recognizing the catholicity of the visible church.[16]
Benjamin Gildersleeve, the editor of
the Charleston Observer, replied that this argument undermined
traditional Presbyterian discipline, and would require the church to accept lay
baptisms and lay ordinations. Deposition was not merely a statement that a man
ceased to be a minister “in our connexion.” It really removed him from the
gospel ministry entirely. He was no longer a clergyman, but was a layman.
Gildersleeve insisted that while Presbyterians may have recognized the
existence of other denominations, they could not allow this to interfere with
the proper exercise of discipline.[17] Gildersleeve was technically correct with respect to
the language of the church order, but the church order was not designed for the
denominational world.
By the 1840s questions were also
being raised about the propriety of accepting Campbellite baptisms. The basic
problem was that the Campbellites had no creed. How could the Presbyterian
church determine whether the Campbellites were truly Christian if they did not
say what they believed? Catholicity had its limits. One author wrote in 1849
that Old School Presbyterians did not generally accept Campbellite baptism:
“Our uniform practice has been to receive persons coming from that communion,
as coming from the world, unless they have been baptized by a regularly
ordained minister of an evangelical church before becoming connected with that
body.”[18] Another writer alleged that many Campbellites denied
the doctrine of the Trinity.[19] In 1858 the Presbytery of Transylvania (Kentucky) had
declared that valid baptism required that the administration be by “a true
Church of Christ, holding baptism to be a seal of the righteousness of faith
and a sign of cleansing by the blood of Christ and the sanctifying influence of
the Holy Spirit; and to acknowledge also the person administering that baptism
to be a minister of Christ lawfully called to administer ordinances.” The
presbytery could not recognize the Campbellites as a “part of the true Church
visible,” because they had no creed: “The vessel that sails the seas, refusing
to show the flag, is presumed to be piratical.” Since the Campbellites refused
to say what they believed, there was no way for other churches to maintain
fellowship with them.[20] Six years later the General Assembly declared
Campbellite baptism to be invalid.[21]
The underlying question was how to
practice the catholicity of the church in the midst of denominational chaos.
The problem was how to maintain a semblance of discipline in the context of the
pluriformity of the church. If discipline was going to mean anything, then the
church could not recognize the baptisms performed by deposed ministers. But not
all error was equally destructive. Those errorists who remained within the
bounds of evangelical orthodoxy could still be recognized as ministers–but no
longer as ministers in the Presbyterian church. On the other hand, those who
departed from orthodoxy entirely could no longer be considered Christian
churches.[22]
2.
Catholicity vs. Rome: the Re-emergence of Anti-Catholicism, 1835-1845
But when Presbyterians attempted to
establish criteria for determining where to find the church, they usually found
their benchmark in the classic controversy with Rome. But the classic
controversy was altered by the new denominational Protestant world. Never
before had Presbyterians formally rejected the validity of Roman Catholic
baptism, but they felt the relentless pressure of the renewed Protestant
movement to deny that Rome was a true church–and if Rome was not a true church,
then many could not see any alternative but to reject the validity of its
baptism.
Linda Colley has argued that a
Protestant national identity was formed in Great Britain primarily as a
reaction to the French Roman Catholic “other,” during the colonial wars of the
eighteenth century.[23] Colonial American anti-Catholic tendencies plainly
drew on the same source.[24] Both the question of Roman Catholic baptism and the
education debates reveal how Protestant nationality functioned in an American
context.
Most historians recognize that the
resurgence of anti-Catholicism was launched by fears over the increased Roman
Catholic immigration in the 1820s and 1830s.[25] Ray Allen Billington’s 1938 The Protestant Crusade
remains the most thorough study,[26] though it covers only the most virulent wing of the
anti-Catholic movement, and focuses almost solely on the political connection
between anti-Catholicism and nativism. While the linkage of anti-Catholicism
with nativism is plain, the two movements are not identical. Much of American
anti-Catholicism was rooted primarily in Protestants’ theological convictions
regarding the nature of the Roman Catholic church, along with the political
ramifications of those theological claims.[27] Anti-Catholics were not necessarily nativist, since
many encouraged immigration from Protestant countries. As long as Roman
Catholics remained a tiny minority, they could tolerate their presence; but as
immigration swelled the ranks of the Roman Catholic church, Protestants became
convinced that the religious and political power of Rome was a serious threat
to American civil and religious liberties. The reason that historians have
confused anti-Catholicism with nativism is due to the rhetorical pressures of
American politics. Those who prized religious freedom could not consistently
form an anti-Catholic political organization. They had to couch their political
rhetoric in the language of nativism. This created a dual front for the
anti-Catholic movement: 1) an overtly theological attack on their religious
objections to Roman Catholicism (roughly parallel to their theological debates
with other Protestants); and 2) a political argument that was rhetorically
abstracted from the theological discussion in order to remain consistent with
the ideals of religious freedom.[28]
Not surprisingly, then, Old School
Presbyterians waged a war on both fronts–the theological and the political. The
Protestant movement of the 1830s and 1840s utilized three basic media: the
lecture, the debate, and the periodical press (which also printed many of the
lectures and commented on the debates). A fourth forum developed in the civil
courts, through a few high profile slander trials when Presbyterian editors
were accused of defaming the character of certain Roman Catholic priests.
A. The Pulpit and the Press
The 1835 General Assembly had called
for the pulpit and the press to be more active in combating the “aggression” of
Rome, but this was merely in confirmation of what Nathan Rice and R. J.
Breckinridge had already begun earlier that year. Rice started the Western
Protestant in Bardstown, Kentucky, while Breckinridge edited the Baltimore
Literary and Religious Magazine in Baltimore, Maryland, two of the first
four Roman Catholic dioceses in America.
Breckinridge, three years into his
first pastorate at the Second Presbyterian Church of Baltimore,[29] claimed that he came to Baltimore with no desire to
engage in the papal controversy. But when he offered a series of lectures on
Roman Catholicism to his own congregation, a Roman Catholic priest interrupted
one of the lectures, causing great excitement, and drawing much larger crowds.
The city press had made some unfavorable comments about Breckinridge’s
lectures, but when local editors refused to publish his responses (which,
knowing Breckinridge, were probably inflammatory), he had become convinced that
the Roman Catholics were trying to control the city press. The only way for a
zealous Protestant to be heard in Baltimore was to start his own paper. “The
Catholic population of Baltimore, with less than one-quarter of the aggregate
wealth, enterprise, and intelligence of this good city, has for years exerted
tenfold the influence over the press, that all the remaining three-quarters
ever did. And, I for one, am ready to cooperate for the destruction of this
hurtful and undue influence.”[30]
The Baltimore Literary and
Religious Magazine was designed to include at least one article devoted to
the “papal controversy” every month. For the first two years of its existence,
the paper devoted around three-quarters of its pages to the controversy.[31] Some of the literature was “anti-Catholic” (such as
the “Trial of Antichrist,” which ran from February to December of 1836, a
clever fictional trial of the papacy before the court of heaven), but a large
portion consisted of historical documents, patristic, medieval and modern (to
use the three-fold division of church history current at the time). Papal
bulls, patristic and medieval essays on the way of salvation, and historic
episodes in church-state relations were on display for Breckinridge’s readers
to absorb. With the anti-Catholic articles interspersed between the historical
material, the intended message was obvious: the greatest threat to the
religious and civil liberties of the nation was the papacy. Breckinridge
admitted that most American Catholics repudiated certain tenets of Rome (such
as the doctrine that no Protestant could be saved)[32], but argued that if they disagreed with the Pope on
such matters, perhaps it would be best if they became Protestants themselves!
Breckinridge did not ignore
contemporary issues, however. He published articles defending Texas against the
Mexican government as early as 1836, arguing that the problems in Texas were
rooted in Roman Catholic attempts to get rid of Protestants, along with
“republican government and religious liberty.” He claimed that two Roman
Catholic bishops were funding the war with $1 million to drive all Americans out
of Texas.[33] When the College of New Jersey (a Presbyterian
college) gave William Gaston (the Roman Catholic chief justice of North
Carolina) an honorary doctorate in 1835, Breckinridge exploded, suggesting that
Gaston had received a dispensation from the Bishop of Baltimore in order to
hold political office in North Carolina (until 1835, when it was altered for
Gaston’s sake, North Carolina’s Constitution required an oath that the office
holder affirmed the general truth of the Protestant religion).[34] In a similar vein, when it became known that Vice
President Martin Van Buren had corresponded directly with the pope while
secretary of state, and that now Roger B. Taney (a Roman Catholic) was a
candidate for chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, Breckinridge
was convinced that something was afoot:
we are no party politicians;
we are no enemies of Mr. Van Buren; we have nothing to say against Mr. Taney.
But we beseech the American people to ask themselves this plain question: What
has Mr. Taney done or shown himself capable of doing, to deserve the highest,
most illustrious, most honoured office, in the gift of man? Let the Roman
Pontiff answer that question!”[35]
As
far as Breckinridge could see, the historical quest of the papacy for temporal
power had not abated, and every advance made by Roman Catholic laymen was seen
as being orchestrated by a secret papal conspiracy to overthrow American civil
and religious liberty.[36]
B. The Debates
With such rhetoric coming from
Breckinridge’s monthly magazine (as well as other Protestant journals), perhaps
it is not surprising that Roman Catholic priests tried to meet the paranoia by
accepting some of the invitations to debate. In the mid-1830s several Protestant/Catholic
debates occurred throughout the country.[37] Perhaps the most famous took place in Baltimore in
the winter of 1835/36 between the Reverend John Breckinridge (Robert’s brother,
and the former pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Baltimore), and Father
John Hughes (later archbishop of New York), on the question of whether either
the Roman Catholic or the Presbyterian religion was “inimical to civil or
religious liberty.”[38] The topic had been chosen by the Union Literary and
Debating Institute of Baltimore (consisting of both Roman Catholics and
Protestants). The definitions agreed upon by both parties were that religious
liberty consisted of the right of each individual to worship God according to
the dictates of his own conscience, without injuring or invading the rights of
others; while civil liberty consisted of the absolute rights of an individual
restrained only for the preservation of order in society. Both sides agreed to
limit themselves only to the official doctrine of the two churches, as
exemplified in their confessions and official doctrinal decisions. Needless to
say, neither party followed this rule, but regularly appealed to the most
intolerant acts of the other church (and in some cases made egregious errors of
fact in relying upon the false accusations of others). But their main
arguments–and their perpetual accusations of dishonesty against each
other–revealed the impassable gulf between them.
Hughes presented himself, and the
Roman Catholic church, as the champion of civil and religious liberty. Claiming
that Presbyterians were trying to “destroy the civil and religious reputation
of Catholics,” the Ulster-born Hughes told his hearers: “I was born under the
scourge of Protestant persecution, of which my fathers, in common with their
Catholic countrymen, had been the victims for ages. Hence I know the value
of that civil and religious liberty which our happy government secures to all.”[39]
Breckinridge replied that the very
fact that Rome encourages religious establishments demonstrates that it is
against religious liberty. Claiming that “conscientious papists” rejected the
United States Constitution’s emphasis on the rights of conscience, he claimed
that Roman Catholics “ascribe to the Pope the right and the power to
dictate their creed, and to enforce obedience to it; and they are voluntary
slaves by giving up their rights of conscience; and in all Catholic
countries, they concur by civil and if necessary by military force, to compel
submission in others. Hence no good Catholic can be a consistent American.”[40] He suggested that if Hughes actually believed in the
importance of civil and religious liberty, he should insist upon the rights of
Protestants in Roman Catholic countries–such as Italy–to worship freely.
Hughes declared in turn that he
rejected the idea that human authority could interfere with the rights of
conscience. The Pope, he said, may not dictate our creed and force us to obey
it: “the Pope has no such right, and the proposition would be condemned by
the Pope himself, and the whole Catholic Church, as heretical.”[41] He pointed to France and Poland as examples of Roman
Catholic countries that maintained liberty of worship for Protestants and all
others. When Breckinridge pointed out that the pope had regularly objected to
this religious liberty in these countries, Hughes replied that this was the
present pope’s position, but it had never been formally made a part of the
church’s official doctrine.
Hughes then turned his guns on the
Presbyterians (by which he meant the whole Reformed tradition). He suggested
that attempts to pass sabbath legislation and the growing number of
anti-Catholic periodicals and pamphlets were part of a conspiracy to make
Presbyterianism the dominant religion in America. This, he insisted, broke from
their Ulster heritage, since the Scots-Irish in Ulster would never have allowed
such mistreatment of Irish Catholics as regularly occurred in America. Hughes
had to admit that the Presbyterians had changed their creed to reject their
former approval of established churches, but he argued that the Presbyterians
ability to change their creed to fit political circumstances was dangerous
because they could resume their intolerance as soon as it was convenient.
Breckinridge replied by pointing out
that the Presbyterian Confession protects all Christians–including Roman
Catholics.[42] Pointing to the involvement of John Witherspoon and
other Presbyterians in the Revolutionary cause, he argued that the American
Constitution was the result of Presbyterian convictions–not the cause. We are
no longer Scots, he argued, but Americans. When Hughes pointed to the statement
in the Larger Catechism that Presbyterians are bound to seek to “remove
idolatry” (and Presbyterians considered Roman Catholic worship to be
idolatrous), and argued that the attack on the Boston convent was simply the outworking
of Presbyterian principles, Breckinridge replied that the proper way to remove
idolatry was through persuasion–not through violence or political power. He
admitted that Roman Catholics had every right to proselytize in this country,
but Presbyterians had every right to try to stop them through free inquiry and
debate. He agreed that all religions had a right to the protection of the
magistrate, but that protection extended to the freedom to condemn the
religious principles of other religions.[43] Predictably, both sides claimed the victory in the
debate, but little was accomplished by either side.
C. Milly McPherson and Mr. Maguire: the Trials of N.
L. Rice and R. J. Breckinridge
The
conviction amongst Protestant groups that a Roman Catholic conspiracy was afoot
occasionally led to accusations of serious ethical deviations, or even crimes.
While the case of Maria Monk was the most famous, there were others that also
gained notoriety, especially outside of the Northeast. Indeed, while Old School
Presbyterians tended to believe that Monk was telling the truth, they seem to
have not paid a great deal of attention to her case. Breckinridge waited ten
months before commenting on the case, because he was uncertain of its truth.
