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 Lectures on the prophetical office of th 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 445 941 
 
The original of this book is in 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029445941 
 
LECTURES 
 
 PROPHETICAL OFFICE OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 VIEWED RELATIVELY TO 
 
 ROMANISM 
 
 POPULAR PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, B.D. 
 
 FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, 
 AND VICAR OF ST. MARY THE VIRGIN'S, OXFORD. 
 
 They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the 
 foundations of many generations; and thou shalt he called, the Repairer of the breach, the 
 Restorer of paths to dwell in. — Isaiah lviii. 12. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR J. G. & F. RIVINGTON, 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL ; 
 
 & J. H. PARKER, OXFORD. 
 1837. 
 
LONDON : 
 gilbert & bivington, printers, 
 st. john's square. 
 
TO 
 
 MARTIN JOSEPH ROUTH, D.D. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, 
 
 WHO HAS BEEN RESERVED 
 
 TO REPORT TO A FORGETFUL GENERATION 
 
 WHAT WAS THE THEOLOGY OF THEIR FATHERS, 
 
 THIS VOLUME, 
 
 IS INSCRIBED, 
 
 WITH A RESPECTFUL SENSE 
 
 OF HIS EMINENT SERVICES TO THE CHURCH, 
 
 AND WITH THE EARNEST PRAYER 
 
 THAT WHAT HE WITNESSES TO OTHERS 
 
 MAY BE HIS OWN SUPPORT AND PROTECTION 
 
 IN THE DAY OF ACCOUNT. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The following volume has grown out of Parochial 
 Lectures delivered on week-days ; and, had its 
 limits admitted, would have embraced the Sacer- 
 dotal as well as the Prophetical office of the 
 Church. Great portions of a correspondence which 
 the writer commenced with a learned and zealous 
 member of the Gallican Church are also incorpo- 
 rated in it. 
 
 To prevent misconception as to the meaning of 
 the Title-page, he would observe, that by Popular 
 Protestantism he only wishes to designate that gene- 
 ralized idea of religion, now in repute, which merges 
 all differences of faith and principle between Pro- 
 testants as minor matters, as if the larger denomi- 
 nations among us agreed with us in essentials, and 
 differed only in the accidents of form, ritual, govern- 
 ment, or usage. Viewed politically, Protestantism 
 is at this day the rallying point of all that is loyal 
 and high-minded in the nation ; but political con- 
 
Vl ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 siderations do not enter into the scope of his 
 work. 
 
 He has endeavoured in all important points of 
 doctrine to guide himself by our,, standard divines, 
 and, had space' admitted, would have selected pas- 
 sages from their writings in evidence of it. This 
 is almost a duty on the part of every author, who 
 professes, not to strike out new theories, but to 
 build up and fortify what has been committed to 
 us. In the absence of such a collection of testi- 
 monies, he hopes it will not look like presumption 
 to desire to make his own the following noble pro- 
 fessions of the great Bramhall. 
 
 " No man can justly blame me for honouring 
 my spiritual mother, the Church of England, in 
 whose womb I was conceived, at whose breasts I 
 was nourished, and in whose bosom I hope to die. 
 Bees, by the instinct of nature, do love their hives, 
 and birds their nests. But, God is my witness, 
 that, according to my uttermost talent and poor 
 understanding, I have endeavoured to set down 
 the naked truth impartially, without either favour 
 or prejudice, the two capital enemies of right judg- 
 ment. The one of which, like a false mirror, doth 
 represent things fairer and straighter than they 
 are ; the other like the tongue infected with choler 
 makes the sweetest meats to taste bitter. My 
 desire hath been to have Truth for my chiefest 
 friend, and no enemy but error. If I have had 
 any bias, it hath been desire of peace, which our 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. vft 
 
 common Saviour left as a legacy to His Church, 
 that I might live to see the re-union of Christen- 
 dom, for which I shall always bow the knees of my 
 heart to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It 
 is not impossible but that this desire of unity may 
 have produced some unwilling error of love, but 
 certainly I am most free ■ from the wilful love of 
 error. In questions of an inferior nature, Christ 
 regards a charitable intention much more than a 
 right opinion. 
 
 " Howsoever it be, I submit myself and my poor 
 endeavours, first to the judgment of the Catholic 
 Ecumenical essential Church, which if some of 
 late days have endeavoured to hiss out of the 
 schools as a fancy, I cannot help it. From the 
 beginning it was not so. And if I should mistake 
 the right Catholic Church out of human frailty or 
 ignorance, (which, for my part, I have no reason 
 in the world to suspect, yet it is not impossible 
 when the Romanists themselves are divided into 
 five or six several opinions, what this Catholic 
 Church, or what their Infallible Judge is), I do 
 implicitly and in the preparation of my mind sub- 
 mit myself to the True Catholic Church, the Spouse 
 of Christ, the Mother of the Saints, the Pillar of 
 Truth. And seeing my adherence is firmer to the 
 Infallible Rule of -Faith, that is, the Holy Scrip- 
 tures interpreted by the Catholic Church, than to 
 mine own private judgment or opinions ; although 
 I should unwittingly fall into an error, yet this 
 
viii ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 cordial submission is an implicit retractation thereof, 
 and I am confident will be so accepted by the 
 Father of Mercies, both from me and all others 
 who seriously and sincerely do seek after peace and 
 truth. 
 
 " Likewise I submit myself to the Representa- 
 tive Church, that is, a free General Council, or so 
 General as can be procured ; and until then to the 
 Church of England, wherein I was baptized, or to 
 a National English Synod. To the determination 
 of all which, and each of these respectively, accord- 
 ing to the distinct degree of their authority, I yield 
 a conformity and compliance, or at the least and to 
 the lowest of them, an acquiescence." — Works, p. 
 141. 
 
 Oriel College, 
 The Feast of St. Matthias. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction .... . . 1 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 The Nature and Ground of Roman and Protestant Errors . . 33 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 On Romanism as Neglectful of Antiquity 59 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Doctrine of Infallibility Morally Considered 100 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Doctrine of Infallibility Politically Considered 126 
 
 a 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On the Use of Private Judgment • ■ 152 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 On the Abuse of Private Judgment . 173 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Instances of the Abuse of Private Judgment . . . 202 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 The Indefectibility of the Church Catholic 224 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 On the Essentials of the Gospel .... 255 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 On the Essentials of the Gospel . 284 
 
 LECTURE XL 
 On Scripture as the Record of Faith 318 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 On Scripture as the Record of our Lord's Teaching . . .345 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On Scripture as the Document of Proof in the Early Church . . 369 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 On the Fortunes of the Church 392 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 So much is said and argued just at this time 011 
 the subject of the Church, by those who use the 
 word in different senses, and those who attach to 
 it little distinct sense at all, that I have thought 
 it might be useful, by way of promoting sound and 
 consistent views concerning it, to consider it atten- 
 tively iii several of its bearings, and principally in 
 its relation to Romanism, which possesses the most 
 systematic theory concerning it. Unhappy is it 
 that we should be obliged to discuss and defend 
 what a Christian people were intended to enjoy, 
 to appeal to their intellects instead of " stirring up 
 their pure minds by way of remembrance," to direct 
 them towards articles of faith which should be their 
 place of starting, and to treat as mere conclusions 
 what in other ages have been assumed as first prin- 
 ciples. Surely life is not long enough to prove 
 every thing which may be made the subject of 
 proof; and, though inquiry is left partly open in 
 order to try our earnestness, yet it is in great mea- 
 
 B 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sure, and in the most important points, superseded 
 by Revelation, — which discloses things which reason 
 could not reach, saves us the labour of using it 
 when it might avail, and sanctions the principle of 
 dispensing with it in all cases. Yet, in spite of 
 ithis joint testimony of nature and grace, so it is, 
 I we seem at this day to consider discussion and con- 
 '■troversy to be in themselves chief goods. We 
 exult in what we think our indefeasible right and 
 glorious privilege to choose and settle our religion 
 for ourselves ; and we stigmatize it as a bondage 
 to be bid take for granted what the wise, good, and 
 many have gone over and determined long before, 
 or to submit to what Almighty God has revealed. 
 
 From" this strange preference, however origina- 
 ting, of inquiry to belief, We, or our fathers before 
 us, have contrived to make doubtful what really 
 was certain. We have created difficulties in our 
 path ; we have gone out of our way to find inge- 
 nious objections to what was received, where none 
 hitherto existed ; as if forgetting that there is no 
 truth so clear, no character so pure, no work of man 
 so perfect, but it admits of criticism, and will 
 become suspected directly it is accused. As might 
 be expected, then, we have succeeded in our at- 
 tempt ; we have succeeded in raising clouds which 
 effectually hide the sun from us, and we have no- 
 thing left but to grope our way by our reason, as 
 we best can, — our necessary, because now our only 
 guide. And as a traveller by night, calculating or 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 guessing his way over a morass or amid pit-falls, 
 naturally trusts himself more than his companions, 
 though not doubting their skilfulness and good 
 will, and is too intent upon his own successive steps 
 to hear and to follow them, so we, from anxiety if 
 not from carelessness, have straggled each from his 
 neighbour, and are all of us, or nearly so, in a fair 
 way to lose our confidence, if not our hope. I say, 
 we, or others for us, have asserted our right of de- 
 bating every truth, however sacred, however pro- 
 tected from scrutiny hitherto ; we have accounted 
 that belief alone to be manly which commenced 
 in doubt, that inquiry alone philosophical which 
 assumed no first principles, that religion alone ra- 
 tional which we have created for ourselves. Loss 
 of labour, division, and error have been the three- 
 fold gain of our self-will, as evidently visited in this 
 world, — not to follow it into the next. 
 
 How we became committed to so ill-advised a 
 course, by what unfortunate necessity, or under 
 what overpowering temptation, it avails not here to 
 inquire. But the consequences are undeniable ; 
 the innocent suffer by a state of things, which to 
 the proud and carnal is an excuse for their indiffer- 
 ence. The true voice of Revelation has been over- 
 powered by the more clamorous traditions of men ; 
 and where there are rivals, examination is neces- 
 sary, even where piety would fain have been rid of 
 it. Thus, in relation to the particular subject which 
 has led to these remarks, that some one meaning 
 
 b2 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 was anciently attached to the word " Church," is 
 certain from its occurring in the Creed ; it is cer- 
 tain, for the same reason, that it bore upon some 
 first principle in religion, else it would not have 
 been there. It is certain moreover, from history, 
 that its meaning was undisputed, whatever that 
 meaning was ; and it is as certain that there are in- 
 terminable disputes and hopeless differences about 
 its meaning now. Now is this a gain or a loss to 
 the present age ? At first sight one might think 
 it a loss, so far as it goes, whatever be the cause of 
 it ; in the same sense in which the burning of a 
 library is a loss, the destruction of a monument, 
 the disappearance of an ancient record, or the death 
 of an experimentalist or philosopher. Diminution 
 from the stock of knowledge is commonly consi- 
 dered a loss in this day ; yet strange to say, in the 
 instance before us, it is thought far otherwise. The 
 great mass of educated men are at once uneasy, 
 impatient, and irritated, not simply incredulous, 
 directly they are promised from any quarter some 
 clear view of the original and apostolic doctrine, 
 to them unknown, on any subject of religion. They 
 bear to hear of researches into Christian Antiquity, 
 if they are directed to prove its uncertainty and 
 unprofitableness ; they are intolerant and open- 
 mouthed against them, if their object be to rescue 
 not to destroy. They sanction a rule of philosophy 
 which they practically refute every time they praise 
 Newton or Cuvier, In truth, they can endure a 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 positive theory in other provinces of knowledge ; 
 but in theology it becomes practical. They per- 
 ceive that there, what in itself is but an inquiry 
 into questions of fact, tends to an encroachment 
 upon what they think fit to consider their Christian 
 liberty. They are reluctant to be confronted with 
 evidence which will diminish their right of think- 
 ing as they please, rightly and wrongly ; they are 
 jealous of being forced to submit to one view of 
 the subject, and to be unable at their pleasure to 
 change ; they consider comfort in religion to lie in 
 all questions being open, and there being no call 
 upon them to act. Thus they deliberately adopt 
 that liberty which God gave His former people in 
 wrath, " a liberty to the sword, to the pestilence, 
 and to the famine 1 ," the prerogative of being here- 
 tics or infidels. 
 
 It would be well if these men could keep their 
 restless humours to themselves ; but they unsettle 
 all around them. They rob those of their birthright 
 who would have hailed the privilege of being told 
 the truth without their own personal risk in finding 
 it ; they force them against their nature upon rely- 
 ing on their reason, when they are content to be 
 saved by faith. Such troublers of the Christian 
 community would in a healthy state of things be 
 silenced or put out of it, as disturbers of the king's 
 peace are restrained in civil matters ; but our times, 
 
 1 Jer. xxxiv. 17. 
 
q INTRODUCTION. 
 
 from whatever cause, being times of confusion, we 
 are reduced to the use of argument and disputation, 
 just as we think it lawful to carry arms and barri- 
 cade our houses during national disorders. 
 
 Let this be my excuse for discussing rather than 
 teaching what was meant to be simply an article of 
 faith. We travel by night: the teaching of the 
 Apostles concerning it, which once, like the pillar 
 in the wilderness, was with the children of God 
 from age to age continually, is withdrawn ; and we 
 are, so far, left to make the best of our way to the 
 promised land by*our natural resources. 
 
 In the following Lectures, then, it is attempted, 
 in the measure which such a mode of writing al- 
 lows, to build up what man has pulled down, in 
 some of the questions connected With the Church ; 
 and that, by means of the stores of Divine truth 
 bequeathed to us in the works of our standard 
 Divines. 
 
 The immediate reason for discussing the subject 
 is this : In the present day, such incidental notice 
 of it, as Christian teachers are led to take in the 
 course of their pastoral instructions, is sure to be 
 charged with what is commonly called " Popery ;" 
 and for this reason, — that Romanists having ever 
 insisted upon it, and Protestants neglected it, to 
 speak of it at all, though it is mentioned in the 
 Creed, is thought to savour of Romanism. Those 
 then who feel its importance, and yet are not Ro- 
 manists, are bound on several accounts to show 
 
 1 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 why they are not Romanists, and how they differ 
 from them. They are bound to do so, in order to 
 remove the prejudice with which an article of the 
 Creed is at present encompassed ; and on the other 
 hand to prevent those who have right but vague 
 ideas concerning it, from deviating into Romanism 
 . because no other system is provided for them. Till 
 they do more than they have hitherto done, of 
 course they hazard, though without any fault of 
 theirs, a deviation on the part of their hearers into 
 Romanism on the one hand, a reaction into mere 
 Protestantism on the other. 
 
 From the circumstances then of the moment, 
 the following Lectures are chiefly engaged in ex- 
 amining and exposing certain tenets of Romanism. 
 But this happens for another reason. After all, the 
 main object in a discussion should be, not to refute 
 error merely, but to establish truth. What Christians 
 especially need and have a right to require, is a po- 
 sitive doctrine on such subjects as come under notice. 
 They have a demand on their teachers for the mean- 
 ing of the article of the Apostles' Creed, which 
 binds them to faith in " the Holy Catholic Church." 
 It is a poor answer to this inquiry, merely to enter 
 into an attack upon Romanism, and to show that 
 it contains an exaggerated and erroneous view of 
 the doctrine. Erroneous or not, a view it certainly I 
 does contain ; and that religion which attempts a ! 
 view, though imperfect or extreme, does more than ] 
 those which do not attempt it at all. If we deny 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that Romanists speak the truth, we are bound in 
 very shame to commit ourselves to the risk of a 
 theory, unless we would fight with them at an 
 unfair advantage ; and in charity to our own people, 
 lest we tempt them to error, while we refuse to give 
 them what is better instead of it. But at the same 
 time, it stands to reason, that to do this effectually 
 we must proceed on the plan of attacking Roman- 
 ism, as the most convenient way of showing what 
 our own views are. It has pre-occupied the ground, 
 and we cannot erect our own structure without 
 partly breaking down, partly using what we find 
 upon it. And thus for a second reason, the fol- 
 lowing Lectures, as far as in their very form goes, 
 are chiefly written against Romanism, though their 
 main object is not controversy but edification. 
 
 Their main object is to furnish an approximation 
 in one or two points towards a correct theory of 
 the duties and office of the Church Catholic. Po- 
 pular Protestantism does not attempt it at all ; it 
 abandons the subject altogether : Romanism sup- 
 plies a doctrine, but, as we conceive, an untrue one. 
 The question is, what is that sound and just ex- 
 position of this Article of Faith, which holds to- 
 gether, or is consistent in theory, and is justified by 
 the history of the dispensation, which is neither 
 Protestant nor Roman, but proceeds according to 
 that Via Media, which, as in other things so here, is 
 the appropriate path for sons of the English Church 
 to walk in ? What is the nearest approximation to 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 that primitive truth which Ignatius and Polycarp 
 enjoyed, and which the nineteenth century has 
 lost? 
 
 This is the problem which demands serious con- 
 sideration at this day, and some detached portions 
 of which will be considered in the following Lec- 
 tures. Leaving to others questions directly poli- 
 tical and ecclesiastical, I propose to direct attention 
 to some of those connected with the pastoral office 
 of the Church. 
 
 It is obvious to insist on certain supposed disadvan- 
 tages of considering such a subject at this moment. 
 In replying to this objection, which I shall now 
 attempt to do, an opportunity will be given me to 
 explain more at length the object contemplated. 
 
 It is urged, then, by conscientious and sensible 
 men, that we have hitherto done sufficiently well 
 without any theory on the subject, and therefore 
 do not need it now or in prospect ; that certain 
 notions, in whatever degree abstractedly correct, 
 have become venerable and beneficial by long usage, 
 and ought not now to be disturbed ; that the na- 
 ture and functions of the Church have been long 
 settled in this country by law and by historical 
 precedents, and that it is our duty to take what we 
 find, and use it for the best ; that to discuss the 
 question of the Church, whatever precautions be 
 taken, necessarily involves the unsettling of received 
 opinions ; that though the views which may be put 
 forward be in themselves innocent or true, yet 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 under the circumstances they will lead to Roman- 
 ism, if only because the mind when once set in 
 motion in any direction finds it difficult to stop, 
 and because the article of the Church has been 
 accidentally the badge and index of that system ; 
 that the discussions proposed are singularly unsea- 
 sonable at this day, when our Church requires sup- 
 port against her enemies, and must be defended by 
 practical measures, not by speculations upon her 
 nature and historical pretensions, speculations un- 
 profitable in themselves, and in fact only adding to 
 our existing differences, and raising fresh parties 
 and interests in our already distracted communion, 
 speculations which have never been anything but 
 speculations, never were realized in any age of the 
 Church ; lastly, that the pretended Via Media is but 
 an eclectic system, dangerous to the religious tem- 
 per of those who advocate it, as leading to arro- 
 gance and self-sufficiency in judging of sacred 
 subjects. This is pretty nearly what may be 
 said. 
 
 Now it is obvious that these objections prove 
 too much. If they prove any thing, they go to 
 show that the article of the Holy Church Catholic 
 should not be discussed at all, not even as a point 
 of faith ; but that in its most essential respects, 
 as well as in its bearings and consequences, it may 
 be determined and interpreted by the law of the 
 land. This consideration in itself would be enough 
 to show, that there was some fallacy in them some- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 1 
 
 where, even if we could not detect it. However, 
 let us consider some of them in detail. 
 
 One of the most weighty of these objections at 
 first sight, is the danger of unsettling things esta- 
 blished, and raising questions, which, whatever may 
 be their intrinsic worth, are novel and exciting 
 at the present day. When, for instance, the office 
 of Holy Scripture, or the judicial power of the 
 Church, or the fundamentals of faith, or the legiti- 
 mate power of the Roman see, or the principles of 
 Protestantism are discussed, it is natural to object, 
 that since the Revolution of 1688 they have been 
 practically cut short, and definitely settled by civil 
 acts and precedents. It may be urged, that the 
 absolute subjection of the bishops, as bishops, to the 
 crown is determined by the deprivations of 1689: 
 the Church's forfeiture of her synodical rights by 
 the final measure of 1717 ; the essential agreement 
 of Presbyterianism with Episcopacy by the union 
 with Scotland in 1706-7; and our incorporation with 
 dissenters, on the common ground of Protestantism, 
 by the proceedings of the Revolution itself. It may 
 be argued that these measures were but the appro- 
 priate carrying out of the acts of the Reformation ; 
 that King William and his party did but complete 
 what King Henry began; and that we are born 
 Protestants, and though free to change our religion 
 and to profess a change, yet, till we do so, Protest- 
 ants, as other Protestants, we certainly are, though 
 we happen to retain the episcopal form ; that our 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Church has thriven upon this foundation in wealth, 
 station, and usefulness ; that being a part of the 
 constitution, it cannot be altered without touching 
 the constitution itself; and, consequently, that all 
 discussions are either very serious or very idle. 
 
 To all this I answer, that the constitution has 
 been altered, and not by us ; and the mere question 
 is, whether the constitution being altered, and the 
 Church in consequence, which is part of it, being 
 exposed to danger in her various functions, we may 
 allow those who have brought her into danger, to 
 apply what they consider suitable remedies, without 
 claiming a voice in the matter ourselves. Are 
 questions bearing more or less upon the education 
 of our members, the extension of our communion, 
 and its relations to Protestant bodies, to be decided 
 without us ? Are precedents to be created while 
 we sit by, which afterwards may be assumed as our 
 acknowledged principles ? It is our own concern ; 
 and it is not strange if we think it will be better 
 looked after by ourselves, than by our enemies or 
 by mere politicians. We are driven by the pres- 
 sure of circumstances to contemplate our own 
 position, and to fall back upon first principles ; nor 
 can an age, which prides itself on its powers of 
 scrutiny and research, be surprised if we do in self- 
 defence what it does in wantonness and pride. 
 We accepted the principles of 1688 as the Church's 
 basis, while they remained, because we had received 
 them : they have been surrendered. If we now 
 
INTRODUCTION. ]S 
 
 put forward a theory instead of them, all that can 
 be said against us is, that we are not so much 
 attached to them on their own account, as to con- 
 sent, that persons, still more ignorant of our divinely- 
 framed system than the statesmen of that era, 
 should attempt, in some similar or worse form, to 
 revive them. In truth, we have had enough, if we 
 would be wise, of mere political religion ; which, 
 like a broken reed, has pierced through the hand 
 that leaned upon it. While, and in proportion as 
 we are bound to it, it is our duty to submit, as the 
 duties of the Jews lay in submitting to Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, as Jeremiah instructed them. We will not 
 side with a reckless and destructive party, even in 
 undoing our own chains, where there is no strong 
 call of duty to oblige us ; nay, we will wear them, 
 not only contentedly but loyally ; we will be zealous 
 bondsmen, while the state honours us in our cap- 
 tivity. It has been God's merciful pleasure, as of 
 old time, to make even those who led us away 
 captive to pity us. Those who might have been 
 tyrants over us, have piously nursed the Church, 
 and liberated her, as far as was expedient, in the 
 spirit of him who " builded the city, and let go the 
 captives not for price nor reward 1 ." And while the 
 powers of this world so dealt with us, who would 
 not have actively co-operated with them, from love 
 as well as from duty ? And thus it was that the 
 
 1 Is. xlv. 13. 
 
14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 most deeply learned, and most generous minded of our 
 divines thought no higher privilege could befal them 
 than to minister at the throne of a prince like our 
 first Charles, who justified their confidence by dying 
 for the Church a martyr's death. And I suppose, in 
 similar circumstances, any one of those who after- 
 wards became non-jurors, or of such persons at this 
 day as have the most settled belief in the spiritual 
 powers of the Church, would have thought himself 
 unworthy to be her son, had he not fallen in with 
 a system which he had received and found so well 
 administered, whatever faults might exist in its 
 theory. This is the view to be taken of the con- 
 duct of our Church in the seventeenth century, 
 which we only do not imitate now, because we are 
 not allowed to do so, because our place of service 
 and our honourable function about the throne are 
 denied us. And, as we should act as our prede- 
 cessors were we in their times, so, as we think, they 
 too would act as we do in ours. They, doubtless, 
 at a time when our enemies are allowed to legislate 
 upon our concerns, and to dispose of the highest 
 offices in the Church, would feel that there were 
 objects dearer to them than the welfare of the state, 
 duties even holier than obedience to civil governors, 
 and would act accordingly. It is our lot to see the 
 result of an experiment which in their days was 
 but in process, that of surrendering the Church 
 into the hands of the state. It has been tried and 
 failed ; we have trusted the world, and it has taken 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 advantage of us. While the event was doubtful, it 
 was the duty of her rulers to make the best of 
 things as they found them : now that it is over, 
 though we must undergo the evil, we are surely not 
 bound to conceal it. 
 
 These reflections would serve to justify inquiries 
 far beyond the scope of the following Lectures, such, 
 I mean, as bear upon our political and ecclesiastical 
 state ; whereas those which will here come into con- 
 sideration have more reference to religious teaching 
 than to action, — to the Church's influence on her 
 members, one by one, rather than to her right of 
 moving them as a whole. But the distinct portions 
 of the general subject so affect each, other, that such 
 points as Church authority, Tradition, the Rule of 
 Faith, and the like, cannot be treated without seem- 
 ing to entrench upon political principles, consecrated 
 by the associations of the Revolution. It has ever re- 
 quired an apology, since that event, to speak the lan- 
 guage of our divines before it ; and such an apology 
 is now found in the circumstances of the day, in 
 which all notions, moral and religious, are so un- 
 settled, that every positive truth must be a gain. 
 
 But, in answer to a portion of the foregoing 
 remarks, it is not uncommon to urge what at first 
 sight seems to be a paradox ; that our enemies, or 
 strangers, or at least persons unacquainted with the 
 principles of the Church, are better fitted than her 
 proper guardians and ministers to consult for her 
 welfare ; that they are better friends to us than 
 
16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ourselves, and in a manner often defend us against 
 ourselves ; and the saying of a great and religious 
 author is quoted against us, that " clergymen un- 
 derstand the least and take the worst measure of 
 human affairs of all mankind that can write and 
 read 1 ." And so they certainly do, if their end 
 in view be that which secular politicians imagine. 
 If their end be the temporal aggrandisement of 
 the Church, no greater or more intolerable visita- 
 tion could befal us than to be subjected to such 
 counsellors as Archbishop Laud. But, perchance 
 the objects we have in view are as hidden from the 
 man of the world, whether statesman, philosopher, or 
 courtier, as heaven itself from his bodily eyes ; and 
 perchance those measures which are most demon- 
 strably headstrong and insane, if directed towards a 
 political end, may be most judicious and successful 
 in a religious point of view. It is an acknowledged 
 principle, that the blood of martyrs is the seed 
 of the Church ; and if death itself may be a victory, 
 so in like manner may worldly loss and trouble, 
 however severe and accumulated. 
 
 I am aware that professions of this nature in- 
 crease rather than diminish to men of the world 
 their distaste for the conduct they are meant to 
 explain. The ends which are alleged to account 
 for the conduct of religious men, remove the charge 
 of imprudence only to attach to them the more 
 
 1 Clarendon's Life, vol. i. p. 74. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 odious imputation of fanaticism and its kindred 
 qualities. Pilate's feeling when he asked " What 
 is truth ?" is a type of the disgust felt by men of 
 the world at the avowal of Christian faith and zeal. 
 To profess to act towards objects which to them 
 are as much a theory and a dream as the scenes 
 of some fairy tale, angers them by what they con- 
 sider its utter absurdity and folly. " Miserable 
 men!" said the heathen magistrate on witnessing 
 the determination of the martyrs of Christ, " if ye 
 will die, cannot you find precipices or halters !" l 
 Nor is this feeling confined to infidels or scorners ; 
 men of seriousness and good intentions, and it is 
 especially to the purpose to observe this, feel the 
 same annoyance and impatience at certain parts of 
 that Ancient Religion, of which the doctrine of the 
 Church is the centre, which profligate men manifest 
 towards moral and religious motives altogether. To 
 take an instance which will be understood by most 
 men. Should a man, rightly or wrongly, for that 
 is not the question, profess to regulate his conduct 
 under the notion that he is seen by invisible spec- 
 tators, that he and ajl Christians have upon them the 
 eyes of Angels, especially when in Church; should 
 he, when speaking on some serious subject, exhort 
 his friends as in their presence, nay, bid them at- 
 tend to the propriety of their apparel in divine 
 worship because of them, would he not at first be 
 
 1 Tertull. ad Scap. 5. 
 
 C 
 
]8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 thought to speak poetically, and so excused ? next, 
 when he was frequent in expressing such a senti- 
 ment, would he not become tiresome and unwel- 
 come ? and when he was understood to speak 
 literally, would not his views to a certainty be met 
 with grave, cold, contemptuous, or impatient looks, 
 as idle, strained, and unnatural ? Now this is just 
 the reception which secular politicians give to re- 
 ligious objects altogether ; and my drift in noticing 
 it is this, — to impress on those who regard with 
 disgust the range of doctrines connected with the 
 Church, that it does not at all prove that those 
 doctrines are strained and are uninfluential, because 
 they are disgusted, unless indeed the offence which 
 the infidel takes at the doctrine of the Cross be an. 
 argument that it also is really foolishness. These 
 doctrines may be untrue and unreasonable cer- 
 tainly ; but if the surprise of those who first hear 
 them and have never acted on them, be a proof 
 that they are so, more will follow than would be 
 admitted by any of us ; for surely, no disagreeable 
 feeling, which they can experience, equals the scorn 
 with which irreligious men hear of the blessed doc- 
 trine that God has become man, no surprise of 
 theirs can equal the amazement and derision with 
 which the pagans witnessed a saint contending even 
 unto bonds and death, for what they considered a 
 matter of opinion. 
 
 It does not follow, then, that doctrines are unin- 
 fluential, when plainly and boldly put forward, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 because they offend the prejudices of the age at 
 first hearing. Had this been true, Christianity it- 
 self ought not to have succeeded ; and it cannot be 
 imagined that the respectable and serious men of 
 this day who express concern at what they consider 
 the exaggerated tone of certain writers on the sub- 
 ject of the Church, are more startled and offended 
 than the outcasts to whom the Apostles preached 
 in the beginning. Truth has the gift of overcom- 
 ing the human heart, whether by persuasion or by 
 compulsion, whether by inward acceptance or by 
 external constraint; and if what we preach be truth, 
 it must be natural, it must be seasonable, it must 
 be popular, it will make itself popular. It will 
 find its own. As time goes on, and its sway ex- 
 tends, those who thought its voice strange and 
 harsh at first, will wonder how they could ever so 
 have deemed of sounds so musical and thrilling. 
 
 The objection, however, which has led to these 
 remarks, takes another and more reasonable form 
 in the minds of practical men, which shall now be 
 noticed. A religious principle or idea, however 
 true, before it is realized in a substantive form, is 
 but a theory ; and since many theories are not more 
 than theories, and do not admit of being carried into 
 effect, it is exposed to the suspicion of being one 
 of these, and of having no existence out of books. 
 The proof of reality in a doctrine is its holding toge- 
 ther when actually attempted. Practical men are 
 naturally prejudiced against what is new, on this 
 
 c2 
 
20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ground if on no other, that it has not had the op- 
 portunity of satisfying this test. Christianity would 
 appear at first a mere literature, or philosophy, or 
 mysticism, like the Pythagorean rule or Phrygian 
 worship ; nor till it was tried, could the coherence 
 of its parts be ascertained. Now the class of doc- 
 trines in question as yet labours under the same 
 difficulty. Indeed, they are in one sense as entirely 
 new as Christianity when first preached ; for though 
 they profess merely to be that foundation on which 
 it originally spread, yet as far as they represent a 
 Via Media, that is, are related to extremes which 
 did not then exist, and do exist now, they appear 
 unreal, for a double reason, having no exact coun- 
 terpart in early times, and being superseded now 
 by actually existing systems. Protestantism and 
 Popery are real religions ; no one can doubt about 
 them; they have furnished the mould in which 
 nations have been cast : but the Via Media has 
 never existed except on paper; it has never been 
 reduced to practice ; it is known, not positively but 
 negatively, in its differences from the rival creeds, 
 not in its own properties ; and can only be described 
 as a third system, neither the one nor the other, 
 partly both, cutting between them, and, as if with 
 a critical fastidiousness, trifling with them both, 
 and boasting to be nearer Antiquity than either. 
 What is this but to fancy a road over mountains 
 and rivers, which has never been cut? When 
 we profess our Via Media, as the very truth of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 Apostles, we seem to be mere antiquarians or 
 pedants, amusing ourselves with illusions or learned 
 subtilties, and unable to grapple with things as 
 they are. We tender no proof to show that our 
 view is not self-contradictory, and if set in motion, 
 would not fall to pieces, or start off in different 
 directions at once. Learned divines, it may be 
 urged, may have propounded it, as they have ; con- 
 troversialists may have used it to advantage when 
 supported by the civil sword against Papists or 
 Puritans ; but, whatever its merits, still, when left 
 to itself, to use a familiar term, it may not " work." 
 And the very circumstance that it has been pro- 
 pounded for centuries by great names, and not yet 
 reduced to practice, may be alleged as an addi- 
 tional presumption against its feasibility. To take 
 for instance the subject of Private Judgment ; our 
 theory here is neither Protestant nor Roman ; and 
 has never been realized. Our opponents ask, what 
 is it ? Is it more than a set of words and phrases, 
 of exceptions and limitations made for each suc- 
 cessive emergency, of principles which contradict 
 each other? 
 
 It cannot be denied there is force in these con- 
 siderations ; it still remains to be tried whether 
 what is called Anglicanism, the religion of Andrews, 
 Laud, Hammond, Butler, and Wilson is capable of 
 being professed, acted on, and maintained on a 
 large sphere of action and through a sufficient 
 period, or whether it be a mere modification either 
 
22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of Romanism or of popular Protestantism, according 
 as we view it. It may be argued that whether the 
 primitive Church agreed more with Rome or with 
 Protestants, and though it agreed with neither of 
 them exactly, yet that one or the other, whichever it 
 is, is the nearest approximation to the ancient model 
 which our changed circumstances admit; that either 
 this or that is the modern representative of primi- 
 tive principles; that any professed third theory, 
 however plausible, must necessarily be composed 
 of discordant elements, and when attempted must 
 necessarily run into Romanism or Protestantism, 
 according to the nearness of the attracting bodies, 
 and the varying sympathies of the body attracted, 
 and its independence of those portions of itself 
 which interfere with the stronger attraction. It 
 may be argued that the Church of England, as es- 
 tablished by law, and existing in fact, has never 
 represented a certain doctrine or been the deve- 
 lopment of a principle, that it has been but a 
 name, or a department of the state, or a political 
 party, in which religious opinion was an accident, 
 and therefore has been various. In consequence, 
 it has been but the theatre of contending religion- 
 ists, that is, of Papists and Latitudinarians, softened 
 externally, or modified into inconsistency by their 
 birth and education, or restrained by their interests 
 and their religious engagements. Now all this is 
 very plausible, and is to the point, as far as this, that 
 there certainly is a call upon us to exhibit our prin- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 ciples in action ; and until we can produce diocese, 
 or place of education, or populous town, or colonial 
 department, or the like, administered on our dis- 
 tinctive principles, as the diocese of Sodor and 
 Man in the days of Bishop Wilson, doubtless we 
 have not as much to urge in our behalf as we might 
 have. 
 
 This, however, may be said in favour of the inde- 
 pendence and reality of our view of religion, even 
 under past and present circumstances, that, whereas 
 there have ever been three principal parties in the 
 Church of England, the Apostolical, the Latitudi- 
 narian, and the Puritan, the two latter have been 
 shown to be but modifications of Socinianism and 
 Calvinism by their respective histories when al- 
 lowed to act freely, whereas the first, when it had 
 the opportunity of running into Romanism, did not 
 coalesce with it ; which certainly argues some real 
 differences in it from that system with which it is 
 popularly confounded. The Puritan portion of the 
 Church was set at liberty, as is well known, during 
 the national troubles of the seventeenth century ; 
 and in no long time prostrated the Episcopate, 
 abolished the ritual, and proved itself by its actions, 
 if proof was necessary, essentially Calvinistic. The 
 principle of Latitude was allowed considerable 
 range between the times of Charles II. and George 
 II. and even under the pressure of the Thirty-nine 
 Articles, possessed vigour enough to develope such 
 indications of its real tendency, as Hoadly and his 
 
24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 school supply. The Apostolical portion of the 
 Church, whether patronised by the court, or wan- 
 dering in exile, or cast out of their native commu- 
 nion by political events, evinced one and the same 
 feeling of hostility against Rome. Its history at 
 the era of the Revolution is especially remarkable. 
 Ken, Collier, and the rest had every adventitious 
 motive which resentment or interest could supply 
 for joining the Romanists ; nor can any reason be 
 given why they did not move on the one side, as 
 Puritans and Latitudinarians had moved on the 
 other, except that their Creed had in it an inde- 
 pendence and distinctness which was wanting in 
 the religious views of their opponents. If nothing 
 more has accrued to us from the treatment which 
 these excellent men endured, this at least has pro- 
 videntially resulted, that we are thereby furnished 
 with irrefragable testimony to the essential differ- 
 ence between the Roman and Anglican systems. 
 
 But if this be so, if the English Church has the 
 mission, hitherto unfulfilled, of representing a theo- 
 logy, Catholic but not Roman, here is an especial 
 reason why her members should be on the watch 
 for opportunities of bringing out and carrying into 
 effect its distinctive character. Such opportunities 
 perhaps have before now occurred in our history, 
 and have been neglected, and may never return ; 
 but, at least, the present unsettled state of religious 
 opinion among us furnishes an opening which may 
 be providentially intended, and which it is a duty 
 
INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 to use. And there are other circumstances favour- 
 able to the preaching of the pure Anglican doc- 
 trine. In a former age, the tendency of mere 
 Protestantism had not discovered itself with the 
 fearful clearness which has attended its later his- 
 tory. English divines were tender of the other 
 branches of the Reformation, and did not despair 
 of their return to the entire Catholic truth. Before 
 Germany had become rationalistic, and Geneva 
 Socinian, Romanism might be considered as the 
 most dangerous corruption of the gospel ; and this 
 might be a call upon members of our Church to 
 merge their differences with foreign Protestantism 
 and Dissent at home, as if in the presence of a com- 
 mon enemy. But at this day, when the connexion 
 of Protestantism with infidelity is so evident, what 
 claim has the former upon our sympathy ? and to 
 what theology can the serious Protestant, dissatis- 
 fied with his system, betake himself but to Roman- 
 ism, unless we display our characteristic principles, 
 and show him that he may be Catholic and Apos- 
 tolic, yet not Roman ? Such, as is well known, was 
 the service actually rendered by our Church to the 
 learned German divine, Grabe, at the end of the 
 seventeenth century, who, feeling the defects of 
 Lutheranism, even before it had lapsed, was con- 
 templating a reconciliation with Rome, when, finding 
 that England offered what to a disciple of Ignatius 
 and Cyprian were easier terms, he conformed to her 
 creed, and settled and died in this country. 
 
26 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Again : though it is not likely that Romanism 
 should ever again become formidable in England; yet 
 it may be in a position to make its voice heard, and 
 in proportion as it is able to do so, the Via Media 
 will do important service of the following kind. In 
 the controversy which will ensue, Rome will not 
 fail to preach far and wide the tenet which it never 
 conceals, that there is no salvation external to its 
 own communion. On the other hand, Protestantism, 
 as it exists, will not be behind hand in consigning 
 to eternal ruin all who are adherents of Roman 
 doctrine. What a prospect is this ! two widely 
 spread and powerful parties dealing forth solemn 
 anathemas upon each other, in the name of the 
 Lord! Indifference and scepticism must be, in 
 such a case, the ordinary refuge of men of mild and 
 peaceable minds, who revolt from such presump- 
 tion, and are deficient in clear views of the truth. 
 I cannot well exaggerate the misery of such a state 
 of things. Here the English theology would come 
 in with its characteristic calmness and caution, clear 
 and decided in its view, giving no encouragement 
 to lukewarmness and liberalism, but withholding all 
 absolute anathemas on errors of opinion, except 
 where the primitive Church sanctions the use of 
 them. 
 
 Here we are reminded of one more objection 
 which may be made to the discussion of such sub- 
 jects as those contained in the following Lectures ; 
 and with a brief notice of it I will conclude. It 
 
INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 may appear, then, that there is that in the notion 
 of inquiries into a doctrine but partly settled and 
 received, and in the very name of a Via Media, 
 adapted to foster a self-sufficient and sceptical 
 spirit. The essence of revealed religion is the 
 submission of the reason and heart to a positive 
 system, the acquiescence in doctrines which cannot 
 be proved or explained. A realized system is pre- 
 supposed as the primary essential, from the nature 
 of the case. When, then, we begin by saying that 
 the English doctrine is not embodied in any sub- 
 stantive form, or publicly recognized in its details, 
 we seem to reduce religion to a mere literature, to 
 make reason the judge of it, and to confess it to be 
 a matter of opinion. And when, in addition to 
 this, we describe it as combining various portions of 
 other systems, what is this, it may be asked, but to 
 sanction an eclectic principle, which of all others is 
 the most arrogant and profane ? When men choose 
 or reject from religious systems what they please, 
 they furnish melancholy evidence of their want of 
 earnestness ; and when they put themselves above 
 existing systems, as if these were suited only to the 
 multitude or to bigoted partizans, they are super- 
 cilious and proud ; and when they think they may 
 create what they are to worship, their devotion 
 cannot possess any high degree of reverence and 
 godly fear. Surely, then, it may be said, such 
 theorizing on religious subjects is but to indulge 
 that undue use of reason, which was so pointedly 
 
28 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 condemned in the commencement of these re- 
 marks. 
 
 I would not willingly under-value the force of 
 this representation. It might be said, however, in 
 reply, that at the worst the evil specified would 
 cease in proportion as we were able to realize that 
 system which is wanting. But after all the true 
 answer to the objection is simply this, that though 
 Anglicanism is not practically reduced to system 
 in its fulness, it does exist, in all its parts, in 
 the writings of our divines, and in good measure 
 is in actual operation, though with varying de- 
 grees of consistency and completeness in differ- 
 ent places. There is no room for eclecticism 
 in any elementary matter. No member of the 
 English Church allows himself to build on any 
 other doctrine than that found in our book of 
 Common Prayer. That formulary contains the ele- 
 ments of our theology ; and herein lies the practical 
 exercise of our faith, which all true religion exacts. 
 We surrender ourselves in obedience to it : we act 
 upon it : we obey it ever in points of detail where 
 there is room for diversity of opinion. The Thirty- 
 nine Articles furnish a second trial of our humility 
 and self-restraint. Again, we never forget that, 
 reserving our fidelity to the Creed, we are bound to 
 defer to Episcopal authority. Here then are trials 
 of principle on starting ; so much is already settled, 
 and demands our assent, not our criticism. What 
 remains to be done, and comes into discussion, are 
 
INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 secondary questions, such as these, How best to 
 carry out the rubrics of the Prayer-book ? how to 
 apply its services in particular cases ? how to regard 
 our canons of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies ? how to reconcile the various portions of the 
 ritual ? how to defend certain formularies, or how 
 to explain others? Another series of unsettled 
 difficulties arises out of the question of education 
 and teaching : What are the records, what the 
 rule of faith ? what the authority of the Church ? 
 how much is left to Private Judgment ? what are 
 the objects and best mode of religious training? 
 and the like. The subject of Church government 
 opens another field of inquiries, which are more or 
 less unanswered, as regards their practical percep- 
 tion, by our clergy. The Thirty-nine Articles supply 
 another. And in all these topics we are not left to 
 ourselves to determine as we please, but have the 
 guidance of our standard writers, and are bound to 
 consult them, nay, when they agree, to follow them; 
 but when they differ, to adjust or to choose between 
 their opinions. 
 
 Enough has now been said by way of explain- 
 ing the object of the following Lectures. It is pro- 
 posed to offer helps towards the formation of a 
 recognized Anglican theology in one of its depart- 
 ments. The present state of our divinity is as 
 follows : the most vigorous, the clearest, the most 
 fertile minds, have through God's mercy been em- 
 ployed in the service of our Church ; minds too as 
 
30 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 reverential and holy, and as fully imbued with 
 Ancient Truth, and as well versed in the writings 
 of the Fathers, as they were intellectually gifted. 
 This is God's great mercy indeed, for which we 
 must ever be thankful. Primitive doctrine has 
 been explored for us in every direction, and the 
 original principles of the gospel and the Church 
 patiently and successfully brought to light. But 
 one thing is still wanting: our champions and 
 teachers have lived in stormy times ; political and 
 other influences have acted upon them variously 
 in their day, and have since obstructed a careful 
 consolidation of their judgments. We have a vast 
 inheritance, but no inventory of our treasures. All 
 is given us in profusion ; it remains for us to cata- 
 logue, sort, distribute, select, harmonize, and com- 
 plete. We have more than we know how to use ; 
 stores of learning, but little that is precise and ser- 
 viceable ; Catholic truth and individual opinion, 
 first principles and the guesses of genius, all min- 
 gled in the same works, and requiring to be discri- 
 minated. We meet with truths over-stated or 
 misdirected, matters of detail variously taken, facts 
 incompletely proved or applied, and rules incon- 
 sistently urged or discordantly interpreted. Such 
 indeed is the state of every deep philosophy in its 
 first stages, and therefore of theological knowledge. 
 What we need at present for our Church's well- 
 being, is not invention, nor originality, nor sagacity, 
 nor even learning in our divines, at least in the 
 
 1 
 
INTRODUCTION. 31 
 
 first place, though all these gifts of God are in a 
 measure needed, and never can be unseasonable 
 when used religiously, but we need peculiarly a 
 sound judgment, patient thought, discrimination, a 
 comprehensive mind, an abstinence from all private 
 fancies and caprices and personal tastes, — in a word, 
 divine wisdom. For this excellent endowment, let 
 us, in behalf of ourselves and brethren, earnestly 
 and continually pray. Let us pray, that He who 
 has begun the work for our Holy Mother with a 
 divine exuberance, will finish it as with a refiner's 
 fire and in the perfectness of truth. 
 
 Merely to have directed attention to the present 
 needs of our Church, would be a sufficient object 
 for writing the following pages. We require a re- 
 cognized theology, and if the present work, instead 
 of being what it is meant to be, a first approxima- 
 tion to the required solution in one department of 
 a complicated problem, contains after all but a 
 series of illustrations demonstrating our need, and 
 supplying hints for its removal, such a result, it is 
 evident, will be quite a sufficient return for what- 
 ever anxiety it has cost the writer to have employed 
 his own judgment on so serious a subject. And, 
 though in all greater matters of theology there is 
 no room for error, so prominent and concordant is 
 the witness of our great Masters in their behalf, 
 yet he is conscious that in minor points, whether 
 in questions of fact or of judgment, there is room 
 
32 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 for difference or error of opinion ; and while he has 
 given his best endeavours to be accurate, he shall not 
 be ashamed to own a mistake, nor reluctant to bear 
 the just blame of it. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF ROMAN AND PROTES- 
 TANT ERRORS. 
 
 All Protestant sects of the present day may be 
 said to agree with us and differ from the Roman- 
 ists, in considering the Bible as the only standard 
 of appeal in doctrinal inquiries. They differ in- 
 deed from each other as well as from us in the mat- 
 ter of their belief; but they one and all accept the 
 written word of God as the supreme and sole arbiter 
 of their differences. This makes their contest with 
 each other and us more'simple; I do not say shorter, — 
 on the contrary, they have been engaged in it almost 
 three hundred years, as many of them, that is, as 
 are so ancient, and there are no symptoms of its 
 ending, — but it makes the controversy less laborious. 
 It narrows the ground of it ; it levels it to the intel- 
 ligence of all ranks of men ; it gives the multitude 
 a right to take part in it ; it encourages all men, 
 learned and unlearned, religious and irreligious, to 
 have an opinion in it, and to turn controversialists. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Lect. 
 
 The Bible is a small book ; any one may possess it ; 
 and every one, unless he be very humble, will think 
 he is able to understand it. And therefore, I say, 
 controversy is easier among Protestants, because any 
 one can controvert ; easier, but not shorter ; because, 
 though all sects agree together as to the standard 
 of faith, viz. the Bible, yet no two agree as to the 
 interpreter of the Bible, but each person makes him- 
 self the interpreter, so that what seemed at first 
 sight a means of peace, turns out to be a chief oc- 
 casion or cause of discord. It is a great point to 
 come to issue with an opponent; that is, to dis- 
 cover some position which oneself affirms and the 
 other denies, and on which the decision of the con- 
 troversy will turn. It is like two armies meeting, 
 and settling their quarrel in a pitched battle, in- 
 stead of wandering to and fro, each by itself, and 
 inflicting injury and gaining advantages where no 
 one resists it. Now the Bible is this common 
 ground among Protestants, and seems to have been 
 originally assumed in no small degree from a notion 
 of its simplicity in argument. But, if this was the 
 case in any quarter, the hope has been frustrated 
 by this difficulty, — the Bible is not so written as 
 to force its meaning upon the reader ; no two Pro- 
 testant sects can agree together whose interpreta- 
 tion of the Bible is to be received ; and under such 
 circumstances each naturally prefers his own ; — his 
 own " interpretation," his own " doctrine," his own 
 " tongue," his own " revelation." Accordingly, acute 
 
I.] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 35 
 
 men among them see that the very elementary 
 notion which they have adopted, of the Bible with- 
 out note or comment being the sole authoritative 
 judge in controversies of faith, is a self-destructive 
 principle, and practically involves the conclusion, 
 that dispute is altogether hopeless and useless, and 
 even absurd. After whatever misgivings or reluc- 
 tance, they seem to allow, or to be in the way to 
 allow, that truth is but matter of opinion ; that that 
 is truth to each which each thinks to be truth, pro- 
 vided he sincerely and really thinks it ; that the 
 divinity of the Bible itself is the only thing that 
 need be believed, and that its meaning varies with 
 the individuals who receive it ; that it has no one 
 meaning to be ascertained as a matter of fact, but 
 that it may mean anything because it is said to 
 mean so many things ; and hence that our wisdom 
 and our duty lie in discarding all notions of the 
 importance of any particular set of opinions, any 
 doctrines, or any creed, each man having a right 
 to his own, and in living together peaceably with 
 men of all persuasions, whatever our private judg- 
 ments and leanings may be. I do not say that these 
 conclusions need follow by logical necessity from 
 the principle from which I have deduced them; 
 but that practically they will follow in the long 
 run, and actually have followed where there were 
 no counteracting causes in operation. Nor do I 
 allow that they will follow at all in our own case, 
 though we agree with Protestant sects in making 
 
 d2 
 
36 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Lect. 
 
 Scripture the document of ultimate appeal in mat- 
 ters of faith. For though we consider Scripture a 
 sufficient, we do not consider it our sole informant 
 in divine truths. We have another source of in- 
 formation in reserve, as I shall presently show. 
 We agree with the sectaries around us so far as 
 this, to be ready to take their ground, which Ro- 
 manists cannot and will not do, to believe that our 
 creed can be proved entirely, and to be willing to 
 prove it solely from the Bible. We are willing to 
 argue with them with texts ; they may feel the 
 force of these or not ; we may convince them or 
 not, but we convince ourselves; we do confute 
 them with the weapon they have assumed as their 
 own, and we know we do ; and we are able to con- 
 vince and convert others by means of it, though 
 not them ; which proves its cogency in our use of 
 it. We have joined issue with them, and done all 
 that can be done. The case is not as if we were 
 searching after some unknown and indefinite ground 
 of proof which we were told they had, but were 
 uncertain about, and could not ascertain or circum- 
 scribe. We know their greatest strength, and we 
 discover it to be weakness. They have no argument 
 behind to fall back upon ; we have examined and 
 decided against their cause. 
 
 And they themselves, as I have observed, have 
 decided against it too ; their adoption of the lati- 
 tudinarian notion that one creed is as good as 
 another, is an evidence of it. We on the contrary 
 
I.] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 37 
 
 should not be perplexed at hearing their interpreta- 
 tions of Scripture, were they ever so positive and 
 peremptory in maintaining them. Nay, we should 
 not waver even if they succeeded in weakening some 
 of our proofs, taking the text of Scripture by itself, 
 both as considering that in matters of conduct 
 evidence is not destroyed by being impaired, and 
 because we rely on Antiquity to strengthen such 
 intimations of doctrine as are but faintly, though 
 really, given in Scripture. 
 
 Protestant denominations, I have said, one and 
 all profess to appeal to Scripture, whether they be 
 called Independents, or Baptists, or Unitarians, or 
 Presbyterians, or Wesleyans, or by any other title. 
 But the case is different as regards Romanists; 
 they do not appeal to Scripture unconditionally ; 
 they are not willing to stand or fall by mere argu- 
 ments from Scripture ; and therefore, if we take 
 Scripture as our ground of proof in our controversies 
 with them, we have not yet joined issue with them. 
 Not that they reject Scripture, it would be very 
 unjust to say so ; they would shrink from doing so, 
 or being thought to do so ; and perhaps they ad- 
 here to Scripture as closely as some of those Protes- 
 tant bodies who profess to be guided by nothing 
 else ; but, though they admit Scripture to be the 
 word of God, they conceive that it is not the whole 
 word of God, they openly avow that they regulate 
 their faith by something else besides Scripture, by 
 the existing Traditions of the Church. They main- 
 
38 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Lect. 
 
 tain that the system of doctrine which they hold 
 came to them from the Apostles as truly and cer- 
 tainly as their inspired writings ; so that, even if 
 those writings had been lost, the world would still 
 have had the blessings of a Revelation. Now, they 
 must be clearly understood, if they are to be soundly 
 refuted. We hear it said, that they go by Tradi- 
 tion, and we fancy in consequence that there are 
 a certain definite number of statements ready framed 
 and compiled, which they profess to have received 
 from the Apostles. One may hear the question 
 sometimes asked, for instance, where their professed 
 Traditions are to be found, whether there is any 
 collection of them, and whether they are printed 
 and published. Now though they would allow that 
 the Traditions of the Church are in fact contained 
 in the writings of its Doctors, still this question 
 proceeds on somewhat of a misconception of their 
 real theory, which seems to be as follows. By Tra- 
 dition they mean the whole system of faith and 
 ordinances which they have received from the ge- 
 neration before them, and that generation again 
 from the generation before itself. And in this sense 
 undoubtedly we all go by Tradition in matters of 
 this world. Where is the corporation, society, or 
 fraternity of any kind, but has certain received 
 rules and understood practices which are nowhere 
 put down in writing? How often do we hear it 
 said, that this or that person has " acted unusually," 
 that so and so " was never done before," that it is 
 
I.] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 39 
 
 " against rule," and the like ; and then perhaps, to 
 avoid the inconvenience of such irregularity in 
 future, what was before a tacit engagement, is 
 turned into a formal and explicit order or prin- 
 ciple. The want of a regulation must be disco- 
 vered before it is supplied ; and the virtual trans- 
 gression of it goes before its adoption. At this 
 very time great part of the law of the land is ad- 
 ministered under the sanction of such a Tradition ; 
 it is not contained in any formal or authoritative 
 code, it depends on custom or precedent. There 
 is no explicit written law, for instance, simply de- 
 claring murder to be a capital offence ; unless in- 
 deed we have recourse to the divine command in 
 the ninth chapter of the book of Genesis. Mur- 
 derers are hanged by custom. Such as this is the 
 Tradition of the Church; Tradition is uniform 
 custom. When the Romanists say they adhere to 
 Tradition, they mean that they believe and act as 
 Christians have always believed and acted ; they go 
 by the custom, as judges and juries do. And then 
 they go on to allege that there is this important 
 difference between their custom and all other cus- 
 toms in the world ; that the tradition of the law, 
 at least in its details, though it has lasted for cen- 
 turies upon centuries, any how had a beginning in 
 human appointments ; whereas theirs, though it has 
 a beginning too, yet, when traced back, has none 
 short of the Apostles of Christ, and is in conse- 
 
40 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Lect. 
 
 quence of divine not of human authority, — is true 
 and intrinsically binding as well as expedient. 
 
 If we ask, why it is that these professed Tradi- 
 tions were not reduced to writing, it is answered, 
 that the Christian doctrine, as it has proceeded 
 from the mouth of the Apostles, is too varied and 
 too minute in its details to allow of it. No one 
 you fall in with on the highway, can tell you all 
 his mind at once ; much less could the Apostles, 
 possessed as they were of great and supernatural 
 truths, and busied in the propagation of the Church, 
 digest in one Epistle or Treatise a systematic view 
 of the Revelation made to them. And so much 
 at all events we may grant, that they did not do 
 so ; there being confessedly little of system or com- 
 pleteness in any portion of the New Testament. 
 
 If again it be objected that this notion of an 
 unwritten transmission of the Truth being sup- 
 posed, there is nothing to show that the faith of 
 to-day was the faith of yesterday, nothing to con- 
 nect this age and the Apostolic, they maintain, on 
 the contrary, that over and above the corroborative 
 though indirect testimony of ecclesiastical writers, 
 no error could have arisen in the Church without 
 its being protested against and put down on this 
 first appearance ; that from all parts of the Church 
 a cry would have been raised against the novelty, 
 and a declaration put forth, as we know was the 
 practice of the early Church, denouncing it. And 
 
I.] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 41 
 
 thus they would account for the indeterminateness 
 on the one hand, yet on the other the accuracy and 
 availableness of their existing Tradition or un- 
 written Creed. It is latent, but it lives. It is 
 silent, like the rapids of a river, before the rocks 
 intercept it. It is the Church's unconscious habit 
 of opinion and feeling ; which she reflects upon, 
 masters, and expresses, according to the emergency. 
 We see then the mistake of asking for a complete 
 collection of the Roman Traditions ; as well might 
 we ask for a collection of a man's tastes and opi- 
 nions on a given subject. Tradition in its fulness 
 is necessarily unwritten ; it is the mode in which 
 a society has felt or acted during a certain period, 
 and it cannot be circumscribed any more than a 
 man's countenance and manner can be conveyed 
 to strangers in any set of propositions. 
 
 Such are the Traditions to which the Romanists 
 appeal, whether viewed as latent in the Church's 
 teaching, or as passing into writing and being fixed 
 in the decrees of the Councils or amid the works 
 of the ancient Fathers. 
 
 Now how do we of the English Church meet 
 these statements? or rather, I should say, how do 
 the Romanists prove them? For it will be ob- 
 served, that what has been said hitherto, does not 
 prove that their Traditions are such as they aver, 
 but merely that their theory is consistent with itself. 
 And as a beautiful theory it must, as a whole, 
 ever remain. I do not deny indeed that to a cer- 
 
42 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Leot. 
 
 tain point it is tenable : but this is a very different 
 thing from admitting that it is so as regards those 
 very tenets for which the Romanists would adduce 
 it. They have to show not only that there was 
 such a traditionary system, and that it has lasted 
 to this day, but that their peculiarities are parts of 
 it. But to proceed ; how under such circumstances 
 ought we to behave ourselves towards their pre- 
 tensions ? Shall we refuse to consider the subject 
 of Tradition at all, saying that the Bible contains 
 the whole of Divine Revelation, and that the doc- 
 trines professedly conveyed by Tradition are only 
 so far Apostolic as they are contained in Scripture? 
 This will be saying what is true, but it will be 
 assuming the point in dispute ; it will in no sense be 
 meeting the Romanists. We shall only involve our- 
 selves in great difficulties by so doing. For, let us 
 consider a moment; a Christian does not like to dwell 
 on the following question, but the Romanist will be 
 sure to ask it, and we shall have to answer it ; so we 
 had better consider it beforehand. I mean, how do 
 we know that Scripture comes from God ? It cannot 
 be denied that we of this age receive it upon general 
 Tradition ; we receive through Tradition both the 
 Bible itself, and the doctrine that it is divinely in- 
 spired. That doctrine is one of those pious and com- 
 fortable truths " which we have heard and known, 
 and such as our fathers have told us," " which God 
 commanded our forefathers to teach their children, 
 that their posterity might know it, and the chil- 
 
I.] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 43 
 
 dren which were yet unborn ; to the intent that 
 when they came up, they might show their chil- 
 dren the same V The great multitude of Protes- 
 tants believe in Scripture precisely on the ground 
 which the Romanists trust in behalf of their own 
 erroneous system, viz. because they have been 
 taught it. To deride Tradition therefore as some- 
 thing irrational or untrustworthy in itself, is to 
 weaken the foundation of our own faith in Scrip- 
 ture, and is very cruel towards the great multitude 
 of uneducated persons, who are obliged to believe 
 what their instructors tell them. If, however, it 
 be said that pious Protestants have " the witness 
 in themselves," as a sure test to their own hearts 
 of the truth of Scripture, the fact is undeniable; 
 and a sufficient and consoling proof is it to them 
 that the doctrines in Scripture are true ; but it 
 does not prove that the very book we call the 
 Bible was written, and all of it written, by inspi- 
 ration ; nor does it allow us to dispense with the 
 external evidence of Tradition assuring us that it 
 is so. 
 
 But if, again, it be said that the New Testament 
 is received as divine, not upon the present tradi- 
 tionary belief of Christians, but upon the evidence 
 of Antiquity, this too, even were it true, — for surely 
 the multitude of Christians know nothing about 
 Antiquity at all, — yet this is exactly what the Ro- 
 
 1 Psalm lxxviii. 3 — 7. 
 
44 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Lect. 
 
 manists maintain of their unwritten doctrines also. 
 They argue that their present Creed has been 
 the universal belief of all preceding ages, as re- 
 corded in the writings of those ages, still extant. 
 Suppose, I say, we take this ground in behalf of 
 the divinity of Holy Scripture, that it is attested 
 by all the writers and other authorities of primi- 
 tive times : doubtless we are right in doing so ; it 
 is the very argument by which we actually do 
 prove the divinity of the sacred Canon ; but it is 
 also the very argument which the Romanists put 
 forward for their peculiar errors; viz. that while 
 received on existing Tradition, they are also proved 
 by the unanimous consent -of the first ages of 
 Christianity. If then we would leave ourselves 
 room for proving that Scripture is inspired, we 
 must not reject the notion and principle of the argu- 
 ment from Tradition and Antiquity as something 
 in itself absurd and unworthy of Almighty wisdom. 
 In other words, to refuse to listen to these inform- 
 ants because we have a written word, is a self-de- 
 structive course, inasmuch as that written word is 
 proved to be such mainly by these very informants 
 which we reject as if to do honour to it. It is to 
 overthrow our premises with our conclusion. That 
 which ascertains for us the divinity of Scripture, 
 may convey to us other Articles of Faith also, 
 unless Scripture has expressly determined in the 
 negative. 
 
 But the sacred volume itself, as well as the 
 
I.] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 45 
 
 doctrine of its inspiration, comes to us by tradi- 
 tional conveyance. The Protestant of the day asks 
 the Romanist, " How do you know your unwritten 
 word comes from the Apostles, received as it is 
 through so many unknown hands through so many 
 ages? A book is something definite and trust- 
 worthy; what is written remains. We 'have the 
 Apostles' writings before us ; but we have nothing 
 to guarantee to us the fidelity of those successive 
 informants which stand between the Apostles and 
 the unwritten doctrines you ascribe to them." But 
 the Romanist surely may answer by the counter 
 inquiry, how he on his part knows that what he 
 considers their writings are really such, and really 
 what the Fathers possessed and witness to be 
 theirs : " You have a printed book," he may argue ; 
 " the Apostles did not write that ; it was printed 
 from another book, and that again from another, 
 and so on 1 . After going back a long way, you 
 will trace it to a manuscript in the dark ages, 
 written by you know not whom, copied from some 
 other manuscript you know not what or when, and 
 there the trace is lost. You profess, indeed, that 
 it runs up to the very autograph . of the Apostles ; 
 but with your rigorous notions of proof, it would 
 be more to your purpose to produce it than to give 
 probable reasons for the fidelity of the copy. Till 
 you do this, you are resting on a series of unknown 
 
 ' Stillingfleet's Grounds, i. 7. 6—8. pp. 198—202. 
 
46 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Lect. 
 
 links as well as we ; you are trusting a mere tra- 
 dition of men. It is quite as possible for human 
 hands to have tampered with the written as with 
 the unwritten word ; or at least if corruption of 
 the latter is the more probable of the two, the dif- 
 ference of the cases is one of degree, and not any 
 essential distinction '." Now whatever explana- 
 tions the Protestant in question makes in behalf of 
 the preservation of the written word, will be found 
 applicable in the theory to the unwritten. For in- 
 stance, he may argue, and irresistibly, that a num- 
 ber of manuscripts of various, and some of very 
 early times, are still extant, and these belonging 
 to different places and derived from sources distinct 
 from each other ; and that they all agree together. 
 If the New Testament were practised upon, this 
 must have happened before all these families of 
 copies were made ; which is to throw back the 
 fraud upon such very early times as are a guarantee 
 for believing it to have been impracticable 2 . Or 
 he may argue that it was the acknowledged duty 
 of the Church to keep and guard the Scriptures, 
 and that in matter of fact her various branches 
 were very careful to do so ; accordingly that it is 
 quite incredible that the authentic text should be 
 lost in spite of so many trustees, as they may be 
 called, and an altered copy or a forgery substituted. 
 
 Milner's End of Controversy, Letter 9. 
 8 Thorndike, part i. ch. 33. 
 
 1 
 
I.] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 47 
 
 Or again, he may allege that the early Fathers are 
 frequent in quoting the New Testament in their 
 own works ; and that these quotations accurately 
 accord with the copy of it which we at present 
 possess. 
 
 Such as these are the arguments we as well as 
 the ordinary Protestant use against the infidel in 
 behalf of the written word, and most powerfully ; 
 but it must be confessed that they are applicable 
 in their nature to traditionary teaching also ; they 
 are such as the Roman doctrines might possess as 
 far as the a priori view of the case is concerned. 
 
 How then are we to meet the Romanists,, seeing 
 we cannot join issue with them, or cut short the 
 controversy, by a mere appeal to Scripture ? We 
 must meet them, and may do so fearlessly, on the 
 ground of Antiquity, to which they betake them- 
 selves. We followed the Protestant's challenge, 
 in arguing from mere Scripture in our defence ; 
 we must not, and need not shrink from the invi- 
 tation of the Romanist to stand or fall by Anti- 
 quity. Truth alone is consistent with itself; we 
 are willing to take either the test of Antiquity or 
 of Scripture. As we accord to the Protestant sec- 
 tary, that Scripture is the inspired treasury of the 
 whole faith, but maintain that his doctrines are 
 not in Scripture, so we agree with the Romanist 
 in appealing to Antiquity as our great teacher, 
 but deny that his doctrines are to be found in An- 
 tiquity. So far then is clear ; we do not deny the 
 
48 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Lbct. 
 
 force of Tradition in the abstract ; we do not deny 
 the soundness of the argument from Antiquity; 
 but we challenge the Romanist to prove the mat- 
 ter of fact. We deny that his doctrines are in Anti- 
 quity any more than they are in the Bible ; and we 
 maintain that his professed Tradition is not really 
 such, that it is a Tradition of men, that it is not 
 continuous, that it stops short of the Apostles, that 
 the history of its introduction is known. On both 
 accounts then his doctrines are innovations ; be- 
 cause they run counter to the doctrine of Anti- 
 quity, and because they rest upon what is historically 
 an upstart Tradition. 
 
 This statement is intelligible and clear, but it 
 leads to this conclusion. The Bible indeed is a 
 small book, but the writings of Antiquity are volu- 
 minous ; and to read them is the work of a life. 
 It is plain then that the controversy with the 
 Romanists is not an easy one, not open to every 
 one to take up. And this is the case for another 
 reason also. A private Christian may put what 
 meaning he pleases on many parts of Scripture, 
 and no one can hinder him. If interfered with, 
 he can promptly answer that it is his opinion, and 
 may appeal to his right of Private Judgment. But 
 he cannot so deal with Antiquity. History is a 
 record of facts ; and " facts," according to the pro- 
 verb, " are stubborn things." Ingenious men may 
 misrepresent them, or suppress them for a while ; 
 but in the end they will be duly ascertained and 
 
 % 
 
I.] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 49 
 
 appreciated. The writings of the Fathers are far 
 too ample to allow of a disputant resting in one or 
 two obscure or ambiguous passages in them, and 
 permanently turning such to his own account, which 
 he may do in the case of Scripture. For two 
 reasons, then, controversy with Romanists is labo- 
 rious ; because it takes us to ancient Church his- 
 tory, and because it does not allow scope to the 
 offhand or capricious decisions of private judg- 
 ment. 
 
 However, it must be observed, for the same 
 reasons, though more laborious, it is a surer con- 
 troversy. We are more likely to come to an end ; 
 it does not turn upon opinions but on facts. 
 
 This may be put in somewhat a different point 
 of view. You know that three centuries ago took 
 place a great schism in the Western Church, which 
 thenceforth divided into two large bodies, the Ro- 
 manists on one hand, the Protestants on the other. 
 On the latter side it is usual to reckon our own 
 Church, though really on neither : from which after 
 a time certain portions split off, and severally set up 
 a religion and communion for themselves. Now 
 supposing we had to dispute with these separated 
 portions, the Presbyterians, Baptists, Independents, 
 or other Protestants, on the subject of their 
 separation, they would at once avow the fact, but 
 they would deny that it was a sin. The element 
 tary controversy between us and them would be 
 one of doctrine and principle ; viz. whether separa- 
 
 E 
 
50 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Lect. 
 
 tion was or was not a sin. It is far otherwise as 
 regards the Romanists ; they as well as ourselves 
 allow, or rather maintain, the criminality of schism, 
 and that a very great sin was committed at the 
 Reformation, Whether by the one party, or by the 
 other, or by both. The only question is, which 
 party committed it ; the Romanists lay it at our door, 
 we retort it, and justly, upon them. Thus we join 
 issue with them on a question of fact ; one which 
 cannot be settled without a sufficient stock of 
 learning on the part of the disputants. So again 
 the Calvinistic controversy is in great measure 
 dependent on abstract reasoning and philosophical 
 discussion; whereas no one can determine by a 
 priori arguments whether or not the Papacy be a 
 persecuting power '. 
 
 On the whole, then, it appears from what has 
 been said, that our controversies with the Protes- 
 tants are easy to handle, but interminable, being 
 disputes about opinions ; but those with Roman- 
 ists arduous, but instructive, ■ as relating rather to 
 matters of fact. 
 
