to be judged of by Analogy from other practical Matters. 11

its timid defenders; as I hope to show hereafter in some important examples.

But to make the rule a practical one, we should well understand, secondly, what is to be accounted general agreement among the Fathers. For it is the third particular in the rule of Vincentius, Quod ab omnibus, which has ever afforded most scope for cavil to the rationalist, and for perplexity to the unwary. But let us only apply to this matter the same rules of common sense, which guide us on analogous subjects in ordinary life. A person not regularly trained in medicine desires to know what are safe rules of diet is he to believe that there are no such rules at all, because he finds none from which, at some time or other, ingenious innovators have not contrived to dissent? Another wishes to ascertain some point of common law : does he think it necessary for that purpose, that cases in all points exactly like his own shall have come under the cognizance of each former generation of jurists? Or, in matters of navigation, would it be said there were no fixed rules, because but a few out of many seamen have left the results of their experience any where on record? The question about the Fathers is so far like these, that it is strictly a question of practice: men want to know which is the safest way in regard of their duty towards God; if they require in every point absolute inevitable demonstration, of course they cannot have it in the Fathers: but do they really think they find it in Holy Scripture ?

Certainly, many of the principles most relied on by Daillé and other such writers, are such that, if we followed them out, we should not stop short of universal scepticism. E. g. Whitby lays it down as an axiom', That if Scripture be a perfect rule of faith, it must be so clear in necessary things as to require no interpreter; and that it cannot be a rule or measure where it is obscure. Might he not as reasonably have said, that it cannot be a rule to any one who does not thoroughly understand the languages in which it was originally written? Such sentiments are, in fact, inconsistent with the present condition of man: they deal with us as though we might be independent of human testimony, or arrive at mathematical certainty in moral matters.

1 Ref. p. 8, 9.

We can only

§ i. 8.

Si. 8.

12

Agreement to be sought in Principles, not in Details:

be safe by putting them aside, and resolving to use, on this subject, the same kind of intuitive good sense, which is given us for our guide in all other matters of conduct; which good sense, as even heathen moralists could discern, is the ordinary accompaniment and providential reward of intellectual fairness and purity.

Nor can any measure of general agreement be laid down, in words so precise, as not to leave a great deal to the exercise of this practical wisdom. However, one obvious rule would be, not to demand coincidence in detail, but in general principles; and again, in those generals only, which belong to the professed subject-matter and scope of the writers. For example, there is hardly one of the Fathers, of whose works we have any considerable quantity remaining, but has left on record his interpretation of one part or another of the Old Testament, in sufficient quantity to indicate his rules of exposition. Now, who will deny that it would be a very remarkable fact, should those rules be found, on the whole, the same throughout the whole series of Catholic Fathers;-a fact on which important conclusions may depend? and yet it may so happen, that no one passage in the Bible is quoted by them all; and again, that there are no two of them who agree in their explanations of all the passages they quote.

Again; it may be, that in the detail of some historical facts, or in some abstract principles not immediately bearing on theology, there may exist a general, not to say an universal, agreement, on which, nevertheless, very little can be built, because on such things they may very well be supposed to have taken for granted what was generally received in their age. Or, if they differ, such difference rather illustrates their concurrence on the great ecclesiastical subjects; for it proves the activity of their minds, and their energy in judging for themselves, where religion permitted.

For example, among the opinions attributed to the Fathers as erroneous, we find 'the notion of the soul in its separate state having a kind of body or sensible form, an aërial ɛïdwλov, or vehicle (as it has sometimes been called). And again, we find cited 2, as a specimen of the discrepancies of Catholic writers, the opposite con1 Whitby, pp. 201--203. 2 Ibid. Pref. lxxvi-lxxviii.

and in Theological Matter: Reserve to be allowed for.

13

jectures of St. Augustin and St. Jerome on the origination of the § i. 9, 10.

soul. Now, these are metaphysical not theological points; they fall not within the province of Christian Antiquity as such; on such points, neither discrepancy nor agreement in error proves any thing against the Fathers, as Divines.

(9.) As then common sense teaches, that in judging collectively of that large and miscellaneous body of literature, which goes under the name of the Fathers, we must select those points, if any, which are common to the whole mass; and again, that when we speak of agreement among them, we must mean agreement in principle not in detail, and on Christian not on secular subjects: so a little ecclesiastical knowledge will suggest to us another consideration, very needful to be borne in mind, when we are estimating the value of their concurrence in any point within their sphere, I mean the reverential reserve, which undoubtedly they practised in every part of religion, in proportion to its sacredness. If we would deal fairly with the subject, we must make allowance for this reserve. Knowing for certain that it did exist, we are bound to take it into the account, and often to give those who wrote under its influence credit for a more thorough agreement in high and mysterious doctrines, than their words at first sight would otherwise appear to express. One very remarkable instance, which it is enough just to mention now, it having been of late amply illustrated, is the doctrine of the Ante-Nicene Fathers concerning the Divinity of the SON of God. Another is, the rule of solemnization of the holy Sacraments. A reader versed in liturgical language, will often discover in the writings of the Fathers, sometimes in Scripture itself, allusions to the sacraments conveyed in one word or syllable, -allusions prima facie so faint, that we could hardly dare to reason upon them, were we not aware of the duty of reserve which would hinder the writers from more express disclosure of the particulars of those Holy Mysteries.