Its plausibility, however, was obvious to him. Like most in the Protestant
movement, it took very little to convince him that Roman Catholic priests were
capable of the most outrageous crimes.[44] When Monk turned against her Protestant “benefactors”
there seems to have been little interest in Old School papers, as some
published Brownlee’s version of the story, and others ignored the case
entirely.[45]
Part of the reason for the relative
indifference that Old School Presbyterians showed to Maria Monk may have been
the fact that they had their own cause celebre, Milly McPherson. Nathan
L. Rice was the pastor of the Presbyterian church in Bardstown, Kentucky from
1833-41. When he came to Bardstown, he was told of the mysterious disappearance
of Milly McPherson, a Roman Catholic nun who had claimed to have been abused by
a priest in 1831-32, and then fled, never to be heard from again. When Rice
published the story in his Western Protestant in 1836, the priest sued
him for libel. The trial was the sensation of the year in Kentucky. Two of
Kentucky’s leading politicians, United States Senator John J. Crittenden and
Lieutenant Governor Charles A. Wickliffe, served as counsel for Rice, along
with Nathaniel Wickliffe.[46] The priests did not deny that “the young woman had
been in the nunnery; that she assigned, as a chief reason for leaving it, the
licentious conduct of the priest; and that she had disappeared from the
neighborhood,” but claimed that she was insane and had falsely accused him.[47] Since the only witness was Milly McPherson, and all
attempts to find her could only show that some woman by that name had briefly
taught school in Indiana, the judge ordered that Rice had to be found guilty,
since he could not substantiate his claims. The jury returned the verdict, but
fined Rice only one cent, suggesting that they were not convinced of his guilt.
For the next 25 years Rice used this story to suggest that McPherson had met
some evil end. And for many years, when Old School Presbyterians (especially in
the West) debated Roman Catholics, a common question was “what became of Milly
McPherson?”[48]
Not surprisingly, R. J. Breckinridge
also was sued for libel. What is surprising is how long it took. After five
years of his regular attacks on the Roman Catholic community in Baltimore
(including a suggestion of foul play in May of 1835, when screams for help were
heard from the Carmelite convent in Baltimore, and Breckinridge assumed that it
was a sexual assault on a nun[49]), he finally crossed the line when he accused the
keeper of the city alms house, one Mr. James L. Maguire, of holding a man
captive against his will at the order of Roman Catholic priests, when the man
indicated that he wanted to learn about Protestantism.
When he learned of the lawsuit,
Breckinridge was delighted. “Our purpose in the beginning was to expose the
anti-christian, anti-social, anti-republican doctrines--and the corrupt and
abominable practices of the papacy,” and now finally he would get his day in
court.[50] His entire magazine for May and June of 1840 was
devoted to an account of the trial. Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky (who
had defended Rice four years earlier) now came to Baltimore to help his old
friend,[51] along with William Schley, a local Baltimore lawyer.
Senator William C. Preston of South Carolina (Breckinridge’s brother-in-law)
provided informal counsel as well.[52] The trial was the sensation of 1840 throughout the
country. A hung jury resulted in Breckinridge’s acquittal, which prompted
William C. Brownlee to congratulate him for dealing such a serious blow to “the
Beast.”[53]
Not all Old School Presbyterians,
however, appreciated Breckinridge’s tactics. When Breckinridge visited New York
City, William W. Phillips and Gardiner Spring (pastors of First and Brick
Presbyterian churches, the two most prestigious Presbyterian congregations in
the city) refused to let him preach from their pulpits, and James Lenox, ruling
elder of First Church (and one of the leading contributors to Princeton
Seminary), was said by Brownlee to “oppose our movements against Popery.”[54]
Even close to home, Breckinridge
found opposition. Samuel Annan, a physician at the alms house, and an elder at
the Third Presbyterian Church of Baltimore (he had left Second Church shortly
after Breckinridge arrived), had testified in court that Breckinridge had
misconstrued the whole affair. Breckinridge replied with a savage attack in his
magazine. After dragging Annan’s character through the mud in an open letter,
Breckinridge concluded, “May the Lord Jehovah judge between us, even as he has
judged between me and all who have heretofore hated and pursued me for his
sake. Yours, in sincere pity, Robert J. Breckinridge.”[55] When Annan defended his conduct in a pamphlet,
Breckinridge replied that it was astounding that “he is still a public officer
of the Alms House, and as yet is allowed to degrade the name of Ruling Elder in
the Presbyterian church.”[56]
D. The Rise of the Protestant Associations
While Protestants in general, and
Presbyterians in particular, had always opposed the spread of the doctrines and
practices of Rome, the level of that opposition fluctuated in proportion to
their sense of the immediacy of the “romish threat.” And in the late 1830s and
early 1840s, Presbyterians were increasingly alarmed at the influx of Roman
Catholics.[57] A Protestant Association was formed in Baltimore
early in 1835 with Old School ministers R. J. Breckinridge and G. W. Musgrave,
licentiate A. B. Cross (RJB’s co-editor), and ruling elders John N. Brown, and
J. Harmon Brown among those calling the meeting. While Methodists were chosen
as president and secretary of the first meeting; Breckinridge was selected as
corresponding secretary, the only permanent officer of the Association.[58] After that group disbanded, Breckinridge helped found
“The Society of the Friends of the Reformation” in 1843, together with the
Evangelical Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians and German Reformed
in Baltimore.
That same year saw the formation of
the American Protestant Association in Philadelphia. Old School Presbyterians
were at the fore: C. C. Cuyler was chairman of the initial meeting, while Henry
A. Boardman served as corresponding secretary. Lay directors from the Old
School included Samuel Agnew and Joseph A. Davidson. The initial statement of
the association warned that the spread of Romanism in England, Scotland and
America suggested that there was a conspiracy at work. Since most Roman
Catholic clergy were foreigners, “bound by their oath of office to
‘defend and keep the Roman Papacy and the royalties of St. Peter,
against all men,’” they could not be faithful American citizens. “We see them
boasting that they hold the balance of political power. . . a party governed by
a foreign head, guided by priests the greater part of whom are not naturalized
citizens, and impelled by sympathies at war with our republican institutions.”
With the Leopold Foundation in Austria, “under the patronage of Prince
Metternich, a prime friend of despotism and Popery, for the purpose of
propagating Romanism in this country,” and the well-publicized attempts to
plant “large colonies of Papists in our Western States,” it seemed clear
to them that Rome was trying to take over the Mississippi Valley, and
eventually the United States.[59] In support of their claims that Roman Catholicism was
a threat to American liberties, they quoted from the “Encyclical Letter of
August 15th, 1832,” of Gregory XVI (the reigning pope) regarding
republicanism:
From that polluted fountain
of indifference flows that absurd and erroneous doctrine, or rather raving, in
favour and in defence of ‘liberty of conscience,’ for which most
pestilential error, the course is opened by theat entire and wild liberty
of opinion which is every where attempting the overthrow of civil and
religious institutions; and which the unblushing impudence of some, has held
forth as an advantage of religion. . . . From hence arise these revolutions in
the minds of men, hence this aggravated corruption of youth, hence this concept
among the people of sacred things, and of the most holy institutions and laws;
hence in one word, that pest of all others most to be dreaded in a State,
unbridled liberty of opinion.
Since
Gregory had also condemned “that worst and never sufficiently to be
execrated and detested liberty of the press,” and “the zeal of some to
separate the church from the state, and to burst the bond which unties
the priesthood to the Empire,” the American Protestant Association believed
that they had good reason to be concerned about the massive immigration that
now threatened to change the shape of the United States. Therefore they
promised that they would oppose Romanism by the dissemination of the truth.
They insisted that they would not interfere with the religious aspects of
Romanism, but would rather defend the civil and religious liberty of the United
States.[60] While the American Protestant Association was a
nativist organization in one sense, it was a theological brand of nativism that
objected to Rome’s particular definition of the church.
Most Old School newspapers hailed
this organization as a timely step in combating Roman Catholic “aggression.”[61] Breckinridge, on the other hand, wondered why it took
them so long to see the danger and scorned their lack of battle “scars.” Still
he rejoiced in this new interdenominational effort, proclaiming: “Look to your
ways, ye vassals of Rome. Look to your ways, ye Jesuits; haters of liberty, of
truth, and of righteousness. For verily, it is no longer a solitary man who
stands forth to defy and to resist you.” Breckinridge believed that “the great
revival of the spirit of the Reformation” throughout the world would be God’s
instrument in bringing about the “predestinated ruin” of the Roman Catholic
“Antichrist.”[62]
E. The Explosion of Anti-Catholic Periodicals, 1844-45
As Irish immigration increased
dramatically in 1844-45, anti-catholic measures increased as well. In the
fourteen months between January of 1844 and February of 1845, no less than five
anti-catholic periodicals were started by Old School Presbyterians in the south
and west–in some cases in conjunction with ministers from other denominations.[63]
Figure 3.1. Anti-Catholic
Newspapers Started by Old School Editors in 1844-1845
Date Title Place Old School Editors
1844 Herald of Religious Liberty St. Louis, Missouri Hiram Chamberlain
1844 True Catholic Louisville, Kentucky William L. Breckinridge & Edward P. Humphrey
1844 New Orleans Protestant New Orleans, LA J. B. Warren & Session, 1st Pbn Ch New Orleans
1844 Jackson Protestant Jackson, Tennessee A. A. Campbell
1845 Western Protestant Cincinnati, Ohio Nathan Lewis Rice
Neither
the Jackson Protestant nor the Western Protestant survived a
year of publication, as Campbell’s death ended his enterprise, and Rice merged
his paper with the True Catholic after nine months, assuming a portion
of the editorial responsibility for the joint paper. The other three originally
attempted to engage some assistance from ministers of other denominations, but
only the True Catholic (1844-1847) was able to sustain the effort as an
interdenominational Protestant paper. The Herald of Religious Liberty
and the New Orleans Protestant gradually became denominational
papers, and were renamed the St. Louis Presbyterian (ca. 1849) and
the New Orleans Presbyterian (1847) respectively.[64]
The True Catholic was first
issued at Louisville on May 1, 1844, as a bi-monthly “devoted to the exposure
of popery, and the spread of religion, liberty and knowledge.”[65] Its editors, drawn from the Old School Presbyterian,
Methodist Episcopal, and Baptist churches declared that “the West is to be the
arena, where the great principles of civil and religious liberty are to be
asserted, against their haughty and imperious foe.” Because they attribute
salvation to “the grace of God, justifying the sinner through faith in His
Son,” and accept “the rule of faith and life” as the scriptures alone, “the
evangelical churches are, in truth, the exponents of the Catholic or universal
faith. . . . He who maintains these principles as they are taught in the word
of God, and whose heart and life are in conformity thereto, is a True
Catholic.”
The editors wanted to be fair to
Rome. Therefore they decided to avoid reprinting much of the Protestant
literature about Rome, but tried to rely on the official statements of the
Roman Church. They hoped that by revealing the official teaching of Rome, they
would demonstrate that they were not the enemies of Roman Catholics, but their
best friends, revealing “the monstrous system by which they are enslaved.”[66] In doing so they sought to imitate, or even improve
upon such periodicals as R. J. Breckinridge’s now defunct Baltimore Literary
and Religious Magazine (which, perhaps, is not surprising, since his
younger brother, William, was one of the True Catholic’s editors).[67]
Besides historical documents, the True
Catholic regularly engaged in sparring with Roman Catholic periodicals in the
region. When the Catholic Advocate and the Catholic Herald argued
that the United States had no religion, and therefore “ought to have no
religious functionaries,” such as chaplains, the True Catholic replied
that the United States was in fact a Protestant country. The Continental
Congress in 1774 had complained about Roman Catholic power in Canada, fearing
that they “might become formidable to us, and on occasion, be fit instruments
in the hands of power to reduce these ancient, free, Protestant colonies to the same state
of slavery with themselves.” Citing several other decisions of congress from
the 1780s, the editors declared, “We are not a nation without a religion. . . .
However hard it may be, Papists will have to learn that this is still a Protestant
country.”[68]
In January of 1845, the True
Catholic reported the resolutions of the Maysville Protestant
Association. The Reverend Robert C. Grundy (PTS 1835, Old School pastor at Maysville,
and corresponding secretary of the society) had presented five resolutions
declaring that the United States was a Protestant country, but that the same
privileges should be extended to Roman Catholics“which are enjoyed by other
citizens and are guaranteed to every religious sect and denomination by the
American Constitution, so far as they are willing, in common with all
Protestants, to renounce all allegiance to any foreign power and unite with us
in promoting and perpetuating our free institutions.”[69]
When the Catholic Advocate of
March 1 objected to these resolutions (since they implied that if Roman
Catholics did not renounce the pope, they should not be tolerated), appealing
to the Constitutions of the United States and of Kentucky regarding religious
liberty, Grundy replied by appealing to the papal encyclical of August 15,
1832, where the pope had spoken against those who wish “to separate the
Church from the State, and to burst the bond which unites the Priesthood
to the Empire. For it is clear that this union is dreaded by the profane
lovers of liberty, only because it has never failed to confer prosperity on
both.” Grundy wondered that any honest Roman Catholic could
consistently belong to a church the highest authority of which
openly and unblushingly, in this day, advocates the union of Church and State,
and at the same time profess to believe, approve and be governed by the
constitution of the United States and of Kentucky upon this subject? Did the
Editors of the Catholic Advocate, the Bishop and Priests of Kentucky and
of the United States, repudiate the Encyclical letter of 1832, or will they do
it now?
Grundy
admitted that he had many Roman Catholic friends who would fight and die for
their American liberties, but insisted that they did so contrary to the plain
teaching of the Roman Church. Since Pope Gregory XVI had declared in his
encyclical that liberty of conscience was an “absurd” and “raving” doctrine,
Grundy professed to be utterly unable to understand how the Catholic
Advocate could reconcile its loyalty to Rome with the United States
Constitution.[70]
F. Religious Riots and the Rise of the Know-Nothings
The constant fuel of anti-Catholic
periodicals merely fed the fires of religious and ethnic mistrust which
exploded in the mid-1840s in religious riots in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and
other cities.[71] While political issues were plainly at work as well,
contemporary accounts often emphasized the religious division of the rioters.[72]
On May 3, 1844, the Kensington
district of Philadelphia erupted in violence. A meeting of the Native American
party was assailed by a Roman Catholic mob, which resulted in a week of
rioting, during which several people were killed. Tensions remained high in
Philadelphia, and July 4th celebrations touched off another wave of
riots.[73] The grand jury (which consisted largely of
Protestants) determined that “the efforts of a portion of the community to
exclude the Bible from our Public Schools” had given rise to a new party (the
Native American, or Know-Nothing party) which held peaceful public meetings.
They had been fired upon by “a band of lawless, irresponsible men, some of whom
had resided in our country only for a short period,” which resulted in
immediate retaliation, escalating into several weeks of mob rioting in the
city.[74] Nonetheless, while asserting that the original fault
lay with the Roman Catholics, the Presbyterian press quickly denounced
Protestant rioting as well. The True Catholic insisted that no matter
how offensive the discussion may be, “every true American” should defend the
right of free deliberation. Reason, not force, is the power of the nation.