 These last remarks throw some light on the 
 characteristic differences of system as well as of 
 argumentative basis between Protestantism and 
 Romanism respectively. Our controversy with Ro- 
 manists turns more upon facts than upon first prin- 
 
 1 Vide some excellent remarks on the subject in the British 
 Magazine for March, 1836, article Church Matters. 
 
I.] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 51 
 
 ciples ; with Protestant sectaries it is more about 
 principles than about facts. This general contrast 
 between the two religions, which I would not seem 
 to extend beydnd what the sober truth warrants, 
 for the sake of an antithesis; is paralleled in the 
 common remark of our most learned controver- 
 sialists, that Romanism holds the foundation, or is the 
 truth overlaid ijoith corruptions. This is saying the 
 same thing in other words. They discern in it the 
 great outlines of primitive Christianity, but they 
 find it all touched, if nothing worse, touched and 
 tainted by error, and so made worthless or nearly 
 so to the multitude of men, — worthless, except to 
 men of high and Spiritual minds, who can undo the 
 evil, arresting the tendencies of the system by their 
 own purity, and restoring it to the sweetness and 
 freshness of its original state. The very force of 
 the word corruption implies this to be the pecu- 
 liarity of Romanism. All error indeed of whatever 
 kind may be called a corruption of truth ; still we 
 properly apply the term to such kinds of error as 
 are not denials but perversions, distortions, or ex- 
 cesses of it. Such is the relation of Romanism 
 towards true Catholicity. It is the misdirection and 
 abuse, not the absence of right principle. To take 
 a familiar illustration ; rashness and cowardice are 
 both faults, and both unlike true courage ; but 
 cowardice implies the absence of the principle of 
 courage, whereas rashness is but the extravagance 
 of the principle. Again, prodigality and avarice 
 
 e2 
 
52 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Lect. 
 
 are both vices, and unlike true and wise liberality ; 
 but avarice differs from it in principle, prodigality in 
 matters of detail, in the time, place, person, manner 
 of giving, and the like. On the other hand, prodi- 
 gality may accidentally be the more dangerous 
 extreme, as being the more subtle vice, the more 
 popular, the more likely to attract people, the more 
 like a virtue. This is somewhat like the position 
 of Romanism, Protestantism, and Catholic Truth 
 relatively to each other. Romanism is an unna- 
 tural and misshapen development of the Truth ; 
 not the less dangerous because it retains traces of 
 its genuine features, and usurps its name, as vice 
 borrows the name of virtue, as pride is often called 
 self-respect, or cowardice or worldly wisdom goes 
 by the name of prudence, or rashness by that of 
 courage. On the other hand, no one would ever 
 call a miser liberal ; and so no one would call a 
 mere Protestant a Catholic, except an altogether 
 new sense was put on the word to suit a purpose. 
 Romanism has the principle of true Catholicism 
 perverted"; popular Protestantism is wanting in the 
 principle. Lastly, virtue lies in a mean, is a point, 
 almost invisible to the world, hard to find, acknow- 
 ledged but by the few ; and so Christian Truth in 
 these latter ages, when the world has broken up 
 the Church, has been but a stranger upon the 
 earth, and has been hidden and superseded by 
 counterfeits. 
 
 The same view of Romanism is implied when 
 
I ] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 53 
 
 we call our ecclesiastical changes in the sixteenth 
 century a Reformation. A building has not been 
 reformed or repaired, when it has been pulled down 
 and built up again ; but the word is used when it 
 has been left substantially what it was before, only 
 amended or restored in detail. In like manner, 
 we Anglicans do not profess a different religion 
 from the Romanists, we profess their Faith all but 
 their corruptions '. 
 
 Again, this same character of Romanism as a 
 perversion, not a contradiction of Christian Truth, 
 is confessed as often as members of our Church in 
 controversy with it contend, as they may rightly 
 do, that it must be judged not by the formal de- 
 crees of the Council of Trent, as its advocates are 
 fond of doing, but by its practical working and 
 its existing state in the countries which profess it. 
 Romanists would fain confine us in controversy to 
 the consideration of the bare and acknowledged 
 principles of their Church ; we consider this to be 
 an unfair restriction ; why ? because we conceive 
 that Romanism is far more faulty in its details 
 than in its formal principles, and that Councils, to 
 which its adherents would send us, have more to 
 do with its abstract system than with its practical 
 working, that the abstract system contains for the 
 most part tendencies to evil, which the actual work- 
 ing brings out, thus supplying illustrations of that 
 
 1 Vid. the Canons of 1603, No. 30, " The abuse of a thing,' 
 &c. 
 
54» THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Lect- 
 
 evil which is really though latently contained in 
 principles capable in themselves of an honest inter- 
 pretation. Thus for instance, the decree concern- 
 ing Purgatory might be charitably made almost to 
 conform to the doctrine of St. Austin or St. Chry- 
 sostom, were it not for the comment afforded by the 
 popular belief as existing in those countries which 
 hold it, and by the opinions of the Roman schools. 
 It is something to the purpose also to observe, 
 that this peculiar character of Romanism, as 
 being substantial Truth corrupted, has tended to 
 strengthen the popular notion, that it, or the 
 Church of Rome, or the Pope or Bishop of Rome, 
 is the Antichrist foretold in Scripture. That there 
 is in Romanism something very unchristian, I fully 
 admit, or rather maintain ; but I will observe here 
 that this strange two-fold aspect of the Roman 
 system seems in matter of fact to have had some 
 share in retaining for it that fearful title, — and in 
 this way. When Protestants have come to look 
 at it closely, they have found truth and error united 
 in so subtle a combination, (as is the case with all 
 corruptions, as with sullied snow, or fruit over-ripe, 
 or metal alloyed) they have found truth so impreg- 
 nated with error, and error so sheltered by truth, 
 so much too adducible in defence of the system, 
 which, from want of learning or other cause, they 
 could not refute without refuting their own faith 
 and practice at the same time, so much in it of 
 high and noble principle, or salutary usage, which 
 they had lost, and, as losing, were, in this respect, in 
 
I.] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 55 
 
 an inferior state, that for this very reason, as the 
 readiest, safest, simplest solution of their difficul- 
 ties, not surely the fairest, but the readiest, as 
 cutting the knot and extricating them at once 
 from their position, they have pronounced Roman- 
 ism to be the Antichrist ; I say, for the very reason 
 that so much may be said for it, that it is so difficult 
 to refute, so subtle and crafty, so seductive, — pro- 
 perties which are tokens of the hateful and fearful 
 deceiver who is to come '. Of course I do not 
 mean to say that this perplexing aspect of Roman- 
 ism has originally brought upon it the stigma under 
 consideration; but that it has served to induce 
 people indolently to acquiesce in it without ex- 
 amination. 
 
 In these remarks, I have appealed to the com- 
 mon opinion of the world; which is altogether con- 
 firmed when we come actually to compare together 
 the doctrinal articles of our own and of the Roman 
 faith. In both systems the same Creeds are ac- 
 knowledged. Among other points in common we 
 both hold, that certain doctrines are necessary to 
 be believed for salvation ; we both believe in the 
 doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atone- 
 ment ; in original sin ; in the necessity of regene- 
 ration; in the supernatural grace of the Sacra- 
 ments ; in the Apostolical succession ; in the obli- 
 
 1 Vide Mr. Bickersteth on Popery, ed. 5, pp. 17 — 20. 52. 
 
56 THE NATURE AND GROUND OF [Lbct. 
 
 gation of faith and obedience, and the eternity of 
 future punishment. 
 
 In conclusion I would observe, that I have been 
 speaking of Romanism, not as an existing political 
 sect among us, but considered in itself, in its ab- 
 stract system, and in a state of quiescence. Viewed 
 indeed in action, and as realized in its present par- 
 tizans, it is but one out of the many denominations 
 which are the disgrace of our age and country. 
 In temper and conduct it does but resemble that 
 unruly Protestantism which lies on our other side, 
 and it bears without reluctance to be allied and 
 to act with it towards the overthrow of a purer 
 religion. But herein is the difference of the one 
 extreme from the other ; the political Romanist of 
 the day becomes such in spite of his fundamental 
 principles, the political Protestant in accordance 
 with his. The best Dissenter is he who is least of 
 a Dissenter ; the best Roman Catholic is he who 
 comes nearest to a Catholic. The reproach of the 
 present Romanists is that they are inconsistent; 
 and it is a reproach which is popularly felt to be 
 just. They are confessedly unlike the loyal men 
 who rallied round the throne of our first Charles, 
 or who fought, however ill-advisedly, for his exiled 
 descendants. The particular nature of this incon- 
 sistency will be discussed in some following Lec- 
 tures ; meanwhile I have here considered Roman- 
 
I.] ROMAN AND PROTESTANT ERRORS. 57 
 
 ism in its abstract professions for two reasons. 
 First, I would willingly believe, that in spite of the 
 violence and rancour of its public supporters, there 
 are many individuals in their communion of gentle, 
 affectionate, and deeply religious minds ; and such a 
 belief is justified when we find that the necessary dif- 
 ference between us and them is not one of essential 
 principle, that it is the difference merely of super- 
 stition from religion, not of unbelief from religion. 
 Next, I have insisted upon it, by way of showing 
 what must be the nature of their Reformation, if 
 in God's merciful counsels a Reformation awaits 
 them. It will be far more a reform of their popular 
 usages and opinions, and ecclesiastical policy, or a 
 destruction of what is commonly called Popery, 
 than of their abstract principles and maxims. On 
 the other hand, let it not be supposed because I have 
 spoken without sympathy for popular Protestantism 
 in the abstract, that this is all one with being harsh 
 towards individuals professing it ; far from it. The 
 worse their creed the more sympathy is due to their 
 persons ; chiefly to those, for they most demand and 
 will most patiently suffer it, who least concur in 
 their own doctrine, and are held by it in an unwil- 
 ling captivity. Would that they would be taught 
 that their religion, whatever it is, never can satisfy 
 their souls, and does not admit of reform, but must 
 come to nought. Would that they could be per- 
 suaded to transfer their misplaced and most unre- 
 quited affection from the systems of men to the 
 
58 THE NATURE AND GROUND, &c. 
 
 One Holy Spouse of Christ, the Church Catholic, 
 which in this country manifests herself in the Church 
 commonly so called as her representative ! Nor 
 need we despair that as regards many of them this 
 wish may yet be fulfilled. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 ON ROMANISM AS NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 
 
 We differ from the Bomanists, as I have said, more 
 in our view of historical facts than in principles ; 
 but in saying this, I am speaking, not of their 
 actual system, nor of their actual mode of defend- 
 ing it, but of their professions, professions, which in 
 their mouths are mere professions, while they are 
 truths in ours. The principles, professed by both 
 parties, are at once the foundation of our own 
 theology, and what is called an argumentwtn ad 
 hominem against theirs. They profess to appeal to 
 primitive Christianity; we honestly take their 
 ground, as holding it ourselves; but when the 
 controversy grows animated, and descends into 
 details, they suddenly leave it and desire to finish 
 the dispute on some other field. In like manner 
 in their teaching and acting, they begin as if in the 
 name of all the Fathers at once, but will be found 
 in the sequel to prove, teach, and conduct matters 
 
 1 
 
60 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 simply in their own name. Our differences from them, 
 considered not in theory but in fact, are in no sense 
 matters of detail and questions of degree. In truth, 
 there is a tenet in their theology which assumes 
 quite a new position in relation to the rest, when 
 we pass from the abstract and quiescent theory to 
 the practical workings of the system. The infalli- 
 bility of the Church is then found to be its first 
 principle, whereas, before, it was a necessary, but a 
 secondary doctrine. Whatever principles they pro- 
 fess in theory, resembling, or coincident with our 
 own, yet when they come to particulars, when they 
 have to prove this or that article of their creed, 
 they supersede the appeal to Scripture and Anti- 
 quity by the pretence of the infallibility of the 
 Church, thus solving the whole question, by a 
 summary and final interpretation both of Antiquity 
 and of Scripture. 
 
 This is what takes place in the actual course of 
 the controversy. At the same time it is obvious 
 that, while they are as yet but engaged in tracing 
 out their elementary principles, and recommending 
 them to our notice, they cannot assign to this 
 influential doctrine the same sovereign place in their 
 system. It cannot be taken for granted as a first 
 principle in the controversy ; if so, nothing remains 
 to be proved, and the controversy is at an end, for 
 every doctrine is contained in it by implication, and 
 no doctrine but might as fairly be assumed as a 
 first principle also. Accordingly, in order to make 
 
II. J NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 61 
 
 a show of proving it, its advocates must necessarily 
 fall back upon some more intelligible doctrine; 
 and that is, the authority of Antiquity, to which 
 they boldly appeal, as I described in my last Lec- 
 ture. It follows that there is a striking dissimi- 
 larity, or even inconsistency between their system 
 as quiescent, and as in action, in its abstract princi- 
 ples, and its reasonings and discussions on particular 
 points. In the Creed of Pope Pius not a word is 
 said expressly about the Church's infallibility; it 
 forms no Article of faith there. Her interpreta- 
 tion, indeed, of Scripture is recognized as authori- 
 tative ; but so also is the " unanimous consent of 
 Fathers." But when we put aside the creeds and 
 professions of our opponents for their actual teach- 
 ing and disputing, they will be found to care very 
 little for the Fathers, whether as primitive or as 
 concordant ; they believe the existing Church to 
 be infallible, and if ancient belief is at variance 
 with it, which of course they do not allow, but if 
 it is, then Antiquity must be mistaken ; that is 
 all. Thus Romanism, which even in its abstract 
 system, must be considered a perversion or distor- 
 tion of the truth, is in its actual and public mani- 
 festation a far more serious error. It is then a 
 disproportionate or monstrous development of a 
 theory in itself extravagant. I propose now to give 
 some illustration of it, thus considered, viz., to 
 show that in fact it substitutes the authority of the 
 Church for that of Antiquity. 
 
m ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 First, let us understand what is meant by saying 
 that Antiquity is df authority in religious questions. 
 Both Romanists and ourselves maintain as follows : 
 — that whatever doctrine the primitive ages una- 
 nimously attest, whether by consent of Fathers, or 
 by Councils, or by the events of history, or by con- 
 troversies, or in whatever way, whatever may fairly 
 and reasonably be considered to be the universal 
 belief of those ages, is to be received as coming 
 from the Apostles. This Canon, as it may be 
 called, rests upon the principle, which we act on 
 daily, that what many independent and competent 
 witnesses guarantee, is true. The concordant testi- 
 mony of the Church Catholic to certain doctrines, 
 such as the Incarnation, is an argument in its 
 behalf the same in kirid as that for the being of 
 a God, derived from the belief of all nations in an 
 intelligent Providence. If it be asked, why we do 
 not argue in this way from the existing as well as 
 from the ancient Church, we answer that Christ- 
 endom now differs from itself in all points except 
 those in which it is already known to have agreed 
 of old ; so that we cannot make use of it if we 
 would. So far, then, as it can be used, it is but 
 a confirmation of Antiquity, though a valuable 
 one. Besides, the greater is the interval between 
 a given age and that of the Apostles, and the more 
 intimate the connexion and influence of country 
 with country, the less can the separate branches of 
 the Church be considered as independent witnesses. 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 63 
 
 In the Roman controversy, then, the witness of a 
 later age, would seldom answer to the notion of 
 a Catholic Tradition, inasmuch as the various parts 
 of Christendom either would not agree together, or 
 when they did, would not be distinct witnesses. 
 Thus Ancient Consent is, practically* the only, 
 or main kind of Tradition which now remains 
 to us. 
 
 The Rule or Canon which I have been explain- 
 ing, is best known as expressed in the words of 
 Vincentius, of Lerins, in his celebrated treatise upon 
 the Tests of Heresy and Error 1 ; viz., that that is 
 to be received as Apostolic which has been taught 
 "always, everywhere, and by all." Catholicity, 
 Antiquity* and Consent of Fathers, is the proper 
 evidence of the fidelity or Apostolicity of a pro- 
 fessed Tradition. Infant Baptism, for instance, 
 must have been appointed by the Apostles, or we 
 should not find it received so early, so generally, 
 with such a silence concerning its introduction. 
 The Christian faith is dogmatic, because it has been 
 so accounted in every Church up to this day. The 
 washing of the feet, enjoined in the 13th chapter 
 of the Gospel according to St. John, is not a neces- 
 sary rite or a Sacrament, because it has never been 
 so observed ; — did Christ or His Apostles intend 
 
 1 This work, which is short, perspicuous, and eloquent, is 
 now in course of republication at Oxford with a translation. 
 It will amply repay the pains of more than one perusal. 
 
64 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 otherwise, it wouldfollow, (what is surely impossible,) 
 that a new and erroneous view of our Lord's words 
 arose even in the Apostles' lifetime, and was from 
 the first every where substituted for the true. Again ; 
 fabrics for public worship are allowable and fitting 
 under the Gospel, though our Lord contrasts wor- 
 shipping at Jerusalem or Gerizim with worshipping 
 in spirit and truth, because they ever have been so 
 esteemed. The Sabbatical rest is changed from the 
 Sabbath to the Lord's-day, because it has never 
 been otherwise, since Christianity was a religion. 
 
 It follows that Councils or individuals are of 
 authority, when we have reason to suppose they are 
 trustworthy informants of Apostolical Tradition. 
 If a Council is attended by many Bishops from 
 various parts of Christendom, and if they speak 
 one and all the same doctrine, without constraint, 
 and bear witness to their having received it from 
 their Fathers, that they never heard of any other 
 doctrine, and that they verily believe it to be Apos- 
 tolic, — great consideration is due to its decisions. 
 If, on the other hand, they do not profess to bear 
 witness to a fact, but merely to deduce from Scrip- 
 ture for themselves, besides or beyond what they 
 received from their Fathers, whatever deference is 
 due to them, it is not of that peculiar kind which 
 is contemplated by the Rule of Vincentius. In 
 like manner, if some great Christian writer, of high 
 character, extensive learning, and ample means of 
 information, attests the universality of a certain 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 65 
 
 doctrine, and the absence of all trace of its intro- 
 duction short of the Apostles' times, such a one, 
 though an individual, yet as the spokesman of his 
 generation, would be entitled to especial deference. 
 On the other hand, the most highly gifted and 
 religious persons are liable to error, and are not 
 to be implicitly trusted where they profess to be 
 recording, not a fact, but their own opinion. 
 Christians know no Master on earth ; they defer, 
 indeed, to the judgment, obey the advice, and fol- 
 low the example of good men in ten thousand 
 ways, but they do not make their opinions part of 
 what is emphatically called the Faith. Christ 
 alone is the Author and Finisher of Faith in all its 
 senses ; His servants do but witness it, and their 
 statements are, then, only valuable when they are 
 testimonies, not deductions or conjectures. Where 
 they speak of themselves, about points of faith, and 
 much more when they are at variance with Catholic 
 Antiquity, we can bear to examine and even con- 
 demn the uncertain or the erroneous opinion. 
 Thus Pope Gregory might be an advocate for a 
 doctrine resembling that of Purgatory ; St. Gregory 
 Nyssen may have used language available in de- 
 fence of Transubstantiation ; St. Ephraim may have 
 invoked the Virgin ; St. Austin might believe in 
 the irrespective Predestination of individuals ; St. 
 Cyril might afford a handle to Eutyches ; Tertullian 
 might be a Montanist ; Origen might deny the 
 eternity of future punishment ; yet all such in- 
 
66 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 stances, whatever be their weight, from other cir- 
 cumstances, have no weight at all one way or 
 other in the argument from Catholic Tradition. 
 In like manner, Universality, of course, proves 
 nothing, if it is traceable to an origin short of 
 Apostolic, whether to present influences from with- 
 out, or to some assignable point of time. Whatever 
 judgment is to be formed of a certain practice or doc- 
 trine, be it right or wrong, and on whatever grounds, 
 at any rate, it is not part or adjunct of the Faith, 
 but must be advocated on its intrinsic propriety, or 
 usefulness, or, if tenable, is binding in duty only 
 on particular persons or parties, ages or countries, 
 if its history resembles that of the secular estab- 
 lishment of the Church, or of Monachism, or of 
 putting to death for religious opinions, or of 
 sprinkling in Baptism, or the denial of the cup to 
 the laity, or of Ecclesiastical Liberty, — -subjects, 
 which I do not, of course, put on a footing with 
 each other, but name together as being one and all 
 external to that circle of religious truth which the 
 Apostles sealed with their own signature as the 
 Gospel Faith, and delivered over to the Church 
 after them. 
 
 But here it may be asked, whether it is possible 
 accurately to know the limits of that Faith, from 
 the peculiar circumstances in which it was first 
 spread, which hindered it from being realized in 
 the first centuries in its complete proportions. It 
 may be conjectured, for instance, that the doctrine 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 67 
 
 of what is familiarly called " Church and King " is 
 Apostolic, except that it could not be developed, 
 while a heathen and persecuting power was sove- 
 reign. This is true ; and hence a secondary argu- 
 ment is derivable from Ancient Consent in any 
 doctrine, even when it does not appeal to tra- 
 ditionary reception; viz., on the principle that 
 what an early age held universally, must have been 
 unconsciously transmitted from the Apostles, and 
 must be the due expression of their mind and spirit, 
 under changed circumstances, and therefore is bind- 
 ing on us in piety, though not part of the Faith. 
 The same consideration applies to the interpretation 
 of Scripture ; but this is to enter on a distinct 
 branch of the subject, to which I shall advert here- 
 after. 
 
 In the foregoing remarks I have not been at- 
 tempting any systematic discussion of the argu- 
 ments from Antiquity, which is unnecessary for 
 our present purpose, but have said just so much as 
 may open a way for illustrating the point in hand, 
 viz., the disrespect shown towards it by Romanists. 
 In theory, indeed, and in their professions, as has 
 already been noticed, they defer to the authority 
 of the Rule of Vincent as implicitly as we do ; and 
 commonly without much hazard, for Protestantism 
 in general has so transgressed it, that, little as it 
 tells for Rome, it tells still more against the wild 
 doctrines which go under that name. Besides, 
 Romanists are obliged to maintain it by their very 
 
 f2 
 
68 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 pretensions to be considered the One True Catholic 
 and Apostolic Church. At the same time there is 
 this remarkable difference, even of theory, between 
 them and Vincentius, that the latter is altogether 
 silent on the subject of the Pope's Infallibility, 
 whether considered as an attribute of his see, or as 
 attaching to him in General Council. If Vincen- 
 tius had the sentiments and feelings of a modern 
 Romanist, it is incomprehensible that, in a treatise 
 written to guide the private Christian in matters of 
 Faith, he should have said not a word about the 
 Pope's supreme authority, nay, not even about the 
 Infallibility of the Church Catholic. He refers the 
 inquirer to a triple rule, difficult, surely, and trou- 
 blesome to use, compared with that which is ready 
 furnished by Romanism. Applying his own rule 
 to his work itself, we may unhesitatingly conclude 
 that the Pope's supreme authority in matters of 
 Faith, is no Catholic or Apostolic truth, because 
 he was ignorant of it. 
 
 However, Romanists are obliged by their pro- 
 fessions to appeal to Antiquity, and they therefore 
 do so. But enough has been said already to sug- 
 gest that, where men are indisposed towards such 
 an appeal, where they determine to be captious and 
 take exceptions, and act the disputant and sophist 
 rather than the earnest inquirer, it admits of easy 
 evasion, and may be made to conclude anything or 
 nothing. The Rule of Vincent is not of a mathe- 
 matical or demonstrative character, but moral, and 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 69 
 
 requires practical judgment and good sense to 
 apply it. For instance ; what is meant by being 
 " taught always f" does it mean in every century, 
 or every year, or every month ? Does " every where''' 
 mean in every country, or in every diocese ? And 
 does " the Consent of Fathers" require us to pro- 
 duce the direct testimony of every one of them ? 
 How many Fathers, how many places, how many 
 instances constitute a fulfilment of the test pro- 
 posed ? It is, then, from the nature of the case, a 
 condition which never can be satisfied as fully as it 
 might have been ; it admits of various and unequal 
 application in various instances ; and what degree of 
 application is enough must be decided by the same 
 principles which guide us in the conduct of life, 
 which determine us in politics, or trade, or war, 
 which lead us to accept Revelation at all, for which 
 we have but probability to show at most, nay, to 
 believe in the existence of an Intelligent Creator. 
 This character, indeed, of Vincent's Canon, will but 
 recommend it to the disciples of the School of 
 Butler, from its agreement with the analogy of 
 nature ; but it affords a ready loophole for such as 
 do not wish to be persuaded, of which both Pro- 
 testants and Romanists are not slow to avail 
 themselves. 
 
 Here, however, we are concerned with the 
 Romanists. For instance : if some passage from 
 one of the Fathers contradicts their present 
 doctrine, and it is then objected that what even 
 
70 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 one early writer has contradicted was not Catholic 
 at the time he contradicted it, they unhesitatingly 
 condemn the passage as unsound and mistaken. 
 And then follows the question, is the writer in 
 question to be credited as reporting the current 
 views of his age, or had he the hardihood though 
 he knew them well, to contradict, yet without say- 
 ing he contradicted them ; and this can only be 
 decided by the circumstances of the case, which an 
 ingenious disputant may easily turn this way or 
 that. They proceed in the same way, though a 
 number of authorities be produced ; one is mis- 
 interpreted, another is put out of sight, a third is 
 admitted but undervalued. This is not said by 
 way of accusation here, though of course it is a 
 heavy charge against the Romanists, nor with the 
 admission that their attempts are successful, for 
 after all, words have a distinct meaning in spite 
 of sophistry, and there is a true and a false in 
 every matter. I am but showing how Romanists 
 reconcile their abstract reverence for Antiquity 
 with their Romanism, — with their creed, and their 
 notion of the Church's infallibility in declaring it ; 
 how small their success is, and how great their 
 unfairness, is another question. Whatever judg- 
 ment we form either of their conduct or its issue, 
 such is the fact, that they extol the Fathers as a 
 whole, and disparage them individually ; they call 
 them one by one Doctors of the Church, yet they 
 explain away one by one their arguments, judgment, 
 
 1 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 71 
 
 and testimony. They refuse to combine their 
 separate and coincident statements; they take 
 each by himself, and settle with the first before 
 they go on to the next. And thus their boasted 
 reliance on the Fathers comes, at length, to this, — to 
 identify Catholicity with the decrees of Councils, 
 and to admit those Councils only which the Pope 
 has confirmed. 
 
 Such is that peculiarity of Romanism which is 
 now to be illustrated ; and with this purpose I will 
 first quote one or two passages from writers of 
 authority, by way of showing the abstract reverence 
 in which Romanism holds the Fathers, and then 
 show from others how little they carry it into 
 practice. 
 
 Bossuet in his celebrated Exposition thus speaks: 
 " The Catholic Church, far from wishing to become 
 absolute mistress of her faith, as it is laid to her 
 charge, has, on the contrary, done every thing in 
 her power to tie up her own hands, and to deprive 
 herself of the means of innovation ; for she not 
 only submits to the Scripture, but in order to 
 banish for ever these arbitrary interpretations, which 
 would substitute the whims of men for the Word 
 of God, she hath bound herself to interpret it, in 
 what concerns faith and morality, according to the 
 sense of the Holy Fathers, from which she pro- 
 fesses never to depart ; declaring by all her 
 Councils, and by all her professions of faith, that 
 she receives no dogma whatever that is not 
 
72 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 conformable to the Tradition of all preceding 
 ages V 
 
 Milner in his End of Controversy adopts the 
 same tone. " When any fresh controversy arises 
 in the Church, the fundamental maxim of the 
 Bishops and Popes, to whom it belongs to decide 
 upon it, is, not to consult their own private opinion 
 or interpretation of Scripture, but to inquire ' what 
 is and has ever been the doctrine of the Church,' 
 concerning it. Hence, their cry is and ever has 
 been, on such occasions, as well in her Councils 
 as out of them, ' So we have received, so the Uni- 
 versal Church believes, let there be no new doctrine, 
 none but what has been delivered down to us by 
 Tradition.' Again; 'The infallibility ... of our 
 Church is not a power of telling all things, past, 
 present, and to come, such as the Pagans ascribed 
 to their oracles ; but merely the aid of God's Holy 
 Spirit, to enable her truly to decide what her faith 
 is, and ever has been, in such articles as have been 
 made known to her by Scripture and Tradition V " 
 It seems from these passages, that the writings of 
 Antiquity are to be considered as limitations and 
 safeguards put upon the Church's teaching, records 
 by which she is ever bound to direct her course, 
 out of which she ascertains and proves those doc- 
 trinal statements which, when formally made, are 
 infallible. The same view is contained in the fol- 
 
 1 Chap, xviii. 2 Letters xi. and xii. 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 7,3 
 
 lowing extracts from Bellarmine, except that, writ- 
 ing, not an Apology, but in controversy, he insists 
 less pointedly upon it. For instance : " We do 
 not impugn, rather we maintain against impugners, 
 that the first foundation of our faith is the Word 
 of God," that is, written and unwritten, " minis- 
 tered by Apostles and Prophets : . . only we add, 
 that, besides this first foundation, another secondary 
 foundation is needed, that is, the witness of the 
 Church. For we do not know for certain what God 
 has revealed, except by the testimony of the Church 1 ." 
 And in another place: "That alone is matter of 
 faith, which is revealed by God, either mediately 
 or immediately; but divine revelations are partly 
 written, partly unwritten. . . . The decrees of 
 Councils and Popes, and the Consent of Doctors, 
 . . . then only make a doctrine an article of faith, 
 when they explain the Word of God, or deduce 
 any thing from it V 
 
 Let us now proceed from the theory of the 
 Roman Church to its practice. This is seen in 
 the actual conduct of its theologians, some of whom 
 shall here be cited as a sample of the whole. 
 
 First, I refer to the well known occasion of 
 Bishop Bull's writing his " Defence ■ of the Nicene 
 Faith." He was led to do so by an attack upon 
 the orthodoxy of the Ante-Nicene Fathers from a 
 quarter whence it was at first sight little to be 
 
 1 De Verb. Dei Interpr. hi. 10. 2 De Purg. i. 15. 
 
74 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 expected. The learned assailant was not an Arian, 
 or Socinian, or Latitudinarian, but Petavius, a mem- 
 ber of the Jesuit body. The tendency of the por- 
 tion of his great work on Theological Doctrines 
 which treats of the Trinity is too plain to be mis- 
 taken. The historian Gibbon does not scruple to 
 pronounce that its " object, or at least, effect," was 
 " to arraign," and as he considers, successfully, " the 
 faith of the Ante-Nicene Fathers ;" and it was used 
 in no long time by Arian writers in their own 
 justification. Thus, Romanist, heretic, and infidel, 
 unite with one another in this instance in denying 
 the orthodoxy of the first centuries, just as at this 
 moment the same three parties are banded toge- 
 ther to oppose ourselves. We trust we see in 
 this circumstance an omen of our own resemblance 
 to the Primitive Church, since we hold the same 
 position with it towards these parties, and are in 
 the centre point, as of doctrine, so of attack. But 
 to return to Petavius. This learned author, in his 
 elaborate work on the Trinity, shows that he 
 would rather prove the early Confessors and Mar- 
 tyrs to be heterodox, than that they should exist 
 as a court of appeal from the decisions of his own 
 Church ; and he accordingly sacrifices, without re- 
 morse, Justin, Clement, Irenaeus, and their breth- 
 ren to the maintenance of the infallibility of Rome. 
 Or to put the matter in another point of view, 
 truer, perhaps, though less favourable still to 
 Petavius, he consents that the Catholic doctrine 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 75 
 
 of the Holy Trinity should so far rest on the mere 
 declaration of the Church, that before it was for- 
 mally defined, there was no heresy in rejecting it, 
 provided he can thereby gain for Rome the free- 
 dom of making decrees unfettered by the recorded 
 judgments of Antiquity. This it was which ex- 
 cited the zeal of our great theologian, Bishop Bull, 
 whom I will here quote, both in order to avail 
 myself of his authority, and because of the force 
 and clearness of his remarks. In the introduction 
 then of his celebrated work, after enumerating cer- 
 tain heretical and latitudinarian attempts to dis- 
 parage the orthodoxy of the Ante-Nicene centuries, 
 he speaks as follows of Petavius : — 
 
 " But I am beyond measure astonished at that 
 great and profoundly learned man, Dionysius Pe- 
 tavius ; who, for all the reverence which he pro- 
 fesses for the Nicene Council, and his constant 
 acknowledgment that the faith confirmed in it 
 against the Arians, is truly Apostolic and Catholic, 
 yet makes them an admission, which, if it holds, 
 goes the full length of establishing their heresy, 
 and of disparaging, and so overthrowing the credit 
 and authority of the Nicene Council ; namely, that 
 the Rulers and Fathers of the Church before its 
 date were nearly all of the very same sentiments 
 
 as Arius What was Petavius' view in so 
 
 writing, it is difficult to say. Some suspect that 
 he was secretly an Arian, and wished insidiously 
 so to recommend the heresy to others. This was 
 
76 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 the opinion of Sandius," the heretical writer, " whom 
 
 I just now mentioned However, Petavius's own 
 
 writings make it, I think, abundantly clear, that 
 this pretender's supposition is altogether false. If 
 some underhand purpose must be assigned for his 
 writing as he did, and it be not sufficient to ascribe 
 it to his customary audacity and recklessness in 
 criticising and animadverting on the Holy Fathers, 
 I should give my opinion that this author, as being 
 a Jesuit, had in view the interests of Popery rather 
 than of Arianism. For, granting the Catholic Doc- 
 tors of the first three centuries held nearly all of 
 them that very error of doctrine, which the Nicene 
 Council afterwards condemned in Arius as heresy, 
 (which is Petavius' statement) two things will 
 readily follow : first, that little deference is to be 
 paid to the Fathers of the first three centuries, to 
 whom reformed Catholics specially appeal, as if in 
 their time the chief articles of the Christian faith 
 were not yet sufficiently understood and developed ; 
 next, that (Ecumenical Councils have the power of 
 framing or (as Petavius speaks) of establishing and 
 publishing new articles of faith, which may fitly 
 serve to prepare the ground for those additions which 
 the Fathers at Trent annexed to the Rule of Faith 
 and obtruded on Christendom ; though even this 
 will not be a sufficient defence of the Roman faith, 
 since the meeting at Trent was anything but a 
 ^General Council. However, the masters of that 
 school, it seems, feel no compunction at erecting 
 
II] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 77 
 
 their own pseudo-catholic faith on the ruins of that 
 which is truly Catholic. The Divine oracles them- 
 selves are to be convicted of undue obscurity, the 
 most holy Doctors, Bishops, and Martyrs of the 
 primitive Church are to be charged with heresy; 
 so that in one way or other the credit and autho- 
 rity of the degenerate Roman Church may be 
 patched up and made good. At the same time 
 these sophists, to be sure, are the very men to 
 execrate us as brethren of cursed Ham, and scoffers 
 and despisers of the venerable Fathers of the Church, 
 and to boast that they themselves religiously fol- 
 low the faith of the ancient Doctors, and hold their 
 writings in highest reverence. That such a nefa- 
 rious purpose led to Petavius' statement, I do not 
 dare say for certain, but leave the matter to the 
 heart-searching God. Meanwhile, what the Jesuit 
 has written, as it is most welcome to modern Arians, 
 (all of whom on that account revere and embrace 
 him as their champion) so, as I would affirm con- 
 fidently, it is manifestly contrary to truth, and most 
 injurious and slanderous as well towards the Nicene 
 Fathers as the Ante-Nicene '." 
 
 So remarkable an instance as this is not of every 
 day's occurrence. I do not mean to say there have 
 been many such systematic and profound attempts 
 as this on the part of Petavius, at what may 
 be justly called parricide. Rome even, steeled as 
 
 1 Defens. Fid. Nicen, Procem. § 7, 8. 
 
78 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 she is against the kindlier feelings, when her interests 
 require, has more of tender mercy left than to bear 
 them often. In this very instance, the French 
 Church showed their compunction at the crime, on 
 Bull's subsequent defence of the Nicene Anathema, 
 by transmitting to him through Bossuet, the con- 
 gratulations of the whole clergy of France assem- 
 bled at St. Germain's, for the service he had ren- 
 dered to the Church Catholic. However, not even 
 the Gallican Church, moderate as she confessedly 
 has been, can side with Rome without cooling in 
 loyalty towards the primitive ages ; as will appear 
 by the following remarks extracted from the Bene- 
 dictine edition of St. Ambrose. The Benedictines 
 of St. Maur are, as is well known, of a school of 
 Romanism distinct from the Jesuits, to whom Pa- 
 tavius belonged. So much so, that their edition 
 of Bossuet's works is accused of Jansenism, at least 
 so I understand the English editor of his Exposition, 
 who speaks of its being " infected with the spirit of 
 that sect which disfigures everything that it touches." 
 Their learning and candour are well known ; and 
 one can hardly accuse those who spend their lives 
 in an act of ministration towards the holy Fathers, 
 of any intentional irreverence towards them. The 
 following passage occurs in their introduction to one 
 of the works of St. Ambrose, on occasion of that 
 Father making some statements at variance with the 
 present Roman views of the intermediate state. 
 " It is not indeed wonderful that Ambrose should 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 79 
 
 have written in this way concerning the state of 
 souls ; but what seems almost incredible is the 
 uncertainty and inconsistency of the holy Fathers 
 on the subject, from the very times of the Apostles 
 to the Pontificate of Gregory XI. and the Council 
 of Florence ; that is, for almost the whole of four- 
 teen centuries. For they not only differ from one 
 another, as ordinarily happens in such questions 
 before the Church has defined, but they are even 
 inconsistent with themselves, sometimes allowing, 
 sometimes denying to the same souls the enjoyment 
 of the clear vision of the Divine Nature \" 
 
 It may be asked, how it is the fault of the Be- 
 nedictines if the Fathers are inconsistent with each 
 other and with themselves in any point ; and what 
 harm there is in stating the fact, if it is undenia- 
 ble ? But my complaint with them would be on 
 a different ground, viz. that they profess to know 
 better than the Fathers ; that they, or rather the 
 religious system which they are bound to follow, 
 consider questions to be determinable on which 
 the early Fathers were ignorant, and suppose the 
 Church is so absolutely the author of our faith, 
 that what the Fathers did not believe, we must 
 believe under pain of forfeiting heaven. Whether 
 Rome be right or wrong, this instance contains an 
 acknowledgment, as far as it goes, that her religion 
 is not that of the Fathers ; that her Creed is as 
 
 1 Admonit. in Libr. de Bono Mortis. 
 
80 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 novel as those Protestant extravagances from which 
 in other respects it is so far removed. 
 
 I proceed to select one instance more of the 
 disrespect shown by Romanists towards the Fathers, 
 from Bellarmine's celebrated work on the Contro- 
 versies of Faith. The name of this eminent writer 
 is familiar to most persons who have read ever so 
 little concerning Romanism ; but it brings with it 
 less favourable associations than its owner deserves. 
 The better the man individually, the worse the 
 system that makes him speak uncandidly or pre- 
 sumptuously; and that both as a man and as a 
 writer he has no ordinary qualities, will be clear 
 from what is said of him by two English authors 
 of this day, who are far from agreeing either with 
 him or with each other. Bishop Marsh, in his 
 Comparative "View of the Churches of England and 
 Rome, calls him " the most acute, the most me- 
 thodical, the most comprehensive, and at the same 
 time one of the most candid among the controver- 
 sialists of the Church of Rome V On the other 
 hand, a recent writer of very different religious 
 sympathies from the Bishop, speaks of him in a 
 spirit honourable both to himself and the object of 
 his panegyric. " I cannot read," he says, " the 
 pious practical works of Bellarmine, himself the 
 great defender of Popery, and know that he said, 
 ' upon account of the uncertainty of life it is most 
 
 1 Chapter I. 
 
II] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 81 
 
 safe to rely on Christ alone,' without hoping that 
 he was led before his death to renounce all con- 
 fidence in anything but God's testimony" concerning 
 His Son, and so became a child of our heavenly 
 Father, and an heir of our Saviour's kingdom V 
 Others may humbly trust he was all through his 
 life, as he had been first made in Baptism, ' a child 
 of grace ;' but, however this be, the testimony af- 
 forded to Bellarmine's personal piety in this ex- 
 tract is express, and under the circumstances 
 remarkable. 
 
 To these may be added the remarks of Mosheim 
 concerning him : " His candour and plain dealing 
 exposed him," he says, " to the censures of several 
 divines of his own communion; for he collected 
 with diligence the reasons and objections of his 
 adversaries, and proposed them for the most part 
 in their full force with integrity and exactness. 
 Had he been less remarkable on account of his 
 fidelity and industry, had he taken care to select 
 the weakest arguments of his antagonists, and to 
 render them still weaker by proposing them in an 
 imperfect and unfaithful light, his fame would have 
 been much greater among the friends of Rome 
 than it actually is 2 ." 
 
 Let us turn then to the work of an author thus 
 candid as a theologian, thus highly endowed as a 
 man. 
 
 1 Bickersteth on Popery, p. 8. 2 Vol. iv. p. 206. 
 
 G 
 
82 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 In his treatise in defence of Purgatory, he uses 
 severe language against Calvin, who represents the 
 Fathers as speaking doubtfully concerning that 
 doctrine. " This," he says, " is intolerable hardi- 
 hood or ignorance ; for first, had they never men- 
 tioned Purgatory by name, yet their sentiments 
 about it had been sufficiently plain from their dis- 
 tinct statements that the souls of certain believers 
 need relief and are aided by the prayers of the 
 living. Next, there are the clearest passages in 
 the Fathers, in which Purgatory is asserted, of 
 which I will cite some few? Then follow extracts 
 from twenty-two Fathers in evidence ; and so he 
 brings his proof to an end, and dismisses that head 
 of his subject. Now will it be believed that in a 
 subsequent chapter, in recounting the errors con- 
 cerning Purgatory, he enumerates some of the 
 same Fathers, as holding them, nay, holding them 
 in some of the very passages which he had already 
 adduced in proof of the tenet of his Church ! He 
 enumerates Origen, St. Ambrose, St. Hilary, Lac- 
 tantius, and St. Jerome, as apparently contravening 
 or wandering from the Tridentine doctrine. Of 
 these he surrenders Origen altogether ; Jerome he 
 exculpates, but rather by means of other extracts 
 than as clearing up what was objectionable in the 
 passage first quoted. As to the rest, he allows 
 that they all " sound erroneous," but says that 
 " they may be understood" in an unexceptionable 
 sense ; though after all, of one of the two best 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 83 
 
 meanings which may be put upon their words, he 
 can but pronounce at most that he " neither af- 
 firms nor condemns it." 
 
 To explain the state of the question, it is necessary 
 to observe, that various early writers speculate on 
 the possibility of fire at the judgment constituting 
 a trial of the integrity of all believers, however 
 highly gifted in faith and holiness. This opinion, 
 whatever be its value, differs from the notion of 
 Purgatory, not to mention other respects, in time, 
 place, and subjects ; yet certain passages from the 
 Fathers containing it and other private notions, 
 are enumerated by Bellarmine, first as instances in 
 his inductive proof, then as exceptions to the doc- 
 trine thereby established. The only alleviation of 
 this strange inconsistency is that he quotes, not the 
 very same sentences both for and against his Church, 
 but adjoining ones. 
 
 Now, do I mean to accuse so serious and good 
 a man as Bellarmine of wilful unfairness in this 
 procedure ? No. Yet it is difficult to enter into 
 the state of mind under which he was led into it. 
 However we explain it, so much is clear, that the 
 Fathers are only so far of use in the eyes of Ro- 
 manists as they prove the Roman doctrines ; and 
 in no sense are allowed to interfere with the con- 
 clusions which their Church has adopted ; that they 
 are of authority when they seem to agree with 
 Rome, of none if they differ. But if I may ven- 
 ture to account in Bellarmine's own person for 
 
 g2 
 
84 ON ROMANISM AS [Lectv 
 
 what is in the controversy confessedly, unfair, I 
 would observe as follows, though what I say may 
 seem to border on refinement. 
 
 A Romanist then cannot really argue in defence 
 of his doctrines ; he has too firm a confidence in their 
 truth, if he is sincere in his profession, to enable 
 him critically to adjust the due weight to be given, 
 to this or that evidence. He assumes his Church's 
 conclusion as true ; and the facts or witnesses he 
 adduces are rather brought to receive an interpre- 
 tation than to furnish a proof. His highest aim 
 is to show the mere consistency of his theory, its 
 possible adjustment with the records of Antiquity. 
 I am not here inquiring how much of high but 
 misdirected moral feeling is implied in this state 
 of mind ; certainly as we advance in perception of 
 the Truth, we all of us become less fitted to be 
 controversialists. 
 
 If this be the true explanation of Bellarmine's 
 strange error, the more it tends to exculpate him, 
 the more deeply it criminates his system. He 
 ceases to be chargeable with unfairness only in 
 proportion as the notion of the infallibility of Rome 
 is admitted to be the sovereign and engrossing 
 tenet of his communion, the foundation-stone, or 
 (as it may be called) the fulcrum of its theology. 
 I consider, then, that when he first adduces the 
 afore-mentioned Fathers in proof of Purgatory, he 
 was really but interpreting them ; he was teaching 
 what they ought to mean, — what in charity they 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 85 
 
 must be supposed to mean, — what they might mean, 
 as far as the very words went, — probably meant, con- 
 sidering the Church so meant, — and might be taken 
 to mean, even if their authors did not so mean, 
 from the notion that they spoke vaguely, and, as 
 children, really meant something besides what they 
 formally said, and that, after all, they were but the 
 spokesmen of the then existing Church, which, 
 though in silence, held that same doctrine which 
 Rome has since defined and published. This is 
 to treat Bellarmine with the same charity with 
 which he has on this supposition treated the Fa- 
 thers, and it is to be hoped with a nearer approach 
 to the matter of fact. So much as to his first use 
 of them ; but afterwards, in noticing what he con- 
 siders erroneous opinions on the subject, he treats 
 them not as organs of the Church Infallible, but as 
 individuals, and interprets their language by its 
 literal sense, or by the context. The Fathers in 
 question, he seems to say, held as modern Rome 
 holds ; for if they did not, they must have dissented 
 from the Church of their own day ; for the Church 
 then held as modern Rome holds. And the Church 
 then held as Rome holds now, because Rome is the 
 Church, and the Church ever holds the same. How 
 hopeless then is it to contend with Romanists, as 
 if they practically agreed to our foundation, how- 
 ever much they pretend to it ! Ours is Antiquity, 
 theirs the existing Church. Its infallibility is their 
 first principle ; belief in it is a deep prejudice quite 
 
86 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 beyond the reach of anything external. It is quite 
 clear that the combined testimonies of all the 
 Fathers, supposing such a case, would not have a 
 feather's weight against a decision of the Pope in 
 Council, nor would matter at all, except for the 
 Fathers' sake who had by anticipation opposed it. 
 They consider that the Fathers ought to mean what 
 Rome has since decreed, and that Rome knows 
 their meaning better than they themselves did. 
 That venturesome Church has usurped their place, 
 and thinks it merciful only not to banish outright 
 the rivals she has dethroned. By an act, as it 
 were, of grace, she has determined that when they 
 contradict her, though of no authority in so doing, 
 yet as living in times of ignorance, they are not on 
 the other hand guilty of heresy, but are only hete- 
 rodox ; and she keeps them around her to ask their 
 advice when it happens to agree with her own. 
 
 Let us then understand the position of the 
 Romanists towards us; they do not really argue 
 from the Fathers though they seem to do so. They 
 may affect to do so in our behalf, happy if by an 
 innocent stratagem they are able to convert us; 
 but all the while in their own feelings they are 
 taking a far higher position. They are teaching, 
 not disputing or proving. They are interpreting 
 what is obscure in Antiquity, purifying what is 
 alloyed, correcting what is amiss, perfecting what 
 is incomplete, harmonizing what is various. They 
 claim and use all its documents as ministers and 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 87 
 
 organs of* that one infallible Church, which once 
 forsooth kept silence, but since has spoken ; which 
 by a divine gift must ever be consistent with itself, 
 and which bears with it its own evidence of Di- 
 vinity. 
 
 I have said enough perhaps to illustrate the 
 subject in hand ; yet various instances shall be 
 added, which are noticed by our divines in this 
 controversy. 
 
 Stillingfleet supplies us with the following 
 specimens, which must be looked at as a whole, 
 as marking the temper of Romanism, and its dis- 
 respectful bearing towards the Fathers. " If St. 
 Cyprian," he says, " speaks against Tradition, ' it 
 was,' saith Bellarmine, ' in defence of his error, 
 and therefore no wonder if he argued after the 
 manner of erroneous persons.' If he opposeth 
 Stephen, Bishop of Rome, in the business of re- 
 baptization, ' he seemeth,' saith he, ' to have erred 
 mortally in it.' ... If St. Chrysostom saith, ' That 
 it is better not to be present at the Eucharist, than 
 to be present and not receive it,' ' I say,' saith Bel- 
 larmine, * that Chrysostom, as at other times, went 
 beyond his bounds in saying so.' If St. Augustine 
 expound a place of Scripture not to his mind, he 
 tells him roundly, ' He did not thoroughly consider 
 what he said.' Do not these things argue that due 
 respect they had for the Fathers ? So long as they 
 think they can make them serve their turns, then 
 ' who but the Fathers ?' If they appear refractory, 
 and will not serve as hewers of wood and drawers 
 
88 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 of water to them, then, ' who are the Fathers V 
 It is the Church's judgment they rely on, and not 
 the Fathers. . . Thus the price of the Fathers rises 
 and falls according to their use, like slaves in the 
 market. If yet the Fathers seem to deliver their 
 judgments peremptorily in a matter contrary to the 
 present sense of their Church, then either they 
 speak it ' in the heat of disputation,' or, if not, they 
 were ' contradicted by others as good as they ;' 
 if many of them concur, yet, ' it was but their pri- 
 vate judgment,' not the sense of the Catholic 
 Church which they delivered. Still we see the 
 rate the Fathers stand at is their agreement with 
 the present Roman Church ; if they differ from 
 this, they were men like others, and might be 
 deceived; only the Pope is infallible, or at least 
 the present Roman Church. For if Hilary, Gre- 
 gory Nyssen, Chrysostom, Cyril, Augustine, and 
 others say, that Christ, when He said, ' Upon this 
 rock will I build my Church,' understood Peter's 
 confession of Himself, saith Maldonate, ' Nothing 
 could be more incongruous than what they say.' . . . 
 The same liberty he takes in very many other 
 places '." 
 
 Bishop Taylor writes to the same effect in his 
 Dissuasive : " What think we," he asks, "of the 
 saying of Cardinal Cajetan, ' If you chance to meet 
 Avith any new exposition which is agreeable to the 
 text, &c. although, perhaps, it differs from that which 
 
 1 Stillingfleet, Grounds, i. 5. 19. pp. 137, 138. 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 89 
 
 is given by the whole current of the Holy Doctors, 
 I desire the readers that they would not too hastily 
 reject it.' And again ; ' Let no man, therefore, 
 reject a new exposition of any passage of Scripture, 
 under pretence that it is contrary to what the 
 Ancient Doctors gave.' What think we of the 
 •words of Petavius ? ' There are many things by 
 the most Holy Fathers scattered, especially St. 
 Chrysostom in his Homilies, which if you would 
 accommodate to the rule of exact truth, they will 
 seem to be void of good sense.' And again; ' There is 
 no cause why the authority of certain Fathers should 
 be objected, for they can say nothing but what they 
 have learned from St. Luke ; neither is there any 
 reason, why we should rather interpret St. Luke 
 by them, than those things which they say by St. 
 Luke.' " Presently Taylor adds, " Of late ' know- 
 ledge is increased,' — at least many writers think 
 so; and though the ancient interpretations were 
 more honoured than new, yet Salmeron says plainly, 
 ' that the younger doctors are better sighted and 
 more perspicacious.' And the question being about 
 the conception of the blessed Virgin, without 
 original sin, against which a multitude of Fathers 
 are brought : the Jesuit answers the argument with 
 the words in Exodus xxiii. ' Thou shalt not follow 
 a multitude to sin V " 
 
 1 Taylor's Dissuasive, part 2, Introd. vol. x. p. 320. Vid. 
 also, Usher's Answer to a Jesuit, ch. i. 
 
90 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 The learned controversialists I have been quot- 
 ing, add the following instances, from such, and so 
 various quarters, as make them fair samples of the 
 system. 
 
 Cardinal Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who suf- 
 fered death during the troubles in King Henry 
 the VHIth's reign, is a man, as readers of our his- 
 tory know, of no ordinary name. He is supposed to 
 have assisted Henry VIII. in his work against 
 Luther, and while in prison received a Cardinal's 
 hat from the Pope. He surely is as fair a specimen 
 of the Roman controversialist as could be taken. 
 Now in one of his works against Luther, he thus 
 speaks on the subject of Indulgences and Purga- 
 tory, "There are many things, about which no 
 question was agitated in the Primitive Church, 
 which, by the diligence of posterity, when doubts 
 had arisen, have now become clear. No orthodox 
 believer, certainly, now doubts whether there be a 
 Purgatory. Whoever will read the commentaries 
 of the old Greeks, he will find no mention, as I 
 think, or as little as possible, concerning Purga- 
 tory. Nor did the Latins, all at once, and without 
 effort, apprehend the truth of this matter. For 
 faith, whether in Purgatory or in Indulgences, was 
 not so necessary in the Primitive Church as now. 
 For then love so burned, that every one was ready 
 to meet death for Christ. Crimes were rare : and 
 such as occurred, were avenged by the great seve- 
 rity of the Canons. Now, however, a good part of 
 
II] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 91 
 
 the people would rather burn Christianity itself, 
 than bear the rigour of the Canons ; so that it was 
 not without the especial providence of the Holy 
 Spirit, that after the lapse of so many years, belief 
 in Purgatory and the use of Indulgences was 
 generally received by the orthodox. As long as 
 there was no care of Purgatory, no one sought for 
 Indulgences. For the consideration for Indulgences 
 depends entirely on it. If you take away Purga- 
 tory, what is the use of Indulgences? for we should 
 not need these, but for it. By considering, then, 
 that Purgatory was for some time unknown, and 
 then believed by certain persons, by degrees, partly 
 from revelations, partly from the Scriptures, and 
 so at length, that faith in it became firmly and 
 generally received by the orthodox Church, we 
 shall most easily form our view of Indulgences." 
 
 Medina, a Spanish Franciscan of the same cen- 
 tury, well esteemed for his learning in the Fathers 
 and Councils, when writing upon the subject of" 
 Episcopacy, is led to consider the opinion of St. 
 Jerome, who is accused by many of expressing 
 himself incorrectly concerning it. This is not the 
 place to examine that Father's views ; Medina 
 does examine them, and, in consequence, charges 
 him with agreeing with the Aerian heretics. Not 
 content with this, he proceeds to bring a similar 
 charge against Ambrose, Augustine, Sedulius, Pri- 
 masius, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Ecumenius, and 
 Theophylact. This, in addition to its untenable 
 
m ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 nature, is, indeed, a startling accusation in the 
 mouth of one, who, according to the abstract pro- 
 fession of his Church, is bound to direct himself 
 by the judgment of Antiquity. The circumstance 
 of error in a single Father we could bear without 
 any great surprise ; but should there be so many 
 of them upon one side, as he supposes in the case 
 before him, perchance we are the heretics, and they 
 the witnesses of Catholic doctrine. To those, how- 
 ever, who rest upon the Church's Infallibility, there 
 is certainly no danger of such a misfortune. Me- 
 dina, feeling himself in that position, and independ- 
 ent of all the Fathers brought together, thus 
 remarks : " These men were otherwise most holy, 
 and most thoroughly acquainted with the Holy 
 Scriptures; yet this opinion of theirs was con- 
 demned by the Church, first in Aerius, then in the 
 Waldenses, lastly in Wickliffe." And presently, 
 " From respect to Jerome and those Greek Fathers, 
 this opinion was in their case hushed up, or tole- 
 rated ; but in the case of heretics, who in many 
 other points also dissented from the Church, it has 
 always been condemned as heretical." It is fair to 
 add that Bellarmine, who quotes this passage to 
 refute it, speaks of it with severity 1 . 
 
 To the same purpose is the following remark of 
 another Roman writer, quoted by Taylor. " In the 
 old Catholic writers we 'suffer very many errors, and 
 
 1 De Clericis, i. 15 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 93 
 
 extenuate and excuse them ; and finding out some 
 commentary, we feign some convenient sense, when 
 they are opposed in disputations '." 
 
 It is not surprising, with these sentiments, that 
 Romanists should have undertaken before now to 
 suppress and correct portions of the Fathers' writ- 
 ings. An edition of St. Austin published at Venice, 
 contains the following most suspicious confession ; 
 " Besides the recovery of many passages by collation 
 with ancient copies, we have taken care to remove 
 whatever might infect the minds of the faithful with 
 heretical pravity, or turn them aside from the 
 Catholic and orthodox faith 2 ." And a corrector 
 of the press at Lyons, of the middle of the 16th 
 century, complains that he was obliged by certain 
 Franciscans to cancel various passages of St. Am- 
 brose, whose works he was engaged upon 3 . 
 
 The Council of Constance furnishes us with a 
 memorable instance of the same disregard for Anti- 
 quity, to which the whole Roman Communion is 
 committed, in the decree by which it formally 
 debars the laity from the participation of the Cup 
 
 1 Taylor's Dissuasive, i. i. 1. vol. x. p. 136. 
 
 * " In quo, prater locorum multorura restitutionem secundum 
 collationem veterum exemplarium, curavimus removeri ilia 
 omnia, quae fidelium mentes hseretica pravitate possent inficere, 
 aut a catholica orthodoxa, fide deviare." Vid. Taylor. Diss. 
 Part ii. i. 6. vol. x. p. 497. 
 
 3 " Qui pro auctoritate has omnes paginas dispunxerunt, ut 
 vides, et illas substitui in locum priorum curaverunt, praeter 
 omnem librorum nostroriim fidem." Ibid. 
 
94 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 in the Lord's Supper. There is no need of entering 
 into the defence put forward by Romanists, as if 
 the Church had a certain discretion committed to 
 her in the Administration of the Sacraments, and 
 used it in this prohibition, as in the substitution of 
 affusion for immersion in Baptism. The question 
 simply is, even allowing this, for argument's sake, 
 is the spirit betrayed in the following language, 
 one of reverence for Antiquity : — 
 
 " Whereas," says the Council, " in certain parts 
 of the world, some temerariously presume to affirm, 
 that the Christian people ought to receive the Holy 
 Sacrament of the Eucharist, under both kinds of 
 bread and wine, and do everywhere make the laity 
 communicate not only in bread but in wine also, 
 and pertinaciously assert that communion should 
 take place after supper, or else not fasting, con- 
 trary to the laudable and reasonable custom of the 
 Church, which they damnably endeavour to repro- 
 bate as sacrilegious, this present holy General Coun- 
 cil of Constance, legitimately assembled in the 
 Holy Ghost, being anxious to preserve the faithful 
 from this error, after mature deliberation of per- 
 sons most learned both in divine and human law, 
 declares, decrees, and defines, that, though Christ 
 instituted this venerable Sacrament after supper, 
 and administered it to His disciples under both 
 kinds of bread and wine, yet, notwithstanding this, 
 the laudable authority of the sacred Canons and 
 the approved custom of the Church has observed 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 95 
 
 and observes, that this Sacrament should not be 
 consecrated after supper, nor be received by the 
 faithful unless fasting, except in case of infirmity 
 or other necessity conceded or admitted by right or 
 the Church ; and in like manner, that although in the 
 primitive Church the Sacrament was received by the 
 faithful under both kinds, yet for the avoiding some 
 dangers and scandals, this custom has been reason- 
 ably introduced, that it be received by the conse- 
 crating persons under both kinds, and by the laity 
 only under the bread ; since it is to be most firmly 
 believed, and in no wise to be doubted, that the 
 entire Body and Blood of Christ is truly contained 
 as well under the bread as under the wine 1 ." The 
 primitive Church, we can believe, has authority as 
 the legitimate Expositor of Christ's meaning ; she 
 acts not from her own discretion, but from Christ 
 and His Apostles. We communicate in the morn- 
 ing, not in the evening, though He did in the latter, 
 because she, His work and pattern to us, was used 
 to do so. For the same reason we baptize Infants, 
 and exclude the washing the feet from the number 
 of Sacraments, though His own words literally taken 
 command the latter far more strongly than the 
 former observance. But, what is to be thought 
 of a theology which, on its own authority, on mere 
 grounds of expedience, to avoid dangers and scan- 
 dals, reverses what itself confesses to be the cas- 
 
 1 Perceval on the Roman Schism, pp. 144 — -146. 
 1 
 
96 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 torn of that Church which came next to the Apos- 
 tles? 
 
 Such was the conduct of the Council of Con- 
 stance. Cardinal Cusa justifies its decree in a pas- 
 sage which shall be next quoted. He may be taken 
 as the representative of two great parties in the 
 Church in the fifteenth century. He was present 
 at the Council of Basil, being an upholder of the 
 rights of a General Council above the Pope. After- 
 wards he joined the Pope who was then censured, 
 and assisted at Florence, but without modifying his 
 former opinions. With this double claim upon our 
 notice, he speaks as follows in defence of the refusal 
 of the cup to the laity. " If the Church, or if the 
 Pope, that is the virtual Church, do expound any 
 evangelical sense contrary to what the current sense 
 and practice of the Catholic Primitive Church did, 
 not that, but this present interpretation must be 
 taken for the way of salvation, for God changes 
 His judgment as the Church does V 
 
 Lastly, I quote the words of Cornelius Mussus, 
 Bishop of Bitonto, who assisted at the Council of 
 Trent : — " I for my part, to speak candidly, would 
 
 1 Ep. ii. p. 833, as quoted by Bishop Taylor. (Dissuasive, 
 Works, vol. x. p. 485.) He does not give the Latin in the 
 note, but Stillingfleet (on the Council of Trent, Works, vol. vi. 
 p. 451.) quotes from the same Epistle an equivalent passage : 
 " Scripturas esse ad tempus adaptatas et varie intellectas, ita 
 ut uno tempore secundum currentem universalem Ritum expo- 
 nerentur, mutato Ritu iterum sententia mutaretur." 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 97 
 
 rather credit one Pope in matters touching the 
 faith, than a thousand Augustines, Jeromes, or 
 Gregories '." 
 
 Before concluding, I would briefly remark, that 
 instances such as the foregoing, altogether expose 
 the pretence of some Romanists 2 , that the silence 
 of Antiquity on the subject of their peculiarities 
 arises from a disciplina arcani, as it has been called, 
 or rule of secrecy, practised in the early Church, 
 which forbad the publication of the more sacred 
 articles of faith to the world- at large. For it has 
 now been seen that according to the avowed or 
 implied conviction of their most eminent Divines, 
 there is much actually to censure in the writings 
 of the Fathers, much which is positively hostile 
 to the Roman system. No rule of secrecy could 
 lead honest men to make statements diametrically 
 opposite to their real belief, statements which are 
 now the refuge of those who resist what the Ro- 
 manists consider the real opinion of the men who 
 made them. 
 
 I am led to this remark, because apprehensions 
 have been felt, I would say causelessly, lest those 
 who admit the existence of this primitive rule, or 
 rather usage, were thereby making some dangerous 
 concession to the Romanists ; which it cannot be, 
 if, as the latter avow, the Fathers, not merely fail 
 
 1 Stillingfleet. Grounds, i. 5. § 19. p. 137. 
 
 2 Pagi Ann. 118. n. 9. 
 
 H 
 
98 ON ROMANISM AS [Lect. 
 
 to mention, but actually contradict the Roman 
 peculiarities. But were they only silent respecting 
 them, so as just to admit of the hypothesis of a rule 
 of secresy such as these apologists would have it, at 
 least this would be inconsistent with Bossuet's boast 
 of the " conditions and restrictions" under which 
 the Church has ever exercised her gift of infalli- 
 bility. " Far from wishing," he says in a passage 
 already quoted, but which will be now more justly 
 estimated after the specimens since given of his 
 Church's reckless conduct towards the primitive 
 Fathers, " far from wishing to become absolute 
 mistress of her faith, as is laid to her charge, she 
 has on the contrary done every thing in her power to 
 tie up her own hands, and deprive herself of the means 
 of innovation ; for she not only submits to Scrip- 
 ture, but in order to banish for ever those arbitrary 
 interpretations, which would substitute the whims 
 of man for the word of God, she hath bound herself 
 to interpret it, in what concerns faith and morality, 
 according to the sense of the holy Fathers, from which 
 she professes never to depart.''' That is, she impli- 
 citly obeys, an authority which, even on the 
 more favourable supposition, enjoins nothing, and 
 which, as we have found the fact really to be, ear- 
 nestly protests against the course which she ventures 
 to pursue. 
 
 I make one remark more. Enough has been 
 said to show the hopefulness of our own prospects 
 in the controversy with Rome. We have her own 
 
II.] NEGLECTFUL OF ANTIQUITY. 99 
 
 avowal that the Fathers ought to be followed, and 
 again that she does not follow them ; what more 
 can we require than her witness against herself 
 which is here supplied us ? If such inconsistency 
 is not at once fatal to her claims, which it would 
 seem to be, at least it is a most encouraging omen 
 in our contest with her. We have but to remain 
 pertinaciously and immoveably fixed on the ground 
 of Antiquity ; and, as truth is ours, so will the 
 victory be also. We have joined issue with her, and 
 that in a point which admits of a decision, — of a 
 decision, as she confesses, against herself. Abstract 
 arguments, original views, novel interpretations of 
 Scripture, may be met by similar artifices on the 
 other side ; but historical facts are proof against 
 the force of talent, and remain where they were 
 when it has expended itself. How mere Protes- 
 tants, who rest upon no such solid foundation, are 
 to withstand our common adversary, is not so clear, 
 and not our concern. We would fain make them 
 partakers of our vantage ground ; but since they 
 despise it, they must take care of themselves, and 
 must not complain if we refuse to desert a position 
 which promises to be impregnable, — impregnable 
 both as against Romanists and against themselves. 
 
 h 2 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY MORALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 Enough perhaps was said in the last Lecture to ' 
 show that Romanism, however it may profess a 
 reverence for Antiquity, does not really feel and 
 pay it. There are in fact two elements in opera- 
 tion within the system. As far as it is Catholic 
 and Scriptural, it^, appeals to the Fathers ; as far as 
 it is a corruption, it finds it necessary to supersede 
 them. Viewed in its formal principles and autho- 
 ritative statements, it professes to be the^ cham- 
 pion of past times ; viewed as an active and poli- 
 tical power, as a ruling, grasping, ambitious prin- 
 ciple, in a word, what is expressively called Popery, 
 it exalts the will and pleasure of the existing 
 Church above all authority, whether of Scripture 
 or Antiquity, interpreting the one and disposing of 
 the other by its absolute and arbitrary decree. 
 
 We must take and deal with things as they are, 
 not as they pretend to be. If we are induced to 
 believe the professions of Rome, and make ad- 
 
INFALLIBILITY MORALLY CONSIDERED. 101 
 
 vances towards her as if a sister or a mother 
 Church, which in theory she is, we shall find too 
 late that we are in the arms of a pitiless and 
 unnatural relative, who will but triumph in the 
 arts which have inveigled us within her reach. No ; 
 dismissing the dreams which the romance of early 
 Church history and the high theory of Catholicism 
 will raise in the guileless and inexperienced mind, 
 let us be sure that she is our enemy, and will do 
 us a mischief when she can. In saying and acting 
 on this conviction, we need not depart from Chris- 
 tian charity towards her. We must deal with her 
 as we would towards a friend who is visited by 
 derangement; in great affliction, with all affec- 
 tionate tender thoughts, with tearful regret and 
 a broken heart, but still with a steady eye and a 
 firm hand. For in truth she is -a Church beside 
 herself, abounding in noble gifts and rightful titles, 
 but unable to use them religiously; crafty, obsti- 
 nate, wilful, malicious, cruel, unnatural, as mad- 
 men are. Or rather, she may be said to resemble 
 a demoniac ; possessed with principles, thoughts, 
 and tendencies, not her own, in outward form and 
 in outward powers what God made her, but ruled 
 within by an inexorable spirit, who is sovereign 
 in his management over her, and most subtle 
 and most successful in the use of her gifts. Thus 
 she is her real self only in name, and, till God vouch- 
 safe to restore her, we must treat her as if she were 
 that evil one which governs her. And in saying 
 
102 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [ Lect - 
 
 this, I must not be supposed to deny that there 
 is any real excellence in Romanism even as it is, 
 or any really excellent men adherents to it. Satan 
 ever acts on a system ; various, manifold, and intri- 
 cate, with parts and instruments of different quali- 
 ties, some almost purely evil, others so unexception- 
 able, that in themselves and detached from the 
 end to which all is subservient, they are really 
 " Angels of light," and may be found so to be at 
 the last day. In Romanism there are some things 
 absolutely good, some things only just tainted and 
 sullied, some things corrupted and some things in 
 themselves sinful; but the system itself so called, 
 as a whole, and therefore all parts of it, tend to 
 evil. Of this evil system the main tenet is the 
 Church's infallibility, as on the other hand the 
 principle of that genuine theology out of which 
 it has arisen, is the authority of Catholic Antiquity. 
 In this and the following Lecture, I shall observe 
 upon some of the characteristics of this main error, 
 as we may consider it, viewing it first morally, and 
 then what may be called politically. The points to 
 which I wish to direct attention, as involved in 
 the doctrine of Infallibility, are such as the fol- 
 lowing : That Romanism considers unclouded cer- 
 tainty necessary for a Christian's faith and hope ; 
 That it considers doubt incompatible with practi- 
 cal abidance in the truth ; That it aims at form- 
 ing a complete and consistent theology ; That in 
 forming it, it neglects authority, and rests upon 
 
III.] MORALLY CONSIDERED. 105 
 
 abstract arguments : That it criticizes and disposes 
 of the Christian scheme on antecedent grounds ; 
 and that it substitutes a technical and formal obe- 
 dience for the spirit of love. I notice these pe- 
 culiarities in order to draw intelligible lines of 
 demarcation between Romanists and ourselves; and 
 first will treat of them in a moral point of view. 
 
