But there are other grounds on which we would protest against that most unfair use which is made by Romanists and prelatists, of these ancient records. They are perverted to their own purposes.1 They are subjected to just the same treatment which the scriptures are wont to receive at their hands. For as these oracles of God are made to receive their meaning and interpretation, from the rites, forms, usages, and opinions of the Nicene and later ages, so that the canonical meaning of scripture can only be ascertained through the comments and explanations of the church; just in the same manner these ancient records of the Nicene and proximate ages are to be understood, and their terms explained, by the meaning attached to these terms, and by the principles adopted, in the church now. It is utterly forgotten, that "names, rites, and formularies may remain unchanged, when their spirit and meaning have been essentially altered; and that much of what the Romanists (or prelatists) confidently appeal to in the early ages of christianity, carried quite a different import to a contemporary from that which it suggests under the dominancy and in the nomenclature of the hierarchy."

And, finally on this part of our subject, we remark, that it would be easy, with no other assistance than what is rendered by these writers themselves, to array the fathers in manifest support of this sole supremacy of scripture.

"The holy and divinely inspired scriptures, are sufficient of themselves to the discovery of truth," says Athanasius.

"It is an instinct of the devil to think any thing divine without the authority of the scriptures," says Theophilus of Alex

andria.

"That which the holy scripture hath not said, by what means should we receive and account it among these things that be true?" says Cyril of Alexandria.

Basil declares, "It is a manifest falling from the faith, and

1) To use the words of a member of the English church: (Dr. Payne in Notes of the Ch. pp. 163 and 164) "Besides the correcting, or rather corrupting of SO many fathers, which were genuine monuments of antiquity, the counterfeiting of so many false ones, and obtruding of so many spurious authors upon the world, is a plain evidence of the want of true antiquity." "Thus the decretal epistles were counterfeited to prop up the pope's spiritual power, and Constantine's donation to establish his temporal."

"But there are great numbers of forged and spurious authors, whose testimonies are still produced by these writers, for those doctrines and opinions, which are destitute of true antiquity, a collection of which is given us by our King James, in his Bastardy of the False Fathers; and all those critics who have written censures upon the fathers' works cannot but own it."

2) We quote from the London Chr. Ob. 1840, p. 48, an evangelical episcopal periodical.

3) See also Note A.

an argument of arrogancy, either to reject any point of those things that are written, or to bring in any of those things that are not written."

"Forasmuch," says Gregory Nyssene, "as this is unholden with no testimony of scripture, we will reject it as false."

"Nothing at all ought to be delivered concerning the divine and holy mysteries of faith without the holy scriptures," saith Cyril of Jerusalem.

"If it be not written," said Tertullian, "let them fear that woe which is allotted to such as add or take away."

"As we deny not," says Jerome, "these things that are written, so we refuse those things that are not written."

"Whatsoever ye hear," says Augustine, "(from the holy scriptures,) let that savour well unto you; whatsoever is without them refuse."

"It would be superfluous," says Mr. Palmer, from different portions of whose learned work these authorities are chiefly taken, "to cite additional testimonies to the same truth, from Clemens Alexandrinus, Hippolytus, Cyprian, Optatus, Hilary, Vincentius Lirinensis, Anastasius, Prosper, Theodoret, Antony, Benedict, Theophylact, which have been collected by our writers."i

On the authority therefore of the fathers-that is, by all the weight and influence attached to tradition by prelatists themselves; we are required to receive or to reject this doctrine, as it shall, or shall not make good its title, from the clear and certain testimony of God's Holy Word. The apostolic writings are certainly not more obscure on this point than those of the early fathers; for the meaning of the one, is as much controverted, and their authority as variously claimed, as is the case with the Bible. And the whole obscurity on this subject, which is charged upon scripture, arises from the fact that the assumed practice of the early church, as prelatical and not presbyterian, is made to justify the most forced construction of certain passages of God's Holy Word. But let that word speak out in its plain unvarnished phrase, and this obscurity will in a great measure vanish.2

VII. A seventh ground on which we rest this claim to an unquestionable scripture authentication of these exclusive powers, is the unreasonableness of the whole scheme, in itself considered.

1) Lee on the Church, vol. ii. p. 13, and p. 74. See also Newman on Romanism, Lect. xiii. and also at pp. 274, 281. Also Oxf. Tr. vol. i. pp. 556, 560, and 563. Faber's Albi

genses, pp. 264, 491, 492; see also Note B.

2) See Henderson's Rev. and Consid., Edinb. 1706, 4to. p. 53.

We are very far from saying of any doctrine, that, because mysterious, and removed from the region of common sense, it is therefore of necessity false-as a scheme pretending to divine authority. But what we do affirm, is, that being not only above, and beyond reason, and therefore beyond man's power of origination; but being also, as we hold, at the same time, unreasonable and very contrary to reason, such claims cannot receive the shadow of respect, as of divine authority, until their divine sanction is made irresistibly clear.

Indeed, it is not pretended, that these prelatical claims are founded in reason, or are to be adjudicated upon at all by reason. Their abettors disclaim utterly any such foundation or standard.