Therefore, when it became clear that the Native Americans were continuing the
rioting in Philadelphia, the editors soundly condemned it, and urged the
magistrates to deal swiftly with them.[75] The Presbyterian of the West described
the continued rioting as a “disgrace to Protestantism.”[76]
But when Bishop Hughes of New York
claimed that it was his restraining influence in New York that prevented Irish
Catholics from erupting like those in Philadelphia, the True Catholic
responded with alarm: “A word from you, then, or even the withholding a word,
might have wrapped our dwellings in flames, and deluged our streets with
blood.” If Hughes had the power to restrain or command the thousands of Irish
Catholics in New York, “then I say, sir, we have reason to be alarmed both at the
increased power and numbers of romish foreigners, and the growing influence of
Romish priests.”[77]
Ten years later, after the First
Plenary Council of American Catholic Bishops met in Baltimore in 1852,
declaring the common schools “irreligious” and calling for a parochial school
system, the fires of religious hatred were unleashed once again. When Roman
Catholic bishops requested state funds for their schools, religious riots broke
out in St. Louis and Newark in 1854, and in 1855 Louisville and Cincinnati were
engulfed in violence.[78] While historians initially attempted to downplay the
religious aspect to these riots, Tyler Anbinder has acknowledged the place of
religion in the formation of the Know-Nothings.[79] Contemporary observers, such as William Engles,
suggested that religion and race were equally involved. Engles spoke from the
perspective of an Old School Presbyterian church that was divided politically.
If a group as large as the Roman Catholic population attempted to vote as a
bloc, they could soon hold “the balance of power” in the United States. No matter
how much he might deplore the violence, Engles was convinced that Protestants
would not stand for this, but would “drive them from their usurped and arrogant
position; nor need it be wondered at, that in the heat evolved from the
combination of excitable political and religious elements, violence should
sometimes ensue, however much to be deprecated.”[80] Nathan Rice, though, was concerned that “in a number
of instances highly respectable Americans have countenanced or participated” in
the riots.[81] Protestant violence was inconsistent with his
idealized vision of what Protestantism should be.
The Presbyterian Herald
reported religious riots surrounding the election of 1855 in Louisville.
William Hill reported that the riot between the Democrats and the Know-Nothings
had resulted in the murder of 14-15 citizens, the wounding of 30 others and the
destruction of 15-20 houses, “most of them of but little value, being generally
Irish shanties.”[82] But once again the riots followed on
Protestant/Catholic lines. Indeed the Pittsburg Catholic accused various
Protestant newspapers of fomenting the riots through their anti-Catholic
articles: “the sectarian press. . . in the hands of designing
parsons, who are bursting with rage at the diffusion of the Catholic faith,
becomes specially virulent on the eve of any scene of excitement, political or
religious.” William Hill replied that “The readers of Protestant religious
papers are not generally found among mobs of riotous men.” Pointing to genuine
“acts of kindness and love” by which Louisville Presbyterians had fed and
clothed Roman Catholics devastated by the riots, Hill argued that his
readership desired to convert Roman Catholics through persuasion and love, not
violence.[83] When the Pittsburg Catholic claimed that the Presbyterian
Herald was merely the tool of the Louisville Know-Nothings, Hill pointed
out that the rhetoric went both ways. The editor of the Pittsburg Catholic
had written that Protestants were “damnable heretics” whose views led
inexorably to “licentiousness in both church and state.” If that was true, Hill
asked,
Does it follow, as a
consequence, that he holds that Protestants ought to be shot down in the
streets or roasted alive in their dwellings?. . . . It is certain that his
church has held and taught that doctrine in past days, and her boast is that
she never changes; but he must excuse us if we protest against any such
inference being deduced from such premises by Protestants.
Hill
reminded his Roman Catholic counterpart that he had taken no role at all in the
political debates that led up to the riots, while the Roman Catholic papers had
taken partisan stances.[84]
Few Old School editors ever revealed
their political affiliation, but their occasional comments on the Know-Nothings
suggested that many were sympathetic to their concerns.[85] William Engles, in the wake of the Philadelphia
riots, applauded the Native American’s push for a 21 year residency requirement
before naturalization. He feared that Irish immigrants were trying to “take
advantage of the present unwise naturalization laws,” in order to take control
of the country.[86] Ten years later, in the wake of the 1854 riots, the True
Witness exulted in Know-Nothing victories in the southwest. Blaming the
riots on the Jesuits, the news editor declared that “The time has passed when
Popery can impose on Americans as a mere harmless system of religion. It has
revealed its cloven foot. It has shown its despotic spirit, and if it is
resolved to make its public assaults on Protestantism, it must expect
retaliation.”[87] Stuart Robinson’s Presbyterial Critic
contained the most impassioned support for the “American Party,” insisting that
the heart and soul of the American revolution was a threefold combination of
“American nationality; Protestant civilization; National Union.”[88] Only the American Party sought to put an end to the
assaults of “Papal and Infidel foreigners” upon the Protestant civilization of
the American Union. While such foreigners could come to America to enjoy civil
and religious freedom, he insisted that they be prohibited from ruling. “Americans
must rule America.”[89]
3.
The General Assembly Debate
It was at the height of the
anti-catholic movement, in May of 1845, that the Old School General Assembly
was called upon to render its verdict: was Roman Catholic baptism a valid
administration of Christian baptism?[90] The Presbytery of Ohio (whose newest member was
Robert J. Breckinridge) had asked the Assembly to determine whether the baptism
of the Church of Rome was valid.[91] Debate continued through portions of three days,
before coming for a vote.
While many from the older generation
had participated in this debate in the 1830s, such as Richards, Barnes,
Alexander, Miller, Green, and Spring, the one name that stands out as the
moving force in the debate was Robert J. Breckinridge. He had been one of the
leading speakers in 1832, arguing against the validity of Roman baptism–but as
a young ruling elder, his voice did not yet carry much weight. But by 1845 he
was serving as president of Jefferson College, and had thirteen years of
pastoral experience in Baltimore, the capital of Roman Catholic influence, and
for nine of those years he had edited one of the leading anti-Catholic
monthlies.[92] While Breckinridge was not a commissioner at the 1845
Assembly, his influence was felt through his fellow Kentuckian, Nathan Lewis
Rice (pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Bardstown, Kentucky–and editor of
another leading anti-Catholic paper, the Western Protestant, 1835-1841).[93] With the older generation in retirement, Breckinridge
and Rice now sought to curb what they saw as the disturbing rise of Roman
Catholic influence in the United States.
A. Debate at the Assembly
Predictably, the first argument was
rooted in the 1835 decision. Rev. Nathan H. Hall (pastor of 1st
Presbyterian, Lexington, KY, and one of the leading revival preachers in the
Old School) argued that since the 1835 Assembly had decided that the Church of
Rome was not a Church of Christ, the answer was easy: Roman baptism is not
Christian baptism. Dr. Nathan L. Rice (pastor of Central Presbyterian in
Cincinnati) agreed. Lay baptism was not recognized by the Presbyterian church,
but baptism by Roman Catholic priests was far worse. Rev. James M. Olmstead
(pastor at Flemington, NJ) argued that Rome was a “Society, but of the most
corrupt kind, and therefore has neither lawful ministry, nor ordinances, and
consequently her administration is not valid.”[94] Rev. Samuel J. Cassells of Norfolk, Virginia, argued
that to be consistent with the Westminster Confession, the church had to reject
Roman baptism. While we welcome “the children of oppression” to America, we
must bear decisive testimony against the Romanist error that they bring. “The
practice of the Reformed churches on this subject has been entirely inconsistent
with their creed. They have renounced Rome as Anti-christ, but receive
her baptism as if she were a church of Christ!”[95]
Others were less confident of these
arguments. Judge Robert C. Grier of Pittsburgh warned that the Assembly “ought
not to decide this question hastily. . . . As there are other Churches who
admit the validity of baptism by Roman Catholics we must give reasons to
satisfy them, as well as our own people.” Dr. John C. Lord also had objections:
It was admitted by those who
spoke in favor of the motion, that the baptism of Luther was valid, and he
wished to be informed why that which was valid in the 12th or 16th century was
not valid in the 19th. . . . We allow the validity of the administration of
ordinances by those not regularly authorised when necessity of circumstances
called for it. . . . Now we know that there are parts of the church of Rome
which are less corrupt than others. . . . In all such cases, at least we, I
think, are bound to admit the validity of their administration, and we cannot
discriminate without great danger of running into difficulties.[96]
Arguing
from exceptions, however, was not very compelling.
Rice replied that the Westminster
Confession taught that the validity of baptism does not depend upon the piety
of the minister, but upon his authority to administer the sacraments. Comparing
Rome to the Jewish institutions prior to the time of Christ, Rice argued that
“the ordinances in [the Jewish] church were valid notwithstanding its
corruption, and continued to be until the death of Christ, when all were
commanded to come out. . . . The Jewish church was thereafter no church and had
no ordinances, and consequently all their administrations were invalid.” After
the Council of Trent, Roman ordinances were likewise invalid.
Still, Dr. Lord was not convinced.
Those who authored the Westminster Confession accepted Roman baptism, even
after the Council of Trent. Further, “Baptism was not the act of the Pope, but
of a particular Priest or individual. Every case ought to be judged on its own
merits.” In reply, Rice asked Lord whether he regarded the Church of Rome as a
true church. The whole controversy depended on this question. And since the
General Assembly had decided that the Church of Rome was not a true church, the
question of their baptisms should be settled. He then gave a brief sketch “of
the various doctrines of the Church of Rome, which obscured the doctrines of
the cross. When all these doctrines were forced upon her members by the Council
of Trent, then she ceased to be a true church.” A few others feebly attempted
to reply,[97] but no one at the 1845 Assembly took the high ground
that Samuel Miller had taken ten years before. Since they accepted the premise
that the Roman Catholic church was not a church, they were forced to argue only
that “some” Roman Catholic baptisms were valid–depending upon whether the
individual priest was sound. This was analogous to the Donatist position in the
early church that had been repudiated as schismatic.
Having maintained silence since
early in the debate, the Rev. James H. Thornwell of South Carolina heard his
cue and rose in reply: the real question was “shall one body claiming to be the
church of Christ recognise the ordinances of another body claiming to be the
Church, which it does not acknowledge to be such.” And if this was the
question, then the answer was obvious. “This question has been settled by at
least five provincial councils, and always in the same way, viz: adverse to the
recognition of such baptisms. We stand therefore upon the platform of the
Ancient Church; and I hope this Assembly will come unanimously upon the same
ground.”[98] Thornwell admitted that “it is historically certain
that the warmest opposers of Rome did not, as our own Assembly has done,
utterly repudiate her, as a dead branch, destitute of all living connexion with
the vine.[99] But, Thornwell argued, since the Old School Assembly
of 1835 had unchurched Rome, there could be no question of the validity of
Roman baptism. Thornwell defended the action of 1835 by arguing that Rome
lacked the three marks of the Church of Christ. First, since the Council of
Trent the Roman Church had openly repudiated the saving truths of the doctrines
of grace. Indeed, Thornwell went so far as to argue that
the Trinity of Rome is
officially a different Trinity from ours. She baptises into one gospel--we
into another--she baptises into a system of will-worship--we into a system of
grace--she into a system of frightful superstition and gross idolatries--we
into a system in which God is worshipped in spirit and truth Hence if a
profession of the true faith is any part of the essence of baptism--is at all
indispensable to its legality--Rome's baptism is essentially defective and
unlawful.[100]
Second,
Thornwell claimed that Rome lacked sacraments as well because of its “physical
system of salvation. . . . There are no sacraments--no symbols
conducting the mind to Christ.” Third, by transforming the sacraments into “a
physical system of salvation, making the Eucharist into mystic sacrifice,” Rome
has “thus transformed her ministry into a Pagan priesthood.” Therefore Rome is
not a church, but anti-christ, a civil State, “drawing the resources of her
government from Heaven, Earth and Hell.” And being a civil State, Rome has no
more right to baptise than any other State whatever. Therefore Romish baptisms
are invalid since they are “an act of enslavement; not a sacrament of the
Church.”[101]
Replying to those who were concerned
to maintain the validity of the Reformers’ baptisms, Thornwell argued that
baptism wasn’t really that important:
Baptism is so far from
constituting the ground of membership in the church that it can only be
administered to those who are members already. . . . It, therefore, does not make,
but declare membership, and he who has never been baptised may be truly
and really, though not regularly, a member of the church of God.
Rejecting
the doctrine of apostolic succession in every sense, Thornwell argued that the
validity of any church or its ordinances does not depend upon “an unbroken
succession of ministers reaching back to the age of the apostles,” because
perpetual visibility is not a mark of the true church. “The promises of
permanent security and unfailing protection are made not to the visible
but the invisible church of the Redeemer.” So even if the papacy had
become a synagogue of Satan before the Reformation, and all her sacraments
thereby invalidated, that would not be a matter of concern for us. The validity
of the Reformed churches, therefore, depends not upon Rome, but Christ.[102] Thornwell concluded his tour de force by
claiming to have “no enmity to the Church of Rome, but I wish a complete
separation from the mother of harlots and mistress of abominations.”[103]
After this performance, the General
Assembly was persuaded. While there had never been any doubt as to the outcome
of the vote, now it was nearly unanimous. The initial count was 169-6 (with 4
non liquets).[104] Revs. William T. Hamilton, James H. Thornwell, and
George Junkin were assigned to write the minute for the Assembly. They returned
a week later with a summary of the leading arguments from the debate.[105] Predictably, the minority of eight responded with a
dissent, arguing that some remnant of the church remained inside of Rome, and
therefore that at least some of her baptisms were valid.[106]
The initial response in the
newspapers was quite positive. An author in the Presbyterian Advocate explored
how this decision would affect those who had already been received on the basis
of their Roman baptism. He suggested that “if the session and the convert are
entirely clear in the conviction that the ordinance administered by the priest
is real and true baptism, 'let not their heart be troubled.' If they are even
mistaken, baptism is not regeneration, nor will such a mistake endanger the
salvation of the soul.” Likewise, if a person wished to be rebaptized, “what is
the harm?”[107]
The only caution was expressed by
William Swan Plumer in the Watchman of the South, who noted that “one
side of the question was argued with spirit and power. The other was not.
Wherever the truth may lie, discussion will do good. For many years our views
have coincided with the decision of the Assembly, but we are ready to hear all
that can be said on the subject. . . . If the Assembly has made a wrong
decision, let it be made to appear.”[108]
Naturally, Roman Catholics were none
too pleased with the decision–and for more than strictly theological reasons.
The Catholic Telegraph warned that if the Assembly had “power equal to
their animosities, they would be dangerous enemies.” In an address to the
“Catholic Fathers and Mothers of America,” the editor urged Roman Catholics to
understand “what the Calvinistic preachers would have you believe, and what
from the tenor of their speeches they appear most anxious to establish. They
would consign your babes whom God has called away, to everlasting flames! Have
you hearts? Can you feel? Can there be any communication between you and
Calvinism?”[109]
B. Hodge Versus the Assembly
The minority at the Assembly had
argued their case based on the claim that a remnant remained within Rome. Since
they conceded the claim that Rome, as a body, was not a church of Jesus Christ,
Thornwell had destroyed them. Charles Hodge, professor of exegetical and
dogmatic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, would not make the same
mistake.[110]
In his annual review of the General
Assembly, he launched a vigorous attack on the position that the Assembly had
taken. Hodge admitted that “we feel almost overwhelmed by such a vote. Any
decision of the General Assembly is entitled to great respect, but a decision sustained
by such a majority, almost imposes silence on all dissentients.” Almost. Hodge
agreed with Plumer that only one side of the debate had been heard. We
“question the wisdom of giving an answer suddenly, in opposition to all
previous practice, and to the principles of every other protestant church. The
fact that the answer is new, creates a reason for being slow to pronounce it.”[111]
Hodge started by reminding his
readers that valid baptism is baptism with water in the name of the Trinity.