 1 . The doctrine of the Church's Infallibility is made 
 to rest upon the notion that any degree of doubt 
 about religious truth is incompatible with faith, 
 and that an external infallible assurance is neces- 
 sary to exclude doubt. " Proof '," or certainty of 
 the things believed, is secured upon two conditions ; 
 if there be a God, " who cannot lie," as the source 
 of Revelation, and if the Church be Infallible to 
 convey it. Otherwise, it is urged, what is called 
 faith is merely opinion, as being but partially or 
 probably certain. To this statement it is sufficient 
 to reply here, that according to English principles, 
 faith has all it needs in having only the former of 
 these two secured to it, in knowing that God is 
 our Creator and Preserver, and that He may, if it 
 so happen, have spoken. This indeed is its trial 
 and its praise, so to hang upon the thought of 
 Him, and desire Him, as not to wait till it knows 
 for certain from infallible informants whether or 
 no He has spoken, but to act in the way which 
 
 1 Heb. xi. 1. Bellarm. de Gratia, vi. 3. 
 
104 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 seems on the whole most likely to please Him. 
 If we are asked, how Faith differs from Opinion, 
 we reply, in its considering His being, governance, 
 and will as a matter of personal interest and im- 
 portance to us, not in the degree of light or dark- 
 ness under which it perceives these truths. When 
 we are not personally concerned, even the highest 
 evidence does not move us; when we are con- 
 cerned, the very slightest is enough. Though we 
 knew for certain that the planet Jupiter were in 
 flames, we should go on as usual; whereas even 
 the confused cry of fire at night rouses us from 
 our beds. Action is the criterion of faith, as de- 
 termining accurately whether we connect the 
 thought of God with the thought of ourselves, 
 and regard Him otherwise than we regard the 
 solar system. And as well might we say that the 
 man who acts upon a letter from a friend does not 
 believe his friend because he is not infallibly sure 
 the letter is not forged, as deny that such men 
 have real faith as hear the Church and obey, though 
 they have no assurance that in reporting God's 
 words, she cannot err. Nay, doubt may even be 
 said to be implied in a Christian's faith. Not that 
 infallible certainty would take away all trial of our 
 hearts and force us to obey, nor again as if nothing 
 were clearly told us by Revelation, for much is ; 
 but that the greater the uncertainty, the fuller 
 exercise there is of our earnestness in seeking the 
 truth, and of our moral sagacity in tracing and 
 
III.] MORALLY CONSIDERED. 105 
 
 finding it. As reasonably then might fear, de- 
 spondency, dulness of mind, or heaviness of spirit 
 be judged inconsistent with faith as doubt. Im- 
 perfection of every kind, moral and natural, is a 
 trial or temptation, and is met by striving and 
 acting against it. Scripture is full of instances in 
 point as regards faith. It has been remarked, that 
 our Saviour scarcely once declared to inquirers that 
 He was the Christ; though their impatience on 
 many occasions showed how hard they felt it to 
 flesh and blood to act without an infallible assur- 
 ance. He left them to gather the great truth for 
 themselves how they could, with whatever degree 
 of certainty, sometimes referring them to His mira- 
 cles, sometimes to the types or prophecies of the 
 Law, sometimes to His forerunner the Baptist, 
 sometimes urging them to make trial of the truth 
 in practice and so to find it. When St. Thomas 
 doubted of His resurrection, far from justifying 
 his demand for an infallible witness, He declared 
 that He was but diminishing His blessedness by 
 giving him a higher evidence of the miracle than 
 he had already received. On one occasion, indeed, 
 He did publicly declare Himself to be the Christ, 
 but, as we shall find, it was not in love but . in 
 wrath. It was in answer to the adjuration of the 
 High Priest, whom He forthwith awfully consigned 
 to the destiny of those miserable beings, who being 
 totally estranged from their Maker, do but believe 
 and tremble. And, as is His conduct during His 
 
106 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 ministry, such is the uniform doctrine of the whole 
 of Scripture, summed up, as it is, in the expressive 
 words of the Prophet, " Who is among you that 
 feareth the Lord, who heareth the voice of His 
 servant, who walketh in darkness and hath no 
 light ? Let him hope in the name of the Lord, and 
 stay upon his God V This is only parallel to what 
 we see in the course of nature ; the proofs of the 
 being of a God are not written on the sun and sky, 
 nor the precepts of morality spoken from a Urim 
 and Thummim. To require such definite and clear 
 notices of truth, is to hanker after the Jewish Law, 
 a system of less mysterious information as well as 
 less generous faith. 
 
 2. This leads me to notice an important peculiarity 
 of Romanism, to which such a temper gives rise. 
 According to its theory, the Church professes to 
 know only what the Apostles knew, to have received 
 just what they delivered, neither more nor less. 
 But in fact, she is obliged to pretend to a complete 
 knowledge of the whole Dispensation, such as the 
 Apostles had not. Unless we know all of any 
 subject we must have difficulties, and where there 
 are difficulties so far there is no infallible know- 
 ledge. To know some things infallibly, implies 
 that we know all things. Or, to put the matter 
 more clearly, where there is knowledge of but a 
 portion of a system, one part of what is known is 
 
 1 Isaiah 1. 10. 
 
III.] MORALLY CONSIDERED. 107 
 
 more plain and certain to us than another part, and 
 can be spoken of more confidently ; thus the clear- 
 ness of our view will be indefinitely varied, but 
 there are no degrees in Infallibility. Now partial 
 and incomplete knowledge must be an inseparable 
 attendant on a theology which reveals the wonders 
 of heaven. The human mind cannot measure the 
 things of the Spirit. Christianity is a supernatural 
 gift, originating in the unseen world and only ex- 
 tending into this. It is a vast scheme, running out 
 into width and breadth, encompassing us round 
 about, not embraced by us. No one can see the 
 form of a building but those who are external to 
 it. We are within the Divine Dispensation ; we 
 cannot take it in with the eye, ascertain its pro- 
 portions, pursue its lines, foretell their directions 
 and coincidences, or ascertain their limits. We 
 see enough for practice, but not even as much as 
 this with an equal degree of clearness ; but one 
 part more clearly than another. These detached 
 portions of a complicated system necessarily vary in 
 the precision and definiteness with which they come 
 to the mind. That which is set before it in many 
 of its relations is more fully understood and grasped 
 than that which is only just revealed. When the 
 mind knows a certain part of a system, it can- 
 not ascertain the limits of its knowledge ; as the 
 eye when fixed on any object cannot determine 
 how much it indirectly sees all around it. Surely 
 the Apostles themselves, though infallibly sure of 
 
108 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 the greater truths, could not determine the limits 
 of their infallibility. To know the lesser truths 
 as they knew the main ones, had been to open a 
 fresh field of knowledge beyond, in the way of 
 deduction and implication. It would have been 
 like moving the eye to a new object, which brings 
 it into a new range of vision. Thus, I say, to know 
 all that is revealed with equal clearness, implies 
 that there is nothing not revealed. Agreeably 
 with this anticipation, the Church of Rome in fact 
 is led to profess to know not only infallibly but 
 completely. She begins by claiming the power of 
 infallibly determining whatever the Apostles knew, 
 of accurately stating all such lesser matters as they 
 would not be able to realize to themselves as cer- 
 tain, of rendering equally vivid all those marvellous 
 traces of things invisible which in the first inspired 
 teachers would gradually melt from distinctness in 
 their outlines into dim distance or into minute 
 intricacy of detail. And, in consequence, she is 
 led on from this profession of uniform clearness 
 to a profession of universal knowledge. 
 
 This then is a second and not the least pernicious 
 peculiarity of Romanism. It professes to be a com- 
 plete theology. It arranges, adjusts, explains, ex- 
 hausts every part of the Divine Economy. It mav 
 be said to leave no region unexplored, no heights 
 unattempted, rounding off its doctrines with a neat- 
 ness and finish which is destructive of many of the 
 most noble and most salutary exercises of mind in 
 
III.] MORALLY CONSIDERED. 109 
 
 the individual Christian. That feeling of awe 
 and piety which the mysteriousness of the Gospel 
 should excite fades away under this fictitious illu- 
 mination which is poured over the entire Dispensa- 
 tion. Criticism, we know, is commonly considered 
 fatal to poetical fervour and imagination ; and in 
 like manner this technical religion destroys the 
 delicacy and reverence of the Christian mind. So 
 little has actually been revealed to us in a sys- 
 tematic way, that the genuine science of the Gos- 
 pel, carried to its furthest limits, has no tendency 
 to foster a spirit of rationalism. But Rome would 
 classify and number every thing ; she would settle 
 every sort of question, as if determined to detect 
 and compass by the reason what runs out into the 
 next world or is lost in this. Revelation so melts 
 into Providence that we cannot draw the line be- 
 tween them. Miraculous events shade off into 
 natural coincidences, visions into dreams, types 
 into resemblances ; Inspiration has before now 
 spoken among Idolaters and Pagans ; the Church 
 itself gradually fades away into the world. What- 
 ever subject in religion we examine accurately, 
 we shall find full of difficulties. Whether miracles 
 have ceased, and, if so, at what date ? how long 
 Catholic doctrine was preserved from human addi- 
 tions? how far Gospel privileges are extended to 
 separatists ? how much must be believed by indi- 
 viduals in order to salvation? what is the state of 
 unbaptized Infants ? what amount of temporal 
 
110 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 punishment must be set against the sins of ac- 
 cepted Christians ? what sort of change takes place 
 in the 'consecration of the Eucharist ? all these are 
 questions which man cannot determine, yet such 
 as these Romanists delight to handle. Not con- 
 tent with what is revealed, they are ever intruding 
 into things not seen as yet, and growing familiar 
 with mysteries ; gazing upon the ark of God over 
 boldly and long, till they venture to put out the 
 hand and to touch it. But, not to dwell upon this 
 part of the subject, which is painful, it is sufficiently 
 evident what an opening is given by a theology of so 
 ambitious a character to pride and self-confidence. 
 It has been said that knowledge is power ; and at 
 least it creates in us the imagination of possessing 
 it. This is what makes scientific and physical 
 researches so intoxicating ; it is the feeling they 
 inspire of perfect acquaintance with the constitu- 
 tion of nature. He who considers himself fully to 
 understand a system, seems to have sway over it. 
 Astronomers can predict the motions of the hea- 
 venly bodies, with an accuracy which in their own 
 fancy places them above them. Now religion is 
 the great chastiser of human pride; nor would I 
 s ay, that however perverted, it ever can cease to 
 be so ; yet it is plain that when thus turned into 
 an intellectual science, even polytheism answers 
 such a purpose better than it. 
 
 I have been speaking in general language ; it will 
 tend to explain my meaning to take an instance 
 
Ill] MORALLY CONSIDERED. HI 
 
 of this venturesome speculativeness in Romanism, 
 and suppression of more reverent, wondering, 
 and expectant thoughts. With this view, let us 
 consider their doctrine of Satisfaction ; which I 
 will describe as briefly as the intricate nature of 
 the subject will allow. 
 
 No questions in religion are more painfully in- 
 teresting to the awakened mind than those relating 
 to the forgiveness of its sins. Revelation has an- 
 swered some of the main obscurities of the subject, 
 but has left others. It asserts the doctrine of 
 everlasting punishment to the finally impenitent, 
 and it j)roclaims pardon and salvation to all who 
 repent, believe, and obey. Further it declares that 
 the death of Christ upon the cross has put away 
 the wrath of God from us, and reconciled Him to 
 us : that this precious Atonement is applied to 
 every individual on his Baptism, and that it is 
 realized in his soul and body in a peculiar way in 
 the holy Eucharist ; lastly, that its virtue flows in 
 various indirect and indefinite ways by means of 
 the ministrations of the Church, to whom also these 
 Sacraments are entrusted. But this is nearly all 
 that is told us. We do not know how the death 
 of Christ operates to our salvation ; we do not 
 know why it was required, or what is its full design 
 and effect. We do not know what it effects for 
 the heathen ; we do not know whether or how it 
 influences the state of Infants dying unbaptized. 
 Coming to questions more nearly interesting us, we 
 
 1 
 
] 12 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 do not know what will be the future destiny, whether 
 of happiness or misery, of the body of baptized per- 
 sons, who certainly seem to live and die in an 
 unchristian way. We do not know the measure 
 of punishment due for particular sins, or if there 
 be any measure. We do not know how far sins 
 committed after Baptism are forgiven, i. e. what 
 permanent disadvantages remain after forgiveness, 
 what diminution of rewards otherwise attainable, 
 or the like. We do not know what the effect of 
 prior services may be, in those who sin deeply, and 
 afterwards repent, but without much subsequent 
 fruit. We do not know how far the Eucharistic 
 rite avails to their pardon, or to whose pardon it 
 avails, and under what circumstances. We do not 
 know how and when the intercession of others 
 operates towards our repentance and pardon. Nor 
 can we cast the balance between the outward ad- 
 vantages and disadvantages of any one individual 
 and his works or failings, or decide upon his state 
 in God's sight. Nor do we know when forgiveness 
 is formally conveyed to individual Christians who 
 have lapsed into sin, whether in this life, or upon 
 death, or during the intermediate state, or at the 
 day of judgment. All these are " secret things 
 with the Lord our God," things not lightly to be 
 spoken of, not dreams of our own, which, as not 
 existing, have no answer, but such as have an 
 answer one way or the other, though we do not 
 know which way, and it is presumptuous to inquire. 
 
III.] MORALLY CONSIDERED. IIS 
 
 Now, while impatience of doubt leads the Protestant 
 of this day to treat all such questions as inherently 
 fanciful, creations of the mind, and not questions 
 of fact, the same impatience leads the Romanist to 
 answer them. 
 
 Their answers are of the following kind '. 
 
 They consider with us that Baptism is a plenary 
 and absolute remission of all sin whatever, original 
 and actual, with which the baptized person is laden. 
 Then, as to sin committed after Baptism, they 
 proceed to divide it into two kinds, venial and 
 mortal. Mortal sins are such as throw the soul 
 out of a state of grace, and deserve eternal punish- 
 ment, such as murder, adultery, or blasphemy. 
 Venial sins deserve a punishment short of eternal, 
 a punishment, (that is,) in time, or before the day 
 of judgment. These are such either in hind or 
 degree; an idle word, excessive laughter differ in 
 kind from perjury or adultery ; but a sudden and 
 passing anger is but in degree different from in- 
 dulged and lasting wrath, which is mortal. For 
 venial sins there is no formal means of Absolution, 
 or Sacrament, dispensed by the Church ; their pu- 
 nishment, whatever it is, but any how at most tem- 
 poral only, remains to be endured, or to be averted 
 
 * " Turn Velleius, fidenter sane, ut solent isti, nihil tam verens, 
 quam ne dubitare aliqua de re videretur, tanquam modo ex 
 Deorum concilio, et ex Epicuri intermundiis descendisset ; Au- 
 dite, inquit, non futiles commentitiasque sententias, &c." — Cic. 
 de Nat. Deor. i. 8. 
 
 I 
 
114 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 by certain expedients, some of which shall presently 
 be noticed. 
 
 Mortal sin deserves not a mere temporal retri- 
 bution, though this it incurs also, but an eternal 
 punishment; in other words, it incurs a punish- 
 ment both before and after the day of judgment. 
 Upon repentance the eternal punishment is for- 
 given, and that through the Sacrament of Penance, 
 and then the temporal punishment alone remains, 
 which that Sacrament does not reach. It seems 
 then, that according to the Roman doctrine, a soul 
 in a state of grace, though rescued from all eternal 
 consequences of his sins, or from any hazard in the 
 day of judgment, remains liable to a certain tem- 
 poral punishment in two ways, for venial sins and 
 for mortal sins forgiven as to their eternal conse- 
 quences. This distinction between the temporal 
 and eternal consequences of sin, its advocates 
 illustrate in David, who, though expressly for- 
 given his adultery and murder, so far as not to 
 " die," yet had a heavy temporal chastisement put 
 upon him in this life. They consider there is a 
 certain fixed correspondence between sins of what- 
 ever kind and the punishment of them : so that 
 every Christian will have a definite quantity of pu- 
 nishment to undergo before the coming of Christ to 
 judge the world and to take him to his eternal rest. 
 
 The time of suffering this punishment, or of 
 expiating his sins in their temporal respects, is 
 the interval between their commission and the 
 
III.] MORALLY CONSIDERED. 115 
 
 day of judgment ; and since each sin has its specific 
 measure of suffering, if he does not exhaust it in 
 this life, he must complete it in the intermediate 
 state, and the more he sustains here the less 
 he will have to sustain there. And, since this 
 life is a state of grace, and suffering here is far 
 less severe than suffering in the intermediate 
 state (i. e. in Purgatory) it is his interest, as far as 
 may be, to expiate his sins here. Hence the 
 utility of penances, either imposed by the Church 
 or voluntary in the offender, with a view of satis- 
 fying the punishment due to his sins. Hence tog 
 the advantage of abounding in good works, which 
 in the regenerate man, besides availing to eternal 
 life, are considered to have an inherent efficacy in 
 the expiation of sin. A like efficacy, but proceed- 
 ing immediately from the great Atoning Sacrifice, 
 is considered to lie in the Eucharistic Offering. 
 
 Even this is not the limit to which they carry 
 their systematic account xy{ the pardon of sin. After 
 all appliances, whether by penances, good works, or 
 the holy Sacrifice of the Altar, it is considered that 
 the multitude of Christians leave this life with a 
 considerable debt of temporal punishment standing 
 against them, and are certainly destined to suffer 
 in Purgatory. On the other hand it is conjectured 
 that certain great Saints leave this world after an 
 overplus of temporal suffering, whatever their sins 
 may have been. Men like Jeremiah or John the 
 Baptist, sanctified as they were from their mother's 
 
 i2 
 
116 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 womb, singularly holy and useful, and uniformly 
 suffering until their martyrdom, have more than 
 satisfied divine justice for such venial offences as 
 have overtaken them, and render up to God to- 
 gether with their obedience a store of sufferings 
 which have, as far as they are concerned, answered 
 no purpose. Considering then the virtue and pro- 
 perties of that mysterious Communion which exists 
 between all Christians, that they are all but one 
 body, and have all things common, it is concluded 
 that what is done or suffered over and above by 
 the Saints, may be put to the score of the souls in 
 Purgatory; and that the Church, represented in 
 her ministers and especially in the Pope, is the 
 agent in this sacred interchange. To the Pope, 
 then, is committed the key of this treasurehouse of 
 the merits of the Saints, together with those of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ ; and he dispenses it according 
 to his discretion. This benefit is called an Indul- 
 gence, which is an application of the merits of the 
 Saints in lieu of a certain penance in this life or of 
 an equivalent suffering in Purgatory. 
 
 The importance of the subject under review, 
 must be my excuse for the length of what has been 
 but an illustration. Enough perhaps has now been 
 said to show the bold exactness of Romanism in 
 determining theological points, and this in conse- 
 quence of its claim of Infallibility, which leads 
 it to be positive and complete, so soon as it men- 
 tions them at all. 
 
III.] MORALLY CONSIDERED. 117 
 
 3. Another and distinct evil, and of a very serious 
 character, which follows from the doctrine of In- 
 fallibility, is of the following kind. The practice 
 of systematizing necessarily leads to a decision 
 concerning the relative importance of doctrines. 
 Every system has its principal and its secondary 
 parts, and views one in connection with another, 
 as bearing together with more or less influence 
 upon the whole, or upon some main portion which 
 it considers essential and supreme. Of course 
 religion has its greater and its lesser truths ; but 
 it is one thing to receive them so far as Scripture 
 declares them to be so, quite another to decide 
 about them for ourselves by the help of our own 
 reasonings. However, it is not wonderful that 
 Romanism should claim authority over the work 
 of its own hands ; it has framed the system and 
 it proceeds to judge of it. But this is not all. 
 They who are resolved that the Divine counsels 
 and appointments should be cognisable by the 
 human intellect, are naturally tempted to assign 
 some visible and intelligible object as the scope 
 of the whole Dispensation ; or, in other words, they 
 make in some shape or other worldly expediency 
 the measure of its excellence and wisdom. I do 
 not say they are forced, but they are easily be- 
 trayed into doing this. They ask what is the use 
 of this doctrine, what the actual harm of that 
 error ; as if the experience of results were neces- 
 
118 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 sary before condemning the one and sanctioning 
 the other. This, as is obvious, is strikingly in- 
 stanced in the religion popular among us at the 
 present day, in which only so much of the high 
 doctrines of the Gospel is admitted, as is seen and 
 felt to tend to our moral improvement. Accord- 
 ing to it, the most striking and persuasive proof of 
 the divine origin of Christianity, lies in the har- 
 monious adjustment and correspondence, and the 
 evident meaning of its parts. One of the ablest 
 defenders of this view, at the close of a popular 
 Essay, even ventures to speak as follows : " It has 
 been my object," he says, " to draw the attention 
 of the reader to the internal structure of the reli- 
 gion of the Bible, first, because I am convinced 
 that no man in the unfettered exercise of his un- 
 derstanding can fully and cordially acquiesce in 
 its pretensions to divine inspiration, until he sees 
 in its substance that which accords both with the 
 character of God and with the wants of man ; and 
 secondly, because any admission of its divine ori- 
 ginal, if unaccompanied with a knowledge of its 
 principles, is absolutely useless 1 ." Here, unless 
 I am unjust to the writer, it is plainly asserted that 
 the understanding has a right to claim an insight 
 into the meaning and drift of the matter of Reve- 
 lation ; nay, that faith is not available unless ac- 
 
 1 Erskine's Internal Evidence. 
 
III.] MORALLY CONSIDERED. ] 19 
 
 companied by this knowledge ; principles surely 
 which would have justified Abraham when called 
 from his native country, to have refused to go, till he 
 was told whither he was being carried. Yet such 
 principles are now in repute; and much is popu- 
 larly said about the beauty of the Christian system, 
 the unity of its aim, the simplicity of its contriv- 
 ance for the conversion of the soul, its originality, 
 its correlative and corresponding portions, and the 
 manifestation of the divine character contained in 
 it. Such is the main subject of the Treatise to which 
 I have been referring, and the same views are re- 
 peated again and again in the Sermons ' of a Divine 
 of the sister Establishment, who is never to be 
 mentioned without respect and sympathy. Such 
 is the popular Protestantism of the day. Now one 
 might have hoped that Romanism would have been 
 clear of the fault into which the rival system has 
 been betrayed. One might have trusted before- 
 hand to its very propensity to enlarge on the secrets 
 of heaven, as at least a guarantee that no one end, 
 and still less a visible end, would be proposed by its 
 controversialists as a measure of gospel excellence 
 and truth. Yet, strange to say, as if to show the 
 agreement of temper and character between the 
 one and the other creed as actually administered, 
 we find one of the latest advocates of Rome claim- 
 ing the privilege of criticising and applauding the 
 
 1 Dr. Chalmers' Sermons at the Tron Church. 
 
120 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 Gospel as a system. He observes that there is 
 something in Romanism " beautifully contrasted, 
 to the eye of the philosopher, with the manifest 
 imperfections of" what he calls the Protestant 
 " system. There is a natural and obvious beauty 
 in the simplicity of this basis, which at once gives 
 stability and unity to conviction." In another 
 place he observes, " the end of every rule and law, 
 and consequently of every rule of Faith," is " to 
 bring men into a unity of principle and action;" 
 that " the rule proposed by others is proved by 
 experience to lead to exactly opposite results ; in 
 other words, that it removes men farther from 
 that union towards which it must be intended to 
 bring them, for it leads them to the most contra- 
 dictory opinions, professing to be supported and 
 proved by precisely the same principle of Faith ;" 
 whereas " the principle" of Romanism is " fully 
 equal to those objects for which the rule was 
 given 1 ." Now, I am far from denying there is 
 soundness and truth in the argument, as used both 
 by the Roman and the Scotch Divines ; the process 
 is sound when used under limitations, the conclusion 
 is in a measure true. But both the one party and 
 the other, evidently put forth their respective views 
 as convincing and decisive proofs, as independent 
 and substantive evidences ; and that they are not 
 such, is shown, if in no other way, at least in this, 
 
 1 Dr. Wiseman's Lectures, vol. i. pp. 17. 76. 
 
III.] MORALLY CONSIDERED. 121 
 
 that they are adduced by their respective advocates 
 in order to prove contradictories. Now what leads 
 to opposite conclusions is no real test of truth. How- 
 ever, we are here concerned merely with the fact 
 of this mischievous peculiarity of Romanism, which 
 it has in common with some other modern systems, 
 its subjecting divine truth to the intellect, and 
 professing to take a complete survey and to make 
 a map of it. 
 
 4. One more remark shall be made, though as it 
 is often urged in controversy, a few words on the 
 subject will suffice. Romanism by its pretence of 
 Infallibility, lowers the standard and quality of 
 Gospel obedience as well as impairs its mysterious 
 and sacred character; and this in various ways. 
 When religion is reduced in all its parts to a system, 
 there is hazard of something earthly being made 
 the chief object of our contemplation instead of our 
 Maker. Now Romanism classifies our duties and 
 their rewards, the things to believe, the things to 
 do, the modes of pleasing God, the penalties and 
 the remedies of sin, with such exactness, that an 
 individual knows (so to speak) just where he is 
 upon his journey heavenward, how far he has got, 
 how much he has to pass, and his duties become a 
 matter of calculation. It provides us with a sort 
 of graduated scale of devotion and obedience, and 
 engrosses our thoughts with the details of a mere 
 system, to a comparative forgetfulness of its pro- 
 fessed Author. But it is evident that the purest 
 
122 DOCTKINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 religious services are those which are done, not by 
 constraint, but voluntarily, as a free offering to 
 Almighty God. There are certain duties which 
 are indispensable in all Christians, but their limits 
 are undefined, to try our faith and love. For in- 
 stance, what portion of our worldly substance we 
 should devote to charitable uses, or in what way 
 we are to fast, or how we are to dress, or whether 
 we should remain single, or what revenge we should 
 take upon our sins, or what amusements are allow- 
 able, or how far we may go into society; these 
 and similar questions are left open by Inspiration. 
 Some of them are determined by the Church, and 
 suitably, with a view to public decency and order, 
 or by way of recommendation and sanction to her 
 members. A command from authority is to a cer- 
 tain point a protection to our modesty, though be- 
 yond this it would but act as a burden. For in- 
 stance, at this very time, when the practice of 
 fasting has become so unpopular, in spite of the 
 Church's rule, it would be a great comfort to indi- 
 viduals who wish to observe it, yet dread singula- 
 rity in so doing, did the custom exist, as I believe 
 it did once, of pastoral letters at the beginning of 
 Lent, enforcing it from authority. But in most 
 matters of the kind, certainly when questions of 
 degree are concerned, the best rule seems to be to 
 leave individuals free, lest what otherwise would be 
 a spontaneous service in the more zealous, should 
 become a compulsory enactment upon all. This is 
 
 1 
 
III.] MORALLY CONSIDERED. 123 
 
 the true Christian . liberty, not the prerogative of 
 obeying God, or not, as we please, but the opportu- 
 nity of obeying Him more strictly without formal 
 commandment. In this way, too, the delicacy and 
 generous simplicity of our obedience is consulted, 
 as well as our love put to trial. Christ loves an 
 open-hearted service, done without our contem- 
 plating or measuring what we do, from the fulness 
 of affection and reverence, while the mind is fixed 
 on its Great Object without thought of itself. Now 
 express commands lead us to reflect upon and es- 
 timate our advances towards perfection, whereas 
 true faith will mainly contemplate its deficiencies, 
 not its poor attainments, whatever they be. It 
 does not like to realize to itself what it does; it 
 throws off the thought of it ; it is carried on and 
 reaches forward towards perfection, not counting 
 the steps it has ascended, but keeping the end 
 steadily in its eye, knowing only that it is advanc- 
 ing, and glorying in each sacrifice or service which 
 it is allowed to offer, as it occurs, not remembering 
 it afterwards. But in Romanism there would seem 
 to be little room for this unconscious devotion. 
 Each deed has its price, every quarter of the land 
 of promise is laid down and described. Roads are 
 carefully marked out, and such as would attain to 
 perfection are constrained to move in certain lines, 
 as if there were a science of gaining heaven. Thus 
 the Saints are cut off from the Christian multitude 
 by certain fixed duties, not rising out of it by the 
 
124 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 continuous growth and flowing forth of services 
 which in their substance pertain to all men. And 
 Christian holiness, in consequence, loses its fresh- 
 ness, vigour, and comeliness, being frozen (as it 
 were) into certain attitudes, which are not graceful 
 except when unstudied. 
 
 The injury resulting to the multitude from the 
 same circumstance, is of a different but not less 
 serious nature. While, of those who aim at the 
 more perfect obedience, many are made self-satis- 
 fied and still more formal, the mass of Christians 
 are either discouraged from attempting or counten- 
 anced in neglecting it. It requires very little 
 knowledge of human nature, to perceive how rea- 
 dily a doctrine will be embraced and followed which 
 sanctions a secondary standard of holiness, or which 
 allows the performance of certain duties to make 
 up for the disregard of others. If, indeed, there is 
 one offence more than the rest characteristic of 
 Romanism, it is this, its indulging the carnal tastes 
 of the multitude of men, setting a limit to their 
 necessary obedience, and absolving them from the 
 duty of sacrificing their whole lives to God. And 
 this serious deceit is in no small degree the neces- 
 sary consequence of that completeness and minute- 
 ness in its theology to which the doctrine of Infalli- 
 bility gives rise. 
 
 The foregoing remarks are not intended as any 
 sufficient discussion of the subject under consider- 
 
III.] MORALLY CONSIDERED. 125 
 
 ation, but are made with a view of discriminating 
 between Romanism and our own creed. In the 
 former Lectures it was observed that the abstract 
 and professed principles of both systems were often 
 the same, but that in practice, the question of the 
 Church's Infallibility created a wide and serious dif- 
 ference between them. We now see, in a measure, 
 in what this difference consists, viz., in Romanism 
 adopting a minute, technical, and imperative theo- 
 logy, which is no part of Revelation, and which 
 produces a number of serious moral evils, which is 
 shallow in philosophy, as professing to exclude 
 doubt and imperfection, and dangerous to the 
 Christian spirit, as encouraging us to ask for more 
 than is given us, as fostering irreverence and pre- 
 sumption, confidence in our reason, and a formal 
 or carnal view of Christian obedience. What fur- 
 ther evils arise from the political character of 
 these same peculiarities, shall be reserved for a 
 separate Lecture. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY POLITICALLY 
 CONSIDERED. 
 
 If the object of Rome be to teach moral Truth in 
 its highest or purest form, like a prophet or philo- 
 sopher, intent upon it more than upon those whom 
 she addresses, and by the very beauty of holiness, 
 and the unconscious rhetoric of her own earnest- 
 ness, drawing up souls to her, rather than by any 
 elaborate device, certainly she has failed in that 
 end, as was shown in my last Lecture. But if her 
 one and supreme end is to rule the human mind, 
 if man is the object of her thoughts and efforts, 
 and religion but the means of approaching him, if 
 earth is to be the standard, and heaven the instru- 
 ment, then we must confess, that she is most happy 
 in her religious system. What is low in the scale 
 of moral truth, may be the perfection of worldly 
 wisdom ; or rather, principles of action which stand 
 first in the school of rhetoric, or politics, are neces- 
 
INFALLIBILITY POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 127 
 
 sarily unworthy the ethical teacher. Now the 
 Church of Rome is a political power ; and, if she 
 stunts, or distorts the growth of the soul in spiri- 
 tual excellence, it is because, whether unconsciously 
 or not, she has in view political objects, visible 
 fruits, temporal expediency, the power of influenc- 
 ing the heart, as the supreme aim and scope of her 
 system ; because she considers unity, peace, the 
 public confession of the truth, sovereignty, empire, 
 the one practical end for which the Church is 
 formed, the one necessary condition of those other 
 and unknown benefits, whatever these be, which 
 lie beyond it in the next world. I am now 
 to illustrate this peculiarity; and in order that 
 there may be no mistake, I will briefly say what 
 I am to do. I do not attempt to prove that Ro- 
 manism is a political power ; so well known a fact 
 may be taken for granted ; but I wish to show 
 that those same principles, involved in the doctrine 
 of Infallibility, which distinguish it from our own 
 creed, morally, conduce to that special political 
 character, which also distinguishes it from our own ; 
 that, what is morally a disadvantage, is a political 
 gain : I mean their neglect of the Fathers, their ab- 
 stract reasonings, and their attention to system. 
 
 1. Now, first, their political temper is the cause 
 of their treating the Ancient Fathers with the 
 rudeness and recklessness which has been instanced. 
 Rome acts, like men of keen and impetuous minds, 
 
128 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 in their dealings with the old or infirm ; she super- 
 sedes them because they are hard of hearing, are 
 slow to answer, are circuitous in their motions, and 
 go their own way to work. The most vigorous 
 and commanding intellects, through the interposing 
 medium of centuries, will pour but a feeble and 
 uncertain ray, compared with their original lustre ; 
 and Rome considers it better to supersede them 
 with fresh luminaries, than doubtingly and pain- 
 fully to use them. Emergencies have happened, 
 notions have been circulated, changes have been 
 effected in the Christian Church, which were not 
 contemplated, even in fancy, and can but be indi- 
 rectly met by the Fathers ; — which, moreover, as 
 creating exceptions to some general rules, and ob- 
 literating exceptions to others, have given their 
 writings an interpretation, which they were never 
 intended to bear. Thus while the highest truths 
 remain in them immutable, to develope and apply 
 them duly in particulars, is the work of much deli- 
 cacy, and gives an opening to ingenious perversions 
 of their meaning. Here, then, is a second reason 
 why Romanists have been jealous of the Fathers, 
 over and above the weakness of their own cause. 
 They have dreaded the range and complication of 
 materials thus made the body of proof, which from 
 the nature of the case might as easily be made a 
 handle for the errors of others, as a touchstone of 
 their own. Bent upon action, not speculation, they 
 
IV.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 129 
 
 are unwilling to allow to heretical sophistry the 
 opportunities of so large a field, and are ready to 
 go great lengths to hinder it. 
 
 The difficulty in question is ours as well as theirs, 
 but we do not make it a difficulty. We, for our 
 part, have been taught to consider that faith in its 
 degree as well as conduct, must be guided by proba- 
 bilities, and that doubt is ever our portion in this 
 life. We can bear to confess that other systems 
 have their unanswerable arguments in matters of 
 detail, and that we are but striking a balance be- 
 tween difficulties existing on both sides ; that we 
 are following as the voice of God, what on the 
 whole we have reason to think such. We are 
 not bent (to God be the praise !) on proselyting, 
 organizing, and ruling as the end of life and the 
 summum bonum of a Christian community, but have 
 brought ourselves to give our testimony " whether 
 men will hear, or whether they will forbear," 
 and then to leave the matter to God. And, while 
 we are keen and firm in action, we would rather 
 do so according to the occasion, and because it is 
 right to be so, than as connecting our separate 
 efforts into one whole, and contemplating ulterior 
 measures. We would rather act as a duty towards 
 God, the Great Author and Object of their faith, 
 than with unclouded and infallible apprehension of 
 the subject-matter which He sets before us, with a 
 vigorous will, creating for ourselves those realities 
 which the external world but faintly adumbrates, 
 
 K 
 
130 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 but which we know we ought to discern in it. 
 Those who are thus minded, will be patient under 
 the inconveniences of an historical controversy. 
 Perceiving that on the whole facts point to cer- 
 tain definite conclusions, and not to their contraries, 
 they will act upon those conclusions unhesitatingly ; 
 illuminate what, though true, is obscure, by acting 
 upon it ; call upon others to do the same ; and leave 
 them to God if they will refuse. But it will be 
 otherwise with the man of ardent political temper, 
 and prompt and practical habits, the sagacious and 
 aspiring man of the world, the scrutinizer of the 
 \ heart, and conspirator against its privileges and 
 \ rights. Such a one will understand that the mul- 
 titude requires a strong doctrine; that the argu- 
 /ment "it is because it is," a hundred times repeated 
 has more weight with them than the most delicate, 
 ably connected, and multiplied processes of proof; 
 : and that, (as is undeniable), investigations into the 
 J grounds of our belief, do but blunt and enfeeble 
 i the energy of those who are called upon to act. 
 | He will feel all this, and instead of opening himself 
 1 to its influence, so far only as Revelation has sanc- 
 tioned, and dispensing with inquiry within the 
 exact limits in which it is mercifully superseded, 
 he will impatiently complete what he considers 
 to have been left imperfect. He will not be con- 
 tent to take moral truth as it comes to him ; but 
 he will drug it, as vintners do their wines, to suit 
 the palate of the many. Accordingly, I could 
 
IV.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 131 
 
 almost believe that the advocates of Romanism 
 would easily be reconciled to the loss of all the 
 Fathers, (should such a mischance happen), as 
 thinking with a barbarian conqueror, that as far as 
 they agreed with Rome, they were superfluous, and 
 where they disagreed, dangerous. Certainly it 
 would much simplify the theory of their religion 
 to be rid of them. Of course I speak only of 
 hardened controversialists, not of Romanists in 
 general, among whom, I doubt not, are many 
 whose names are written in heaven, minds as 
 high, as pure, and as reverential as any of those 
 old Fathers, whose writings are in question ; loyally 
 attached to them, jealous of their honour, in that 
 same noble English spirit, as it may be called, 
 which we have already seen exemplified in Bishop 
 Bull. I am but speaking of the Papist as found 
 on the stage of life, and amid the excitement of 
 controversy, stripped of those better parts of his 
 system, which are our inheritance as well as his ; 
 and so contemplating him, surely I may assert 
 without breach of charity, that he would, under 
 circumstances, destroy the Fathers' writings, as he 
 actually does disparage their authority, — just as he 
 consents to cut short dispute, by substituting the 
 Vulgate for the original inspired Text, and by 
 lodging the gift of Infallibility in the Pope rather 
 than in a General Council. 
 
 2. The same feeling which leads the Roman dis- 
 putant to shrink from a fair appeal to the Fathers, 
 
 k2 
 
132 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 however loudly he may profess it in the outset and 
 1 in general terms, will also cause him to prefer 
 abstract proof to argument from fact. Facts, indeed, 
 are confessedly troublesome, and must be avoided 
 as much as possible, by any one who is bound by 
 his theory to decide as well as dispute, much more 
 if he professes himself infallible. Those who have 
 to command, should either give no reason for their 
 movements, or reasons which cannot successfully 
 ;be gainsayed. To appeal to facts is to put the 
 ! controversy out of their own hands, and to lodge 
 the decision with the world at large. If they must 
 argue, they should confine themselves to abstract 
 proofs and to matters of opinion. Abstract argu- 
 ments are but an expression of their will. Besides, 
 they lie in very little compass, and any one can 
 learn and use them, whether to remind and instruct 
 himself, or in disputation. Not without reason, 
 then, are the proofs" of the Romanists such as we 
 actually find them in the controversy, — antecedent 
 inferences from premisses but partially true, or pa- 
 rallels and analogies assumed, or large principles 
 grounded on single instances, or fertile expositions 
 of single texts of Scripture. Now here let me be 
 clearly understood. I do not say that such reason- 
 ing is necessarily, inconsequential, or unfair. Of 
 several independent meanings, which may be given 
 to the sacred text, each may be separately possible, 
 though one alone can be the true one. It does not 
 follow, then, that a certain interpretation is not 
 
IV.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 133 
 
 sound, because neither the wording nor the context 
 force us into it. Principles do often lie hid in 
 single instances, resemblances argue connexions, 
 and abstract truths admit of development. I 
 merely say that such a line of proof, whatever its 
 merits, is safe, — is necessary for the Romanist. 
 When Innocent III., for instance, claimed to reign 
 over the kings of the earth, because the sun ruled 
 the day, and the moon the night, his argument 
 might be invalid, but it might also be valid, and 
 could not be confuted. King John, or the Em- 
 peror, might refuse to acknowledge it ; but it was 
 enough for the Pope that he felt it himself. But 
 on the other hand, had he, in proof of his preten- 
 sions, alleged that St. Peter trod upon Nero's 
 neck, he might have still made and enforced them, 
 but he would have unnecessarily subjected himself 
 to an external tribunal. Whether, then, abstract 
 arguments be sound or not, in the particular case, 
 at least, they are unanswerable, and for that reason 
 are peculiarly necessary for a power that claims 
 infallibility. But, after all, serviceable as they may 
 be, in religious controversy, they are plainly pre- 
 sumptuous, when they depend on nothing beyond 
 themselves. Religion is too serious a subject to 
 be made rest on our own inferences and examina- 
 tions, when there is any other possible way ; and 
 much less when we are settling authoritatively the 
 religion of others. It is quite fair, indeed, or rather 
 a duty to deduce truths from Scripture for our- 
 
134 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lbct. 
 
 selves, when we have no other guide; but to 
 enforce such deductions upon others is plainly 
 unjustifiable. The case is different where we have 
 clear authority, beyond our own, for such infer- 
 ences. Thus, sanctioned by our Saviour, we may, 
 or rather are bound to discern the doctrine of the 
 Resurrection in God's words to Moses in the bush ; 
 and under St. Matthew's guidance to preach the 
 Immaculate Conception from the seventh chapter 
 of Isaiah, whatever becomes of the criticism on the 
 Hebrew word conveying the doctrine. Again, the 
 unanimous tradition of the early Church authorizes 
 us to maintain and enforce the doctrine that Christ 
 is the Son of God, in the sense of His being consub- 
 stantial with Him. On the other hand, a man may, 
 indeed, fairly and profitably argue from the eighth 
 chapter of Genesis that the curse on the earth was 
 reversed after the flood, and yet he is not allowed 
 to consider it a matter of faith. I say this for fear 
 of misconception ; and now, for the sake of defi- 
 niteness, let me illustrate the point in hand, — which 
 I will do from the same general head of doctrine 
 to which I drew attention in my last Lecture, the 
 doctrine of Indulgences. 
 
 This doctrine, as drawn out by Bellarmine, will 
 be found to be as gratuitous in its proof, as it is 
 in itself untrue. Bellarmine begins by proving, 
 -that "there is in the Church a treasure of the 
 satisfactions of Christ and the Saints, which is ap- 
 plicable to those who, after the remission of the 
 
IV.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 135 
 
 guilt in the Sacrament of Penance, are still liable 
 to the payment of temporal punishment." With 
 this purpose he lays down certain propositions ; 
 first, that " to the good deeds of just men a double 
 value or price is assignable, viz., of desert and of 
 satisfaction." For instance, it seems that the grace 
 of charity at once recommends us favourably to 
 God, and tends to make up for former offences ; 
 and it performs each of these functions distinctly 
 and completely. He quotes Scripture in proof, as 
 the text in Tobit iv., " Almsgiving delivers from 
 all sin, and from death" and St. Chrysostom and St. 
 Cyprian to the same effect ; and, on the other hand, 
 our Lord's words, " Receive the kingdom prepared 
 for you from the beginning of the world, for I was 
 an hungred and ye gave Me meat" &c. And to show 
 that one and the same act may be both expiatory and 
 meritorious, he maintains that good deeds are capa- 
 ble of a twofold quality, — they are painful, and they 
 are fruits of love ; considered as fruits of love they 
 are pleasing to God; considered as painful they 
 are a compensation for past sin. Again, he refers 
 to the parallel of fasting and prayer ; in a word, of 
 all penitential exercises, which, in St. Cyprian's 
 language, tend not only to gain "'pardon for the 
 regenerate, but a crown" to blot out past sin, and 
 to obtain a heavenly reward. The same doctrine 
 might be argued from the instance of Intercession, 
 which does good to others while it is in itself pleas- 
 ing to Almighty God. 
 
136 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 Again, in human affairs the same acts some- 
 times gain both a return of payment, and a reward. 
 As a soldier gains at once pay and honour by his 
 service, so the Christian Evangelist at once is 
 "worthy of his hire," yet receives "a crown of 
 glory that fadeth not away." Moreover, that the 
 punishment of sin is paid off by measure, he argues 
 from the words of Moses \ — " according to his fault, 
 by a certain number " of stripes ; whereas reward 
 plainly goes on a distinct principle. 
 
 His next proposition is that " a good work, con- 
 sidered as deserving, cannot be applied to another ; 
 but can, considered as a satisfaction." The first 
 part of this proposition he almost takes for granted, 
 there being a contradiction in the idea that the ex- 
 cellence and desert of one man should be the excel- 
 lence of another. The latter part is proved from 
 the nature of a debt, which we all know one person 
 can pay for another. 
 
 After laying down, in the third place, that " there 
 is in the Church an infinite and inexhaustible trea- 
 sure of Satisfactions, from the sufferings of Christ ;" 
 he proceeds to maintain " that to this treasure of 
 overflowing satisfactions pertain also the sufferings 
 of the blessed Virgin Mary, and of all other Saints, 
 who have suffered more than their sins" (in a tem- 
 poral way) " required." He proves it, because, the 
 Virgin Mary, having no actual sin, needed no satis- 
 
 1 Deut. xxv. 2. 
 
IV.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 137 
 
 factions for herself, and yet suffered much. The 
 same may be said in their respective measure of 
 St. John the Baptist, the Prophets, the Apostles, 
 the Martyrs, and Ascetics. 
 
 Having in this way proved the existence of a 
 Treasure of Satisfactions for the temporal punish- 
 ment of sins, he proceeds after the same method 
 to show that the Church is the dispenser of it to 
 individuals ; but enough, surely, has already been 
 said. He does not even attempt to detect his doc- 
 trine in the writings of the Fathers. 
 
 3. Thus the practice of abstract reasoning, as well 
 as the neglect of the Fathers, are measures of 
 political expediency in Romanism ; — the same will 
 be found to be the case as regards the complete- 
 ness and consistency of its system. It is not only 
 the necessary result, as has already been observed, 
 but it is also the main evidence of its Infallibility. 
 
 Rome claims to be infallible ; she dispenses with 
 the Fathers, and relies upon abstract reasoning, 
 because she has this special gift ; but how does she 
 prove she has it ? To speak simply, she does not 
 prove it at all. At least, she does not prove it argu- 
 mentatively, but she acts upon the assumption, she 
 acts as if she were infallible, and in this way persuades 
 the imaginations of men into a belief of her really 
 being so. Perhaps it may be asked, why she for- 
 mally claims to be infallible at all, since she cannot 
 prove it — why she is not satisfied with acting upon 
 it ? And it may be urged with some plausibility at 
 
138 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 first sight, that this is the practice of orthodox Pro- 
 testantism, (as it is called) which imposes dogmatic 
 creeds and anathematizes dissentients as well as 
 Romanism, and so really exercises an infallibility, 
 which it evades the difficulty of maintaining in 
 words. As far as this remark is aimed against 
 ourselves, it will be answered in its place ; at pre- 
 sent let us confine ourselves to the subject of 
 Romanism. I answer then, that it is true ; no- 
 thing is gained to the intellect, rather something 
 is lost by this venturous claim ; but much is gained 
 thereby as regards impression, and Rome is con- 
 tent to sacrifice reason to secure practical influ- 
 ence. Men act, not because_they are convinced, 
 but because they feel ; the doctrine in question 
 appeals to their imagination not to their intellect. 
 The mind requires an external guide ; Protestant- 
 ism, in its so-called orthodox forms, furnishes one 
 indeed, but is afraid to avow it. Romanism avows 
 it, and that in the most significant and imposing 
 manner. It uses the doctrine of Infallibility as a 
 sort of symbol or strong maxim bringing home 
 to the mind the fact that the Church is the di- 
 vinely appointed keeper and teacher of the truth. 
 This may be illustrated by our Saviour's mode of 
 teaching. He said, " Whoso shall smite thee on thy 
 right cheek, turn to him the other also." Now, 
 without daring to limit or impair this sacred pre- 
 cept, or assuming the power of determining what 
 it means, or why it is so worded, so much at first 
 1 
 
IV.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 139 
 
 sight is conveyed in the sentence, whatever else is 
 contained in it, a great principle, the duty of meek- 
 ness expressed typically or emblematically. Christ 
 has the prerogative of choosing His own words, and 
 has His own deep scope in them, and an aptness 
 in the very letter ; if Rome tries to imitate Him 
 in His mode of speech, it is without His permission 
 or the ability to do so. Yet there seems such an 
 attempt in her doctrine of Infallibility ; it symbol- 
 izes and brings out strongly, as in a figure, the office 
 of the Church as the one appointed teacher, and 
 that, in ages of the Gospel when the prevalence of 
 licence and free inquiry has called for some forcible 
 protest in behalf of Revelation. It is an effort, 
 though presumptuous and unwarranted, as well as 
 founded to error, to stem the tide of unbelief. It 
 scarcely then affects to produce a formal proof of its 
 own truth, being rather a dogma serviceable in prac- 
 tice, though extravagant in theory, as legal fictions, 
 such as " the king can do no wrong," which vividly 
 express some great and necessary principle, yet 
 are not subject to argumentative proof. Nor does 
 it require any serious argument to recommend such 
 a doctrine to the multitude. The human mind 
 wishes to be rid of doubt in religion ; and a teacher 
 who claims infallibility is readily believed on his 
 simple word. We see this constantly exemplified 
 in the case of individual pretenders among our- 
 selves ; in Romanism the Church pretends to it. 
 And probably this is not the least persuasive argu- 
 
140 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 ment to a Romanist in behalf of the Infallibility 
 of Rome, that she alone of all Churches dare claim 
 it ; as if a secret instinct and involuntary misgivings 
 restrained those rival communions, which go so far 
 towards affecting it l . 
 
 Under these circumstances, all that is incumbent 
 on the Church of Rome by way of proof of her 
 pretensions, is to act as if she were infalbble, to 
 act with the decision and uniformity which such 
 a claim requires. Her consistent carrying out of 
 her assumed principle forms a sufficient argument 
 that she has a right to it. Here then that diversi- 
 fied, minute, and finished system of doctrine which 
 I have already spoken of, dangerous as it is in its 
 
 1 "It then remains, that Church can only he 
 The guide, which owns unfailing certainty ; 
 Or else you slip your hold, and change your side, 
 Relapsing from a necessary guide. 
 But this annexed condition of the crown, 
 Immunity from errors, you disown ; 
 Here then you shrink, and lay your weak pretensions 
 
 down. 
 For petty royalties you raise dehate, 
 But this unfailing universal state 
 
 You shun, nor dare succeed to such a glorious weight. 
 And for that cause those promises detest, 
 With which our Saviour did His Church invest ; 
 But strive to evade, and fear to find them true, 
 As conscious they were never meant for you ; 
 All which the mother Church asserts her own, 
 And with unrivalled claim ascends the throne,' - &c. 
 Deyden, Hind and Panther, Part ii. 
 
IV.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 141 
 
 own excess to the simplicity and sanctity of the 
 Christian, subserves her political purposes. It is 
 but fulfilling her theory ; it is but making a show 
 of doing what she professes. Had she the gift of 
 Infallibility, her various judgments, however un- 
 premeditated, would be consistent with each other ; 
 she acts then as false witnesses are obliged to do, 
 dresses up a statement in hopes that the artificial 
 show of consistency will be taken in evidence of 
 truth. But, besides this, there is that in the 
 very appearance of order and system which im- 
 presses us with the notion that something more 
 than accidental and foreign causes are concerned 
 in their production. The regularity of nature, for 
 instance, has led certain philosophers to ascribe it, 
 not to an external design, but to an innate life 
 and reality as its principle ; and, in like manner, 
 the orderly system of Rome serves to impress the 
 imagination as if it were the ever-acting energy of 
 her Infallibility, instead of a mere theology framed 
 with a studied attempt at completeness and con- 
 sistency. And hence it happens, that the further 
 her pretended revelations are carried, the more 
 minutely she investigates, and the more boldly she 
 decides, in short, the more she outrages common 
 sense and reason by her extreme audacity and pe- 
 remptoriness, the more successful are her attempts 
 upon the heart and the imagination of the many. 
 She developes her system till it seems self-sup- 
 ported, each part answering for another, and her 
 
142 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lbct. 
 
 very claim, as I have said, guaranteeing her right 
 to make it. Moreover, she has had the address 
 so to complete the revealed notices of truth, as 
 thereby to increase her own influence. It is ad- 
 mitted that some of the most interesting questions 
 to the human mind, as the state of the soul im- 
 mediately upon death, are left in obscurity by 
 Almighty God. Here Romanism comes in and 
 contrives to throw the mind upon the Church, as 
 the means by which its wants may be supplied, 
 and as the object of its faith and hope, and thus 
 makes her the instrument of a double usurpation, 
 as both professing to show how certain objects may 
 be attained, and next as presenting herself as the 
 agent in obtaining them. 
 
 It would be too large a work to illustrate these 
 remarks adequately from the Roman theology, and 
 "it has often been done already. Two or three in- 
 stances may suffice as a specimen. For example : 
 there is no plenary absolution of sin under the 
 Gospel, such as Baptism is, after Baptism, until 
 the* day of Judgment ; Romanism adds the doc- 
 trines of Penance, Purgatory, and Indulgences. 
 Christ is the Saviour from the eternal consequences 
 of sin ; Christ in His saints is, according to Rome r . 
 the Saviour from the temporal. In Baptism His 
 merits are applied; in Indulgences the merits of 
 the Saints. He saves from hell ; the Virgin Mary 
 rescues from Purgatory. His Sacrifice on the 
 Cross avails for the sins of the world ; His Sacrifice 
 
IV.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 143 
 
 in the Mass for the sins of the Church. Again, 
 there are six precepts of the Church, three coun- 
 sels, twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost, six sins against 
 the Holy Ghost, seven works of mercy, seven deadly 
 sins, four sins which cry for vengeance, four recep- 
 tacles of souls departed. There is one Sacrament 
 for infancy, another for childhood, a third as food 
 for mature age, a fourth for spiritual sickness, and 
 a fifth for the increase of mankind, a sixth for 
 their government in society, > and a seventh for 
 death. I am not condemning the principle itself 
 of so arranging what is divinely given us; it 
 is only when it is applied in excess or without 
 foundation, as it is by the Church of Rome, that 
 it is reprehensible. And, without being able to 
 draw the line between its use and abuse, yet we 
 may clearly see that in her case it actually does 
 subserve her ambitious and secular views. 
 
 One more instance shall be given from a modern 
 Irish work, published " with the approbation of 
 Superiors," for the direction of the Christian Doc- 
 trine and Purgatorian Societies, and which contains 
 an account of the Indulgences granted by various 
 Popes to those Societies, and to all the faithful, 
 and in particular to the Province of Leinster. This 
 account, of which the following are extracts, illus- 
 trate that two-fold character of Romanism described 
 in the last and present Lecture, which is so foreign 
 at once to Antiquity and to our own communion, 
 viz. its lowering the dignity and perfection of mo- 
 
144 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 rals, — its limiting by defining our duties, — in order 
 to indulge human weakness, and to gain influence 
 by indulging it. For instance : " The prayers" it is 
 observed, " usually said to gain an Indulgence, are 
 ' the Lord's Prayer,' ' Hail Mary,' and ' Glory be 
 to the Father,' repeated five times, in honour of 
 the five most adorable wounds of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, from whence all grace, merit, and indul- 
 gence proceed to our souls, and one Pater and Ave 
 for the pious intentions of the sovereign Pontiff 
 and for the wants of the Church." 
 
 " A plenary Indulgence is granted on the first 
 Sunday of each month to all the faithful of these 
 Dioceses, who approach the Holy Sacrament, visit 
 any of the Parochial Churches, and devoutly pray 
 for the propagation of the Catholic Faith, and for 
 the other pious intentions of the sovereign Pontiff." 
 " The Indulgence of seven years and seven qua- 
 rantines (40 days) is granted each time to those who 
 devoutly recite the theological acts of faith, hope, and 
 charity ; and if daily recited, a plenary Indulgence 
 once a month, applicable to the souls of the faith- 
 ful departed, provided they approach the Holy 
 Sacraments of Penance and Communion, and pray 
 for the wants of the Church and pious intentions 
 of the Pope." ..." The Indulgence of a hundred 
 days is granted each time the ' Angelus,'or the Angel 
 of the Lord, is said, morning, noon, and evening, and 
 a plenary Indulgence once a month for those who 
 recite it daily, fulfilling the above conditions. Note, 
 
IV.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 145 
 
 to gain this Indulgence it is prescribed to be said 
 kneeling on week days, but standing on Sundays and 
 during Paschal time." " The Indulgence of seven 
 years and seven quarantines is granted to the faith- 
 ful, who practise meditation or mental prayer for 
 half an hour, or at least for a quarter, and also to 
 those who teach this pious exercise to others." . . . 
 " A plenary Indulgence is granted to the faithful 
 in the hour of death, who have frequently during 
 life invoked the most sacred name of Jesus, and do 
 piously call on Him at that awful hour at least in 
 affection of heart." " The Indulgence of 300 
 days is granted to those who devoutly repeat the 
 three following ejaculations : ' Jesus, Mary, and Jo- 
 seph, I offer you my heart and soul ; Jesus, Mary, 
 and Joseph, assist me in my last agony; Jesus, 
 Mary, and Joseph, may I breathe forth my soul 
 unto you in peace.' " 
 
 Whether such a Theology is calculated to deaden 
 the conscience, and even (as it is sometimes urged 
 against it) to encourage crime, I do not decide. 
 Much may be said on both sides ; it takes from 
 the Romanist the fear of hell altogether, and it 
 gives him the certainty of Purgatory. The question 
 then depends upon another, whether men are more 
 deterred from sinning by the definite prospect of 
 Purgatory any how, or by the vague threat (as most 
 men receive it) of eternal punishment. But so 
 far is certain, that such statements, whether or not 
 they encourage the sinner, lower the idea and Stan- 
 ly 
 
146 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY. [Lect. 
 
 dard of moral truth; and, whether or not they avail to 
 comfort the penitent and fearful, at least they arrest 
 attention and gain influence by engaging to do 
 so. 
 
 4. Enough has now been said to show how the 
 completeness and consistency of the Roman system 
 tend to create a belief in its Infallibility. This 
 being the case, it is very remarkable, that after all 
 these very characters are wanting to it in some im- 
 portant respects. Not only is the doctrine of Infal- 
 libility wanting in proof, it is wanting even as a 
 theory in two main points, and with a brief refe- 
 rence to these I will bring this Lecture to an end. 
 
 Romanism, though claiming for the Church the 
 gift of Infallibility, cannot tell us how individuals 
 are to know for certain that it is infallible ; nor in 
 the next place where the gift resides, supposing it 
 to have been vouchsafed. It neither determines 
 who or what is infallible, or why. 
 
 As to the first point, its advocates insist on the 
 necessity of an infallible guide in religious matters 
 as. an argument that it has really been accorded. 
 Now it is obvious to inquire how individuals are 
 to know with certainty that Rome is infallible ; by 
 which I do not mean, what is the particular ground 
 on which her infallibility rests, but how any ground 
 can be such as to bring home to the mind infallibly 
 that she is infallible, — what conceivable proof 
 ■amounts to more than a probability of the fact; — and 
 what advantage is an infallible guide, if those who 
 
 1 
 
IV.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 147 
 
 are to be guided have, after all, no more than an opi- 
 nion, as the Romanists call it, that she is infallible ? 
 They attempt to solve this difficulty by boldly 
 maintaining that Christians do receive such an un- 
 erring perception of the whole circle of their doc- 
 trines, and that, conveyed in the Sacrament of Bap- 
 tism. And this is worth noticing, were it but for the 
 instance it affords of their custom of making inter- 
 nal consistency stand in the place of external proof; 
 for to assert that Baptism gives infallible assurance 
 of the Infallibility of Rome, is only saying that 
 those who discern it do discern it, though those 
 who do not discern it do not. It is not an argu- 
 ment tending to prove the point in dispute. We 
 know there are individuals among Protestants who 
 consider themselves to be infallibly taught by a 
 divine light, but such a claim is never taken as a 
 proof that they are favoured in the way they sup- 
 pose. To consider that Baptism gives this infalli- 
 ble discernment of the infallible guide, is to shift 
 the difficulty, not to solve it. And by so consider- 
 ing, not even the consistency of the system is 
 really preserved ; for since the professed object of 
 Infallibility is to remove doubt and anxiety, how 
 does it practically help a perplexed Romanist, to 
 tell him that his Baptism ought to convey to him 
 an infallible assurance of the external Infallibility, 
 when the present sense of his uncertainty evidences 
 to him that in matter of fact it does not ? If such 
 inward infallibility be requisite, it were a more 
 
 l2 
 
148 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 simple theory, like enthusiasts, to dispense with 
 the external. 
 
 This abstract difficulty, however, is small com- 
 pared with that attendant on the seat of the Infalli- 
 bility claimed by Romanism. Little room as there 
 is in the Roman controversy for novelty or sur- 
 prise, yet it does raise fresh and fresh amazement, 
 the more we think of it, that Romanists should 
 not have been able to agree among themselves 
 where that Infallibility is lodged which is the key- 
 stone of their system. Archbishop Bramhall 1 reckons 
 no less than six distinct opinions on the subject ; 
 some Romanists lodging the gift in the Pope speak- 
 ing ex Cathedra, others in the Pope in Council of 
 Cardinals, others in the Pope in General or Provin- 
 cial Council, or in the General Council without the 
 Pope, or in the Church Diffusive, that is, the whole 
 company of believers throughout the world. Bel- 
 larmine 2 observes, by way of meeting this difficulty, 
 that all Romanists are agreed on two points ; first, 
 that wherever the Infallibility lies, at least that all 
 Romanists agree that the Pope in General Council 
 is infallible ; next, that even out of Council when he 
 speaks ew Cathedra, he is to be obeyed (for safety's 
 sake,) whether really infallible or not. And no En- 
 glish theologian can quarrel with so wise and prac- 
 tical mode of settling the difficulty ; but then let 
 it be observed, that so to settle it is to deviate from 
 
 1 Works, p. 39. Vide Leslie, iii. p. 396. 2 De Rom. Pont.iv. 2. 
 
IV.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 149 
 
 the high infallible line which Rome professes to 
 walk upon in religious questions, and to descend 
 to Bishop Butler's level, to be content to proceed 
 not by an unerring rule, but by those probabilities 
 which guide us in the conduct of life. After all 
 then the baptismal illumination does not secure 
 the very benefit which occasions Romanists to refer 
 to it. They claim for it a power which in truth, 
 according to their own confession, does nothing at 
 all for them. 
 
 Nor is this all : granting that Infallibility resides 
 in the Pope in Council, yet it is not a matter oi 
 faith, that is, it has not been formally determined 
 what Popes have been true Popes; which of the 
 many de facto, or rival Popes, are to be acknow- 
 ledged ; nor again which of the many professed 
 General Councils are really so. A Romanist might 
 at this moment deny the existing Pope to be St. 
 Peter's successor without offending against any 
 article of the Creed. The Gallican Church re- 
 ceives the Councils of Basil and Constance wholly, 
 the Roman Church rejects both in part. The 
 last Council of Lateran condemns the Council of 
 Basil. The Council of Pisa is, according to Bel- 
 larmine, neither clearly approved nor clearly re- 
 jected. The Acts of other Councils are adulterated 
 without any attempt being made to amend them. 
 Now I repeat, such uncertainty as to the limits 
 of Divine Revelation, is no antecedent objection to 
 the truth of the Roman system ; it might be the 
 
150 DOCTRINE OF INFALLIBILITY [Lect. 
 
 appointed trial of our faith and earnestness. But 
 it is a great inconsistency in it, being what it is, 
 that is, engaging as it does to furnish us with infal- 
 lible teaching and to supersede inquiry. 
 
 Unless it seemed like presumption to interpret 
 the history of religion by a private rule, one might 
 call the circumstance under consideration even 
 providential. Nothing could be better adapted 
 than it to defeat the counsels of human wisdom, 
 or to show to thoughtful inquirers the hollowness 
 of even the most specious counterfeit of divine 
 truth. The theologians of Romanism have been 
 able dexterously to smoothe over a thousand in- 
 consistencies, and to array the heterogeneous pre- 
 cedents of a course of centuries in the semblance 
 of design and harmony. But they cannot complete 
 their system in its most important and essential 
 point. They can determine in theory the nature, 
 degree, extent, and object of the Infallibility which 
 they claim ; they cannot agree among themselves 
 where it resides. As in the building of Babel, the 
 Lord hath confounded their language ; and the 
 structure stands half finished, a monument at once 
 of human daring and its failure. 
 
 But, whether we dare call it providential or not, 
 except so far as all things must be so accounted, 
 it at least serves to expose the pretensions of Ro- 
 manism. The case stands as follows ; Romanism 
 first professes a common ground with ourselves, 
 a readiness to stand or fall by Antiquity. When 
 
V.] POLITICALLY CONSIDERED. 151 
 
 we appeal to Antiquity accordingly, it shifts its 
 ground, substituting for Ancient Testimony abstract 
 arguments. If we question its abstract arguments, 
 it falls back upon its Infallibility. If we ask for 
 the proof of its Infallibility, it can but attempt to 
 overpower the imagination by its attempt at sys- 
 tem, the boldness, decision, consistency, and com- 
 pleteness with which it urges and acts upon its 
 claim. Yet in this very system, thus ambitious of 
 completeness, we are able to detect one or two 
 serious flaws in the theory of the very doctrine 
 which that system seems intended to sustain. 
 
 Such are some of the outlines of the theology 
 by which Rome supersedes the teaching of the 
 early Church. Her excuse, it seems, lies in this, 
 that the Church now has lost the strength and per- 
 suasiveness it once had. Unanimity, uniformity, 
 mutual intercourse, strict discipline, the freshness of 
 Tradition, and the reminiscences of the Apostles 
 are no more ; and she would fain create by an arti- 
 ficial process what was natural in Antiquity. This 
 is what can be said for her at best ; and there is 
 confessedly a difficulty in the theory of the Church's 
 present authority ; though no difficulty of course 
 can excuse fraud and falsehood. How we meet 
 the difficulty, comes next into consideration. " 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 ON THE USE OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 
 
 By the right of Private Judgment in matters of 
 religious belief and practice, is meant the preroga- 
 tive, considered to belong to each individual Christ- 
 ian, of ascertaining and deciding for himself from 
 Scripture what is Gospel truth, and what is not. 
 This is the principle maintained in theory, as a sort 
 of sacred possession or palladium, by the Protest- 
 antism of this day. Romanism, as is equally clear, 
 takes the opposite extreme, and maintains that 
 nothing is left to individual judgment; that is, that 
 there is no subject in religious faith and conduct 
 on which the Church may not pronounce a decision, 
 such as to supersede the private judgment, and 
 compel the assent, of every one of her members. 
 The English Church takes a middle course between 
 these two. It considers that on certain definite 
 subjects private judgment upon the text of Scrip- 
 ture has been superseded, but not by the mere 
 
ON THE USE OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 153 
 
 authoritative sentence of the Church, but by its 
 historical testimony delivered down from the Apos- 
 tles' time. To these subjects nothing more can 
 be added, unless, indeed, new records of primitive 
 Christianity, or new uninterrupted traditions of its 
 teaching were discoverable. 
 
 The Catholic doctrines, therefore, of the Trinity, 
 Incarnation, and others similar to these, are the 
 true interpretations of the notices contained in 
 Scripture of those doctrines respectively. But 
 the mere Protestant considers that on these as 
 well as on other subjects, the sacred text is left to 
 the good pleasure or the diligence of private men ; 
 while the Romanist, on the contrary, views it as 
 in no degree submitted to individual judgment, 
 except from the accident of the Church having 
 not yet pronounced here or there an authoritative 
 and final decision. 
 
 Now these extreme theories and their practical 
 results are quite intelligible ; whatever be their 
 faults, want of simplicity is not one of them. We 
 see what they mean, how they work, what they 
 result in. But the middle path adopted by the 
 English Church cannot be so easily mastered by 
 the mind, first because it is a mean, and has in 
 consequence a complex nature, involving a combi- 
 nation of principles, and depending on multiplied 
 conditions ; next, because it partakes of that inde- 
 terminateness which, as has been already observed, 
 is to a certain extent a characteristic of English 
 
154 ON THE USE OF [Lect. 
 
 theology ; lastly, because it has never been realized 
 in any religious community, and thereby brought 
 home to the mind through the senses. What has 
 never been fairly brought into operation, fairly lies 
 open to various objections. It is open to the sus- 
 picion of being incapable of it, that is, of being 
 what is commonly understood by a mere theory or 
 fancy. And besides, a mean system really is often 
 nothing better than an assemblage of words ; and 
 always looks such, before it is proved to be some- 
 thing more. For instance, if we knew only of the 
 colours white and black, and heard a description 
 of brown or grey, and were told that these were 
 neither white nor black, but something like both, 
 yet between them, we should be tempted to con- 
 ceive our informant's words either self-contradic- 
 tory or altogether unmeaning ; as if it were plain 
 that what was not white must be black, and what 
 was not black must be white. This is daily in- 
 stanced in the view taken by society at large of 
 such persons, now (alas !) a comparatively small 
 remnant, who follow the ancient doctrines and cus- 
 toms of our Church, who hold to the creeds and 
 Sacraments, keep from novelties, and are regular 
 in their devotions, and are, what is sometimes called 
 almost in reproach, " orthodox." Worldly men, 
 seeing them only at a distance, will class them 
 with the religionists of the day ; the religionists 
 of the day, with a like superficial glance at them, 
 call them worldly and carnal. Why is this ? because 
 
V.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 155 
 
 neither party can fancy any medium between itself 
 and its opposite, and each connects them with the 
 other, because they are not its own. 
 
 Feeling, then, the disadvantage under which the 
 Anglican doctrine of Private Judgment lies, and 
 desirous to give it something more of meaning and 
 reality than it popularly possesses, I shall attempt 
 to describe it, first, in theory, and then as if reduced 
 to practice. 
 
 1. Now, if man is in a state of trial, and his trial 
 lies in the general exercise of the will, and the 
 choice of religion is an exercise of will, and always 
 implies an act of individual judgment, it follows that 
 such acts are in the number of those by which he is 
 tried, and for which he is to give an account here- 
 after. So far, all parties must be agreed, that with- 
 out private judgment there is no responsibility ; and 
 that in matter of fact, a man's own mind, and no- 
 thing else, is the cause of his believing or not 
 believing, and of his acting or not acting upon his 
 belief. Even though an infallible guidance be 
 accorded, a man must have a choice of resisting it 
 or not ; he may resist it if he pleases, as Judas was 
 traitor to his Master. Romanist, I consider, agrees 
 with Protestant so far ; the question in dispute 
 being, what are the means which are to direct our 
 choice, and what is the due manner of using 
 them. This is the point to which I shall direct 
 my attention. 
 
 The means which are given us to form our judg- 
 
156 ON THE USE OF [Lect. 
 
 ment by, exclusively of such as are supernatural, 
 which do not enter into consideration, are various, 
 partly internal, partly external. The internal irieans 
 of judging are common sense, natural perception of 
 right and wrong, the affections, the imagination, 
 reason, and the like. The external are such as 
 Scripture, the existing Church, Tradition, Catho- 
 licity, Learning, Antiquity, and the National Faith. 
 Popular Protestantism would deprive us of all 
 these external means, except the text of Holy 
 Scripture; as if, I suppose, upon the antecedent 
 notion that, when God speaks by inspiration, all 
 other external means are superseded. But this is 
 an arbitrary decision, contrary to facts ; for unless 
 inspiration made use of an universal language, 
 learning at least must be necessary to ascertain the 
 meaning of the particular language selected ; and 
 if one external aid be adopted, of course all antece- 
 dent objection to any other vanishes. This notion, 
 then, though commonly taken for granted, must be 
 pronounced untenable, nay, inconsistent with itself; 
 yet upon it the prevailing neglect of external as- 
 sistances, and the exaltation of Private Judgment, 
 mainly rest. Discarding this narrow view of the 
 subject, let us rather accept all the means which 
 are put within our reach, as intended to be used, 
 as talents which must not be neglected ; and, as so 
 considering them, let us trace the order in which they 
 address themselves to the minds of individuals. 
 Our parents and teachers are our first informants 
 
V.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 157 
 
 concerning the next world ; and they elicit and 
 cherish the innate sense of right and wrong which 
 acts as a guide co-ordinately with them. By de- 
 grees they resign their place to the religious com- 
 munion, or Church, in which we find ourselves, 
 while the inward habits of truth and holiness which 
 the moral sense has begun to form, react upon that 
 inward monitor, enlarge its range, and make its 
 dictates articulate, decisive, and various. Mean- 
 time the Scriptures have been added as fresh in- 
 formants, bearing witness to the Church and to the 
 moral sense, and interpreted by them both. Last 
 of all, where there is time and opportunity for re- 
 search into times past and present, Christian Anti- 
 quity, and Christendom, as it at present exists, 
 become additional informants, giving substance and 
 shape to much that before existed in our minds but 
 in outline and shadow. 
 
