even as the apostles were commissioned to communicate the teaching of God. Herein,' says bishop Sherlock, we do not consider them as a church, but as credible witnesses.' For how can the authority of a company of men who call themselves the church, before I know whether there be any church, move me to believe any thing which was done sixteen hundred years ago'?1 For certainly the church has no charter but what is in the Scripture.' For, should synods, and convocations, and oecumenical councils determine that for an article of faith, which is not plain and intelligible in Scripture, they were ridiculous, indeed, and there were an end of their authority.' 3

3

2

The very question being, whether the authority of these fathers is what is claimed for them, their own testimony cannot be taken as sufficient proof. The validity of all such proof, drawn from the ancient councils and writings of the fathers, we reject, for sufficient reasons. As to councils, for the first three hundred years there was,' as Bellarmine allows, no General Assembly; afterwards, scarce one in an hundred years.' 5 And when they did take place, their canons were episcoporum decreta,' that is, the decrees of bishops, as Cyprian testifies, enacted by the sole authority of bishops, the presbyters and laity being gradually allowed no other privilege than that of consenting to them when made. Such testimony, therefore, the court of reason and impartial honesty rules to be improper, partial, and wholly inadmissible, seeing that claimants charged with the dishonest usurpation of an authority never delegated to them, as are these prelates, never can be permitted to give testimony in favour of themselves.

66

II. ON THE DELUSIVE VALUE ATTACHED TO THE FATHERS, BASED ON THE AMBIGUITY OF THE TERM OLD.

As it regards the alleged testimony of the fathers, we must remember, that there is a great delusion in the value attached to their testimony, and, secondly, a great mistake as to its character and amount. This value is made to rest on its great antiquity. Now there is a great fallacy as to the term old. În its strict and proper sense, this word means the length of time any thing has existed, and in this sense it is at once apparent, that the age of the earliest fathers was the infancy and childhood of Christianity, and that, whatever wisdom is to be attached to age, or to be derived from experience, must be looked for, not in the earliest

1 Notes of the Church Ex. and Refuted, pp. 6, 45.

2 Ibid., p. 7.

* See Jordan's Rev. of Tradition, pp. 51, 79, 85, 90, and Nolan's Cath. pp. 61, 64. 5 De Rom. pp. 1-8, in Barrow's Wks. fol. vol. i, 780. 7 Potter on Ch. Govt. pp. 294, etc.

3 Ibid., p. 47. Char, of Christ. 6 Ep. 1, 48, 55.

but in the present age. We are the fathers, they were the children. Ours is the ancient, theirs was the newformed church. Ours are all the lights of experience, with all the records of inspiration, and all the investigations and experiments of the wise and the pious. The early age, as we have seen, like that of childhood, was most open to delusion, and least able to resist or to detect encroaching abuses. The same multiplied errors in doctrine and practice, which existed in the apostolic age, continued when there were no longer any inspired and infallible guides, to tell what error was. Neither were the churches then generally possessed of the Scriptures, nor of all the Bible, so as in all cases, at once, to try the new-broached sentiments, whether they were of God. It was a long time before the whole canon of Scriptnre was agreed upon by universal testimony. Some churches had one part, some another; Rome herself had not all. We, however, do possess the written word, in all its fulness, and are thus as near the fountain-head as the first Christians; possess, substantially, all that the apostles preached; and have far greater facilities for drawing from the fountain the clear and unadulterated water of eternal truth. The earliest was in truth the most ignorant and the weakest age of the church. The state of the world, generally, was then immoral and irreligious. The great body of the first Christians were of the lowest orders. The first churches, as is evident from the reproofs of the inspired epistles, were exposed to the greatest disorders, the wildest schemes, the most fatal and licentious tendencies, and the most artful and hardened deceivers. From the death of the apostles until the time of Justin Martyr, that is, for eighty years after the death of Peter and Paul, and about fifty years after the death of John, there was no writer of any note; whilst the works of the judaising Clement, the cabalistic fancies of Barnabas, and the wild reverys of Hermas, were publicly read in the churches. Neither have we any true record of the earliest ages, as is universally admitted and confessed by Eusebius and Jerome.2 Those very points, on which there was then the most universal consent, as for instance the doctrine of the millennium, the practice of giving the eucharist to infants, and the carnal intercourse of the angels with women, are now universally condemned as unscriptural and unapostolical. And just as it was by their agreement as to the canonical books of Scripture, and their acknowledgment of them as the rule of their faith and practice, these early