Heretical baptism had always been accepted by the church, so long as it was
Trinitarian baptism. Hodge cited the Council of Arles, from 314 A.D., which
determined that “If any one return from his heresy to the church, let the
Catholic priest question him about the creed; and if they perceive that he was
baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, only the
imposition of hands shall be given him, that he may receive the Holy Ghost. But
if upon examination, he answers not the Trinity, (that is, that he was not
baptized in the name of the Trinity,) let him be rebaptized.”[112]
Therefore, Hodge argued, the
validity of baptism “depends upon the appointment of God, and not upon the
character or faith of the administrator; and therefore, any baptism which is
administered according to His appointment, the church has felt constrained to admit
to be baptism.” The General Assembly, Hodge hinted, had unwittingly reduced
baptism to a mere rite of the church–not a divine act. Quoting the Westminster
Confession, Hodge argued that the “doctrine of our standards, therefore, is the
precise doctrine of the ancient church, viz., that there are three things
essential to baptism; the matter, form, and intention. The matter, is the
washing with water; the form, washing in the name of the Trinity; the
intention, not the popish notion of the secret purpose of the priest, but the
professed, ostensible design of the act.”[113] If this is the case, then there can be no question
that Romish baptism is indeed Christian baptism. Rome washes with water,
teaches the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, and intends it as a sensible sign
of spiritual blessings. The fact that it adds numerous other rites and
corrupting doctrines cannot eliminate the validity of its baptisms. According
to both Romanists and Protestants “by baptism we are formally constituted
members of the visible church, and partakers of its benefits. The great
difference relates not to the design of the ordinance, but to the mode and
certainty with which that design is accomplished, and the conditions attached
to it.”[114] If we require a proper doctrine of baptism in order
to accept its validity, then we would have to reject Lutheran, Anglican and
Orthodox baptisms as well, which would bring the unthinkable result that
“Presbyterians, instead of being the most catholic of churches, and admitting
the being of a church, wherever we see the fruits of the Spirit, would become
one of the narrowest and most bigoted of sects.” Returning one of the most
stinging rebukes imaginable in the mid-19th century, Hodge claimed “Indeed we
cannot but regard this sudden denunciation of Romish baptism, as a momentary
outbreak of the spirit of Popery; a disposition to contract the limits of the
church, and to make that essential to its being and sacraments, which God has
never declared to be necessary.”[115]
Having demonstrated to his
satisfaction that papal baptism was valid in its form, Hodge turned to the
arguments against it. Hodge claimed that the arguments presented to the
Assembly merely proved that Roman baptism was irregular–but that did not
demonstrate invalidity. Hodge admitted that the Confession taught that baptism
should be administered by one “lawfully ordained,” but pointed out that the
Confession says the same regarding preaching.[116] Lay preaching, as with lay baptism, is irregular and
ought not happen. But that does not render such things invalid. “A thing is
valid when it avails to its appropriate end. Thus a deed is valid, which avails
to convey a title to property; a marriage is valid, which avails to constitute
the conjugal relation.” Does Romish baptism “avail to make the recipient a
professing Christian”? The Assembly’s position declares that “Though a sincere
believer should be baptized by a Romanist, such baptism would not signify or
seal to him the benefits of the new covenant, nor express his purpose to obey
Christ.”[117]
Willing to grant, however, for the
sake of argument, that valid baptism required an ordained minister, Hodge then
turned to the question of the validity of Roman ordinations. While
Presbyterians might consider Roman ordinations to be irregular, that does not
destroy their validity. A lawfully ordained heretic is still recognized as a
minister of Christ’s church until he is deposed. Rejecting Thornwell’s claim
that the ministry is one of the marks of the church as “one of the Popish
principles which have slid into the minds of some Protestants,” Hodge argued
that “a church is a congregation of believers, or of those who profess to be
believers. . . . The being of a church does not depend upon the ministry.”[118] But if ordained ministers are simply men “appointed
by public authority to teach the Christian religion, and to administer its
ordinances,” in a body “professing to hold saving doctrine,” then the only way
to deny Roman baptism is to deny that Romanists “do not in any sense profess
the Christian religion any more than Jews or Pagans.”[119]
Finally, Hodge turned to what had
been the strongest argument at the Assembly: that “The church of Rome is not a
true church of Christ, and therefore its sacraments are not Christian
ordinances.” He considered this to be “only another of the innumerable
instances of fallacy and false reasoning founded upon the ambiguity of the word
church.”[120] The question “What is a true church? resolves itself
into this: How little truth may avail to salvation? This is a question we are
hardly competent to answer, and there is no need of answering it. We can tell
what is a pure church; and with that standard we can compare our own and all
others, and regulate our intercourse with them accordingly.” Unfortunately,
Hodge pointed out, the Assembly gave a definition of a pure church, and then
declared “that any community not embraced in that definition, to be no church.
Thus it is said, a church is a congregation of believers in which the pure word
of God is preached; the pure word of God is not preached in Rome, therefore
Rome is not a church.” While the logic was impeccable, the premises were
flawed. “Any body of men that professes truth enough to save men, cannot on the
ground of heresy be denied the character of a church.”[121] If Presbyterians really believed their confession
that there is no ordinary possibility of salvation outside the visible church,
then “any religious body in communion with which men may be saved, is a part of
the visible church; otherwise men are saved out of that church. The visible
church, therefore, according to our standards, consists of all those who
profess saving truth.” Some at the Assembly, however, had argued that Rome did
not retain enough truth to save the soul–yet admitted that there were true
believers inside the Roman church. Such a claim, Hodge declared, was absurd.
They retain the doctrine of
the Incarnation, which we know from the infallible word of God, is a life‑giving
doctrine. They retain the whole doctrine of the Trinity. They teach the
doctrine of atonement far more fully and accurately than multitudes of
professedly orthodox Protestants. They hold a much higher doctrine as to the
necessity of divine influence, than prevails among many whom we recognise as
Christians. They believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the
body, and in eternal life and judgment.[122]
Indeed,
Hodge suspected that Rome retained more of evangelical doctrine and true
religion than most of the Protestant churches in Europe during the eighteenth
century declension![123]
Therefore, while it could be denied
that Rome was a church in one sense (she was not a pure church), it should be
affirmed that Rome was a church in another (she was still a society that
professed faith in Jesus Christ as the divine Son of God. Claiming that this
was the stance of the Reformers, and of all the Protestant churches of Europe
and America, Hodge agreed that Rome was “antichristian and apostate, the
mystical Babylon, from which the people of God are commanded to withdraw.” And
yet “viewed in a different light, the church of Rome is still a church, just as
the apostate Israelites were still the covenant people of God.”[124] She is a corrupt and apostate church, but she is
still a church. If Roman Catholics
are no part of the visible
church, then the Romish hierarchy is not "the man of sin" spoken of
by the apostle, for he was to rise and rule in the church. It is, therefore,
one thing to denounce the Romish system, and another to say that Romanists are
no part of the church catholic. And if they are in the church, their baptism
being a washing with water in the name of the Trinity, is Christian baptism;
just as the word of God, when read or preached by them, is still his word, and
is to be received and obeyed as such.[125]
Ironically,
the designation of the pope as the antichrist resulted in the guarantee of the
validity of Roman baptism.
Hodge could not bypass Thornwell’s
claim that Romish baptism constituted a child a papist. This, in Hodge’s view,
was an egregious misunderstanding of baptism, analogous to the Puseyite error.
To be baptized by a Presbyterian did not constitute a child a Presbyterian, but
a catholic Christian. “The church Catholic is not an organized society.” As an
act of God, baptism brings a person into the visible church–and only
incidentally enrolls them in a particular society of Christians. Baptism is not
“an ordinance of any particular church, but of the church catholic.” Hodge was
desperately trying to maintain a strong sense of catholicity–but he could only
do so by blurring the distinction between the visible and the invisible church,
distinguishing between the visible church and any particular organization.[126]
Hodge recognized that in the current
religious climate, he would be misunderstood. “We have heretofore had the
misfortune to be held up as the friends of drunkenness, and the advocates of
slavery, because we could not believe that alcohol is sin, and every slave‑holder
a thief and we fear that even good men may now regard us as the apologists of
Popery, because we cannot think that a community who believe that Jesus is the
Son of God, who worship the Trinity, who hold that we are justified by the
merits of Christ, and are sanctified by his Holy Spirit, are to be placed in
the same category with Pagans and Mohammed ans.” But he could not turn aside from
the path of duty. “And we are constrained to say, that as the cause of
temperance and the interests of the slave, suffer greatly from the extravagance
of their advocates, so we fear the cause of Protestantism suffers materially
from the undiscriminating denunciations heaped upon the church of Rome, and
from transferring the abhorrence due to her corruptions, to her whole
complicated system of truth and error.”[127]
C. The Response to Hodge
The church was astonished. Letter
after letter poured into the weeklies expressing disagreement or disgust with
Hodge’s “brazen” attempt to overturn one of the most nearly unanimous decisions
the General Assembly had ever made. “No Popery” wrote to the Presbyterian Herald
that Princeton was arrogantly arraying itself against the Assembly, which was
not fitting for a professor who held his position from the Assembly![128] Thornwell’s logic overruled Hodge’s distinctions, as
“No Popery” dismissed the distinction between regular and valid, and insisted
that the servants of antichrist could not administer Christian baptism.[129]
In Virginia, William Swan Plumer
reprinted Hodge’s review of the Assembly’s decision in full, but commented that
the editors of the weeklies were all siding with the General Assembly–except
the New Orleans Protestant (the Presbyterian newspaper in New
Orleans) which argued that the General Assembly decision was wrong:
1. Because it exalts a mere
external ordinance to a degree of importance that we think does not belong to
it. . . . 2. [it] places the essentials of a valid baptism upon a wrong basis.
We suppose that the validity of baptism does not depend upon the moral character
and intentions of the administrator, but upon the character of the recipient,
and the using of water in the name of the Holy Trinity, by a regular ministry.
If there is anything in succession necessary to valid baptism, we think the
decision of the Assembly suicidal. . . . 3. We think there was no occasion for
the action of the Assembly. . . . We do not see how it is to do any good to the
Presbyterian Church, or the Protestant cause. Nor can we conceive how it will
do our Romish neighbors any good. . . . We should be heartily engaged in
laboring for the conversion of the world, rather than in legislating about the
forms of the church.[130]
This
statement betrays a rather unsophisticated blend of low church evangelicalism
oddly mixed with the traditional Presbyterian version of apostolic succession.
Not surprisingly (as was often the fate of statements from New Orleans) it
received no attention from any of the western or northern papers.
The Watchman and Observer
(the merger of the Watchman of the South and the Charleston
Observer in Richmond in 1845 under Benjamin Gildersleeve) immediately took
a harder line than Plumer had taken in the Watchman of the South.
Gildersleeve claimed that Hodge’s article “has done more for Rome than a dozen
from their very ablest open defenders.”[131] Gildersleeve kept a steady stream of different
authors objecting to Hodge’s position from September through November of 1845,
culminating in Thornwell’s refutation (see below) in the spring of 1846.[132]
The Pittsburgh area was one of the
few that resonated with Princeton to some extent. The Synod of Pittsburgh,
meeting in October of 1845, considered the Assembly’s decision too “hasty and
inconsiderate” but neither adopted nor rejected its position. Nonetheless, the
synod did declare that presbyteries were not obliged to implement the
Assembly’s position, which would confound “constitutional rules with occasional
declarations,” and called for more discussion on the topic.[133]
Likewise the Pittsburgh paper, the Presbyterian
Advocate found more voices friendly to Princeton than elsewhere in the
South and West. While “An Old Presbyter” objected to Princeton’s views,[134] SR (possibly the retired minister, Dr. Samuel Ralston
of Pittsburgh) defended Princeton, arguing that the church of God was designed
to “embrace not only males and females, but sinners and saints, or true
believers–sinners, that they might become saints by the blessing of God in his
own ordinances.” Certainly Rome is the harlot Babylon, but there “are some
saints in her pale, and this is consonant to that view which we have given of
the church of God.” God has brought some of his people into Rome “by baptism,
that they might be 'born of water and of the Spirit,' according to the promise
of Christ.” If the Jews remained the covenant people in the midst of their
idolatry and wickedness in the days of the kings, then Rome could also be
considered a part of the visible church. SR suggested that the tendency to
limit the visible church to “visible saints alone, or to those who come to the
Lord's table,” was moving Presbyterians toward a more Baptistic view of the
church. SR was even willing to argue that “unregenerate, but awakened adults,
like the Jews on the day of Pentecost, if of good moral character, ought to be
brought into the visible church by baptism if they desire the privilege.” He
recognized that his was a minority opinion, but feared that the majority was
seeing the results of a faulty understanding of the church.[135]
While the Presbyterian sided
with Princeton on most matters, William Engles was horrified by Hodge’s attack
on the Assembly. When Theophilus (George Junkin) began a series against Hodge,
Engles was delighted. To say that Antichrist is a “church of Christ, and that
the validity of its ordinances is to be recognized by the Protestant church, is
to indulge charity at the expense of judgment.”[136]
D. Thornwell’s Reply to Hodge
In March of 1846, after the initial
furor had subsided, James Henley Thornwell launched a counterattack in reply to
Hodge in the Watchman and Observer.[137] Thornwell proposed to show: 1) that the essential
elements of baptism did not belong “to the Popish ordinance”; 2) that if Rome
is not a church, then it has no valid sacraments; and 3) that the testimony of
the Protestant world was really against Hodge’s position.[138] In fact, Thornwell silently dropped his third point,
never citing an advocate of rebaptizing Roman Catholics.
First, Thornwell argued that the
Roman practice departed so far from Christ's command that there could be no
true baptism in the Roman rite. He granted that water and the triune name were
present, but he denied that there was a minister of the gospel present: “the
water must be applied by one who is lawfully commissioned to dispense the
mysteries of Christ.” Following an Aristotelian causal argument, he claimed
that “there must be an instrumental, as well as a material and
formal, cause.” Therefore, Thornwell asked, "Do [Romish] priests wash with
water in the name of the Trinity, with the professed design of
complying with the command of Christ, and are they themselves to
be regarded as lawful ministers of the Word?”[139]
Thornwell claimed that the Roman
rite was erroneous in all four respects. The water that they used was mixed
with oil, and Thornwell suggested “1. That the oil destroys the fitness
of water for the purpose of ablution, and so affects the significance of the
rite; and 2. That mixture is not used as water, but that peculiar
stress is laid upon the foreign element.”[140] Thornwell had the integrity to admit that Augustine
demonstrated that this practice was of ancient origin, and hence was forced to
suggest that the “real sacrament of baptism” may have been completely
lost during the patristic period.[141] This, however, did not trouble Thornwell in the
least. “The unbroken transmission of a visible Church in any line of succession
is a figment of Papists and Prelatists. . . and if our fathers were without the
ordinances, and fed upon ashes for bread, let us only be the more thankful for
the greater privileges vouchsafed to ourselves.”[142]
Second, with respect to the form of
baptism, Thornwell claimed that the invocation of the Trinity in baptism was
only valid where a proper relation to the covenant of grace was involved: “To
baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit is not to pronounce these
words as an idle form or a mystical charm, but to acknowledge that solemn
compact into which these glorious Agents entered, from eternity, for the
redemption of the Church.”[143] Faith in the Trinity, rather than pronouncing the
names of the Persons, is the central focus of baptism.
