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Both oppose universal Tradition.

of universal tradition; and that the written rule is the boundary of her teaching in points of necessary faith.

4. We may now pass on to a fourth point of agreement, i. e. that both oppose antiquity and universal tradition.

The Roman Church, how much soever it may appeal in words to antiquity, does in practice actually oppose it. The infallibility of the living Church absorbs all proof into itself. Antiquity, as well as Scripture, is made to follow the interpretation of the present Church. Of antiquity it accepts declares its own office, as a teacher universally plain. The texts commonly produced are such as follow:

1. St. Luke's commendation of the Bereans. (Acts xvii. 11.) But they put a new doctrine, claiming to be of God, to the test of the old Scriptures. St. Paul announced the fulfilment of prophecies in the Messiah; the Bereans compared his announcement with the old Testament.

2. St. Paul's words to Timothy. (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.) Timothy was converted by St. Paul himself, (1 Tim. i. 2.) which must have been after the year A. D. 44, the date of St. Paul's first mission to Asia: but not one of the Books of the New Testament Canon was then written, the earliest Gospel being A. D. 55 ; for no one will think the Hebrew of St. Matthew an exception, nor believe that St. Paul meant that Timothy had the Christian Scriptures in his childhood, before he was converted to Christianity.

3. The words of the Prophet Isaiah foretelling the safety of "the way of holiness," i. e. the whole system of the Christian Church, misapplied to the written Scripture. (xxxv. 8.)

4. The words of the Prophet Habakkuk, (chap. ii. 2.) misunderstood. The Prophet was bidden to write so that all who read may run, i. e. be readily obedient, not that all who run may be able to read.

"Now if we consider that this privilege, of containing all that is necessary to the salvation of all, belongs not to any part, but to the whole body of the Scriptures, it would first have been said, what Scripture, speaking of the whole body of the Scripture, hath established this property, or privilege of it. For my part, upon the best consideration that I can take, I am at a stand to find any text of Scripture, any letter, or syllable of the whole Bible, that says anything at all, good or bad, of the whole Bible." Thorndike's Epilogue, b. 1. c. v. p. 31. The assertion of our sixth article, therefore, stands not on arguments à priori, nor on the self-attested sufficiency of Scripture, but upon the consenting witness of the Church. See Sermon, p. 14-22.

Proofs from Roman writers.

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so much as is in accordance with its existing system; of the rest, some it explains away, some it rejects, some it utterly condemns. The Church of Rome is pledged to the definitions of its councils: the doctrine of infallibility gives them an inflexible stiffness, and all must bend into conformity. Antiquity then is no rule to the Church of Rome; it is not even a proof, but a pretext. 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 in 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 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 infallibility of the Church is then found to be its first principle, whereas, before, it was a necessary but a secondary doctrine. Whatever principle they profess 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 antiquity, 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'.

Of this we will take only two examples from the book just quoted. In the preface prefixed to the works of St.

1 Newman's Lectures on Romanism, pp. 59, 60.

102 Opposition of Ultra-protestants avowed by themselves.

Ambrose, by the Benedictine editors, who, of all the Roman communion, have done highest reverence to antiquity, we read:

"It is not, indeed, wonderful that Ambrose should 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 fourteen centuries. For they do 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 1."

The Church of England does not venture to define where Antiquity is doubtful; nor to make that a point of faith, which with the early Church was an open question.

And once more:

"I for my part, to speak candidly," said the Bishop of Bitonto who assisted at the Council of Trent, "would rather credit one pope, in matters touching the faith, than a thousand Augustines, Jeromes, or Gregories "."

It does not require many words to show that, in like manner, the New rule of faith necessarily opposes itself to antiquity and universal tradition.

Every particular sect, almost each individual man, is pledged to some theory of religious opinion, which, as it had not its origin in universal tradition, so it never, except by chance, agrees with it. In one point their procedure differs from the Roman; for they, of whom we now speak,

1 Admonit. in Lib. de bono Mortis. Newman's Lectures, pp. 78, 79. 2 Newman's Lectures, p. 96.

Both introduce new doctrines.

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make no profession of appealing to antiquity; they plainly say it has no weight with them; they call universal tradition human testimony; they assert that there is no consent of the primitive Christians even on vital points. They can, therefore, hardly be said to reject evidence of which they sweepingly deny the very existence. They are as impatient of a rule to limit private interpretations, as the Church of Rome is of a check imposed upon her authority to define. The reason of both is the same: it is the living judge against the cloud of witnesses, which, though dead, yet speak to us.

And now, from two systems, which alike exalt the living judge above the written rule; which claim a special guidance to establish their interpretations: which argue from what men expect God would do, that therefore he has, in fact, so done; which oppose the universal tradition of the primitive Church;-from systems holding so many common errors, what can we look for but a common result? The consequences of both, although different in outward aspect and direction, are alike.

5. For, in the first place both introduce new doctrines unknown to the Apostles of Christ.

To the Roman rule we owe the doctrine of Transubstantiation;

To the new, the vague or mere figurative theory of the Holy Sacraments.

To the former, the doctrine of Purgatory;

To the latter, the modern forms of Predestination.

To the former, the Papal supremacy;

To the latter, the Presbyterian system..

To the former, a scheme of justification imperfect in one half;

To the latter, the same doctrine mutilated in the other.

11

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Antiquity sacrificed by Petavius

The former rule introduces new doctrines by adding to the old; the latter by taking away.

The one is a principle of superaddition; the other, of diminution.

The Roman rule has brought into the Church the invocation of saints, the adoration of relics, the doctrines of transubstantiation and concomitancy, and many more;

The New rule has brought in few, but has taken away many, as the doctrine of the real Presence distinguished from transubstantiation, Baptismal regeneration, the Apostolical succession, the visible unity of the Church, &c.

6. And, once more, the two fallacious rules agree in producing a further result; namely, they both undermine the foundation upon which Christianity itself is built.

God forbid that I should say this, as imputing the conscious intention to any man holding either of the principles above referred to. We are speaking of these rules as matters of reasoning and evidence, without reference to those that entertain them.

The first example of this effect may be shown in the uncertainty which is thrown by both over the vital doctrines of the faith; and the proof of it shall be drawn from a quarter at first sight very unlikely to afford one.

We have already seen how Chillingworth argued that certain doctors of the Church of Rome do the principal and proper work of the Socinians for them, undermining the doctrine of the Trinity, by denying it to be supported by those pillars of the faith which alone are fit and able to support it, i. e. Scripture, and the consent of the ancient doctors. He mentions Cardinal Perron, Mr. Fisher, or Mr. Floyd, and Petavius, as speaking with more than doubtfulness, whether or no the Arian doctrine was not common