(3) Both appeal (though Ultra-Protestants less now than formerly) to individual Fathers, when they make for them, and set them aside when against them'. (4) Both will take one Father who sides with them, against the whole stream of Antiquity if against them. (5) Both hold, that the Spirit had reserved for these later times, what He denied to the earlier; that certain truth may now be arrived at, where the Ancient Church was in doubt and error 2; only,

to be proposed to us, that we may embrace them, depend on them, and plead them in prayer, considering the glory of the Divine veracity as concerned in their accomplishment to every believer; let them try whether they can possibly evade one of these two conclusions—either that God hath failed of His promise, or that He hath in the main, and as far as is expressed, led the author by His Holy Spirit to the knowledge and belief of the truth." In like way, "Essays on the Church," p. 304.

1 Thus Basnage (Hist. des Eglises Réformées, P. i. c. 6. § 4.) appeals to Clemens Romanus, in behalf of his view of justification by faith, supposing the truth to have been obscured or lost ever after in Christian Antiquity.

2 See Mr. Newman on "Romanism." So again Bp. Jewel, 1. c. "It is a world, to consider the reason ye use to prove your purpose withal. For ye say, the Church in Christ's and the Apostles' time was but an infant; but now she is well-stricken in age, therefore she must be otherwise dieted now than she was then. This is not the handsomest comparison that I have heard of. For I never heard before now that Christ and His Apostles were called infants; or that ever any man before now took upon him to set them to school. Esay saith, that Christ should be Pater futuri seculi; that is, the Father of the world to come, which is the time of the Gospel. And St. Hierom, in your own Decrees, calleth the

again, the Romanist claims this enlarged illumination or inspiration to the Church; Ultra-Protestants to Individuals. (6) Both prefer what is modern to what is ancient, what is further from the source, to what is nearer. (7) Both deeply disparage Christian antiquity. And this agreement is not accidental, but arises from the same source in each, that each has to support modern corruptions of doctrine, unknown to Christian Antiquity, and therefore appeals against her and will not trust itself to her, as knowing beforehand that they will be condemned by her. And so it is scarcely uncharitable to suspect, that, beneath this professed and conscious dread, lest an appeal to tradition should give Rome an advantage, there lurks also a secret and unconscious or half-conscious dread for themselves: they have good reason to suspect, if they do not absolutely know, that Christian Antiquity is against them, and so they would anticipate the blow, by stifling it; they fear that her voice should be listened to, and so would drown it, by their outcries against her; and while they close the ear

Apostles, Patres, that is not infants, but the Fathers of the Church. And I believe, though ye would study and labour for it, yet would it be very hard for you, either to find out any good substantial reason, wherefore ye with your brethren ought to be called the Fathers of God's Church, or Christ and His Apostles ought to be called babes. O that ye would indifferently compare the one with the other! ye should find, that as like as ye and your Bishops are to the Apostles, so like is your Church to the Apostles' Church."

against her, as if she would give witness for Rome, which she would not give, they hope to escape hearing the testimony which she would give against the Anti-sacramental system of Geneva.

But this is an alarming course, and the irreverential spirit in which it is begun, bodes but ill of its termination. It were an ungrateful task, were any to set themselves systematically to show that Christian Antiquity were not to be trusted; yet this would require patience and research; but what must one think of the piety and reverence, which would make sport with the supposed defects of the Fathers of the Church, and discover their father's shame; which would repeat from mouth to mouth the one or other saying, which themselves had first misunderstood and distorted, in order triumphantly to ask, what could be thought of the judgment of men who could so speak? Truly, it seems like the Philistines making sport with the mighty man whose eyes they had first put out, and likely to meet with their end. It was scarcely in so irreverential, but in the same sceptical spirit, that Semler, the parent of German Neology, began unravelling the belief of his country: but the criticism of the Fathers mounted up to the criticism of the Apostles; and the criticism of the Apostles to that of their LORD; and the disbelief in their LORD is in its last stage become a dethroning of GOD, and a setting up of self, a Pantheism which worships GOD as enshrined in self.

This subject, upon which I have detained your

Lordship so long, may also, as the first instance of the supposed Romanist tendency of some principles of our great Divines, illustrate how mistaken is the ground of these vague fears. Opposed errors will often meet truth will not approximate to either, though if looked upon on either side, it will seem to be nearer to the opposite than these are to each other. The proverbial truth tells us "extremes meet," as in this case also is verified; whereas the mean which our Church holds will never meet with either extreme; they parted off from it; and however slight the original divergence, become more and more widely separated from it, and never again join. To a careless or superficial thinker, the mean seems likely to join the extreme, because it has in it some quality which is wanting to the other extreme; but it is not so; it agrees with the extreme, not in essentials, but in something incidental; the rash man appears to have one quality in common with the brave one, in that he exposes himself to danger; the brave man's caution may readily appear like cowardice; and so the rash thinks the brave cowardly, and the coward holds him to be rash; whereas the exposing himself to danger or no, is but an accident; the principle on which he does it, or refrains from it, is that which constitutes his character; he then will neither be rash nor cowardly; but the coward will be rash, and the rash will be cowardly, if emergencies so determine. Prodigality and avarice seem to be contraries; yet are they continually united, as in Catiline," alieni appe

"tens, sui profusus :" he who is simply liberal, will be neither, though by either extreme he will be confounded with the other. "Extremes meet," because they proceed on no settled principle, but on passion; they are guided by no internal rules, but are blown about, this way or that, by the force of outward circumstances; the mean goes on fixed principles, and therefore holds on an even course, undeviating and therefore never approximating to either extreme And so our English Church has by the Church of Rome been confounded with Ultra-Protestants, and by Ultra-Protestants has ever been thought to approximate to Rome. In the present instance, it is but accident that Rome appeals to Antiquity, or UltraProtestantism to Scripture; both have an ulterior object, to maintain their own system; but Romanism will found its errors on Scripture, or will disparage Christian Antiquity with Ultra-Protestantism. And Ultra-Protestantism, in its turn, will neglect the plain meaning of Scripture, or appeal to Christian Antiquity, to establish views formed independently of Antiquity; whereas the genuine English system, being founded on Holy Scripture as interpreted by Christian Antiquity, possesses a deep reverence for Scripture as the source of the Faith, and for Antiquity, as its witness and expositor; and appealing to both, for the office assigned to them by Him who gave them, has only so much in common with either extreme that it holds the truth which they have perverted, but approximates in no way to their errors.