Thus let us hear the Rev. William Dodsworth, in his recent Discourses on Romanism and Dissent: "If human reason," says he, "may safely reject every doctrine which is above its powers, then we at once admit that this doctrine must be rejected; for the conveyance of a blessing through the medium of some men, which is not, and cannot be conveyed through others, equal or superior to them in all respects of natural endowment, is a mystery of which human reason is not cognizant: all argument founded upon it, therefore, must go for absolutely nothing. Again, we admit that the blessing is the object of faith and not of sight, and hence the true foundation of our belief is not touched by any inference which is drawn from visible effects. Hence, then, the Church of England has no sympathy with those injudicious, and I may say unbelieving opponents of Romanism, who throw contempt on the doctrine of apostolical succession, deny the efficacy of the sacraments apostolically administered, and who oppose the pretensions of the Romish ministers on the ground that no visible effects follow from the exercise of those sacred functions, in behalf of which they advance such preposterous and impious claims. Here, again, we shall find that the Church of England is equally distant from Romish corruption and from sectarian latitudinarianism."2

So again in his discourse on the efficacy of baptism, he says: "Such baptism the church ever regards as efficacious to the cleansing away of sin, to justification, to the implanting of a new life, to the illumination of the spirit, to adoption into God's family, to heirship of the kingdom of heaven."s

So also in No. 80 of the Tracts for the Times, the Oxford tractors thus deliver themselves:

1) See Oxf. Tr. vol. i. p. 26.

2) See Dodsworth on Romanism and Dissent, p. 6.

3) See Dodsworth on Romanism and Dissent, p. 19.

"The question therefore need never be, whether an ordinance such as that of episcopacy, can be proved to be of divine command, for it has been observed, that our Lord never said that he was the CHRIST. But he was not on that account the less so, nor was it the less necessary that he should be received as such. All the external evidence required would be, whether there are indications of a divine preference given to it, for if this can be proved, it is sufficient for a dutiful spirit. In such considerations, all that can be said is, "he that can receive it, let him receive it," and that "the poor in spirit" occupy "the kingdom." Thus also Mr. Keble speaks,—

"1

"The succession itself is—a mystery, and of course left as all mysteries are, in some respects dimly revealed, i. e. in the world's language, vague and indistinct."2

Now, inasmuch as for the full establishment of these claims, we are to be deprived of all use of our own understanding in the investigation of them; and of all exercise of the right of private judgment upon the reasonableness of them;-it is surely incumbent upon their abettors to put their divine origin beyond any reasonable doubt, cavil or objection. For, to use the language of their own approved commentator, Bishop Burnet

"We, having naturally a faculty of judging for ourselves, and using it in all other things, this freedom, being the greatest of all our other rights, must be still asserted, unless it can be made to appear that God has in some things put a bar upon it by his supreme authority.

"That authority must be very express, if we are required to submit to it in a point of such vast importance to us. We do also see that men are apt to be mistaken, and are apt likewise willingly to mistake, and to mislead others; and that particularly in matters of religion the world has been so much imposed upon and abused, that we cannot be bound to submit to any sort of persons implicitly, without very good and clear grounds that do assure us of their infallibility: otherwise we have just reason to suspect that in matters of religion, chiefly in points in which human interests are concerned, men may either through ignorance and weakness, or corruption, and on design, abuse and mislead us. So that the authorities or proofs of this infallibility must be very express; since we are sure no man, nor body of men, can have it among them, but by a privilege from God; and a privilege of so extraordinary a nature must be given, if at all, in very plain and with very evident characters; since without

1) Tracts for the Times, No. 80, vol. 4, p. 67.

2) Keble on Tradition, p. 96.

these human nature cannot, and ought not be so tame as to receive it. We must not draw it from an inference because we think we need it, and cannot be safe without it, that therefore it must be so, because, if it were not so, great disorders would arise from the want of it."1

"It is also certain, that if God has lodged such an infallibility on earth, it ought not to be in such hands as do naturally heighten our prejudices against it. It will go against the grain to believe it, though all outward appearances looked ever so fair for it; but it will be an inconceivable method of Providence, if God should lodge so wonderful an authority in hands that look so very unlike it, that of all others we should the least expect to find it with them.

"If they have been guilty of notorious impostures, to support their own authority, if they have committed great violences to extend it, and have been for some ages together engaged in as many false, unjust, and cruel practices, as are perhaps to be met with in any history; these are such prejudices, that at least they must be overcome by very clear and unquestionable proofs: and finally, if God has settled such a power in his church, we must be distinctly directed to those in whose hands it is put, so that we may fall into no mistake in so important a matter."

This doctrine of the supernatural efficacy of sacerdotal ministrations, and the exclusive possession of this sacred gift by prelatical bishops, is either reasonable, or it is above reason, or it is unreasonable. If it is reasonable, then, according to an established maxim of modern science, we must neither know, believe, nor assert it, without having warrantable and conclusive evidence, wherewith to establish and make it good. Positive opinion must rest upon indisputable proof. Where such a measure of proof is wanting, that, which if supported by it, would constitute an opinion, can without it, be regarded as no more than a doubt, a conjecture, or a question. To speak confidently, therefore, in reference to this matter, which is at least only set forth as the more probable of two alternatives, is to "dogmatize with all the pride of a most intolerable assurance."

1) Burnet on the 30 Art. p. 234. 2) Ibid, p. 235. "With such proofs, (i. e. more than ordinary,) they must surely be prepared; for without them, a doctrine so questionable must fall by its own improbability," so says the Hon. and Rev. B. W. Noel, in Romanists and Prot. p. 5.

"They bring proof from unwritten tradition. But the proof is as

suspicious as the claim, because they alone had the custody of it." Ibid.

"Much less could they adduce the tradition which alone could establish the claim,-the written apostolic, universal tradition," "which is not the consent of two fathers or of ten, but of the universal church in all times and places." Ibid.