I.': :■ {■: 1<* r.O^ ^ ^ : ■'%. .^ o ^-.-^y : > >^ c fe; i THE / //WW-^/-£^t^- DIFFICUL.TIES ROMANISM. BY GEORGE STANLEY FABER, B. D. BECTOR OP LONG-NEWTON, AUTHOR OF "THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY." 'Peraeque adversus universas heereses jam hinc prsejudicatum sit: id esse Terum, quodcunque primum ; id esse adulterum, quodcunque posterius." TertulL adv, Prax. § ii, Oper. p. 405. PHILADELPHIA: TOWAR &L HOGAN ^255, MARKET STREET. Gift Mrs. Henn«n Jennins* April 26, l*» TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE NICHOLAS, LORD BEXLEY, AS A TOKEN OF SINCERE RESPECT BOTH FOR HIS PITBIIC SERVICES AND HIS PRIVATE VIRTUES, THIS MANUAL IS INSCRIBED, BT HIS OBLIGED AND OBEDIENT HUMBLE SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. At various intervals, during the course of some years past, my attention has been turned to that part of the Latin controversy, which respects the evidence afforded by the early ecclesiastical writers. I. It appeared to me, that, on all the great leading points of divinity, those who conversed with the f apostles, and those who lived nearest to the times of I x the apostles, must best have known the mind of the ^ apostles. Whence it seemed to follow, that, if the . Latin church really possessed that immutability of character which is so constantly claimed on her behalf, all those various doctrines and practices, which many persons are wont to deem corruptions of the truth, must have subsisted from the apostolic age itself, and might therefore be clearly discovered in the productions of all the early ecclesiastics. Such a testimony as this in favour of the Roman system of theology, should it actually exist, would be so powerful, that it is difficult to conceive how it could be reasonably set aside : for, if all the ancient writers, with one voice, up to the very time of the apostles, taught and maintained, as the familiar and acknow- ledged doctrines and practices of the primitive catholic church, those identical doctrines and practices which a2 I. VI PREFACE. are now taught and mamtained by the church of Rome ; I see not how we can avoid the inference, that those doctrines and practices rest ultimately upon the in- spired authority of the apostles themselves. II. It is obvious, that, in collecting evidence of this description, we require, as a point indispensably neces- sary to constitute its validity, both the unbroken con- tinuity of the chain of witnesses^ and the strict mutual harmony of the witnesses themselves. Unless the chain of witnesses extend to the apostolic age, the evidence is incomplete : and, since its whole strength depends upon its completeness, if incomplete, it is altogether worthless. To discover any peculiar doctrine or practice of the Latin church, in the works (we will say) of a writer of {he fourth century, will be of no avail, unless the same doctrine and practice be also recognised, in orderly succession, by a train of yet earlier writers from the very beginning. The attested existence of the doctrine or practice in the fourth century will indeed prove its relative antiquity : but this will not afford to us any satisfacFory proof of its apostolic origination. An error, which sprang up at that early period, is not the less an error, because, by lapse of time, it has now be- come ancient. With a reference to the apostohc age, it is still an innovation : nor does its relative antiquity on the one hand obliterate its indelible character of relative novelty on the other hand. We cannot justly admit any peculiar doctrine or practice of the Latin church to be apostolic^ unless it can be regularly traced, step by step, up to the time of the apostles. If, while a suspicious silence pervades all the writings of the three earlier centuries, a doctrine or practice be mentioned PREFACE. VU for the first time in the fourth century ; we must not deem the novel and unsupported testimony of a later age sufficient to justify the church of Rome in main- taining that such doctrine or practice existed from the very beginning. WTiatever is firsts is true^ says Ter- tullian: whatever is more recent^ is spurious. This being the case, if a doctrine or practice, mentioned in the fourth century, be not only left altogether unmen- tioned be writers of an earher date ; but if it be even contradicted and dissallowed by them : then, a fortiori, that doctrine or practice must assuredly be, with re- ference to the apostolic age, an unauthorized and untenable innovation. Thus manifest is it, that any evidence from antiquity, which can be brought in favour of the peculiar doc- trines and practices of the Roman Church, is of no worth, in regard to proving their apostolic origination., unless an unbroken chain of