tisan of a particular set of opinions may misapprehend his meaning.

The bishop, be it observed, does not argue from our Lord's promises and expressions themselves, but from his own interpretation of those promises and expressions. Now, we protestants give an entirely different exposition of them; and, by our exposition, (into which it is assuredly quite irrelevant to enter,) no such result, as the infallibility of the church and the supremacy of the see of Rome, is produced.

Doubtless, the bishop may object to our interpretation, just as we object to his. But, whether we be right or wrong in our view of Christ's language, we at least have this advantage over the bishop. His interpretation is confuted by facts; our interpretation corresponds with them.

3. The bishop lastly argues, that the catholic church, which he would confine within the pale of the western Latin church, cannot err in her doctrines, because they have regularly descended to her, step by step, from the apostles themselves, whose inspired infallibility is acknowledged by all.

This argument is an extension of the well-known argument from prescription, employed so successfully by Irenæus and Tertullian in the second century.

Doctrines, they contend, received through the medium of only two or three links from the apostles themselves, and with one consent declared by all the various churches then in existence to have been thus received, cannot be false. Thus, for instance, Irenæus, himself the pupil of Polycarp the disciple of St. John, bears witness to the fact, that, in his time, all the churches in the world held the doctrine of our Lord's divinity; each professing to have received it, through the medium of one or two or three links, from the apostles; and his testimony is corroborated by Hegesippus, who, about the middle of the second century,

travelled from Asia to Rome, and found the same system of doctrine uniformly established in every church. Facts of this description form the basis of the reasoning adopted by Irenæus and Tertullian ; and the conclusion which they deduce from it is, the moral impossibility of the catholic system of theology being erroneous.*

Such is the argument, as managed by those two ancient fathers; but, as employed by the bishop of Aire, it is a mere fallacy, the detection of which is not very difficult.

What was a very good argument in the second century, when the various allied branches of the catholic church universally symbolized in doctrine, and when no church was separated from the apostles by more than one or two or three links, is but a very sorry argument in the nineteenth century, when we are separated from the apostles by some sixty links of a chain, which extends through a long period of darkness and violence and superstition. That various innovations would be introduced in the course of such a period, we might well, from the cumulative nature of tradition, reasonably anticipate; that various innovations have been introduced in the course of that period, we learn most incontrovertibly from documents yet extant. The argument from prescription, so far (we will say) as it respects the nature of God and of Christ, the matters specially set forth in the ancient symbols of the church, is just as strong now as it was in the days of Irenæus and Tertullian; because we still possess their writings; and, consequently, for all controversial purposes with heretics, we occupy the identical place which they occupied. But the argument from prescription, as employed in the nineteenth century for the purpose

*Iren. adv. hær. lib. i. c. 2, 3. lib. iii. c. 1, 3, 4. Hegesip. Apud. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. c. 21. Tertull. de præscript. adv. hæer. oper. p. 95-117.

of establishing those various unscriptural tenets which the bishop propounds seriatim as indispensable terms of communion with the church of Rome, is certainly inconclusive; because, by no mechanism, can the chain be extended from the present age to the age of the apostles. Faithful history will, for the most part, enable us to ascertain the very times of their introduction; and, if in any case we cannot specify the absolutely precise era (for the growth of error is frequently gradual), we can at least point ou the period when no such tenets existed. Some of them, no doubt, are of considerable antiquity: but, let their antiquity be what it may, if they originated subsequently to the apostolic age, the connecting chain is effectually broken; and they stand forth as convicted novelties. Whatever is first, is true; whatever is more recent, is spurious. The argument from prescription, in the hands of Irenæus and Tertullian, invincibly establishes the catholic doctrines of Christ's godhead and the Trinity; because it clearly connects them with the inspired apostolic college. But the argument from prescription, in the hands of the bishop of Aire, fails of establishing the various tenets for which he so eagerly contends; because it wholly fails of connecting them with the infallible apostolic college, and thence of necessity leaves them branded with the stigma of detected innovation.

III. How then, it may be asked, in these latter days of the world, are we to settle disputed points of doctrine and practice? How are we to avoid those divisions, which the bishop triumphantly exhibits as the opprobrium of the reformation?

An answer, not altogether unsatisfactory, may, I think, be given to this important question, without calling in the aid either of a pope or of a council.

1. As the Bible is confessedly the revealed will of God, and as no one pretends that we possess any other written, and therefore any other certain, revelation, me must evidently begin with rejecting every

doctrine and every practice built upon such doctrine, which have clearly no foundation in Holy Scripture.

This process will at once sweep away a large heap of mere unathorized innovations, which lamentably encumber the church of Rome, and which assuredly will never be adopted by those who take their divinity from the Bible alone.

2. When sundry innovations have been thus removed, as supported by no scriptural authority, other certain tenets will still remain, which, unlike the last, profess to be built upon the sure foundation of God's own inspired word.

Here our business is obviously reduced to a point of interpretation; and, as very different expositions may be given of the same passage, the question arises, who is to determine which exposition is the truth?

(1.) The bishop of Aire will doubtless say; Consult the catholic church, the sole judge and depository of the true faith.

This may be very good advice in the abstract; but the difficulty is to explain how such advice must be followed. Had the church never varied, we might have had some reasonable expectation of success; but, unhappily, as it is well remarked by the deeply learned Chillingworth, there have been popes against popes, councils against councils; councils con firmed by popes against councils confirmed by popes; the church of some ages against the church of other ages. Under such circumstances, therefore, the bishop must not only advise us to consult the catholic church; but he must also specify, giving reasons for his specification, the exact time when the catholic church is to be consulted.

(2.) Others, perhaps, will exhort us to call in the right of private judgment, which has often been described more eloquently than wisely, as a main principle of protestantism, and which the bishop of

Chillingworth's Relig. of Protest. chap. iii. p. 147.

Aire not unjustly reprobates as leading to nothing but confusion.

Of this principle, as exhibited by the bishop, and not unfrequently as exhibited also by unwary protestants, I entertain not a much higher opinion than the bishop himself does. The exercise of insulated private judgment, which in effect is the abuse of legitimate private judgment, must clearly convert the church catholic into a perfect Babel; and, although I deny the right of such private judgment to be a principle either of sound protestantism in general, or of the Anglican church in particular, yet I regret to say, that it has much too often been exercised, to the scandal of all sober men, and to the unspeakable detriment of genuine religion.

Having thus fairly stated my own sentiments, I shall explain what I conceive to be the difference between legitimate private judgment and illegitimate private judgment.

To a certain extent the bishop of Aire will allow, that private judgment must be exercised. Thus, I cannot read his lordship's very able work and come to a conclusion upon it, without so far exercising private judgment; and the very tenor of the whole composition implies, that private judgment in the choice of their religion will be exercised by those English travellers, for whose especial benefit it seems to have been written. Thus, likewise, we shall introduce an universal scepticism, if we deny the right of forming a private judgment upon perfectly unambiguous propositions. No authoritative explanation can throw any additional light upon the several prohibitions of murder and theft and adultery, which occur in Holy Scripture. We read those prohibitions in the sacred volume; we involuntarily exercise our private judgment upon their import; and, by its mere simple exercise alone, we are all brought, without any need of inquiring the sense of the church, to one and the same interpretation. In