 Such are the means by which God conveys to 
 Christians the knowledge of His will and Provi- 
 dence ; but not all of them to all men. To some 
 He vouchsafes all, to all some ; but, according to 
 the gifts given them, does He make it their duty 
 to use them religiously. He employs these gifts as 
 His instruments in teaching, trying, converting, 
 advancing the mind, as the Sacraments are His 
 imperceptible means of changing the soul. To the 
 greater part of the world He has given but three of 
 them, Conscience, Reason, and National Religion ; to 
 a great part of Christendom He gives no external 
 
158 ON THE USE OF [Lect. 
 
 guidance but through the Church; to others only the 
 Scriptures ; to others both Church and Scriptures. 
 Few are able to add the knowledge of Christian 
 Antiquity ; the first centuries of Christianity en- 
 joyed the light of Catholicity, an informant which 
 is now partially withdrawn from us. The least 
 portion of these separate means of knowledge, is 
 sufficient for a man's living religiously; but the 
 more of them he has, the more of course he has to 
 answer for ; nor can he escape his responsibility, as 
 most men attempt in one way or other, by hiding 
 his talent in a napkin. 
 
 Most men, I say, try to dispense with one or 
 other of these divine informants ; and for this 
 reason, — because it is difficult to combine them. 
 The lights they furnish, coming from various quar- 
 ters, cast separate shadows, and partially intercept 
 each other ; and it is pleasanter to walk without 
 doubt and without shade, than to have to choose 
 what is best and safest. The Romanist would 
 simplify matters by removing Reason, Scripture, 
 and Antiquity, and depending mainly upon Church 
 authority; the Calvinist relies on Reason, Criti- 
 cism, and Scripture, to the disparagement of the 
 Moral Sense, the Church, Tradition, and Antiquity ; 
 the Latitudinarian relies on Reason, with Scripture 
 in subordination ; the Mystic on the feelings and 
 affections, or what is commonly called the heart ; 
 the Politician takes the National Faith as sufficient, 
 and cares for little else ; the man of the world acts 
 
V.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 159 
 
 by common sense, which is the oracle of the care- 
 less; the popular Religionist considers the autho- 
 rized version of Scripture to be all in all. But 
 the true Catholic Christian is he who takes what 
 God has given him, be it greater or less, despises 
 not the lesser because he has received the greater, 
 yet puts it not before the greater, but uses all duly 
 and to God's glory. 
 
 I just now said that it was difficult to combine 
 these several means of gaining Divine Truth, and 
 that their respective informations do not altogether 
 agree. I mean that at first sight they do not 
 agree, or in particular cases; for abstractedly, of 
 course, what comes from God must be one and the 
 same in whatever way it comes ; if it seems to 
 differ from itself, this arises from our weakness. 
 Even our senses seem at first to contradict each 
 other, and an infant may have difficulty in know- 
 ing how to avail himself of them, yet in time he 
 learns to do so, and unconsciously makes allowance 
 for their apparent discordance; and it would be 
 utter folly on account of their differences, what- 
 ever they are, to discard the use of them. In 
 like manner, Conscience and Reason sometimes 
 seem at variance, and then we either call what 
 appears to be reason sophistry , or what appears 
 to be conscience weakness or superstition. Or, the 
 moral sense and Scripture seem to speak a distinct 
 language, as in their respective judgments concern- 
 ing David ; or Scripture and Antiquity, as regards 
 
160 ON THE USE OF [Lect. 
 
 Christ's command to us to wash each other's feet ; 
 or Scripture and Reason as regards miracles, or the 
 doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation ; or Anti- 
 quity and the existing Church, as regards immersion 
 in Baptism ; or the National Religion and Anti- 
 quity, as regards the Church's power of jurisdiction ; 
 or Antiquity and the propensities of Nature, as 
 regards the usage of celibacy; or Antiquity and 
 scholarship, as at times perhaps in the interpreta- 
 tion of Scripture. 
 
 This being the state of the case, I make the 
 following remarks ; which, being for the sake of 
 illustration, are to be taken but as general ones, 
 without dwelling on extreme cases or exceptions. 
 
 That Scripture, Antiquity, and Catholicity can- 
 not really contradict one another : 
 
 That when the Moral Sense or Reason seems to 
 be on one side, and Scripture on the other, we 
 must follow Scripture, except Scripture anywhere 
 contained contradictions in terms, or prescribed un- 
 deniable crimes, which it never does : 
 
 That when the sense of Scripture, as interpreted 
 by Reason, is contrary to the sense given to it by 
 Catholic Antiquity, we ought to side with the 
 latter : 
 
 That when Antiquity runs counter to the present 
 Church in important matters, we must follow An- 
 tiquity; when in unimportant matters, we must 
 follow the present Church : 
 
 That when the present Church speaks contrary 
 
V.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. ](jl 
 
 to our private notions, and Antiquity is silent, or 
 its decisions unknown to us, it is pious to sacrifice 
 our own opinion to that of the Church : 
 
 That if, in spite of our efforts to agree with the 
 Church, we still differ from it, Antiquity being 
 silent, we must avoid causing any disturbance, 
 recollecting that the Church, and not individuals, 
 " has authority in controversies of faith." 
 
 I am not now concerned to prove all this, but 
 am illustrating the theory of Private Judgment, as 
 I conceive the English Church maintains it. And 
 now let us consider it in practice. 
 
 2. It is popularly conceived that to maintain the 
 right of Private Judgment, is to hold that no one 
 has an enlightened faith who has not, as a point 
 of duty, discussed the grounds of it and made up 
 his mind for himself. But to put forward such 
 doctrine as this, rightly pertains to infidels and 
 sceptics only, and if great names may be quoted 
 in its favour, and it is often assumed to be the 
 true Protestant doctrine, this is surely because its 
 advocates do not weigh the force of their own 
 words. Every one must begin religion by faith, 
 not by reasoning ; he must take for granted what 
 he is taught and what he cannot prove ; and it is 
 better for himself that he should do so, even if the 
 teaching he receives contains a mixture of error. 
 If he would possess a reverent mind, he must begin 
 by obeying; if he would cherish a generous and 
 devoted spirit, he must begin by venturing some- 
 
 M 
 
162 ON THE USE OF [Lect. 
 
 what on uncertain information ; if he would deserve 
 the praise of modesty and humility, he must repress 
 his busy intellect, and forbear to scrutinize. This 
 is a sufficient explanation, were there no other, for 
 the subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, which 
 is in this place exacted of those who come hither 
 for education. Were there any serious objections 
 to those Articles, the case would be different ; were 
 there immorality or infidelity inculcated in them, 
 or even imputed to them, we should have a warrant 
 for drawing back; but even those who do not 
 agree with them, will not say this of them. Put- 
 ting aside then the consideration that they contain 
 in them chief portions of the ancient Creeds, and 
 are the form in which so many pious men in times 
 past have expressed their own faith, even the cir- 
 cumstance of their constituting the religion under 
 which we are born is a reason for our implicitly 
 submitting ourselves to them in the first instance. 
 As the mind expands, whether by education or 
 years, a number of additional informants will meet 
 it, and it will naturally, or rather it ought, accord- 
 ing to its opportunities, to exercise itself upon all 
 of these, by way of finding out God's perfect truth. 
 The Christian will study Scripture and Antiquity, 
 as well as the doctrine of his own Church ; and may 
 perhaps, in some points of detail, differ from it ; 
 but, even if eventually he differs, he will not there- 
 fore put himself forward, wrangle, protest, or sepa- 
 rate from the Church. Further, he may go on 
 
 1 
 
V.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 163 
 
 to examine the basis of the authority of Scripture 
 or of the Church ; and if so, he will do it, not (as is 
 sometimes irreverently said) " impartially" and " can- 
 didly," which means sceptically and arrogantly, as 
 if he were the centre of the universe, and all things 
 might be summoned before him and put to task at 
 his pleasure, but with a generous confidence in 
 what he has been taught ; nay, not recognizing, as 
 will often happen, the process of inquiry which 
 is going on within him. Many a man supposes 
 that his investigation ought to be attended with 
 a consciousness of his making it ; as if it were 
 scarcely pleasing to God unless he all along re- 
 flects upon it, tells the world of it, boasts of it as 
 a right, and sanctifies it as a principle. He says 
 to himself and others, ' I am examining, I am scru- 
 tinizing, I am judging, I am free to choose or re- 
 ject, I am exercising the right of Private Judg- 
 ment.' What a strange satisfaction ! Does it 
 increase the worth of our affections to reflect upon 
 them as we feel them ? Would our mourning for 
 a friend become more valuable by our saying, " I 
 am weeping ; I am overcome and agonized for the 
 second or third time ; I am resolved to weep ?" 
 What a strange infatuation, to boast of our having 
 to make up our minds ! What ! is it a great thing 
 to be without an opinion? is it a satisfaction to 
 have the truth to find? Who would boast that 
 he was without worldly means, and had to get 
 them as he could ? Is heavenly treasure less pre- 
 
 m 2 
 
164 ON THE USE OF L Lect - 
 
 cious than earthly? Is it anything inspiring or 
 consolatory to consider, as such persons do, that 
 Almighty God has left them entirely to their own 
 efforts, has failed to anticipate their wants, has let 
 them lose in ignorance at least a considerable part 
 of their short life and their tenderest and most 
 malleable years ? is it a hardship or a yoke, on the 
 contrary, to be told that what is put before them 
 to believe in the order of Providence, whether 
 absolutely true or not, is in such sense from Him, 
 that it will improve their hearts to obey it, and 
 convey to them many truths which they otherwise 
 would not know, and prepare them perchance for 
 the communication of higher and clearer views ? 
 Yet such is a commonly received doctrine of this 
 day ; against which, I would plainly maintain, — not 
 the Roman doctrine of InfaUibility, which even if 
 true, would be of application only to a portion of 
 mankind, for few comparatively hear of Rome, — but 
 generally that, under whatever system a man finds 
 himself, he is bound to accept it as if infallible, and 
 to act upon it in a confiding spirit, till he finds a bet- 
 ter, or in course of time has cause to suspect it. 
 
 To this it may be replied by the Romanist, that, 
 granting we succeed in persuading men in the first 
 instance to exercise this unsuspicious faith in what 
 is set before them in the course of Providence, yet, if 
 the right of free judgment upon the text of Scrip- 
 ture is allowed at last, it will be sure, whenever it 
 is allowed, to carry them off into various discordant 
 
V. J PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 165 
 
 opinions; that individuals will fancy they have 
 found out a more Scriptural system even than that 
 of the Church Catholic itself, should they happen 
 to have been born and educated in her pale. But 
 I am not willing to grant this of the Holy Scriptures, 
 though Romanists are accustomed to assume it. 
 There have been writers of their communion, in- 
 deed, who have used the most disparaging terms 
 of the inspired volume, as if it were so mere a 
 letter that it might be moulded into any meaning 
 which the reader chose to put upon it. Some of 
 their expressions and statements have been noticed 
 by our divines ; such as, that " the Scriptures are 
 worth no more than Esop's fables without the 
 Church's authority ;" or that " they are like a nose 
 of wax which admits of being pulled and moulded 
 one way and another 1 ." 
 
 In contradiction to these expressions, it surely 
 may be maintained, not only that the Scriptures 
 have but one direct and unchangeable sense, but 
 that it is such as in all greater matters to make a 
 forcible appeal to the mind, when fairly put be- 
 fore it, and to impress it with a conviction of its 
 being the true one. Little of systematic know- 
 ledge as Scripture may impart to ordinary readers, 
 still what it does convey may surely tend in one 
 direction and not in another. What it imparts 
 may look towards the system of the Church and 
 
 1 Stillingfleet. Grounds, i. 5. § 2. p. 138. 
 
166 ON THE USE OF ILect. 
 
 of Antiquity, not oppose it. Whether it does so or 
 not, is a question of fact which must be determined 
 as facts are determined ; but here let us dwell for 
 a moment on the mere idea which I have sug- 
 gested. There is no reason why the Romanist 
 should startle at the notion. Why is it more in- 
 congruous to suppose that our minds are so con- 
 stituted as to be sure to a certain point of the true 
 meaning of words, than of the correctness of an 
 argument ? yet Romanists do argue. If it is pos- 
 sible to be sure of the soundness of an argument, 
 there is perchance no antecedent reason to hinder 
 our being as sure that a text has a certain sense. 
 Men, it is granted, continually misinterpret Scrip- 
 ture ; so are they as continually using bad argu- 
 ments; and, as the latter circumstance does not 
 destroy the mind's innate power of reasoning, so 
 neither does the former show it is destitute of its 
 innate power of interpreting. Nay, the Romanists 
 themselves continually argue with individuals from 
 Scripture, even in proof of this very doctrine of 
 the Church's Infallibility, which would be out of 
 place unless the passages appealed to bore their 
 own meaning with them. What I would urge is 
 this ; the Romanists of course confess that the real 
 sense of Scripture is not adverse to any doctrine 
 taught by the Church ; all I would maintain in 
 addition is, that it is also the natural sense, as sepa- 
 rable from false interpretations by the sound-judg- 
 ing, as a good argument is from a bad one. And 
 
V.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 167 
 
 as so believing, we think no harm can come from 
 putting the Scripture into the hands of the laity, 
 allowing them, if they will, to verify by it, as 
 far as it extends, the doctrines they have been 
 already taught. 
 
 They will answer that all this is negatived by 
 experience, even though it be abstractedly possible; 
 since, in fact, the general reading of the Bible has 
 brought into our country and Church all kinds of 
 heresies and extravagances. Certainly it has ; but 
 it has not been introduced under those limitations 
 and provisions, which I have mentioned as neces- 
 sary attendants on it, according to the scheme de- 
 signed by Providence. If Scripture reading has 
 been the cause of schism, this has been because 
 individuals have given themselves to it to the dis- 
 paragement of God's other gifts ; because they have 
 refused to throw themselves into the external sys- 
 tem which has been provided for them, because 
 they have attempted to reason before they acted, 
 and to prove before they would be taught. If it 
 has been the cause of schism in our country, it is 
 because the Anglican Church has never had the 
 opportunity of supplying adequately that assistance 
 which is its divinely provided complement ; because 
 her voice has been feeble, her motions impeded, 
 and the means never given her of impressing upon 
 the population her own doctrine ; because the Re- 
 formation was set up in disunion, and theories more 
 Protestant than hers have, from the first, spoken 
 
168 ON THE USE OF [Lect. 
 
 with her, and blended with, and sometimes drowned 
 her voice. If Scripture reading has, in England, 
 been the cause of schism, it is because we are de- 
 prived of the power of excommunicating, which, in 
 the revealed scheme, is the formal antagonist and 
 curb of Private Judgment. But take a Church, 
 nurtured and trained on this model, claiming the 
 obedience of its members in the first instance, 
 though laying itself open afterwards to their judg- 
 ment, according to their respective capabilities for 
 judging, claiming that they should make a gener- 
 ous and unsuspicious trial of it before they objected 
 to it, and able to appeal confidently for its doc- 
 trines to the writings of Antiquity; a Church which 
 taught the Truth boldly and in system, and which 
 separated from itself or silenced those which op- 
 posed it, and I believe individual members would be 
 very little perplexed ; and, if men were still found 
 to resist its doctrine, they would not be, as now, 
 misguided persons, with some good feelings, and 
 right views, but such as one should be glad to be 
 rid of. One chief cause of sects among us is, that 
 the Church's voice is not heard clearly and forcibly; 
 she does not exercise her own right of interpreting 
 Scripture ; she does not arbitrate, decide, condemn ; 
 she does not answer the call which human nature 
 makes upon her. That all her members would in 
 that case perfectly agree with each other, or with 
 herself, I am far from supposing ; but they would 
 differ chiefly in such matters as would not forfeit 
 
V.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 169 
 
 their membership, nor lead them to protest against 
 the received doctrine. If, even as it is, the great 
 body of Dissenters from the Church during the last 
 centuries remained more or less constant to the 
 Creeds, except in the article which was compro- 
 mised in their Dissent, surely much more fully and 
 firmly would her members then abide in the funda- 
 mentals of faith, though Scripture was ever so 
 freely put into their hands. We see it so at this 
 day. For on which side is the most lack at this 
 moment ? in the laity in believing ? or the Church 
 in teaching? Are not the laity every where will- 
 ing to treat their pastors with becoming respect;. 
 nay so follow their guidance as to take up their 
 particular views, according as they may be of a 
 Catholic or private character, in this or that place? 
 Is there any doubt at all that the laity would think 
 alike, if the Clergy did ? and is there any doubt 
 that the Clergy would think alike, as far as the 
 formal expression of their faith went, if they had 
 their views cleared by a theological education, and 
 moulded by a knowledge of Antiquity ? We have 
 no need to grudge our people the religious use of 
 Private Judgment; we need not distrust their 
 affection, we have but to blame our own waverings 
 and differences. 
 
 The free reading of Scripture, I say, when the 
 other parts of the Divine System are duly fulfilled, 
 would lead, at most, to diversities of opinion only 
 in the adjuncts and details of faith, not in funda- 
 
170 ON THE USE OF [Lect. 
 
 mentals. Men differ from each other at present, 
 first from the influence of the false theories of Pri- 
 vate Judgment which are among us, and which 
 mislead them ; next from the want of external guid- 
 ance. They are enjoined, as a matter of duty, to 
 examine and decide for themselves, and the Church 
 but faintly protests against this proceeding, or 
 supersedes the need of it. Truth has a force which 
 error cannot counterfeit ; and the Church, speaking 
 out that Truth, as committed to her, would cause a 
 corresponding vibration in Holy Scripture, such as 
 no other notes, however loudly sounded, can draw 
 from it. If, after all, persons arose, as they would 
 arise, disputing against the fundamentals, or sepa- 
 rating on minor points, let them go their way ; 
 " they went out from us, because they were not of 
 us." They would commonly be " men of corrupt 
 minds, reprobate concerning the faith * ;" I do not 
 say there never could be any other, but for such 
 extraordinary cases no system can provide. If 
 there were better men, who, though educated in 
 the Truth, ultimately opposed it openly, they, as 
 well as others, would be put out of the Church for 
 their error's sake, and for their contumacy ; and 
 God, who alone sees the hearts of men, and how 
 mysteriously good and evil are mingled together in 
 this world, would provide in His own inscrutable 
 way for anomalies which His revealed system did 
 not meet. 
 
 ' 2 Tim. iii. 8. 
 
V.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 171 
 
 I consider, then, on the whole that, however 
 difficult it may be in theory to determine when we 
 must go by our own view of Scripture, when by 
 the decision of the Church, yet in practice there 
 would be little or no difficulty at all. Without 
 claiming infallibility, the Church may claim the 
 confidence and obedience of her members ; Scrip- 
 ture may be read without tending to schism ; 
 minor differences allowed, without disagreement in 
 fundamentals ; and the proud and self-willed dis- 
 putant discarded without the perplexed inquirer 
 suffering. If there is schism among us, it is not 
 that Scripture speaks variously, but that the Church 
 of the day speaks not at all ; not that Private Judg- 
 ment is rebellious, but that the Church's judgment 
 is withheld. 
 
 I do really believe that, with more of primitive 
 simplicity and of rational freedom, and far more 
 of Gospel truth than in Romanism, there would be 
 found in the rule of Private Judgment, as I have 
 described it, as much certainty as the doctrine of 
 Infallibility can give. As ample provision would 
 be made both for the comfort of the individual, 
 and for the peace and unity of the body ; which 
 are the two objects for which Romanism pro- 
 fesses to consult. The claim of Infallibility is 
 but an expedient for impressing strongly upon 
 the mind the necessity of hearing and of obey- 
 ing the Church. When scrutinized carefully, it 
 will be found to contribute nothing whatever 
 
172 ON THE USE OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 
 
 towards satisfying the reason, as was observed 
 in another connection ; since it is as difficult to 
 prove and bring home to the mind that the Church 
 is infallible, as that the doctrines it teaches are 
 true. Nothing, then, is gained in the way of con- 
 viction ; only of impression, — and, again, of expe- 
 dition, it being less trouble to accept one doctrine 
 on which all the others are to depend, than a 
 number. Now this external impressiveness and 
 practical perspicuity, as far as they are lawful and 
 salutary, may, I say, be gained without this 
 claim; it may be gained in God's way, without 
 presumptuous additions to the means of influence 
 which He has ordained, without a tenet, fictitious 
 in itself, and, as falsehood ever will be, deplorable 
 in many ways in its results. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 ON THE ABUSE OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 
 
 I must not quit the subject of Private Judgment, 
 without some remarks on the popular view of it : 
 which is as follows, — that every Christian has the 
 right of making up his mind for himself what he 
 is to believe, from personal and private study of the 
 Scriptures. This, I suppose, is the fairest account 
 to give of it ; though sometimes Private Judgment 
 is considered rather as the necessary duty than 
 the privilege of the Christian, and a slur is cast 
 upon hereditary religion, as worthless or absurd ; 
 and much is said in praise of independence of mind, 
 free inquiry, the resolution to judge for ourselves, 
 and the enlightened and spiritual temper which 
 these things are supposed to produce. But this 
 notion is so very preposterous, there is something 
 so very strange and wild in maintaining that every 
 individual Christian, rich and poor, learned and 
 unlearned, young and old, in order to have an 
 
174 ON THE ABUSE OF [Lect. 
 
 intelligent faith, must have formally examined, 
 deliberated, and passed sentence upon the meaning 
 of Scripture for himself, and that in the highest 
 and most delicate and mysterious matters of faith, 
 that I am unable either to discuss or even to im- 
 pute such an opinion to another, in spite of the 
 large and startling declarations which men make 
 on the subject. Rather let us consider what is 
 called the right of Private Judgment ; by which is 
 meant, not that all must, but that all may search 
 Scripture, and determine or prove their Creed from 
 it : that is, provided they are duly qualified, for I 
 suppose this is always implied, though persons may 
 differ what the qualifications are. And with this 
 limitation, I should be as willing as the most zeal- 
 ous Protestant to allow the principle of Private 
 Judgment in the abstract; and it is something 
 to agree with opponents even in an abstract 
 principle. 
 
 At the same time, to speak correctly, there 
 seems a still more advisable mode of speaking of 
 Private Judgment, than either of those which have 
 been mentioned. It is neither the duty of all 
 Christians, nor the right of all who are qualified, 
 but the duty of all who are qualified ; and as such 
 it was spoken of in the last Lecture. However, 
 whether it be a duty or a right, let us consider 
 what the qualifications are for exercising it. 
 
 To take the extreme case : inability to read will 
 be granted to be an obstacle in the exercise of it ; 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 175 
 
 that is, a necessary obstacle to a certain extent, for 
 more need not be assumed, and perhaps will not be 
 conceded by all. But there are other impediments, 
 less obvious, indeed, but quite as serious. I shall 
 instance two principal ones ; — prejudice, in the 
 large sense of the word, whether right or wrong 
 prejudice, and whether true or false in its matter, — 
 and inaccuracy of mind. And first of the latter. 
 
 1. The task proposed is such as this, — to deter- 
 mine first whether Scripture sets forth any dogmatic 
 faith at all ; next, if so, what it is ; then, if it be 
 necessary for salvation ; then, what are its doctrines 
 in particular ; then, what is that exact idea of each, 
 which is its essence and its saving principle. For 
 instance ; a man may think he holds the doctrine 
 of the Atonement ; but, when examined, may be 
 convicted of having quite mistaken the meaning 
 of the word. This being considered, I think it 
 will be granted me, by the most zealous opponent, 
 that the mass of Christians are inadequate to such 
 a task ; I mean, that if the Gospel be dogmatic, 
 for that I am here assuming, if it be of the nature 
 of the Articles of the Creed, or the Thirty-Nine 
 Articles, the great proportion even of educated 
 persons have not the accuracy of mind requisite for 
 determining it. The only question is, whether any 
 accurate Creed is necessary for the private Christ- 
 ian, which orthodox Protestants always maintain. 
 Consider, then, the orthodox Protestant doctrines ; 
 those relating to the Divine nature, and the Eco- 
 
176 ON THE ABUSE OF [Lect. 
 
 nomy of Redemption ; or those, again, arising from 
 the controversy with Rome, and let me ask the 
 popular religionist, — Do you really mean to say, 
 that men and women, as we find them in life, are 
 able to deduce these doctrines from Scripture, to 
 determine how far Scripture goes in implying them, 
 the exact weight of its terms, and the danger of 
 this or that deviation from them ? What even is 
 so scarce, in the multitude of men, as the power of 
 stating any simple matter of fact as they witnessed 
 it ? How rarely do their words run with their 
 memory, or their memory with the thing in ques- 
 tion ! With what difficulty is a speaker or a writer 
 understood by them, if he puts forward anything 
 new or recondite ! What mistakes are there cir- 
 culating through society about the tenets of indi- 
 viduals of whatever cast of opinion ! What in- 
 fterminable confusions and misunderstandings in 
 controversy are there among the most earnest 
 men ! What questions of words instead of things ! 
 View the state of the case in detail. For instance ; 
 let it be proposed to one of the common run of 
 men, however pious and well meaning, to deter- 
 mine what is the true Scripture doctrine about 
 original sin, whether Adam's sin is or is not im- 
 puted; or again, about the Holy Eucharist, how 
 to interpret our Lord's words ; or again, whether 
 we are justified by works, or by faith, or by faith 
 only, what answer can he be expected to give ? If 
 it be said, in answer, that he may gain religious 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 177 
 
 impressions and practical guidance from Scripture, 
 without being able to solve these questions; I 
 grant that this, thank God, is, through His bless- 
 ing, abundantly possible ; but the question is, 
 whether Gospel doctrine, the special " form of sound 
 words " which is called the Faith, whatever it be, 
 can be so ascertained. I say " whatever it be," for 
 it matters not here whether it be long or short, 
 intricate or simple ; if there be but one dogma, as 
 it is called, one truth in the shape of a declaration 
 or proposition, such as, " Christ is God," or " we are 
 justified by faith only," I say this is enough to put 
 the problem of proving it from Scripture beyond 
 the capacity of so considerable a number of persons, 
 that the right of Private Judgment will be confined 
 to what is called in this world's matters, an exclu- 
 sive body, or will be a monopoly. Aud I repeat, 
 it does seem as if reflecting men would grant as 
 much as this ; only they would deny that the Gos- 
 pel need be conveyed in any but popular proposi- 
 tions, it being a matter of the heart, not of creeds, 
 not of niceties of words, not of doctrines necessary 
 to be believed in order to salvation. They would 
 maintain that it was enough to accept Christ as a 
 Saviour, and to act upon the belief; and this, they 
 would say, might be obtained from Scripture by 
 any earnest mind. 
 
 Now here it may be asked me in tufn^ whether 
 there are not a number of Christians who on either 
 supposition, whether the creed is given them by the 
 
 N 
 
178 • ON THE ABUSE OF [Lect. 
 
 Church, or whether they have to find it in Scrip- 
 ture for themselves, yet cannot get beyond that 
 vague notion of the Gospel which has just been 
 mentioned. I do grant it ; but then I maintain, 
 that every Christian is bound to have as accurate 
 notions as he can, and that many a man is capable 
 of receiving more accurate notions than he can 
 gather for himself from the Bible. It is one thing 
 to apprehend the Catholic doctrines ; quite another 
 to ascertain how and where they are impbed in 
 Scripture. Most men of fair education can under- 
 stand the sacred doctrine debated at Nicea, as 
 fully as a professed theologian ; but few have minds 
 tutored into patient inquiry, attention, and accuracy 
 sufficient to prove it aright from Scripture. Scrip- 
 ture is not so clear — in God's providential arrange- 
 ment, to which we submit — as to hinder ordinary 
 persons, who read it for themselves, from being 
 Sabellians, or Independents, or Wesleyans. I do 
 not deny, I earnestly maintain that orthodoxy in 
 its fullest range is the one and only sense of Scrip- 
 ture ; nor do I say that Scripture is not distinct 
 enough to keep the multitude from certain gross 
 forms of heterodoxy, as Socinianism ; nor do I pre- 
 sume to limit what God will do in extraordinary 
 cases; much less do I deny that Scripture will 
 place any earnest inquirer in that position of mind 
 which will cause him to embrace the Catholic 
 creed, when offered, as the real counterpart and 
 complement of the view which Scripture has given 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 179 
 
 him ; but I deny that the mass of Christians, perus- 
 ing the Scripture merely by themselves, will be 
 secured from Sabellianism in Germany or America, 
 from Pelagianism in Geneva, or from undervaluing 
 the Sacraments in Scotland. All that can be ob- 
 jected is that Sabellianism, and Pelagianism, and 
 low notions of the Sacraments, are not injurious, 
 where the heart is warm and the feelings (what is 
 improperly called) spiritual. 
 
 But it may be said that at least the common run 
 of people can see what is not in Scripture, what- 
 ever be their defect of accuracy ; and that thus in 
 a Popish country they may obtain clear views of 
 the Gospel from Scripture, when the Church has 
 corrupted it. To a certain point they may ; but an 
 accuracy, which they have not, will be necessary 
 to teach them where to stop in their retrenchments 
 of faith. What is to secure their stopping at the 
 very point we wish ? Is all that really is in Scrip- 
 ture clearly stated, and may all that is but implied 
 be rejected ? What is to hinder the multitude of 
 men who have been allowed to reject the doctrine 
 of Transubstantiation because they do not find it 
 in Scripture, from rejecting, also, the divinity of the 
 Holy Ghost, because He is no where plainly called 
 God ? No ; such Private Judgment is a weapon 
 which destroys error by the sacrifice of truth. 
 
 From all this I conclude that persons who main- 
 tain that the mass of Christians are bound to draw 
 the orthodox faith for themselves from Scripture, 
 
 n 2 
 
180 ON THE ABUSE OF [Lect. 
 
 hold an unreal doctrine, and are in a false position ; 
 that, to be consistent, they must go further one 
 way or the other, either cease to think orthodoxy 
 necessary, or allow it to be taught them. 
 
 2, In the next place, let us consider what force 
 prepossessions have in disqualifying us from search- 
 ing Scripture dispassionately for ourselves. The 
 mass of men are hindered from forming their own 
 views of doctrine, not only from the peculiar struc- 
 ture of the sacred Volume, but from the external 
 bias which they ever receive from education and 
 other causes. Without proving the influence of 
 prejudice, which would be superfluous, let us con- 
 sider some of the effects of it. For instance ; one 
 man sees the doctrine of absolute predestination 
 in Scripture so clearly, as he considers, that he 
 makes it almost an article of saving faith ; another 
 thinks it a most dangerous error. One man main- 
 tains, that the civil establishment of religion is 
 commanded in Scripture, another that it is con- 
 demned by it. Such instances do not show that 
 Scripture has no one certain meaning, but that it 
 is not so distinct and prominent, as to force itself 
 upon the minds of the many against their various 
 prejudices. Nor do they prove that all prejudice 
 is wrong ; but that some particular prejudices are 
 not true ; and that, since it is impossible to be 
 without some or other, it is expedient to impress 
 the mind with that which is true ; that is, with the 
 faith taught by the Church Catholic, and ascer- 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 181 
 
 tainable as a matter of fact beyond the influence 
 of prejudice. 
 
 Again : take the explanations in detail given by 
 Protestants of particular texts of Scripture ; they 
 will be found to be made with an inconsistency and 
 want of intelligible principle, which shows how im- 
 possible it is for the mass of men to contemplate 
 Scripture without imparting to it the colouring 
 which they themselves have received in the course 
 of their education. Nothing is more striking, in 
 popular interpretations and discussions, than the 
 amplitude of meaning which is sometimes allowed 
 to the sacred text, compared with its assumed 
 narrowness at other times. In some places it is 
 liberally opened, at others it is kept close shut ; 
 sometimes a single word is developed into an argu- 
 ment, at another it is denied to mean anything spe- 
 cific and definite, anything but what is accidental 
 and transient. At times the commentator is sensi- 
 tively alive to the most distant allusions, at times 
 he is impenetrable to any ; at times he decides that 
 the sacred text is figurative, at other times only li- 
 teral ; without any assignable reason except that the 
 particular religious persuasion to which he belongs 
 requires such inconsistency. For instance, when 
 Christ said to the Apostles, " Drink ye all of this," 
 He is considered to imply that all the laity should 
 partake the cup ; yet, when He said to them, " Re- 
 ceive ye the Holy Ghost," He spoke to the original 
 Apostles exclusively. When St. Paul speaks of 
 
182 ON THE ABUSE OF [Lect. 
 
 " the man of sin," he meant a succession of sin- 
 ners ; but when Christ said, " I give unto thee the 
 keys of the kingdom of heaven," He does not mean 
 a line of Apostles. When St. Paul says of the 
 Old Testament, " All Scripture is given by inspi- 
 ration of God," he includes the New ; yet when he 
 says, " We are come to the city of the living God/' 
 he does not include the Church militant. " A 
 fountain shall be opened for sin," does not prove 
 baptismal grace ; but " Christ is unto us right- 
 eousness," proves that He fulfils the law in- 
 stead of us. " The fire must prove every man's 
 work," is said to be a figure ; yet, " Let no man 
 judge you in meats and drinks," is to be taken to 
 the letter as an argument against fasting. " Do 
 this in remembrance of me," is to be understood 
 as a command ; but, " Ye also ought to wash one 
 another's feet," is not a command. " Let no man 
 judge you in respect of a holyday, or of the Sab- 
 bath-days," is an argument not against the Sabbath, 
 but against holy-days. " Search the Scriptures," 
 is an argument for Scripture being the rule of 
 faith ; but " hold the Traditions," is no argument 
 in favour of Tradition. " Forbidding to marry" is a 
 proof that Rome is Antichrist ; but, " It is good 
 for a man not to marry," is no argument in favour 
 of celibacy. The Sermon on the Mount contains 
 no direction to Protestants to fast ; but the second 
 Commandment is plainly against Image Worship. 
 The Romanist in using prayers in an unknown 
 
VI. 1 PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 183 
 
 tongue contradicts the 1 4th chapter of St. Paul's first 
 Epistle to the Corinthians ; but the Protestant, in his 
 exposition of justification by faith only \ may be in- 
 dulged in contradicting St. James without agreeing 
 with St. Paul. Let me not be supposed to imply 
 that all these interpretations are equally true and 
 equally false ; that some are not false and others 
 not true ; it will be plain to any one who examines 
 them that this is not my meaning. I am but show- 
 ing the extreme inconsistency which is found in the 
 popular mode of interpreting Scripture ; men pro- 
 fess to explain Scri23ture by itself and by reason, 
 yet go by no rule, nor can give any account of their 
 mode of proceeding. They take the most difficult 
 points for granted, and say they go by common 
 sense when they really go by prejudice. Doubt- 
 less Scripture is sometimes literal and sometimes 
 figurative ; it need not be literal here, because it 
 is literal there ; but, in many cases, the only way of 
 determining when it is one and when the other, is 
 to see how the early Church understood it. This 
 is the Anglican principle; we do not profess to 
 judge of Scripture in greater matters by itself, but 
 by means of an external guide. But the popular 
 religion of the day does ; and it finds itself unequal 
 to its profession. It rebels against the voice of 
 Antiquity, and becomes the victim of prejudice and 
 
 1 For the true sense of this doctrine in the English Church, 
 vide Bishop Bull's Harmonia ; whom the Alithor has attempted 
 to follow in his Sermons, Volume iii. Serm. 6. 
 
184 ON THE ABUSE OF [Lect. 
 
 a slave to Traditions of men. It interprets Scrip- 
 ture in a spirit of caprice, "which might be made, 
 and is made by others, to prove Romanism quite as 
 well. And from all this I infer, not that Scripture 
 has no one meaning in matters of doctrine, or that 
 we do not know it, or that a man of high qualifi- 
 cations may not elicit it, but that the mass of men, 
 if left to themselves, will not possess the faculty of 
 reading it naturally and truly. 
 
 But more may be said in illustration of this 
 subject. It is very observable how a latent pre- 
 judice can act in obscuring or rather annihilating 
 certain passages of Scripture in the mental vision, 
 which are ever so prominently presented to the 
 bodily eyes. For instance, a man perhaps is in 
 the habit of reading it for years, and has no impres- 
 sion whatever produced on his mind by such por- 
 tions of it as speak of free grace, and the need of 
 spiritual aid. These are suddenly and forcibly 
 brought home to him ; and then perhaps he changes 
 his religious views altogether, and declares that 
 Scripture has hitherto been to him nothing better 
 than a sealed book. What security has he that 
 in certain other respects it is not still hidden from 
 him, as it was heretofore as regards the portions 
 which have now unsettled him ? Anglican divines 
 will consider him still dark on certain other 
 points of Scripture doctrine. Or, again, I would 
 ask him what satisfactory sense he puts to our 
 Lord's words, " Verily, thou shalt in nowise come 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 185 
 
 out thence till thou hast paid the very last far- 
 thing ?" or, " Stand fast and hold the Traditions ?" 
 or, " Let them pray over them, anointing them 
 with oil in the name of the Lord?" and whether 
 a Romanist might not as fairly accuse him of neg- 
 lecting these still, as he now makes certain others, 
 to which he was before blind, the sum and substance 
 of his religion ? 
 
 Or, to take another and more painful illustration. 
 The (so-called) Unitarians explain away the most 
 explicit texts in behalf of our Lord's divinity. 
 These texts do not affect them at all. Let us 
 consider how this is. When we come to inquire, 
 they have, it would seem, a preconceived notion 
 in their minds that the substance of the Gospel 
 lies in the doctrine of the Resurrection. This doc- 
 trine is their Christianity, their orthodoxy ; it con- 
 tains in it; as they think, the essence of the reve- 
 lation. When then they come to the texts in 
 question, such as " Christ, who is over all, God, 
 blessed for ever ;" or, " The Word was God ;" they 
 have beforehand made up their minds, that, what- 
 ever these words mean, they can have no important 
 meaning, because they do not refer to the Resur- 
 rection; for that alone they will allow to be im- 
 portant. So, when they are pressed with them in 
 argument, they are vexed and annoyed at having 
 to explain what they mean, when they cannot satis- 
 factorily ; without, however, feeling shame and mis- 
 
186 ON THE ABUSE OF ILect. 
 
 givings from their appearing to tell against them. 
 Rather, they think the objection idle, — not serious, 
 but troublesome. It is in their view almost as if 
 we asked them the meaning of any merely obscure 
 passage, sueh as " baptizing for the dead ;" and 
 would not let them read the chapter through in 
 which it occurs, till they had explained it. In 
 such a case they would of course urge that we 
 were acting very unfairly ; that, when the drift of 
 the whole was so plain, it was mere trifling to stop 
 them at one half sentence, which after all they 
 were ready to confess they did not understand. 
 This is what they actually do feel towards the 
 solemn texts lately cited. They consider them 
 obscurities ; they avow they do not understand 
 them ; and they boldly ask, what then ? that they 
 are but a few words, half a sentence perhaps, in a 
 chapter otherwise clear and connected ; and they 
 do not feel themselves bound down to explain 
 every phrase or word of Scripture which may meet 
 them. If then, at any time, they undertake to 
 explain them, it is not as if they laid any particular 
 stress on such explanations. They are not confi- 
 dent, they are not careful, about their correctness ; 
 they do not mind altering them. They put for- 
 ward whatever will stop or embarrass their oppo- 
 nent, nothing more. They use some anomalous 
 criticism, or alter the stopping, or amend the text, 
 and all because they have made up their minds 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 187 
 
 already what the Gospel is, that some other doc- 
 trine is the whole of it, and that in consequence 
 the question in dispute is very unimportant. 
 
 Is this state of mind incredible? Yet, from 
 whatever cause, they undeniably do contrive to 
 blind themselves to what Scripture says concern- 
 ing the Trinity and Incarnation, which is all that 
 concerns us here. It shows that Scripture does 
 not teach doctrine as the Athanasian Creed teaches 
 it ; the prejudices which are too great for the one, 
 are not too great for the other. But after all it is 
 not so incredible, ourselves being witnesses ; as will 
 directly appear. As Socinians take the Resurrec- 
 tion to be the whole of the Gospel, so do others 
 take the Atonement to be the whole of it. This 
 sacred doctrine is most essential, as essential as the 
 Resurrection, but it is nowhere said to be the 
 whole of Christianity; nowhere is it so presented 
 to us as to sanction us in neglecting the rest. Yet, 
 as Socinians make the Resurrection everything, and 
 overlook the Incarnation, so again there are very 
 many Christians who agree with them as far as 
 this, in a like indulgence of theory and prejudice, 
 making, as they do, the doctrine of the Atonement 
 not only an essential but the whole of the Gospel. 
 This then is their orthodoxy. For instance ; St. 
 Paul says, " God was manifested in the flesh ;" So- 
 cinians pass over these words, or explain them any 
 how ; but what are the words immediately before 
 them ? They stand thus : " The Church of the 
 
188 ON THE ABUSE OF |Lect. 
 
 living God, the pillar and ground of the Truth." 
 Now, I do not ask what these words mean ; I do 
 not ask in what sense the Church is a pillar ; 
 but merely this, — has not many a man who calls 
 himself orthodox, and is orthodox so far as not to 
 be a Socinian, passed over these words again and 
 again, either not noticing them or not thinking it 
 mattered whether he understood them or not ? 
 And when his attention is called to them, is he 
 not impatient and irritated, rather than perplexed ; 
 fully confident that they mean nothing of conse- 
 quence, yet feeling he is bound in fairness to 
 attempt some explanation of them? and does he 
 not in consequence drive to and fro, as if to burst 
 the net in which he finds himself, giving first one 
 solution of the difficulty, then another, altering 
 the stopping, or glossing over the phrase, as will 
 most readily answer his immediate purpose ? And 
 so, in like manner, many a man insists on the 
 words, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God," who will not go on to our Lord's answer, 
 " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build 
 My Church." Let us, then, no longer wonder at 
 Socinians : the mass of Christians bring their pre- 
 judices and impressions to the written word, as 
 well as they, and find it easier to judge of the text 
 by the spontaneous operation of habit and inclina- 
 tion, than by the active and independent exercise 
 of their reason ; in other words, they think inaccu- 
 rately but they judge.and feel by prejudice. 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 189 
 
 Here then we have two serious disqualifications 
 in the case of the multitude of men, which must 
 discourage those who are in any measure humble 
 and cautious, from attempting to rely on their own 
 unassisted interpretation of Scripture, if they can 
 avoid it. Scripture is not so distinct in its an- 
 nouncements, as readers are morally or intellec- 
 tually slow in receiving them. And if any one 
 thinks that this avowal is derogatory to Scripture, 
 I answer that Scripture was never intended to teach 
 doctrine to the many ; and if it was not given with 
 this object, it argues no imperfection in it that it 
 does not fulfil it. 
 
 I repeat it ; while Scripture is written by inspired 
 men, with one and one only view of doctrine in their 
 hearts and contemplations, even the Truth which 
 was from the beginning, yet being written not to 
 instruct in doctrine, but for those who were already 
 instructed in it, not with direct announcements but 
 with intimations and implications of the faith, the 
 qualifications for rightly apprehending it are so rare 
 and high, that a prudent man, to say nothing of 
 piety, will not risk his salvation on the chance of 
 his having them ; but will read it with the aid of 
 those subsidiary guides which ever have been sup- 
 plied as if to meet our need. I would not deny 
 as an abstract proposition that a Christian may 
 gain the whole truth from the Scriptures, but would 
 maintain that the chances are very seriously against 
 a given individual. I would not deny, but rather 
 
190 ON THE ABUSE OF [Lect. 
 
 maintain that a religious, wise, and intellectually 
 gifted man will succeed : but who answers to this 
 description but the collective Church ? There, in- 
 deed, such qualifications might be supposed to 
 exist ; what is wanting in one member being sup- 
 plied by another, and the contrary errors of indi- 
 viduals eliminated by their combination. The 
 Church truly may be said almost infallibly to inter- 
 pret Scripture, though from the possession of past 
 tradition, and amid the divisions of the time pre- 
 sent, perhaps at no period in the course of the 
 Dispensation has she had the need and the op- 
 portunity of interpreting it for herself. Neither 
 would I deny that individuals, whether from 
 height of holiness, clearness of intellectual vision, 
 or the immediate power of the Holy Ghost, have 
 been and are able to penetrate through the sacred 
 text into some portions of the divine system beyond 
 without external help ; though since that help has 
 ever been given, as to the Church, so to the indi- 
 vidual, it is difficult to prove that the individual 
 has performed what the Church has never at- 
 tempted. None, however, it would seem, but a 
 complete and accurately moulded Christian, such 
 as the world has never or scarcely seen, would 
 be able to bring out harmoniously and per- 
 spicuously the full divine characters which lie hid 
 from mortal eyes within the inspired letter of the 
 revelation. And this, by the way, may be taken 
 as one remarkable test, or at least characteristic of 
 
 1 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 191 
 
 error, in the various denominations of religion 
 which surround us ; none of them embraces the 
 whole Bible, none of them is able to interpret 
 the whole, none of them has a key which will 
 revolve through the entire compass of the wards 
 which lie within. Each has its favourite text, 
 and neglects the rest. None can solve the great 
 secret and utter the mystery of its pages. One 
 makes trial, then another : but one and all in 
 turn are foiled. They retire, as the sages of 
 Babylon, and make way for Daniel. The Church 
 Catholic, the true Prophet of God, alone is able 
 to tell the dream and its interpretation. 
 
 3. But it may be objected that full justice has not 
 yet been done to the arguments of the popular re- 
 ligion. A widely extended shape of Protestantism 
 in this country, and that which professes to be the 
 most religious of all, maintains that, though Scrip- 
 ture may seem to mean any thing in matters of 
 faith to unassisted reason, yet that under the guid- 
 ance of divine illumination it speaks but one doc- 
 trine, and is thus the instrument of the Holy Ghost 
 in converting the soul. Starting from this funda- 
 mental article, its advocates speak as follows : — 
 that Scripture is the only divine instrument given 
 us; that every thing else is human ; that the Church 
 is human; that rites and sacraments are human; that 
 teachers are human ; that the Fathers are but fallible 
 men ; that creeds and confessions, primitive faith, 
 Apostolical Traditions, are human systems, and doc- 
 
1*92 ON THE ABUSE OF [Lect. 
 
 trines of men ; that there is no need of proving this 
 in particular instances, because it is an elementary 
 principle, which holds good of them all; and that 
 till we acknowledge and accept this principle we 
 are still in the flesh. It follows that to inquire 
 about the early Church, the consent of Fathers, 
 unbroken testimonies, or Councils, to inquire when 
 the Church first became corrupt, or to make the 
 primitive writers a comment upon the inspired 
 text, are but melancholy and pernicious follies. 
 The Church, according to this view of it, is not, 
 and never was, more than a collection of indi- 
 viduals. Some of those individuals have, in every 
 age, been, through God's mercy, spiritually en- 
 lightened, and may have shed a radiance round 
 them, and influenced the Christian body even for 
 ages after them; but, true religion being always 
 rare, and the many being always evil, an appeal lies 
 as little with Antiquity as with modern times. The 
 Apostolic Church was not better than the present, 
 nor is of more weight and authority ; it was a human 
 system, and an aggregate of fallible men, and such 
 is the length and the breadth of the whole matter. 
 In the eyes of such religionists the very subject of 
 these Lectures is irrelevant and nugatory, and the 
 time and attention required to hear or to write 
 them are but squandered upon earthly subjects, 
 which supply no food for the hungry soul, no light 
 for the wandering feet, no stay or consolation in 
 the hour of death or the day of judgment. 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 193 
 
 I trust this is, on the whole, a fair view of what 
 many thousands (alas !) of serious and well-meaning 
 persons hold at this present time among us ; and 
 are so sure they are right, that they consider that 
 no one is a real Christian who does not assent to 
 it, and that no one can have once seen and ac- 
 knowledged it, but must for ever profess it as some- 
 thing more heavenly and comfortable than any doc- 
 trine he ever maintained before. And this feeling, 
 which their conduct evidences, perhaps accounts 
 for the state in which they leave the theory in 
 question, which is as follows. — It is perfect as a 
 theory ; I mean, it is consistent with itself, it being 
 quite conceivable that Providence might have acted 
 in the way it represents, might have called the 
 predestined few, or tried the earnestness of all, by 
 what is at first sight a various and intricate volume. 
 But secondly, I observe that, whether it be true or 
 false, no part of the foregoing account goes towards 
 the proof of it, nor is any serious attempt made 
 that way by its advocates. As Baptismal grace is 
 supposed by the Romanists to convey to indivi- 
 duals the evidence of their Church's Infallibility, 
 so a similar divine influence, but not in Baptism, 
 is supposed, according to this popular religion, to 
 assure the soul without proof that the Bible is the 
 only source of divine knowledge. 
 
 The only semblance of argument in the prima 
 
 facie statement as above drawn out, lies in this, 
 
 that the majority being always evil, its faith is no 
 
 o 
 
194 ON THE ABUSE OF [Lect. 
 
 presumption of truth. Something has been said 
 in former Lectures which will serve to explain this 
 objection, and something will be said in one soon to 
 follow. Here I will but observe that the multitude 
 may witness for truth and yet act against it ; that 
 it is the very peculiarity of the world that it kills 
 the Prophets of God and builds their sepulchres, — 
 the very charge against it that " knowing the judg- 
 ment of God, that they which commit such things 
 are worthy of death," yet it " not only does the 
 same, but has pleasure in them that practise them ;" 
 and that this inconsistency in its conduct was 
 never considered to interfere with the value of its 
 witness. When men witness against themselves, 
 this surely affords no presumption that they wit- 
 ness falsely. Does " the corruption that is in the 
 world through lust " invalidate or corroborate its 
 unanimous testimony to the being of a moral Go- 
 vernor and Judge, and again to the sovereignty of 
 the moral law and to the guilt and pollution of 
 sin ? Surely then the concordant assent of Chris- 
 tendom to doctrines so severe and high as the 
 Christian Mysteries, is a stronger argument in fa- 
 vour of their Apostolic origin, than if they were 
 more pleasing and acceptable to the nature of man. 
 Is there any thing in the doctrine of the Trinity to 
 flatter human pride ? or in that of the Incarnation 
 to encourage carnal tastes and appetites ? or in that 
 of the Spirit's abidance within us to make us easy 
 and irreverent ? or in the Atonement to make us 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 195 
 
 think lightly of sin ? Fallible men then may con- 
 vey truth infallible ; human systems may be instru- 
 ments of heaven. And he who feels his ignorance 
 will seek for light wherever he can obtain it ; he will 
 not prescribe rules to God's providence; he will 
 not say " inform me by inspired oracles or not at 
 all." If indeed full information had been promised 
 to individuals from private study of the text of the 
 Scriptures, this indeed might be a reason for dis- 
 pensing with Antiquity, whatever was its value. 
 But even could it be proved without value, as fully 
 as the persons in question desire, still it must be 
 recollected this would not go one step towards 
 proving that such a promise of guidance from read- 
 ing Scripture has been given ; and it happens most 
 remarkably, as I have already hinted, that satisfied, 
 I suppose, with the simplicity of their theory, they 
 have chiefly employed themselves in assailing the 
 Christian Fathers, without proving what far more 
 nearly concerns them, their own doctrine of the 
 sufficiency of Scripture for teaching the faith; which 
 failing, the Fathers are their sole, even though an 
 insufficient resource. In conclusion, then, I will 
 review the chief arguments, if they must so be 
 called, adducible in defence of this main principle of 
 popular Protestantism. 
 
 Now, if its advocates are asked on what grounds 
 they conceive that Scripture is, under God's grace, 
 the one ordained informant in saving truth, I sup- 
 pose they will refer to such texts as our Lord's 
 
 o2 
 
196 ON THE ABUSE OF [Lbct. 
 
 words to the Jews, " Search the Scriptures ;" or to 
 St. Paul's, " All Scripture is given by inspiration 
 of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, 
 for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that 
 the man of God may be perfect, throughly fur- 
 nished unto all good works ;" or to St. Luke's ac- 
 count of Christ's " opening" His Apostles' " under- 
 standing, that they might understand the Scrip- 
 tures ;" or to St. James's telling us " to ask for 
 wisdom of God, who giveth liberally;" or to our 
 Lord's assurance, " Ask, and it shall be given you ;" 
 or to St. Paul's statement, that " the natural man 
 receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ;" 
 or to our Lord's promise to the twelve, that the 
 Holy Ghost the Comforter " should guide them into 
 all truth ;" or to the prophet Isaiah's prediction, 
 " All thy children shall be taught of the Lord ;" or 
 to St. John's declaration, " Ye have an unction from 
 the Holy One, and ye know all things." Yet after 
 all, can any one text be produced, or any compa- 
 rison of texts, to establish the very point in hand, 
 that Scripture is the sole necessary instrument of 
 the Holy Ghost for guiding the individual Chris- 
 tian into saving truth ? for it may be very true that 
 we ought to search the Scriptures, and true that 
 Scripture contains all saving doctrine, and true that 
 we cannot understand it without the Holy Spirit, 
 and true that the Holy Spirit is given to all who 
 ask, and true that all perfect Christians do under- 
 stand it, and yet there may not be such connexion 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 197 
 
 between these separate propositions as to make it 
 true that men are led by the Holy Spirit into saving 
 truth through the Scriptures. We may be bound 
 to search the Scriptures, yet not to find saving doc- 
 trines, but chiefly to be throughly " furnished unto 
 all good works ;" it may contain all saving doctrine, 
 yet so deeply lodged there, that " those who are 
 unlearned and unstable may wrest it unto their own 
 destruction ;" the Holy Ghost may be promised to 
 all Christians, yet not in order to teach them the 
 faith through Scripture, but in order to impress 
 Scripture on their hearts, and to teach them the 
 faith through whatever sources. Let us inspect 
 some of the foregoing texts more narrowly. 
 
 First, there are texts which bid us ask wisdom 
 of God, and promise that it will be granted 1 . It 
 is true, but this does not show that the private 
 reading of Scripture is the one essential requisite 
 for gaining it. If such texts are taken by them- 
 selves, they would rather prove that no external 
 means at all is necessary, not even Scripture, for 
 Scripture is not mentioned. To be consistent, we 
 ought to call the Scripture an outward form as 
 well as the Church, and to say that " asking," 
 in other words, prayer, is alone necessary. If 
 then one external means of information is ad- 
 mitted as intervening between the Holy Ghost 
 and the soul, though it is not mentioned, why not 
 
 1 Matt. vii. 7. James i. 5. 
 
198 ON THE ABUSE OF [Lect. 
 
 another ? When Christ says, " Ask, and ye shall 
 find," He does not specify the mode of seeking ; He 
 means, as we may suppose, by all methods which are 
 vouchsafed to us, and are otherwise specified. He 
 includes the Church, which is called " the pillar 
 and ground of the Truth." Our Service applies 
 the promise to seeking God in Baptism, and as 
 it may include the use of the Sacraments, so may it 
 include the use of Catholic teaching. 
 
 Again, no Christian can doubt that without di- 
 vine grace we cannot discern the sense of Scripture 
 profitably; but it does not follow from this that 
 with it we can gain every thing from Scripture. 
 The grace of God seems to be promised us chiefly 
 for practical purposes, for enabling us to receive 
 what we receive, whatever it is, doctrine or precept, 
 or from whatever quarter, profitably, with a lively 
 faith, with love and zeal. If it supersedes Creeds, 
 why should it not supersede Sacraments? it acts 
 through Sacraments, and in like manner it acts 
 through Creeds. Sacraments, without the presence 
 of the Holy Ghost, would sink into mere Jewish 
 rites ; and Creeds, without a similar presence, are 
 but a dead letter. The appointment of Sacraments 
 is in Scripture, and so is the proof of the Creed ; 
 yet Scripture is no more a Creed than it is a Sa- 
 crament. By continuous Tradition we have re- 
 ceived the Sacraments embodied in a certain defi- 
 nite form ; and by a like Tradition we have received 
 the doctrines also ; Scripture may justify both the 
 
VI.] PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 199 
 
 one and the* other when given, without being suffi- 
 cient to lead individuals to frame and observe them, 
 before they are given. Besides, if the Holy Spirit 
 illuminates the word of God to the individual in all 
 things, then of course as regards unfulfilled pro- 
 phecy also ; which we know is not the case. As 
 then, for all that the Spirit is given, yet the event 
 is necessary to interpret prophecy, so in like man- 
 ner a similar external fact may be necessary for 
 understanding doctrine. True then though it be 
 that " the natural man discerneth not the things 
 of the Spirit of God;" it does not therefore follow 
 that the spiritual man discerneth spiritual things 
 through Scripture only, not through Creeds. 
 
 Lastly : there are texts which recite the various 
 purposes for which Scripture is useful ; but it does 
 not follow that no medium is necessary for its 
 becoming useful to individuals. Scripture may be 
 profitable for doctrine, instruction, and correction, 
 that the man of God may be perfect, without thereby 
 determining at all whether or not there are instru- 
 ments for preparing, dispensing, and ministering the 
 word for this or that purpose which it is to effect. 
 Certainly Christ says, " Search the Scriptures," 
 but He is speaking to the Jews about their Scrip- 
 tures, and about definite prophecies ; how does it 
 follow that because it was the duty of the Jews 
 to examine documents as prophecies, which pro- 
 fess to be prophecies, that therefore we are meant 
 to gather our doctrines from documents which do 
 
200 ON THE ABUSE OF [Lect. 
 
 not profess to be doctrinal ? Besides, when Christ 
 told them to search the Scriptures for notices of 
 Himself, He had vouchsafed already to present 
 Himself before them ; He was a living comment 
 on those Scriptures to which He referred. What 
 He was to be, was not understood before He ap- 
 peared. The case is the same with Christian doc- 
 trine now. The Creed confronts Scripture, and 
 seems to say to us, " Search the Scriptures, for 
 they testify of me." But if we attempt to gain the 
 truth of doctrine without the Creed, perchance we 
 shall not be more successful in our search than 
 were the Jews in seeking Christ before He came, 
 yet under circumstances different from theirs, in 
 which knowledge is necessary to salvation, and 
 error is a sin. 
 
 Enough has now been said on the theory of 
 Private Judgment. I conclude then that there is 
 neither natural probability, nor supernatural pro- 
 mise, that individuals reading Scripture for them- 
 selves, to the neglect of other means when they 
 can have them, will, because they pray for a bless- 
 ing, be necessarily led into a knowledge of the true 
 and complete faith of a Christian. I conclude that 
 the popular theory of rejecting all other helps and 
 reading the Bible only, though commonly maintained 
 through ignorance, is yet in itself presumptuous. 
 I make but one remark in conclusion. One main 
 reason of the jealousy, with which Christians of this 
 age and country maintain the notion that truth of 
 
VI.J PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 201 
 
 doctrine can be gained from Scripture by indivi- 
 duals, is this, that they are unwilling, as they say, 
 to be led by others blindfold. They can possess 
 and read the Scriptures ; whereas of Traditions 
 they are no adequate judges, and they dread priest- 
 craft. I am not here to enter into the discussion 
 of this feeling, whether praiseworthy or the con- 
 trary. However this be, it does seem a reason 
 for putting before them, if possible, the principal 
 works of the Fathers, translated as Scripture is ; 
 that they may have by them what, whether used 
 or not, will be a check upon the growth of an undue 
 dependence on the word of individual teachers, and 
 will be a something to consult, if they have reason 
 to doubt the Catholic character of any tenet to 
 winch they are invited to accede. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 INSTANCES OF THE ABUSE OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT 
 
 I propose now to follow up the remarks last made 
 upon the Abuse of Private Judgment, with some 
 instances in which it has been indulged, and in 
 which, as might be expected antecedently, it has 
 been productive of error, more or less serious, but 
 never insignificant. These instances shall, on the 
 whole, be such as no orthodox Protestant shall be 
 able to look at with any satisfaction, and some of 
 them shall be taken from the history of Romanism 
 itself. 
 
 Without further preface I enter upon the sub- 
 ject, viz. what are the chief precedents, which past 
 ages afford modern Protestants, of the exercise of 
 Private Judgment upon the text of Scripture to 
 the neglect of Catholic Tradition, and what is their 
 character ? 
 
 1. First might be instanced many of the errors 
 in matters of fact connected with the Scripture 
 history, which got current in early times, and, being 
 
ABUSE OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 203 
 
 mentioned by this or that Father, now improperly 
 go by the name of Traditions, whereas they seem 
 really to have originated in a misunderstanding of 
 Scripture. Such, for instance, is the report re- 
 corded by Irenseus, and coming, as he conceived, on 
 good authority, that our Saviour lived to be forty 
 or fifty. Such is Clement's statement that St. Paul 
 was married ; such is that of Clement and Justin, 
 that our Lord was deformed in person. These make 
 out no claim to be considered Apostolical, whereas 
 they do singularly coincide severally with certain 
 texts in Scripture which admit of being distorted 
 so as to countenance them 1 . Such again probably 
 in no slight degree are the early opinions concern- 
 ing the Millennium ; certainly in Egypt in the third 
 century they seem to have had their origin in a 
 misconstruction of Scripture 2 . 
 
 If these various opinions did really thus arise, it 
 is a very curious circumstance that they should 
 now be imputed to Tradition, nay, and adduced, as 
 they are popularly, as if palmary refutations of its 
 claims ; whereas they really arose from the circum- 
 stance of either going solely by Scripture, or with 
 but scanty and insufficient guidance from Tradition. 
 But even though they were not mere deductions 
 from Scripture, still such local rumours about mat- 
 ters of fact cannot be put on a level with Catholic 
 Tradition concerning matters of doctrine. 
 
 1 John viii. 57. 1 Cor. ix. 5. Is. lii. 14. liii. 2. 
 
 2 Euseb. Hist. vii. 24. 
 
204 INSTANCES OF THE ABUSE [Lect. 
 
 2. The controversy about Baptism in which St. 
 Cyprian was engaged, and in which, according to 
 our own received opinion, he was mistaken, is a 
 clearer and more important instance in point. 
 Cyprian maintained that persons baptized by 
 heretical clergy, must, on being reconciled to the 
 Church, be re-baptized, or rather that their former 
 Baptism was invalid. The Roman Church of the 
 day held that confirmation was sufficient in such 
 cases, as if that ordinance, on the part of the true 
 Church, recognized and ratified the outward act, 
 already administered by heretics, and applied the in- 
 ward grace bound up in the Sacrament, but hitherto 
 not enjoyed by the parties receiving it. And she 
 rested her doctrine simply on Apostolical Tradition, 
 which by itself might fairly be taken as a sufficient 
 witness in such a point. Cyprian did not profess 
 any Apostolical Tradition on his side, but he argued 
 from Scripture against the judgment of the Roman 
 See. His argument and that of his countrymen 
 was of the following kind : — " 'There is but one 
 Lord, one Faith, one Baptism ;' the heretics have 
 not the one Faith, therefore they have not the one 
 Baptism." — Again, " ' There is one Body, one Spirit, 
 one Baptism ;' the one Baptism of the one Spirit 
 is in the one Church, therefore there is no Baptism 
 out of it." " Christ has said, ' He who is not with 
 Me, is against Me,' and St. John, that they who go 
 out from us are antichrists ; how can they confer 
 the grace of Baptism ?" " There are not two Bap- 
 
VII.] OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 203 
 
 tisms; he who recognizes that of heretics, invalidates 
 his' own." " ' No one can receive any thing but 
 what is given him from heaven ;' if heresy, then, be 
 from heaven, then, and then only, can it confer 
 Baptism." " ' God heareth not sinners ;' a heretic 
 is a sinner ; how then can his Baptism be acknow- 
 ledged by God ' ?" Such are the texts with which 
 the African Church defended themselves in Cy- 
 prian's days ; and who will not allow, with great 
 speciousness ? Cyprian himself says in like man- 
 ner, " Usage is of no force where reason is against 
 it 2 ;" nor is it, where reason is clear and usage is 
 modern. Yet, after all, however this be, here is a 
 case, where the mere arguing from Scripture with- 
 out reference to Tradition, (whether voluntarily 
 neglected or not), led to a conclusion which Pro- 
 testants now will grant to be erroneous. 
 
 3. Again, all members of the English Church at 
 least consider Arianism to be a fatal error ; yet, when 
 its history is examined, this peculiarity will be 
 found respecting it, that it appealed only to Scrip- 
 ture, not to Catholic Tradition. I do not mean to 
 say, it allowed that no one ever held it, before its 
 historical rise ; but that it did not profess, nay, it 
 did not care to have the Church Universal on its 
 side. It set itself against what was received, and 
 
 1 Tertull. de Baptismo 15. Concil. Carthag. apud Cyprian, 
 pp. 230—240. 
 
 2 Cypr. ad Quint. Ep. 71- ed. Bened. 
 
206 INSTANCES OF THE ABUSE [Lect. 
 
 owed its successes to the dexterity with which it 
 argued from certain texts of the Old and New 
 Testament. I will not enlarge on what is noto- 
 rious. Arianism certainly professed in its day to 
 be a scriptural religion. 
 
 4. Another opinion, which, though not an heresy, 
 will be granted by the majority of Protestants to be 
 an error, is the tenet with which the great St. Austin's 
 name is commonly connected. He, as is generally 
 known, is, among the ancient Fathers, the Master 
 of Predestinarianism, that is, of the theological opi- 
 nion that certain persons are irreversibly ordained 
 to persevere unto eternal life. He was engaged in 
 controversy with the Pelagians, and it is supposed, 
 that in withstanding them he was hurried into the 
 opposite extreme. Now it is remarkable that in his 
 treatises on the subject, he argues from Scripture, 
 and never appeals to Catholic Tradition. For in- 
 stance, in his work on the Gift of Perseverance he 
 speaks as follows : — 
 
 " The enemy of grace presses on, and urges in 
 all ways to make it believed that it is given accord- 
 ing to our deserts, and so ' grace should no longer 
 be grace ;' and are we loth to say what with the 
 testimony of Scripture we can say? I mean, do we 
 fear, lest, if we so speak, some one may be offended, 
 who cannot embrace the truth ; and not rather fear 
 lest, if we are silent, some one who is able to em- 
 brace it, may be embraced by error instead ? For 
 either Predestination is so to be preached, as Holy 
 
VII.] OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 207 
 
 Scripture plainly reveals it, that in the predestined 
 the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, 
 or we must confess that the grace of God is given 
 according to our deserts, as the Pelagians con- 
 sider." 
 
 Here it is curious indeed to see, how closely he 
 follows St. Cyprian's pattern, in his mode of con- 
 ducting his argument, viz., a reference to certain 
 texts of Scripture, and (if I may say it of such holy 
 men) a venturesome, a priori, or at least abstract, 
 course of reasoning. But now let us see how he 
 treats the objection which was made to him, that 
 his doctrine " was contrary to the opinion of the 
 Fathers and the Ecclesiastical sense." He speaks 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Why should we not, when we read in commen- 
 tators of God's word, of His prescience, and of the 
 calling of the elect, understand thereby this same 
 Predestination? For, perhaps, they preferred the 
 word prescience because it is more easily under- 
 stood, while it does not oppose, nay, agrees with 
 the truth which is preached concerning the Predes- 
 tination of grace. Of this I am sure, that no one 
 could have disputed against this Predestination, which 
 we maintain, according to the Holy Scriptures, with- 
 out an error. Yet I think those persons who ask 
 for the opinions of commentators on this subject, 
 ought to have been contented with those holy men, 
 celebrated every where for Christian faith and doc- 
 trine, Cyprian and Ambrose, whose clear testimo- 
 1 
 
208 INSTANCES OF THE ABUSE [Lect. 
 
 nies we have given. They ought to have taken 
 them as sufficient authorities both for believing 
 thoroughly, and preaching thoroughly, as is fitting, 
 that the grace of God is free ; and also for consider- 
 ing that preaching is quite consistent with exhort- 
 ing the indolent and rebuking the wicked: inasmuch 
 as of these two Saints, the one says concerning 
 God's grace, ' We must boast of nothing, for no- 
 thing is our own,' and the other, ' our heart and 
 our thoughts are not in our power,' and yet they 
 do not cease to exhort and rebuke, in behalf of the 
 divine precepts." After quoting some additional pas- 
 sages from these two Fathers, he proceeds, " What 
 do we seek clearer from commentators of the word 
 of God, if it be our pleasure to hear from them, what 
 is plain in the Scriptures ? However, to these two, 
 who ought to be enough, we will add a third, St. 
 Gregory, who witnesses that both faith in God and 
 the confession of that faith, are God's gift, in these 
 words : — ' Confess, I beseech you, the Trinity of the 
 one Godhead, or (if you prefer to say it), the one 
 nature ; and God shall be implored to vouchsafe 
 you voice to confess what you believe. He will 
 give, doubtless ; He who gave what comes first, 
 will give what comes second;' He who gave to 
 believe, will give to confess V 
 
 What makes the failure of this appeal to the 
 previous belief of the Church still more remarkable, 
 
 1 De dono Persever. 40, 41. 48, 49. Prosp. ad Aug. Ep. 225. 
 
VII.] OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 209 
 
 is the clear view St. Austin possesses of the value of 
 Catholic Tradition, and the force with which he can 
 urge it against an adversary on a proper occasion. 
 Here, then, we are furnished with a serious lesson 
 of the mischief of deducing from the sacred text 
 against the authority of Tradition. If the doctrine 
 of irrespective Predestination has done harm, and 
 created controversy in the Church, let it not be 
 forgotten that this has arisen from exercising pri- 
 vate judgment upon Scripture, to the neglect of 
 the Catholic sense. 
 
 5. My next instance shall be the Roman doc- 
 trine of Purgatory. All Protestants are sufficiently 
 alive to the seriousness of this error. Now I think 
 it may be shown that its existence is owing to the 
 same indulgence of human reason and of private 
 judgment upon Scripture, in default of Catholic 
 Tradition. That it was no received opinion during 
 the first ages of the Gospel, has often been shown, 
 and need not be dwelt on here. Hardly one or 
 two short passages of one or two Fathers for six 
 centuries can be brought in its favour, and those, 
 at the most, rather suggesting than teaching it. 
 In truth, the doctrine seems to have occurred to 
 them, as it has been received generally since, first 
 from the supposed need of such a provision in the 
 revealed scheme, — from (what may be called) its 
 naturalness in the judgment of reason ; and next in 
 consequence of the misinterpretation of certain 
 texts ; as I propose to explain at some length. 
 
 p 
 
210 INSTANCES OF THE ABUSE [Lect. 
 
 How Almighty God will deal with the mass of 
 Christians, who are neither very bad nor very good, 
 is a problem with which we are not concerned, and 
 which it is our wisdom, and may be our duty, to put 
 from our thoughts. But when it has once forced 
 itself upon the mind, we are led, in self-defence, 
 with a view of keeping ourselves from dwelling 
 unhealthily on particular cases which come under 
 our experience, and perplex us, to imagine modes, 
 not by which God does, (for that would be pre- 
 sumption to conjecture), but by which He may 
 solve the difficulty. Most men, to our apprehen- 
 sions, are too unformed in religious habits either 
 for heaven or hell ; yet there is no middle state, 
 when Christ comes in judgment. In consequence 
 it was obvious to have recourse to the interval 
 before His coming, as a time during which this in- 
 completeness might be remedied ; a season, not of 
 changing the spiritual bent and character of the 
 soul departed, whatever that be, for probation ends 
 with mortal life, but of developing it into a more 
 determinate form, whether of good or of evil. 
 Again, when the mind once allows itself to specu- 
 late, it would discern in such a provision, a means 
 whereby those, who, not without true faith at bot- 
 tom, yet have committed great crimes ; or those 
 who have been carried off in youth, while still 
 undecided ; or who die after a barren though not 
 an immoral or scandalous life, may receive such 
 chastisement as may prepare them for heaven, and 
 
 1 
 
VII.] OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 211 
 
 render it consistent with God's justice to admit 
 them thither. Again, the inequality of the suffer- 
 ings of Christians in this life, compared one with 
 another, would lead the unguarded mind to the 
 same speculations; the intense suffering, for in- 
 stance, which some men undergo on their death- 
 bed, seeming as if but an anticipation, in their case, 
 of what comes after death upon others, who without 
 greater claims on God's forbearance, have lived 
 without chastisement and die easily. I say, the 
 mind will inevitably dwell upon 'such thoughts, 
 unless it has been taught to subdue them by 
 education or by the experience of their danger- 
 ousness. 
 