He, therefore, that would
undertake to prove that the Romish ceremony possesses the form or
the essential elements of Christian baptism must not content himself
with showing that Rome baptizes in the name of the Trinity. He must prove,
besides, that she inculcates just views concerning the nature of the
relationship which the outward washing sustains to the covenant of grace; that
her conceptions of the covenant itself, that to which the ablution has
reference, are substantially correct; and that she employs the outward elements
in conformity with the conditions prescribed by the Author of the sacrament. If
she is fundamentally unsound upon any of these points, she abolishes the essence
of the ordinance, she destroys its form.[144]
Appealing
to Calvin, Owen, and others, Thornwell argued that “there can be no doubt that,
whatever she have professed in words, she did in fact deny them to be signs,
and consequently changed their relations to the covenant of grace, and made
them essentially different things from what Christ had appointed.” The
resultant mechanical theory of salvation is so far from the apostolic doctrine
that Roman baptism cannot be regarded as a species of Christian baptism at all.[145] Hence Hodge errs to say that Rome agrees with us
regarding the nature of the sacraments: “She teaches that they are causes of
grace, and we that they are signs.”[146] Realizing that this position could be taken as
condemning Lutherans and Episcopalians, Thornwell quickly backtracked and
argued that the ex opere operato doctrine is what vitiates the Roman
rite.
Further, Thornwell claimed that
since baptism is a “badge of Christian profession” if Roman baptism is valid
baptism, then Roman profession of faith must also be valid, since baptism
signifies and seals the covenant of grace.[147] Since Rome denied the Gospel, its adherents should
not be considered Christians (except in the same sense as Pelagians, Arians,
Universalists, and Socinians). “If her Gospel is not the Gospel of Christ, her
religion not the religion of the Son of God, her baptism cannot be that which
He instituted.”[148]
The question between Hodge and
Thornwell, as Thornwell saw it, was whether “a man may. . . be a sincere
Papist, and still be a spiritual child of God.”[149] Thornwell was convinced that “whatsoever of the
Gospel she retains is employed simply as a mask to introduce her errors without
suspicion.” Her creed (which he took to be that of Pius IV, including the
decrees of Trent) is not a saving creed.[150] Whereas Hodge insisted that the Spirit could only
work through the Church, Thornwell argued that the Spirit could also work “amid
Hindoo temples and Indian pagodas, in the darkest chambers of imagery, as well
as the congregation of Christian people. . . . He works as well out of
the Church as in the Church.” And wherever he works, there “is a
membership in the invisible Church; but it is an act of the believer,
subsequent to his conversion, and founded upon it, to seek a corresponding
membership in that visible congregation to which the ordinances are given.”[151]
After an exhaustive attempt to
demonstrate that every last vestige of Augustinianism had been rooted out of
the official teaching of the Roman church from the 16th-18th centuries,
Thornwell concluded that“it is the prerogative of God alone to search the
heart, and He may detect germs of grace in many a breast which have never
ripened into the fruit of the lips. But I do confidently assert that no man who
truly believes and cordially embraces the Papal theory of salvation can,
consistently with the Scriptures, be a child of God.”[152]
E. Hodge’s Manifesto
After reading the first few articles
from Thornwell’s pen, Hodge issued his final statement. Since Roman baptism
fell within the boundaries defined by the Westminster Standards, Hodge refused
to budge.
He opened by connecting the same
sorts of simplistic answers of his interlocutors with what he saw with
abolitionists and “ultra temperance” men. Rather than allow for qualifications
and distinctions, these extremists “deal in what is called plain common sense,
repudiating all metaphysical niceties.”[153] In the same way, those denying that Rome is a part of
the visible church simply point out that Rome is antichrist, the mystical
Babylon, and the mother of harlots. Therefore Rome cannot be part of the
visible church. But for Hodge, this was far too simplistic. If the church is
defined as “a society in which the pure word of God is preached, the sacraments
duly administered, and discipline properly exercised by legitimate officers. .
. [then] we must exclude all but orthodox Presbyterians from the pale of the
church.”[154] Instead, Hodge pointed out that when Turretin and
other Reformed authors refer to “a true church” they are referring to an
orthodox or pure church. Hodge demonstrated that Turretin had affirmed that the
Roman church was a Christian church--at least in external form--and had
retained valid baptism. Therefore, if one meant by the “church of Rome” simply
the papacy, then Rome is not a church, but apostate. But if one defined the
“church of Rome” as the company of professing Christians adhering to Rome, then
Rome is indeed a church.[155] Hodge rightly suspected that the New England
Congregational definition of the church had crept into the Presbyterian church,
resulting in a failure to understand the historic Presbyterian distinction
between a true church and a pure church.
In conclusion, Hodge addressed the
question of whether Rome taught enough of the gospel so that a person could be
saved. While affirming the standard Protestant claim that Rome confused
justification and sanctification, Hodge pointed out that we are not saved by
our doctrinal formulations, but by the grace of God. Since Roman Catholics
truly believe the Nicene Creed, they plainly believe the Christian faith.[156] Being riddled with heresy and idolatry did not erase
Rome as a church. Hodge reminded his readers that the Jewish church in the Old
Testament was frequently overrun by errors, yet never ceased to be the people
of God.
The same month that Hodge’s essay
appeared in the Princeton Review, the Presbyterian published a
defense of Hodge by “Frederick” who replied to Theophilus, and perhaps
Thornwell’s early essays as well. He insisted that a valid baptism does not
have to conform exactly to the New Testament.[157]
In his first essay he printed the
entire Roman Catholic baptismal rite in the Presbyterian and pointed out
that all the extra ceremonies were designed to signify various spiritual
truths, and were expressly declared by the catechism of the Council of Trent to
be non-essential to the validity of a baptism. Further, if such emblems
sufficed to invalidate Roman baptism, then Episcopal baptism must also be
rejected because Episcopalians added ceremonies as well.[158]
Second, however “ruinous” Roman
Catholic doctrine might be, it built on an orthodox Trinitarian baptism. Urging
Protestants to be fair to their opponents in debate, Frederick insisted that
both Presbyterians and Roman Catholics agreed that baptism aims at “saving
effects, remission of sins, and sanctifying grace. Again; they agree that these
effects are conditional; and conditional not only on the due administration of
the baptism, but, in case of adult baptism, on moral qualifications in the
person to be baptized. Lastly, they agree that the original source of the
effects is the atoning work of Christ, and their primary cause, the influence
of the Holy Ghost.” They disagreed, however, when Roman Catholics insisted that
“baptism is the direct channel of grace.” But Frederick could not see how the
church could rebaptize someone who had come to understand the true meaning of
the baptism received while in the Roman church.[159]
Frederick argued that Roman Catholic
priests remained ministers of the gospel because ordained to the ministry of
word and sacrament. While admitting that Rome embraced grave and dangerous
errors, he concluded that rejecting Roman Catholic baptism logically required
the rejection of Episcopal, Arminian and Baptist baptisms as well. He knew that
many of his readers were asking: why take the time and energy to defend
“against a Protestant decision, so vile a church as Rome?” He replied that the
truth demanded it. If we bring false charges against others, they “will be confirmed
in thinking all our charges equally untenable.”[160] Concerned that Protestants too often condemned before
truly understanding their Roman Catholic neighbors, Frederick urged the church
to be more careful in its polemics against Rome.
Conclusion
One of the main arguments used by
those who opposed the General Assembly’s decision was the fact that no other
Reformed church had rejected Roman Catholic baptism. In 1854 the Free Church of
Scotland debated the question. While some prominent ministers agreed with the
Old School, the Free Church followed the historical argument of Dr. William
Cunningham who used arguments like Hodges to defend the Church of Rome as a
church of Christ, even though headed by the Antichrist. The majority of the Old
School was disappointed with this decision. One commentator declared that
“Antichrist's body is not an 'erring sister' of the true Church,” and he denied
that “the Man of Sin, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is
called God, can administer Christ's ordinances.”[161] But Cunningham, in reviewing Hodge’s arguments in the
British and Foreign Evangelical Review declared Hodge’s position simply
obvious to British Protestants.[162]
While the Old School as a whole
remained unmoved by Hodge’s arguments, they convinced most in the northeastern
region. Samuel Irenaeus Prime commented after Hodge’s death:
We recall a case in which the
General Assembly, after one of the ablest debates ever held on its floor, came
to a decision on an important ecclesiastical question (Romish Baptism) with
almost entire unanimity. Dr. Hodge reviewed the decision in the 'Princeton
Review' with such masterly power, as to set back the opinions of the
Church, and hold it on the other side to this day. And to us this power of his
appears the more wonderful, as we believed then, and do now, that he was wrong,
and the Assembly was right.[163]
Prime
claims that Hodge convinced the “church,” but the western and southern
conversations throughout the 1850s and 1860s do not support that claim.[164] Nonetheless, given Hodge’s sway in the
Philadelphia-New York corridor, Prime probably spoke accurately regarding the
churches in his sphere of influence.[165]
It is no accident that the leaders of the Old School’s rejection of Roman Catholic baptism, R. J. Breckinridge, James H. Thornwell, and Nathan L. Rice, all played prominent roles in the Protestant movement that sought to define Roman Catholicism as a threat to American religious and political liberty. Protestant baptism symbolized entrance not only into the Christian church, but also into a Protestant political identity.[166]
[1]But by
the 1830s other Protestants were leading the way. In 1839 the Watchman of
the South reported in an article from the Protestant Vindicator
that every one of the 135 converts from Romanism through the American
Reformation Society requested Christian baptism in a Protestant church. It
appears that the American Reformation Society was convinced of the invalidity
of Roman baptism. WS 3.5 (September 25, 1839).
[2]The Assembly had been asked “If baptisme administrat be ane papist priest, or in the papistical manner shall it be reiterat?” They had answered:
When sic children come to years of understanding, they should be instructed in the doctrine of salvation, the corruption of the papistrie might be declared unto them, whilk they most publickly damne, before they be admitted to the Lord's table, whilks if they doe there needs not the external sign to be reiterat; for no papist ministers baptisme without water, and some forme of words, whilks are the principalls of the external signe; we ourselves were baptized be papists, whose corruptions and abuses now we damne, cleaving only to the simple ordinance of Jesus Christ, and to the veritie of the Holy Ghost, whilk makes baptisme to work in us be the proper effects thereof, without any declaration of the external signe. If sic children come never to the knowledge of trew doctrine, they are to be left to the judgment of God.
Samuel J. Baird, A Collection of the Acts, Deliverances,
and Testimonies of the Supreme Judicatory of the Presbyterian Church
(Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1856) 80, quoting from the Booke
of the Universal Kirk, 41. In 1856 Samuel J. Baird published his highly-acclaimed
Assembly’s Digest, which provided a topically arranged collection of all
of the official acts of the highest court of the Presbyterian Church since
1706. In a couple of instances he also provided Scottish background for a
decision, including the question of Roman Catholic baptism.
[3]Noll, America’s
God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2002) 376-379.
[4]The
committee consisted of Dr. Samuel H. Cox (professor at Auburn Theological
Seminary), Dr. Nathan S. S. Beman (pastor at First Presbyterian, Troy, NY), and
Robert J. Breckinridge (at that time a ruling elder from Kentucky on his way to
Princeton Theological Seminary) .
[5]Minutes
(1832) 364, 373. “General Assembly,” Presbyterian 2.18 (June 13, 1832)
71. This committee consisted of Dr. Archibald Alexander (professor at Princeton
Theological Seminary), Dr. James Richards (professor at Auburn Theological
Seminary), Dr. George Baxter (professor at Union Theological Seminary in
Virginia), Beman, and Dr. Robert G. Wilson (president of the University of
Ohio, Athens)
[6]Minutes (1833)
408. This committee was Archibald Alexander, Samuel Miller (both professors at
Princeton Theological Seminary), Ashbel Green (retired president of the College
of New Jersey and editor of the Christian Advocate), Breckinridge (now
pastor of 2nd Church, Baltimore, Maryland), Albert Barnes (pastor of
1st Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Gardiner Spring (pastor of
Brick Church, New York City), Thomas McAuley (pastor of Murray Street Church,
New York City), and Robert McCartee (pastor of Canal Street Church, New York
City).
[7]The
context will be discussed shortly.
[8]“General
Assembly,” Southern Religious Telegraph 14.26 (June 26, 1835) 103.
[9]“General
Assembly” Southern Religious Telegraph 14.26 (June 26, 1835) 103.
“Proceedings of the General Assembly,” New York Observer 13.25 (June 20,
1835) 98.
[10]Minutes
of the General Assembly (1835) 33. The concern regarding education was
echoed by later Assemblies in 1841 and 1849, the latter Assembly declaring that
those who sent their children to Roman Catholic boarding schools, where they
would be required to attend mass, were guilty of violating their vows to train
up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but suggested
admonition as the only discipline required in most cases. The concern appears
to have been widespread, since many parts of the country lacked any decent
educational system, and Roman Catholic schools were sometimes the only school
in the neighborhood (see chapter five). From 1841-1852 the Assembly appointed
one of its members to preach on the papal controversy during the Assembly (Minutes,
1841, 432). The 1852 Assembly discontinued the practice as not having any real
practical benefit.
[11]Southern
Christian Herald 4.8 (May 19, 1837) 31. Later that year at least one
presbytery would engage in a debate on the question of Roman baptism.
“Presbytery of Bethel,” CO 11.51 (December 23, 1837) 201.
[12]The Old
School periodicals occasionally debated the question of how far to extend
communion. The most common stance was stated by Nathan Rice “The Church of
Christ is ONE; yet it exists in a number of different denominations differing
in points of doctrine and polity more or less important, but agreeing in all
that is essential to salvation and to the validity of the ordinances. . . .
Every believer in Christ, who has been baptised in the name of the holy
Trinity, and is in connection with an evangelical church, has complied with all
the Scripture requisitions in order to an approach to the Lord's table; and we
dare not keep him back. . . . ” P&H (November 19, 1840). But others,
such as David Monfort of Indiana, argued that such intercommunion allowed
Methodists to come to the Presbyterian table on Sunday and then try to steal
Presbyterian members away on Monday (he then added, “I should not allude to
these things were they not common.”) He suggested that Presbyterian churches
should require communicants to affirm all the distinguishing tenets of
Calvinism. If the church could suspend disorderly members, could it also
suspend disorderly branches of the church? “Catholic Communion,” P&H
(April 29 & June 24, 1841). Monfort was one of the few ministers in the
West who still used communion tokens, allowing those from other churches to
partake of the Supper “who are willing to fellowship them in worship and duty,
and to submit to the order of the Church.” P&H (October 21,
1841). His brother was a minister in the Associate Reformed church, a
denomination that only permitted its own members to partake of the table. In
reply, Nathan Rice emphasized the distinction between irregular and invalid.