witnesses extend to the apostolic age, and unless all the successive witnesses themselves strictly harmonize together. III. Before we can bring the system of the church of Rome to this reasonable test, we must ascertain what that system actually is. Protestants have often been charged with giving a false colour to the opinions of the Latins: and it is far from impossible (such is the infirmity of human nature), that, in the violence of controversy, each party may have dealt unfairly with the other. I have now before me a tract of the seventeenth century, said to have been written by Mr. Gother ; which, enforcing this identical allegation, bears the inculpatory title of ^4 Papist mis- represented and represented. Without entering into the merits of that composition, this at least we must Vlll PREFACE. say, that, first to charge a Latin with what he holds not^ and then gravely to confute opinions which all the while he strenuously disclaims^ is alike unfair and un- profitable. In discussing the doctrinal system of the Roman church, an honest inquirer will take for his text-book, not the allegations of a protestant polemic^ but some work of credit^ written by an esteemed and responsible Latin himself Thus acting, he will see w^hat the members of the Roman church profess to hold : and, unless he can bring proof from authoritative documents that his author disingenuously garbles the real opinions of his own communion, the sentiments to be brought to the test of antiquity are the sentiments avowed in a ivork of this respectable description. IV. While such thoughts occupied my mind, an English gentleman of family and fortune, with whom I have not the advantage of being personally ac- quainted, forwarded to me, from the south of France, { in the spring of the current year, a copy of a recent I publication by M. Trevern, formerly vicar-general of Langres, and now bishop of Aire. The copy, thus transmitted to me, was accompanied by a letter : in which my correspondent spoke in the highest terms of the bishop's personal character; repre- sented his work, as having produced a very considerable sensation among the travelling English laity ; and, with a degree of earnestness which I could scarcely have anticipated, requested me to answer it. 1. On perusing the very able publication of the learned and excellent prelate, I found its chief cha- racteristic to be that of a studied vindication of the church of Rome^ and a studied attack upon the church of England. PREFACE. IX (1.) In vindicating the doctrines and practices of the church of Rome, the bishop distinctly states, what, in his judgment, those doctrines and practices really are. Such being the case, I immediately perceived that 1 had here the identical text- book w^hich 1 required : for, in his lordship's work, I might safely study the system of the Latin church, not as distorted by the prejudices of an enemy, but as exhibited in its true colours by a dignified ecclesiastic, to whom in all its bearings it could not but be perfectly familiar. (2.) Interested as 1 was on this account in the bishop's publication, I was yet additionally interested in it by the circumstance, that the same train of rea- soning from the evidence of antiquity^ which had passed through my own mind, had likewise passed through the mind of the bishop. This reasoning, which to myself appears so natural and so unobjectionable, he makes, in fact, the very basis of his work : for his gene- ral argument, in favour of the church of Rome and against the church of England, may be briefly stated in manner following : — Those who conversed with the apostles^ and those who lived nearest to the times of the apostles^ mnst best have known the mind of the apostles. With these primitive theologians^ the church of Rome agrees^ and the church of England disagrees. Therefore the former must teach the truths while the latter teaches falsehood, 2. Thus runs the bishop's argument : and thus, in evolving his argument does he state and vindicate what he himself defines to be the doctrines and practices of the church of Rome. On both these accounts, therefore, I was deeply interested by his lordship's Amicable Discussion : and henceforth I determined to -|H X PREFACE. adopt its authoritative statement of the Latin system, as the unimpeachable basis of a work, which should exhibit to the Enghsh laity the formidable Difficulties of Romanism^ even on the ground assumed by the bishop himself. His lordship asserts, that, in all those peculiar doc- trines and practices, which so grievously offend the members of the Anglican church, and which he himself specifies and explains with sufficient precision, the firm and immutable church of Rome perfectly agrees with those primitive theologians, who