(10.) It may be well to add one more caution, relating particularly to the interpretation of Scripture. Like all questions of language, especially poetical language, it is to every one of us in some degree a matter of taste: we come to it prepossessed with certain conventional rules, or certain associations of our own, which

§ ii. 1.

14 Prejudices of Taste.-Universality of ancient Mysticism.

cling by us in spite of ourselves, and often affect our reasonings more than we are aware. But as the Scripture itself, both in substance and in form, is surely far unlike what mere human wisdom would have anticipated, so it is more than possible, that the true method of interpreting it may conduct us on a very different line, from any which would be pointed out by merely human criticism. It seems reasonable, therefore, and religious, to come to questions of that kind, expecting to meet with many things which may at first seem strange or fanciful, or otherwise unworthy of Divine wisdom; to make up our minds beforehand, that we will not be too much startled by such things, nor reject them at once, but try them by their proper measures; lest we be found deferring to our own prejudices, rather than to the truth of GOD :-prejudices, not so much of opinion, as of rhetorical or poetical taste.

Under such impressions, we may safely approach the first head of Mysticism imputed to the Fathers, viz. their mode of interpreting Holy Scripture.

§ ii.-Specimen of ancient Mysticism in interpreting Scripture.

(1.) First, as to the matter of fact; we need not perhaps hesitate to admit in the most unreserved way,—indeed it might be hard to find any one who has ever denied,—the universal adoption, by the early Christian writers, of the allegorical way of expounding the Old Testament. They do undoubtedly profess to find an intended figurative and Christian meaning, in innumerable places, which are neither express prophecies, nor alluded to as types in the New. Not only in the prophetical writings do they find our LORD and His Gospel every where; not only do they trace throughout the Levitical services the example and shadow of the future heavenly things; but they deal also in the same way with the records of history, whether Patriarchal or Jewish; and with the fragments which the HOLY GHOST has caused to be preserved out of the moral and devotional poetry of the Hebrews, -the Book of Job, the Psalms, and the Proverbs, and (what is in some respects the most significant and remarkable instance of all) the Song of Solomon from beginning to end.

The general fact is doubtless familiar to all; being constantly

Specimen of it in Allusions to the Passion.

15

produced, on the one hand, by the assailants of the Fathers § ii, 2, 3. (for "whole books," as Middleton contemptuously says ', "have been compiled of their foolish reasonings in religion ;")-nor on the other hand, has their exercise of this mode of interpretation been ever disputed, as a fact, by their defenders: whether it has been duly appreciated by the writers of either party, is altogether another question. Nowhere, perhaps, among our English divines, will the subject be found treated more thoughtfully or more worthily, than by Bishop Fell, in his Notes on St. Cyprian, and on the Apostolical Fathers. However, in so great a consent of witnesses, one may state the case largely without presumption, and without affecting more than a superficial knowledge of Antiquity.

In order

(2.) Let it then be taken for granted, that a mode of expounding, which would seem to most men fanciful and strained, generally prevails in the Christian writers of the first centuries. The great point will be, to account in some measure for this fact. to which it may be expedient not by way of proof, but of illustration, if we take some one remarkable instance, and trace it as we may through the writings of some of the most eminent and earliest Fathers. And, not to give them any undue advantage, it may be well to select one of those subjects, their treatment of which is commonly considered most extravagant; a subject, which has attracted towards them in no common degree the contemptuous wonder of modern critics and philosophers: I mean, their discovering the tokens of our LORD's Passion, and more especially the Sign of the Cross, in innumerable places of the Old Testament, which neither are so expounded in the New, nor to common eyes betray of themselves any such allusion.

(3.) To begin with the Epistle attributed to St. Barnabas; it is well known how unreservedly it adopts the allegorical mode of interpretation. Supposing it not to be written by the Apostle,-a supposition which involves no charge of forgery, since it nowhere professes to be his; and in which it may not be wrong to acquiesce, rather, however, for want of ecclesiastical testimony to its genuineness, than for any thing unworthy of such an origin to be discovered in the epistle itself,-it is undoubtedly, by the man

1 P. 57.