Other denominations might have irregular practices, but this did not render their ordinances invalid. “Catholic
Communion Defended, No 1,” P&H (July 8, 1841).
[13]In 1790
the Assembly declared that they would recognize the ordinances of any other
church that they recognized as Christian. In 1814 they unanimously rejected Unitarian
baptism because they did not accept Unitarians as truly Christian. See Baird,
75.
[14]Baird,
76. The Assembly declared “That while those persons styling themselves the
Cumberland Presbytery were under suspension, their administrations are to be
considered invalid; but after the General Assembly have declared them to be no
longer connected with our Church, their administrations are to be viewed in the
same light with those of other denominations not connected with our body.” From
Minutes (1825) 275.
[15]Presbyter,
CO 13.46 (November 16, 1839) 181-182.
[16]A
similar position would be taken by James Hoge, James Culbertson, and William
Wylie in their report to the Synod of Ohio urging the acceptance of Oberlin
baptism. “Baptism by Oberlin Preachers” Presbyterian Advocate 5.4
(October 26, 1842).
[17]Presbyter,
CO 13.46 (November 16, 1839) 182. In this particular case the Synod
eventually relented and the matter never came to the General Assembly.
[18]“Campbellite
Baptism,” Presbyterian of the West (March 8, 1849).
[19]“Socinian
Character of Campbellism,” Presbyterian Advocate (Jan 21, 1846)
[20]Transylvania
Presbytery, “Report on the Validity of the Baptism administered in the Reform
or Campbellite Body” Presbyterian of the West 27.46 (May 13, 1858).
[21]Minutes (1864)
316. There was not much significant debate on the point. In 1871 a committee of
Robert L. Dabney, Thomas E. Peck, John B. Adger, and George Howe reported to
the southern General Assembly that invalid baptism occurs when a church
apostatizes, or by the utter change or corruption of the element and doctrine
of the sacrament. On both scores, Rome has no baptism. The Campbellites were so
varied in their beliefs that since some of her baptisms were invalid, and the
church could not tell which were which, therefore the church should rebaptize
all. (Alexander's Presbyterian Digest, 346). By 1882 the question of
Campbellite baptism had been referred to the judgment of the session.
[22]Another
question arose in the newspapers with respect to whether Quakers could be
admitted to the Lord’s Table, since Quakers did not practice baptism at all.
Nicholas Murray of Elizabethtown said that he would admit a Quaker to the Table
who was evangelical in belief, but this was generally condemned. One response
insisted that since baptism is the sacrament of admission into the visible
Church, there could be no warrant for admitting an unbaptized person to the
Table. “We think the principle stated by Dr M. is an unsound one, and one that
tends to unscriptural latitudinarianism.” “Should Unbaptized Persons be
Admitted to the Lord's Table,” PH 28.14 (Sept 30, 1858).
[23]Linda
Colley, Britons, Forging the Nation 1707-1837 (London: Bath, 1992). Some
of the recent literature on anti-Catholicism has been surveyed by Marjule Anne
Drury, “Anti-Catholicism in Germany, Britain, and the United States: A Review
and Critique of Recent Scholarship,” Church History 70:1 (March
2001) 98-131.
[24]Thomas
Saunders Kidd, “From Puritan to Evangelical: Changing Culture in New England,
1689-1740,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 2001).
[25]Tyler
Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics
of the 1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) chapter 1.
[26]Ray
Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade 1800-1860: A Study of the Origins
of American Nativism (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938). Jenny
Franchot has produced a fine study of Protestant literary engagement with Roman
Catholicism, especially in New England. Jenny Franchot, Roads to Rome: The
Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1994).
[27]R. Bryan
Bademan has emphasized the theological importance of anti-Catholicism. Bademan,
“Contesting the Evangelical Age: Protestant Challenges to Religious
Subjectivity in Antebellum America,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Notre
Dame, 2003) chapter two. See also Leo P. Hirrel, Children of Wrath: New
School Calvinism and Antebellum Reform (Lexington: The University of
Kentucky Press, 1998) chapter six.
[28]Articles
in Protestant newspapers bear out this distinction. Theological and political
articles run in almost equal numbers. Billington sees the roots of the
“No-Popery” movement in the increasing Roman Catholic immigration in the 1820s,
which resulted in the establishment of The Protestant, a weekly
anti-Catholic newspaper in New York in 1830. The first two editors were the
Rev. George Bourne, and the Rev. William Craig Brownlee, Billington, 53-55.
[29]Robert
had succeeded his brother John at Second Presbyterian, Baltimore, in 1832.
[30]“The
Rejected Statement To the Public,” BLRM 1.2 (February 1835) 51. In fact,
it appears that the Baltimore press was attempting to maintain a tolerant and
moderate tone–the dominant position among Baltimore Protestants as well as
Catholics for several generations. From their perspective, Breckinridge was as
an outsider (from Kentucky) stirring up trouble where none needed to exist.
[31]In 1836,
90 out of the 110 articles in the BLRM were related to the papal
controversy, and 84 out of 128 in 1837. But by the middle of 1837, the New
School controversy was beginning to make a dent in the anti-Catholic
literature. In 1838 only 45 of the 89 articles were on Romanism, while
seventeen dealt with the New School controversy, and another nine covered the
slavery question. This proportion remained the average for the rest of the
papers existence (through 1841), with various Presbyterian debates replacing
the New School Controversy by 1840. But this still meant that half the material
in the paper was dealing with Rome.
[32]“No
Salvation for Protestants!!!” BLRM 1.2 (February 1835) 36.
[33]“Texas,
Her Wrongs, and Prospect” BLRM 2.1 (January, 1836) 20.
[34]BLRM 2.3 (March 1836) 104. The following month Breckinridge published Gaston’s refutation of this accusation from the Lexington Gazette, where Gaston claimed that he had no problem affirming the general truth of the Protestant religion. Breckinridge tried to convince the Lexington Gazette to publish his reply to Gaston, insisting that Gaston was defining Protestantism quite differently from any historical definition, but Breckinridge’s letter was so incendiary that the editor replied that it was “of that character, which experience has convinced me cannot be usefully and safely admitted into the columns of a newspaper.” Therefore Breckinridge published the whole exchange in his own paper, concluding:
Oh! how willingly, would I become their [papists] victim, if
that might be the means of making my country feel, that every sentiment of
patriotism, every emotion of philanthropy, and every principle of true
religion, equally impel us to suppress, by all lawful means, this unparalleled
superstition, as the enemy alike of God and man.See BLRM 2.4
(April, 1836) 140-148. Edmund Arthur Moore, “The Earlier Life of Robert J.
Breckinridge, 1800-1845,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1932)
108.
[35]“State
of Papal Influence” BLRM 2.3 (March, 1836) 105.
[36]A more
moderate, but no less firm, approach was taken in the “Kirwan Letters” authored
by Nicholas Murray in 1848. Murray had grown up Roman Catholic in Ireland, but
had become a Presbyterian after immigrating to New York. Originally published
in the New York Observer, the letters were immensely popular and sold
over 100,000 copies in their first year (even being reprinted in England and
Ireland and translated into German) and were published together as Letters
to the Rt. Rev. John Hughes by “Kirwan” (Philadelphia: Presbyterian
Board of Publication, 1851). These letters recount Murray’s own pilgrimage from
Roman Catholicism to Protestantism and explain the many reasons why he cannot
return. Billington associates this more moderate approach as related to the
more genteel anti-Catholicism of the late 1840s. (Billington, 253-254)
[37]The
first debate was a written exchange between Breckinridge and Hughes in 1833,
which Billington calls “the first important discussion” between representatives
of the Protestant and Catholic churches. Other debates include, A Debate on
the Roman Catholic Religion. . . between Alexander Campbell of Bethany,
Virginia, and the Rt. Rev. John B. Purcell, Bishop of Cincinnati. . . (Cincinnati:
J. A. James & Co., 1837); Discussion Held in Lebanon, Pa.,. . . between
N. Steinbacher of the Roman Catholic, and J. F. Berg of the Reformed Church
(Philadelphia, 1842). Billington, 62. Billington suggests that by 1840
anti-Catholics were convinced that these debates were doing their cause little
good (66), but it also appears that Roman Catholics were equally desirous of
avoiding the debate forum, because Breckinridge and Rice continued to challenge
them to debates.
[38]John
Hughes and John Breckinridge, A Discussion: Is the Roman Catholic Religion
Inimical to Civil or Religious Liberty? Is the Presbyterian Religion Inimical
to Civil or Religious Liberty? (New York: Da Capo Press, 1970/1836). This
exchange was reviewed by Joel Jones, a ruling elder from Philadelphia, in
“Romanism and Civil and Religious Liberty,” BRPR 9 (1837) 238-66,
326-49, 487-509.
[39]Hughes
and Breckinridge, A Discussion, 20.
[40]Hughes
and Breckinridge, A Discussion, 62.
[41]Hughes
and Breckinridge, A Discussion, 81.
[42]Of
course, Breckinridge had argued just that summer at the General Assembly that
the Roman Catholic church was not a Christian church (see above), but he was
willing to call them “Christian” in the generic sense (and like most
Presbyterians, he believed that individual Roman Catholics could be true
Christians).
[43]Hughes
and Breckinridge, A Discussion, part 2.
[44]“Maria
Monk” BLRM 2.8 (September, 1836).
[45]“What
Has Become of Maria Monk? from the Protestant Vindicator,” Presbyterian
Advocate 1.9 (November 28, 1838).
[46]Charles
Anderson Wickliffe (1788-1869) was a member of Rice’s Bardstown congregation. A
native Kentuckian and a lifelong Democrat, Wickliffe served in the Kentucky
house of representatives for seven years, in the U.S. House from 1823-1833 and
from 1861-1863. He was Lieutenant Governor from 1836-39, when he took over as
governor after the death of Governor Clark until 1840, and served as U. S.
Postmaster General from 1841-1845. Dictionary of American Biography. On
Crittenden see below.
[47]“The
Mysterious Disappearance” Presbyterian Expositor 1.6 (May 15, 1858) 312.
[48]“Thirty-Four
to One” True Catholic 1.5 (July 3, 1844); “The Case of Milly McPherson,”
True Catholic 1.6 (July 17, 1844); “The Cruelty of Popery,” Western
Protestant 1.1 (February 19, 1845) 6-7.
[49]BLRM
1.5 (May, 1835) 132.
[50]“Our
Course for Five Years--Suit of Mr. Maguire” BLRM 6.1 (January 1840). The
original story was in the BLRM of November, 1839.
[51]Crittenden
(1786-1863) was Henry Clay’s lieutenant, and has the distinction of being
nominated to the United States Supreme Court by both John Quincy Adams and
Abraham Lincoln. Albert D. Kirwan, John J. Crittenden: The Struggle for the
Union (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1962). Kirwan notes that Crittenden
had forestalled a threatened duel between Breckinridge and his arch-nemesis
Robert Wickliffe in 1823 (43).
[52]“The
State of Maryland against Robert J. Breckinridge” BLRM 6.5-6 (May &
June, 1840)–a double issue. William C. Preston (1794-1860) was born in
Philadelphia, graduated from South Carolina College in 1812, and settled in
Columbia. He served in the South Carolina legislature (1829-1834), and the
United States Senate (1836-1842), and served as president of South Carolina
College (1845-1851). Breckinridge had married his sister, Ann Sophonisba
Preston, in 1823. (James H. Thornwell was a professor at South Carolina College
during Preston’s presidency, and was also his successor in the presidency).
[53]William
C. Brownlee to Robert J. Breckinridge, April 4, 1842, cited in Edmund Arthur
Moore, “The Earlier Life of Robert J. Breckinridge, 1800-1845” (Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Chicago, 1932) 114-118. Other congratulations came
publicly from Benjamin Gildersleeve, editor of the Charleston Observer,
who thought that the trial would do good to educate both Protestants and Roman
Catholics regarding the tyrannical authority of the priesthood. “The Baltimore
Trial,” CO 14.8 (April 11, 1840) 30.
[54]Brownlee
to Breckinridge, April 4, 1842, cited in Moore, 114-118.
[55]“Letter
to Samuel Annan, M. D., One of the Physicians at the Alms House,--a Ruling
Elder in the Third Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, &c.” BLRM 6.8
(August, 1840). It is interesting, though hardly surprising in this case, that
Breckinridge used the periodical press, rather than the church courts, to deal
with Annan. Breckinridge was the most notorious exception to the Old School
rule that idea–not persons–should be attacked. Breckinridge was known for his
sharp-tongued attacks, at one point being called “the Robespierre of the
Presbyterian Church,” which Breckinridge himself reported. Breckinridge, “An
Humble Defence for Speaking Truth and Doing Good,” BLRM 5.8 (August,
1839) 358.
[56]“Review
of the Pamphlet of Samuel Annan,” BLRM 7.3 (March 1841) 126.
[57]As early
as 1834 the New York Observer was warning against the machinations of
the Leopold Society, formed in 1829 to further the spread of Roman Catholicism
in the United States. “Popery in the United States,” New York Observer 12.3
(January 18, 1834) 10.
[58]BLRM
1.5 (May, 1835). It is worth noting that Breckinridge and Musgrave were pastors
of the Second and Third Presbyterian Churches in Baltimore. John C. Backus,
pastor of the First Presbyterian Church seems not to have been involved. New
York had seen the emergence of several anti-Catholic societies in 1834-1836
(Billington, 95-97).
[59]Billington
also mentions the “domineering” tone that Roman Catholic clergy sometimes
adopted in America which alienated Protestants. (289-314)
[60]“American
Protestant Association,” Presbyterian 13.2 (January 14, 1843) 5-6.
[61]William
Engles commented that three years before, Philadelphians would have objected,
but now “The sentiment is daily gaining ground among all classes, that it is
time for American Protestants to unite for the purpose of repelling the
aggressions of the Papal Hierarchy upon our civil and religious liberties.”
“Great Protestant Movement,” Presbyterian 13.2 (January 14, 1843) 6; WS
6.28 (March 2, 1843). One articles that attempted to document the Roman
Catholic plans to take over portions of the United States was “Popish
Colonization,” Presbyterian 12.47 (Nov 19, 1842) 186.
[62]Robert
J. Breckinridge, “Important Movement in the Evangelical Churches of the City of
Baltimore,” Spirit of the XIXth Century 2.5 (May, 1843) 307-311.
Quotations from pages 310-311. Also his short notice of the Address of the
Board of Managers of the American Protestant Association 312-313.
