to know its meaning. Into this Court, the Fathers, among others, are brought as witnesses. We are glad, at all times, to hear whatever any Christians, ancient or modern, have discoursed on the subject of our common Religion. The Fathers, then, appear before us, to inform us what was said and done in former times. They give us their own opinions. When they speak anything which confirms our piety, which warms our hearts, which corroborates what is clear in Scripture, or throws light on what is obscure, we thank them. For Scripture is a wide field, and God has left obscure parts in it, that we may dig for the meaning, and by comparing Scripture with Scripture may become better acquainted with the whole. We are also to seek help from one another, for one Christian may see what another has overlooked. The Truth may receive illustration from the field of human Learning, and from the lamp of History. We regard the Fathers as valuable witnesses to several historical facts, which confer force on intimations of Scripture, or on arguments derivable from it-such as the universal observance of the Lord's-day as the Christian Sabbath, and the Baptism of Infants. They witness also to the genuineness of the Canon of

Scripture their dissensions in other matters, but agreement in this, giving irresistible weight to their evidence.* Where there is no reason to suspect a bias, we look upon them as honest witnesses to the authenticity of the Gospels and Epistles, though we are the judges as to the value of their interpretation. In this latter point, they must not dictate to the Court. Let us confess, then, we thank the Fathers for much which they testify. But we too frequently see cause to be surprised and grieved at their tone of thinking and speaking. We cannot but bestruck with its discrepancy from the tone of the Apostles. We agree with Mr. Evans in his "Biography of the Early Church,' that going from Scripture to the Fathers, is like Adam's expulsion from Paradise to the ground full of thorns and thistles, whence food.

*Bishop Jeremy Taylor, (with Stillingfleet and Mede, and others after them), gives due credit to the Fathers for laying down the supremacy and sufficiency of Scripture, as an indisputable truth-whatever their practice might be. "We Protestants," he says, in his "Dissuasive from Popery," "finding little or nothing (in the way "of tradition) excepting this, that the Bible contains all "the will of God for our salvation, all doctrines of faith "and life,-little or nothing else, I say, descending to us by an universal tradition,—therefore we have reason to adhere to Scripture, and renounce all pretence of "tradition of any matters of faith not plainly set down "in the Bible."

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can only be extracted with labour, and what is unwholesome must be carefully separated from what is nutritive. In fact, we are often compelled to dismiss the Fathers as holding dangerous and even false views—and to regard the ancient Church as a beacon, rather than a guiding star.

To apply these observations to the case before us.

§ 34. LANGUAGE OF THE FATHERS.

What is the peculiar language, used by the Fathers, to which the Archdeacon appeals as evidence of their holding the principles of the Sacramental System? It is that which they used concerning the Eucharist, as a spectacle. They freely employed in connection with it the terms which belong to Sacrificial rites,"altar," "priest," "sacrifice." Herein, they were guilty of diverging from Apostolic usage. There is no direct mention of the Eucharist in Scripture, in which any of these terms occurs. If they are ever used with an oblique reference to that Memorial Ordinance, it is metaphorically. No point whatever can be clearer in St. Paul's Epistles, than that Christians have no literal altar; no Priest but One,

in the sense of a real Sacrificer; no oblation or sacrifice which is a true and propitiatory one, but the one oblation once offered" upon the Cross. Yet we find the Fathers using language which on the face of it implies the contrary. How shall we account for this? We have already hinted at the explanation. It was a concession to the times. It was a giving way to the peculiar temptation which assailed them. They saw on all sides innumerable Pagan altars, lighted with candles, bedecked with images, and smoking with incense. They saw crowds of gorgeously-dressed Priests of the false gods, offering sacrifices. They beheld all the pomp and ceremony of an outward religion. In the meantime, they themselves were reproached and derided as having no altars-no sacrifices-no God. We know that the Christians were called "Atheists on this account. Here, as we said before, was a strong temptation to prevaricate to use a pious fraud-to accommodate Christianity to Paganism, and say, "We have altars-we have oblations and sacrifices-we have sacrificing priests." We fear we cannot acquit the Fathers of wilfully countenancing this perversion of Christian truth and simplicity. It is true they often use language utterly inconsistent

with that literal view of such expressions as these, which became universal in the mediaval ages, and has been inherited by the Church of Rome. It is satisfactory to find passages, which could never have been written by modern Romanists; and the argument against the Church of Rome from the existence of two sets of passages of different kinds, in one and the same Father, is conclusive against her, because one set only would have existed, had the Father really and in heart taken her view. But this fact renders such a Father of little value to us, when we are not engaged in controversy with Rome. It casts a shade of doubt upon his Christian uprightness or clearsightedness. It can be of little practical use - to us, to be hunting for passages of one kind to balance passages of an opposite kind. It may save him from condemnation, but it can never entitle him to confidence, or do us good. He did not stem the tide of superstition and priestly ambition when it was flowing in. He did not speak as St. Paul would have done. His trumpet gave an uncertain sound. We know how hard it is to be perfectly upright, when tempted to accommodate our teaching to circumstances. We have a melancholy proof of this in the subserviency of the Christian