either conversed with the apostles, or who lived nearest to the times of the apostles : whence he contends, that the church of Rome, unlike the innovating church of England, still teaches and still acts, as the catholic church of Christ has ever taught and has ever acted from the very beginning. By this process, the question is resolved, as it ought to be resolved, into a naked historical matter of FACT, and, accordingly, the sole point to be decided is, whether the doctrines and practices of the Roman churchy as propounded and explained and vindicated by the bishop of Aire himself have or have not the unbroken sanction of all primitive antiquity. Such then is the ground, a ground of his lordship's own selection, on which I am in no wise reluctant to take up the discussion : and, when the early ecclesiasti- cal writers up to the time of the apostles shall have been examined somewhat more fully, perhaps also somewhat more impartially, than the bishop has performed the task, I greatly mistake, if the alleged immutable church of Rome will not stand convicted of palpable innova- PREFACE. XI tion, and thence (according to TertuUian's canon) of manifest error. V. Unwilling to waste my strength and my time in a mere ephemeral controversy, talked of to-day and for- gotten to-morrow, I have endeavoured to impress upon my work the character of permanent utility. Had the bishop of Aire never undertaken the defence of the church of Rome at the expense of the church of Eng- land; still a work, in which the claims of the peculiar doctrines and practices of the Latin church to the support of primitive antiquity are considered with some measure of fulness, can never, so long as truth is valuable, be useless and unseasonable. When a Roman ecclesias- tic perplexes an English laymen by boldly asserting the strict accordance of his church with the church nearest to the times of the apostles, it is desirable, that the layman, without the trouble of any very extended research imposed upon himself should be provided with a reply. 1. A wish^ says my intelligent correspondent, to be able to answer the questions^ repeatedly and triumphantly proposed by the catholics upon topics of this description^ is everywhere now reigning. Thus speaks a well-informed layman from actual experience : the object of my work is to furnish an easy reply to such questions, not merely in the present day, but at any future period whatsoever. 2. Your own theologians^ says the bishop of Aire to his English friend, no less than ourselves^ have in their hands the ancient liturgies of the primitive church and the works of the earty ecclesiastical writers : but they will have small inclination^ I suspect^ to bring you acquainted with such documents. Ask them to communicate these XU PREFACE. documents to you: desire them to specify the opinions which they express. You will soonjind^ that they take your request with no very good grace : and^ in truths to deal plainly with you^ it is impossible that they should. Ah well^ Sir^ 1 will spare them their embarrassment: and^ so far as you are concerned^ I will go on to accomplish their defective ministrations.^ Thus speaks a learned prelate of the Latin Church : the object of my work is to furnish a permanent answer to the supposed embarrassing questions, which, at his lordship's suggestion, the Enghsh laity might propound to the English clergy. VI. In discussing the difficulties of Romanism on the professed ground of primitive antiquity, an obstacle occured, which, to a person situated so disadvantage- ously as myself, might well have appeared altogether insurmountable. To work without tools is impossible : the tools, abso- lutely necessary for an undertaking of this description, are the works of the primitive fathers, the early eccle- siastical histories, and the acts of those councils which claim to be ecumenical : and it is not the lot of every painful student to be enrolled among those highly-privi- leged divines, who, by their connexion with colleges or with cathedrals, can leisurely expatiate in the free use of such requisite instruments. As for myself, buried in the deep oblivion of a se- questered northern village, possessing only a limited collection of the ancient ecclesiastical writers, and from local circumstances unable to profit by the rich stores of a collegiate hbrary of reference, I should have found * Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 8. PREFACE. Xm it physically impossible to execute the task which has been imposed upon me, had not the means been sup- plied after a mode, which, in the ordinary course of rustic life, could not rationally have been anticipated. More ample opportunities might probably have render- ed my work less imperfect : yet, with some trifling exceptions, the copious library of a valued clerical friend, united with my own, left me but little to desire. Mr. Anstey will, T hope, permit a neighbour of twenty years to say, that the service, which he rendered to me, was only surpassed by the manner in which that ser- vice was rendered. VII. The present work is a work of defence^ not of attack : for I claim to possess the advantage of appear- ing in the light of a blameless defendant^ not of an unprovoked assailant. When a Roman ecclesiastic, however excellent and venerable his character may be, spontaneously assaults the church of England ; and when he attempts to pro- selyte her members on the specious but insecure plea, that, because she has rejected certain doctrines and practices of the Latin church, she Jias therefore departed from primitive antiquity : it becomes a matter of strict defence to shew, by incontrovertible testimony, that the really innovating church is not the church of Eng- land, but the church of Rome. VIII. In prosecuting the subject which I have been induced to take in hand, I felt the want of a term, which should express both accurately and compen- diously the system of doctrine and practice maintained by the church of Rome. 1 . The word popery I was unwilling to employ : both because I have no inchnation to give needless offence ; B XIV PREFACE. and because the marked difference of opinion in regard to the papal authority, which subsists between the Cisal- pines and the Transalpines, has rendered that word not universally proper. 2. On the other hand, the word Catholicism I could not employ : because such a term, when nakedly and exclusively applied to the theological system of the western Latin church, has always appeared to me most singularly incorrect. That the Latins are catholics in the same sense that the Greeks and the Armenians and the Syrians and the Abyssinians and the Enghsh are cathoUcs ; in other words, that the Latins constitute one of the many branches of Christ's Universal Church ; I am far from wishing to deny : but, when a generic name is applied specifically to a single particular branch, this palpable inaccuracy of nomenclature can only produce a corre- spondent erroneousness of conception. The name catholic belongs equally to all the members of Christ's catholic church, wherever dis- persed and however distressed. Hence a name, which belongs equally to all whether oriental or occiden- tal, cannot be correctly employed, as the special and exclusive and descriptive appellation of a part only : because, when the term is thus used, the common cha- racter of Catholicism is by implication denied to every christian, who happens not to be a member of that provincial western church which is in communion with the bishop of Rome, and which acknowledges him as its chief or patriarch. 3. Rejecting then the two woxdi^ popery and Catho- licism for reasons which to myself appeared fully suffi- cient, I have adopted the unexceptionable term Ro- PREFACE. XV manism : and I wish to be understood as employing it to designate the peculiar system cf doctrine and practice^ which the church of Rome in all her branches maintains and inculcates. IX. Not ignorant of the impatient indolence of an age which claims to have discovered the long-hidden royal road to knowledge, I have laboured to be brief: yet, aware at the same time that in one mode only can the discussion be satisfactorily conducted, I have endea- voured to condense within small space no small quan- tity of matter. Should it please God to render this manual for the English laity extensively and permanently useful, I shall have my reward. The opprobrium is at least avoided, that the English clergy, by their silence, have accepted a Latin offer to spare them their embarrass- ment^ and to accomplish their defective ministrations. Long-Newton Rectory, Sept. 17, 1825. CONTENTS. BOOK I. THE DIFFICULTIES ATTElN^DAiyT UPOX THE CHURCH OF ROME IN RE- GARD TO HEB PECULIAR DOCTRIIfES AND PRACTICES, p. 35. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT, p. 35. Apostolic antiquity and unbending* immutability are the peculiar boast of the church of Rome, p. 35. I. Its apostolic antiquity is no proof of its unbending* immuta- bility, p. 35. II. In considering" the difficulties of Romanism, it is equitable to hear a Latin himself propound his own scheme of doctrine and practice, p. 36. III. For this purpose, the bishop of Aire's Amicable Discussion, professedly addressed to the English laity, is adopted as a text-book, p. 37. IV. The main object of this work is to proselyte the English laity, partly by rendering them dissatisfied with their own national church, and partly by a dexterous vindication of the system inculcated by the Latin church. Hence it may be viewed, as exhibiting the most favourable statement of the peculiarities of that church: and hence, in that capa- city, it is unexceptionable as a text-book, p. 37* CHAPTER H. THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM IN REGARD TO THE CLAIM OF INFALLIBILITY, p. 39. The whole Romish controversy virtually hinges on the doctrine of the infallibility of the Latin church, viewed as claiming to identify herself with the catholic church, p. 39. I. Though by the Latin doctors the infallibility of the church is B2 XVIU CONTENTS. strenuously maintained, there is a difference of opinion as to where that infallibility resides, p. 39. 