 Various suppositions have, accordingly, been 
 made, as pure suppositions, as mere specimens of 
 the capabilities, (if one may so speak,) of the Divine 
 Dispensation, as efforts of the mind, reaching for- 
 ward and venturing beyond its depth, into the abyss 
 of the Divine Counsels. If one supposition could 
 be produced to satisfy the problem, ten thousand 
 others were conceivable ; unless, indeed, the re- 
 sources of God's Providence are exactly commen- 
 surate with man's discernment of them. Religious 
 men, amid these searchings of heart, have naturally 
 gone to Scripture for relief; to see if the inspired 
 word any where gave them any clue for their in- 
 quiries. And hence, and from the speculations 
 of reason upon what was there found, various no- 
 tions have been hazarded at different times ; for 
 
 p2 
 
212 INSTANCES OF THE ABUSE [Lbct. 
 
 instance, that there is a certain momentary ordeal 
 to be undergone by all men after this life, more or 
 less severe according to their spiritual state ; — or 
 that certain gross sins in good men will be thus 
 visited, or their lighter failings and habitual im- 
 perfections ; — or that the very sight of Divine Per- 
 fection in the invisible world will be in itself a 
 pain, while it constitutes the purification of the 
 imperfect but believing soul ; — or that, happiness 
 admitting of various degrees of intensity, penitents 
 late in life, may sink for ever into a state blissful as 
 far as it goes, but more or less approaching to un- 
 consciousness ; infants dying after Baptism may be 
 as gems paving the courts of heaven, or as the liv- 
 ing wheels in the Prophet's vision ; while matured 
 Saints may excel in capacity of bliss, as well as in 
 dignity, the highest Archangels. Such specula- 
 tions are dangerous when indulged; the event 
 proves it ; — from some of them, in fact, seems to 
 have resulted the doctrine of Purgatory. 
 
 Now the texts to which the minds of the primi- 
 tive Christians seem to have been principally 
 drawn, and from which they ventured to argue in 
 behalf of these vague notions, were these two : — 
 " The fire shall try every man's work," &c, and " He 
 shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with 
 fire." These texts, with which many more were 
 found to accord, directed their thoughts one way, 
 as making mention of fire, whatever was meant by 
 the word, as the instrument of trial and purifica- 
 
VII.] OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 213 
 
 tion ; and that, at some time between the pre- 
 sent time and the judgment, or at the judgment. 
 And accordingly, without, perhaps, having any dis- 
 tinct or consistent meaning in what they said, or 
 being able to say whether they spoke literally or 
 figuratively, and with an indefinite reference to this 
 life as well as to the intermediate state, they some- 
 times named fire as the instrument of recovering 
 those who had sinned after their Baptism. That 
 this is the origin of the notion of a Purgatorial fire, 
 I gather from these circumstances ; — first, that they 
 do frequently insist on the texts in question ; next, 
 that they do not agree in the particular sense they 
 put upon them. That they quote them, shows they 
 rest upon them ; that they vary in explaining them, 
 that they had no Catholic sense to guide them. 
 Nothing can be clearer, if these facts be so, than 
 that the doctrine of the Purgatorial fire in all its 
 senses, as far as it was more than a surmise, and was 
 rested on argument, was the result of private judg- 
 ment, exerted, in defect of Tradition, upon the text 
 of Scripture. 
 
 A few extracts will at once show the discordance 
 of the Fathers with each other, on this subject, 
 and their dissent, more or less, from modern 
 Rome. 
 
 " The Psalmist observes," says Hilary, " that it is 
 difficult, and most perilous to human nature, to desire 
 God's judgments. For, since no one living is clean 
 
214 INSTANCES OF THE ABUSE [Lect. 
 
 iu His sight, how can His judgment be an object of 
 desire ? Considering we shall have to give account 
 for every idle word, shall we long for the day of 
 judgment, in which we must undergo that everliving 
 fire, and those heavy punishments for cleansing the 
 soul from its sins ? Then will a sword pierce the soul 
 of Blessed Mary, that the thoughts of many hearts 
 may be revealed. If that Virgin, which could com- 
 pass God, is to come into the severity of the judg- 
 ment, who shall venture to desire to be judged of 
 God ? Job, when he had finished his warfare with 
 all calamities of man, and had triumphed, who, when 
 tempted, said, ' The Lord gave,' &c, confessed him- 
 self but ashes when he heard God's voice from the 
 cloud, and determined that he ought not to speak 
 another word. And who shall venture to desire 
 God's judgments, whose voice from heaven neither 
 so great a Prophet endured, nor the Apostles either, 
 when they were with the Lord in the Mount ' ?" 
 
 Lactantius says, " When He judges the just, He 
 shall try them in the fire. Then they whose sins 
 prevail in weight or number, will be tortured in 
 the fire, and burnt in the extremities ; but they, 
 who are mature in righteousness and ripeness of 
 virtue, shall not feel that flame, for they have 
 somewhat of God within them, to repel and throw 
 off the force of it. Such is the power of innocence, 
 
 1 Tract in Ps. cxviii. 3 § 12. 
 
VII.] OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 215 
 
 that from it that fire recoils without harm, as 
 having received a mission from God to burn the 
 irreligious, to retire from the righteous V 
 
 Augustine, who approaches more nearly to the 
 present Roman doctrine, speaks thus doubtfully :— 
 " Such a suffering, too, it is not incredible, may hap- 
 pen after this life, and it is a fair question, whether 
 it can be settled or not, whether some Christians, 
 according to their love of the perishing goods of 
 this world, attain salvation more slowly or speedily 
 through a certain purgatorial fire 2 ?" 
 
 As this doctrine, thus suggested by certain strik- 
 ing texts, grew into popularity and definiteness, 
 and verged towards its present Roman form, it 
 seemed a key to many others. Great portions of 
 the books of Psalms, Job, and the Lamentations, 
 which express the feelings of religious men under 
 suffering, would powerfully recommend it by the 
 forcible, and most affecting and awful meaning 
 which they received from it. When this was once 
 suggested, all other meanings would seem tame 
 and inadequate. 
 
 To these must be added various passages from 
 the prophets ; as that in the beginning of the 
 3rd chapter of Malachi, which speaks of fire as 
 the instrument of judgment and purification when 
 Christ comes to visit His Church. 
 
 Moreover, there were other texts of obscure and 
 
 1 Div. Instit. vii. 21. ' Enchir. 69. 
 
216 INSTANCES OF THE ABUSE [Leot. 
 
 indeterminate bearing, which seemed on this hypo- 
 thesis to receive a profitable meaning; such as 
 our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount, — 
 " Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means 
 come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost 
 farthing ;" and St. John's expression in the Apoca- 
 lypse, that " no man in heaven, nor in earth, 
 neither under the earth, was able to open the 
 book V 
 
 Further, the very circumstance that no second 
 instrument of a plenary and entire cleansing from 
 sin was given after Baptism, such as Baptism, led 
 Christians to expect that that unknown means, when 
 accorded, would be of a more painful nature than 
 that which they had received so freely and instan- 
 taneously in infancy ; and confirmed, not only the 
 text already cited, " He shall baptize you with the 
 Holy Ghost and with fire ;" but also St. Paul's 
 announcement of the " judgment and fiery indig- 
 nation" which await those who sinned after having 
 been once enlightened, and Christ's warning to 
 the impotent man to sin no more, " lest a worse 
 thing come unto him." 
 
 Lastly : the universal and apparently Apostolical 
 custom of praying for the dead in Christ, called for 
 some explanation, the reasons for it not having 
 come down to posterity with it. Various reasons 
 may be supposed quite clear of this distressing doc- 
 
 1 Matt. v. 26. Rev. v. 3. 
 
VII.] OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 217 
 
 trine ; but it supplied an adequate and a most con- 
 straining motive for its observance, to tbose who 
 were not content to practise it in ignorance. 
 
 I do not wish to frame a theory, but anyhow so 
 far seems undeniable, whatever becomes of the 
 rest, and it is all that it concerns me to show, that 
 there was no Catholic Tradition for Purgatory in 
 early times, and that, instead of it, certain texts of 
 Scripture, interpreted by individuals, were put for- 
 ward as the proof of the doctrine. 
 
 6. One more instance shall be adduced from the 
 history of the Church, of an error introduced pro- 
 fessedly on grounds of Scripture without the safe- 
 guard of Catholic Tradition, — the doctrine of the 
 Pope's universal Bishoprick ; though in treating it 
 I shall be obliged to touch on a large subject in a 
 cursory way, which is scarcely desirable amid the 
 present popular misapprehensions about it. 
 
 That St. Peter was the head of the Apostles and 
 the centre of unity, and his successors are the 
 honorary Primates of Christendom, in the same 
 general sense in which London (for instance) is the 
 first city in the British Empire, I neither affirm 
 nor deny, for to make a clear statement and then 
 to defend it, would carry us away too far from our 
 main subject. But for argument's sake I will here 
 grant that the Fathers assert it. But what there 
 is not the shadow of a reason for saying that they 
 held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being 
 a Catholic truth, is this, that St. Peter or his sue- 
 
218 INSTANCES OF THE ABUSE [Lect. 
 
 cessors were and are universal Bishops, that they 
 have the whole of Christendom for their one dio- 
 cese in a way in which other Apostles and Bishops 
 had and have not, that they are Bishops of Bishops 
 in such sense as belongs to no other Bishop; in 
 fact, that the difference between St. Peter and the 
 Popes after him, and other Bishops, is not one of 
 mere superiority and degree, but of kind, not of rank, 
 but of class. This the Romanists hold ; and they 
 do not hold it by Catholic Tradition ; by what then ? 
 by private interpretation of Scripture. 
 
 They will say that the texts in their favour are 
 so very strong, that it is not wonderful that they 
 should quote them. If so, Protestants who rely on 
 what they think strong texts, must see to that ; I 
 am not here engaged in refuting the Romanists ; 
 I am taking for granted they are wrong ; and ad- 
 dressing those who know they are wrong, who know 
 and are sure that their texts do not prove their 
 point, even supposing they look strong, but who yet 
 do not see how best to meet them. To such persons, 
 I would point out, before going into the considera- 
 tion of these texts at all, that they have been gained 
 by using that mischievous but very popular prin- 
 ciple among us, that in serious matters we may 
 interpret Scripture by Private Judgment, whether 
 the judgment of the individual, or of the day, or of 
 the age, or of the country, or of the civil magistrate, 
 or of the science in fashion, or of carnal criticism, 
 (for it matters not which it may be, they are all 
 
VII.] OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 219 
 
 one) and not by Catholic Tradition. And this I 
 will say, that if the Romanists make converts in 
 this country, it will be more by the bold misinter- 
 pretation of one or two strong texts, which Protes- 
 tants have superciliously put aside or explained 
 away, than by any broad recommendations or well- 
 connected arguments which they can produce. 
 
 The texts, I need not say, are such as these, — 
 " Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and 
 blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father 
 which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that 
 thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my 
 Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of 
 the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou 
 shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven ; and 
 whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed 
 in heaven." 
 
 Again. " Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath de- 
 sired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat ; 
 but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not ; 
 and when thou art converted, strengthen thy bre- 
 thren." 
 
 And again. " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou 
 me more than these ? He saith unto Him, Yea, 
 Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith 
 unto him, Feed My lambs." And He repeats 
 twice, " Feed My sheep," with the same question 
 before it. 
 
 From these passages, the Romanists argue, that 
 St. Peter, with the Popes after him, is the rock or 
 
220 INSTANCES OF THE ABUSE [Lect. 
 
 foundation of the Church, as Christ's representa- 
 tive ; that all Christians, including the Apostles, are 
 committed to him and them as sheep by our Lord 
 and Saviour ; and that he is especially the keeper 
 and preserver of his brethren's faith. 
 
 Now, that no pretence of Catholic Tradition has 
 led to the establishment of this doctrine, I will 
 show from the testimony of two Popes, of very 
 different ages, the one of the sixth, the other of 
 the fifteenth century; the former of whom shall 
 witness that it was not a Catholic doctrine, the 
 latter that it was founded on the wrong interpreta- 
 tion of Scripture. 
 
 The evidence of the former of these, St. Gre- 
 gory, surnamed the Great, is continually used in 
 the controversy, yet it is so striking that I will 
 here introduce it, using for that purpose the words 
 of Leslie. ' The Pope,' says that able writer, 
 " not being content with that primacy which by 
 the constitution of the "Western Church had been 
 affixed to his see, for the better and more easy 
 regulation and carrying on the commerce and cor- 
 respondence, and managing the jurisdiction of the 
 Episcopal College, and which was granted to him 
 only jure ecclesiastic*)," by ecclesiastical right, " did 
 set up for an universal and unlimited supremacy, 
 and that jure divino," by divine right, " over all his 
 colleagues, the Bishop of the whole Catholic Church; 
 making all their authority depend upon him alone, 
 and thereby resolving the power of the whole Epis- 
 copal College into the single see of Rome. This is 
 
VII.] OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 221 
 
 one of the new doctrines of Rome. It was not 
 known there in the days of Gregory the Great, 
 Bishop of Rome, who died in the seventh century. 
 Then it first began to be set up by John, Bishop 
 of Constantinople, after the seat of the empire was 
 translated thither. And Gregory the Great wrote 
 severely against it ; he calls it a novel doctrine, which 
 had never been known at Rome, or pretended to 
 by any of her Bishops ; that it was against the 
 doctrine of the Gospel, against the decrees of the 
 Canons, against the rights of all other Bishops and 
 of all Churches ; a horrible injury and scandal to 
 the whole universal Church ; that the Bishops were 
 the stars of God, and whoever sought to advance 
 his throne above them, did in that imitate the pride 
 of Lucifer, and was the forerunner of Antichrist ; 
 whose times, he said, he then saw approaching, by 
 this most wicked and tyrannical usurpation of one 
 Bishop above all the rest of his colleagues, and to 
 ' style himself Patriarch of almost the whole Ecu- 
 menical Church.' . . . And Gregory does not only 
 thus severely inveigh against this usurpation, but 
 gives excellent reasons against it ; he says, ' If one 
 Bishop be called universal, the universal Church 
 falls, if that universal Bishop falls.' ' But,' says he, 
 ' let that blasphemous name be abhorrent to the 
 hearts of all Christians, by which the honour of all 
 Bishops is taken away, while it is madly arrogated 
 by one to himself 1 .' " 
 
 1 Leslie. Case of the Regale et Pontificale, 16. 
 
INSTANCES OF THE ABUSE [Lect. 
 
 Such is the witness of that great prelate to whom 
 we owe the line of our own primates to this day ; 
 so little did he think of claiming that power over 
 us which his successors exercised. Nearly nine 
 centuries after his time, iEneas Sylvius was con- 
 secrated Bishop in his see, under the title of Pius 
 II. ; and he, in a work written before he was Pope, 
 had spoken as follows, as Leslie quotes him : " It 
 is the opinion of all that are dead, if that can be 
 called a mere opinion which is fortified with suffi- 
 cient authorities, that the Pope of Rome is subject to 
 the universal Church ; neither dare those who now 
 live deny it. But it is made a doubt among some 
 whether he be subject also to a General Council ; 
 for there are some, whether out of singularity, or 
 that they expect the rewards of their flattery, have 
 begun to spread new and strange doctrines, and are 
 not afraid to exempt the Pope from the jurisdic- 
 tion of the Holy Council ; for ambition has blinded 
 them ; from whence not only this modern, but all 
 schisms to this day have arisen. . . . These poor 
 men do not consider that these things they say are 
 but the words either of Popes who would extend 
 their power, or of their flatterers ; and because such 
 sayings are easily answered, they straight run to the 
 Gospel, and interpret the words of Christ, not accord- 
 ing to the meaning of the Holy Ghost, but by their 
 private judgment. And they make much of that 
 which was said to Peter, ' Thou shalt be called Ce- 
 phas ;' by which they make him head of the Church ; 
 and, ' I will give unto thee the keys of the king- 
 
VII.] OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 223 
 
 dom of heaven ;' and, ' Whatsoever thou bindest 
 upon earth ;' and, ' I have prayed for thee, Peter, 
 that thy faith fail not ;' and, ' Feed My sheep ;' 
 and, ' Launch out into the deep ;' and, ' Fear not, 
 thou shalt henceforth catch men ;' and that Christ 
 commanded Peter alone, as Prince of the Apostles, 
 to pay tribute for himself and for Him ; and because 
 Peter drew the net to shore full of great fishes ; 
 and that Peter alone drew his sword in defence of 
 Christ. All which things these men after a strange 
 manner do refine upon, wholly neglecting the exposi- 
 tions of the Holy Doctors V 
 
 Enough has now been said in illustration of 
 errors arising from the exercise of Private Judg- 
 ment on the text of Scripture. The practical con- 
 clusion is obvious. Let those whom it concerns 
 be cautious how they countenance a procedure 
 which has led, not only to Arianism, but to tenets 
 which Protestants of every denomination will agree 
 in condemning, — Purgatory and the Pope's Supre- 
 macy. 
 
 1 Leslie, Ibid. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 
 
 Let us now return to the subject of Church 
 Authority, from which the discussion of Private 
 Judgment has diverted us. As I have already 
 implied ', Private Judgment and Church Authority, 
 in matters of faith, do not, in principle, interfere 
 with each other. The Church enforces, on her own re- 
 sponsibility, what is an historical fact, and ascertain- 
 able as other facts, and obvious to the intelligence 
 of inquirers, as other facts ; viz., the doctrine of the 
 Apostles ; and Private Judgment has as little ex- 
 ercise here as in any matters of sense or experience. 
 It may as well claim a right of denying that the 
 Apostles existed, or that the Bible exists, as that 
 that doctrine existed and exists. We are not free 
 to sit at home and speculate about every thing ; 
 there are things which we look at, or ask about, if 
 
 1 Lecture V. 
 
INDEFECTIBILITY OF THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 225 
 
 we are to know them. Some things are matters 
 of opinion, others of inquiry. The simple question 
 is, whether the Church's doctrine is Apostolic, and 
 how far Apostolic. Now if we could agree in our 
 answer, from examining Scripture, as we one and 
 all agree about the general events of life, it would 
 be well ; but since we do not, we must have re- 
 course to such sources as will enable us to do so, if 
 there be such ; and such, I would contend, is Eccle- 
 siastical Antiquity. There is, then, no intricacy 
 and discordance of claims between the Church and 
 Private Judgment in the abstract ; the Church 
 enforces a fact — Apostolical Tradition — as the doc- 
 trinal key to Scripture, and Private Judgment 
 expatiates beyond the limits of that Tradition ; 
 both the one and the other on its own respon- 
 sibility. 
 
 I have said the Church's Authority in enforcing 
 doctrine extends only so far as that doctrine is 
 Apostolic, and therefore true; and that the evi- 
 dence of this is in kind the same as that on which 
 we believe the Apostles lived, laboured, and suf- 
 fered. But this leads to a further and higher view 
 of the subject, to which I shall devote the present 
 Lecture. 
 
 Not only is the Church Catholic bound to teach 
 the Truth, but she is ever divinely guided to teach 
 it ; her witness of the Christian Faith is a matter 
 of promise as well as of duty ; her discernment of it 
 is secured by a heavenly as well as a human rule. 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF [Lect. 
 
 She is indefectible in it, and therefore not only 
 has authority to enforce, but is of authority in de- 
 claring it. This, it is obvious, is a much more 
 inspiring contemplation than any I have hitherto 
 mentioned. The Church not only transmits the 
 faith by human means, but has a supernatural gift 
 for that purpose ; that doctrine, which is true, con- 
 sidered as an historical fact, is true also because 
 she teaches it. 
 
 In illustration of this subject, I shall first con- 
 sider two passages in our received formularies. 
 
 First ; in the 20th Article we are told that the 
 Church has " authority in controversies of faith." 
 Now these words certainly do not merely mean 
 that she has authority to enforce such doctrines as 
 can historically be proved to be Apostolical. They 
 do not speak of her power of enforcing truth, or of 
 her power of enforcing at all, but say that she has 
 " authority in controversies ;" whereas, if this au- 
 thority depended on the mere knowledge of an 
 historical fact, and much more if only on her per- 
 suasion in a matter of opinion, any individual of 
 competent information has the same in his place 
 and degree. The Church, then, according to this 
 Article, has a power which individuals have not ; 
 a power, not merely as the ruling principle of a 
 society, to admit and reject members, not simply 
 a power of imposing tests, but simply " authority in 
 controversies of faith." But how can she have this 
 authority unless she be certainly true in her decla- 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 227 
 
 rations ? She can have no authority in declaring 
 a lie. Matters of doctrine are not like matters of 
 usage or custom, founded on expedience, and de- 
 terminable by discretion. They appeal to the con- 
 science, and the conscience is subject to Truth 
 alone. It recognizes and follows nothing but what 
 comes to it with the profession of Truth. To say 
 the Church has authority, and yet is not true, as 
 far as it has authority, were to destroy liberty of 
 conscience, which Protestantism in all its forms 
 holds especially sacred ; it were to substitute some- 
 thing besides Truth as the sovereign lord of con- 
 science, which would be tyranny. If this Pro- 
 testant principle is not surrendered in the Article, 
 which no one supposes it to be, the Church is to a 
 certain point there set forth as the organ or repre- 
 sentative of Truth, and its teaching is identified 
 with it. 
 
 Our reception of the Athanasian Creed is another 
 proof of our holding the infallibility of the Church, as 
 some of our Divines express it, in matters of saving 
 faith. In that Creed it is unhesitatingly said, that 
 certain doctrines are necessary to be believed in 
 order to salvation ; they are minutely and precisely 
 described ; no room is left for Private Judgment ; 
 none for any examination into Scripture, with the 
 view of discovering them. Next, if we. inquire 
 the ground of this authority in the Church, the 
 Creed answers, that she speaks merely as the organ 
 of the Catholic voice, and that the faith thus wit- 
 
 q2 
 
228 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF | Lrct. 
 
 nessed, is, as being thus witnessed, such, that whoso 
 does not believe it faithfully, cannot be saved. " Ca- 
 tholic," then, and " saving" are taken as synonymous 
 terms ; in other words, the Church Catholic is pro- 
 nounced to have been all along, and by implication, 
 as destined ever to be, the guardian of the pure 
 and undefiled faith, or to be indefectible in that 
 faith. 
 
 If it be inquired whether this doctrine does not 
 entrench upon the prerogative of Scripture, as con- 
 taining all things necessary to salvation, I answer, 
 no ; for else, one portion of our formularies would 
 be inconsistent with another. And, in truth, there 
 is obviously no inconsistency whatever in saying, 
 first, that Scripture contains the Saving Faith; 
 and, next, that the Church Catholic has ever 
 preached it; though, doubtless, it would be in- 
 consistent to say, first, that the Church Catholic 
 has ever preached the Saving Faith; next, that 
 each individual is intended to draw it for himself 
 from Scripture ; but this our formularies do not 
 say. 
 
 We do not, therefore, set up the Church against 
 Scripture, — but we make her the keeper and in- 
 terpreter of Scripture. And Scripture itself con- 
 veys to the Church the charter of her office to 
 be so. 
 
 Out of a number of texts, bearing more or less 
 on the subject, I select the following : — 
 
 " The Church of the Living God, the pillar and 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 229 
 
 ground of the Truth." — " He gave some Apostles, 
 and some Prophets, and some Evangelists, and 
 some Pastors and Teachers, for the perfecting of 
 the Saints, for the work of the Ministry, for the 
 edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in 
 the unity of the Faith, and of the knowledge of the 
 Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure 
 of the stature of the fulness of Christ, in order 
 that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to 
 and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine.'" 
 Again, "As for Me, this is My Covenant with 
 them, saith the Lord, My Spirit that is upon thee, 
 and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall 
 not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth 
 of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, 
 saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever V 
 
 In these passages, let it be observed, the Church 
 is declared to be the great and special support of 
 the Truth, her various functionaries are said to be 
 means towards the settlement of diversities and 
 uncertainty of doctrine, and securing unity of faith; 
 and a direct promise is vouchsafed her that the 
 word of Truth committed to her shall never be lost, 
 and that, in consequence of the ever-present care 
 and guidance of the Holy Ghost. How Protestant 
 sectaries understand these passages, I know not ; 
 how, for instance, the first cited is understood at 
 all, by those who deny a visible Church. On the 
 
 1 1 Tim. iii. 15. Eph. iv. 11—14. Is. lix. 21. 
 
230 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF [Lect. 
 
 other hand, if a visible Church only can be a stay 
 and maintenance of the Truth, and if therefore a 
 visible Church is spoken of in it, let us reflect how 
 high an office, how august and magnificent a privi- 
 lege is there assigned her ! Did not St. Paul speak 
 in these words, of a something existing in his day ? 
 Does not what he then spoke of, still exist in the 
 same sense in which the children of Israel, who were 
 once called out of Egypt, now exist ? and would 
 it not be just as extravagant to say that the threats 
 uttered upon Israel in Scripture, were not fulfilled 
 in the Israel we see, as to deny that the promises 
 made to the Church Catholic in Scripture, are not 
 fulfilled in the Church we see ? Surely, then, the 
 Spirit of Almighty God is expressly pledged to her 
 for the maintenance of the one Faith, from gene- 
 ration to generation, even to the end ! 
 
 Such is the doctrine of our most considerable 
 Divines, and such the grounds of it, both in Scrip- 
 ture and in our formularies; but here we encounter 
 a difficulty. Romanists and Protestant sectaries 
 combine in resisting our interpretation of the fore- 
 going texts. Both parties agree as far as this, 
 that such passages either mean a great deal more 
 than we make them, or nothing at all. The Pro- 
 testant of the day considers them to mean nothing; 
 the Romanist sees in them the doctrine of the 
 Church's Infallibility : but both parties unite in 
 charging us with taking up an interpretation on 
 no principle ; with stopping where we stop without 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 231 
 
 meaning ; with adopting a middle, timid path ; with 
 receiving the promises only so far as we dare, and 
 are constrained; confessing them when we are 
 pressed by argument, and retracting our confession 
 when the need is over ; committing ourselves to all 
 the odium of the Roman view, without what even 
 its enemies own to be its redeeming points ; being 
 arrogant without pretension, and ambitious with- 
 out an object. Accordingly they call upon us to 
 retreat, or, since we have gone so far, to go further. 
 The Protestant sectary alleges that we differ from 
 the Romanist only in minute and unintelligible 
 points; the Romanist retorts, on the other hand, 
 that in heart we are Protestants, but are obliged 
 in controversy to raise our tone in order to evade 
 the force of his arguments from Antiquity. Such 
 is the position of the Via Media. 
 
 We are accused, it seems, of drawing fine, and 
 over-subtle distinctions ; as if, like the Semi-arians 
 of old, we were neither on the one side nor the 
 other. The following remarks on the general sub- 
 ject of the promises made to the Church Catholic, 
 are made with the hope of showing that our dis- 
 tinctive peculiarities are not matters of words and 
 names, but are realities. 
 
 The texts above quoted are considered by the 
 Romanist to prove the Infallibility of the Church 
 in all matters of faith, and general morals. They 
 certainly will bear so to be interpreted, it cannot 
 be denied : and if this be so, why, it may be asked, 
 
232 THE INDEFECTIB1LITY OF [Lect. 
 
 do we not interpret them as the Romanists do? 
 I answer by referring to the parallel of the Mosaic 
 Law. God's favour was promised to the Israelites 
 for ever, but has been withdrawn from them. 
 Has God's promise, therefore, failed? or, rather, 
 was it not forfeited by neglect on the part of His 
 people, to perform the conditions on which it was 
 granted ? Surely we so account for the rejection 
 of the nation when Christ came. Even supposing, 
 then, for argument's sake, that the promises to the 
 Christian Church be in themselves as ample as the 
 Romanists pretend, perchance they have been 
 since forfeited, or suspended in their measure, 
 by our disobedience 1 . 1 will explain what I 
 mean. 
 
 We Anglicans say, that the Church Catholic will 
 ever retain what is called in Scripture " the Faith," 
 the substance or great outlines of the Gospel as 
 taught by the Apostles, (whatever they are, — which 
 is not the question at present,) and that in conse- 
 quence of the Scripture promise that the word of 
 God shall never depart out of her mouth. Ro- 
 manists say that she is pure and spotless in all 
 matters great and small, that she can never decide 
 wrongly on any point of faith and morals, but in 
 every age possesses and teaches explicitly or im- 
 plicitly the whole truth as it was held by St. Paul 
 or St. John, in spite of all deficiencies in written 
 
 1 Leslie. Works, vol. iii. p. 25 — 28. 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 233 
 
 documents or errors in particular writers and pe- 
 riods. Now, I do not see any antecedent reason 
 why such a fulfilment of the prophecy should not 
 have been intended, though it has not taken place. 
 It is more reasonable indeed, and more modest, in 
 the first instance to put only a general sense upon 
 the words of the promise, and to view it rather in 
 its great outlines than in detail; yet there is nothing 
 in Scripture or elsewhere to limit it, — there is no 
 rule assignable for determining how much it means 
 and what it cannot mean. So solemn are the pro- 
 mises made to the Church, so ample is the grace 
 pledged to her, so intelligible are the human pro- 
 visions appointed for their fulfilment, that there 
 surely is no antecedent reason why Almighty God 
 should not have designed to bestow on the Church 
 that perfect purity which the Romanist claims for 
 her. All through the inspired history, we have traces 
 of divine intentions mysteriously frustrated. It was 
 purposed that the Jewish people should receive, 
 preach, and dispense the Gospel ; it was not ful- 
 filled. It was announced beforehand to the Chris- 
 tian Church, that " her people should be all righ- 
 teous," whereas iniquity has abounded. " The wolf 
 was to dwell with the lamb, and the leopard to lie 
 down with the kid ;" and there have been endless 
 wars and fightings. God's promises depend on 
 man's co-operation for their fulfilment in detail ; 
 and though they are ever fulfilled in such measure 
 as to satisfy the formal wording of them, they have 
 
234 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF [Lect. 
 
 a large or a small extent of blessing, they expand 
 or contract according to our reception of them, and 
 often admit of more meaning than the event elicits 
 from them. The promise that the word of truth 
 should not depart out of the mouth of the Church, 
 is satisfied in what we see fulfilled at this day, viz. 
 in the whole Church in all its branches having ever 
 maintained the faith in its essential outlines ; nay, 
 it might be satisfied even in a muck scantier fulfil- 
 ment, — for instance, though this were all, (which 
 many think to be its highest meaning) that there 
 should always be in the Church some true believers. 
 This, I say, might be enough; still, supposing it, 
 yet perchance the promise may have originally 
 meant more than what the letter requires, viz. as 
 much as has actually been fulfilled ; and, if so, per- 
 haps even more than that. God's thoughts are 
 deeper than human words ; they cannot be ex- 
 hausted. The more you ask, the higher you aim, 
 the more faithfully you expect, the more diligently 
 you co-operate, the fuller return you obtain. The 
 man of God was angry with Joash, king of Israel, 
 for smiting on the ground but thrice, and then stay- 
 ing ; and he said, " Thou shouldest have smitten five 
 or six times, then hadst thou smitten Syria till 
 thou hadst consumed it ; whereas now thou shalt 
 smite Syria but thrice 1 ." If the Christian Church 
 was intended to come on earth in the power and 
 
 1 2 Kings xiii. 19. 
 
VIII.J THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 235 
 
 spirit of Christ Himself, her Lord and Defender, if 
 she was to manifest Him mystically before the eyes 
 and in the souls of men who is on the right hand of 
 God, if her glory was to be like that of heaven, 
 though invisible, her reign eternal, and her kingdom 
 universal, if she was destined to compel the nations 
 with an irresistible sway, smiting and withering 
 them if rebellious, though not with earthly weapons, 
 and shedding upon the obedient overflowing peace, 
 and the holiest and purest blessings, it is not ex- 
 travagant to suppose that she was also destined 
 to an authoritative ministry of the word which has 
 never been realized. And that these prospects 
 have been disappointed, may be owing, as in the 
 case of the Jews, to her misconduct. She may have 
 forfeited in a measure her original privileges. 
 
 Nay, the parallel of Judaism is a positive argu- 
 ment in favour of such a supposition ; for surely, 
 with the history of Israel before us, and the actual 
 recorded sins of the Christian Church, we may pro- 
 nounce it improbable that those sins have forfeited 
 nothing at all, that they have not influenced her 
 subsequent fortunes, or impaired her invisible, as 
 they undeniably have curtailed her visible powers. 
 Any one who maintains that the Church is all that 
 Christ intended her to be, has the analogy of Juda- 
 ism full against him. As well may we imagine it 
 was God's intention that the temple should be 
 burned and the Jews should go into captivity, as 
 that Christendom should be what we see it is at 
 
 1 
 
236 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF [Lect. 
 
 this day. Nor will it avail to argue, that of know- 
 ledge at least there was a gradual increase in the 
 Jewish Church, not a diminution, as time went on, 
 so that the parallel does not hold in the point for 
 which I bring it ; for this increase was by means of 
 fresh revelations, which God imparted rather in 
 spite of the existing Church, and against it, than 
 through it ; by the mouth of the Prophets, not of 
 the Priests. And moreover, these successive reve- 
 lations were in their turn forgotten in course of 
 time, or withdrawn in consequence of the people's 
 sins. By the time of Josiah the book of the Law 
 was lost ; by the time of Christ's coming the Evan- 
 gelical prophecies had been overlaid with Phari- 
 saical Traditions. 
 
 I have said, that arguing from the history of 
 Judaism, it is not improbable antecedently, rather 
 the reverse, that the Christian Church has for- 
 feited a portion of the promises ; but we shall find, 
 I think, in the New Testament that the promise 
 to her was suspended more or less upon a condi- 
 tion which for many centuries she has actually 
 broken. This condition is Unity, which is made 
 by Christ and His Apostles, as it were, the sacra- 
 mental channel through which all the gifts of the 
 Spirit, not the least that of purity of doctrine, are 
 derived to the Church. It is not necessary to do 
 more than allude to the abundant evidence which 
 the New Testament furnishes on this subject. 
 Unity may be called the especial badge of Christ's 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. £'J7 
 
 disciples and the tenure of their privileges. " By 
 this," He says, " shall all men know that ye are My 
 disciples, if ye have love one to another." Again, 
 " Where two or three are gathered together in My 
 name, there am I in the midst of them." He prays 
 for His Apostles, arid through them for all believ- 
 ers, " that they may be One," as He is in His 
 Father ; or, as His own words stand, " that they 
 all may be One, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I 
 in Thee, that they also may be One in Us. . . The 
 glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them, 
 that they may be One, even as We are One, I in 
 them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made 
 perfect in One, that the world may know that Thou 
 hast sent Me." In these words, a visible unity, a 
 unity such as the world could recognize, whatever 
 depths it has besides, is made the token, or the 
 condition, as we view it, of that glory in which the 
 Church was to be clad. 
 
 Again : consider the following passages from St. 
 Paul's Epistles. It will be found that the grace of 
 the two Sacraments, the faith of the Gospel, the 
 renewal of the heart; all the privileges given us, 
 are there represented as in connection with unity ; 
 whether as cause, or as effect, or collaterally, matters 
 not to our present purpose. " By One Spirit are 
 we all baptized into One Body ; . . . and have been 
 all made to drink into One Spirit." " There is One 
 Body, One Spirit, One Faith." " Stand fast in 
 One Spirit, with one mind striving together for 
 
238 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF [Lect. 
 
 the Faith of the Gospel." " Is Christ divided ? 
 was Paul crucified for you ? or were ye baptized in 
 the name of Paul ?" " As many of you as have 
 been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ . . . 
 ye are all One in Christ Jesus." " Ye have put 
 on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, 
 after the image of Him that created him ; where 
 there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor 
 uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free ; 
 but Christ is all and in all. Put on therefore, as 
 the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mer- 
 cies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long- 
 suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one 
 another, if any man have a quarrel against any ; 
 even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And 
 above all these things put on charity, which is the 
 bond of perfectness ; and let the peace of God rule 
 in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in 
 One Body." 
 
 Surely these passages of Scripture express most 
 strongly the dependence, nay, considering our Lord's 
 words, the essential dependence of the privileges of 
 the Gospel upon a visible as well as a moral unity. 
 The one image of Christ, the seal of the covenant, 
 which must be impressed on all who would be 
 saved, is then only stamped upon His disciples 
 when they are brought together or viewed in one, 
 and by their separation and discord, it is broken 
 asunder. The instances recorded in the Acts of 
 the Apostles, do but corroborate this doctrine. 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 239 
 
 The Holy Ghost originally descended, when the 
 Apostles " were all with one accord in one place ;" 
 and, on another occasion, when " they lifted up their 
 voice to God with one accord" " the place was shaken 
 where they were assembled together, and they were 
 all filled with the Holy Ghost, and spake the word 
 of God with boldness." In like manner, in their 
 synodical letter to the Churches, they speak of its 
 " seeming good to the Holy Ghost and to them," 
 after they were " assembled with one accord 1 ." 
 
 And the very passages in the Prophets which 
 have led to these remarks, tend to the same con- 
 clusion. The promises therein contained are made 
 to the Church as One, not to two, or three, or a 
 dozen bodies ; and here we may make use of the 
 very argument commonly urged by Romanists 
 against us. They ask triumphantly, " which is the 
 One true and Infallible Church?" implying that, 
 if Scripture names but one, it must be theirs ; but 
 we may answer that since the Church is now not 
 one, it is not infallible ; since the one has become 
 in one sense many, the full prophetical idea is not 
 now fulfilled ; and, with the idea, is lost the full de- 
 scription, and the attribute of Infallibility in par- 
 ticular, supposing that were ever included in it. 
 
 This then is the conclusion we arrive at ; that 
 the Church Catholic, being no longer one in the 
 fullest sense, does not enjoy her predicted privileges 
 
 1 Acts ii. 1. iv. 24—31. xv. 25. 28. 
 
240 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF [Lect. 
 
 in the fullest sense. And that purity of doctrine 
 is one of the privileges thus infringed, is plain 
 from the simple fact that the separate branches of 
 the Church do disagree with each other in the 
 details of faith; discordance among witnesses of 
 the truth, which once was not, being the visible 
 proof of its being impaired, as well as the sacra- 
 mental cause of it. Further it may be remarked, 
 that since the duty of unity admits of fuller or 
 scantier fulfilment, it does not follow, though it has 
 been broken in its higher sense, that therefore it is 
 altogether lost, and its privileges with it ; or again, 
 that it is lost in the same sense by every kind of 
 infringement, or in the same degree in every place. 
 The meeting of " two or three" private men in 
 Christ's name, is one kind of fulfilment, and in de- 
 fault of higher opportunities, may be attended under 
 any circumstances with a portion of divine blessing. 
 Again, the unity of the ministerial succession may 
 be the tenure on which the sacred mysteries of 
 faith are continued to us, as seems probable both 
 from the history of the Church, and from the cir- 
 cumstance that both to that Ministry and to that 
 fundamental Faith continuance is promised to the 
 end of the world. Higher measures of truth may 
 be attached to a unity of jurisdiction and external 
 order ; while the highest of all, amounting to a 
 continual Infallibility, were it ever intended, might 
 require the presence of a superhuman charity and 
 peace which has never been witnessed since the 
 
VIH.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 241 
 
 time when the disciples " continued stedfastly in 
 the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in break- 
 ing of bread, and in prayers," and " had all things 
 common, selling their possessions and goods, and 
 parting them to all men, as every man had need, 
 and continued daily with one accord in the temple," 
 and ate their celestial food " with gladness and 
 singleness of heart, praising God, and haying favour 
 with all the people '." 
 
 If this view of the subject be in the main cor- 
 rect, it would follow that the Ancient Church will 
 be our model in all matters of doctrine, till it broke 
 up into portions, and for Catholic agreement sub- 
 stituted peculiar and local opinions ; but Jthat since 
 that time the Church has possessed no fuller mea- 
 sure of the truth than we see it has at this day, viz. 
 merely the fundamental faith. And such appears 
 to be the principle adopted by our own writers, in 
 their disputes concerning those questions in the 
 superstructure of faith in which our Church diners 
 from her sisters elsewhere. They refer to those 
 times when the Church spoke but one language ; 
 they refer to Antiquity, as the period when all 
 Christians agreed together in faith. And thus we 
 shall be able to answer the question commonly put 
 to us by Romanists concerning the date of their 
 corruptions. They consider it fair to call upon us 
 to show when their doctrines, supposing them errors, 
 
 1 Acts i'. 42—47. 
 R 
 
242 THE 1NDEFECTIBILITY OF [Lect. 
 
 were introduced, as if the impossibility of our doing 
 this accurately, would be a proof that they were 
 not introductions. They challenge us to draw the 
 line between the pure and corrupt ages of the 
 Church ; and, when we reply discordantly, they tri- 
 umph in what they consider a virtual refutation 
 of our charge. They argue that what betrays no 
 signs in history of being introduced was never in- 
 troduced, but is part of the original Gospel ; and 
 when we object the silence of Antiquity concern- 
 ing the Roman doctrines, they retort upon us what 
 they allege to be a similar silence in history con- 
 cerning their rise. Now, let us apply to this argu- 
 ment the foregoing considerations on the subject 
 of unity. Are not Christians for certain divided 
 now ? as Romanists themselves will be the first to 
 acknowledge; then must there have been a time 
 when they began to be divided ; even though the 
 year and the day cannot be pointed out, and we 
 differ one with another in determining it. Now, 
 it is upon this very fact of the schism that I ground 
 the corruption of doctrine ; the one has taken place 
 when and so far as the other has taken place, though 
 the history of both the one and the other be un- 
 known. If asked, then, for the point of time when 
 Christian truth began to be impaired, I leave it for 
 Romanists to answer, when Christian unity began 
 to be compromised. We are not bound to assign 
 it. It is a question of degree and place, not to 
 mention the imperfection of historical documents. 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 24& 
 
 Who can trace the formal acts of schism running 
 through the whole Church, and combining, as the 
 jarrings in some material body, to split it into 
 fragments ? Let us then clearly understand what 
 is meant by this question. We disclaim the notion 
 that there was any one point of time, at which the 
 Church suddenly sunk into the gulf of error ; we 
 do not say she ever so sunk as not to be in a truer 
 sense not sunken ; and we think it trifling to ask 
 us for the first rise or the popular introduction of 
 the doctrines we condemn. Granting there are 
 distinct grounds for suspecting them, this is a pure 
 historical question ; and, if unanswered, is but an 
 historical obscurity, not a theological difficulty. It 
 is enough if we do just so much as we are able to 
 do in respect to the divisions of the Church, when 
 we point out the formal and public acts of schism 
 and their age and place. To quarrel with us be- 
 cause we do no more, nay, or because we differ 
 among ourselves in a question of dates, is as pre- 
 posterous as it would be to object to the received 
 interpretation of Jeremiah's prophecy of the se- 
 venty years because three separate commencements 
 may be assigned to the period, or to deny that 
 Daniel's of the seventy weeks was fulfilled in 
 Christ's coming, on account of the difficulties which 
 attend its nice adjustment in detail. 
 
 Until, then, Romanists maintain that their Church 
 has not quarrelled with others, as well as kept the 
 faith incorrupt, they gain no triumph in proving 
 
 r2 
 
244 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF [Lect. 
 
 differences among our Divines in what is merely a 
 point of history. Till their Church maintains her 
 own Infallibility as regards matters of fact, they 
 may well bear the errors of individuals among us 
 in a question of that nature. For it is little more 
 than this ; since the greater number of our writers, 
 whether they say the Church's faith was first im- 
 paired at the end of the fourth century, or in the 
 eighth, still agree in the principle of appealing to 
 those ages which they respectively consider to lie 
 within the period of peace and union ; and when 
 they seem to differ they are often but speaking of 
 different stages of the long history of error, of its 
 first beginnings, or its establishment, or the public 
 protests against it, — of the earlier time, when truth 
 was universally maintained, or of the later, when 
 eiTor was universal. 
 
 Thus, Bishop Ken, for instance, takes in the whole 
 tract of centuries, up to the disunion of the East 
 and West, that is nearly 800 years. Bishop Van 
 Mildert says nearly the same, expressing his belief 
 that " until the great schism between the Eastern 
 and Western Churches, and the full establishment 
 of the Papal usurpation," the Fathers kept before 
 them the duty of contending for the faith and guard- 
 ing it against heretical innovations 1 . Archbishop 
 Bramhall names 500 years, that is, up to Pope Gre- 
 gory's mission to England. Bishop Jewell, again, 
 
 ' Bampt. Lect. iv. p. 97. 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH 1 CATHOLIC. 24.5 
 
 challenges the Romanists to adduce authority in 
 their favour from the first six centuries. Bishop Hall 
 adopts the same period 1 . The directions given to the 
 Bishops from the Lords of the Council in the year 
 1582, with a view to their disputations with Jesuits 
 and seminary Priests, observe the same rule, en- 
 joining them, if the latter " shall show any grounds 
 of Scripture and wrest it to their sense," to call 
 for " the interpretation of the old Doctors, such as 
 were before Gregory I., for that in his time began 
 the first claim of the supremacy by the Patriarch 
 of Constantinople, and shortly after was usurped 
 by the Bishop of Rome 2 ." Hammond and Stilling- 
 fleet are ready to stand by the first six General 
 Councils, which lie between 325 to 680 3 . The act 
 of the first year of Elizabeth especially names the 
 first four, (a.d. 325 — 451) not however to the ex- 
 clusion of the fifth and sixth, for which and for 
 others it expressly leaves an opening, but from the 
 great importance of the former, which Pope Gregory, 
 though living after the fifth, compares in their own 
 department to the four Gospels. In like manner 
 four or five centuries are named by other of our 
 writers, not as rejecting thereby a more extended 
 space, but from the notion that in granting it a 
 field of controversy was opened as large as Roman- 
 ists could desire. And I suppose they could allow, 
 
 1 Cone, ad Clerum. 2 Brett, on Tradition, § 1. 
 
 3 Hammond, vol. i. p. 551. Stillingfleet, vol. vi. p. 650. 
 
246 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF [Lect. 
 
 that if the age of true Catholicism be extended as 
 far as the end of the fourth century, they would 
 gain little by the addition of the fifth or sixth. If 
 the voluminous remains of that era, including the 
 works of Ambrose, Austin, Jerome, Chrysostom, 
 Basil, Gregory Nyssen, Gregory Nazianzen, Atha- 
 nasius, and Cjril of Jerusalem, will not afford a 
 standard of Catholic doctrine, there seems little 
 profit to be gained from Antiquity at all. Thus 
 Archbishops Laud \ and Usher by implication 2 , spe- 
 cify " four or five hundred years ;" while Bishop 
 Stillingfleet 3 , still proceeding by the test of unity as 
 already explained, dates the rise of the schism, and 
 therefore of corruption, from the Councils of Con- 
 stantinople or Chalcedon, that is, places it between 
 a.d. 381 and 451. And in like manner, Water- 
 land specifies the three or four first centuries * ; and 
 Beveridge also 5 , assigning the same reason. 
 
 Such is the agreement in principle, such the im- 
 material discrepancies of our Divines, in determin- 
 ing the limit of that period to which we give the 
 name of Antiquity. The principle is clear, the 
 fact obscure. Different judgments may be formed 
 of the date when the East and West fell into schism, 
 but that " love is the bond of perfectness " will be 
 
 1 On Tradition, p. 53. § 15. 
 
 2 Answer to Jesuit, ch. i. 
 
 3 Stillingfl. Grounds, pp. .38, 39. 
 
 * Waterland, on Eccles. Antiq. 5. 9. 
 5 Beveridge Prooem. ad Can. 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 247 
 
 admitted on all hands. Thus much is clear, that 
 the termination of the era of purity cannot be fixed 
 much earlier than the Council of Sardica, a.d. 
 347, which an historian of the next century names 
 as the commencement of the division \ nor so late 
 as the second Nicene or seventh General Council, 
 which was held a.d. 787. Indeed this latter 
 Council has various marks of error upon it, as if 
 they were intended to draw our attention to its want 
 of authority. It was the Council which decreed 
 the worship of images ; but this I do not here 
 assume to be a corruption, that being the point in 
 dispute between ourselves and the Romanists. But 
 that it really was a corruption, over and above its 
 variance with Scripture, is proved from the fact, 
 which is historically certain, that it was the meet- 
 ing, not of the whole Church, but of a mere party 
 in it, and thus' has no pretensions to be considered 
 an organ of the Catholic world. Thirty years be- 
 fore, nearly as many Bishops as then assembled, 
 had condemned in Council the usage which it en- 
 forced. Seven years after it, a greater number of 
 Bishops assembled in Council at Frankfort, and 
 protested against its decision, which was not fully 
 acknowledged in the West for four hundred years 
 afterwards. Moreover, at this very time, it is not 
 received by the Greeks 2 , though they receive the 
 
 1 Sozom. Hist. iii. 13. 2 Mosheim. Cent. 8. ii. 3. 
 
 § 12. Spanheim. Ann. Eccles. Cent. 8. 
 
2t8 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF ILkct. 
 
 six first Councils as we do. Moreover, this same 
 Council has upon it what we may fairly consider 
 other marks of error, and in which it has also been 
 a precedent for the after innovations of Rome. 
 It was the first general Council which professed 
 to ground its decrees, not on Scripture sanction, 
 but mainly on Tradition; and it was the first 
 which framed as an article of faith, what, whether 
 true or false, was beside and beyond the articles of 
 the Apostles' Creed 1 . So closely did grievous 
 mistakes in ecclesiastical principle, as they will be 
 shown to be in the succeeding Lectures, follow on 
 the breach of Catholic unity. Without insisting then 
 on its decree in favour of image worship, which is 
 the error which especially attaches to it, here are 
 two separate violations of principle incurred in 
 making it. A point of doctrine is made necessary 
 to salvation, — on the one hand, without Scripture 
 warrant, — on the other, beyond the Articles of the 
 Creed. Lastly, it may be remarked, that in the 
 course of the controversy about Images, the Popes 
 disowned the authority of the Emperor, and thus in- 
 volved themselves in a distinct sin, which led the 
 way to many of those peculiarities by which theii 
 monarchical rule was afterwards distinguished. 
 
 But whenever the fatal deed took place, it is 
 long done and past, and its effects live to this 
 day. Century after century the Church Catholic has 
 
 1 Stillingfl. vol. vi. p. 450. 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 249 
 
 become more and more disunited, discordant, and 
 corrupt. Under these circumstances it is a great 
 privilege to know that certain promises are irre- 
 vocably made to her ; that a gift of perpetuity is 
 pledged to her under all disorders, — of unbroken 
 succession to her ministry, of grace " without re- 
 pentance," to her ordinances, and (as we humbly 
 trust) of indefectibility to her faith. That original 
 Creed, which St. Paul committed to Timothy, and 
 the first ages considered as the fundamental faith, 
 still remains to us, and to all Christians all over 
 the world ; the gates of hell have not prevailed 
 against it. Whatever might formerly have been 
 possessed, of a strictly traditionary nature ; what- 
 ever of rich, but unsorted and uncatalogued trea- 
 sures ; whatever too sacred, or too subtle to record 
 in words, whether comments on Scripture, or prin- 
 ciples of interpreting them, or Apostolic usages ; 
 still we have the essentials of faith : and that we 
 have as much as this, considering the numberless 
 hazards to which it has been exposed, is at once a 
 most gracious and a most marvellous appointment 
 of Divine Providence. To the enemies of the 
 Church it is a sign which they " are not able to 
 gainsay nor resist ;" and to us an encouragement 
 that, in what we do for her sake, her Maker and 
 Saviour will be with us. 
 
 On this subject I am led to quote an impressive 
 passage from the Bampton Lectures of Bishop Van 
 Mildert, who enforces the main principle under 
 
250 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF [Lbct. 
 
 consideration, though treating it more as a fact 
 than as a doctrine. 
 
 " If a candid investigation," he says, " be made 
 of the points generally agreed upon by the Church 
 Universal, it will probably be found, that at no 
 period of its history has any fundamental or essen- 
 tial truth of the Gospel been authoritatively dis- 
 owned. Particular Churches may have added many 
 superstitious observances and many erroneous te- 
 nets, to these essential truths ; and in every 
 Church, particular individuals, or congregations of 
 individuals, may have tainted large portions of 
 the Christian community with pestilential here- 
 sies. But as far as the Church Catholic can be 
 deemed responsible, the substance of sound doctrine 
 still remains undestroyed, at least, if not unim- 
 paired. Let us take, for instance, those articles of 
 faith which have already been shown to be essential 
 to the Christian Covenant — the Doctrines of the 
 Trinity, of our Lord's Divinity and Incarnation, of 
 His Atonement and Intercession, of our Sanctifica- 
 tion by the Holy Spirit, of the terms of accept- 
 ance, and the Ordinances of the Christian Sacra- 
 ments and Priesthood. At what period of the 
 Church have these doctrines, or either of them, 
 been by any public act disowned or called in ques- 
 tion ? We are speaking now, it will be recollected, 
 of what in the language of Ecclesiastical History, 
 is emphatically called The Church ; that, which 
 has from age to age borne rule, upon the ground 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 251 
 
 of its pretensions to Apostolical Succession. And 
 to this our inquiry is necessarily restricted .... 
 But view now, on the other hand, the labours of 
 those who endeavoured to subvert any of these 
 fundamental truths. Observe the parties with 
 whom they originated, and the estimation in which 
 they were holden. No age of the Church has ever 
 been entirely free from attempts to spread perni- 
 cious errors. Yet at what period have they ever 
 received its authoritative sanction ? Did the Church 
 in primitive times yield one iota of essential doc- 
 trine to the Gnostic Heretics? Did it afterwards 
 adopt either the Sabellian, the Arian, or the Ma- 
 cedonian tenets ? Did the wild enthusiasm of 
 Manes, or Montanus, and their followers, in 
 any respect influence its Creed ? And in later 
 times, when and where have the Socinian notions 
 been recognized as any legitimate authority ? Or, 
 what proof can even the disciples of Calvin pro- 
 duce, that his doctrine of "arbitrary and irrespective 
 decrees was ever the received persuasion of the 
 Catholic Church? To say nothing of the multi- 
 tude of lesser divisions of religious opinion, or of 
 those ephemeral productions, of each of which, as 
 of their authors, it might be said, ' in the morning 
 it flourisheth and groweth up, in the evening it is 
 cut down and withereth.' Surely here is something 
 to arrest reflection ; something which they who sin- 
 cerely profess Christianity, and are tenacious of the 
 inviolability of its doctrines, must contemplate with 
 1 
 
252 THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF [Lect. 
 
 sentiments of awe and veneration How 
 
 have they withstood the assaults of continued op- 
 ponents; opponents, wanting neither talents nor 
 inclination to effect their overthrow ? If these 
 considerations be deemed insufficient, let the ad- 
 versary point out by what sure tokens we shall 
 discover any Christian community, duly answering 
 the Apostle's description, that it is ' built upon the 
 foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus 
 Christ Himself being the chief Corner Stone ' V " 
 
 I have said enough, I hope, in the course of 
 this Lecture, by way of distinguishing between 
 our own and the Roman theology, and of showing 
 that neither our concessions to them are reluctantly 
 made, nor our differences subtle and nugatory, as 
 is objected by opponents. Whether we be right or 
 wrong, our theory of religion has a meaning, and that 
 really distinct from Romanism. Both we and Ro- 
 manists hold that the Church Catholic is unerring in 
 its declarations of faith, or saving doctrine ; but we 
 differ from each other as to what is the faith, and 
 what is the Church Catholic. They maintain that 
 faith depends on the Church, we that the Church is 
 built on the faith. By Church Catholic we mean the 
 Church Universal, as descended from the Apostles ; 
 they those branches of it which are in communion 
 with Rome. They consider the see of St. Peter, 
 to have a promise of permanence, we the Church 
 
 1 Bampt. Lect. viii. 
 
VIII.] THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 253 
 
 Catholic and Apostolic. Again, they understand 
 by the Faith, whatever the Church at any time 
 declares to be faith ; we what it has actually so 
 declared from the beginning. We hold that the 
 Church Catholic will never depart from those out- 
 lines of doctrine which the Apostles formally pub- 
 lished ; they that she will never depart in any of 
 her acts from that entire system, written and oral, 
 public and private, explicit and implicit, which 
 they received and taught ; we that she has a gift 
 of fidelity, they of discrimination. 
 
 Again, both they and we anathematize those 
 who deny the Faith ; but they extend the condem- 
 nation to all who question any decree of the Ro- 
 man Church ■; we apply it to those only who deny 
 any article of the original Apostolic Creed. The 
 creed of Romanism is ever subject to increase ; 
 ours is fixed once for all. We confine our ana- 
 thema to the Athanasian Creed ; Romanists extend 
 it to Pope Pius's. They cut themselves off from 
 the rest of Christendom ; we cut ourselves off from 
 no branch, not even from themselves. We are at 
 peace with Rome ; but she tolerates us as little as 
 any sect or heresy. We admit her Baptism and 
 her Orders ; her custom is to re-baptize and re- 
 ordain our members who chance to join her. 
 
 These distinctions are sufficient for my present 
 purpose, though they are only a few out of various 
 differences which might be pointed out. They are 
 surely portions of a real view, which, while it re- 
 
254 INDEFECTIBILITY OF THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. , 
 
 lieves the mind of those burdens and perplexities 
 which are the portion of the mere Protestant, is 
 essentially distinct from Romanism. Some further 
 differences will be considered in my next Lec- 
 ture. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 
 ON THE ESSENTIALS OF THE GOSPEL. 
 
 It may have been observed, that in the last several 
 Lectures, I have frequently spoken of greater truths 
 and lesser truths, of the essential parts of the Gos- 
 pel, of the saving faith, and the like. ,1 have said 
 that the Church was indefectible in the faith, or in 
 the fundamentals of revealed religion, and that in 
 consequence she superseded Private Judgment so 
 far, and enforced her authoritative declarations of 
 Christian truth ; in other words, that she imposed 
 a certain faith as a condition of communion with 
 her, inflicting anathemas on those who denied it. 
 Yet, I have not as yet said what that Faith is, or 
 how we ascertain it. Here then, a very important 
 subject is opened upon us, which I shall consider 
 in this and the following Lecture ; viz. what are 
 the essential doctrines of the Gospel ; on determin- 
 ing which will depend the terms of communion, 
 
256 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 the range of Private Judgment, and the character 
 of the Church's indefectibility. What are those 
 points, if there are such, which all branches of the 
 Church hold, ever have held, and ever shall hold ; 
 and which every individual must profess, in order 
 to be considered a member of the Church ? 
 
 The Romanists have no difficulty in answering 
 this question. Unscrupulousness commonly makes 
 a clear way. Considering the Church to be infalli- 
 ble, and the faith to depend on the Church, not 
 the Church to be built on the faith, they maintain, 
 as I have already said, that whatever the Church 
 imposes, is fundamental and essential, be it greater 
 or less, except' that what it has once imposed, it can- 
 not of course reverse. But we Anglicans certainly 
 have a difficulty in the matter, as aiming at truth, as 
 dealing with facts, with the history of 1800 years, 
 and not framing a theory at our pleasure. 
 
 For instance, Romanists ask us, how we deter- 
 mine what are the essential parts of the Gospel 
 and what not ? If we answer, that we consider all 
 is essential ivhich Scripture expressly teaches, they 
 ask in reply how we draw the line, and who is to 
 draw it, amid the present variety of creeds, and 
 considering the peculiar structure of the inspired 
 Volume. 
 
 Again, if we attempt to decide, antecedently, what 
 is essential and what is not, to judge, criticise, and 
 analyze the Revelation, we fairly expose ourselves 
 to the charge of exalting our own reason inconsis- 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 257 
 
 tently with the very notion of faith, and with danger 
 to its essential characteristics in ourselves. 
 
 Once more ; if we appeal to Antiquity, which is 
 the most advisable proceeding, then we have to 
 determine whether all that Ancient Consent has 
 taught is essential, and if so, how. to ascertain it 
 all ; or, on the other hand, if we select a portion, we 
 are bound to say why we select it, and pass over 
 the rest. In consequence of these difficulties, many 
 Protestants have taken refuge in the Latitudinarian 
 notion that there are no essentials at all, no ortho- 
 dox faith, as it is called, that all anathemas, all 
 " damnatory clauses," as in one instance they are 
 named, are incroachments upon Christian liberty ; 
 and that the reception of the Bible, nay, even mere 
 sincerity, is enough, so that we live morally and 
 religiously. Now then let us turn to the consider- 
 ation of this difficulty; in the course of which I 
 shall have the opportunity of pointing out some of 
 the serious exceptions which lie against the Roman 
 mode of solving it. 
 
 And, first, let it be clearly understood what is 
 meant by the word " fundamentals " or " essentials." 
 I do not mean by it what is " necessary to be 
 believed for salvation by this particular person or 
 that." No one - but God can decide what compass 
 of faith is required of given individuals, though the 
 Roman Church claims to do so. The necessary 
 Creed varies, for what we know, with each indivi- 
 dual to whom the Gospel is addressed ; one is bound 
 
 s 
 
258 ON THE ESSENTIALS |L ECT - 
 
 to know and believe more, or more accurately, ano- 
 ther less. Even the minutest and most precise 
 details of truth may have a claim upon the faith of 
 a theologian ; whereas the peasant or artisan may 
 be accepted on a vague and rudimental faith, — 
 which is like seeing a prospect at a distance, — such 
 as a child has, who accepts the revealed doctrine 
 in the letter, contemplating and embracing its 
 meaning, not in its full force, but as far as his 
 capacity goes. I do not then enter into the 
 question how much is essential, and how accu- 
 rately, in the case of a given individual. This is 
 not, strictly speaking, a question of Theology ; 
 for Theology is ever concerned with doctrines, 
 principles, abstract truths, not with their appli- 
 cation. 
 
 Still, though the clearness or keenness of vision 
 may vary in individuals, there may be some one 
 object, some circle of sacred truths, which they 
 one and all must see, whether faintly or distinctly, 
 whether in their fulness or in outline, doctrines 
 independent and external, which may be emphati- 
 cally called the Gospel, which have been committed 
 to the Church from the first, which she is bound 
 to teach as saving, and to enforce as the terms of 
 communion ; doctrines, accordingly, which are ne- 
 cessary in themselves for what may be called an ab- 
 stract Christian, putting aside the question of more 
 or less, of clearness or confusion, — doctrines which 
 he must receive in their breadth and substance, in 
 
 1 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 259 
 
 order to be accounted a Christian, and to be admitted 
 into the Church. 
 
 It is plain, indeed, from what has led to this dis- 
 cussion, that to examine the state of this or that 
 given individual would be quite beside our purpose, 
 which is to determine merely this, — what doctrines 
 the Church Catholic will teach indefectibly, what 
 doctrines she must enforce as a condition of com- 
 munion, what doctrines she must rescue from the 
 scrutiny of Private Judgment ; in a word, what 
 doctrines are the foundation of the Church. The 
 Romanists challenge us to produce them, thinking 
 we cannot, and implying thereby that we cannot 
 on our principles maintain a visible Church at all ; 
 for it stands to reason that a Church cannot exist 
 even in theory without some revealed faith as its 
 principle of life, whether that be a supernatural 
 doctrine, or a claim to supernatural power. 
 
 What, then is the Church's deposit of faith, and 
 how is it ascertained ? Now I might answer, in 
 the first place, that the event has determined it. 
 If the Church Catholic is to be indefectible in faith, 
 we have but to inquire what that common faith is 
 which she now holds every where as the original 
 deposit, and we shall have ascertained what we seek. 
 If we adopt this course, we shall find what is com- 
 monly called the Creed, to be that in which all 
 branches of the Church agree ; and, therefore, that 
 the fundamental or essential doctrines are those 
 which are contained in the Creed. This conclusion, 
 
 s'2 
 
260 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 thus inferred from the prima facie state of the case, 
 is proved to be correct from the following historical 
 considerations. 
 
 It is known to all who are acquainted with 
 Christian Antiquity, that at Baptism the candidate 
 made a confession of his faith, before he was admis- 
 sible to it. Here, then, we have one of our inquiries 
 answered at once. Whatever that confession might 
 contain, it was, by, the force of the terms, the pri- 
 mitive condition of communion, or fundamental 
 faith. Now this confession was what we now call 
 the Creed. At first, indeed, that is, during the 
 first years of the Apostles, while the Church itself 
 was forming, the Creed was but partially developed 
 too ; nor, indeed, was there any imperative neces- 
 sity, that any part of the system should be reduced 
 to rule, while infallible guides were present. The 
 baptismal confessions recorded in the Acts are of this 
 nature : — " I believe that Jesus is the Son of God ;" 
 — " I believe in Jesus Christ," and the like. But 
 this elementary confession, thus brief and incom- 
 plete as far as the express words went, seems even 
 before the Apostles' death, to have been expanded 
 and moulded into form, and in that form or type 
 it has remained up to this day in the Baptismal 
 Service. I ssy this was done in the Apostles' days; 
 because history bears witness to the fact, calling it 
 " the Creed," " the Apostles' Creed," the treasure 
 and legacy of faith which the Apostles had left to 
 their converts, and which was to be preserved in 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 261 
 
 the Church to the end. Indeed, St. Paul in his 
 first epistle to the Corinthians, so speaks of it, 
 when quoting part of it, viz., as that which had 
 been committed to him, and which he had com- 
 mitted in turn to his converts 1 . 
 
 Further, the early Church considered it to be un- 
 alterable ; and here, again, in accordance with what 
 appears to be St. Jude's account of it, as " the faith 
 once for all committed unto the Saints." These 
 two points, viz., that the essential doctrines of the 
 Gospel, (those which must be professed as the con- 
 dition of communion,) were comprised in the Creed ; 
 next that they were regarded as unalterable, can 
 hardly be disputed ; but it may be useful to 
 adduce one or two authorities by way of illus- 
 tration. 
 
 It was for this reason that the Creed was com- 
 monly called the Symbol or Badge, being a mark, 
 such as a uniform or watchword is in the case of 
 soldiers, distinguishing Christians from infidels. 
 
 In like manner it was called the Regula Fidei, 
 or Rule of Faith, as the formulary, by which all 
 statements of doctrine made in the Church, were 
 to be measured and estimated. 
 
 The terms in which the early Fathers speak of it 
 are consistent with these high titles. For instance ; 
 St. Irenseus, who is but one step removed from 
 St. John himself, says, " The Church, though pro- 
 
 1 1 Cor. xv. 3. 
 
262 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 pagated throughout the whole world, unto the ends 
 of the earth, has received from the Apostles and 
 their disciples the belief in One God, the Father 
 Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, the seas and 
 all that is therein ; and in One Jesus Christ, the 
 Son of God, incarnate for our salvation, and in the 
 Holy Ghost, who proclaimed by the Prophets the mer- 
 ciful dispensation, and the advent, birth of a Virgin, 
 passion, resurrection from the dead, and ascension 
 into heaven in our flesh, of His beloved Son, Christ 
 Jesus, our Lord, and His coming again from heaven 
 in the glory of the Father, to gather together all 
 things in one, and raise from the dead all flesh of 
 human kind ; that, to Christ Jesus our Lord and 
 God, and Saviour and King, according to the good 
 pleasure of the Invisible Father, every knee should 
 bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, 
 and things under the earth, and that every tongue 
 should confess to Him, and that He may exercise 
 just judgment upon all, and send into everlasting 
 fire wicked spirits, and transgressing and apostate 
 angels, with all ungodly, unrighteous, lawless, and 
 profane men ; but upon the just and holy, who have 
 kept His commandments and persevere in His love, 
 whether serving Him from the first or turning by 
 repentance, may bestow immortality by the free 
 gift of life, and secure for them everlasting glory. 
 This message, and this faith, which the Church 
 has received, as I have said, though disseminated 
 through the whole world, she diligently guards, as 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 263 
 
 though she dwelt but in one place; believes as 
 uniformly as though she had but one soul and 
 one heart ; and preaches, teaches, hands down to 
 posterity, as harmoniously as though she had but 
 one mouth. True it is, the world's languages are 
 various, but the power of the Tradition is one and 
 the same. There is no difference of Faith or Tra- 
 dition, whether in the Churches of Germany, or in 
 Spain, or in Gaul, or in the East, or in Egypt, or 
 in Africa, or in the more central parts of the world; 
 but as the sun, God's creature, is one and the same 
 in all the world, so, also the preaching of the Truth 
 shines every where, and lighteth every one who will 
 come to the knowledge of the Truth. Among the 
 Rulers of the Church, neither he who is all power- 
 ful in word speaks Other doctrine, (for no one can 
 be above his Master), nor does the weak in word 
 diminish the Tradition. For, whereas the Faith 
 is one and the same, neither he who has much to 
 say concerning it, hath anything over, nor he who 
 speaketh little, any lack." 
 
 Tertullian, in like manner, who was contemporary 
 with Irenseus, gives his testimony in various places, 
 that " the Rule of faith is altogether one, sole, un- 
 alterable, unchangeable, viz., that of believing in 
 One God Almighty, Maker of the world, and His 
 Son Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, cruci- 
 fied under Pontius Pilate, raised from the dead the 
 third day, received into heaven, and now sitting 
 at the right hand of the Father, and to come to 
 
264 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 judge quick and dead, by the resurrection of the 
 flesh." 
 
