Ambrose, to give but one of the many testimonies, says, 'Let us interrogate the Scriptures, let us interrogate the Apostles, let us interrogate the Prophets, let us interrogate Christ.' It is shown that the Scriptures are a sufficient ground for all the articles of faith professed by the Church of England, and not for them only, but for some things that may be called rites and ceremonies, às infant baptism, observance of Sunday, episcopal government.

That the Fathers regarded Holy Scripture as the only rule of faith is shown at large. They knew nothing of 'Catholic consent' supplementary to the Scripture, or as an interpretation of Scripture. Justin Martyr, speaking of those who denied the divinity of Christ, said, 'We are commanded by Christ Himself to be ruled, not by the doctrines of men, but those preached by the blessed prophets and taught by Him.' Origen refers to 'the most true rule of the Scriptures,' and the doctrine agreeable to it. Augustine takes the Scriptures as unerrable, but as for other authors, he did not take anything they said as certainly true.

Testimonies from the writings of the Saints may be brought forward, but their authority is not to be 'put by us on a level' with the Scriptures. The immediate disciples of the Apostles might be expected to refer to the oral teaching of their masters as authoritative and as the Word of God, as well as their writings. But any reference by them to the authority of the Scriptures became on this account of more value. Ignatius says of some that they would only believe what they read in the original, otherwise they would not believe it to be written in the Gospel.' The great question even at this time was 'Is it written?' Polycarp wrote to the Philippians, 'I trust that you are well exercised in the Holy Scriptures and nothing is hid from you.' On what Irenæus said of heretics appealing to tradition when Scripture was against them, Erasmus wrote, 'Irenæus fights against a host of heretics with the sole aid of the Scriptures.' Tertullian says of every doctrine, 'Nothing is certain respecting it because the Scripture does not declare it.' Again, 'If it is not written, let him fear that woe which is destined for them who add to or take from the Scriptures.' Even after he became a

of that sect, he considered the 'new prophecy' as concerning only improvements in the discipline of the Church.' The testimony of Clement of Alexandria may seem to be on the other side. He had a doctrine of tradition peculiar to himself. He called it a Gnostic Tradition, given only to gnostics, that is, perfect Christians. This was a kind of private tradition committed by Jesus to His more favoured apostles. The Carpocratians had a similar belief. They said that Jesus Christ spoke some things privately in a mysterious manner to His disciples and apostles, and commanded to deliver those things to them that were worthy and obedient. Clement added the Gnostic Tradition' to Scripture as together constituting the rule of faith. Lactantius described the faith as 'that which is contained in the divine Scriptures.' Athanasius referred to Scripture as the 'source' of truth, more 'exact' than any other, and the Council of Nicæa decreed to 'banish hostile contention, and take the solution of the points in question from the words of divine inspiration.' These are but a few excerpts from the many passages quoted by Goode. Many more are added, and those which seem to say that there is another rule of faith besides the Scriptures, so modify this, testimony that for all practical purposes it is neutralised.

Then follow the testimonies of the principal divines of the Church of England. The canon of 1571 is first considered. It is the chief Anglican authoritative document for the principle of tradition. That canon says that nothing is to be taught except what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, and collected out of that very doctrine by the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops.' It is not usual to quote the rest of the canon which goes on to say that 'the clergy shall not teach vain and senseless opinions and heresies and Popish errors.' The object of the canon is to support the Reformed doctrine by the authority of the Fathers. According to Bishop Patrick it was intended to preserve preachers from broaching any idle, novel or Popish doctrine.' Waterland says, 'It does not order that they shall teach whatever has been taught by the Fathers,' nor 'whatsoever the Fathers had collected from Scripture,' but 'the doctrine must be first proved in Scripture.' It is enough to quote a few of the

all controversy' we are to 'remit judgment unto God's Word.' Hooker adduced the authority of St Paul for esteeming Scripture as the supreme rule whereby all other doctrines must for ever be examined.' Bishop Hare says 'As for traditions which they do lift up to an unjust competition with the written Word, our Saviour hath before humbled them unto the dust.' Archbishop Laud wrote 'You have been often enough told that if you will show us such unwritten Word of God delivered by the prophets and apostles we will acknowledge it to be divine, infallible.' Thomas Jackson calls 'the making of ecclesiastical tradition to be an integral part of the canon of faith,' one of the additions made by the Roman Church.

