The True Church - The Path Which Led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church

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Now, an Aquinas and More exclusive! 

We're proud to offer the only reprint of this extraordinary 19th century apologetics classic.

About the Book

The True Church

In 1860 Peter Hardeman Burnett published his first book The Path which Led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church. This was not his personal story, but a biblical exegesis.  As an eminent jurist, he delivers, a judge's 'summing up' on the truth if Christianity.  In this edition we supply a new title in accord with the thrust of the work, but keep Burnett's full text and language.

The analysis is instructive of the role of religion in European and American culture. Catholics will find his Protestant evidentialist dialect to be unique.  While he 'finds for' the Old Church, Protestants will find much of interest in what divides Protestant from Protestant.  These issues are starkly current -critical rules for hermeneutics, the role of reason in religious faith, inspiration of Scripture, the need for a tangible church, achieving certainty, and so on.

Burnett's discussions are a model for ecumenical dialog.  He was in turn an unbeliever, a Deist, a Disciple of Christ, and a Catholic so he does not assume in his reader any Christian faith.  He treats evidence in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of men like William Blackstone, Thomas Starkie, and James Kent.  On this rigorous basis he develops, from history, positions on the truth of Christianity and uniqueness of the Catholic Church.  In the process, he meets the arguments and counter arguments of a group of notable believers and un-believers.  As the occasion demands, he qoutes men like Hugo Grotius, David Hume, and Samuel Johnson as well as a vast array of Divines.  Each section presents the Ancient Fathers -as Burnett suggests, everyone is more comfortable when they join our company.  

Pioneering California was remarkably successful in the practical arts.  So, it will come as a surprise that, its first Governor was a scholar.  Peter Hardeman Burnett; was a lawyer, soldier, newspaper editor, farmer, judge, businessman, politician, statesman and scholar.

Peter Burnett is recognized as: the organizer of the first wagon trains from Independence Missouri to Oregon and from Oregon to California; a founder of Oregon and California; and the first civil governor of California -a great pioneer. He is also a pioneer of American literature.  He wrote profoundly on the philosophy of religion, political theory, constitutional law, history, and evolutionary science.

Burnett brings a universally understood juristical logic to his search for truth, making his writing relevant today, as well as having profound historical value.

Foreward by Kevin Starr, Ph.D. 

Reviews of this book -

"With steel clean logic and crystal style the 19th century Peter Burnett has written what can read as a kind of contemporary commentary on The Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Anyone interested in apologetics will find this work invaluable."

- Cornelius Buckley, S.J. Historian and author of
(among others) Ignatius of Loyola: The Pilgrim
Saint.
 
"Peter Burnett, applying the principles of Anglo-American law to Scripture and the Fathers of the Church, produced  a remarkably full and impressive apologia for the Catholic faith.  Too little remembered in our day, the work has more than historical interest.  Many issues  treated  in it are still lively topics of controversy.  ...Burnett stands in the first rank of 19th century American Catholic apologists."

- Cardinal Avery Dulles S.J.

"His (Burnett's) work is a tour de force, and stands as a worthy predecessor to many fine works of Catholic apologetics being authored by lay people of our time."

- Cardinal William J. Laveda, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

"...a splendid instance of the genre "apologetics,"  defending with heart as well as mind, with courtesy, authority, close and careful reasoning, the truth of the Catholic Church."

Stan Fabian Parmisano, O.P. Author of Mission
West

"As an Englishman...I found myself enthralled by this defense of the Catholic Church by a convert from the days of the 'wild west'.  Burnett's apologia... enabled me to understand the relationship between Mother Church and Uncle Sam more clearly.  The True Church shows how the romance of Rome could transform the romance of the old West."

Joseph Pierce. Highly acclaimed literary biographer
of Chesterton, C.S. Lewis and others.

"He (Burnett) was...'An Old Pioneer.' But he was more than that -he was a man of destiny, Catholics, Protestants and Jews all owe much of their California heritage to this first American Governor of the State!"

Msgr. Francis Webber. Archivist, author of
Encyclopedia of California's Catholic Heritage
1769-1999

Table of Contents:

Preface to the 1860 Edition
Editor's Note
Foreword
Some of the Authorities Quoted

Part One: Christian Theory
Introduction
The Law of Christ
The Visible Church
The Governing power of the Church
The Infallibility of the Church
The Primacy of Saint Peter
Catholic Miracles
Which is the True Church?
Part 1 Index

Part Two: Doctrine and Discipline
Certain Objections Answered
Charges of Catholic misconduct
Effects of the Catholic System
Results of the Protestant Theory
Transubstantiation
Penance
Invocation of the Saints
Barriers to the truth
Part 2 Index
 

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