 And so, again, in the Apostolical Constitutions, 
 which is a collection of usages of the Eastern 
 Church, compiled about the end of the fourth cen- 
 tury, we read that " when the Catechumen has 
 gone through his preparatory course, and is about 
 to be baptized, let him be told how to renounce the 
 
 devil, and how to dedicate himself to Christ 
 
 Thus : ' I renounce Satan, and his works, and his 
 pomps,' &c. After this renunciation, let him enrol 
 himself among Christ's disciples, saying, ' I devote 
 myself to Christ, and believe and am baptized into 
 One unbegotten, the only True God Almighty, the 
 Father of Christ, Creator and Maker of all things, 
 of whom are all things ; and in the Lord Jesus, the 
 Christ, His only begotten Son, the first-born of every 
 
 creature, &c Who came down from heaven 
 
 and took flesh on Him, and was born of the Holy 
 
 Virgin Mary, &c And was crucified under 
 
 Pontius Pilate, &c. &c And I am baptized 
 
 into the Holy Spirit, which is the Comforter, which 
 has wrought in all Saints from the beginning, and 
 at length was sent by the Father to the Apostles, 
 
 &c and after the Apostles to all who in 
 
 the Holy Catholic Church believe in the resurrec- 
 tion of the flesh, . . . and the life of the world to 
 come V " 
 
 1 Iren. Hser. i. 10. Tertull. de Vel. Virg. i. Const. Apost. 
 vii. 40, 41. 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 265 
 
 These are some out of many passages, and those 
 separate and independent, in which we have dis- 
 tinctly placed before us, as the substance of the 
 Catholic faith, what is now called the Creed ; as 
 taught in all places, and as required by every 
 Christian on his admission into the Church. We 
 find it digested in form, limited in its topics, cir- 
 cumscribed in its range, one and the same every- 
 where. We find, moreover, what I have as yet 
 taken for granted, as being almost self-evident, but 
 which the Romanist disputes, and which therefore 
 it is necessary to prove, that the fundamentals of 
 faith, or Creed of admission, was also the rule of 
 teaching subsequently to admission. The Roman- 
 ist would maintain that the Baptismal creed was 
 but a portion of the sacred deposit committed to 
 the Church's keeping. But with the passages al- 
 ready cited before us, which expressly call the 
 Creed the rule of teaching, is it possible to con- 
 ceive that that teaching then comprised anything 
 that did not naturally rise out of it, or was an ex- 
 planation of it ? Even granting there were articles 
 of faith which as yet lay, amid the general tradi- 
 tionary teaching, undefined and unrecognized in 
 public formularies, such as the Divinity of the 
 Holy Ghost, is it not plain that they still must 
 have been implied .and virtually contained in the 
 Creed, if the Creed had any title to the name of a 
 Symbol, or Rule, or Summary of Christian doc- 
 trine ? Would the Fathers so have called it, had 
 
266 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lbct. 
 
 it not been the substance and centre, the measure 
 and analysis of the whole counsel of God, so that 
 nothing could be added really, because there was 
 nothing to add but what bore and depended upon 
 it ? If there had been secret doctrines, essentially 
 distinct from these articles, yet necessary parts of 
 the Faith, such as the expedience of Image-wor- 
 ship, would the Fathers have ventured to say that 
 the Creed contained all they taught? or can any 
 reason be assigned why Image-worship should have 
 been kept secret, and yet the doctrine of Baptism 
 expressed in an Article ? To take a parallel case : 
 supposing in the writings of several of our own 
 divines, we found what professed to be an abstract 
 of the Thirty-nine Articles, is it conceivable that 
 one and all should omit every allusion to those 
 Articles which treat of the controversy between us 
 and the Romanists ? is it conceivable they should 
 say, " the English Church binds all her ministers 
 on entering the Church to subscribe their assent 
 to the doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, Origi- 
 nal Sin, Election, and the Sacraments ; this is all 
 she exacts of them, in every diocese ?" Would any 
 one say such an account would do justice to the 
 prominence which the Articles give to the Roman 
 controversy? and could any number of distinct 
 writers coincide in giving it ? I think not ; and 
 this is precisely parallel to what is supposed by 
 Romanists of the Primitive Fathers, viz. that they 
 were in the habit of excluding from their abstract 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 267 
 
 or table of essential and vital truths, those which, 
 if Romanism be true, were some of the most essen- 
 tial, the most prominent, practical, and influential, 
 or rather, I may say, the engrossing doctrines ; that 
 they asserted that to be the whole which after all 
 was but a part ; that a silence which would be 
 unnatural in us who deny, is conceivable in those 
 who enforced these doctrines as saving. 
 
 But perhaps it will be granted, that these doc- 
 trines were not part of the formal teaching of the 
 early Church ; but still maintained that they were 
 floating opinions, commonly received, and true, 
 though unrecognized as true, mixed with error in 
 individuals, and undefined ; but that, when the ne- 
 cessity arose, they were sifted, accurately deter- 
 mined and enforced, and so became an addition 
 to the Rule of Faith. Nay, but we are expressly 
 told by the Fathers that this rule does not admit 
 of increase ; it is " sole, unalterable, unreformable ;" 
 not a hint being given us of the Church's power 
 over it. To guard and to transmit it, not to re- 
 model it, is her sole duty, as St. Paul has deter- 
 mined in his 2nd Epistle to Timothy. What a 
 contrast to passages such as the foregoing, what a 
 violation of them is the Creed of Pope Pius, which 
 was the result of the proceedings of Trent ! whether 
 or not its articles be true, which is a distinct ques- 
 tion. Irenseus, Tertullian, and the rest cite the 
 Apostles' Creed and say, " this is the faith which 
 makes a Christian, the essentials of revelation, the 
 
268 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lbct. 
 
 great truths of which the Gospel consists, the 
 saving doctrine, the treasure committed to the 
 Church;" but in the Creed of Pope Pius, after 
 adding to it the recognition of the seven Sacra- 
 ments, Transubstantiation, Purgatory, the Invoca- 
 tion of Saints, Image-worship, and Indulgences, 
 the Romanist declares, " This true Catholic Faith, 
 out of which no one can be saved, which I at present 
 freely profess and truly hold, this same do I promise, 
 vow, and swear by God's assistance most constantly 
 to retain and confess, whole and inviolate, to the last 
 breath of lifei" Now, I repeat, the question at 
 present is, not whether these additions are true or 
 false, but whether they are so clearly revealed and 
 so powerfully and persuasively recommended to 
 the convictions of individual Christians, as to be 
 portions of the necessary and saving Catholic Faith. 
 Are we to understand that the words " out of 
 which no one can be saved," attaches to every one 
 or any one of those additions ? if so, whence, is the 
 Roman Church's or the Church Catholic's power 
 to add to that essential faith which St. Jude de- 
 clares, and the Fathers witness, to be once for all 
 delivered to the Saints ? 
 
 But here we are met with this objection, that 
 Romanists have but acted in the spirit of the Ni- 
 cene Council in their additions to their Creed ; that 
 the Council added the celebrated word Homoou- 
 sios, or, " of one substance with the Father," when 
 our Lord's divinity was denied by the Arians, and 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 2(j9 
 
 that they have added twelve articles as protests 
 against the heresies of the sixteenth century. To 
 which I answer by asking, is there no difference 
 between adding a word and adding a doctrine, be- 
 tween explaining what is in the Creed and insert- 
 ing what was not in it? Surely it was no,t incon- 
 sistent with the reverence due to it, for the Church 
 Catholic, after careful deliberation, to clear up any 
 ambiguity which, as time went on, might be found 
 to exist in its wording. The words of the Creed 
 were not inspired ; they were only valuable as ex- 
 pressing a certain sense, and if they were found 
 deficient in expressing that sense, there was as 
 little interference with things sacred, as little real 
 change, in correcting or supplying what was need- 
 ful, as in completing the lines of a chart or map 
 by the original. That original was the one univer- 
 sally received faith, which was in the minds and 
 mouths of all Christians without variation or am- 
 biguity. When the early Christians used the word, 
 " Son of God," they did not use a dead letter ; 
 they knew what they meant by it, and they one 
 and all had the same meaning. In adding, then, 
 the explanation " consubstantial with the Father," 
 they did but fix and perpetuate that meaning, as 
 it had been held from the beginning, when an 
 attempt had been made to put a new sense upon 
 it. 
 
 And this view of the subject will account for 
 such variations in the separate articles of the Creed, 
 
270 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 as occurred anciently in different Churches. The 
 one faith, cast into one type, was from the first 
 developed in this or that place with varieties in 
 the detail, according to accidental or other cir- 
 cumstances. As in the first preaching of the Gos- 
 pel, one convert was admitted to Baptism on con- 
 fessing Jesus to be the Christ, and another on 
 confessing Him to be the Son of God, not as if the 
 one confession excluded the other, but because the 
 one and the other were but different symbols, in- 
 dications, or specimens of the same and only true 
 doctrine ; so in the formal symbol which the Apos- 
 tles afterwards adopted and bequeathed to the 
 Church, in one place a certain article might be 
 added, in another omitted, without interfering with 
 its substantial identity, or its accuracy as a sum- 
 mary or sketch of the faith once delivered. Thus 
 the Roman Creed speaks of " the forgiveness of 
 sins," the Eastern, of the " one baptism for the 
 remission of sins," and the African, of " forgiveness 
 of sins through the Holy Church ;" yet all of them 
 speak of but one and the same great and blessed 
 doctrine, variously described and developed. Again, 
 the Roman Creed speaks of Almighty God as 
 " Maker of heaven and earth ;" the Eastern adds, 
 " and of all things visible and invisible ;" while in 
 the African the words run, if Tertullian gives them 
 exactly, " who produced all things out of nothing 
 by His word." These variations were as far from 
 evidencing any real difference between these for- 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 271 
 
 mularies, as the headings of chapters in separate 
 editions of the Bible argue difference in those 
 chapters ; and interfere as little with the integrity 
 and oneness of the Catholic Creed, as the varia- 
 tions in the Lord's Prayer, as delivered to us by 
 St. Matthew and St. Luke, prevent our consider- 
 ing it one and the same form. 
 
 Accordingly, we must consider the Nicene and 
 the Apostles' Creed as identical ; the latter the 
 Creed of the West, the former of the East, from 
 the beginning ; and, as it diifers as received in those 
 two divisions of Christendom in immaterial points, 
 so in turn in the separate countries of East and 
 West, it varies from itself in similar details. And 
 to this day, as the Creed called Apostles' is used 
 in Baptism throughout the West, (as among our- 
 selves,) so is the Nicene used on the same occa- 
 sion in the Greek Church '. And thus we gain 
 perhaps a truer view of what was done at Nicsea, 
 than at first sight is apt to be taken. The as- 
 sembled Fathers did not so much add to the Creed, 
 as consolidate, harmonize, and make uniform the 
 various formularies of the East. The phrases " God 
 from God, Light from Light," and the like, were 
 not the framing of the Council, but were such as 
 had already been in use here or there, and might 
 be adopted to advantage everywhere. Accordingly, 
 the word " Homoousion" or consubstantial, is per- 
 
 1 Wall on Baptism, part ii. 9. § 13. 
 
272 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect 
 
 haps the only word which can be considered as 
 really an addition, and this even was no novel term, 
 but one of long standing in Christendom, having 
 been publicly and solemnly professed by the great 
 Churches of the East, South, and West, and intro- 
 duced at this time, as I have said, merely in expla- 
 nation of a great article of faith, held from the 
 first, but needing, from circumstances, a more ac- 
 curate wording. 
 
 It is well, moreover, to observe the honourable 
 jealousy, (as it may be called), which even this 
 addition, unexceptionable and needful as it was, 
 excited in the Western Church '. Even at this 
 day, as I have already remarked, it does not occur 
 in our Creed of Baptism. After its adoption, at 
 Nicsea, new heresies as to our Lord's nature arose; 
 but in spite of them, Athanasius, its illustrious 
 champion, was firm against the attempt, which 
 was made by some parties, to add further ex- 
 planations to the Creed. He was not even moved 
 by the rise of the Macedonians, who denied the 
 divinity of the Holy Ghost, to develope the article 
 relating to that doctrine of faith. Not, of course, 
 that he would concede one jot or tittle to their 
 heresy, but he might consider that, under the 
 circumstances, the maintenance of the true doc- 
 trine, could be better consulted by the unanimous 
 voice of the Church diffusive, than by risking 
 
 1 Taylor, Dissuasive, part ii. 1. § 4. 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 273 
 
 the disturbances which might follow upon a second 
 explanation of the Creed in Council. This is shown 
 by his conduct in the Council held at Alexandria 
 upon Julian's death. A rumour had been spread 
 that at a largely attended Council held some years 
 after the Nicene (viz. at Sardica), some addition 
 had been made to the Creed on the subject of the 
 Divine Nature. On occasion of this he proposed 
 at the Council referred to the following resolution, 
 which is found in that Council's letter to the Church 
 of Antioch. " As to the paper which some speak 
 of, as having been drawn up in the Council of 
 Sardica respecting the faith . . . that Council deter- 
 mined nothing of the kind. It is true that there 
 were persons, who, on the plea that the Nicene 
 Council was deficient, urged additions to the faith, 
 and that in a headstrong way ; but the Holy Coun- 
 cil was indignant, and determined that no additions 
 should be made, the Nicene Creed being sufficient 
 .... lest a pretext should be afforded to those who 
 desired to make frequent definitions of the faith." 
 Influenced by the same feelings he desired no ad- 
 dition to the Creed in order to meet the heretical 
 tenets of the Apollinarians ; and all through his 
 writings no point is urged more constantly, ear- 
 nestly, and decidedly than this, that the Nicene 
 Faith is sufficient to confute all heresies on the 
 siibject of the Divine Nature. The second General 
 Council, indeed, after his death, supplied with great 
 
 T 
 
274 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 caution, and probably from existing Creeds, some 
 words declaratory of the Divinity of the Holy Spirit ; 
 but this being done, the Creed was finally closed 
 and sealed once for all. Subsequent Councils might 
 indeed profitably record their unanimous Traditions 
 of its sense, or of doctrines collateral, but the bap- 
 tismal Confession, the Creed of the Church, re- 
 mained unalterable. At the third General Coun- 
 cil (a.d. 432.) it was expressly determined that " it 
 should not be lawful for any to publish or compose 
 another Faith or Creed than that which was defined 
 by the Nicene Council, and that whosoever should 
 dare to compose or offer any such to any persons 
 willing to be converted from Paganism, Judaism, 
 or heresy, if they were Bishops or clergy, they 
 should be deposed ; if laymen, they should be ex- 
 communicated." The fourth General Council, nine- 
 teen years after, confirmed this decree, declaring 
 that " the faith formerly determined should, at no 
 hand, in no manner, be shaken or moved any more." 
 Nor was there from that time any interference 
 with the Creed till the era of the Council of Trent ; 
 when the Creed of Pope Pius, embodying the de- 
 crees there made, was imposed as a test of our- 
 selves and other Protestants. 
 
 Athanasius's rule, as has been incidentally ob- 
 served, was to restrain heresy rather by the exist- 
 ing Creed and the witness of the Church Catholic 
 interpreting and enforcing it, than by adding to 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 275 
 
 its articles even in explanation ; to adhere to the 
 Creed and to anathematize its opposers \ So re- 
 luctant was he to perplex scrupulous and hesitating 
 minds, as even to admit to communion the existing 
 Semi-arians of his day, who repudiated the Homo- 
 ousion with an unaccountable violence ; influenced, 
 that is, by the notion that the individuals really 
 believed in accordance with the Church Catholic, 
 and only scrupled at the word. At the same time 
 he would not consent to their holding any office in 
 the Church, as conceiving that an error which was 
 but verbal in their case and the result of some 
 peculiarity of mind, would be real and perilous in 
 the mass of those who were submitted to their 
 teaching, especially when the point in controversy 
 had been once stirred. 
 
 Athanasius then considered the doctrine of the 
 Trinity sufficiently developed in the Creed, as we 
 now have it, for all practical purposes ; at the same 
 time his enforcement of the Homoousion shows he 
 recognized the principle of such explanation. In 
 like manner, then, had the need arisen and dis- 
 cretion recommended, he would have been pre- 
 pared to clear up by the voice of the Church 
 
 1 /j.r)Siv ttXeov dvaiTTnaifTE Trap' avTiiv, rj dva6efiaTiZtiv 
 fXEV Ttjv 'ApEtavr/v a'lpcaiv, u/xoXoyelv Be tt\v iraph tuiv ayitov 
 wa.TE.piov bfioyoXrjQCiaav iv Wucalq ■kiotiv, dvaOefiari^Eiv Be 
 kcu rove \EyovTCLQ KTisjxa Eivai to TTVEVfia to aywv. K. t. X. — 
 Ath. torn, ad Antioch. 3. This practice formed a curious 
 negative comment on the Creed as time went on. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 Catholic, those other articles which have come 
 down to us in their primitive simplicity. Had, for 
 instance, any heresy spread far and wide in his 
 day, denying the powers of the Church, it would 
 have been in accordance with the precedent of 
 Nicsea, to have taken into the Catholic formulary 
 the African article already quoted of " forgiveness 
 of sins through the Holy Church," as a witness or 
 preservative against the error. Again, Pelagius's 
 rejection of the doctrine of Original Sin had indeed 
 been condemned from the first by the same article 
 as it now stands ; but, had circumstances permitted, 
 I suppose the occasion would have justified the 
 addition of the words " both original sin and ac- 
 tual," to the article " forgiveness of sins." The 
 doctrine of the Atonement is already declared in 
 the Nicene and implied in the Roman, or Apos- 
 tles' Creed ; but, had a Socinus then arisen, it 
 might have been more pointedly expressed, under 
 sanction of a General Council, by way of fixing 
 and perpetuating the Church's meaning. Nay, 
 such an explanation of the original wording might 
 be made, I conceive, even now, if the whole of 
 Christendom agreed together in the explanation, 
 and in its expressing the constant sense of the 
 Church Catholic, and in its expediency. At the 
 same time the Church necessarily has less power 
 over the Creed now than anciently ; for at first it 
 was but a form of sound words, subservient to a 
 faith vividly and accurately engraven on the heart 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 277 
 
 of every Christian, and so of secondary value ; but 
 now that the living power of truth has declined, 
 it is a witness of the primitive instead of being 
 a mere summary of existing faith. Since tradi- 
 tionary teaching has been impaired, it has become 
 almost sacred from being the chief remains left us 
 of Apostolical truth ; as the likeness of a friend, 
 however incomplete in itself, is cherished as the 
 best memorial of him, when he has been taken 
 from us. 
 
 If then, as we have seen, a more accurate deline- 
 ation of the articles of the Creed was not to be 
 attempted but with great caution even by the early 
 Church Catholic, what can be said in defence of 
 the Romanists, who created at Trent a new Creed, 
 and published anathemas against all objectors? or 
 in what assignable way does the introduction of 
 the Homoousion into the Creed, in explanation of 
 an existing article, justify the addition at Trent 
 of essentially distinct doctrines, of articles about 
 Image-worship, the Invocation of Saints, and the 
 authority of Tradition, and this on the sanction of 
 but a portion of the Church Catholic then in Coun- 
 cil represented? 
 
 And now enough has been said by way of show- 
 ing what the Faith is which was once delivered to 
 the Saints, that Faith which is ever to remain in 
 the world, which is the treasure and the life of the 
 Church, the qualification of membership, and the 
 rule of its teaching. The Creed commonly so called, 
 
278 ON THE ESSENTIALS [L 9 ct. 
 
 not in its mere letter, but in its living sense, is this 
 Faith, " the engrafted word, which is able to save 
 our souls ;" to deny or resist which, is no lawful use 
 of Private Judgment, but heresy or scepticism. 
 We find it declared to be all this by the Church in 
 the beginning ; we find it actually maintained by 
 all its branches even in this day of division. True 
 it is that in the Roman communion other articles 
 are enforced also ; but the very circumstance, being 
 irreconcilable with the doctrine of the early Fa- 
 thers, is our principal ground of complaint against 
 that Church. She has " cursed those whom God 
 has not cursed, and defied those whom the Lord 
 has not defied." 
 
 Before concluding, I will briefly notice a similar 
 objection which superficial persons have urged by 
 way of retort against ourselves. It is argued that 
 the English Church, having drawn up articles and 
 imposed them on the Clergy and others, has in fact 
 committed the same fault which her advocates 
 allege against Rome, viz. of adding without autho- 
 rity to the necessary faith of a Christian. 
 
 But this is surely a great misconception of the 
 state of the case. The Thirty-nine Articles are 
 " Articles of religion? not of "faith." We do not 
 consider the belief in them necessary to salvation, 
 except so far as they embody in them the articles 
 of the Creed. They are of no divine authority, 
 except so far as they embody these and similar 
 portions of Apostolical Tradition ; but they come 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 279 
 
 to us on ecclesiastical sanction ; and they have a 
 claim on us over and above this, first because they 
 have been adopted by the Saints of our Church for 
 some centuries ; secondly, because we think them 
 scriptural ; thirdly, because we have subscribed 
 them. Further, they are not necessary terms of 
 communion in our Church, being imposed, not on 
 all our members, but principally on the Clergy. 
 In truth, their imposition in its first origin was 
 much more a political than an ecclesiastical act; 
 it was a provision of the State rather than of the 
 Church, though the Church co-operated. I mean, 
 that the jealousy of Rome entertained by the Civil 
 Power, was the principle of the Reformation, con- 
 sidered historically •; and that the outward form into 
 which our religion was cast, has depended in no 
 slight measure on the personal opinion and wishes 
 of laymen and foreigners. Thus, our Articles were, 
 in the first instance, a test; a test, whether the 
 Clergy of the Church Catholic in England were 
 willing to exercise their ministry on certain condi- 
 tions, with the stipulation on the other hand that, if 
 so, they should be protected not persecuted, and a 
 legal recognition extended to those rights and pri- 
 vileges which from the beginning have been char- 
 tered to them by God Himself. But the Church 
 Catholic knows nothing of tests, beyond the Bap- 
 tismal test, if it must so be called ; so that our 
 Articles, far from being an addition on our part to 
 the necessary faith, were in the first instance but 
 indirectly connected with the Church at all. 
 
280 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 I say the Church is unversed in the use of tests, 
 not as if she may not adopt them as a matter of 
 expedience, if she thinks fit, but because they are 
 but the resort of authority when it is weak. We 
 bind men with oaths when we can secure their 
 fidelity in no other way ; but the Church Catholic 
 is inherently strong, can defend herself, and fears 
 nothing. Ignorance of her own power is her only 
 weakness. She admits her members on the pro- 
 fession of their being Christians, and if in the event 
 they become heretical, she ejects them as she ad- 
 mitted. The power of the keys is the antagonist 
 of Private Judgment. But when, from circum- 
 stances, she suspends her use of that power, being 
 deprived of her natural defence, she needs others ; 
 she makes " alliances," so called, or appeals to her 
 civil rights ; and in like manner declarations and 
 pledges on the part of her members may become a 
 suitable, as well as necessary expedient, for securing 
 herself against the encroachments of heresy. 
 
 Accordingly the English Church co-operates M'ith 
 the State in exacting subscription to the Thirty- 
 nine Articles, as a test, and that not only of the 
 Clergy, but also of the governing body in our 
 Universities, a test against Romanism ; but, while 
 so doing, she has, after her manner, modified and 
 elevated their original scope in a way well worthy 
 of our gratitude. 
 
 The faulty principle, involved in the decrees of 
 Trent, is, not the mere publication of doctrines, 
 which lay hid in the Creed, but the enforcement of 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 281 
 
 them as necessary points of faith. To collect, 
 systematize, and set forth the Traditions of the 
 Church, is surely a most edifying and important 
 work, and great is our debt to Councils, modern or 
 ancient, in proportion as they have attempted this ; 
 even though the direct Apostolical origin of every 
 phrase or view of doctrine they adopt, he not cer- 
 tain. Now the Articles of our Church must be 
 considered as doing this for us in their place and 
 degree. It is no valid objection to them, whether the 
 fact be so or not, that they are but partially drawn 
 from Traditionary sources, or that the individual 
 authors of them are unknown, or the state of feeling 
 and opinion in the writers at the moment of their 
 writing them, or that they were inclined to what 
 is now called either Calvinism, or Arminianism, or 
 some of them to the one, some to the other. Such 
 objections, however popular, are very superficial. 
 The Church is not built upon individuals, nor 
 knows individuals. We do not receive the Articles 
 from individuals, however justly celebrated, but as 
 recommended to us by our Church itself; and 
 whether we judge of the Church's meaning in im- 
 posing them by the consent of her Divines since 
 their imposition, or by the intention of that Con- 
 vocation l , which immediately ratified them, we 
 shall come to this conclusion, that whatever have 
 been the designs or feelings of individuals, she in- 
 
 1 Waterland on Ecclesiastical Antiquity, 8. 
 
282 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 tends us to receive them as portions of Catholic 
 teaching, as expressing and representing that An- 
 cient Religion, which of old time found voice and 
 attained consistency in Athanasius, Basil, Augus- 
 tine, Chrysostom, and other primitive Doctors. 
 This is plain, I say, to a demonstration, from the 
 words of the Convocation of 1571 ; which, when 
 imposing the Thirty-nine Articles, also injoined 
 by Canon, that preachers " should be careful, that 
 they never teach aught in a sermon, to be religi- 
 ously held and believed by the people, except that 
 which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and 
 New Testament, and which the Catholic Fathers and 
 Ancient Bishops have collected from that very doc- 
 trine." It is evident that the Divines who drew 
 up this Canon, did not dream, (to use a common 
 phrase), of the Thirty-nine Articles in any degree 
 superseding or interfering with the Ancient Catholic 
 teaching, or of their burdening us with the novelties 
 of any modern school. Nor is there any thing in 
 their " literal and grammatical sense," of which the 
 King's Declaration speaks, inconsistent with this 
 Ancient Teaching, whatever obscurities may hang 
 over their origin historically, a subject, which that 
 Declaration renders unimportant. 
 
 The Thirty-nine Articles, then, are adopted by 
 our Church in a sense equally remote from the 
 presumptuous dogmatism of Rome, and from the 
 cold and narrow feeling which a test implies. They 
 are neither enforced as necessary for communion 
 1 
 
IX.] OF THE GOSPEL. 283 
 
 nor lowered to the mere negative purpose of ex- 
 cluding error ; but they are instruments of teach- 
 ing, of Catholic teaching, being, as far as they go, 
 heads, as it were, of important chapters in revealed 
 truth. And it is under this view of them that we put 
 them before the young, not by way of ascertaining 
 their Churchmanship, but as the particular forms 
 under which we teach the details of faith, the basis 
 on, and out of which, the superstructure of theology 
 may be most conveniently raised. 
 
 Such, then, seems to be the light in which we are 
 to regard our Articles ; and till they are imposed on 
 all our members as terms of communion, they are 
 quite consistent with the doctrine held, as we have 
 seen, by Antiquity concerning the Apostolic Creed, 
 quite distinct from the tyrannical enforcement of 
 the Tridentine Articles on the part of Rome. 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 ON THE ESSENTIALS OF THE GOSPEL. 
 
 I trust that the foregoing Lectures have disposed 
 us to take a more cheerful view of what the Pro- 
 testantism of the day considers a hardship. It 
 considers it a hardship to have anything clearly 
 and distinctly told it in elucidation of Scripture 
 doctrine, an infringement on its right of doubting, 
 and mistaking, and labouring in vain. And the 
 violent effort to keep itself in this state of igno- 
 rance, — this unnatural "stopping of its ears," and 
 " throwing dust into the air," after the pattern of 
 those Jews who would not hear the voice of Apos- 
 tles and Martyrs, — all this it dignifies by the title 
 of defending the sacred right of Private Judgment, 
 calls it a holy cause, a righteous battle, and other 
 large and senseless epithets. But I trust that we 
 have learned to glory in that which the world calls 
 a bondage. We do boast and exult in bearing 
 Christ's yoke, whether of faith or of obedience ; 
 
ON THE ESSENTIALS OF THE GOSPEL. 285 
 
 and we consider His Creed, not as a tyrannical 
 infliction, (God forbid !) or a jealous test, but as 
 a glorious privilege, which we are ready to battle 
 and to suffer for, yea, much more ready, (so be it ! 
 through His grace), than they for their low, carnal, 
 and despicable licence to reject it. 
 
 And as they are eager to secure their liberty in 
 religious opinions as the right of every individual, 
 so do we make it every individual's prerogative to 
 maintain and defend the Creed. They cannot allow 
 more to the individual in the way of variety of 
 opinion, than we do in that of confessorship. The 
 humblest and meanest among Christians may de- 
 fend the faith against the whole Church, if the 
 need arise. He has as much stake in it and as 
 much right to it, as Bishop or Archbishop, and has 
 nothing to limit him but his intellectual capacity 
 of doing so. The greater his attainments the more 
 serviceably of course and the more suitably will he 
 enter into the dispute ; but all that learning has to 
 do for him is to ascertain the fact, what is the mean- 
 ing of the Creed in particular points, since matter of 
 opinion it is not, any more than the history of the 
 rise and spread of Christianity itself. No persons pro- 
 perly qualified, whatever their own opinion may be, 
 can doubt, for instance, in what case the articles of 
 the Creed concerning the Son of God, are contra- 
 dicted ; all that can come into dispute is, whether 
 those articles are necessaiy or essential to the Gospel. 
 
 Now then, having considered in general what the 
 
286 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 saving faith is, let us proceed to examine some of 
 the principal objections which are taken to us. 
 
 1 . First then, it may be urged, that the Creed, 
 which I have stated to be the abstract of saving 
 faith, does not include all doctrines which are 
 essential ; especially it does not include any ac- 
 knowledgment that Scripture is the word of God. 
 It has been asked of us, is belief in Scripture a fun- 
 damental of faith or not ? if it is, it follows that 
 there are fundamental doctrines besides the articles 
 of the Creed; if it is not, what becomes of the 
 popular notion that the Bible, and the Bible only, 
 is the religion of Protestants? I answer as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 If the Romanist asks, whether belief in Scrip- 
 ture is an essential part of the faith, which he is 
 apt to do, I ask him in turn, whether the Infalli- 
 bility of the Church is or is not in his system an 
 article of faith. It is nowhere so declared ; how 
 then is it less defective in Romanism to omit so 
 cardinal a doctrine, than in our own system to omit 
 the inspiration and canonicity of the Scriptures? 
 Whatever answer he gives in his own behalf, will 
 serve for us also. If he says, for instance, that the 
 whole of Romanism implies and is built upon the 
 principle of Infallibility, that the doctrines which 
 it holds as fundamental could not be such, were 
 not the Church an infallible oracle, that every truth 
 must have some truth beyond it until we come to 
 the ultimate principles of knowledge, that a Creed 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 287 
 
 never could recount all the previous steps by which 
 it became a Creed, and that after all the doctrine 
 in question is at least indirectly expressed in Pope 
 Pius's Creed, I answer that much the same pleas 
 may be offered in defence of Scripture not being- 
 recognized in the Apostolic Creed. It may be 
 something more than a fundamental of faith ; it 
 may be the foundation of the fundamentals, and 
 may be passed over in the Creed, as being pre- 
 supposed and implied in it. This might be said in 
 explanation. But in truth it is really recognized 
 in it as the standard of appeal ; viz. in those articles 
 which, after St. Paul's pattern, speak of our Lord's 
 resurrection as being " according to the Scriptures." 
 What happens to be expressed in one instance 
 is a kind of index of what is tacitly signified 
 throughout. This, indeed, is no proof to a Ro- 
 manist, who denies that the Bible was considered 
 by the original framers of the Creed, as the funda- 
 mental record of the Gospel : but it goes as far 
 as this, to show the Bible may have been so con- 
 sidered by them, to show that our doctrine is con- 
 sistent with itself. As far as the facts of the case 
 go, that may be, which we say really is. The in- 
 direct manner in which Scripture is alluded to in 
 the Creed, while agreeable to the notion that the 
 Creed contains all the fundamentals, seems also to 
 imply that Scripture is their foundation. 
 
 This is no singular case. I refer to the parallel 
 of Romanism, not as a mere argumentum ad homi- 
 
288 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 nem, but as a specimen of a general principle. 
 Surely it might be asked, with just as much, and 
 just as little reason, whether belief in a Revelation 
 be a fundamental of faith ; whereas the fact of its 
 being granted is properly a truth prior to the 
 fundamentals, for without a revelation there would 
 be nothing to believe in at all. Now what is 
 the Bible, if it is worth while to pursue the argu- 
 ment, but the permanent voice of God, the embo- 
 died and continuous sound, or at least the specimen 
 and symbol of the message once supernaturally 
 delivered? By necessary faith, is not meant all 
 that must be believed, but all that must be immedi- 
 ately believed, what must be professed on coming 
 for admittance into the Church, what must be pro- 
 claimed as the condition of salvation ; it is quite 
 another question whether there be certain neces- 
 sary antecedents, and of what nature. It is im- 
 possible, for instance, to accept the Creed, or to 
 come for Baptism, without belief in a Moral 
 Governor, yet there is not a word on the subject 
 in the Creed, nor is it to be looked for there. 
 Again, the candidate for Baptism must feel the 
 needs and misery of his nature, the guilt of disobe- 
 dience, his own actual demerits and danger, and 
 the power, purity, and justice of God, if Baptism 
 is to be profitable to him; yet these convictions 
 are preparatives, not parts of Baptismal faith ; not 
 parts of that act of the mind by which the candi- 
 date realizes things invisible, surveys the Gospel 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 289 
 
 Economy, embraces it, submits to it, appropriates 
 it, and is led to confess it. Faith is of many kinds, 
 and these have their respective objects. Repent- 
 ance involves faith ; yet is always considered dis- 
 tinct from justifying faith notwithstanding. No 
 one can come to God without believing " that He 
 is, and is the rewarder of them that diligently seek 
 Him," but, we know, Calvinists and others consider 
 that the faith that justifies is the mere looking to 
 Christ's Atonement ; so that they at least will 
 understand the distinction here insisted on. I say, 
 belief in the Scriptures may be requisite for a 
 Christian, but still as little be included in the Bap- 
 tismal faith, as the faith which " cometh to God," 
 or the faith implied in repentance. 
 
 But I will go further, and venture to deny that 
 belief in the Scriptures, is, abstractedly, necessary 
 to Church communion and salvation. It does not 
 follow from this that any one, to whom they are 
 actually offered, may without mortal sin reject 
 them ; but in the same way a man is bound to 
 believe all truth which is brought home to him, 
 not the Creed only. Still it may be true that faith 
 in Scripture is not one of the conditions which 
 the Church necessarily exacts of candidates for 
 Baptism ; and that it is not, is, I suppose, suffi- 
 ciently clear. Heathen nations have commonly 
 been converted, not by the Bible, but by Mission- 
 aries. If we insist that formal belief in the Canon 
 of Scripture, as the inspired Word of God, has been 
 
 u 
 
290 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 a necessary condition of salvation, we exclude from 
 salvation, as far as our words go, (which happily is, 
 not at all,) multitudes even in the earliest ages of 
 the Gospel, to say nothing of later times. A well- 
 known passage of St. Irengeus is in point, in which 
 he says ; " Had the Apostles left us no Scriptures, 
 doubtless it had been a duty to follow the course 
 of Tradition, which they gave to those whom they 
 put in trust with the Churches. This procedure 
 is observed in many barbarous nations, such as 
 believe in Christ, without written memorial, hav- 
 ing salvation impressed through the Spirit in their 
 hearts, and diligently preserving the Old Tradi- 
 tion V 
 
 The Creed, indeed, can be proved from Scripture, 
 which in this sense is its foundation, but it does not 
 therefore follow that it must be so proved by every 
 one who receives it. Scripture is the foundation of 
 the Creed ; but belief in Scripture is not the foun- 
 dation of belief in the Creed. It is not so in matter 
 of fact, even at this day, in spite of the extended cir- 
 culation of the Scriptures. It is not true in fact, and 
 never will be, that the mass of serious Christians de- 
 rive their faith for themselves from the Scriptures. 
 No ; they derive it from Tradition, whether true or 
 corrupt ; and they are intended by Divine Provi- 
 dence to derive it from the true, viz., that which 
 the Church Catholic has ever furnished ; but how 
 
 1 Hser. iii. 4. 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 291 
 
 they derive it, whether from Scripture or Tradition, 
 is in no case a necessary point of faith to be asked 
 and answered before their admittance into the 
 Church. Suffice that they believe in the blessed 
 doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and the other 
 parts of the Gospel, however they have learned 
 them ; as to Scripture, they either do already be- 
 lieve it to be God's word, if they have been pro- 
 perly catechized, or they shortly will, but its divinity, 
 though a necessary and all-important, is only a col- 
 lateral truth. 
 
 But, if this be so, how very extravagant is the 
 opposite notion, now so common, that belief in the 
 Bible is the sole or main condition for a man being 
 considered a Christian ! how very unchristian the 
 title by which many men delight to designate them- 
 selves, turning good words into bad, as Bible- 
 Christians! We are all of us Bible-Christians in 
 one sense; but the term as actually used is un- 
 christian, for the following reason. — Directly it is 
 assumed that the main condition of communion is 
 the acceptance of the Bible as the word of God, 
 doctrines of whatever sort become of but secondary 
 importance. They will practically become matters 
 of mere opinion, the deductions of Private Judg- 
 ment from that which alone is divine. This prin- 
 ciple then, of popular Protestantism, is simply 
 Latitudinarian ; and tends by no very intricate 
 process to the recognition of Socinians and Pela- 
 gians as Christians. Men who hold it and yet 
 
 u2 
 
292 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 attempt to hold definite essentials of faith, are in 
 a false position, which they cannot ultimately re- 
 tain; as the history of the last three centuries 
 abundantly shows. They must either give up their 
 maxim about the Bible and the Bible only, or they 
 must give up the Nicene formulary. The Bible 
 does not oarry with it its own interpretation. 
 When pressed to say why they maintain funda- 
 mentals of faith, they will have no good reason to 
 give, supposing they do not receive the Creed also 
 as a first principle. Why, it is asked them, should 
 those who equally with themselves believe in the 
 Bible, be denied the name of Christians, because 
 they do not happen to discern the doctrine of the 
 Trinity therein? If they answer that Scripture 
 itself singles out certain doctrines as necessary to 
 salvation, and that the Trinity is one of them, this, 
 indeed, is most true, but avails not to persons com- 
 mitted to so untrue a theory. It is urged against 
 them, that, though the texts referred to may imply 
 the Catholic doctrine, yet they need not ; that they 
 are consistent with any one out of several theories ; 
 or, at any rate, that other persons think so ; that 
 these others have as much right to their opinion 
 as the party called orthodox to theirs ; that human 
 interpreters have no warrant to force upon them 
 one view in particular; that Private Judgment 
 must be left unmolested ; that man must not close, 
 what God has left open ; that Unitarians (as they 
 are called) believe in a Trinity, only not in the 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 293 
 
 Catholic sense of it ; and that, where men are will- 
 ing to take and profess what is written, it is not 
 for us to be " wise above what is written ;" espe- 
 cially when by such a course we break the bonds of 
 peace and charity. This reasoning, granting the 
 first step, is resistless ; I do not mean that it con- 
 vinces those against whom it is directed, for their 
 hearts happily are far better than their professed 
 principles, and keep them from acting upon them. 
 They, more or less, believe in the doctrines of the 
 Trinity and Incarnation, not as mere deductions, but 
 as primary truths, objects of their faith, embraced 
 and enjoyed by their spiritual sight, though they 
 use language which implies that they have gained 
 them by a process of reasoning 1 . But though 
 certain individuals are not injured by the principle 
 in question ; the body of men who profess it are, 
 and ever must be injured. For the mass of men, 
 having no moral convictions, are led by reasoning 
 and by mere consistency of argument; and. legi- 
 timately evolve heresy from principles which to the 
 
 1 Nothing that is here said is inconsistent with the doctrine 
 that Scripture does admit of inferences from its text, and that 
 the orthodox inferences are the true ones. Indeed this is what 
 is meant by a text ; a wording which may be rested in and 
 variously applied. It is only maintained that inferences will 
 be more useful in teaching our own people, than in convincing 
 our opponents as to the points in question. Vid. a valuable 
 collection of Tracts " on Scripture Consequences," lately edited 
 by the Rev. Vaughan Thomas. 
 
294 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect 
 
 better sort of men may be harmless. — And now 
 let us proceed to a second objection which may be 
 advanced against the doctrine of fundamentals, as I 
 have maintained it. 
 
 2. It may be urged, then, that at least the Creed 
 does not contain the rudiments of the whole re- 
 vealed truth, even though it contain all its main 
 elements ; so that the charge which was brought in 
 the last Lecture against the Romanists, of consider- 
 ing it only an initiatory formulary, and not an 
 abstract of the whole Gospel, lies against us also ; 
 else what is the meaning of our Articles, which 
 undeniably contain doctrines, not developed out of 
 the Creed, but added to it? These doctrines, it 
 may be urged, either are Apostolical, or they are 
 not ; if they are, they must be binding ; if they are 
 not, they ought not to be taught. If true, they 
 must be necessary ; we cannot choose but believe 
 them ; they have claims upon our acceptance in the 
 nature of things, and the idea of receiving them or 
 not, as we please, is self-contradictory. Now I 
 would maintain, on the contrary, that there are 
 what may be called minor points, which we may 
 hold to be true without imposing them as neces- 
 sary; and, as I have already considered those 
 which are of first importance, let me now direct 
 attention to those which are secondary. 
 
 Doctrines may be secondary from two reasons ; 
 in their nature and in their evidence. Evidence 
 which may be strong enough to make it safer to 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 295 
 
 believe and act than to remain uninfluenced, may 
 yet be insufficient to enable us to preach and im- 
 pose what it attests. I may believe, for instance, 
 that infant baptism is an Apostolic usage, and think 
 men very mistaken and unhappy who think other- 
 wise, and yet not feel authorised to say, that to 
 disbelieve it is to throw oneself out of the pale of 
 salvation. The highest evidence of Apostolical Tra- 
 dition is where the testimony is not only everywhere 
 and always, but where it has ever been recognized 
 as tradition, and reflected upon and professedly 
 delivered down as saving, by those who hold it. 
 Such is the Creed, and such, in the way of ordi- 
 nances, are the Sacraments, and certain other rites 
 and usages. The next are those doctrines which 
 are delivered as tradition, but not as part of the 
 faith. Next may be placed consent of Fathers, 
 without apparent consciousness of agreement, as 
 in the interpretation of Scripture. Other doctrines 
 again, may come on such comparatively slender 
 evidence, as to be but probable, as interpretations 
 of prophecy. For all these reasons it may be right 
 in many cases to teach without enforcing; and 
 again, it may be safe or pious to believe, where 
 it cannot be pronounced absolutely necessary, or be 
 made a condition of communion. 
 
 Again, the matter of the doctrine may be of a 
 nature not to demand enforcement ; mere facts are 
 an instance in point. It is certain that David was 
 king of Israel ; and that St. Paul was martyred ; 
 
296 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 yet it would be unmeaning to say belief in such 
 facts was necessary to salvation. Again, certain 
 doctrines may be true only under circumstances, 
 or accidentally, or but expedient, or developments 
 of the truth relatively to a given state of things ; 
 such as the duty of the union of Church and State. 
 Or they may be comparatively unimportant, as 
 the duty of women covering their heads in Church ; 
 or they may be but protests against the errors of a 
 particular day. 
 
 Such are most of those doctrines in our Articles 
 which go beyond the doctrine of the Creed ; such 
 are many of the decrees of Roman and other Coun- 
 cils. All of these, whether true or false, are at any 
 rate no part of necessary truth ; as for instance 
 the doctrine of the soul's consciousness in the in- 
 termediate state, of the indirectly divine character 
 of Paganism, of the person and reign of Anti- 
 christ, of the just limits of the Pope's power, of 
 the time of keeping Easter, of the duty of bearing 
 arms, of the lawfulness of oaths, of the use of the 
 Cross, of the design of the Jewish Law, of the 
 indefectibility of the Church, and an indefinite 
 multitude of others. But it may be better to treat 
 the subject historically, though at the risk of some 
 repetition. 
 
 I say, then, that the Creed is a collection of 
 definite articles set apart from the first, passing 
 from hand to hand, rehearsed and confessed at 
 Baptism, committed and received from Bishop to 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. #97 
 
 Bishop, forced upon the attention of each Christian, 
 and demanding and securing due explanation of 
 its meaning. It is received on what may fitly be 
 called, if it must have a distinctive name, Episco- 
 pal Tradition. Besides, it is delineated and recog- 
 nized in Scripture itself, where it is called the 
 Hypotyposis, or " outline of sound words ;" and 
 again, in the writings of the Fathers, as in some 
 of the passages cited in the last Lecture. But in- 
 dependently of this written evidence in its favour, 
 we may observe that a Tradition, thus formally and 
 statedly enunciated and delivered from hand to 
 hand, is of the nature of a written document, and 
 has an evidence of its Apostolical origin the same 
 in kind with that for the Scriptures. For the same 
 reason, though it is not to the purpose here to in- 
 sist on it, rites and ceremonies too are something 
 more than mere oral Traditions, and, as being so, 
 carry with them a considerable presumption in 
 behalf of the things signified by them. And all 
 this, let it be observed, is independent of the ques- 
 tion of the Catholicity of the rites or doctrines 
 which are thus formally sealed and handed down ; 
 a property which also attaches to both of them, and 
 becomes an additional argument for their Apos- 
 tolical origin. 
 
 Such then is Episcopal Tradition ; to be received 
 according to the capacity of each individual mind. 
 Bat besides this, there is what may be called Pro- 
 phetical Tradition. Almighty God placed in His 
 
298 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 Church first Apostles, or Bishops, secondarily Pro- 
 phets. Apostles rule and preach, Prophets expound. 
 Prophets or Doctors, are the interpreters of the reve- 
 lation ; they unfold and define its mysteries, they il- 
 luminate its documents, they harmonize its contents, 
 they apply its promises. Their teaching is a vast 
 system, not to be comprised in a few sentences, not 
 to be embodied in one code or treatise, but con- 
 sisting of a certain body of Truth, permeating the 
 Church like an atmosphere, irregular in its shape 
 from its very profusion and exuberance ; at times 
 separable only in idea from Episcopal Tradition, 
 yet at times melting away into legend and fable l ; 
 partly written, partly unwritten, partly the inter- 
 pretation, partly the supplement of Scripture, partly 
 preserved in intellectual expressions, partly latent 
 in the spirit and temper of Christians ; poured to 
 and fro in closets and upon the housetops, in litur- 
 gies, in controversial works, in obscure fragments, 
 in sermons. This I call Prophetical Tradition, ex- 
 isting primarily in the bosom of the Church itself, 
 and recorded in such measure as Providence has 
 determined in the writings of eminent men. This 
 
 1 E. g. The Catholic interpretation of certain portions of 
 Scripture, as Rom. vii. comes close upon the highest kind of 
 Tradition ; on the other hand, the Tradition of facts is very 
 uncertain, often apocryphal, as that St. Ignatius was the child 
 whom our Lord took in His arms and blessed, which, however, 
 even if untrue, indirectly confirms certain truths, viz. that St. 
 Ignatius was closely connected with the Apostles, &c. 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 299 
 
 is obviously of a very different kind from the Epis- 
 copal Tradition, yet in its origin it is equally Apos- 
 tolical, and equally claims our zealous maintenance. 
 " Keep that which is committed to thy charge," is 
 St. Paul's injunction to Timothy, and for this reason, 
 because from its vastness and indefiniteness it is es- 
 pecially exposed to corruption, if the Church fails in 
 vigilance. This is that body of teaching which is of- 
 fered to all Christians even at the present day, though 
 in various forms and measures of truth, in different 
 parts of Christendom, partly being a comment, 
 partly an addition upon the articles of the Creed. 
 
 Now what has been said has sufficed to show, 
 that it may easily happen that Prophetical Tradi- 
 tion may have been corrupted in details, in spite 
 of its general accuracy and its agreement with 
 Episcopal ; and if so, there will be lesser points of 
 doctrine as well as greater points, whatever be 
 their number and limit, from which a person may 
 possibly dissent, as doubting their Apostolical ori- 
 gin, without incurring any anathema or public cen- 
 sure. And this is supposed on the Anglican theory 
 actually to be the case ; that though the Propheti- 
 cal Tradition comes from God, and ought to have 
 been religiously preserved, and was so in great mea- 
 sure and for a long time, yet that no such especial 
 means were taken for its preservation as those 
 which have secured to us the Creed ; that it was 
 more what St. Paul calls " the mind of the Spirit," 
 the thought and principle which breathed in the 
 
300 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 Church, her accustomed and unconscious mode of 
 viewing things, and the body of her received no- 
 tions, than any definite and systematic collection of 
 dogmas elaborated by the intellect. Partially, in- 
 deed, it was fixed and perpetuated in the shape of 
 formal articles or doctrines, as the rise of errors or 
 other causes gave occasion ; and it is preserved to 
 a considerable extent in the writings of the Fa- 
 thers. For a time the whole Church agreed in 
 one and the same account of it ; but in the course 
 of centuries, love waxing cold and schisms abound- 
 ing, her various branches developed them out of 
 the existing mass for themselves, and, according 
 to the accidental influences which prevailed at the 
 time, was the work done well or ill, rudely or ac- 
 curately. It follows, that these developed and 
 fixed truths are entitled to very different degrees 
 of credit, though always to attention. Those which 
 are recognized by the Church at an early date, 
 are of more authority than such as are determined 
 at a later; those which are made by the joint assent 
 of many independent Churches, than those which 
 are the result of some preponderating influence ; 
 those that are sanctioned dispassionately, than those 
 which are done in fear, anger, or jealousy. Ac- 
 cordingly, some Councils speak far more authori- 
 tatively than others, though all which appeal to 
 Tradition, may be presumed to have some element 
 of truth in them. And this view, I would take 
 even of the decrees of Trent. They pretend indeed 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 301 
 
 to be Apostolic; but the very lightest judgment 
 which can be passed on them is, that they are the 
 ruins and perversions of Primitive Tradition. 
 
 What has been here maintained, that there are 
 matters of doctrine, true yet not necessary, is the 
 judgment of the Fathers ; as the following autho- 
 rities suffice to show. 
 
 The first instance I shall take is an extraordi- 
 nary one ; yet that does not make it less cogent. 
 It is Athanasius's conduct towards the Semi-arians. 
 Even the article of the Homoousion, which from its 
 wide acceptance in former centuries, justified the 
 Nicene Fathers in admitting it into the Catholic 
 Creed, was not imposed by them on those who had 
 been admitted into the Church before their decree 
 was made. It was exacted, indeed, at once of the 
 Clergy, as being teachers, but not of the laity. On 
 the other hand, anathemas were levelled against 
 those who openly professed any other doctrine. 
 Here then we have three classes of persons brought 
 before us ; the ministers of the Church bound to 
 teach after her rule, contumacious opposers excom- 
 municated, and the mass of Christians left as they 
 were before, neither pledged as if teachers, nor 
 expelled as if heretics. " What has been said," 
 says Athanasius in one place, " is sufficient for the 
 refutation of those who altogether reject the Coun- 
 cil. But as for those who receive its whole Creed 
 except the word Homoousion, but doubt about it, 
 we must not regard them as enemies ; for our op- 
 
302 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 position to them is not as if we thought them 
 Arians and impugners of the Fathers, but we con- 
 verse with them as brothers with brothers, who 
 hold the same sense as we do, only hesitate about 
 the word." 
 
 To the same purpose are the following passages 
 from Vincentius of Lerins. " It is necessary," he 
 says, " that the heavenly sense of Scripture be 
 explained according to this one rule, the Church's 
 understanding of it, principally in those questions 
 only on which the foundations of the whole Catho- 
 lic doctrine rest." Again, he says, " The ancient 
 consent of the Holy Fathers is to be diligently 
 ascertained and followed, not in all the lesser ques~ 
 tions of the Divine Law, but only or at least prin- 
 cipally as regards the Rule of Faith." And again, 
 in the following passage, he tacitly allows the right 
 of Private Judgment in lesser matters, that is, the 
 necessity and duty of judging on our own respon- 
 sibility piously and cautiously, so that our conclu- 
 sions be not pertinaciously urged, for then our Judg- 
 ment is no longer Private in any unexceptionable 
 sense of the word. " Whatever opinion has been 
 held beyond or against the whole Church, however 
 holy and learned be the author of it, let it be sepa- 
 rated from common, public and general opinions 
 which have authority, and included among peculiar, 
 secret, and private surmises '." 
 
 1 Athan. de Syn. 41. Vincent. Commonit. 39. 41. 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 303 
 
 3. That there are greater truths, then, and lesser 
 truths, points which it is necessary, and points 
 which it is pious to believe, Tradition Episcopal 
 and Tradition Prophetical, the Creed and the 
 Decrees of Councils, seems undeniable. But here 
 another objection obviously calls for consideration ; 
 viz., how the line is to be drawn between them. 
 It has been above confessed that the doctrine of 
 the Creed runs into the general Prophetical Tradi- 
 tion ; how much, then, or how little doctrine is 
 contained in the Creed ? what extent and exactness 
 of meaning must be admitted in its Articles by 
 those who profess it ? what in fact, after all, is that 
 Faith which is required of the candidates for Bap^ 
 tism, since it is not to be an acceptance of the 
 mere letter of the Creed, but of a real and living 
 doctrine ? For instance, is the doctrine of original 
 sin to be accounted part of the Creed ? or of justi- 
 fication by faith ? or of election ? or of the Sacra- 
 ments? If so, is there any limit to that faith which 
 the Creed represents ? 
 
 I answer, there is no precise limit ; nor is it 
 necessary there should be. Let this maxim be 
 laid down concerning all that the Church Catholic 
 holds, to the full extent of her Prophetical Tradi- 
 tion, that her members must either believe or silently 
 acquiesce in the whole of it. Though the meaning 
 of the Creed be extended ever so far, it cannot go 
 beyond our duty of obedience, if not of active 
 faith ; and if the line between the Creed and the 
 
 1 
 
304 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 general doctrine of the Church cannot be drawn, 
 neither can it be drawn between the lively appre- 
 hension and the submission of her members in 
 respect to both the one and the other. Whether 
 it be apprehension or submission, it is faith in one 
 or other shape, nor can individuals themselves dis- 
 tinguish between what they spiritually perceive, 
 and what they accept upon authority. It is the 
 duty of every one either to believe and love what 
 he hears, or to wish to do so, or at least, not to 
 oppose, but to be silent. 
 
 This distinction between openly opposing and 
 passively submitting to the Tradition of the Church 
 Catholic, is recognized by Vincentius in the last of 
 the foregoing extracts ; and rests upon grounds which 
 have come under notice in former Lectures, and 
 which easily recommend themselves to the mind. 
 
 Take the case of the Ethiopian Eunuch, whom 
 Philip baptized. Philip did not oblige him to 
 contemplate, accept, and profess, the doctrine of 
 eternal punishment, yet surely the Eunuch was 
 not at liberty to oppose it. He did not, could 
 not teach him at once every thing that was to 
 be learned ; yet was he at liberty, when once a 
 Christian, to sift, criticise, and prove for himself 
 Philip's teaching before he accepted it ? Whether 
 or not this case is precisely parallel to that under 
 consideration, it shows all that I bring it to show, 
 that there is a medium conceivable between con- 
 fessing all truth from the first, and having a right 
 
X.J OF THE GOSPEL. 305 
 
 of opposing it from the first ? Such opposition, 
 or again, even a resolute disbelief without open 
 opposition, would be the token of an arrogant 
 mind, as certainly as wilful acts of impurity argue 
 a carnal mind ; and as a fornicator or adulterer 
 would be an unfit subject for Church communion, 
 so would a disturber of the Church's Tradition. 
 He is excluded on a moral offence ; not only 
 because he believes amiss, but because he acts 
 presumptuously. The Church Catholic is more 
 likely to be right than he. 
 
 Such is the moral state, and such the punish- 
 ment of those who presumptuously resist the 
 Church ; but it does not follow because a man does 
 not oppose a certain article that therefore he firmly 
 holds it. There is surely a middle state of mind 
 between affirming and denying ; and that in many 
 forms, and in one or other of them, it is the por- 
 tion, in a measure, of all of us. Either we are 
 ignorant, or we are undecided, or we are in doubt, 
 or we are in inquiry, or we take secret exception^ 
 in one or other part of that extended system which 
 has existed more or less all over the Church, and 
 which I have called the Prophetical Tradition. 
 The state of the case then seems to be as 
 follows : — 
 
 The Primitive Church recollected she was insti- 
 tuted for the sake of the poor and ignorant. " To 
 the poor the Gospel is preached." She was sim- 
 ple and precise in her fundamentals to include 
 
306 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 all classes, to suggest heads of belief, to assist the 
 memory, to save the mind from perplexity. How- 
 ever, while thus considerate, she has not forgotten 
 her high office, as the appointed teacher of her 
 children. She is "the pillar and ground of the 
 truth ;" of all truth, Christian Truth in all its de- 
 velopments, in the interpretation of Scripture, in 
 the exposition of doctrine, in the due appointment 
 of ordinances, in the particular application and ad- 
 justment of the moral law. She is called a super- 
 structure, as being built upon the great rudiments 
 of the Gospel Doctrine ; a pillar and ground as 
 being the expounder of it. And, in consequence, 
 such being her office towards her children, they are 
 bound, if they would remain her children, as far as 
 their minds embrace her doctrine, to take it on the 
 ground of her Catholicity. 
 
 I say, " as far as their minds embrace it," for few 
 of us indeed have the opportunity of acquainting 
 ourselves with the whole system of truth which is 
 preserved in the Church. - Every word of revela- 
 tion has a deep meaning. It is the outward form 
 of a heavenly truth, and in this sense a mystery or 
 Sacrament. We may read it, confess it ; but there 
 is something in it which we cannot fathom, which 
 we only, more or less, as the case may be, not per- 
 fectly, enter into. Accordingly when a candidate 
 for Baptism repeats the Articles of the Creed, he is 
 confessing something incomprehensible in its depth, 
 and indefinite in its extent. He cannot know at 
 1 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 307 
 
 the time what he is binding on himself, whither he 
 is letting himself be carried. It is the temper of 
 reverent faith to feel this ; to feel that in coming 
 to the Church, it stands . before God's representa- 
 tive, and that, as in her Ordinances, so in her Creed, 
 there is a something supernatural and beyond us. 
 Another property of faith is the wish to conceive 
 rightly of sacred doctrine, as far as it can conceive 
 at all ; and, further, to look towards the Church 
 for guidance how to conceive of it'. This is faith, 
 viz., submission of the reason and will towards 
 God, wistful and loving meditation upon His mes- 
 sage, childlike reliance on the guide which is 
 ordained by Him to be the interpreter of it. The 
 Church Catholic is our mother ; if we attend to 
 this figure, we shall have little practical difficulty 
 in the matter before us. A child comes to his 
 mother for instruction ; she gives it. She does not 
 assume infallibility, nor is she infallible ; yet it 
 would argue a very unpleasant temper in the child 
 to doubt her word, to require proof of it before 
 acting on it, to go needlessly to other sources of 
 information. Sometimes, perhaps, she mistakes in 
 lesser matters, and is set right by her child ; yet 
 this neither diminishes her prerogative of teach- 
 ing, nor his privilege of receiving dutifully. Now 
 this is what the Church does towards her children, 
 according to the primitive design. She puts before 
 them, first of all, as the elements of her teaching, 
 nothing but the original Creed ; her teaching will 
 
 x2 
 
308 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 follow in due time, but as a privilege to children 
 necessarily ignorant, not as a condition of com- 
 munion, — as a privilege which will be welcomed 
 by them, and accepted joyfully, or they would be 
 wanting in that temper of faith which the very 
 coming for Baptism presupposes. 
 
 Thus, then, we meet the difficulty of drawing 
 the line between essentials and non-essentials. 
 The Church asks for a dutiful and simple-hearted 
 acceptance of her message growing into faith, and 
 that variously, according to the circumstances of 
 individuals. And, if this be the principle on which 
 the Catholic Church anciently acted, we see how 
 well it was adapted to try the humility of her chil- 
 dren, without imposing any yoke upon them, after 
 the manner of Rome, or of repressing the elastic or 
 creative force of their minds. She makes her way 
 by love, she does not force a way by violence. All 
 she asks is their confidence, which will practically 
 preserve them from all difference from her, except 
 in minor matters. Thus, she allows for a variation 
 in the evidence itself of her full doctrines, and in the 
 impression conveyed by this or that part of her 
 Creed, in the case of particular minds. She is 
 gentle, holds back, watches her time, and is per- 
 suasive according to the opportunity. She secures 
 to herself the power of accommodating her com- 
 munications to the circumstances, ranks, and ages of 
 her children ; of consulting for their ignorance, or 
 even waywardness; of keeping silence when it 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 309 
 
 would be inexpedient or unkind to urge truth in 
 its fulness, or, where men are unworthy of it ; of 
 letting the reason range, and then bringing it round. 
 She exacts the great rudiments of the Gospel from 
 all, she requires teachableness, she is severe with 
 scepticism, but she is tender and affectionate amid 
 her zeal and loyalty towards God. She does not 
 " strive nor cry," nor " quench the smoking flax ;" 
 but retires into the sanctuary, dispensing her mes- 
 sage, not lavishly, or by necessity, but on those 
 who care to follow her. She has that confidence in 
 the truth of her doctrine, and in the sovereignty of 
 truth, that she can be long-suffering towards error ; 
 that faith in her spiritual powers, that she is slow 
 to display them. She can bear with the froward 
 or the obstinate within bounds, knowing her gift 
 both in the word and in the sacraments, when the 
 time comes for displaying it. She has too gener- 
 ous a temper to rule by engagements, but like an 
 absolute monarch, is familiar with her children 
 without jealousy, because God is with her. But 
 supposing they are hopelessly contumacious, resist 
 her word, oppose and preach against her, she has 
 no desire, nay, no warrant to retain them, and suf- 
 fers or compels them to depart, lest the rest should 
 be injured. Yet after all, even when she strips 
 them of her glorious privileges, she does not thereby 
 absolutely pronounce on the spiritual state in God's 
 sight, or future destiny of the given individuals so 
 visited. She is as little concerned with such ques- 
 
310 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 tions as if they were heathens. She surrenders 
 them to that Master, "to whom they stand or 
 fall ;" doing her part, and leaving the rest to 
 Him. 
 
 4. It is time to bring this Lecture to an end, 
 but one objection, and not the least important, 
 remains, which shall be treated with as much 
 brevity as the nature of it admits. It will be said 
 that even if the above theory of Fundamentals is 
 consistent, yet, after all, it is but a theory ; a mere 
 shadowy, baseless, ingenious theory, since the divi- 
 sion of the East and West, and still more so since 
 the great schism of the North and South. " You 
 speak," it may be urged against me, " of the 
 Church Catholic, of the Church's teaching, and of 
 obedience to the Church. What is meant by the 
 Church Catholic at this day ? where is she ? what 
 are her local instruments and organs? how does 
 she speak ? when and where does she teach, for- 
 bid, command, censure? how can she be said to 
 utter one and the same doctrine every where, when 
 we are at war with all the rest of Christendom, and 
 not at peace at home ? In the Primitive Church 
 there was no difficulty, and no mistaking ; then all 
 Christians- every where spoke one and the same 
 doctrine, and if any novelty arose, it was at once 
 denounced and stifled. The case is the same, in- 
 deed, with the Roman Church now ; but for An- 
 glicans so to speak, is to use words without mean- 
 ing, to dream of a state of things long past away 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 311 
 
 from this Protestant land. The Church is now 
 but a mere abstract word ; it stands for a general- 
 ized idea, not the name of any one thing really ex- 
 isting ; which if it ever was, yet ceased to be, when 
 Christians divided from each other, centuries upon 
 centuries ago. Rome and Greece, at enmity with 
 each other, both refuse communion to England, 
 and anathematize her faith. Again, in the English 
 Church by itself may be found differences as great 
 as those which separate it from Greece or Rome ; 
 Calvinism and Arminianism, Latitudinarianism and 
 Orthodoxy, all these sometimes simply such, and 
 sometimes compounded together into numberless 
 varieties of doctrine and school ; and these not 
 merely each upholding itself as true, but, with few 
 exceptions, denouncing all the rest as perilous, if 
 not fatal errors. Such is its state even among 
 its appointed ministers and teachers. Where, then, 
 in the English Church is that one eternal voice of 
 Truth ; that one witness issuing from the Apostles' 
 times, and conversant with all doctrine, the ex- 
 pounder of the Creed, the interpreter of Scripture, 
 and the instructer of the people of God ?" 
 
 Whatever truth there is in these remarks, still I 
 cannot allow that what I have been above drawing 
 out is therefore a mere tale of other times, when ad- 
 dressed to those who are really bent on serving God 
 as well as they can, and who consult what is most 
 likely to please Him. The very difficulty of apply- 
 ing it, will be a test whether we earnestly desire 
 
312 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lbct. 
 
 to do His will or not. Those who do not, will gladly 
 , seize the excuse that it was difficult to find it. 
 i Common experience of life shows us clearly enough 
 ' how men evade what they do not like. They find 
 reasons for pleasing themselves, real unanswerable 
 reasons, such as cannot be met or exposed, but 
 which after all do not deceive us for an instant as 
 to the real motives which influence them. The 
 two things are quite distinct and quite compatible, 
 neither interfering with the other or arguing its 
 absence, the motive for an act and the excuse for 
 it. The excuse which is urged to defend it, does 
 not obscure in any degree the motive which it ar- 
 gues. We know quite well that if their heart had 
 been in the business, they would have found at 
 least an approximation and made an attempt to- 
 wards that which they have passed over ; as is even 
 plain from the proverb, " Where there is a will, 
 there is a way." Now, we have no reason to sup- 
 pose, that God will accept in our conduct towards 
 Him excuses which we see through when directed 
 against ourselves ; and, if so, the difficulty of obedi- 
 ence may be a trial of our motives, not a subject 
 for argument. The servant who hid his talent and 
 made excuses, did not find his account in making 
 them. 
 
 It being kept in view, then, what kind of obedi- 
 ence God requires of us, viz. such as we can pay, 
 not the alternative of the highest conceivable, or 
 none at all, of the verv letter, or else not the spirit, 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 313 
 
 let us see, whether even amid our present confu- 
 sions there be any such insuperable obstacle in 
 obeying the Church, as is pretended. Now, in 
 spite of differences within and without, our own 
 branch may be considered among us as the voice of 
 her who has been in the world ever one and the 
 same since Christ came. Surely, she comes up to 
 the theory ; she transmits the ancient Catholic Faith 
 simply and intelligibly. Not the most unlettered 
 of her members can miss her meaning. She speaks 
 in her formularies and services. The Daily Prayer, 
 the Occasional Offices, the Order of the Sacra- 
 ments, the Ordination Services, presents one and 
 the same strong, plain, edifying language to rich 
 and poor, learned and unlearned, and that not as 
 the invention of this Reformer or that, but as the 
 witness of all Saints from the beginning. The very 
 titles of the Prayers and Creeds show this ; such as, 
 " the Apostles' " and " the Nicene Creeds," " the 
 Creed of St. Athanasius," " the Catholic Faith," 
 " the Catholic Religion," a " Prayer of St. Chry- 
 sostOm," and the like. It is undeniable, that a 
 stranger taking up the Prayer-Book would feel it 
 was no modern production; the very Latin titles 
 to the Psalms and Hymns would prove it. It 
 claims to be Catholic ; nor is there any one of any 
 party to deny, that on the whole it is. To follow 
 the Church, then, in this day, is to follow the 
 Prayer-Book, instead of following preachers, who 
 are but individuals. Its words are not the acci- 
 
314 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 dental out-pouring of this or that age or country, 
 but the joint and accordant testimony of that in- 
 numerable company of Saints, whom we are bound 
 to follow. They are the accents of the Church 
 Catholic and Apostolic as it manifests itself in 
 England. Surely, if we did but proceed on the 
 great principle above described, of acting towards 
 duties which we cannot fulfil exactly, did we take 
 what is given us, and use it not grudgingly, nor of 
 necessity, but with a cheerful obedience, did we 
 receive the Creed as our Gospel, embrace and act 
 upon the doctrine of our Services, and if anywhere 
 Ave differed, differ in silence, we should of ourselves 
 without effort revive all those visible tokens of the 
 Church's sovereignty, the want of which is our 
 present excuse for disobedience. Surely, " the king- 
 dom of God is within us ;" we have but to recognize 
 the Church in faith, and it rises before our eyes. 
 
 Nor is there any thing in the profession of the 
 sects around us to disturb us. They contradict 
 each other, or rather themselves. They pretend to 
 no Antiquity, they have no stability, no consistency; 
 they do not interfere with our doctrine and our 
 pretensions at all, no more than the schools of phi- 
 losophy and science. They have taken a different 
 line and occupy a different province. As well 
 might it be said that astrologers interfere with 
 prophecy ; as those who out of their own judgment 
 conjecture the doctrine of Christ, with its tradi- 
 tionary delivery through His appointed stewards. 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 315 
 
 The only real difficulty in our path arises from 
 the pretensions of the Romanists who are among 
 us. They profess to be the Church and to teach 
 the Catholic Faith as well as we, but not as we do. 
 Which then is to be believed ? but even here there 
 is no such difficulty in' our path as opponents would 
 be glad to create. Assuming, as our present argu- 
 ment leads us to do, that they and we are both 
 branches of the one Catholic Church, I say the 
 difference of doctrine between Rome and us is little 
 of a practical difficulty in our following the Church, 
 or of a drawback upon our certainty and comfort 
 in the Anglican communion. Indeed, the two 
 rival systems, agreeing amid their differences in 
 points which they each hold to be the highest 
 truths, and which sectaries more or less under- 
 value, afford a remarkable attestation to the Apos- 
 tolical origin of these. Both profess the Apostles' 
 Creed. Both use substantially the same common 
 Prayer, ours indeed being actually but a selection 
 from theirs. It is nothing to the purpose in this 
 place what and how great the errors of Romanism 
 are in practice. We know they are very serious ; 
 but I am speaking of its professions, with which 
 alone at this instant I am concerned. But the 
 doctrines of Three Persons in One indivisible Di- 
 vine Nature ; of the union of two Natures, Divine 
 and Human, in the One Person of Christ ; of the 
 imputation of Adam's sin in his descendants ; of the 
 death of Christ to reconcile God the Father to us 
 
316 ON THE ESSENTIALS [Lect. 
 
 sinners ; the application of His merits through ex- 
 ternal rites ; the singular efficacy and mysterious- 
 ness of Sacraments ; the Apostolical ministry ; the 
 duty of unity ; the necessity of good works ; these 
 and other doctrines are maintained, and maintained 
 as the chief doctrines of the Gospel, both by us and 
 them. And our very differences in other matters, 
 and our hostility towards each other increase, I 
 say, the force of our unanimity where it exists. 
 
 On the other hand, the very fact of those differ- 
 ences throws a corresponding uncertainty over those 
 points which Rome maintains by herself; such as 
 the existence of Purgatory, the supremacy of the 
 Roman see, and the Infallibility of the Church. 
 
 If, in answer to this statement, it be urged that 
 the peculiar claim set up by Rome to be the true 
 Church to the exclusion of ourselves, is so serious 
 as to perplex the inquirer, and almost to lead him 
 to join himself to her communion as the safest 
 course, whatever be the identity of doctrine between 
 the two systems on greater points, let it be con- 
 sidered whether there be not some ■ peculiarities 
 hanging about her, which are sufficient from the 
 same prudential motives to keep us at a distance 
 from her. Our Lord said of false prophets, " By 
 their fruits shall ye know them ;" and, however the 
 mind may be entangled theoretically, yet surely 
 it will fall upon certain marks in Rome which seem 
 intended to convey to the simple and honest in- 
 quirer a solemn warning to keep clear of her, while 
 
X.] OF THE GOSPEL. 317 
 
 she carries them about her. Such are her denying 
 the cup to the laity, her idolatrous worship of the 
 Blessed Virgin, her Image-worship, her reckless- 
 ness in anathematizing, and her schismatical and 
 overbearing spirit. I conceive, then, on the whole, 
 that while Rome confirms by her accordant wit- 
 ness our own teaching in all greater things, she 
 does not tend by her novelties, and violence, and 
 threats, to disturb the practical certainty of Catho- 
 lic doctrine, or to seduce from us any sober and 
 conscientious inquirer. 
 