[63]Since
most of these papers do not seem to have been preserved, either in whole or in
part, I have drawn on the most successful paper, the True Catholic (preserved
in its entirely at the Presbyterian Historical Society), along with the Western
Protestant (located at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary). Billington also
points to other anti-Catholic papers started between 1841-1845 in Baltimore
(the Saturday Visitor), in Albany (The Reformation Defended Against
the Errors of the Times), in Philadelphia (Protestant Banner) and in
Cincinnati (The American Protestant)
[64] By the
end of 1846, however, the market for anti-catholic newspapers was dwindling.
While sporting a circulation of over 3,000, the True Catholic admitted
that fewer than half had paid their subscriptions that year. The paper was
“temporarily” suspended in February of 1847 to allow the new editor, the Rev.
Archy B. Lawrence, to drum up further subscriptions, but it was never heard
from again. True Catholic 3.17 (February 1, 1847). Lawrence was an
Old School minister who seems to have been very interested in editing–given his
association with numerous southwestern papers–but not very good at it. He was
the final editor of the New Orleans Observer 1838-40, before it sold out
to the Watchman of the South. He edited the Bible Witness in
Nashville, Tennessee, for six months in 1845 before merging into the Presbyterian
Herald in Louisville. He temporarily assisted William W. Hill with the Presbyterian
Herald in 1845-46, before some unnamed disagreement between them led
to his silent departure. He assumed the reins of the True Catholic in
November of 1846. Its demise three months later seems to have been his last
editorial failure. Part of the reason for the demise of the anti-catholic
papers was the fact that the Old School weeklies regularly reprinted what they
considered the best of the anti-catholic literature in their columns. The Presbyterian
Advocate of Pittsburgh, for instance, continued regular weekly articles
against Rome (versus the papacy, transubstantiation, the saints, the morals of
the Jesuits, Bishop Hughes, worship of the Virgin Mary, etc.) throughout most of 1844-45. After 1846, however, the anti-catholic
literature in the weeklies dropped off considerably.
[65]The
masthead of the paper. The True Catholic initially drew most of its
readership from Kentucky, with smaller circulation in Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana,
and Mississippi, but eventually developed a circulation fairly evenly
distributed through those states as well as Georgia and North Carolina. Total
subscription by the end of 1846 had reached 3,000, but since nearly half their
readers did not pay on time, the paper was discontinued. (The one subscriber
from New Jersey was Samuel Miller, professor at Princeton Theological Seminary,
who praised the True Catholic for its fairness).
[66]“Introductory”
True Catholic 1.1 (May 1, 1844).
[67]See also
N. L. Rice, “The Western Protestant,” Western Protestant 1.1 (February
19, 1845) 5, where Rice promises not to engage in denominational polemics
between Protestants, but will focus his attention on the “Romish controversy.”
[68]“Has
This Nation Chosen a Religion?” True Catholic 1.3 (June 5, 1844).
[69]True
Catholic 1.18 (January 15, 1845).
[70]R. C.
Grundy, “The Maysville Resolutions” True Catholic 1.23 (April 2,
1845). Grundy gave the quotation from Pope Gregory XVI in full, as it is cited
above in the American Protestant Association’s statement. Roman Catholics were
engaged in trying to answer this question in their own intramural discussions.
See John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom (New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 2003).
[71]Cf. Billington,
193-234. Michael Feldberg reports at least thirty-five major riots in
Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston between 1830-1860, The
Turbulent Era: Riot and Disorder in Jacksonian America (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1980) 5; Mary P. Ryan, Civic Wars: Democracy and Public
Life in the American City in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1997).
[72]The
American Republican party had remarkable success in New York and Philadelphia
in the election of 1844. Billington calls the “continuation of the Bible as a
schoolbook,” a minor reform in the American Republican platform, focusing on
the twenty-one year residency requirement for naturalization, but that appears
to be more due to his own prejudice than any suggestion on the part of the
American Republicans themselves. (202-3)
[73]The riot
has been described by Vincent P. Lannie and Bernard C. Diethorn, “For the Honor
and Glory of God: The Philadelphia Bible Riots of 1840,” History of
Education Quarterly 8.1 (Spring, 1968) 44-106, especially pages 73-87;
Michael Feldberg, The Philadelphia Riots of 1844: A Study of Ethnic Conflict (Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press, 1975) chapters 5-7. See also Billington, 220-234.
Predictably Billington focuses more on the political aspect, though he does not
neglect the religious entirely. He points out that the Philadelphia riots
severely damaged the reputation of the American Party, whose political hopes
would arise once again with the Know-Nothings a decade later. (234) Feldberg,
in the wake of the ethnic conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s attempts to portray
the 1840s riots as primarily ethnic.
[74]Presbyterian
newspaper accounts varied somewhat in their accuracy, and naturally sympathized
with the Protestants: “Riots and Bloodshed in Philadelphia,” CO 18.20
(May 18, 1844) 78; “The Reign of Terror in Philadelphia,” CO 18.22 (June
1, 1844) 86; “The Philadelphia Riots,” CO 18.28 (July 13) 110; “Roman
Catholic Murders in Philadelphia,” True Catholic 1.4 (June 19, 1844); True
Catholic 1.5 (July 3, 1844).
[75]True
Catholic 1.6 (July 17, 1844). This is in stark contrast to the editor of
the Native American, who declared “We now call on our fellow-citizens,
who regard free institutions, whether they be native or adopted, to arm. Our
liberties are now to be fought for;–let us not be slack in our preparations.”
(Quoted in Billington, 225). Old School Presbyterians had a far stronger sense
of the rule of law and deplored all vigilante justice. (See chapter ten for
William A. Scott’s encounter with vigilantes.)
[76]“More
Riots in Philadelphia” Presbyterian of the West 3.20 (July 11, 1844) 86.
The occasion for the renewed violence was the claim “that arms and ammunition,
to a considerable amount, had been found in a Catholic church (St Philip's),
which caused great excitement.” (According to the report there were 75 muskets,
1 keg powder, flasks, balls, slugs and shot; 10 pistols and 12 bayonets). After
a disturbance on July 5th where Irish Catholics burned the American
flag and destroyed some tents used by the Native American party in their July 4th
celebration, the Native Americans launched an attack on St. Philip’s on July
6-7th, which was finally dispelled by the military (leaving 13 dead and 50
wounded).
[77]“Bishop
Hughes as a Peace Officer” True Catholic 1.5 (July 3, 1844). For a
social history of Catholicism in New York City, see Jay P. Dolan, The
Immigrant Church: New York’s Irish and German Catholics, 1815-1865
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975).
[78]St.
Louis Presbyterian 11.3 (Sept 14, 1854), see also November 23, 1854 and
August 5, 1855.
[79]Tyler
Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics
of the 1850s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) x-xi; 24-32.
John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom (New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 2003). McGreevy points to the back-to-back speaking tours
of Louis Kossuth (a failed Hungarian revolutionary) and Alessandro Gavazzi (a
nationalist supporter of Garibaldi’s 1848 revolution) around 1850, both of whom
fueled anti-Catholic fervor (23-25). Especially infuriating to American
Protestants was the arrival in 1852 of the papal nuncio Gaetano Bedini to
settle trustee disputes–who was infamous in America as the ruthless military
governor of the Papal States who had put down the revolutionaries of 1848. He
was met with violence and riots in several cities, finally being chased from
the country in 1854. Anbinder also emphasizes the failure of the Whig Party
after the Compromise of 1850 and the widespread dissatisfaction with both the
Whig and Democratic parties. Anti-Catholicism and anti-slavery briefly joined
forces in the Know-Nothing party, but ultimately anti-slavery proved more
powerful, resulting in the triumph of the Republican party. Also see John David
Bladek, “America for Americans: The Southern Know-Nothing Party and the
Politics of Nativism, 1854-1856,” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of
Washington, 1998).
[80]Not
surprisingly, he blamed Archbishop Hughes and his Freeman’s Journal as
the chief culprit. He “has not been slow to perceive his power, and to take
advantage of it.” Editorial, “Religio-Political Riots,” Presbyterian
24.34 (August 26, 1854) 134. William E. Gienapp cites the Methodist Governor of
Indiana, Joseph A. Wright, as claiming that the state fusion convention (of
Know-Nothings and Republicans) consisted of more than a hundred Methodist
Preachers and at least 27 Presbyterians. Gienapp, The Origins of the
Republican Party, 1852-1856 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). He
also points out that Indiana Presbyterians switched from Democrat to Peoples
(fusion) in 1854.
[81]Editorial,
“Mobs,” St. Louis Presbyterian (May 3, 1855)
[82]“Election
Riots and Mob Law in Louisville,” PH (August 9, 1855).
[83]“The
Riots Accounted for at Last,” PH (August 23, 1855).
[84]“The
Pittsburg Catholic and the Louisville Riots,” PH (Sept 13, 1855). Of
course, Protestants had plenty of political newspapers to advocate their views,
while Roman Catholic newspapers often had to provide both political and
religious commentary.
[85]“The Know-Nothings,”
Southern Presbyterian 8.4 (November 9, 1854). The author said that
he did not belong to the party, but he agreed that all American citizens should
have American interests. The most prominent Presbyterian Know-Nothing was R. J.
Breckinridge (see Edgar C. Mayse, “Robert Jefferson Breckinridge: American
Presbyterian Controversialist,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Union Theological Seminary
in Virginia, 1974) 519-526. For the origin of the Know-Nothings, see William E.
Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987); Tyler Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The
Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1992); and Dale T. Knobel, “America for Americans”: The
Nativist Movement in the United States (New York: Twayne, 1996). Billington
argues that the Know-Nothings were successful in the south and border states
because “it was a compromise party” between the Whigs and the Democrats on
sectional grounds, “not because it promised to protect America from the Pope.”
(394) Billington assumes that because the south did not have many Roman
Catholics, that it must therefore be a non-issue to southerners. But given
southerners concern about the moral and constitutional “decline” of the
North–they had good reasons to vote for a party that might stem the tide of
Roman Catholic and “infidel” influence in the North. See John David Bladek,
“America for Americans: The Southern Know-Nothing Party and the Politics of
Nativism, 1854-1856,” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Washington, 1998).
[86]“Roman
Catholic Policy,” Presbyterian 14.31 (August 3, 1844) 122.
[87]This
came from the news summary in the True Witness (Oct 19, 1854). Richmond
McInnis, the senior editor, backed away from this statement, insisting that it
was the position of the paper that all political and religious organizations
should be tolerated. But the news reports were not under his control (most Old
School editors allowed their publishers to insert the news summaries). “Our
Position--Religious Toleration,” True Witness (Oct 19, 1854). After
moving to New Orleans, McInnis still reflected a moderate tone, calling for a
treatise that would treat “the various errors of Romanism in a kind,
conciliatory tone,” as the only sort of volume that could be persuasive to
Roman Catholics themselves.
[88]“The
American Party. Its Cause, Progress, Objects and Result,” Presbyterial
Critic 1:5 (May, 1855) 219. These southern advocates of the Know-Nothing
cause vindicate John David Bladek’s revision of Tyler Anbinder’s thesis that
the southern Know Nothings shared little with their northern counterparts.
Bladek points out that while relatively few Roman Catholics immigrated to the
South, many southerners “saw foreigners and Catholics in league with corrupt
politicians as the primary danger to the American republic. (Bladek, 7-8). And
southern cities did in fact see significant immigrant populations (15).
Anti-Catholicism was a strong bond between north and south–one which the Know
Nothings attempted to exploit in their attempt to create a national party, but
failed due to the explosive issue of slavery. (56, 133-138)
[89]Ibid.,
222. Another author wrote in reply “The American Party,” Presbyterial Critic 1:6
(June, 1855) 277-286. He insisted that not all foreigners should be lumped
together (and he pointed out that the Mormons were Americans), and suggested
that the secret meetings of the Know-Nothings were every bit as unAmerican as
the machinations of the “papists.”
[90]Besides
Nathan L. Rice and James H. Thornwell, few of the leading pastors or professors
were in attendance at this General Assembly. John C. Lord (pastor of First
Church in Buffalo, NY), John M. Krebs (pastor of Rutgers Street Church in New
York City), Alexander T. McGill (professor in Western Theological Seminary),
George Junkin (president of Lafayette College), James Wood (professor in New
Albany Theological Seminary), Drury Lacy (pastor at Raleigh, NC), William T.
Hamilton (pastor at Government Street Church in Mobile, AL) and John T. Edgar
(president of the University of Nashville) were the leading ministers of the
1845 General Assembly. The most notable ruling elders were Walter Lowrie of New
York City (corresponding secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions), Judge
Humphrey H. Leavitt of Steubenville, Judge Robert C. Grier of Pittsburgh (who
would be appointed the following year to the United States Supreme Court), and
Williamson Dunn of Indiana (one of the founders of Hanover College and New Albany
Theological Seminary). Princeton Seminary was most notably absent.
[91]Minutes
(1845) 15, says Ohio Presbytery (along with most papers), but Watchman of
the South mistakenly says Columbus Presbytery–8.41 (May 29, 1845) 161.
[92]BLRM
1-7 (1835-1841); Spirit of the XIXth Century 1-2 (1842-1843).
[93]The Western
Protestant merged with the Western Presbyterian Herald in 1838 to
form the Protestant and Herald with Rice and R. J. Breckinridge’s
brother, William L. Breckinridge, as co-editors.
[94]“Debate
in Presbyterian General Assembly” WS 8.41 (May 29, 1845) 162.
[95]“Speech
of Rev. S. J. Cassels” WS 8. 44 (June 19, 1845) 176.
[96]“Debate
in Presbyterian General Assembly” WS 8.41 (May 29, 1845) 162.
[97]Rev.
Thomas Aitken (pastor of 1st Presbyterian Sparta, NY) replied that
there were countries where good men and priests still served in the Roman
church, who did not accept the decrees of Trent. Judge Robert Grier pointed out
that there were already many in the Presbyterian church who had been baptized
as Roman Catholics. Would they have to be rebaptized, after their session had
formerly accepted their baptism? “Debate in Presbyterian General Assembly” WS
8.41 (May 29, 1845) 162.
[98]Thornwell
appealed to the Councils of Carthage in 215, of Iconium in 235, and of Carthage
in 256.
[99]“Baptism
by Papists” WS 8.46 (July 3, 1845) 181.
[100]“Baptism
by Papists” WS 8.46 (July 3, 1845) 182. Hodge would later point out that
“defective and unlawful” did not mean “invalid.”
[101]“Debate
in Presbyterian General Assembly” WS 8.41 (May 29, 1845) 162.
[102]“Baptism
by Papists” WS 8.46 (July 3, 1845) 184.
[103]“Debate
in Presbyterian General Assembly” WS 8.41 (May 29, 1845) 162.
Thornwell’s speech lasted for several hours, continuing from Saturday afternoon
to the Monday morning session. “L” wrote to the Watchman of the South
that “the eagerness to hear Professor Thornwell is evinced by the fact that the
house was full even before the Assembly was organised. The expectations of the
people were not disappointed. He spoke till half-past 11 o'clock, and a more
brilliant effort I have never witnessed in any deliberative body. It was really
a magnificent affair” (163). Thornwell’s speech was later printed in full,
taking up eight columns (nearly a page and a half): “Baptism by Papists” WS
8.46 (July 3, 1845) 181-2, 184.
