Resolved, That it be referred to the same committee, if they deem it wise, to prepare and publish a reply to the said letter of the Pope, which shall be regarded as an expression of the sentiments of this Synod concerning the matters therein contained as of vital importance to all civil and religious liberty throughout the world, and to the salvation of the human race.
It was suggested that a committee consisting of three ministers and three elders, be appointed to carry out the objects of the resolutions. Dr. Cox wanted to see the committee larger. It was an important subject, and we want names on the document which will encourage our brothers in England and in all parts of Europe. The following committee was appointed to take the whole subject into consideration: Rev. William Adams, D.D., Rev. Henry B. Smith, D.D., Rev. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., Rev. Jonathan F. Stearns, D.D., Rev. Edwin F. Hatfield, D.D., Rev. Samuel T. Spear, D.D., Rev. George L. Prentiss, D.D., Hon. William E. Dodge, Professor Theodore W. Dwight, LL.D., Hon. Daniel Haines, Hon. Edward A. Lambert, J. B. Pinneo, Esq., S. F. B. Morse, Esq., Cyrus W. Field, Esq.
We subjoin another report of the action of the central authority of the Evangelical Church of Prussia, from The New York Herald:
The Berlin Evangelical Consistory On The Pontifical Letter.
The pastoral letter in connection with his oecumenical circular addressed by Pope Pius IX. to non-Catholic Christians has roused Prussian evangelic church authority. The following circular has been addressed to its consistories: "An open letter of the 13th ult., by the chief of the Roman Catholic Church, is directed to all Protestants, thus including the members of our Evangelical State Church. As this document contains, besides unjust accusations, many expressions of respect and kindness toward Protestants, we are ready and willing to consider it as a pledge of friendly and peaceable relations for the future between both confessions for the sake of the state and its citizens, and for the efficiency and triumph of Christian truth. Every sincere evangelic Christian acknowledges the duty of loving other confessions and deplores the separation in the church, especially among members of a common country. But as the chief of another church undertakes in the said letter to demand, with assumed authority, from the members of ours a renunciation of their cherished creed, founded upon the inviolable word of God, and a retractation of evangelical truth won by the blessed Reformation, without offering on his part the least prospect of a reconciliation on the basis of evangelical truth, we must decidedly reject his action as an unjustifiable trespass upon our church, and in so doing we are sure of the agreement of all Evangelicals. An appeal to the members of our church not to heed this voice may be deemed unnecessary; but it is proper to keep still more in mind, opposed to such pretensions, the numerous members of our persuasions who in the midst of Roman Catholicism are exposed to the temptations of infidelity toward the Evangelical creed; therefore, to procure the means for preaching to them, giving them the sacraments, the Evangelical school and pastoral care, collections are directed soon to be made in all our churches. The royal consistories will communicate this to the ministers of the dioceses, who on the days of collection on the following Sundays are to make proper mention of it to their congregations.
There was also an announcement in the papers that some sort of a letter to the Pope was proposed by members of the late General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, although we do not know what came of the affair eventually.
We must give justice to one portion of the comments of the Saturday Review, namely, that which refers to the publication of the pontifical letter. It is a matter of great inconvenience to Catholics throughout the world, that the publication of important official documents at Rome is so tardy and insufficient. This is a defect which ought to be, and we hope will be, remedied. We have not yet seen the Latin text of the letter addressed by the Sovereign Pontiff to Protestants, and have been obliged to take a translation of it which is not remarkably well-executed, and in which we have corrected forty-seven typographical errors, from an English Catholic newspaper. The English translations of the grand and dignified pontifical documents which are sent forth by the Holy See, are generally wretched, and make them appear to readers who are unacquainted with the originals in a very unfavorable light.
It seems to us that it would have added very much to the effect of the Holy Father's paternal address to his erring and strayed children, if authentic copies had been at once sent to all the bishops, with a command to publish both the original Latin text, and also a translation authorized by themselves, with their own official counter-signature appended, for the benefit of all Christians within their several dioceses. As it is, however, the letter of the Holy Father has become very generally known through the indirect channel of the newspapers, and has not failed to produce a great sensation. It is just such an admonition as the head of the Church, who is conscious that his authority to teach the world is indubitable, might be expected to issue. It is in the style and manner which become the Vicar of Jesus Christ speaking to all the baptized, who, by virtue of their baptism, are lawfully subject to his pastoral jurisdiction. The Pope speaks as one having authority, and must necessarily do so, just as our Lord and the Apostles did, because he knows that he has authority, and that the evidence of his authority is so plain and clear, that at least all the educated pastors and teachers of the different Christian sects are capable of perceiving it and bound to acknowledge it. The Saturday Review complains that the Pope does not argue on the subject, or adduce reasons to convince those who reject his authority. This is a most unreasonable objection. How would it be possible, within the limits of a brief letter, to address arguments, at length, to all the hundred and one different sorts of Protestants? The letter is not destitute of that kind and amount of argument which are alone suitable in a document of the kind. It appeals to the manifest fact that Protestants are divided among a multitude of differing sects and doctrines, without any principle of unity or certain criterion of truth; whereas the Catholic Church, in communion with the See of Peter, possesses that unity and universality which are the sure and evident marks of the presence of the Holy Spirit within her body, leading her perpetually into all truth, according to the promise of Christ. Our Lord, when he demanded the obedience of faith under the peril of eternal damnation from all his hearers, did not enter into long arguments. He presented brief and simple reasons in an authoritative manner to his auditors, and appealed to the evidences by which his divine mission was attested from heaven. In like manner the Holy Father, who is Christ's vicegerent upon the earth, affirms his own authority, commands submission to his teaching, and presents a simple, obvious argument addressed to the reason and conscience of all men, which they have the means of easily verifying if they will. The affirmation of his authority, and the command or exhortation to submit to it, are not made gratuitously, and do not rest upon a mere personal declaration of the Pontiff, to which men are to yield an assent which is blind, unreasoning, or destitute of solid motives. The motives are not expressed explicitly and at length in the letter; but they are appealed to as existing within the reach of those who are addressed, and the claim of submission is based upon them. The Holy Father speaks as the head of a communion embracing almost two thirds of all Christendom, which has existed in an unbroken continuity of doctrine and organization from remote antiquity, with the entire united moral force of all the bishops, doctors, and saints of the church in the present and the past ages, to back and support him. He speaks to those whose ancestors acknowledged his authority, and who have been severed from his communion by a violent revolution, whose justification three centuries have not been able to establish; but whose condemnation has been unmistakably pronounced by the disastrous results it has produced. He has, therefore, a prima-facie claim of prescription, possession, and general acknowledgment in his favor, which gives an immense moral weight to his utterance. Moreover, he speaks after having for three hundred years argued the whole case between himself and Protestants in the most thorough and complete manner, by the means of the theologians and writers of the Catholic Church, whose works are accessible in all languages. His bishops and priests are everywhere to be found, ready to argue and explain the doctrines of the church for the benefit of all those who desire it. At the council itself, instructions and conferences in various languages will be given upon all the points of controversy by the ablest and most learned preachers of all nations, and theologians will be ready to give private conferences to those who desire them. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Holy Father shuts out inquiry, argument, or discussion; for he does everything to invite and favor them, and by his act in summoning a council, and challenging the attention of the whole world, throws open all the doors and windows of the church to the light of all the intelligence of Christendom.