3

2 See admissions

1 See Whateley's Logic, appendix, art. Old, p. 359, Eng. ed. in Jameson's Sum of the Episc. Controv. p. 181; Euseb. Eccl. Hist.; Pref. Jerome's Ep. to Dexter; Petavius, Rationar. lib. v, part i, c. 3. 3 See Goode's Div. Rule of Faith, vol. i, p. 500; Letters on the Fathers, p. 68.

M

churches were enabled to ascertain the truth or falsity of any opinion; so is it by these same Scriptures all systems must now be tried, the rule being necessarily clearer and more authoritative than any thing which appeals to it as a ground of certainty and proof. Otherwise our faith would rest on tradition, and tradition-not the Bible-would become our rule of faith.

III. ON THE DELUSION AS TO THE CHARACTER AND AMOUNT OF THE TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

So much as to the value of the patristical testimony. But we are under no less delusion as to its character and amount. On this subject we might say much, but it is unnecessary, since the Treatise of Daillé,1 and of Mr. Goode,2 are both published in this country, and are accessible to all. The tradition of the fathers, commonly called the universal church, even if harmonious and ascertainable, would not be an infallible reporter of the oral tradition of the apostles, for the reasons already assigned. There is nothing upon which the faith of all private Christians can less rely than this pretended universality, and that for these reasons: 1. Because it does not appear what is that universal church whose faith is to be the rule. 2. Because it is not known what is the faith of that church. 3. Because it is not manifest whether the faith of any church assignable be true. But were it otherwise, and were such a consentient judgment of the fathers authoritative, it is not possible that such an agreement can be ascertained. Let it be supposed that the famous canon of Vincentius was binding, and that that is true which was believed always, every where, and by all; yet when wise men consider this way, with all those cautions and limitations set down by him, they are apt to think he hath put men to a wild-goose chase, to find out any thing according to his rules, and that St. Augustine spake a great deal more to the purpose, when he spake concerning all the writers of the church, that although they had ever so much learning and sanctity, he did not think it true because they thought so, but because they persuaded him to think it true, either from the authority of Scripture or some probable reason. In the first two centuries there were no full or satisfactory creeds, and certainly none which contain any thing as to the subject of the present controversy. Neither were there, during that time, any general

'6

5

2 Goode's Div. Rule

1 A Treatise on the Right Use of the Fathers, Lond. 1841. of Faith and Practice, 2 vols. 8vo. 3 See Goode, vol. i. pp. 167, 177, 181, and Daillé, b. ii, c. 1 and 2. 4 Placette in Goode, vol. i, p. 177. 5 See Goode, as above, pp. 160-185, and Daillé, b. i, c. 9-11. 6 Stillingfleet's Rat. Grounds of Protest. Relig. 1665, p. 279. See this rule well exposed in the Edinburgh Review, April, 1843, pp. 279, etc.

councils. Neither, if there had been such, could they, in any proper sense, represent to us the faith and practice of the church universally.

