strange doctrine are raging furiously around us, and threatening to bring down the very bulwarks of our Zion, to act as a lanthorn for the protection of that light. And if the High Churchmen provide you, my Brethren, with another reason for loving your Prayer Book, forgive them this wrong. But then comes the grand charge of all-this system of deference to antiquity must lead to Poperý: án assertion which it is the more difficult to refute since it is impossible in these days to ascertain what, in the sense of the religious world, Popery is. Some persons tell us that the surplice is a rag of Popery, because the Papists in their ministrations wear a surplice in common with ourselves; others speak of the Prayer Book as Popish, because almost the whole of the Book of Common Prayer may be found in the Roman Missal and Breviary. Some religionists regard infant baptism as a remnant of Popery, while others only think it Popish to suppose that infants derive any benefit from that Sacrament: some persons think the Catechism Popish, and others that it is Popish to teach children doctrines before they can understand them: a highly respectable, though, as I think, an awfully mistaken class of religionists, who profess to be guided by the Bible only, think the doctrine of the Trinity Popish, because the Papists, amidst all their corruptions, still worship the Trinity in B Unity and the Unity in Trinity. Now the real fact is, that you may in this way prove almost any Scriptural truth to be Popish, because Popery consists, in novel enlargements of old Catholic truths; in novel additions tos ancient and true doctrines. Thus the Papist holds with us that the twenty-two Books of the Old Testament are canonical; but then he adds to them other books which we affirm to be apocryphal: he agrees with us in believing that after death there is a heaven and rachell, but then he adds a purgatory. He agrees with us that sins are to be remitted by the merits of Christ; but he adds the merits of the saints. He agrees with us that God is to be worshipped; but he adds again an inferior worship due to the saints, together with the Virgin and the angels. He receives Christ as a Mediator; but again The adds the mediation of the Virgin, saints, and angels. -He agrees with us in believing our Lord's real presence at the Eucharist; he adds his corporeal presence by transubstantiation. He agrees with us in believing the Communion of Saints; he adds the invocation of them. He agrees with us in maintaining the divine authority of Bishops and Priests; he adds the supremacy of the Pope over all Bishops and Priests. He receives with bus the three creeds; he adds the creed of Pope Pius the IV These additions have led to further corruptions; such as the adoration of the consecrated bread at the Lord's Supper, the worship of images, and 11 other superstitions not needful to refer to. You perceive, then, the very great absurdity of accusing persons of being Popish merely because it may be shewn that the doctrines which they happen to hold are doctrines held also by the Papists. Why, on this ground, all would be Papists who believe in the plenary inspira tion of Holy Scripture; since such is the doctrines of the Church of Rome, as strongly enforced in the Vatican assins the Meeting House. The real question is not whether the Papists hold such and such doctrines in common with us; but whether we adhere to their additions to the Gospel truth. To accuse those of an inclination so to do, who have a respect for antiquity, is evidently absurd; they are the very last persons to sanction Popish novelties, for the moment they do so their deference form antiquity must, in the very nature of things, cease; that is, they must renounce their principle before they can countenance Popery, or gift 36 sds, quivedad ni en How can those who have respect for antiquity acknowledge the Supremacy of the See of Rome, when they remember how Polycrates and the Bishops of Asia opposed the opinion of Pope Victor and despised his excommunications?-how the same Victor was rebuked for his arrogance and indiscretion by Irenæus?* how 1 St. Cyprian saluted the Bishop of Rome by no higher title than that of brother and colleague, and feared not to express his contempt of Pope Stephen's judgment and determinations when that prelate gave his countenance to heretics? when they remember how Liberius Bishop of Rome, in the 4th century applied to the great St. Athanasius to sanction his confession of faith: "that I ཌམམཕབ་པ may know," said that Pope of Rome to Athanasius, "whether I am of the same judgment with you in matters of faith, and that I may be more certain, and readily obey your commands? When they learn from Gregory the Great, himself Bishop of Rome in the 6th and 7th centuries, that "the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon were they who first offered to his predecessors the title of universal Bishop, which they refused to accept"; as well they might, since Gregory tells us elsewhere in this epistle, that it is "a title blasphemous to Christian ears"? When they remember that the fourth Lateran was the first of those Councils which even Romanists call general, that recognized the authority of the Roman See as Supreme over the church,a Council which assembled in the year 1215? How can they ever recognize the Church of Rome "the mistress and mother of all churches," when they know that the Fathers of the second general Council, that of Constantinople in the year 381, gave that very title to the Church, not of Rome but of Jerusalem, writing in their synodical epistle: "we acknowledge the most venerable Cyril, most beloved of God to be the Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem, which is the mother of all churches."* No, my brethren, whatever difficulties some persons, relying only on themselves, may have in explaining that passage in the 16th chapter of St. Matthew, Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock will I build my Church! the Romish argument founded upon that text will fall harmless upon those who defer to the Fathers; since we have St. Augustine, and St. Gregory Nazianzen,+ and St. Cyril,+ and St. Chrysostom, and St. Ambrose,§ and 1 74 " St. Hilary, expounding that Scripture in the protestant sense. Neither are they very likely to fall down and worship. the Saints departed who know that among the Fathers one of the strongest arguments, as they deemed it, which could be brought forward in favor of our Lord's divinity was the fact that prayer was to be made unto Him;while we are commanded to pray only to God. The Conc. ii. 966. Perceval's Roman Schism, p. 32. Augustine De Verb. Dom. Serm. 13. * Nazian. Test. de Vet. Testam. + Cyril de Trin. Lib. 4. § Ambros. Com. in Ephes. St. Chrysost. Hom. 55. in Mat. |