 And here I end, at last, my remarks on Funda- 
 mentals, in which I have been unavoidably led, 
 partly to repeat, partly to take for granted, some 
 portions of the preceding Lectures. 
 
LECTURE XI. 
 
 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD OF FAITH. 
 
 It will perhaps be questioned, whether the fore- 
 going view of Catholic Tradition and the Funda- 
 mentals of the Church, is consistent with the supre- 
 macy of Holy Scripture in questions of faith. That 
 it is not consistent with present popular notions on 
 the subject I am quite aware ; but it may be that 
 those notions are wrong, and that the foregoing view, 
 which, is received from and maintained by our great 
 divines, is right. If it could be proved contrary to 
 any thing they have elsewhere maintained, this 
 would be to accuse them of inconsistency, which I 
 leave to our enemies to do. However, I will not 
 content myself with a mere appeal to authority, 
 but will argue the question on grounds of reason. 
 In this, then, and the two following Lectures, I 
 propose to discuss the question of what is some- 
 times called " the Rule of Faith ;" and to show, 
 that nothing that has gone before is inconsistent 
 
ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD OF FAITH. 319 
 
 with the reverence, gratitude, and submission with 
 which we should receive Scripture. 
 
 The sixth Article speaks as follows : " Holy 
 Scripture containeth all things necessary to salva- 
 tion, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor 
 may be proved thereby, is not to be required of 
 any man, that it should be believed as an article of 
 the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to 
 salvation." 
 
 Now, this statement is very plain and clear ex- 
 cept in one point, viz. who is to be the judge what 
 is and what is not contained in Scripture. Our 
 Church is silent on this point, — very emphatically 
 so. This is worth observing; in truth, she does 
 not admit, strictly speaking, of any judge at all, in 
 the sense in which Romanists and Protestants con- 
 tend for one ; and in this point, as in others, holds 
 a middle course between extreme theories. Ro- 
 manism, as we all know, maintains the existence 
 of a Judge of controversies, nay, and an infallible 
 one, that is, the Church Catholic. It considers, 
 that the Pope, in General Council, can infallibly 
 decide on the meaning of Scripture, as well as in- 
 fallibly discriminate between Apostolic and spu- 
 rious Traditions. Again, the multitude of Protes- 
 tants also maintain the existence of a judge of 
 Scripture doctrine, but not one and the same to 
 ajl, but a different one to each individual. They 
 consider every man his own judge ; they hold that 
 every man may and must read Scripture for him- 
 
320 ON SCRIPTURE AS [Lect. 
 
 self, and judge about its meaning, and make up 
 his mind for himself; nay, is, as regards himself, 
 and practically, an infallible judge of its meaning ; 
 — infallible, certainly, for were the whole new crea- 
 tion against him, Bishops, Doctors, Martyrs, Saints, 
 the Holy Church Universal, the very companions of 
 the Apostles, the unanimous suffrage of the most 
 distinct times and places, and the most gifted and 
 holiest men, yet according to the popular doc- 
 trine, though he was aware of this, he ought ulti- 
 mately to rest in his own interpretations of Scrip- 
 ture, and to follow his Private Judgment, however 
 sorry he might be to differ from such authorities. 
 
 Thus both Protestantism and Romanism hold the 
 existence of an authoritative judge of the sense of 
 Scripture ; whereas our Article preserves a signifi- 
 cant silence about it ; which agrees with our mode 
 of treating the subject in other passages of our 
 formularies. For, in truth, we neither hold that 
 the Catholic Church is an infallible judge of Scrip- 
 ture, nor that each individual may judge for him- 
 self ; but that the Church has authority, and that 
 individuals may judge for themselves outside the 
 range of that authority. This is no matter of 
 words, but a very clear and practically important 
 distinction, as will soon appear. 
 
 The Church is not & judge of the sense of Scrip- 
 ture in the common sense of the word, but a wit- 
 ness. If indeed, the word judge be taken to mean 
 what it means in the Courts of Law, one vested 
 
XL] THE RECORD OF FAITH. ?>2\ 
 
 with authority to declare the received appoint- 
 ments and usages of the realm, and with power to 
 enforce them, then the Church is a judge, — but not 
 of Scripture, but of Tradition. On the contrary, 
 both Protestant sectaries and Romanists consider 
 their supposed judge to be a judge not merely of 
 past facts, of precedents, custom, belief, and the 
 like, but to have a direct power over Scripture, 
 to contemplate questions of what is true and false in 
 opinion, to have a special gift by divine illumination, 
 a gift guaranteed by promise, of discerning the Scrip- 
 ture sense without perceptible human Media, to 
 act under a guidance, and as if inspired, though 
 not really so. Whether any such gift was once des- 
 tined for mankind or not, it avails not to inquire ; 
 we consider it is not given in fact, and both Ro- 
 manists and Protestants hold it is given. We, on 
 the other hand, consider the Church as a witness, 
 a keeper and witness of Catholic Tradition, and in 
 this sense invested with authority, just as in poli- 
 tical matters, an ambassador, possessed of instruc- 
 tions from his government, would speak with au- 
 thority. But, unless in such sense as attaches to an 
 ambassador, the Church, in our view of her office, is 
 not a judge. She bears witness to a fact, that such 
 and such a doctrine, or such a sense of Scripture, 
 has ever been received and came from the Apos- 
 tles ; the proof of this lies first in her own unani- 
 mity throughout her various branches, next in the 
 writings of the Ancient Fathers ; and she acts upon 
 
 Y 
 
ON SCRIPTURE AS [Lect. 
 
 this her witness as the executive does in civil 
 matters, and is responsible for it ; but she does not 
 undertake of herself to determine the sense of 
 Scripture, she has no immediate power over it, 
 she but alleges and submits to what is ancient 
 and Catholic. The mere Protestant, indeed, and 
 the Romanist may use Antiquity ; but it is as a 
 mere material by which the supreme judge, the 
 spiritual mind, whether collective or individual, 
 forms his decisions, as pleadings in his court, he 
 being above them, and having an inherent right 
 of disposing of them. We, on the contrary, consider 
 Antiquity and Catholicity to be the real guides, 
 and the Church their organ. For instance, in the 
 20th Article, a distinction is made between rites 
 and doctrines, and it is affirmed the Church has 
 power over the one, but not over the other ; " the 
 Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, 
 and authority in controversies of faith." Again, in 
 the Canon of 1571, the rule of deciding these con- 
 troversies is given : " Preachers shall be careful not 
 to preach aught to be religiously held and believed 
 by the people, except what is agreeable to the doc- 
 trine of the Old or New Testament, and collected 
 from that very doctrine by the Catholic Fathers and 
 ancient Bishops." 
 
 The Act of Queen Elizabeth, though proceeding 
 from the laity and since repealed, expresses the 
 opinion of the age which imposed the Articles, and 
 it speaks to the same purport as this Canon. It 
 
XL] THE RECORD OF FAITH. 323 
 
 determines that " such matter and cause" only 
 shall be adjudged to be heresy, as heretofore has 
 been adjudged to be so, " by authority of the Ca- 
 nonical Scriptures, or by some of the first four Ge- 
 neral Councils, or by any oilier General Council 
 wherein the same was declared heresy by the ex- 
 press and plain words of the said Canonical Scrip- 
 tures." 
 
 The present Church, then, in our view of her 
 office, is not so much a judge of Scripture as a 
 witness of Catholic Truth delivered to her in the 
 first ages, whether by Councils, or by Fathers, or 
 in whatever other way. 
 
 And if she does not claim any gift of interpre- 
 tation for herself, in the high points in question, 
 much less does she allow individuals to pretend to 
 it. Explicit as our Articles are in asserting that 
 the doctrines of faith are contained and must be 
 pointed out in Scripture, yet they give no hint that 
 private persons may presume to search Scripture 
 independently of external help, and to determine 
 for themselves what is saving. The Church has 
 a prior claim to do so, but even the Church asserts 
 it not, but hands over the office to Catholic An- 
 tiquity. In what our Articles say of Holy Scrip- 
 ture as the document of proof, exclusive reference 
 is had to teaching. It is not said that individuals 
 are to infer the faith, but that the Church is to prove 
 it from Scripture ; not that individuals are to learn 
 
 y2 
 
324 ON SCRIPTURE AS [Lect. 
 
 it, but are to be taught it. The Church is bound 
 ever to test and verify her doctrine by Scripture 
 throughout her course of instruction. She must take 
 care to show her children that she keeps Scripture 
 in mind, and is ruling, guiding, steadying herself 
 by it. In Sermons and Lectures, in catechisings 
 and controversy, she must ever appeal to Scripture, 
 draw her arguments from Scripture, explore and 
 develope Scripture, imitate Scripture, build up her 
 form of doctrine on Scripture rudiments. The 
 sole question, I say, in the Articles is how the 
 Church is to teach. Thus, in the sixth it is said, 
 that nothing but what is contained in Scripture, or 
 may be proved by it, is to be " required of any man 
 that it should be believed as an article of the 
 faith." And the 20th still more clearly : " It is 
 not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that 
 is contrary to God's word written, neither may it 
 so expound one place of Scripture that it be repug- 
 nant to another. Wherefore, although the Church 
 be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, yet 
 as it ought not to decree anything against the 
 same, so besides the same ought it not to en- 
 force anything to be believed for necessity of sal- 
 vation." It does not say what individuals may 
 do, but what the Church may not do. In like 
 manner, the Canon of 1571 is concerning the 
 duty of preachers ; the question whether individuals 
 may exercise a right of Private Judgment on the 
 
XI. J THE RECORD OF FAITH. 325 
 
 text of Scripture in matters of faith is not even 
 contemplated. 
 
 Such then are the respective places to be as- 
 signed to the Church of the day and to her mem- 
 bers in regard to the interpretation of Scripture. 
 Neither individual, nor Bishop, nor Convocation, 
 nor Council, may venture to decline the Catholic 
 interpretation of its sacred mysteries. We have as 
 little warrant for rejecting Ancient Consent as for 
 rejecting Scripture itself; our Private Judgment 
 is as much and as little infringed by the yoke of 
 the Catholic sense as by the yoke of Scripture it- 
 self. Scripture is an infringement on our Private 
 Judgment. It demands our assent ; it threatens 
 us if we refuse it ; and towards it, too, we may 
 exercise what we presumptuously call the right of 
 Private Judgment. We may reject Scripture as 
 we reject Antiquity, and we may take the conse- 
 quences of what in the next world will be seen to 
 be either unavoidable ignorance or self-will. It 
 will be observed, that I am speaking all along of 
 necessary doctrine, or the faith once delivered ; for 
 in matters of inferior moment, both the Church 
 and the individual have room to exercise their own 
 powers ; the individual to judge for himself, and 
 the Church to give her judgment, as one that hath 
 obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful ; and 
 that for this simple reason, either that Scripture 
 or Tradition is obscure, indeterminate, or silent. 
 
326 ON SCRIPTURE AS [Lect. 
 
 But such a necessity is not a privilege, but the 
 absence of a privilege, and such an exercise of 
 judgment is not a boast but a responsibility on 
 either side. How the Church and the individual 
 adjust their respective judgments, has been con- 
 sidered in the last Lecture ; and is a mere case of 
 relative duties, as that between a master and scho- 
 lar, or parent and child. 
 
 We have now cleared the way to another impor- 
 tant principle of the Anglican system, in which with 
 equal discrimination it takes middle ground between 
 Romanism and mere Protestantism. Our Church 
 adheres to a double Rule i , Scripture and Catholic 
 Tradition, and considers that in all matters neces- 
 sary to salvation both safeguards are vouchsafed to 
 us, and both the Church's judgment and private 
 judgment superseded ; whereas the Romanist con- 
 siders that points of faith may rest on Tradition 
 without Scripture, and the mere Protestant that 
 they may be drawn from Scripture without the 
 witness of Tradition. That she requires Scripture 
 
 1 " With them," the Romanists, " both Scripture and Fathers 
 are, as to the sense, under the correction and control of the 
 present Church ; with us the present Church says nothing, but 
 under the direction of Scripture and Antiquity taken together, 
 one as the rule, the other as the pattern or interpreter. Among 
 them, the present Church speaks by Scripture and Fathers; 
 with us, Scripture and Fathers speak by the Church. . . . Two 
 witnesses are better than one, though one be superior." — Water- 
 land, Eccles. Antiq. 8, 9. 
 
XL] THE RECORD OF FAITH. 327 
 
 sanction is plain from the Articles; that she re- 
 quires Catholic sanction is plain from the Atha- 
 nasian Creed, which, in propounding the necessary 
 faith of a Christian, says not a word about Scrip- 
 ture, resting it upon its being Catholic 1 ; that she 
 requires both is plain from the Canon quoted more 
 than once, which declares nothing to be the sub- 
 ject of religious belief except what is agreeable to 
 the doctrine of the Bible, and collected out of it 
 by the Catholic doctors. 
 
 This being the state of the case, the phrase 'Rule 
 of Faith,' which is now commonly taken to mean 
 the Bible by itself, would seem, in the judgment of 
 the English Church, properly to belong to the Bible 
 and Catholic Tradition taken together. These two 
 together make up a joint rule 2 ; Scripture is inter- 
 preted by Tradition, Tradition verified by Scripture; 
 Tradition gives form to the doctrine, Scripture gives 
 life ; Tradition teaches, Scripture proves. And hence 
 both the one and the other have, according to the 
 occasion, been called by our writers the Rule of 
 
 1 E. g. "It is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith;" 
 " we are forhidden by the Catholic religion ;" " this is the Catho- 
 lic faith, which, except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be 
 saved." It is quite certain that Protestantism, as we experi- 
 ence it in this day, would have worded it, " This is the Scrip- 
 tural faith," &c. &c. 
 
 2 " The Scriptures and the Creed are not two different Rules 
 of Faith, but one and the same Rule, dilated in Scripture, con- 
 tracted in the Creed." — Bramhall, Works, p. 402. 
 
328 ON SCRIPTURE AS [Leci. 
 
 Faith, sometimes the Catholic Creed, sometimes 
 Scripture ; not as if that particular source of truth 
 which was not mentioned at this or that time, 
 was thereby excluded, but as is implied through- 
 out, the question not lying between the Creed and 
 Scripture, but relating to the Church and the indi- 
 vidual. Scripture, when illuminated by the " Catho- 
 lic Religion," or the Catholic Religion when forti- 
 fied by Scripture, may either of them be called the 
 Gospel committed to the Church, dispensed to the 
 individual \ 
 
 And now, having stated as perspicuously as may 
 be, what seems to be the English doctrine, I have 
 to proceed next to the proof of that part of it which 
 has not yet come into discussion. The grounds on 
 which Catholic Tradition is authoritative have been 
 explained ; it follows to inquire into the reasons 
 for considering Scripture as the document of proof, 
 as our Sixth Article declares it to be. In what 
 remains of this Lecture I shall but state the dif- 
 ferent lines of argument which have been adopted 
 with this view, and make some remarks upon 
 them. 
 
 Now Protestants sometimes argue, that the 
 Word of God must necessarily be written ; because 
 how else could we be sure of its authenticity and 
 integrity ? that the notion of a revelation involves 
 
 1 The Articles do not introduce the term, " Rule of Faith," 
 at all. 
 
XI.] THE RECORD OF FAITH. 329 
 
 its being written, else the very object of the revela- 
 tion would be defeated. They have been led to 
 take this ground in rivalry of the Romanists, who 
 have adopted the very same antecedent line of 
 argument, in behalf of the Church's infallibility, as 
 if the revelation would not really be such, if it left 
 room for various and interminable questions con- 
 cerning the contents of it. Chillingworth, for in- 
 stance, uses the following language : " The Scrip- 
 ture is . . . , a sufficient rule for those to judge 
 by who believe it to be the word of God, (as the 
 Church of England and the Church of Rome both 
 do,) what they are to believe and what they are 
 
 not to believe And my reason hereof is 
 
 convincing and demonstrative, because nothing is 
 necessary to be believed but what is plainly revealed 1 ." 
 Now in spite of the great name of this author, I 
 cannot allow that a revelation, if made, must neces- 
 sarily be plain, or that faith requires clear know- 
 ledge ; and that in consequence the uncertain 
 character, supposing it, of Catholic Tradition is a 
 decisive objection to its being considered a divine 
 informant in religious matters. And, in making 
 this avowal, I defend myself by the greater name 
 of Bishop Butler. — " We are not in any sort able to 
 judge," says that profound thinker, " whether it 
 were to have been expected, that the Revelation 
 should have been committed to writing ; or left to 
 
 1 Chillingworth, Answ. ii. 104. 
 
330 ON SCRIPTURE AS [Lect. 
 
 be handed down, and consequently corrupted by 
 verbal tradition, and at length sunk under it, if 
 mankind so pleased, and daring such time as they 
 are permitted, in the degree they evidently are, to 
 act as they will I ." Indeed it certainly does seem 
 presumptuous for a creature, not to say a sinner, 
 to take upon him to say, " I will believe nothing, 
 unless I am told in the clearest conceivable form." 
 The utmost that can be safely advanced antece- 
 dently, is, that, part of the revelation being con- 
 fessedly written, it is likely that the whole is, 
 whatever weight attaches to this presumption. 
 Facts, too, are inconsistent with this line of argu- 
 ment; from Adam to Abraham there seems to 
 have been no written revelation at all. Again, it 
 is undeniable that the Gospel has been before now 
 preached, and successfully too, where the written 
 word was unknown ; if then the argument in dis- 
 pute be correct, the people addressed ought to 
 have dismissed the preachers, refused to hear any 
 thing, because they could not know all, and re- 
 mained in heathenism. Further, it is not true that 
 a traditionary doctrine cannot be "plainly re- 
 vealed ;" for the abolition of the seventh day rest, 
 comes to us upon Tradition. If the maxim in ques- 
 tion were sound, we should have " convincing and 
 demonstrative reason" for disbelieving it. But if 
 Tradition may convey to us one doctrine, it surely 
 
 1 Anal, part ii. c. iii. 
 
XL] THE RECORD OF FAITH. 331 
 
 may convey others also. I say there is no antece- 
 dent necessity for the written word containing the 
 whole of the Gospel, true though it be, that it does 
 contain it. 
 
 Others have considered that Scripture bears wit- 
 ness to its own sufficiency and perfection in matters 
 of doctrine. And to prove this, they bring forward 
 such texts as 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17. "All Scripture is 
 given by inspiration of God," &c. ; which speaks 
 of the Old Testament, before the New was even 
 completed, much less collected into a volume, and 
 therefore proves, if any thing, that the Old Testa- 
 ment is sufficient without the New, or else that 
 every Scripture, every separate book, is a Canon. Or, 
 again, it might plausibly be argued, if such strong 
 terms are used of the Old, and yet the New is not 
 excluded from the Canon, but rather is the most 
 important part of it, it follows that, even had the 
 New been so spoken of, yet doctrines might have 
 remained behind for Tradition to supply. And so 
 far I suppose is certain, whatever comes of it, that 
 clearly as Scripture speaks of the divine inspiration 
 of its writers, yet it no where says that it, by itself, 
 contains all necessary doctrine. Indeed from the 
 beginning to the end of the New Testament there 
 is no recognition even of its own existence, no re- 
 flection on itself, no putting forward of its claims 
 as a written document. We simply meet with our 
 Saviour and His Apostles' teaching, and their re- 
 spective claim of authority for their own words and 
 
332 ON SCRIPTURE AS [Lbct. 
 
 their own persons, and this for the most part his- 
 torically conveyed in the books of which it is com- 
 posed. The last words of the Apocalypse are, I 
 suppose, the sole great exception to this remark, 
 the sole declaration in the books of the New Testa- 
 ment, of an exclusive character, and surely they 
 cannot be considered sufficient in themselves to 
 establish so bold and eventful a negative, viz. that 
 nothing is necessary doctrine but what is in it. 
 
 Others, accordingly, argue from the analogy of 
 the Jewish Law that the Christian Law also must 
 be written. But why should the analogy between 
 the' Dispensations hold in this point ? does it hold 
 in all points in which Scripture is silent as to its 
 not holding ? The Protestantism of the day surely 
 would not gain by the recognition of such a rule. 
 Again, it might plausibly be argued that the Jewish 
 Covenant was one of formal enactments, of rites 
 and ceremonies, and therefore required a written 
 word, but that the Gospel is of the spirit, not of 
 the letter; either then that the New Testament 
 must be obeyed in all points literally, or that per- 
 chance it is not the whole of the revelation ; and 
 no party in the controversy consider themselves 
 bound literally to cut off the right hand, and pluck 
 out the right eye, to wash each other's feet, to have 
 all things in common. It might be added that, 
 though the Gospel has definite doctrines and rites, 
 as well as the Jewish Law, yet that the Catholicity 
 of the Tradition, which was wanting under the Law, 
 
XI.] THE RECORD OF FAITH. 333 
 
 may supply the office of a written word. I mean 
 to say, that the analogy of the Jewish Law is an 
 insufficient ground on which to reject Tradition 
 from the Gospel revelation ; it being a means of 
 Truth, ample and adequate in its nature, and al- 
 ready employed by Providence in conveying to us 
 the New Testament itself. 
 
 Such are some of the most approved methods at 
 the present day, for proving that Scripture, and 
 Scripture only, is of supreme authority in matters of 
 faith. Another and acuter line of argument is to call 
 on those who deny it to prove their point ; — if there 
 be anything besides Scripture equal to Scripture, 
 to produce it, and give reasons in its behalf. In 
 other words, it grants their principle and denies 
 their matter of fact. And certainly it does seem 
 as if the onus probandi, as it is called, lay with the 
 Romanists, not with us. Such, then, has been the 
 course pursued by some of our greatest writers, 
 as Hooker, who observes, "They which add Tra- 
 ditions, as a part of supernatural necessary truth, 
 have not the truth, but are in error. For they 
 only plead, that whatsoever God revealeth as neces- 
 sary for all Christian men to do or believe, the same 
 we ought to embrace, whether we have received 
 it by writing or otherwise, which no man denieth ; 
 when that which they should confirm, who claim 
 so great reverence unto Traditions, is, that the 
 same Traditions are necessary to be acknowledged 
 
334 ON SCRIPTURE AS [Lect. 
 
 divine and holy. For we do not reject them, only 
 because they are not in the Scripture, but because 
 they are neither in Scripture, nor can otherwise suf- 
 ficiently by any reason be proved to be of God. That 
 which is of God, and may be evidently proved to 
 be so, we deny not, but it hath in his hind, alilwugh 
 unwritten, yet the self-same force and authority with 
 the written laws of God 1 ." Such is the judgment 
 of this great author, who sets us right as to the 
 sense in which Tradition is inadmissible, viz., not 
 in the abstract, and before inquiry, but in the par- 
 ticular case ; not as being an uncertain mode of 
 conveying religious truth, as requiring care and 
 thought, on our part, and after all leaving us in 
 some degree of doubt, which is the objection no- 
 ticed above, but because, in matter of fact, certain 
 given Traditions, (so called,) as the Roman, after 
 inquiry, turned out not to be Traditions. 
 
 Yet this mode of understanding the Sixth Article 
 would seem to lie open to two serious objections. 
 First, the matter of fact is not at all made out that 
 there are no Traditions of a trustworthy nature. For 
 instance, it is proved by traditionary information 
 only, (for there is no other way), that the text of 
 Scripture is not to be taken literally, concerning 
 our washing one another's feet, while the command 
 to celebrate the Lord's supper is to be obeyed in 
 
 1 Hooker, Eccl. Pol. i. 14. 
 
XL] THE RECORD OF FAITH. 335 
 
 the letter. Again, it is only by Tradition that we 
 have any safe and clear rule for changing the weekly 
 feast from the seventh to the first day. 
 
 Again, our divines, such as Bramhall, Bull, Pear- 
 son, and Patrick, believe that the Blessed Mary 
 was " Ever Virgin," as the Church has called her ; 
 but Tradition was their only informant on the sub- 
 ject. Thus there are true Traditions still remaining 
 to us. 
 
 Perhaps it may be said, however, that all that 
 the argument under review really denies is, the 
 existence of any important Traditions, any points 
 of faith, affecting our salvation. But then follows 
 a still more difficult question, as to what are neces- 
 sary points of faith, and how they are to be defined. 
 We say Scripture contains all necessary doctrines ; 
 and why ? because there happen to be none except 
 in Scripture. Now there are true Traditions ex- 
 tant of some kind, as by the argument is granted, 
 and such as we even act upon ; perhaps then they 
 are necessary. How do we know they are not ? 
 The common answer would be, because they are 
 not in Scripture ; but this is the very point to 
 be proved. To this it may be replied that assuming 
 the Creed is the collection of necessary truths, 
 since there is not one of its Articles but what may 
 be proved from Scripture ; it follows that the 
 Sixth Article only means to say that for proving 
 of the Articles of the Creed we do not want Tradi- 
 tion, Scripture is enough. This answer seems so 
 
 1 
 
336 ON SCRIPTURE AS [Lect. 
 
 far unexceptionable ; yet it does not hold against 
 the second objection which I have to notice to the 
 line of argument under consideration. This lies in 
 the wording of the Article itself. The Article is 
 certainly engaged in stating a great principle; it 
 begins with a formal enunciation, as if uttering 
 what it felt to be a bulwark of the Truth, and an 
 antidote against the errors of the time. " Holy 
 Scripture containeth all things necessary to salva- 
 tion, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor 
 may be proved thereby, is not to be required of 
 any man." How is this fulfilled, by merely prov- 
 ing that it so happens that no doctrine coming from 
 the Apostles is to be found anywhere else, that it 
 so happens the Creed can be proved from Scripture ? 
 Surely the Article speaks, not as if narrating a 
 matter of history, but of doctrine, not a conclusion 
 to be arrived at, but a principle to start with. 
 
 These, then, are the difficulties in the proof of 
 our Sixth Article, to which Romanists add the par- 
 ticular structure of the New Testament. They 
 observe it is but an incomplete document on the 
 very face of it. There is no harmony or consist- 
 ency in its parts. There is no code of command- 
 ments, no list of fundamentals. It comprises four 
 lives of Christ, written for different portions of the 
 Church, and not tending to make up one whole. 
 Then follow epistles written to particular Churches 
 on particular occasions, and preserved, (as far as 
 there can be accident in the Avorld,) accidentally. 
 
XL] THE RECORD OF FAITH. 337 
 
 Some books, as the Epistle to the Laodiceans, are 
 altogether lost ; others are preserved only in a 
 translation, as perhaps the Gospel of St. Matthew, 
 and the Epistle to the Hebrews ; some delivered 
 down with barely sufficient evidence for their genu- 
 ineness, as the Second Epistle of St. Peter. Nor 
 were they generally received as one volume till the 
 fourth century. These are disproofs, it may be 
 said, of any intention, either in the course of Pro- 
 vidence, or in the writers, that the very books of 
 Scripture, though inspired, should be the Canon of 
 faith, that is, that they should bound and complete 
 it. Also, the office of the Church as the " keeper 
 of Holy Writ," seems to make it probable that she 
 was intended to interpret, perhaps to supply what 
 Scripture left irregular and incomplete. On the 
 other hand, the circumstance that religious truths 
 can be conveyed by ordinances, or by Catholic Tra- 
 dition, as well as by writing, seems an intimation 
 that there is such a second Rule of Faith, equally 
 authoritative and binding with Scripture itself. 
 
 This being the state of the case, the line of 
 argument I would adopt is one which many of our 
 most eminent Divines have pursued, and among 
 them the writer of the first Homily. Nor let any 
 one be startled at all this discordance of opinion 
 among our Divines, in their mode of proving one 
 of the great principles of Protestantism, as if it 
 reflected upon the wisdom or soundness of the prin- 
 ciple itself. Above all, let not Romanists venture 
 
338 ON SCRIPTURE AS [Lect. 
 
 to take advantage of it, lest we retort upon them 
 the vacillations, absurdities, intrigues, and jealousies 
 displayed in those deliberations of divines which 
 have attended their General Councils, and which 
 issued, as they conceive, in infallible decisions. It 
 is well known that the Church of Rome reckons 
 no part of the process by which the Fathers in 
 Council arrive at their final decrees to be of any 
 authority. She conceives they are invisibly over- 
 ruled, in whatever manner, to arrive at it. And 
 accordingly on inspecting their deliberations we shall 
 find them so full of both moral and intellectual 
 defects, that we shall agree with the Romanists 
 that, if their conclusions be infallible, it clearly is 
 in conseqiience of some miraculous guardianship, 
 and not from any tendency in the human agency em- 
 ployed to produce that result. But surely a theory 
 which serves plausibly to evade a difficulty in Ro- 
 manism, may, with more speciousness, and without 
 evasion, be applied to the case under consideration. 
 Which, or whether any of the reasons already men- 
 tioned, or presently to be mentioned, was adopted 
 as the ground of the Article by its framers, matters 
 not ; or whether we can ascertain it, or adopt it 
 ourselves. It matters not whether or not they only 
 happened to come right on what are, in a logical 
 point of view, faulty premisses. They had no 
 time for theories of any kind ; and to require 
 theories at their hand,' argues an ignorance of 
 human nature, and of the way in which Truth is 
 
XL] THE RECORD OF FAITH. 339 
 
 struck out in the course of* life. Common sense, 
 chance, moral perception, genius, the great dis- 
 coverers of principles, do not reason. They have 
 no arguments, no grounds ; they see the Truth, but 
 they do not know how they see it ; and if at any 
 time they attempt to prove it, it is as much a 
 matter of experiment with them, as if they had 
 to find a road to a distant mountain which they see 
 with the eye, and they get entangled, embarrassed, 
 and perchance overthrown in the superfluous en- 
 deavour. It is the second-rate men, though most 
 useful in their place, who prove, reconcile, finish, 
 and explain. Probably the popular feeling of the 
 sixteenth century saw the Bible to be the word of 
 God, so as nothing else is His word, by the power 
 of a strong sense, by a sort of moral instinct, or by 
 a happy augury. Even though the first Protest- 
 ants proceeded to give insufficient reasons for their 
 belief, or at times stated it unguardedly or extrava- 
 gantly, it would not follow that they did not dis- 
 cern and speak a great Truth. Nor does it follow 
 that we, to whom they have left the task of har- 
 monizing their doctrines, are mistaken, because we 
 are at times at fault, and dispute among ourselves 
 what is the best way of setting about it. 
 
 If asked, then, how I know that the Bible con- 
 tains all truth necessary to be believed in order to 
 salvation, I simply reply, as the first Homily im- 
 plies, that the early Church so accounted it, that 
 there is a " Consent of Catholic Fathers " in its 
 
 z2 
 
340 ON SCRIPTURE AS [Lect. 
 
 favour. No matter, whether or not we can see a 
 principle in it ; no matter, whether or not we can 
 prove it from reason or Scripture ; we receive it 
 simply on historical evidence. The early Fathers 
 so held it, and we throw the burden of our belief, 
 if it be a burden, on them. It is quite impossible 
 they should so have accounted it, except from 
 Apostolic intimations, that it was so to be. 
 Stronger evidence for its truth is scarcely con- 
 ceivable ; for if any but the Scripture had preten- 
 sions to be an oracle of faith, would not the first 
 Successors of the Apostles be that oracle? must 
 not they, if any, have possessed the authoritative 
 traditions of the Apostles ? They surely must have 
 felt, as much as we do,, the unsystematic character 
 of the Epistles, the silence of Scripture on the 
 doctrine of its own canonicity, or whatever other 
 objections can be now urged against the doctrine ; 
 and yet they certainly held it. 
 
 If this line of argument can be maintained, there 
 will be this especial force in it as addressed to 
 Romanists. They are accustomed to taunt us with 
 inconsistency, as if we used the Tradition of the 
 Church only when and as far as we could not avoid 
 it ; for instance, for the establishment of the divi- 
 nity of Scripture, but not for the doctrines of the 
 Gospel. " Were it not for the testimony of the 
 Church," they say, " we should not know what 
 books are, what books are not inspired ; they do 
 not speak for themselves, or at least when they do 
 
XL] THE RECORD OF FAITH. 341 
 
 they scarcely can be admitted as their own vouch- 
 ers. Yet a Protestant will quote them implicitly 
 as divine, while he scoffs and rails at that informant 
 to whom he is indebted for his knowledge." Pro- 
 testants have felt the cogency of this representation; 
 and have been led to explore other modes of prov- 
 ing the genuineness of the New Testament, which 
 might set them free from the first ages of Christ- 
 ianity. Paley, for instance, has shown from the 
 undesigned coincidences of the Acts and Epistles, 
 that they bear with them an internal evidence of 
 their truth. Others have enlarged upon what they 
 conceive to be the beautiful and wise adaptation of 
 the Christian doctrines to each other, which, in the 
 words of one writer is such as to show that " the 
 system " of the Apostles " is true in the nature of 
 things, even were they proved to be impostors \" 
 Ingenious as such arguments are, were they ever 
 so sound and reverent, as they are generally irreve- 
 rent, and often untenable, they do not touch the 
 question of the divine origin of the New Testament 
 itself, except very indirectly, nay, sometimes tend 
 to dispense with it. Yet allowing what force we 
 will to them, I suppose it is undeniable after all 
 that we do receive the New Testament in its ex- 
 isting shape on Tradition, not on such refinements ; 
 for instance, we include the Second Epistle of St. 
 Peter, we leave out St. Clement's Epistle to the 
 
 1 Erskine's Internal Evidence, p. 17. 
 
342 ON SCRIPTURE AS [Lect. 
 
 Corinthians simply because the Church Catholic 
 has done so. Now this objection, whatever be its 
 value, is fully met by the mode of proof which I 
 have suggested ; or rather a point is gained thereby. 
 We do not discard the Tradition of the Fathers ; 
 we accept it ; we accept it entirely ; we accept its 
 witness concerning itself and against itself; it 
 witnesses to its own inferiority to Scripture; it 
 witnesses, not only that Scripture is the record, 
 but that it is the sole record of saving truth. 
 
 This is the more remarkable from the great stress 
 which the Fathers certainly do lay on the authority 
 of Tradition. They so represent it in its Apostolical 
 and universal character, they so extol and defer to 
 it, that it is difficult to see why they do not make 
 it, what the Romanists make it, an independent 
 informant in matters of faith; yet they do not. 
 Whenever they formally prove a doctrine, they 
 have recourse to Scripture; they bring forward 
 Tradition first ; they use it as a strong antecedent 
 argument against individual heretics who profess 
 to quote Scripture ; but in Councils they ever 
 verify it by the written Word. Now, if we choose 
 to argue and dispute, we may call them inconsist- 
 ent, and desire an explanation ; but, if we will be 
 learners in the school of Christ, we shall take things 
 as we find them, we shall consider their conduct as 
 a vestige and token of some Apostolic appoint- 
 ment, from its very singularity. It is nothing to 
 the purpose, even though Catholic and Apostolic 
 
XL] THE RECORD OF FAITH. 343 
 
 Tradition be strong enough to sustain the weight of 
 an appeal, supposing, in matter of fact, it was not so 
 employed by the early Church. Christ surely may 
 give to each of His instruments its own place ; He 
 has vouchsafed us two informants in saving truth, 
 both necessary, both at hand, Tradition for state- 
 ment, Scripture for proof ; and it is our part rather 
 to thank Him for His bounty, than to choose one 
 and reject the other. Let us be content to accept 
 the canonicity of Scripture on faith. 
 
 Moreover this view of the subject rids us of all 
 questions about the abstract sufficiency and perfec- 
 tion of Scripture, as a document of saving truth. 
 Romanists sometimes ask us whether some one 
 book, as the Gospel of St. John, would have been 
 sufficient for salvation ; and, if not, whether those 
 of the Apostles' writings which happen to remain 
 are sufficient, considering that some of them are 
 undoubtedly lost. We may answer, that any one 
 book of Scripture would be sufficient, provided 
 none other were given us ; that the whole Volume, 
 as we have received it, is enough, because we have 
 no more. There is no abstract measure of what is 
 sufficient. Faith cannot believe more than it is 
 told. It is saving, if it believes that, be it little or 
 great. 
 
 Lastly, it may be asked, if Scripture be, as has 
 been above represented, but the document of appeal, 
 and Catholic Tradition the authoritative teacher of 
 Christians, how it is that our Articles say nothing 
 
344 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD OF FAITH. 
 
 « 
 of Catholic Tradition, and limit Tradition to the 
 subject-matter of Ceremonies and Rites which are 
 not " in all places one or utterly like," " and may 
 be changed according to the diversity of countries, 
 times, and men's manners?" To which I answer 
 by asking, in turn, why the Articles contain no re- 
 cognition of the inspiration of Holy Scripture. In 
 truth, we must take the Articles as we find them, 
 they are not a system of theology on whatever view, 
 but a protest against certain specific errors, exist- 
 ing at the time they were drawn up. There are, 
 as all parties must confess, great truths not in the 
 Articles. 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD OF OUR LORD'S 
 TEACHING. 
 
 Of the two lines of proof offered in behalf of the 
 sixth Article, which I discussed in my last Lec- 
 ture, the one considered it to declare a doctrine, 
 the other a fact ; the one spoke as if Holy Scripture 
 must contain, the other as if it happened to contain 
 all necessary truth. Of these the former seems to 
 me to come nearer to the real meaning of the 
 Article, and also to the truth of the case, though 
 the particular considerations commonly offered in 
 proof are insufficient. Certainly, we cannot main- 
 tain the peculiar authority of the written word, on 
 the ground of any antecedent necessity, that reve- 
 lation should be written, or from the witness of 
 Scripture itself, or from the parallel of the Jewish 
 Law ; yet there are probabilities nevertheless, which 
 recommend the doctrine to our belief, even be- 
 fore going into the details of that historical testi- 
 
346 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD [Lect. 
 
 mony which I consider to be the proper evidence 
 of it. 
 
 Let us see, then, what can be said on the prima 
 facie view of the subject, in behalf of the notion 
 that Scripture is on principle, and not only by 
 accident, the sole Canon of our faith. 
 
 First, the New Testament is commonly called 
 a testament or will. Indeed, the very circumstance 
 that St. Paul calls the Gospel Revelation a Testa- 
 ment, and that Testaments are necessarily written, 
 and that he parallels it to the Mosaic Testament, 
 and that the Mosaic was written, prepares us to 
 expect that the Gospel will be written also. And 
 the name of Testament actually given to the sacred 
 volume confirms this anticipation. It evidently is 
 a mark of special honor ; and it assigns a most sig- 
 nificant purpose to the written Word, such as Tra- 
 dition, however clearly Apostolical, cannot reach. 
 Even granting Tradition and Scripture both to come 
 from the Apostles, it does not therefore follow that 
 their written Word was not, under God's over-ruling 
 guidance, designed for a particular purpose, for which 
 their Word unwritten was not designed. 
 
 Next, we learn from the testimony of the early 
 Church, that Scripture and Scripture only is in- 
 spired. This explains how it may be called in an 
 especial manner the Testament or Will of our Lord 
 and Saviour. Scripture has a gift which Tradition 
 has not ; it is fixed, tangible, accessible, readily 
 applicable, and besides all this perfectly true in all 
 
XII.] OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 347 
 
 its parts and relations ; in a word, it is a sacred text. 
 Tradition does not convey to us any form of words 
 or of discourses, but things only ; doctrine, that is, 
 embodied in diversified language, which in all its 
 varieties expresses the same ideas, but is avouched 
 as literally Apostolic in none. It gives us little or 
 nothing which can be argued from. We can argue 
 only from a text ; we can argue freely only from 
 an inspired text. Thus Scripture is in itself spe- 
 cially fitted for that office which we assign it in our 
 Article ; to be a repository of manifold and various 
 doctrine, a means of proof, a standard of appeal, an 
 umpire and test between truth and falsehood in all 
 emergencies. It thus becomes the nearest possible 
 approach to the perpetual presence of the Apostles 
 in the Church; whereas Tradition, being rather a 
 collection of separate truths, facts, and usages, is 
 wanting in flexibility and adaptation to the subtle 
 questions and difficulties which from time to time 
 arise. A new heresy, for instance, would be refuted 
 by Tradition only negatively, on the very ground 
 that it was new ; but by Scripture positively, by 
 the use of its text, and by suitable inferences from 
 it. 
 
 Here, then, are two tokens that Scripture really 
 is what we say it is. But now we proceed to a 
 third peculiarity, to which more time shall be de- 
 voted. 
 
 Scripture alone contains what remains to us of 
 our Lord's teaching. If there be a portion of 
 
348 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD [Lect. 
 
 revelation, sacred beyond other portions, distinct 
 and remote in its nature from the rest, it must be 
 the words and works of the Eternal Son Incarnate. 
 He is the One Prophet of the Church, as He is 
 our One Priest and King. His history is as far 
 above any other possible revelation, as heaven is 
 above earth ; for in it we have literally the sight 
 of Almighty God in His judgments, thoughts, attri- 
 butes, and deeds, and His mode of dealing with 
 us His creatures. Now this special revelation is 
 in Scripture, and Scripture only ; Tradition has no 
 part in it. 
 
 To enter into the force of this remark, we should 
 carefully consider the peculiar character of our 
 Lord's recorded words and works when on earth. 
 They will be found to come even professedly, as 
 the declarations of a Lawgiver. In the Old Cove- 
 nant, Almighty God first of all spoke the Ten 
 Commandments from Mount Sinai, and afterwards 
 wrote them. So our Lord first spoke His own 
 Gospel, both of promise and of precept, on the 
 Mount, and His Evangelists have recorded it. Fur- 
 ther, when He delivered it, He spoke by way of 
 parallel to the Ten Commandments. And His 
 style, moreover, corresponds to the authority which 
 He assumes. It is of that solemn, measured, and 
 severe character, which bears on the face of it 
 tokens of belonging to one who spake as none 
 other man could speak. The Beatitudes, with 
 which His Sermon opens, are an instance of this 
 
XII.] OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 349 
 
 incommunicable style, which befitted, as far as 
 human words could befit, God Incarnate. 
 
 Nor is this style peculiar to the Sermon on the 
 Mount. All through the Gospels it is discernible, 
 distinct from any other part of Scripture, showing 
 itself in solemn declarations, canons, sentences, or 
 sayings, such as legislators propound, and scribes 
 and lawyers comment on. Surely every thing our 
 Saviour did and said is characterized by mingled 
 simplicity and mystery. His emblematical actions, 
 His typical miracles, His parables, His replies, His 
 censures, all are evidences of a legislature in germ, 
 afterwards to be developed, a code of divine truth 
 which was ever to be before men's eyes, to be the 
 subject of investigation and interpretation, and the 
 guide in controversy. " Verily, verily, I say unto 
 you ;" " But, I say unto you," are the tokens of a 
 supreme Teacher and Prophet. 
 
 And thus the Fathers speak of His teaching. 
 " His sayings," observes Justin, " were short and 
 concise ; for He was no rhetorician, but His word 
 was the power of God '." And Basil, in like man- 
 ner : " Every deed, and every word of our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ is a canon of piety and virtue. When 
 then thou hearest word or deed of His, do not hear 
 it as by the way, or after a simple and carnal man- 
 ner, but enter into the depth of His contemplations, 
 
 1 Apol. i. 14. 
 
350 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD [Lect. 
 
 become a communicant in truths mystically deli- 
 vered to thee 1 ." 
 
 As instances in point, I would refer, first, to His 
 discourse with Nicodemus. We can hardly con- 
 ceive but He must have spoken during His visit 
 much more than is told us in St. John's Gospel ; 
 but so much is preserved as bears that peculiar 
 character which became a Divine Lawgiver, and 
 was intended for perpetual use in the Church. It 
 consists of concise and pregnant enunciations on 
 which volumes of instructive comment might be 
 written. Every verse is a canon of Divine Truth. 
 
 His discourse to the Jews in the fifth chapter 
 of St. John's Gospel, is perhaps a still more striking 
 instance. 
 
 Again, observe how the Evangelists heap His words 
 together, though unconnected with each other, as 
 if under a divine intimation, and with the conscious- 
 ness that they were providing a code of doctrine 
 and precept for the Church. St. Luke, for instance, 
 at the end of his ninth chapter : " Then there arose 
 a reasoning among them, which of them should be 
 the greatest ; and Jesus, perceiving the thought of 
 their heart, took a child, and set him by Him, and 
 said unto them, Whosoever shall receive this child 
 in My name, receiveth Me ; and ivhosoever shall re- 
 ceive Me, receiveth Him that sent Me ; for He that 
 
 1 Constit. Monast. i. 
 
XII.] OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 351 
 
 ■is least among you all, the same shall be great. And 
 John answered and said, Master, we saw one cast- 
 ing out devils in Thy name ; and we forbad him, 
 because he followeth not with us ; and Jesus said 
 unto him, Forbid him not, for he that is not against 
 us is for us. And when His disciples, James and 
 John, saw [that the Samaritans did not receive 
 Him] they said Lord, wilt Thou that we command 
 fire to come down from heaven and consume them, 
 even as Elias did? But He turned and rebuked 
 them, and said, Ye know not manner of spirit ye 
 are of; for the Son of Man is not come to destroy 
 men's lives but to save them. And a certain man 
 said unto Him, Lord, I will follow Thee whither- 
 soever Thou goest ; and Jesus said unto Him, Foxes 
 have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the 
 Son of Man hath not where to lay His head. And 
 He said to another, Follow Me ; and he said, Lord, 
 suffer me first to go and bury my father ; Jesus 
 said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead, but go 
 thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another 
 also said, Lord, I will follow Thee, but let me first 
 go bid them farewell which are at home at my 
 house ; and Jesus said unto him, No man having 
 put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for 
 the kingdom of God." Here are sixfsolemn decla- 
 rations made one after another, with little or no 
 connexion. 
 
 The twenty-second chapter of St. Matthew would 
 supply a similar series of sacred maxims ; or again, 
 1 
 
352 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD [Leot. 
 
 the eighteenth ; in which the separate verses, though 
 succeeding one the other with somewhat more of 
 connexion, are yet complete each in itself, and very 
 momentous. 
 
 No one can doubt, indeed, that as the narratives 
 of His miracles are brought together in one as divine 
 signs, so His sayings are accumulated as lessons. 
 
 Or take again the very commencement of His 
 prophetical ministrations, and observe how His 
 words run. He opens His mouth with accents 
 of grace, but still they fall into short and expressive 
 sentences. The first : " How is it that ye sought 
 Me ? wist ye not that I must be about My Fa- 
 ther's business ?" The second : " Suffer it to be 
 so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righ- 
 teousness." The third : " Woman, what am I to 
 thee ? Mine hour is not yet come." The fourth : 
 " Take these things hence ; make not My Father's 
 house a house of merchandise. The fifth : " Re- 
 pent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 
 
 The same peculiarity shows itself in His conflict 
 with Satan. He strikes and overthrows him, as 
 David slew the giant, with a sling and with a stone, 
 with three words selected out of the Old Testa- 
 ment : " Man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
 every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of 
 God." " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." 
 " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him 
 only shalt thou serve." 
 
 In like manner, what He from time to time 
 
XII.] OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 353 
 
 at His crucifixion even go by the name of His seven 
 last words. 
 
 Again : His parables, and often His actions, as 
 His washing His disciples' feet and paying the tri- 
 bute, are instances of a similar peculiarity. 
 
 Now, let it be observed, I am not venturing to 
 conjecture what His usual mode of conversation 
 was ; I am only speaking of it so far as it was of a 
 public and formal character, intended for everlasting 
 memory in the Church. But who else among the 
 Prophets, from the beginning of the Bible to the 
 end, thus speaks " in proverbs," to use His own 
 account of His teaching ? Whose incidental say- 
 ings but His are thus collected and preserved by 
 the inspired writers * ? And thus, according to the 
 text which He Himself quotes, we do really live 
 by every word which proceedeth from His mouth. 
 Certainly this separates Him on the whole from 
 other prophets, whatever exceptions there may 
 be to the general rule, or whatever resemblance St. 
 James and St. John may bear to Him in their 
 Epistles. 
 
 Such is the character of our Lord's teaching ; 
 impressed with the signs of that sovereign dignity 
 which we know belonged to Him ; and, being such 
 as it is, it surely indisposes us to look for it else- 
 where than where we originally find it. For, as 
 
 1 E.g. David's saying, recorded 2 Sam. xxiii. 17., is a simi- 
 lar instance. 
 
 A a 
 
354 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD [Lect. 
 
 any one may see, it has not the character of diffuse 
 and lavish communications ; it is not so exuberant, 
 various, or incomplete, as to lead us to expect por- 
 tions of it scattered through the records of Anti- 
 quity. We have actual evidence from the Gospels 
 themselves, that, in the midst of His condescension, 
 our Lord was sparing in His words and actions, and 
 that every single deed or word was in one sense 
 complete. To His own indeed, to those who lay 
 upon His breast at supper, or conversed with Him 
 for forty days, He might vouchsafe to tell much, 
 whether in the way of prophecy, or interpretation 
 of Scripture, or Church discipline ; and the result, 
 nay, perhaps portions of such instructions, remain 
 among us to this day. But I speak of the formal 
 declarations of His word and will ; to which His 
 Apostles' witness, derived from His private teach- 
 ing, would be subordinate and as a comment ; and 
 these, I say, are not prodigally bestowed. He 
 utters the same precept again and again, and repeats 
 His miracles. The very manner, then, of His teach- 
 ing, as recorded in Scripture, rather disinclines us 
 than otherwise to expect portions of it out of Scrip- 
 ture ; and in matter of fact it is not to be found 
 elsewhere. Of this teaching, remarkable both from 
 its Author and its style, Tradition contains no re- 
 mains. The new Law is preserved by the four 
 Evangelists alone. The force of this remark will 
 be seen by considering its exceptions. One solitary 
 instance is furnished by a passage of the Book of 
 
XII.] OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 355 
 
 Acts, where St. Paul preserves a sentence of our 
 Lord's, which is omitted in the Gospels : " It is 
 more blessed to give than to receive." Two other 
 precepts are preserved by Antiquity; the one by 
 several early writers, " Be ye approved money- 
 changers ;" the other by St. Jerome, " Be ye never 
 very glad, but when ye see your brother live in 
 charity '." 
 
 Here then is a broad line of distinction between 
 the written and the unwritten word. Whatever 
 be the treasures of the latter, it has not this pre- 
 eminent gift, the custody of our Lord's teaching. I 
 might, then, for argument's sake even grant to the 
 Romanists in the abstract all that they claim for 
 Tradition as a vehicle of truth, and then challenge 
 them to avail themselves of this allowance ; in fact, 
 to add to the sentences of the New Law, if they 
 can. No ; the Gospels remain the sole record of 
 Him who spake as never man spake; and it is 
 some kind of corroboration that they are so, that 
 they confessedly contain so much as is really to be 
 
 1 Acts xx. 35. Origen. t. 19. in Joan. viii. 20., Hieron. 
 quoted in Taylor Dissuasive infra., Jones on the Canon col- 
 lects, all the sayings attributed to Christ in the writings of the 
 four first centuries, of which three alone deserve any notice, in 
 addition to the above, viz. those in Justin Martyr, Dial. p. 267. 
 (as Jones quotes it), in Iren. Haer. i. 20., and in Athenag. Leg. 
 32. fin., which last, if it were genuine, would remarkably illus- 
 trate Rom. xvi. 16. I Cor. xvi. 20. 2 Cor. xiii. 12. 1 Thes. 
 v. 26. 1 Pet. v. 14. 
 
 Aa 2 
 
856 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD [Lect. 
 
 found in them. How is it, unless they are the 
 formal record of the New Covenant, that they have 
 in them all the rudiments of Christian Truth as 
 it has ever been received by all branches of the 
 Church, by Romanists as well as ourselves ? Their 
 containing so much is, as far as it goes, a presump- 
 tion that they contain all ; they seem to tend to- 
 wards completeness. Romanists, I suppose, allow 
 that Baptism and the Eucharist are the especial ordi- 
 nances of the New Law, and have a certain priority 
 of rank over the other Sacraments. Now, if they 
 ground this on their being expressly ordained in 
 Scripture, they seem to confess that things pre- 
 scribed therein are of more importance than what 
 is derived through the medium of Tradition. If 
 they do not, then it rests with them to account for 
 this singular accident, the coincidence of their being 
 prescribed in Scripture, and their also being the 
 chief ordinances of the Gospel. Certainly, coin- 
 cidences such as this, lead to the surmise that Scrip- 
 - ture is intended to be that which it is actually, the 
 record of the greater matters of the Law of Christ. 
 " Is not all that we know of the life and death of 
 Jesus," asks Bishop Taylor, " set down in the 
 writings of the New Testament ? Is there any one 
 miracle that ever Christ did, the notice of which is 
 conveyed to us by Tradition ? Do we know any 
 thing that Christ did or said, but what is in Scrip- 
 ture? . . . How is it possible that the Scriptures 
 should not contain all things necessary to salvation, 
 
XII] OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 357 
 
 when of all the words of Christ, in which certainly 
 all necessary things to salvation must needs be con- 
 tained, or else they were never revealed, there is 
 not any one saying, or miracle, or story of Christ, 
 in anything that is material, preserved in any in- 
 dubitable record, but in Scripture alone ' ?" 
 
 In this passage, Bishop Taylor assumes that our 
 Lord's teaching contains all things necessary to 
 salvation ; an' opinion, which, in addition to the 
 indirect evidence resulting from the foregoing re- 
 marks, seems to be sanctioned by the concluding 
 words of St. John. Let it be remembered, he 
 wrote what may be considered a supplement to 
 the three first Gospels. Surely then, the inspired 
 Apostle speaks in the following passages as if he 
 were sealing up the records of his Saviour's life, 
 and of the Christian Law, after selecting from the 
 materials which the other Evangelists had left, such 
 additions as were necessary for the strength and 
 comfort of faith. Surely, the following passages 
 taken together, tend to increase the improbability 
 already pointed out, that our faith, as to greater 
 matters, has been turned over to the information 
 of Tradition, however well authenticated. " And 
 there are also many other things which Jesus did, 
 the which, if they should be written every one, I 
 suppose that even the world itself could not con- 
 tain the books that should be written." " And 
 
 ' Dissuasive, part ii. book i. § 2. 
 
358 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD [Lbct. 
 
 many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of 
 His disciples, which are not written in this book ; 
 but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus 
 is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that, believing, ye 
 might have life through His name." " And he that 
 saw it, bare record; and his record is true. And 
 he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe 1 ." 
 Here St. John, closing the record of our Lord's life, 
 declares, that out of the numberless things which 
 might be added to the former Gospels, he has 
 added so much as is necessary for faith ; and implies 
 moreover, as if it were a principle, that in things 
 supernatural proposed for our acceptance, the testi- 
 mony of the original witnesses may be expected, 
 and not such secondary information as mere Tradi- 
 tion at best must be accounted. 
 
 It will be replied, I suppose, that St. John is 
 speaking of miracles, not of doctrines ; as if we were 
 not allowed to detect a great principle in the in- 
 spired text, though conveyed in a form of expres- 
 sion arising out of the immediate events which 
 led to his bequeathing it to us. For he surely 
 uses language which generalizes his statement, 
 and makes the particular case but one instance 
 of what he really meant. When he says, " there 
 were many other things which Jesus did 2 ," what 
 else can he mean but simply, " much more might 
 
 1 John xxi. 25. xx. 30, 31. xix. 35. 
 
 2 He has just recorded a saying of Christ's. 
 
XII.] OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 359 
 
 be told concerning Him when on earth," whether 
 of His words or works being an irrelevant distinc- 
 tion ? It is the more strange that such an excep- 
 tion should be taken, though it is taken, because 
 all parties understand the principle of extending 
 the meaning of texts, and apply it in many impor- 
 tant cases. Both Protestants and Romanists agree 
 with us in understanding our Lord's " suffering 
 little children to come unto Him," as a sanction for 
 infant Baptism. There is nothing extravagant then 
 in the notion of such an extended interpretation of 
 the words before us ; and in the particular instance 
 it is sanctioned by the authority of St. Austin. He 
 explains them, as follows: " What of His own 
 deeds and words Christ wished us to read, He bade 
 the Apostles write, as though it had been with His 
 own hand." Again : " The Holy Evangelist tes- 
 tifies that the Lord Christ said and did many things 
 which are not written. Those were selected for 
 writing which appeared to be sufficient for the salva- 
 tion of believers 1 ." St. Austin becomes in these 
 passages a witness of our doctrine as well as our in- 
 terpretation of the particular passage. 
 
 I have said all this by way of refuting what is 
 a favourite theme with the Eomanists, that the New 
 Testament consists of accidental documents, and 
 that our maintenance of its exclusive divinity is 
 
 1 Austin de Cons. Evang. i. 54. Tract, in Joann 49. In 
 the former passage the text is not expressly referred to. 
 
360 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD [Lect. 
 
 gratuitous and arbitrary. And to this I reply, that 
 at least there is something in it peculiar and singular, 
 viz. our Lord's teaching. Now, to this representa- 
 tion, two objections will be made which deserve 
 attention ; first, that it narrows the Canon of Scrip- 
 ture within the limits of the Gospels to the exclu- 
 sion of the Old Testament and the Apostolic Epis- 
 tles ; next, that after all, the characteristic doctrines 
 of Christianity are found in the Epistles, not in 
 our Lord's teaching. These I shall consider to- 
 gether. 
 
 Now the fact is not as the latter objection re- 
 presents it. The doctrines of our faith are really 
 promulgated by Christ Himself. There is no truth 
 which St. Paul or St. John declare, which He does 
 not anticipate. Which of them can He be said to 
 omit ? He names " the name of the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost ;" He announces Himself 
 as " the Only-begotten Son, given by the Father to 
 the world, that whosoever believes in Him should 
 not perish, but have everlasting life ;" " the Son of 
 Man, which is in heaven ;" " having glory with the 
 Father before the world was ;" " giving His life a 
 ransom instead of many ;" and, after His resurrec- 
 tion, having " all power in heaven and earth." He 
 declares that without a new birth of " water and 
 the Spirit," there is no entrance into " the kingdom 
 of heaven ;" that except we " eat His flesh and 
 drink His blood, there is no life in us." He prays 
 that we may be all " one in Him, as He and His 
 
XII.] OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 361 
 
 Father are one ;" and He promises to " bnild His 
 Church," and that " the gates of hell shall not pre- 
 vail against it." If we had only the Gospels, we 
 should have in them all the great doctrines of the 
 Epistles, all the articles of the Creed ; only, in con- 
 sequence of our Saviour's peculiar style, as already 
 described, His announcement of them is not assisted 
 by the context. Every word of His is complete in 
 itself; in half a sentence He states a mysterious truth, 
 and passes on. And it has been ever the fallacy 
 of heretical interpretation to measure the depth of 
 the text by the immediate context ; as, for instance, 
 in the discourse in the tenth chapter of St. John, 
 which ends with, " I and My Father are One ;" — 
 words which mean far more than the context re- 
 quires. 
 
 And this is one main reason, it would seem, why 
 the Epistles are vouchsafed to us ; not so much to 
 increase the Gospel, as to serve as a comment 
 upon it, as taught by our Lord ; to bring out and 
 fix His sacred sense, lest we should by any means 
 miss it. That this was the office of the Apostles, and 
 not that of preaching a new and additional revela- 
 tion, is surely implied by our Lord when He promises 
 them the gift of the Holy Ghost. For instance ; 
 " These things have I spoken unto you," He says, 
 " being yet present with you ; but the Comforter, 
 which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will 
 send in My name, He shall teach you all things, 
 and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever 
 
362 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD |_Lect. 
 
 / have said unto you." Again, after telling them 
 they could not bear as yet to be told the whole 
 Truth, and that the Holy Spirit would teach it 
 them, (words, which do not imply that He had not 
 Himself uttered it, only that He had not conveyed 
 it home to their minds,) He proceeds : " He shall 
 not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, 
 that shall He speak ; and He will show you things 
 to come. He shall glorify Me ; for He shall take 
 of Mine, and shall show it unto you 1 ." Now what- 
 ever else these words mean, they seem to imply 
 what the former passage expressed literally, that 
 the Comforter would use and explain Christ's own 
 teaching ; not begin anew, but merely develope it. 
 That some deep and heavenly mystery is implied 
 in the words, " whatsoever He shall hear, that shall 
 He speak," I doubt not ; yet it seems to relate also 
 to what took place on earth. It is part of the con- 
 descension of the Persons of the Ever-blessed Trinity, 
 that They vouchsafe to allow the adorable secrets 
 of heaven to be adumbrated in some inscrutable 
 way on earth. The Eternal Son was subjected to 
 a generation in time ; He received the Spirit in 
 time ; and the Spirit proceeded from the Father 
 to Him, and then from both, in time. The texts 
 which speak of what took place in eternity, are 
 also fulfilled in the economy of redemption 2 . And 
 in like manner, I say, whatever else is meant by 
 
 1 John xiv. 25, 26. xvi. 13, 14. * E. g. Ps. ii. 7. 
 
XII.] OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 363 
 
 the words in question, this also they must be taken 
 to mean, that the Holy Ghost, as is expressly said 
 in the corresponding passage, would bring Christ's 
 words to their remembrance. The office of the 
 Holy Ghost, then, lay in "glorifying" Christ; in 
 illuminating, in throwing lustre upon, and drawing 
 lustre from, all that belonged to Him, to His per- 
 son, His mission, His works, His trials, His suffer- 
 ings, and among the rest, His words,-— in exalting 
 Him as the Prophet of the Church, as well as her 
 Priest and King. In one of the clauses it is added, 
 " He will show you things to come," and this will be 
 found to complete the description of the inspiration 
 which the Apostles received ; viz., understanding in 
 our Lord's words, and the gift of prophecy. Their 
 writings are actually made up of these two, pro- 
 phecy and doctrine. 
 
 The same general meaning comes within the 
 scope of a later verse of the chapter last quoted. 
 " These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs ; 
 but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak 
 unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly" 
 that is, in explicit words, " of the Father V 
 
 To the same purport is our Lord's parting charge, 
 recorded by another Evangelist. "All power is 
 given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye 
 therefore and disciple all nations, baptizing them 
 in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
 
 1 John xvi. 25. 
 
364? ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD [Lect. 
 
 the Holy Ghost, teaching them to keep all things, 
 tohatsoever I have commanded you x ? The revela- 
 tion had been already made to the Apostles ; it 
 was like seed deposited in their hearts, which, un- 
 der the influences of heavenly grace, would, in due 
 season, germinate, and become " the power of God 
 unto salvation " to all that believed. 
 
 A number of passages in the Gospels will occur 
 to every inquirer, which take the same view of our 
 Lord's teaching, viz., that it was not mere instruc- 
 tion conveyed in accidental words, but that it con- 
 sisted of formal and precise sayings and actions 
 afterwards to be opened and illustrated by the 
 Apostles ; some of these shall now be cited. 
 
 "These things understood not His disciples at 
 the first : but, when Jesus was glorified, then remem- 
 bered they that these things were written of Him, 
 and that they had done these things unto Him." 
 
 He says to St. Peter, before washing his feet, 
 " What I do, thou knowest not now ; but thou 
 shalt know hereafter." 
 
 When He had bidden them keep the miracle of 
 the Transfiguration secret till after His resurrec- 
 tion, " they kept that saying with themselves, ques- 
 tioning one with another what the rising from the 
 dead should mean." 
 
 At another time Christ says, " What I tell you 
 in darkness, that speak ye in light ; and what 
 
 1 Matt, xxviii. 18, 19. 
 
XII.] OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 365 
 
 ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the 
 house-tops." 
 
 We have a remarkable instance of this gradual 
 illumination in the way in which they learned that 
 the Gentiles were to be called. After His resur- 
 rection, Christ enlightened them, we know, in many 
 things ; it is said expressly, " Then opened He their 
 understanding that they might understand the 
 Scriptures." The sacred narrative continues ; "and 
 said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it be- 
 hoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead 
 the third day ; and that repentance and remission 
 of sins should be preached in His name among all 
 nations, beginning at Jerusalem." Who would not 
 have supposed that His words now at length came 
 to their minds in their full meaning? but it was 
 far otherwise ; the Holy Ghost had not descended, 
 and they were still ignorant of the calling of the 
 Gentiles. 
 
 In the calling of Cornelius, however, the divine 
 purposes were at length illustrated fully and finally ; 
 but it is very deserving of notice, that though the 
 Holy Ghost was the gracious Agent in the reve- 
 lation, as our Saviour had given them to expect, 
 yet St. Peter, instead of regarding His guidance 
 as a new and independent source of truth, promptly 
 refers his increased insight into the Gospel to our 
 Lord's teaching. " Then remembered I the word 
 of the Lord, how that He said, John indeed bap- 
 tized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the 
 
366 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD [Lect. 
 
 Holy Ghost." He perceived that that religion which 
 was spirit and truth, could not be confined to place 
 or nation. 
 
 Again ; when the women came to the sepulchre, 
 the Angels said to them, " He is not here, but is 
 risen ; remember how He spake unto you when He 
 was yet in Galilee." 
 
 Further; the last chapter of St. John's Gospel 
 seems to supply a striking instance of the religious 
 caution with which the Apostles treated His words, 
 resisting wrong interpretations, but there stopping, 
 contemplating them in ignorance, rather than su- 
 perseding them. " Then went this saying abroad 
 among the brethren that that disciple should not 
 die ; yet, Jesus said not unto him, he shall not die ; 
 but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that 
 to thee ?" To have our Lord's words was in their 
 judgment the principal thing, to aim at compre- 
 hending them secondary, and not to be impatiently 
 attempted. 
 
 In this connexion, I may notice as remarkable the 
 sameness of expression under which the three Evan- 
 gelists record our Lord's consecration of the Bread 
 in the Holy Eucharist. All three use precisely the 
 same words, " This is My body." They were, it 
 would seem, more bent on recording our Lord's words 
 than interpreting them. Were the notions now 
 popular among us true, one Evangelist would have 
 worded it, " This is a figure of My Body ;" another, 
 " This imparts the benefits of My Body ;" and a 
 1 
 
XII] OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. 367 
 
 third, "This is a pledge of receiving My Spirit." 
 But the sacred writers seem to have understood 
 that our Lord's words were too solemn to para- 
 phrase. As a contrast to this, we find that Pilate's 
 inscription on the cross is recorded by each Evan- 
 gelist with some accidental variation '. 
 
 Enough has now been said to show, not only the 
 peculiar prerogative of the Gospels, but the position 
 also of the Apostolic Epistles in the revelation. 
 They are on the whole an inspired comment upon 
 the Gospels, opening our Lord's meaning, and elicit- 
 ing even from obscure or ordinary words and 
 unpretending facts, high and heavenly truths. On 
 the other hand, our Lord's teaching in the Gospels 
 acts as a rule and key to the Epistles ; it gives them 
 their proportions, and adjusts their contents to their 
 respective place and uses. So far from His teach- 
 ing superseding theirs, as may at first sight be ob- 
 jected to the view under consideration, it rather 
 recognizes and requires it. And, as to the Old 
 Testament, far from being put aside on this view 
 of the revelation, it is delivered to us on the same 
 authority, under the seal of canonicity impressed 
 upon it by Christ Himself. There is something 
 beautiful in this appointment. Christ is the great 
 
 1 John xii. 16. xiii. 7. Mark ix. 10. Matt. x. 27. Luke xxiv. 
 45 — 47- Acts xi. 16. Luke xxiv. 6. John xxi. 23. and of Matt. 
 xxvi. 26. Mark xiv. 22. Luke xxii. 19. also 1 Cor. xi. 24. with 
 Matt, xxvii. 37. Mark xv. 26. Luke xxiii. 38. John xix. 19. 
 
368 SCRIPTURE AS THE RECORD OF OUR LORD, &e. 
 
 Prophet of the Church, and His teaching is as truly 
 her law, as His death and intercession are her life. 
 In that teaching the whole canon centres, as for 
 its proof, so for its harmonious adjustment. Christ 
 recognizes the Law and the Prophets, and com- 
 missions the Apostles. 
 
 These then are some presumptions in favour of 
 attributing a special sacredness to the New Testa- 
 ment over and above other sources of divine truth, 
 however venerable. It is in very name Christ's 
 Testament ; it is an inspired text ; and it contains 
 the Canons of the New Law, dictated by Christ, 
 commented on by His Apostles and by the Pro- 
 phets beforehand. Though then, as the Romanists 
 object, it be incomplete in form, it is not in matter ; 
 it has a hidden and beautiful design in it. Why 
 we limit it to the particular books of which it is 
 composed, will be seen in the next Lecture, in which, 
 passing from antecedent presumptions, such as have 
 here been discussed, I shall draw out the direct 
 proof of the Article on which we are engaged. 
 
LECTURE XIII. 
 
 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT OF PROOF IN 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 Should any one feel uncertain about the argument 
 against Romanism contained in the last Lecture, 
 he may put it aside without interfering with what 
 goes before and after. It is intended to show, how 
 far there is a presumption that Scripture, is what 
 is commonly called, " the Rule of Faith," indepen- 
 dently of the testimony of the Fathers, which is 
 the direct and sufficient proof of it. And perhaps 
 it may suggest profitable thoughts to those who will 
 receive it, over and above the immediate service 
 which it has been brought to supply. \ 
 
 Before proceeding to the Fathers, which I shall 
 now do, let me, for the sake of distinctness, repeat 
 what is the point to be proved. It is this ; that 
 Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to sal- 
 vation ; that is, either as being read therein or de- 
 ducible therefrom ; not that Scripture is the only 
 ground of the faith, or ordinarily the guide into it 
 
 Bb 
 
370 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT [Lect. 
 
 and teacher of it, or the source of all religious truth 
 whatever, or the systematizer of it, or the instrument 
 of unfolding, illustrating, enforcing, and applying it; 
 but that it is the document of ultimate appeal in 
 controversy, and the touchstone of all doctrine. 
 
 We differ, then, from the Romanist in this, not 
 in denying that Tradition is valuable, but in main- 
 taining that by itself, and without Scripture war- 
 rant, it does not convey to us any article necessary 
 to salvation ; in other words, that it is not a rule 
 distinct and co-ordinate, but subordinate and mi- 
 nistrative. And this we hold, neither from any 
 abstract fitness that it should be so, nor from the 
 accident that it is so, — neither as a first principle, 
 nor as a mere fact, — but as a doctrine taught us 
 and acted on by the Fathers, as proved to us histori- 
 cally, as resting neither on argument nor on expe- 
 rience, but on testimony. Thus the same course 
 is to be pursued, as in determining the Fundamen- 
 tals ; we must take what we have received, whether 
 we know the reason of it or not. 
 