[104]Minutes (1845) 34. After those who were absent were allowed to add their votes, it stood at 173-8 (with six non liquets).173-8 (with six non liquet). The minority was centered in New York (five of the nineteen commissioners from New York state voted in the minority or non liquet). During the 1840s Presbyterian ministers were regularly titled “bishops.”
Nays Non Liquet
Bishops John C. Lord (Buffalo City) NY Thomas Aitkin (Steuben) NY
William Burton (Chillicothe) OH John Goldsmith (New York 1st) NY
John Hendren (Lexington) KY Joseph T. Smith (Erie) PA
John Warnock (East Alabama) AL
Henry McDonald (Tombeckbee) MS
Elders George Davidson (Albany) NY George W. Burroughs (New Brunswick) NJ
James McNair (Steuben) NY Robert C. Grier (Ohio) PA
Samuel E. Hibben (Chillicothe) OH J.
L. Jernegan (Lake) IN
[105]Minutes (1845)
34-7.
[106]Minutes
(1845) 37. It is worth noting that immediately after the baptism debate came
the decision on the slavery question, which was decided 168-13 (see chapter
six). Only ruling elder Samuel Hibben of Chillicothe Presbytery voted in the
minority on both questions. One southern observer commented that the debate on
Roman Catholic baptism “did much good every way. It had a happy tendency to
harmonize the Assembly, and to bring them to great unanimity on other points.
The subject of slavery excited much interest. There are but five or six
abolitionists in the Assembly. With some of these I have become acquainted.
They deserve more our sympathy than our abuse. They seem to be honest, well
meaning men; but evidently deluded on this one subject.” “Letters from GA” WS 8.42
(June 5, 1845) 167.
[107]“Romish
Baptism” Presbyterian Advocate 7.36 (July 2, 1845).
[108]WS 8.45
(June 26, 1845) 178.
[109]“Dangerous
Opponents,” Western Protestant 1.8 (June 4, 1845) 62. Rice replied by
pointing out that Presbyterians denied that an infant’s “salvation is effected
by their baptism.” Since most Presbyterians believed that all who died in
infancy were elect, he argued that this was merely scare-mongering.
[110]It
has often been said that Hodge was not particularly strong in church
government, especially by those who dislike his stance on the boards
controversy around 1860 (see chapter ten). This was first claimed by several
contemporaries: “The Church Question,” Presbyterial Critic 1.6
(June, 1855) 245, 249; The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell (Edinburgh:
Banner of Truth Trust, 1974/1875) IV:243-244. A. Craig Troxel echoes the charge
in, “Charles Hodge on Church Boards: A Case Study in Ecclesiology,” Westminster
Theological Journal 58 (1996) 203-206. For the most thorough study of
Hodge’s ecclesiology, see Mark Alan Reynolds, “Charles Hodge’s Ecclesiastical
Elenctics: His Response to Catholicizing Tendencies in the Churches,
1837-1860,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Saint Louis University, 2000).
[111]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 445.
[112]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 446. Hodge also cited the
canons of the Council of Nicea, along with those of Laodecea, Constantinople
II, Arles II, and Trullo, appealing to Augustine, Jerome and other early
Fathers, along with the Lutheran and Reformed churches–citing Gerhard and
Turretin as examples. Hodge translated Turretin’s argument that “Some heretics
corrupt the very substance of baptism, as the ancient Arians, modern Socinians,
rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, others, retaining the essentials of the
ordinance and the true doctrine of the Trinity, err as to other doctrines, as
formerly the Novatians and Donatists, and now the Papists and Arminians. The
baptisms of the former class are to be rejected; those of the latter are
retained, although they err as to many doctrines, and their baptisms, in
circumstantials, are polluted by various ceremonies.” (447)
[113]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 448.
[114]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 449.
[115]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 452.
[116]Confession
of Faith 27.4; Larger Catechism 168.
[117]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 453.
[118]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 456.
[119]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 457.
[120]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 459.
[121]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 462.
[122]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 463.
[123]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 464.
[124]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 467.
[125]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 471.
[126]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 468.
[127]“The
General Assembly” BRPR 17.3 (July, 1845) 464.
[128]“Princeton
and Rome vs. the General Assembly I, II” PH 3.46-47 (August 14, 21,
1845).
[129]“Princeton
and Rome vs. the General Assembly III, IV, V, VI” PH 3.49-52 (September
4, 11, 18, 25, 1845).
[130]“Romish
Baptism from the New Orleans Protestant” WS 8.51 (August 7,
1845) 202. This was also noted in the Presbyterian Advocate (August
13, 1845).
[131]Benjamin
Gildersleeve, “Papal Baptism,” Watchman and Observer 1.1 (August 21,
1845) 2.
[132]“On
Catholic Baptism,” “Romish Baptism 2-3,” Watchman and Observer 1.11-13
(October 30, November 6, 13, 1845) 42, 46, 50. At the same time, Gildersleeve
noted that Baptists were wrestling with the question of whether baptism by
unbaptized persons should be considered valid (though, of course, Baptists
considered anyone baptized as an infant to be unbaptized). 1.8 (October 9,
1845) 29.
[133]Presbyterian
of the West 1.4 (Oct 16, 1845). The synods of South Carolina, Georgia, and
a couple of northwestern synods openly concurred with the Assembly, but
Pittsburgh seems to have been the only one to refuse to acquiesce. Most
accepted it silently.
[134]An
Old Presbyter, “Popish Baptism and the Princeton Review,” Presbyterian
Advocate (August 13, 20, 1845).
[135]SR,
“Roman Baptism,” Presbyterian Advocate 7.48 (Sept 24, 1845). It
seems to have been arguments such as this that kept the Synod of Pittsburgh
from affirming the Assembly’s decision. (See chapter nine for more on the
debates over the status of baptized children).
[136]Theophilus
[George Junkin], Presbyterian 16.1 (Jan 3, 1846) 2. Theophilus’
series ran from December 20, 1845 to April 4, 1846.
[137]Thornwell’s
review was first published in a series starting in March of 1846: Henley, “The
Princeton Review and Popish Baptism” Watchman and Observer 1.29 (March
5, 1846) 113. It was later reprinted in the Southern Presbyterian Review (July,
October, 1851, January 1852), and may be found in his Collected Writings of
James Henley Thornwell III. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1986/1875)
283-413.
[138]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 284. Anyone relying upon Thornwell’s collected writings should keep
in mind that the editor, John B. Adger, silently removed Thornwell’s most
vigorous language and softened his rhetoric. See 3:281.
[139]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 286.
[140]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 292.
[141]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 294.
[142]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 295.
[143]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 295-96.
[144]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 296.
[145]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 305.
[146]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 322.
[147]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 329.
[148]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 331.
[149]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 337.
[150]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 338.
[151]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 343. Thornwell plainly suggests that the Holy Spirit could use
other religions to bring a person to a saving knowledge of Christ (a position
he would have to affirm since he believed that Roman Catholicism was in fact an
entirely different religion from Christianity), but then insisted that such a
person must unite with a Christian (Protestant) church.
[152]Thornwell,
“Validity,” 411. The reason why there is no third part of the argument (in
spite of the numbering at the beginning of the section) is that while Thornwell
had promised to show that the Reformed were against Hodge’s position, he never
cites anyone who advocated the rebaptizing of Roman Catholics.
[153]This
was intended as a dig against the South Carolinian, Thornwell, who did not care
to be associated with abolitionists. “Is the Church of Rome a Part of the
Visible Church?” BRPR 18.2 (April, 1846) 222. Hodge concluded with the
same refrain: “When one says, we favor intemperance unless we say that the use
of intoxicating liquors is sinful; another, that we favor slavery unless we say
slaveholding is a sin; and a third, that we favor popery unless we say the
church of Rome is no church, they all, as it seems to us, make the same
mistake, and greatly injure the cause in which they are engaged.” (244)
Unfortunately for Hodge, these sorts of distinctions were increasingly lost on a
Presbyterian church that wanted everything in nice, neat categories.
[154]“Is
the Church of Rome a Part of the Visible Church?” 224.
[155]“Is
the Church of Rome a Part of the Visible Church?” 237.
[156]“Is
the Church of Rome a Part of the Visible Church?” 242. In 1869, Pope Pius IX
invited all Protestant churches to send observers to the Vatican Council. The
Old School General Assembly appointed George W. Musgrave, John Hall and ruling
elder Martin Ryerson to confer with a similar New School committee to reply to
the invitation. A draft of the committee’s letter is found in Charles Hodge’s
papers at Princeton Theological Seminary, in Hodge’s handwriting. It
courteously declines the Pope’s invitation and firmly states that the
Presbyterian church cannot return to Rome until the Council of Trent is
overturned (among other concerns). Minutes (1869) 936.
[157]Frederick,
“”Is Baptism in the Church of Rome Valid?” Presbyterian 16.14 (April 4,
1846) 53.
[158]Frederick,
“Is Baptism in the Church of Rome Valid? No. II,” Presbyterian 16.15
(April 11, 1846) 57.
[159]Frederick,
“Is Baptism in the Church of Rome Valid? No. III,” Presbyterian 16.16
(April 18, 1846) 61.
[160]Frederick,
“Is Baptism in the Church of Rome Valid? No. IV,” Presbyterian 16.17
(April 25, 1846) 65.
[161]“Is
the Church of Rome a Church of Christ?” PH 23.24 (Feb 16, 1854).
[162]Cunningham
wrote in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review (July 1857)
reviewing Hodge’s Essays and Reviews, a selection of Hodge’s
ecclesiastical essays from the Princeton Review. Quoted in A. A. Hodge, The
Life of Charles Hodge, 428-429.
[163]New
York Observer (June 27, 1878). Quoted in A. A. Hodge, The Life of
Charles Hodge, 260.
[164]One practical result of the debate was the fragmentation of the Portugese Presbyterian churches in Illinois in 1858. These Presbyterians had been converted by Dr. Robert Reid Kalley of the Church of Scotland in 1838, but were driven off of Madeira Island in 1846 by Portugese Roman Catholic persecution, and had settled in Jacksonville, Springfield and Waverly, Illinois, where the Free Portugese Presbyterian Church was established in Jacksonville in 1850. In 1856 they transferred from the Free Church of Scotland to the Old School Presbytery of Sangamon. But unlike the Free Church, the Old School did not recognize the validity of their Roman Catholic baptisms. The ensuing conflict in the Portugese community divided the church beyond repair. The Sangamon Presbytery determined not to require the rebaptism of those who believed their Roman Catholic baptism was adequate, but the Rev. Antonio De Mattos led a slight majority out of the Old School by a 105-101 vote, which subsequently joined the New School (which had determined to leave the question of Roman Catholic baptism to the local session). The ensuing court battle over the church property lasted for more than five years. See Dennis E. Suttles, “Schism on the Prairie: The Case of the Free Portugese Church of Jacksonville, Illinois,” JPH 75:4 (Winter 1997) 211-222.
A
fascinating illustration of the Protestant quest for Roman Catholic converts is
told by Caroline B. Brettell, “From Catholics to Presbyterians: French-Canadian
Immigrants in Central Illinois,” JPH 63:3 (Fall 1985) 285-298. The
French Canadian Roman Catholic priest, Charles Chiniquy, became a charismatic
temperance reformer in the 1840s, before settling down as a parish priest in
Illinois, along the Kankakee River in 1851. He was suspended from the
priesthood in 1856 for administering the mass in French, providing laymen with
the Bible, along with “behavior unfitting a Catholic priest,” (probably sexual
in nature). But his congregation at St. Anne supported him and when he was
excommunicated in 1858 eighty per cent of the congregation followed him into
independency. When major crop failures occurred in 1859-1860, Chiniquy appealed
to the Protestant community for help. The Presbyterian became the
clearinghouse for Protestant assistance for the allegedly starving Catholic
converts. While Episcopalians and Baptists sent representatives to try to
encourage Chiniquy to align with them, the Presbyterians objected to such sectarian
strategies, and offered assistance without any strings attached. Largely due to
this generosity, Chiniquy joined the Chicago Presbytery of the Old School
Presbyterian church in 1860, telling his congregation that “if you are not
satisfied” after a year, “we will join another” (292). But troubles in
discipline led to the division of the St. Anne church, and a second
Presbyterian church was formed in 1861 under the Rev. Theodore Monod, a French
minister who had come in 1860 to assist Chiniquy (who was frequently engaged in
lecture tours around the country). Charges against Chiniquy for mismanagement
of funds eventually resulted in his suspension by the Chicago Presbytery in
1862, at which point the First Presbyterian Church of St. Anne applied for admission
to the Canadian Presbyterian Church. Chiniquy remained a minister in the
Canadian Presbyterian Church until his death in 1899. Both the Chicago
Presbytery and the Canadian Synod suggested that Chiniquy should be given a
certain moral leeway due to his past as a Roman Catholic priest–who were
assumed to be notoriously immoral. There is an eery similarity to the way in
which Presbyterians handled the sexual dalliance of the West African minister,
Edward W. Blyden. Roman Catholics and blacks were expected to have a lower
morality, and so public behavior that would not have been tolerated in white
Presbyterians was frequently winked at. See Moses N. Moore, Jr., “Edward Wilmot
Blyden: From Old School Presbyterian Missionary to ‘Minister of Truth,’” JPH
75:2 (Summer 1997) 103-118. For several months the Presbyterian reported
on Chiniquy almost weekly. Among the more important articles: M. J. Paillard,
“Father Chiniquy,” from the New York Express, reprinted in the Presbyterian
29.35 (September 3, 1859) 141; A Visitor, “A Visit to Ste. Ann,” Presbyterian (October
1, 1859) 158; the announcement of Chiniquy’s decision to become Old School is
in Presbyterian (Jan 28, 1860); Charles A. Spring, a ruling elder, and
brother of the Rev. Gardiner Spring of Brick Presbyterian Church in New York
City, wrote of the desperate condition of the colonists in Presbyterian
(May 19, 1860); cf. “The French Colony,” Presbyterian 30.39 (September
29, 1860) 158; “The Candian French Colony” Presbyterian (November 10,
1860) 182; A. H., “Letter from Illinois,” Presbyterian
31.17 (April 27, 1861) 66.
[165]The
New School Assembly dealt with the same question in the 1850s. Henry Boynton
Smith took Hodge’s position and was able to prevent the New School from denying
the validity of Roman baptism. Therefore after the reunion, in 1875, the
reunited General Assembly left the matter to the discretion of the session.
(Moore, Presbyterian Digest 514). Meanwhile the Southern General
Assembly reiterated the condemnation of Roman baptism in 1871 and 1884. Another
Old Schooler who came to favor Hodge’s position was William A. Scott, a San
Francisco pastor, “Validity of Roman Catholic Baptism,” Presbyterian
30.36 (March 7, 1861).
[166]Chapter
five will explore the anti-catholic aspect of Breckinridge and Thornwell’s
educational theory.