1

The records which remain of these early times will never, therefore, justify us in deducing from them the opinions and practice of the churches universally. It so happens that the whole list of the Christian writers, for the first two centuries, whose works are still extant, is an exceedingly short one, comprising about sixteen writers. We cannot reckon, therefore, upon one witness for every million of existing Christians. These, also, and we may add the writers of the third century, formed but a very small proportion of the writers of those ages. The author of the Synopsis of Scripture,' speaks of myriads of other books without number, composed by the fathers, who, in their time, were great, and excelling in wisdom, and taught of God.' But these are all lost or destroyed. It is, therefore, preposterous to make this small number of scattered writers, the uncommissioned and plenary representatives of the universal church, for three hundred years, and to exalt their opinions into apostolic teaching. Besides, it is manifest that in these remaining works, we are permitted to see antiquity only through that medium which the ruling party in the church, that is, the clergy and the bishops, have allowed to be preserved. Neither are we certain that any one treatise, and especially on points touching the ministry, has come down to us unaltered and uninterpolated. We are indebted, be it remembered, to the Romanists, for all the earlier editions of the fathers, and while whole treatises have been suppressed, others have been grievously corrupted, and others forged, and published in their name; so that one hundred and eighty treatises, professing to be written by authors of the first six centuries, are now repudiated, by the most learned of the Romanists themselves, as rank forgeries, or not written by the authors whose names they bear.5 There is a mystery connected with this same business of maufacturing fathers, with which the uninitiated commonalty ought to be made fully acquainted. It is not less certain that corruptions have been introduced into the genuine works of the fathers." This corruption has been shown to be very extensive, and considering the opportunities enjoyed, must have been very general. Facts, there

8

1 Goode, ibid., pp. 187, etc., and Daillé, b. i, ch. ii, iii. 2 Goode, ibid., pp. 187, 188. 3 Ibid., p. 192. 4 We know the contrary, as it regards Ignatius; see also, generally, our position maintained by Nolan's Catholic Char. of Christ. pp. 154, 172; Milton shows at some length, that the best times were spreadingly infected; the best men of these times foully tainted; and the best writings of these men dangerously adulterated. Ref. in Eng. Wks. vol. i, p. 15. 5 Goode, pp. ibid., 195, 199, etc. 7 Goode, p. 200. 8 Goode, pp. 200

Powell on Trad. Supplement, p. 23. 217, vol. i, and Daillé, b, í, c. 7, and b. ii, c. 5,

fore, plain and undeniable, show that the records which remain to us are not trust-worthy witnesses of the oral apostolical traditions. In this presumption we are countenanced by Augustine, who questioned the genuineness of one of the writings attributed to Cyprian, and supposed that another of his had been suppressed.1 This danger was also felt by Irenæus, and by Dionysius of Corinth, who complained of this misrepresentation, by the corruption of his writings. Nor can we now be ever possibly certified as to the genuineness and correctness of the patristical volumes, the time having gone by for establishing the proof, through the negligence of the early publishers.3

IV.

THE TESTIMONY AFFORDED BY THE FATHERS IS DIS-
CORDANT, AND THEREFORE INCONCLUSIVE.

But, further, these writings are discordant.+ Fathers are found opposed to fathers, councils to councils, creeds to creeds, and the same fathers to themselves.5 This is eminently true in reference to this very subject of prelacy, since the same writers are made to speak most clearly, as the respective parties suppose, on both sides of the question. These fathers, in some cases, falsify, even when they pretend to deliver the opinions of the apostles themselves. Thus they unanimously attributed to the apostles the millenarian scheme of Christ's personal return and reign upon the earth. The eastern and the western fathers most flatly contradict each other, as to the time of observing Easter; and yet both asserted that they were sustained by express apostolic testimony. The most violent controversies also prevailed, as to the propriety of re-baptising heretics. Opinions the most opposite prevailed, as to the duration of our Lord's public ministry; so that even on a question of time, respecting a most notorious and interesting subject, tradition, in a short time, spread the most variant apostolic declarations. These fathers taught that Enoch and Elias would hereafter reappear on earth, at the place from which they ascended to heaven, in order to wage war with anti-christ.io Many of them taught the absolute unlawfulness of an oath to a Christian man. They enjoined standing at prayer on Sundays, and during the period between Easter and Whitsuntide.12 Ignatius, on his way to Rome, admonished the churches of Asia, to take especial heed to the heresies which were then springing up and encreasing.'13 Papias, also, about A. D. 110, intimates that

8

2 Hampden, ibid., pp. 29, 30. 5 That any thing may be proved 6 Goode, vol. i, pp. 313, 323. 9 Ibid., pp. 343-345. 10 Ibid., pp. 421, 426, 13 Euseb. Eccl.