 The most simple and satisfactory mode of de- 
 termining the question would be to find some judg- 
 ment of Scripture upon it ; but Scripture, as I have 
 said, does not contemplate itself. The mention 
 which it makes of inspiration, is rather a promise 
 to persons, than a decision upon a document. It 
 is a promise to the Apostles and to the Church built 
 on them ; and the Romanists ask why it need be 
 confined to that first age any more than other 
 
XIII.] OF PROOF IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 371 
 
 promises, — than the promise of Christ's presence 
 where two or three are gathered together, or of the 
 power of His ministers to remit and retain sins ; or 
 than those precepts which we still observe, as the 
 command to celebrate the Lord's Supper. Scripture 
 does not interpret itself, or answer objections to 
 misinterpretations. We must betake ourselves to 
 the early Church, and see how they understood it. 
 We consider the Eucharist is of perpetual obliga- 
 tion, because the ages immediately succeeding the 
 Apostles thought so ; we consider the inspired Canon 
 was cut short in the Apostles whose works are con- 
 tained in the New Testament, and that their suc- 
 cessors had no gift of expounding the Law of Christ 
 such as they had, because the same ages so ac- 
 counted it. They witness to their own inferiority, 
 like John the Baptist in speaking of Christ, and 
 we accept what they say. One passage, indeed, 
 there is, that with which the New Testament closes, 
 which is remarkable certainly, as seeming to antici- 
 pate the testimony of the primitive Church ; I mean, 
 the last words of the Apocalypse : and, considering 
 their correspondence with the closing verses of the 
 Prophet Malachi, and those of St. John's own Gos- 
 pel, which is known to be supplementary, they 
 would favour the notion that he was sealing up the 
 revelation within the limits of the inspired volume, 
 supposing any evidence could be brought that before 
 his death such a volume existed. Any how, they 
 demand the attention of the Romanists, especially 
 
 Bb2 
 
372 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT [Lect. 
 
 considering the testimony of Antiquity agrees with 
 them, when thus interpreted. To that testimony 
 I now proceed. 
 
 The mode pursued by the early Church in de- 
 ciding points of faith seems to have been as fol- 
 lows. When a novel doctrine was published in 
 any quarter, the first question which the neigh- 
 bouring Bishops asked each other was, " Is this 
 part of the Rule of Faith ? has this come down to 
 us ?" The answer being in the negative, they at 
 once silenced it on the just weight of this presump- 
 tion. The prevailing opinion of the Church was a 
 sufficient, an overpowering objection against it ; nor 
 could truth suffer from a proceeding which only 
 subjected it, if on the protesting side, to a trial of 
 its intrinsic life and energy. When, however, the 
 matter came before a Council, when it was dis- 
 cussed, when the Fathers reasoned, proved, and 
 decided, they never went in matters of saving faith 
 by Tradition only, but they guided themselves by 
 the notices of the written word, as by landmarks 
 in their course. Tradition was no longer more 
 than a subordinate guide, as explaining, illustrating, 
 reconciling, applying the Scriptures. Then, as under 
 the Old Covenant, the appeal was made " to the 
 Law and to the Testimony," to the testament of 
 the Saviour, to the depository of His teaching, to 
 the inspired document of Apostles and Prophets. 
 The following passages from the Fathers are given 
 in proof or explanation of this statement. 
 
XIII.] OF PROOF IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 373 
 
 Tertullian, for instance, is well known as recom- 
 mending Tradition as a means of silencing heresy 
 in preference to Scripture. He observes that there 
 is no end of disputing if we go to Scripture, whereas 
 the joint testimony of the Catholic world is at once 
 clear and unanswerable. This is true ; the force 
 of the argument from Tradition is of singular use 
 in hindering controversy, but the question is, what 
 is to be done when controversy is persisted in, and 
 heresy spreads so widely, or is countenanced so 
 powerfully that it cannot be put down by authority? 
 Excommunication is doubtless the ultimate resolu- 
 tion of the difficulty ; but meanwhile the Church, 
 as being considerate and longsuffering with her 
 members, allows herself to dispute and argue, and 
 she argues from Scripture. She proceeds from the 
 negative argument from Tradition, that the opinions 
 advanced were not known before, or not allowed, 
 to the positive refutation from Scripture. Ac- 
 cordingly Tertullian says in his treatise against 
 Hermogenes, who maintained the eternity of mat- 
 ter : " ' In the beginning God created the heaven 
 and the earth.' I adore the depth of Scripture, 
 in which are manifested to me a Creator and 
 His work. The Gospel adds the Word as the 
 Minister and Agent of Providence; but I read 
 not a word any where of a pre-existing matter, 
 out of which things were made. Let the school 
 of Hermogenes show us that it is mentioned 
 in Scripture ; if it is not in Scripture, let him 
 
374 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT [Lect. 
 
 fear the woe destined for those who add or take 
 away V 
 
 Origen in like manner : "We know that Jesus 
 Christ is God, and we seek to expound the words 
 that are spoken, according to the dignity of the 
 Person. Wherefore it is necessary for us to call 
 the Holy Scriptures as witnesses ; for our notions 
 and statements without these witnesses are not 
 trustworthy 2 ." 
 
 In another place he says, " All the Scriptures, 
 according to the Preacher, are ' words of the wise 
 as goads and as stakes well planted, given as secret 
 cyphers from one Shepherd ;' nor is there aught 
 superfluous in them. The Word is the One Shep- 
 herd of all things intelligent, which to those who 
 have not ears to hear seem to disagree with one 
 another, but in truth are most harmonious. For as 
 the several strings of psaltery or harp, with each its 
 own note, different (as it would seem) from the rest, 
 make discords in the judgment of the unmusical 
 and unscientific, because of their variety, so in like 
 manner ears unpractised in the divine concord of 
 Holy Scripture, set the Old Testament against the 
 New, and the Prophets against the Law, and Gos- 
 pel against Gospel, and St. Paul against Evangelist, 
 or against himself, or against his brother Apostles. 
 But when another comes well taught in God's har- 
 
 1 Contr. Herm. c. 22. 
 
 2 In Jerem. Horn. i. 7. The above is translated from the 
 Latin ; but it coincides with the Greek. Also in Matt. torn. ii. 
 
XIII.] OF PROOF IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 375 
 
 monies, accomplished in deed and word, as a second 
 David, * cunning in playing,' he will bring out their 
 perfect tones, being instructed thence to strike the 
 strings in season, now those of the Law, now those 
 which respond in the Gospel, now of the Prophets, 
 now again, when fitting, of the Apostles in accordance, 
 and so again those of the Apostles with the Evan- 
 gelists. For he knows that Scripture, as a whole, is 
 God's One Perfect and Complete Instrument, giving 
 forth, to those who wish to learn, its one saving music 
 from many notes combined, stilling and restrain- 
 ing all stirrings of the evil one, as David's music 
 in Saul's madness." The main drift of this passage 
 doubtless is to show the consistency of Scripture ; 
 but it also bears a clear and strong testimony to its 
 intrinsic completeness and independence of all 
 other sources of truth. Could Origen have so 
 spoken, had he believed that Scripture contained 
 only one portion of the Revelation, and that the rest 
 was unwritten ? 
 
 The light in which St. Cyprian regarded Holy 
 Writ, is shown by his books of Testimonia, or 
 Scripture Proofs, in which he goes through the 
 various points of doctrine relating to the abolition 
 of the Law, the person and office of Christ, and the 
 discipline of the Christian Church, with a selection 
 of texts in behalf of each of them. And the in- 
 troductions to the first and third Books set before 
 us the feeling under which he did this. The work 
 is addressed to a friend : — 
 
376 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT [Lect. 
 
 " I could not but comply, well-beloved Son, 
 with your religious wish, most urgently imploring 
 the divine directions, which God has vouchsafed 
 through the Holy Scriptures for our grounding and 
 building up ; that, being rescued from the darkness 
 of error, and illuminated by His pure and radiant 
 light, we might, by such saving intimations, attain the 
 
 way of life The perusal of these books may 
 
 serve you for the time for tracing out the first linea- 
 ments of faith. More strength will be given you, 
 and the understanding of the heart will become more 
 and more vigorous, the more fully you search into 
 the Old and New Scriptures, and study one and 
 all of the portions of those spiritual books. For in 
 the following work I have but drawn somewhat 
 from the divine fountains, to send to you for the 
 season. You will be able to drink to the full and 
 be satisfied, if you for yourself, as I have done, 
 approach the same fountains of divine fulness to 
 drink therefrom." 
 
 It is still more remarkable that he should bring 
 texts in maintenance of the lesser duties and usages 
 of Christians, which he does with the following 
 preface : — ■ 
 
 " As becomes your known faith and devotion 
 towards the Lord God, dearly-beloved Son, you 
 have asked me to instruct you by extracts from 
 the Holy Scriptures relating to the discipline of 
 our religion; seeking a succinct course of divine 
 reading, that your mind, devoted to God, instead 
 
XIII.] OF PROOF IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 377 
 
 of being wearied by long or many books, . . . might 
 have its memory refreshed by a wholesome and 
 complete summary." 
 
 St. Optatus, who lived in the same part of Chris- 
 tendom, about a century later (a.d. 360.) argues 
 against the repetition of Baptism as follows : — 
 
 "You say it may be repeated, we say it may 
 not ; the jninds of our people fluctuate between 
 the two. Let no one trust you, or us either ; we 
 are all of us party men. Arbiters must be found ; 
 but if they be Christians, such are not fairly pro- 
 duceable on either side, for Truth suffers by our 
 private prejudices. If we go out of doors for an 
 arbiter, he must be either a pagan, and so unac- 
 quainted with our mysteries ; or a Jew, who is 
 necessarily the enemy of Christian Baptism. It 
 follows that no human tribunal can be found for 
 the question ; we must have recourse to heaven. 
 But why knock at heaven's gate, when we have 
 with us a Testament in the Gospel ? We may here 
 fitly compare earthly things to heavenly. It is like 
 the case of a man with a large family. While the 
 father is alive, he gives his orders to each of them ; 
 a will is not yet necessary. Christ, in like manner, 
 during His abode on earth, (may He never really be 
 absent !) laid His commands on the Apostles, as this 
 or that was necessary. But when a father feels 
 himself to be dying, and fears lest after his death 
 his sons should quarrel and go to law, he summons 
 witnesses, and transfers his will from his heart, 
 
378 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT [Lect. 
 
 which is soon to fail, to tablets which shall endure ; 
 so that, if afterwards a quarrel arise between the 
 brothers, they have recourse, not to his tomb, but 
 to his testament, and thus he who rests in his tomb 
 yet speaks, though without voice, from his writing. 
 Now He whose testament we speak of, is alive in 
 heaven ; therefore His will must be sought for, as in 
 a testament so in the Gospel." And then he proceeds 
 to prove the Church's view of Baptism, by the con- 
 duct and words of our Lord when He washed the 
 disciples' feet 1 . 
 
 Cyril of Jerusalem : " As regards the divine and 
 holy Mysteries of faith, it is necessary that not 
 even a chance word should be delivered in our 
 tradition without the warrant of divine Scripture, 
 to the exclusion of mere probabilities or skilfully 
 contrived arguments. Neither give credence to my 
 mere words, unless they are demonstrated from the 
 Scriptures. For this is the saving principle of our 
 faith, being derived, not from our inventions, but 
 from proofs of Holy Scriptures 2 ." What makes this 
 passage the stronger, is, that Cyril speaks thus with 
 reference to the Creed, which, if any statement of 
 doctrine, might surely depend on Tradition. 
 
 St. Basil's judgment, as contained in the fol- 
 lowing passage, has been often adduced in the con- 
 troversy. "It is a plain fall from the faith," he 
 
 1 Optat. De Schism. Don. v. 3. vid. also Austin on Ps. xxi. 
 ii. 30. 2 Cat. iv. 17. 
 
XIII.] OF PROOF IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 379 
 
 says, " and a sign of pride, either to annul any 
 thing that is in Scripture, or to add what is not 
 in Scripture, since our Lord Jesus Christ has said, 
 ' My sheep hear My voice,' and ' the voice of 
 strangers they know not.' .... And to add to 
 the inspired Scriptures, or to detract from them 
 is forbidden with especial earnestness by the Apos- 
 tle, saying, ' Though it be but a man's Testament, 
 no man disannulleth or addeth thereto '.' " 
 
 Let us now proceed to St. Chrysostom, com- 
 menting on the words, "He who entereth not by 
 the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some 
 other way, the same is a thief and a robber." He 
 speaks thus : "Behold the evidences of a robber; 
 first, that he enters not openly ; next, that he 
 enters not by the Scriptures, for this is meant by 
 not entering in at the door. Here Christ alludes 
 to those before Him, and to those who were to 
 come; Antichrist, and false Christs. Judas and 
 Theudas, and such like. He suitably calls the 
 Scriptures the door ; for they bring us to God, and 
 open upon us the knowledge of Him. They make 
 the sheep, guard them, and fence off the wolves. 
 As a trusty door, Scripture shuts out heretics, 
 securing us from error, in whatsoever we desire; 
 and, unless we damage.it, we are unassailable by 
 our enemies. By means of it, we shall know who 
 are pastors and who are not 2 ." 
 
 1 De Fide 1 fin. and Moral, reg. 72. c. i. 
 
 2 In Joann. 58. ed. Due. 
 
380 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT [Lect. 
 
 St. Austin : " If any one, in matters relating to 
 Christ, or His Church, or any other thing which 
 belongs to faith or our life, — I will not say, if 
 we, but even (what St. Paul has added,) ' if an angel 
 from heaven shall preach unto you, besides what 
 ye have received in the Scriptures of the Law and 
 the Gospel, let him be accursed V " 
 
 Again, speaking to the Donatists, he asks, " Why 
 add ye to God's Testament by saying, that Christ 
 is heir of no lands, but where He has Donatus for 
 co-heir ? We are not jealous. Read this to us out 
 of the Law, out of the Prophets, out of the Psalms, 
 out of the Gospel itself, or out of the letters of the 
 Apostles, read it thence, and we believe it 2 ." 
 
 Anastatius of Antioch, speaking of the trees of 
 life, and of the knowledge of good and evil, says : 
 " It is manifest that those things are not to be 
 inquired into, which Scripture has passed over 
 in silence. For the Holy Spirit has dispensed and 
 administered to us all things which conduce to our 
 profit 3 ." 
 
 In our controversy with the Romanists, we do 
 not need to bring early authorities; indeed, the 
 later is the date of the evidence, the stronger is our 
 case against them. With this view I quote John 
 
 1 Contr. Lit. Petilian. iii. 7. The Romanists in answer 
 translate praeterquam against, as if it were praeter. 
 
 2 Contr. Donatist. Ep. (De Unitate Eccl.) 11. 
 
 3 Anagog. Contemp. in Hexem. lib. 8. init. 
 
XIII.] OF PROOF IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 381 
 
 of Damascus, (a.d. 730) whose exact and learned 
 orthodoxy on the great points of faith is sullied by 
 his defence of Image-worship. In the beginning of 
 his work on the Orthodox Faith, he says : " God 
 has not abandoned us in our complicated ignorance 
 of Himself; nay, He has implanted in all men, by 
 
 nature, the knowledge that there is a God 
 
 Moreover He has directly revealed to us a know- 
 ledge of Himself, as far as our weak nature can bear 
 it, first by the Law and the Prophets, then also by 
 His Only-begotten Son, our Lord and God, and 
 Saviour, Jesus Christ. All things, therefore, which 
 are delivered to us by the Law and the Prophets, 
 the Apostles and Evangelists, we receive and ac- 
 knowledge, and reverence ; but we seek for no- 
 thing beyond them. For in that God is good, He 
 is the Giver of all good ; He has neither jealousy 
 nor other passion .... Whatever is profitable for 
 us, that He has revealed : whatever were too great 
 to bear, that He has buried in silence. These things, 
 then, [which are given] let us, on our part, make 
 much of, in these let us rest ; neither over-passing 
 the lines marked out by His Eternal Will, nor in any 
 respect transgressing the divine message 1 ." In the 
 next chapter, he closes a reflection upon the most 
 sacred doctrines of the faith thus : " It cannot be 
 that we should preach, or at all know, any thing 
 about God, besides what the holy oracles of the 
 
 1 Chap. i. ii. 
 
382 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT [Lect. 
 
 Old and New Testaments have set forth, said, or 
 manifested to us." 
 
 These extracts, strong as they are in themselves, 
 give but a faint impression of the distinct and 
 familiar apprehension of this great principle, in the 
 minds of the Fathers, as evinced by their writings. 
 It is not in one or two formal enunciations, but in 
 the spirit, the drift, the concealed assumption of their 
 arguments, that we discern this fundamental doc- 
 trine of the Anglican Church. It is by tracing the 
 course of a controversy, and observing how habitu- 
 ally present it was to the reasonings of all the con- 
 tending parties, how it guided the deliberations 
 and decisions of Councils, how it is incidentally 
 brought out into words, that we realize to ourselves 
 the strength of our position. This cannot be ade- 
 quately conveyed to the mind by a mere represen- 
 tation that it is so, or by mere extracts, yet one or 
 two more may be of service in illustrating what 
 only the reading of the originals in course can 
 suitably impress on the mind. 
 
 Vincentius is commonly and rightly adduced as 
 the champion of Tradition. He is certainly a re- 
 markable witness of the sense of the Church in 
 his day, that Private Judgment was not to be toler- 
 ated in the great matters of faith, which were as 
 clearly determined, as much parts of the founda- 
 tion of Christianity, as the Scriptures themselves, 
 or their canonicity. He maintains that individuals 
 must yield to the voice of the Church Catholic. 
 
XIII.] OF PROOF IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 383 
 
 But let it be observed after all, what kind of Tra- 
 dition he is upholding ; an independent witness of 
 Christian Truth? far from it, merely and solely 
 an interpretative Tradition, a Tradition interpreta- 
 tive of Scripture in the great articles of faith. 
 Thus the very treatise, which is so destructive to 
 mere Protestantism, is as fatal to the claims of 
 Romanism. Not only is all mention of the Pope 
 omitted as the judge of controversies, but all men- 
 tion of Tradition, except as subordinate to Holy 
 Scripture. The opening of his work will set this 
 clearly before us : — 
 
 " I have made frequent inquiries," he says, " and 
 that with much earnestness and anxiety, of a great 
 number of holy and learned men, for some definite 
 and general rule for discriminating the truth of the 
 Catholic faith, from the falsity of heretical pravity ; 
 and have always got an answer such as this, I may 
 say, from all .... to fortify my faith in two ways 
 .... first, by the authority of the Divine Law, 
 next, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church. 
 Here some one may ask, Since the Canon of the 
 Scriptures is perfect, and sufficient, and more than 
 sufficient in itself for all purposes, what is the need of 
 joining to it the authority of the ecclesiastical sense ? 
 I answer, because the depth of Holy Scripture is 
 such, that all do not take it in one and the same 
 sense, but its statements are interpreted variously 
 by various persons, so that as many senses seem 
 deducible from it, as there are men to read it ... . 
 
 1 
 
384 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT [Lect. 
 
 On this account it is very necessary, such compli- 
 cated and various error abounding, to regulate the 
 interpretation of Prophets and Apostles by the stan- 
 dard of the Ecclesiastical and Catholic sense 1 ." 
 
 Now, on the former part of this extract I make 
 this remark ; Tradition, we know, is prior to Scripture 
 in order of time, both historically and in its applica- 
 tion to individuals 2 . Romanists indeed rest its claims 
 in no slight degree on this very circumstance. " Jesus 
 Christ," says Bossuet 3 , " having laid the founda- 
 tion of His Church by preaching, the unwritten 
 word was consequently the first rule of Christianity; 
 and when the writings of the New Testament were 
 added to it, its authority was not forfeited on that 
 account." This being the case, it is very remark- 
 able that Vincentius should put the written word 
 first, and Tradition second. Had not Scripture 
 been first in dignity and consideration, he necessa- 
 rily would have made prior mention of the un- 
 written word. There is no other way of accounting 
 for his saying, "first the authority of the Divine Law, 
 next the Tradition of the Church Catholic." What 
 follows makes this abundantly clear. The very 
 need of Tradition arises only from the obscurity of 
 Scripture, and is terminated with the interpretation 
 of it. Vincentius assumes as undeniable, the very 
 doctrine rejected by the Romanists, the sovereign 
 
 1 Commonit. 1. and 2. * Laud, xvi. 32. p. 101. 
 
 3 Expos, ch. xvii. 
 
XIII.] OF PROOF IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 385 
 
 and sole authority of Scripture in matters of faith, 
 nor has a thought of any other question but the 
 further one, how it is to be interpreted. His sub- 
 mission even to Catholic Tradition, is simply and 
 merely as it subserves the due explanation of Scrip- 
 ture. 
 
 Vincentius's treatise was occasioned by the Nes- 
 torian controversy. I will now review some of the 
 documents of the Apollinarian, in which the same 
 principle of verifying doctrine by Scripture is firmly 
 and uniformly kept in view. 
 
 Athanasius, in the following passage, distinguishes 
 between Tradition as teaching, and Scripture as 
 proving, verifying doctrine. " Our faith is correct, 
 and is derived from Apostolical teaching and the 
 Tradition of the Fathers, being established out of the 
 New and Old Testaments V The same contrast 
 between Scripture and Tradition, is observed by 
 Cyril of Jerusalem. For instance, he says just 
 before the passage already quoted from him, after 
 reciting and commenting on the Creed, " Keep in 
 thy mind alway this seal of faith, which I have now 
 summarily stated in its chief articles. But if the 
 Lord permit, I will speak of them according to my 
 power with proofs from Scripture? And shortly 
 after, " Learn and hold fast thy faith in what is 
 taught and promised ; that faith which alone is now 
 delivered to thee by Traditions of the Church and 
 
 1 Ad Adelph. § 6. 
 C C 
 
386 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT |Lect. 
 
 established from Scripture. But, since not all have 
 ability to read the Scriptures, but are hindered from 
 knowing them, whether by want of education or of 
 leisure, we comprehend in a few articles the whole 
 doctrine of faith, lest souls perish from want of in- 
 struction '." To return to Athanasius : — 
 
 In the following passage, that great authority 
 recommends the very course, as a mode of acting 
 familiar to him, which has been already described 
 as the Church's usual procedure towards innova- 
 tors ; viz. first to silence them by her own authority 
 and the received Tradition ; but if matters became 
 worse and a controversy ensued, then to have re- 
 course to Scripture as a sure confirmation of the 
 Catholic doctrine. He has been recounting the 
 Apollinarian tenets, and then chides the Bishop, to 
 whom he writes for not having silenced them at 
 once. " For my part," he says, " I was astonished 
 that your holiness endured such impieties ; and did 
 not silence the authors of them with the reverent 
 Faith of the Church; that in this way matters might 
 be brought to an issue, either submission leading to 
 peace, or resistance to excommunication .... How- 
 ever, perhaps it is necessary formally to prove 
 and expose their extravagance; yet it were well, 
 if possible, to stop here, and say not a word more. 
 For doctrines which are unsound, as these are on 
 the very face of them, ought not to be discussed 
 
 1 iv. 12, v. 7. 
 
XIII.] OF PROOF IN THE EARLY CHURCH 887 
 
 and made much of, lest disputatious men should 
 take it as a proof that there is no clear case against 
 them. They ought to receive this answer and 
 nothing beyond, ' It is enough that these are not 
 the doctrines of the Church nor of the Fathers.' 
 However, lest these devisers of evil should be em- 
 boldened by our continued silence, it may be well 
 to bring to memory a few things from the Holy 
 Scriptures, since this may shame them perhaps from 
 pursuing their unseemly theories 1 ." 
 
 Again : " Either then deny the Holy Scriptures, 
 or, if you acknowledge them, do not indulge specu- 
 lations beyond what is written, which will do irre- 
 parable mischief 2 ." Now, this is one of those 
 passages, which, taken by itself, would stand for 
 little; for it might easily be said, that it merely 
 asserts that Scripture is of authority, not that Tra- 
 dition is not. But when we find this appeal to 
 Scripture repeated again and again in various 
 shapes, and no similar appeal to Tradition, the 
 argument for Scripture being the record of saving 
 faith, becomes a strong one. 
 
 For this reason, I add the following passages 
 from the same treatise ; " If then ye be disciples 
 of the Gospels, speak not iniquity against God, but 
 walk by what is written and done. But if ye de- 
 sire to speak other things beyond what is written, 
 why do you contend with us, who are determined 
 
 1 Ad Epict. 3. 2 Confer. Apoll. i. 6. 
 
 C C 2 
 
388 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT [Lect. 
 
 neither to hear nor to speak beyond what is written, 
 the Lord having said, ' If ye abide in My word, ye 
 shall be truly free V " 
 
 " What inconceivable abandonment of mind is 
 this, which leads you to speak what is not in Scrip- 
 ture, and to entertain thoughts foreign to godli- 
 ness V 
 
 " While then we confess that Christ is God and 
 man, we do not speak this as if to imply separation 
 in His nature, (God forbid) but, again, according to 
 the Scriptures." 
 
 He concludes with these words, in which the 
 same distinction is made, as has already been pointed 
 out, between the Tradition of the Church, as an 
 antecedent argument, a fair plea, ordinarily super- 
 seding inquiry, and, on the other hand, when for 
 one reason or another the inquiry has proceeded, 
 Scripture as the only basis of sound argument and 
 conclusion. " I have written the above, beloved, 
 though really it was unnecessary, for the Evange- 
 lical Tradition is sufficient by itself; but since you 
 asked concerning our faith, and because of those 
 who are desirous of trifling with their theories, and 
 do not consider that he who speaks out of his pri- 
 vate judgment speaks a lie. For neither the come- 
 liness nor the glory of the Lord's human body can 
 be adequately expressed by the wit of man ; but 
 we speak so far as we are able, viz. confess what 
 
 1 Contr. Apollin. i. 8. fin. 
 
XIII.] OF PROOF IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 389 
 
 has been done, as it is in Scripture, and to worship 
 the true and living God, for the glory and acknow- 
 ledgment of His love towards man \" &c. 
 
 Again, in his second book against Apollinarius : 
 " Whence you gained your notion," that the soul 
 is of a fleshly nature, " I cannot understand ; it is 
 neither proved from the Holy Scriptures, nor is it 
 according to the received opinion of the world 2 ." 
 
 I conclude with referring to Theodoret's mode of 
 conducting the same or a similar controversy. In 
 each of the three argumentative Dialogues, of which 
 his Eranistes is composed, we find the following 
 significant arrangement, in accordance with Vin- 
 centius's direction already commented on; — the 
 arguments from Scripture come first, and then pas- 
 sages from the Fathers in illustration. Moreover 
 in his first Dialogue, he introduces his authorities 
 from the Fathers in the following way. Eranistes, 
 the heterodox disputant, after hearing his proofs 
 from Scripture, says; "You have expounded this 
 text well ; but I would fain learn how the ancient 
 Doctors of the Church understood it." Orthodox 
 replies ; " You ought to have been satisfied with 
 these proofs from the Apostles and Prophets. How- 
 ever, since you desire besides to know the exposi- 
 tions of the Holy Fathers, I will give you this aid 
 also, with God's blessing." As if he said, it is not 
 
 1 Ibid. 9. 11. 22, fin. 
 
 2 Ibid. ii. 8. Vide also passages in 9. 13. 14. 17. 18. and 19. 
 
390 ON SCRIPTURE AS THE DOCUMENT [Lect. 
 
 now the place for bringing mere authority ; I am 
 proving the doctrine. Authority is well in its place, 
 viz., before the controversy ; but now our business 
 is with Scripture. 
 
 Again, in his second Dialogue : " We will endea- 
 vour to persuade Arius to confess the one substance 
 of the Holy Trinity, and we will bring the proofs of 
 this from Holy Scripture." 
 
 And again ; " How can a man dispute with those 
 who deny our Lord has taken flesh, or human soul, 
 or mind, except by adducing his proofs from divine 
 Scripture ? how refute the frenzied men who study 
 to disparage the Divinity of the Only-begotten, 
 except by showing that Divine Scripture has 
 spoken some things with reference to His Divine, 
 other things with reference to His human Na- 
 ture J ?" 
 
 Out of the third Dialogue I select the following. 
 After Orthodox has stated the Catholic doctrine of 
 the Passion and Resurrection, Erandstes answers; 
 " The doctrines of the Church should be set forth, 
 not in declaration merely, but by proof. Show me, 
 then, that Holy Scripture teaches this." Upon 
 which Orthodox proceeds to cite the Epistle to the 
 Romans. 
 
 Again : " Eranistes. — St. Peter says, ' Christ hav- 
 ing suffered for us in the flesh.' Orthodox. — Surely 
 this is quite agreeable to our doctrine ; for we 
 
 1 Pp. 43. 78. Vid. also pp. 79 and 97. 
 12- 
 
XIII.] OF PROOF IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 391 
 
 have learned our Canon of doctrines from Holy 
 Scripture." 
 
 One more passage shall be cited. " To add any 
 thing to the words of Scripture is madness and 
 audacity ; but to open the Sacred Text, and to 
 develope its hidden sense, is holy and religious." 
 Here is the doctrine of the Gallic Vincentius in 
 the mouth of a Syrian Bishop \ 
 
 Nothing, I think, is plainer from these extracts, 
 than that the authors of them looked upon Scrip- 
 ture as the standard of proof, the tribunal of appeal, 
 in controversy. Now how strikingly coincident 
 with this view are the words of our Articles? "Holy 
 Scripture containeth all things necessary to salva- 
 tion, so that " (i. e. in such sense that) " whatsoever 
 is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is 
 not to be required of any man." The Article is 
 altogether of a polemical character. 
 
 1 Page 224. 
 
LECTURE XIV. 
 
 ON THE FORTUNES OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 And now, that our discussions on what may fitly 
 be called the Prophetical Office of the Church draw 
 to a close, the thought, with which we entered on 
 the subject is apt to recur, when the excitement of 
 the inquiry has subsided, and weariness has suc- 
 ceeded, that what has been said is but a dream, the 
 wanton exercise, rather than the practical conclu- 
 sions of the intellect. Such is the feeling of minds 
 unversed in the disappointments of the world, in- 
 credulous how much it has of promise, how little of 
 substance ; what intricacy and confusion beset the 
 most certain truths ; how much must be taken on 
 trust, in order to be possessed ; how little can be 
 realized except by an effort of the will ; how great 
 a part of enjoyment lies in resignation. Without 
 some portion of that Divine Philosophy which bids 
 us consider " the kingdom of God " to be " within 
 us," and which, by prayer and meditation, by acting on 
 
ON THE FORTUNES OF THE CHURCH. 393 
 
 what is told us, and by anticipating sight, develops 
 outwardly its own views and principles, and thus 
 assimilates to itself all that is around us, not only 
 the Church in this age and country, but the Church 
 Catholic any where, or at any time, Primitive, Ro- 
 man, or Reformed, is but a name, used indeed as 
 the incentive to actions, but without local habi- 
 tation, or visible tokens, "here or there," "in the 
 secret chambers," or "in the desert." After all, 
 the Church is invisible in its day, and faith only 
 apprehends it. 
 
 Under this feeling I proceed, lastly, to consider 
 more attentively this main difficulty in the Anglican 
 system ; and in so doing shall have opportunity to 
 justify, by examples, the doctrine which has just 
 been suggested by way of reconciling the mind 
 to it. 
 
 The most plausible objection, then, urged by the 
 Romanists against the English Church, is, that we 
 are what they call a Parliamentary Church, a State 
 Creation or Establishment, depending on the breath / 
 of princes or of populace, and directed towards 
 mere political ends, such as the temporal well- 
 being of the community, or the stability of the 
 Constitution; whereas the True Church is built 
 upon the one Faith, transmitted through successive 
 generations, and simply maintains what it has so 
 received, leaving temporal benefits to come and go, 
 to follow or be suspended, as the case may be. The 
 argument comes with the greater force, because 
 
394 ON THE FORTUNES .[Lect. 
 
 Protestants have not unfrequently granted the fact, 
 and only denied its importance. Yet we need not 
 fear to contest the fact itself in spite of both Ro- 
 manists and the Protestants in question ; and in 
 order to show how little it can be maintained, I 
 will take pains to state it as strongly as I can, be- 
 fore I proceed to reply to it. 
 
 It is objected, then, that the Church is by office, 
 and in her very definition, " the pillar and ground of 
 the Truth," that " God's Spirit which is upon her, 
 and His words which He has put in her mouth, shall 
 not depart out of her mouth, nor out of the mouth 
 of her seed, nor out of the mouth of her seed's seed, 
 from henceforth and for ever ;" that " all her child- 
 ren are taught of the Lord, and great is the peace 
 of her children." In such texts the Faith com- 
 mitted to the Church is represented, not as a secret 
 and difficult doctrine, but as clearly proclaimed, 
 indefectibly maintained, and universally acknow- 
 ledged. Whatever errors and corruptions there 
 may be in the Church and her children, so far, it 
 may be argued, is clear, that the true Faith, the 
 one way to heaven, the one message from the 
 Saviour of sinners, the Revelation of the Gospel, 
 will be plain and unequivocal, as the sun in the 
 heavens, from first to last ; so that whoever goes 
 wrong within her pale, will have himself to blame 
 wholly, not his defective light. In the English 
 Church, however, we shall hardly find ten or twenty 
 neighbouring clergymen who agree together; and 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 395 
 
 that, not in the non-essentials of religion, but as to 
 what are its elementary and necessary doctrines; 
 or as to the fact whether there are any necessary 
 doctrines at all, any distinct and definite faith re- 
 quired for salvation. Much less do the laity receive 
 that instruction in one and the same doctrine, 
 which is the evidence, as may be fairly alleged, of 
 their being " taught of the Lord." They wander 
 about like sheep without a shepherd, they do not 
 know what to believe, and are thrown on their own 
 private judgment, weak and inadequate as it is, 
 merely because they do not know whither to be- 
 take themselves for guidance. If they go to one 
 Church they hear one doctrine, in the next that 
 comes, they hear another ; if they try to unite the 
 two, they are obliged to drop important elements 
 in each, and waste down and attenuate the Faith 
 to a mere shadow ; if they shrink, as they may 
 naturally do, from both the one doctrine and the 
 other, they are taught to be critical, sceptical, and 
 self-wise ; and all this is sure to lead them to hete- 
 rodoxy in one form or other, over and above the 
 evil whether of arrogance or indifference in them- 
 selves. If, again, they are blessed with teachable 
 and gentle minds, such uncertainty makes them 
 desponding and unhappy ; they walk in darkness, 
 and disquiet, far removed from that "peace" 
 which the Prophet describes as resulting from 
 the "teaching" which the children of the True 
 Church receive. 
 
396 ON THE FORTUNES [Lect. 
 
 Further, it may be urged, that, over and above 
 the variations existing in the Creed of our Church, 
 we are not even agreed among ourselves whether 
 there be any Church at all, that is, One True Church, 
 commissioned and blest by Christ ; that many of 
 our Clergy openly avow their disbelief of it, and 
 without censure from our Bishops ; and that our 
 national schools, in which we profess to educate 
 the mass of the populace, commonly teach nothing 
 definitely and strictly about it, but are content for 
 the most part with providing that vague kind of 
 religious knowledge which might be learned as well 
 among Dissenters; that, while we instil into the 
 minds of children some sufficient horror of Popery, 
 we give them no preservative against the Wesleyans, 
 Baptists, or Independents. It may be further ob- 
 jected, that we are in a state of actual warfare with 
 each other, not only differing, but considering our 
 mutual differences perilous or even damnable ; that 
 we have no internal bond of union, but are kept 
 together by the State, which by a wholesome tyranny 
 forces us to be friends with each other. And fur- 
 ther still, much intemperate declamation may be 
 indulged about our system of patronage in the 
 Church, the mode in which our Bishops are ap- 
 pointed, their being corrupted by their intercourse 
 with laymen in Parliament, and the like topics. 
 Specific instances of scandal may be added ; that 
 Hoadley, for instance, in the last century, though 
 a Socinian, as is now acknowledged by high autho- 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 397 
 
 rity in Church matters, was allowed to remain for 
 nearly fifty years a Bishop in possession ; and that 
 when in the early part of his career, the Clergy in 
 Convocation, the legitimate ministers of the Faith, 
 attempted to censure some of his errors, they were 
 hindered by the civil power, which suspended the 
 Convocation forthwith, and has never allowed it 
 since to resume its functions. Or again, notice 
 may he directed to the existing carelessness in many 
 places about the due administration of Baptism, 
 no sufficient regard being had to the persons ad- 
 ministering, the mode of performing it, nay, or 
 the very rite itself. 
 
 All this has been said, and in an exaggerated 
 tone ; certainly exaggerated, for after all the Prayer 
 Book is a practical guide into the sense of Scripture 
 for all teachable minds ; and those of our Divines, 
 whom " all the people account as prophets," with 
 whatever differences of opinion in minor points, yet 
 on the whole teach in essentials one and all the 
 same doctrine. For instance, the most popular 
 books in our Church, and the most highly sanctioned 
 for the last 100 or 200 years, have been, I suppose, 
 such as Bishop Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, 
 the Whole Duty of Man, Hammond's Catechism, 
 or Bishop Wilson's Sermons ; and do not these 
 sufficiently agree together in doctrine to edify all 
 who ask what the Faith of Christ is ? Surely then 
 there is much exaggeration in such statements as 
 the foregoing. But whether exaggeration or not, 
 
398 ON THE FORTUNES |Lect. 
 
 it matters little ; were every word of them literally 
 true, yet they would not tend to invalidate the 
 claim of the English Church to be considered a 
 branch of the One Church Catholic. 
 
 The parallel of the Jewish Church will afford 
 us a sufficient answer to all that has been objected. 
 I need scarcely observe that the Israelites were 
 especially raised up to be witnesses for the One 
 True God against idolatry, and had the doctrine of 
 the Divine Unity set before them, with an injunc- 
 tion upon the fathers ever to teach the children, 
 and that they remained God's peculiar people till 
 Christ came; and yet, as every one knows, there 
 were even long periods in their history during 
 which the whole nation was sunk in idolatry or 
 lingered on in decay, captivity, or dispersion. Even 
 then were the English Church, as a Church, to 
 go further than she is ever alleged to have gone, 
 in denying her own powers, were she to put her- 
 self on a level with the sectaries round about her, 
 and to consider Ordination as a mere human cere- 
 mony, it would not follow that she had lost her 
 gift. That they who do not claim the One Church 
 Catholic as theirs, possess it not, however specious 
 an argument, cannot really be maintained. Of course 
 there are cases in which a Church incurs more or 
 less of punishment for neglect of its privileges, but 
 even then its state is not the same as if they had 
 never been given ; generally speaking, they are but 
 suspended or impaired, not forfeited. Even Sam- 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 399 
 
 son, after losing his hair upon the lap of Delilah, 
 recovered his strength in his captivity, when his 
 hair grew again. If we have been made God's 
 children, we cannot unmake ourselves; we can 
 never be mere natural men again. There is but the 
 alternative of our being His children still, though 
 erring ones, and under rebuke, or apostates and 
 devils ; and surely there is enough on the very face 
 of our Church, as we humbly trust, and as our most 
 bigotted opponents must grant, to show that we 
 are not reprobates, but that, amid whatever scan- 
 dals, we have faith and love abiding with us. This 
 is to take far lower ground than we think we may 
 fairly take in comparison of Rome ; yet it is well 
 to see what the objection under review amounts to 
 at the utmost. Whether or not there are cases in 
 which a branch of the Church, as an individual 
 Christian, may utterly exhaust itself of grace and be- 
 come reprobate, St. Paul expresses the rule of God's 
 dealings with us in his Epistle to the Romans ; " the 
 gifts and calling of God are without repentance." 
 If the Israelites sinned, they were not to be aban- 
 doned ; on the contrary, it is declared, " then will 
 I visit their transgression with the rod, and their 
 iniquity with stripes ; nevertheless, My loving-kindness 
 will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer My faith- 
 fulness to fail; My covenant will I not break, nor 
 alter the thing that is gone out of My lips '." Or 
 
 1 Psalm Ixxxix. 32—34. 
 
400 ON THE FORTUNES [Lect. 
 
 again, in the well-known passage of the prophet, 
 God says to the Jews, " That which cometh into 
 your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We 
 will be as the heathen, as the families of the coun- 
 tries, to serve wood and stone. As I live, saith the 
 Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a 
 stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out, will 
 
 I rule over you And I will cause you to pass 
 
 under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond 
 of the Covenant V The same is the lesson of the 
 New Testament, as in the parable of the talents, 
 in which the servant who hid his Lord's talent did 
 not at once forfeit it, did not release himself of the 
 responsibility of having it ; he had it by to produce, 
 though unused, at the last day 2 . Still more impres- 
 sive, because more directly in point, are St. Paul's 
 words concerning his own commission : " Though 
 I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to glory of: 
 for necessity is laid upon me ; yea, woe is unto me, 
 if I preach not the Gospel. For, if I do this thing 
 willingly, I have a reward ; but if against my will, 
 a dispensation of the Gospel is committed unto me 3 ." 
 If we disbelieve or neglect our gifts, they remain 
 with us, though as a burden and as a witness at 
 the last day. We do not become a mere creation 
 of man, though we sell ourselves to be his slave. 
 
 And, if not even a denial of her gifts on the 
 part of a Church, necessarily leads to their absolute 
 
 1 Ezek. xx. 32—37. " Matt. xxv. 25. 3 1 Cor. ix. 16, 17. 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 401 
 
 forfeiture, much less will the disbelief of certain of 
 her ministers incur that penalty. From their own 
 souls, indeed, the grace of her ordinances will be 
 shut ; but though they trample on their invisible 
 powers, yet are they unconsciously the instruments 
 of transmitting them onwards and of imparting 
 their blessed effects to those who believe. They 
 do what they know not ; holy Isaac blessed Jacob 
 for Esau, and could not reverse it. The old prophet 
 of Bethel was the involuntary instrument of God's 
 wrath, condemning himself the while. Balaam, 
 with a covetous heart and amid heathen enchant- 
 ments, announced Christ's coming. Caiaphas, the 
 high priest, while contriving his Lord's death, pro- 
 phesied, because he was high priest, yet did not 
 know that he prophesied. The words of St. John 
 should be carefully studied : " One of them, named 
 Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said 
 unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider 
 that it is expedient for us that one man should die 
 for the people, and that the whole nation perish 
 not. And this spake he not of himself, but being 
 high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus 
 should die for that nation, and not for that nation 
 only, but that also He should gather together in one 
 the children of God that were scattered abroad '." 
 The language of Caiaphas then had quite a different 
 sense from what he intended, and far higher. He 
 
 1 John xi. 49—52. 
 Dd 
 
402 ON THE FORTUNES [Lect. 
 
 spoke of the Jewish nation under the word " people," 
 but it was the Holy Ghost's word in his mouth to 
 denote the elect children of God wherever found 
 all over the earth ; and he meant to speak of Christ's 
 death as removing the perplexities which His mi- 
 racles caused to himself and his party, but he really 
 spoke of the Atoning Sacrifice which He made 
 shortly after for the sins of the whole world. In 
 like manner, even though a Bishop were to use 
 the words, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," with 
 little or no meaning, or a Priest the consecrating 
 words in the Eucharist, considering it only a com- 
 memoration of Christ's death, or a Deacon the water 
 and the words in Baptism, denying in his heart 
 that it is regeneration; yet they may, in spite of 
 their unbelief, be instruments of a power they know 
 not of; and " speak not of themselves ;" they may 
 be as Balaam or as Isaac. 
 
 The state of the later Jewish Church, of which 
 Caiaphas affords one instance, illustrates most strik- 
 ingly how dangerous it is to go by sight in religious 
 matters instead of consulting God's word. How 
 deeply was the divine building " daubed with the 
 untempered mortar" of secular politics ! how closely 
 did it simulate a mere civil establishment, till the 
 day of vengeance came, and God claimed His fugi- 
 tive Prophet, who had hid himself amid the empires 
 of this world ! What anomalies in the present 
 state of the Church can parallel those which were 
 committed among the Jews ? What infraction, for 
 
 1 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 403 
 
 instance, of the law of Moses could be greater than 
 that the high priesthood should be taken away from 
 the hereditary line, held but for a time, and asso- 
 ciated with the profession of arms or with royalty ? 
 Yet such were its fortunes in the family of the 
 Asmonseans, who, besides their unpriestly character, 
 were many of them stained with crimes which gave 
 deeper shade to the irregularity. Aristobulus, son 
 of Hyrcanus, starved to death his mother, caused 
 one. brother to be assassinated, and imprisoned the 
 rest, and then died of remorse. Alexander, on 
 occasion of a mutiny, massacred six thousand of 
 the Jewish populace; and, at another, had eight 
 hundred crucified before his eyes at an entertain- 
 ment he gave in honour of his wives and concu- 
 bines. Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, his sons, carried 
 on civil war against each other. Herod, a man of 
 Edom, was allowed to fill the throne of David ; and, 
 stained as he was with the most heinous crimes, he 
 appointed three or four high priests in succession, 
 and rebuilt the temple of God. Yet, in spite of 
 all these enormities, " the seat of Moses," the oil 
 of the priesthood, and the miraculous governance 
 of the nation, remained, not fading away without 
 memorial, but for a while latent and quiescent, 
 then fearfully showing themselves in the utter 
 destruction of the race which had profaned its own 
 gifts. But, till that final destruction the gifts con- 
 tinued, and were profitable to those who cared to 
 use them religiously. 
 
 d d2 
 
404 ON THE FORTUNES [Lect. 
 
 Earlier periods in Jewish history may next be 
 specified; for though in these the irregularities 
 themselves might be less, yet the presence of a 
 supernatural Providence, however latent, is further 
 removed from doubt or cavil. 
 
 What a remarkable picture does the Book of 
 Judges present to us ! Suppose it was lost to us, 
 and we were to read Numbers and Joshua, and then 
 turn to the reign of David, could we have conceived 
 the actual state of the nation between the former and 
 the latter period ? Had we been bidden to describe 
 it by conjecture, to connect together the two by 
 some probable medium, should we have guessed by 
 a stretch of fancy that the newly-created fabric of 
 Judaism had been destined so soon to fall to pieces, 
 or rather was to fade away like a dream, unrealized 
 and unattempted for a space of three or four hun- 
 dred years after the giving of the Law? Moses 
 and Joshua set in motion a system which suddenly 
 stops with the human originators of it. What 
 must have been the feelings of a thoughtful Israelite 
 during those centuries of confusion, when every one 
 did what was right in his own eyes, and the lawless 
 were kept in order as much by the yoke of the 
 invader and oppressor as by the divinely-ordered 
 sway of the Judges? what would have been his 
 arguments against the cavils of Philistine or Mi- 
 dianite, who thought it worth while to examine the 
 pretensions of his Law ? Would they not treat 
 those pretensions with utter scorn and derision, 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 405 
 
 as fantastic and extravagant, as idle, foolish, and 
 irrational, as the world now deems our Apostolical 
 Descent ? What evidence, indeed, could the Is- 
 raelites give of a supernatural presence among 
 them? There were men who lived and died in 
 the holy land, without sign or token, as far as we 
 are told, of the Lord God of Israel, except such as 
 a lively faith detects and appropriates. The Phi- 
 listines at one time were masters of the chosen 
 people for forty years, the Moabites for eighteen, 
 the Canaanites for twenty, the Ammonites for eigh- 
 teen. And such greater disturbances of the Mo- 
 saic covenant were but centres and origins of the 
 extended distress and confusion in which religion 
 lay during those early times. Its champions, too, 
 had sometimes almost as little in them to refresh 
 the eye of purity and truth as its enemies. The 
 history of Samson and Jephtha presented as great 
 perplexities to faith, as Jabin, king of- Canaan, or 
 Chushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia. Or, con- 
 sider the fortunes of Gideon's family ; Abimelech, 
 the son of his concubine, massacreing all his breth- 
 ren, to the number of threescore and ten persons 
 save one, and making himself king ; his townsmen, 
 by whose aid he seized the sovereignty, revolting 
 from him, and then defeated and destroyed by him ; 
 then he himself cut off in battle. Or, consider the 
 history of the tribe of Benjamin, its victories over 
 the other tribes, then its overthrow with the loss of 
 twenty-five thousand men in one day. Or again, 
 
406 ON THE FORTUNES [Lect. 
 
 (what is portentous,) the worship of a graven image 
 set up by certain Danites on their original settle- 
 ment in the promised land, with the regular suc- 
 cession of a priesthood, all the time the house of 
 God was in Shiloh, as if Satan were from the first 
 to share the holy land with the Lord God of Hosts. 
 Such are some of the irregularities and disorders 
 which Almighty Wisdom does not find inconsistent 
 with the continuous and progressive fulfilment of 
 its purposes ; such the valleys and pits in the wil- 
 derness which intervene between the great provi- 
 dences of God, and are lost to us while we contem- 
 plate the majestic summits of Moriah, Pisgah, or 
 Zion, and the beacon lights thereon kindled. And 
 if a supernatural presence was with the Israelites 
 all along their years of crime and captivity, who 
 shall presume to say, that we, whatever be our mis- 
 fortunes and our sins, have certainly forfeited the 
 Gospel promises, or that a true faith cannot elicit 
 from our ordinances and appropriate in its fulness 
 those benefits which Christ originally lodged in 
 them ? who shall curse whom God has not cursed, 
 drying up our Baptism", or tainting the manna of 
 our Eucharist, making our Priests speechless, or 
 breaking the staff of our Rulers? Who can ex- 
 communicate those who have ever held to that 
 Creed, and that Succession, and those Ordinances 
 which Apostles bequeathed them ? Let Romanists 
 see to it, whether, instead of attempting anything 
 against us, it is not rather their wisdom to shelter 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 407 
 
 their own Church under the foregoing arguments 
 from the far more serious charges to which it is 
 exposed. ' 
 
 Two other periods occur in the history of Israel, 
 which deserve attention. In their captivity in 
 Egypt, they seem almost to have forgotten that 
 any promise had been made to their race; and 
 when Moses reminded them of it, they " hearkened 
 not unto him for anguish of spirit and for cruel 
 bondage." Again, much might be said concerning 
 their captivity in Babylon, when " their king and 
 their princes were among the Gentiles, the Law 
 was no more, and their prophets found no vision 
 from the Lord V And again, a fresh field of re- 
 mark is afforded by the great schism of the ten 
 tribes under Jeroboam and the ministry of Elijah 
 and Elisha among them. 
 
 Setting, then, our present disorders at the very 
 highest, making the largest admissions on that 
 score which Romanists can demand, not denying 
 for argument's sake, that our Bishops have before 
 now done despite to their own Apostolical powers, 
 that our Teachers have been at variance with each 
 other, that aliens and enemies have usurped our 
 rights, that the laity has been almost sanctioned 
 by their pastors in loose and irreverent views and 
 practices, and that the very notion of the Church 
 Catholic has died away from the popular mind, 
 
 1 Lam. ii. 9. 
 
408 ON THE FORTUNES [Lect 
 
 granting, that is, what is a great deal more than 
 the truth, it will not follow that Almighty God 
 may not be as truly and supematurally with us as 
 He was with His former people, when the Angel 
 appeared to Gideon during the Midianitish capti- 
 vity, or to Zechariah in the days of Herod. And if 
 truly with us, then, doubtless, in a far higher and 
 more miraculous way, by how much the Christian 
 Church has more of heaven in it than had the 
 Polity of Israel. 
 
 One more remark shall be suggested. Is it not 
 very strange and very significant, that our Lord 
 and Saviour, the immaculate Lamb of God, should 
 be descended not only from virtuous Ruth the 
 Moabitess, but from incestuous Tamar ? 
 
 Such is the light which the Jewish history throws 
 upon our present circumstances, taken at the worst, 
 but Christian times afford us a second parallel to 
 them. The Romanist must admit that the state, 
 whether of the Church Catholic or of the Roman 
 Church, at periods before and during the middle 
 ages, was such, as to bear a very strong resemblance 
 to the picture he draws of our own. I do not speak 
 of corruptions in life and morals merely, or the 
 errors of individuals, however highly exalted, but 
 of the general disorganized and schismatical state 
 of the Church, her practical abandonment of her 
 spiritual pretensions, the tyranny exercised over 
 her by the civil power, and the intimate adherence 
 of the worst passions, and of circumstantial irregu- 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 409 
 
 larities to those acts which are vital portions of her 
 system. 
 
 For instance, the especial stain, which is imputed 
 to our own Church, is this; that in a.d. 1560, 
 Elizabeth, on succeeding to the throne, deprived, 
 by Act of Parliament, all its existing Bishops but 
 one, for refusing to become Protestants, and intro- 
 duced a new succession, by means of Parker, who 
 was consecrated under her special license to the 
 Archbishoprick of Canterbury, by certain Bishops, 
 either not in possession of Sees, or only Suffragans. 
 No one denies this was a violent proceeding, though 
 unavoidable under her peculiar circumstances ; but 
 it is one thing to be violent in accidentals and 
 adjuncts, another to be invalid in essentials. The 
 question is simply whether Parker was formally 
 consecrated by those who had the power of conse- 
 crating. God may carry on His work amid 
 human sin, granting, for argument's sake, that it 
 was such ; as the incest of Judah was, as I have 
 observed, in the line of our Lord's genealogy. This 
 is to view the matter at the extremest point of 
 disadvantage at which the Romanist can place it. 
 Now let us see whether former times do not sup- 
 ply instances of similar scandals '. 
 
 The third General Council was held a.d. 431, on 
 occasion of the Nestorian heresy, and passed de- 
 crees concerning our Lord's Person, as divine and 
 
 1 Vid. Bramhall, Works, pp. 40. 153, 154. 
 
410 ON THE FORTUNES [Lect. 
 
 human, which the English Church as well as the 
 Roman, has ever recognized as true and necessary. 
 Now under what circumstances were these decrees 
 framed ? Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, was 
 charged, and rightly charged, by Cyril, Bishop of 
 Alexandria, with heresy. Antioch, and the rest of 
 the East, remained neuter ; Rome, and the West, 
 took part with Cyril. Celestine, Bishop of Rome, 
 held a Latin Council, condemned Nestorius, de- 
 graded him on the event of his contumacy, and 
 committed the execution of this sentence to Cyril. 
 The Emperor of the day interposed, and summoned 
 at Ephesus, the General Council in question. Cyril 
 and Nestorius, with their respective partizans, ar- 
 rived at Ephesus, at the time appointed, before 
 John, Bishop of Antioch, and the Orientals. After 
 a delay of a fortnight, Cyril opened the Council, as 
 President, without them, in spite of the earnest 
 representations of the Imperial Officer, who in- 
 treated him to allow a further delay. Its pro- 
 ceedings thus unsatisfactorily commenced, were 
 concluded within the space of a single day. Five 
 days afterward the Orientals arrived, and, angry at 
 the slight put upon them, they held a Council by 
 themselves, and degraded Cyril, and Memnon, the 
 Bishop of Ephesus, who had sided with him. Mem- 
 non, being powerful in his own city, shut the 
 Churches against them, and stationed a guard in 
 the Cathedral, which, on the advance of the Im- 
 perial troops against it, vigorously repulsed and 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 411 
 
 routed them. After a riot of three months' con- 
 tinuance, the hostile parties retired to their respec- 
 tive homes ; and at the end of several years John 
 and Cyril, making mutual admissions and expla- 
 nations in points of doctrine, were reconciled to 
 each other, and jointly assented to the condemna- 
 tion of Nestorius. From that time Nestorius 
 has been accounted a heretic by the Church. 
 Transactions such as these are a proof that, in the 
 Roman system at least, while adherence is paid to 
 the positive observances enjoined us, the sins of 
 individuals taking part in their execution, do not 
 interfere with their validity. That at that time 
 with whatever incidental dissension and delay, the 
 testimony of the Catholic world was at length col- 
 lected on the subject of dispute, and that that tes- 
 timony really condemned Nestorius ; and further 
 that it was but a repetition of the testimony 
 afforded by Catholic Fathers from the first, is suf- 
 ficiently clear to all students in theology. But, 
 anyhow, the scandals of the Council of Ephesus 
 are an effectual obstacle to any over-delicate and 
 fastidious criticisms of Romanists upon our Refor- 
 mation. 
 
 The history of Vigilius, Bishop of Rome, in the 
 following century, presents the Romanist with a 
 similar difficulty. It is well known that according 
 to the Roman system, a General Council is not of 
 authority unless confirmed by the Pope ; now the 
 fifth Council was confirmed by this Vigilius, who, 
 
412 ON THE FORTUNES [Lect. 
 
 unless positive observances, not moral qualifications, 
 be the conditions on our part, of supernatural 
 agency, neither confirmed the Council, nor was 
 Pope at all. His career was as follows. — The last 
 Bishop of Rome had died at Constantinople, after 
 deposing the Bishop of that city for heresy ; Vigi- 
 lius, who was at that time a deacon, had accom- 
 panied him thither, and made offers to the Empress 
 Theodora, who had adopted the same heresy, to 
 acknowledge and support the deposed Bishop, if 
 she assisted himself to rise to the See of St. Peter. 
 Having gained the Empress, he proceeded into 
 Italy, to Belisarius, whom he also gained through 
 the interest which she exerted in his favour, and 
 by promising two hundred pieces of gold, from 
 himself, should he obtain the appointment. Mean- 
 while Silverius had been chosen at Rome to fill the 
 vacant See. On suspicion of corresponding with 
 the Goths, he was summoned before Belisarius, 
 stripped of his sacerdotal habit, and banished to 
 Lycia. Vigilius was appointed in his room, and 
 his first act was to refuse to discharge his own 
 engagements in the contract ; neither siding with 
 the heretics, nor paying the promised bribe. The 
 latter condition he at length fulfilled on being put 
 into possession of his rival, Silverius, whom he sent 
 to Pandataria, where death by famine put an end to 
 his sufferings. The fifth General Council being after- 
 wards held at Constantinople, he refused to assent 
 to its decrees, and was, in consequence, banished 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 413 
 
 by Justinian ; nor was he allowed to return to 
 Rome, till he recanted, formally confirmed them, 
 and thereby secured, as the Romanists consider, 
 their infallibility. Unless formal acts are the secret 
 threads by which the line of Divine Providence 
 is continued, how can Romanists hold either that 
 Vigilius was Pope, or that he confirmed the decrees 
 of the fifth General Council ? Thus they accord 
 to us a principle which brings us safely through 
 our own misfortunes, though they apply it to in- 
 stances in which we consider it is not pertinent. 
 
 Let us now take an instance some hundred years 
 later. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the 
 rank and wealth of the higher ecclesiastics was 
 such as to absorb those higher spiritual functions 
 which had led to their obtaining them. The Bishops 
 were temporal princes, were appointed irrespec- 
 tively of their religious fitness, and felt more closely 
 bound to the feudal lord of whom they held their 
 temporalities, than to the Church. " They were 
 obtruded in their Sees," says a recent writer, " as 
 the Supreme Pontiffs were upon that of Rome, by 
 force or corruption. A child of five years old was 
 made Archbishop of Rheims. The See of Nar- 
 bonne was purchased for another at the age of 
 ten." He adds, "It was almost general in the 
 Church to have Bishops under twenty years old." 
 Again; "Either through bribery in places where 
 elections still prevailed, or through corrupt agree- 
 ments with princes* or at least customary presents 
 
414 ON THE FORTUNES [Lect. 
 
 to their wives and ministers, a large proportion of 
 the Bishops had no valid tenure in their sees. 
 The case was perhaps worse with inferior clerks ; 
 in the Church of Milan, which was notorious for 
 this corruption, not a single ecclesiastic could stand 
 the test, the Archbishop exacting a price for the 
 collation of every benefice 1 ." 
 
 Such being the general state of the Church, 
 Rome itself was the scene of contest between rival 
 claimants of the Holy See, the respective cham- 
 pions of the imperial prerogatives and ecclesiastical 
 liberty. In 1012, Benedict VIII. was forced by 
 the Anti-pope; Gregory V., to fly to the Emperor 
 Henry II., who reinstated him. Benedict IX., a 
 man of abandoned life, being degraded by the 
 Romans, was restored by the Emperor Conrad, 
 and, running into still greater excesses, was again 
 deposed by his people, who chose in his place 
 Sylvester III. A third time he was reinstated, 
 by the arms of his adherents ; and at length, de- 
 spairing of appeasing the resentment of the Romans, 
 he sold his holy office to the arch-presbyter of 
 Rome, who succeeded under the name of Gregory 
 VI. While the Roman see thus lay between the 
 pretensions of three competitors, the Emperor, 
 Henry III., deposed them all, and introduced a 
 fourth, under the name of Clement II. This is 
 
 1 Hallam's Middle Ages, chap. vii. Vid. passages quoted in 
 Tillotson's Rule of Faith, iii. 7. 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 415 
 
 but one specimen of ecclesiastical irregularities, 
 greater, surely,, than any which have occurred 
 among ourselves, whether in the reigns of the 
 Tudor princes, or of ^Yilliam III. 
 
 The great Western Schism, in the course of the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is another instance 
 of ecclesiastical disorder, such as has not happened 
 in our own branch of the Church. We in England 
 think it, as it really was, a very grievous thing, that 
 there should have been in King William's time 
 rival Bishops in the Archiepiscopal and some other 
 sees, the exigencies of the State calling for mea- 
 sures towards the Church which, in civil matters, 
 would have been tyranny. But what prudent Ro- 
 manist will object this to us, as if more than a 
 ruffling of the surface of the deep fountains of her 
 power, who recollects the state of his own Church 
 during the period referred to ? For fifty years the 
 Latin Church had two or three heads at the same 
 time, each intriguing and directing anathemas against 
 his rivals. Mosheim remarks, that during that period, 
 as was natural, " many plain, well-meaning people, 
 who concluded that no one could be saved unless 
 united to the Vicar of Christ," i. e. the Pope, " were 
 overwhelmed with doubt, and plunged into the deep- 
 est distress of mind ! ;" the very misfortune which is 
 alleged mutatis mutandis to be the result of our own 
 unhappy differences at present. Meanwhile the Gal- 
 
 1 Mosheim, vol. iii. p. 328, 
 
416 ON THE FORTUNES [Lect.. 
 
 lican Church, seriously affected by the scandal of 
 the contest, in a council held at Paris at the end 
 of the fourteenth century, solemnly renounced all 
 subjection to either of the contending parties. At 
 the beginning of the next century the Council of 
 Pisa deposed the rival Popes of the day, appoint- 
 ing a third in their place, who being unable to 
 carry into effect their decision with a strong hand, 
 did but become a third competitor, and form a 
 fresh party in the schism. Doubtless to these and 
 similar miserable disorders we owe the licentious 
 and profane movements of the sixteenth century, 
 of which the Romanists are so ready to complain ; 
 and the present wasted and enfeebled state of the 
 Church, including our own branch of it. And, as 
 during the continuance of these old dissensions, 
 the humble arid believing, as we humbly trust, 
 enjoyed the Ordinances of grace though adminis- 
 tered by unchristian hands, much less can their 
 consequences, our present and past distressing cir- 
 cumstances, taken at the greatest, be any bar in 
 the due administration of the Sacraments to those 
 who believe and seek God truly. 
 
 Such was the state of things in the middle ages ; 
 let us now turn to the early Church, which ap- 
 parently was not altogether free from those errors 
 and disorders which are the scandal of modern 
 times. 
 
 In the fourth century there were at one time 
 three, and for a long time two, Bishops of Antioch 
 
XIV.J OF THE CHURCH. 417 
 
 at once, one countenanced by the East, the other 
 by the West ; and that succession at last prevailed 
 "which had been violently introduced by the Arians. 
 In Africa the Donatists, in the time of their power, 
 had as many as four hundred Bishops, within sixty 
 or seventy as many as the Catholic Church. 
 
 In the early Ante-Nicene times, the Church 
 seemed for a while to be but one sect among many, 
 being confused with Jews, and the various Gnostic 
 denominations, as it is at this time in our own 
 country, with the multitude of parties and heresies 
 which prevail. Nay, it had peculiar difficulties of 
 its own, distinct from those of after centuries. 
 While it was still under persecution, with deficient 
 union in its separate branches, private Christians 
 had to struggle with uncertainties, and with partial 
 knowledge,— I do not say whether more or less 
 than ours, — but certainly such as we have not. 
 Till the fourth century there was no unanimous 
 reception of the Canon of the New Testament, no 
 sufficient check upon the fancies and extravagancies 
 of individual teachers. AH the great points, in- 
 deed, of faith were thoroughly known by all, in a 
 far higher way than is at present vouchsafed to us ; 
 but in many matters of detail, or as regards the 
 intellectual comprehension of its terms, though 
 there was, doubtless, one uniform doctrine handed 
 down from the Apostles, heresy was not so imme- 
 diately recognized, as it was afterwards, when the 
 stimulus it supplied had retouched and deepened 
 
 e e 
 
418 ON THE FORTUNES [Lect. 
 
 the lineaments of the Creed. It is observable that 
 the two most learned and gifted of the Ante-Nicene 
 Fathers, while explicit in their report of Catholic 
 Truth in all matters of necessary faith, yet are 
 little trustworthy themselves, and are open in 
 secondary points to the charge of unwarrantable 
 speculation. There can be no instance among 
 ourselves of sincere Christians being tempted, as 
 Origen was, to question what is meant by the 
 eternal punishment destined for the finally im- 
 penitent ; or of a Bishop, as Dionysius, speaking 
 of the Eternal Son, in terms which to some others 
 conveyed a sense as far from orthodoxy as from 
 his own meaning ; or of a whole Church, as the 
 Roman, doubting of the full authority of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews. All the most important points 
 in the Christian system have been publicly can- 
 vassed in detail, and settled once for all ; but in 
 the first ages of the Church there was more room 
 than now, not for practical uncertainty where men 
 were teachable, but for inquiry where they were 
 restless, and for controversy where they were 
 stubborn. 
 
 To these instances, in earlier and later times, I 
 will but add the testimony of two Bishops of the 
 Church in ages and countries far removed from 
 each other, and under circumstances widely dif- 
 ferent, in = proof of this one fact, that there have 
 been junctures in the history of the Dispensation 
 before our own, in which contemporaries thought 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 419 
 
 they saw the utter confusion and the destruction 
 of all that was sacred, venerable, or precious ; the 
 immediate extinction of that Truth which has lasted 
 centuries after them. The first of these writers is 
 St. Basil, Exarch of Csesarea, in the fourth century; 
 the other is an authority, whom the Romanists at 
 least cannot reject, the famous Thomas Becket, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury in the thirteenth. Of 
 these the former thus writes concerning the state 
 of Asia Minor, where the Arians had for some years 
 been spreading their heresy : — 
 
 " Our afflictions are well known without my tell- 
 ing; the sound of them has gone forth over all 
 Christendom. The opinions of the Fathers are 
 despised ; Apostolical Traditions are set at nought ; 
 the speculations of innovators hold sway in the 
 Churches. Men have learned to be theorists in- 
 stead of theologians. The wisdom of the world 
 has the place of honour, having dispossessed the 
 boasting of the Cross. The gravity of the sacred 
 order has perished; there are none to feed the 
 Lord's flock with knowledge ; ambitious men are 
 even spending, for purposes of self-indulgence and 
 bribery, possessions which they hold in trust for 
 the poor. The accurate observance of the Canons 
 is no more ; there is no restraint upon sin. The 
 Laity remain unchastised ; the prelates have lost 
 all freedom of speech, for they are necessarily the 
 slaves of those by whose patronage they have gained' 
 
 their dignities Unbelievers laugh at what they 
 
 e e 2 
 
4#0- ON THE FORTUNES L^ect. 
 
 see, and the weak are unsettled ; no one can tell 
 where the true faith lies, because the adulterators 
 of the word make plausible pretences to be true. 
 The better sort of people keep silence ; but every 
 railer speaks what he will. Sacred things are pro- 
 faned ; those of the laity who are sound in faith 
 avoid the places of worship, as schools of blasphemy, 
 and raise their voices in solitude, with groans and 
 tears to the God of heaven V 
 
 Nine hundred years afterwards, an Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, who at least is an authority with 
 Romanists, writes as follows : " The king of Eng- 
 land," he says, in a letter concerning Henry II. 
 addressed to the Roman Cardinals, " has seized 
 and is every day seizing the property of the Church, 
 subverts its liberty, stretches out his hands against 
 the anointed ones of the Lord, against the clergy, 
 without limit of place or selection of persons, im- 
 prisoning some, beheading others, tearing out the 
 eyes of others, forcing others to single combat, 
 others to the ordeal, that the Bishops may not pay 
 obedience to their Metropolitan, nor the Clergy to 
 their Bishops, nor account themselves excommuni- 
 cated when they have been duly excommunicated." 
 In another place, he thus speaks of the corrupt 
 practices of the Roman see : " Sacrilegious men, 
 murderers, plunderers are absolved, impenitent men, 
 
 Basil, Ep. 92. The first sentence is condensed from the 
 original. 
 
 10 
 
XIV.] OF THE CHURCH. 421 
 
 whom I boldly pronounce on Christ's word, though 
 the world be against me, not even St. Peter, were 
 he in the Roman see, could absolve in God's sight. 
 . . . Certainly, if restitution might be made and is 
 not, there is no true repentance. . . . Let who dare 
 thus bind himself and not fear the sentence of the 
 Judge to come. Let him absolve men of plunder, 
 sacrilege, murder, perjury, blood and schism, though 
 impenitent. ... I will trouble the court of Rome 
 no longer ; let those apply to it who are strong in 
 their iniquities, and after triumphing over justice 
 and leading innocence captive, return in glory for 
 the confusion of the Church 1 ." 
 
 But in truth the whole course of Christianity 
 from the first, when we come to examine it, is but 
 one series of troubles and disorders. Every cen- 
 tury is like every other, and to those who live in 
 it seems worse than all times before it. The Church 
 is ever ailing, and lingers on in weakness, " always 
 bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord 
 Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made 
 manifest in her body." Religion seems ever ex- 
 piring, schisms dominant, the light of Truth dim, 
 its adherents scattered. The cause of Christ is 
 ever in its last agony, as though it were but a ques- 
 tion of time whether it fails finally this day or 
 another. The Saints are ever all but failing from 
 
 1 Ep. D. Thorn, ii. 46. v. 20. 
 
42.2 ON THE FORTUNES OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the earth, and Christ all but coming ; and thus 
 the day of judgment is literally ever at hand ; and 
 it is our duty ever to be looking out for it, not 
 disappointed that we have so often said, " now is 
 the moment," and that at the last, contrary to our 
 expectation, Truth has somewhat rallied. Such is 
 God's will, gathering in His elect, first one and 
 then another, by little and little, in the intervals of 
 sunshine between storm and storm, or snatching 
 them from the surge of evil, even when the waters 
 rage most furiously. Well may prophets cry out 
 " How long will it be, O Lord, to the end of these 
 wonders ?" how long will this mystery proceed ? 
 how long will this perishing world be sustained by 
 the feeble lights which struggle for existence in 
 its unhealthy atmosphere? God alone knows the 
 day and the hour when that will at length be 
 which He is ever threatening; meanwhile, thus 
 much of comfort do we gain from what has been 
 hitherto, not to despond, not to be dismayed, not 
 to be anxious at the troubles which encompass us. 
 They have ever been ; they ever shall be ; they are 
 our portion. " The floods are risen, the floods have 
 lift up their voice, the floods lift up their waves. 
 The waves of the sea are mighty, and rage horribly ; 
 but yet the Lord, who dwelleth on high, is mightier." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Gilbert & Rivincton, Printers, St. John's Square, London. 
 
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