A Nonconformist writer who had given some attention to the study of Christian antiquity, gave his judgment on the Oxford movement and its relation to the Primitive Church.1 He admitted that the appeal from the alleged authority of the Romish Church to a Catholicity more Catholic and an antiquity more ancient was perfectly legitimate. The external defence was good, but embarrassments came from within. The pristine Church was not so pure as by many it is supposed to have been. The Tract writers were staking the very existence of the English Church on notions of ancient Christianity which will not bear examination.

It is proposed to lay open the whole condition, moral, spiritual and ecclesiastical of the ancient Church. The writer assumes that the English Reformers had in view a return to the Ante-Nicene Church, the practical influence of which had been evil. The Evangelical clergy may contend with the Tractarians, but not as Churchmen. There is no agreement between the Evangelical leaders and the Fathers of the Nicene age. Some deference is due to the mind and testimony of the ancient Catholic Church, but the Tract writers have not determined the limits of this deference. They have followed Christian antiquity with a credulous veneration, forgetful of the apostolic predictions concerning the early apostasy. They are like men who persist in sleeping in the Campagna, after having been warned that the whole region 1 See Ancient Christianity and the Doctrines of the Oxford Tracts,

exhales a malignant miasma. The first five, or even the first three, centuries comprise samples of every variety of intellectual or moral aberration of which the human mind under the influence of religious excitement is susceptible. The notions prevailing in the early Church were so false and pernicious that if the Tract writers and their followers had then been at Carthage, Alexandria, Rome or Antioch, they would have been glad to make their escape towards our own time and country, and we should never have heard another word about 'venerable antiquity,' or 'the Holy Catholic Church of the first ages.'

The writer dwells mainly on religious celibacy and how it affected every other element. It came from Gnosticism which the Fathers refuted, and yet by Gnosticism they were powerfully influenced in every branch of doctrine, and in the whole ecclesiastical constitution. This heresy sprang from oriental theosophy. It regarded the material world as too vile to be the work of the Unknown Father,' the author of all good. It was the work of inferior gods, and the Christ or Logos came to deliver it. The same doctrine is found in many Fathers, as for instance in Gregory Nyssen, who says that 'the only approach to the Deity is in the path of abstraction from the affections of humanity as connected with our animal and social state, and that the institution of virginity has this very end in view that we may the more effectually withdraw ourselves from the entanglements of mundane existence.' Some of the Fathers make the object of the descent of the Logos into our world to be the abrogation of the original sexual constitution and the institution of a more spiritual economy. The oriental poison was received that virginity. rendered a man like to the incorruptible God.

The conclusion is that the English and Nicene Churches may be allied by half-a-dozen ambiguous phrases, but they are substantially and immeasurably different. If the Anglican is to appeal to a higher antiquity than the Romish, he must submit to it fully and openly. To reject certain parts and to retain others is to fall back on the Protestant principle of private judgment. Gnosticism supplied the principle of the Church of Rome and Polytheism its ritual. We may

involves also the Nicene Church, for the difference is in circumstantials, not in substance.

The Tracts were answered on the Roman Catholic side by three articles in the Dublin Review by Dr Wiseman.1 The argument culminated in the third, which traced a complete parallel between the position of the Donatists of Africa and that of the Tract writers. The Church of England under Elizabeth was a new Church. The Bishops who held the Sees under Mary were deprived not by any law of the Church but solely by the civil power. Anthony Kitchin, Bishop of Llandaff was the only Bishop in office who took the oath of supremacy to Elizabeth. By the deprivation of these bishops the Church of England put itself in a state of schism. It had no ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and so no power to connect the new hierarchy with the old one. The metropolitan See was vacant. The bishops who refused to take the oath of supremacy refused to consecrate. The consecration of the new Archbishop was performed by four Protestant Bishops who had been deprived under Mary, and were at this time out of office. They had no connection with the Church Catholic, and represented nobody but the Queen, who undertook to make good by her own right whatever was deficient in their authority. Augustine as if by anticipation, had answered the Tractarians. He wrote, 'You are with us in baptism, in the creed, in the other sacraments of the Lord, but in the spirit of unity, in the bond of peace, in the Catholic faith you are not with us.'

The Donatists began with the predecessor of Donatus, Majorinus who had been consecrated in the place of Cæcilianus because this Cæcilianus was a Traditor, that is one who had given up the sacred books in the time of the Diocletian persecution. Seventy bishops assembled in Carthage with the Primate of Numidia at their head, refused to communicate with him. By their authority Majorinus was consecrated in his place. Here began a national church in separation from the Catholic. The majority adhered to it, not many remained in communion with the deprived Bishop Cæcilianus, but these were in communion with the Catholic Church throughout the world, while the Donatists were only in Africa. This was the