1. Popes have decided against popes, p. 40. 2. Councils have decided against councils, p. 40. 3. The church of one age has decided against the church of another age, p. 42. 4. Councils have decided against Scripture, p. 48. (1.) Instance from the case of oaths which are ad- verse to ecclesiastical utility, p. 48. (2.) Instance from the case of the enforced celibacy of the clergy, p. 50. II. The abstract arguments of the bishop of Aire in favour of ecclesiastical infallibility, cannot stand against the direct evidence of naked facts, p. 52. 1. His first argument, p. 52. 2. His second argument, p. 53. 3. His third argument, p. 54. III. Remarks on the only true and legitimate mode of settling points of doctrine or of practice, p. 56. 1. Whatever cannot be proved from Scripture either explicitly or inductively, must be rejected, p. 56. 2. Whatever claims to be proved from Scripture rests, of necessity, upon the basis of the interpretation adopted, p. 57. (1.) The Latin theory, that all interpretation must be regulated and fixed by the absolute autho- ritative decision of the church, p. 57. (2.) The vague and unsatisfactory theory, that interpretation depends wholly upon the exer- cise of insulated private judgment, p. 57. (3.) The only genuine and satisfactory theory of an appeal, where an appeal is possible, to the primitive church, 60. CHAPTER m. THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM IN REGARD TO TRADITION AND THE DOCTRINAL INSTRUCTION OF THE CHURCH, p. 64. The bishop of Aire^s vindicatory remarks on tradition and the doctrinal institution of the church abound in fallacies, p. 64. I. Fallacy of the objection, that protestants receive some doc- trines of the Latin church, while they reject others, p. 64. II. Fallacy of the objection against the principle of the English churchy that nothing is to be enforced as an article of faith, save what can be proved from Scripture, p. 65. HI. Fallacy in regard to the formation of the canon of Scripture, p. 6r. CONTENTS. XIX CHAPTER IV. THE DIFFICULTIES OF IlOMA]!fISM IN REGARD TO THE DOCTKIIfE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION, p. 68. The doctrine of Transubstantiation, like that of the Trinity, is purely a question of evidence: whence it must be received or rejected, according- as the evidence shall be sufficient or insufficient, p. 68. I. The doctrine of Transubstantiation may be confuted from Scripture alone, even independently of any other aid, p. 70. 1. Homog-eneous passages must be interpreted homoge- neously, p. 71. 2. The very terms in which the institution of the Eucha- rist is described, are fatal to the doctrine of Tran- substantiation, p. 73. (1.) Verbal argument from St. Matthew's statement, p. 73, (2.) Verbal argument from St. Paul's statement, p. 74. 3. The doctrine of Transubstantiation contradicts other parts of Scripture, p. 74. (1.) Argument from our Lord's discourse at Caper- naum, p. 74. (2.) Argument from the prophetic declaration of David, p. 75, (3.) Argument from the explicitly and repeatedly declared /ficf, that Christ was only once offered up as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, p. 76. II. The doctrine of Transubstantiation is a novelty, inasmuch as it was the doctrine neither of the primitive church nor even of the early church, p. 77. 1. The ancient ecclesiastical writers taught, as the genuine doctrine of the catholic church, not a PHYSICAL, but a MORAL, changc in the elements, by virtue of the prayer of consecration, p. 77, 2. That such was the case, is clear, from the nature of the multiplied comparisons used by the ancients in the way of illustration, p. 80. 3. With this avowed doctrine of a moral change only, agree the repeated and positive declarations of the early writers, that the consecrated elements only SYMBOLIZE the body and blood of Christ, and that the LITERAL body and blood of Christ are fot received in the Eucharist, p. 82. (1.) Clement of Alexandria, p. 82. (2.) Tertullian, p. 83. (3.) Cyprian, p. 83. (4.) Cyril of Jerusalem, po 84. (5.) Chrysostom, p. 84. XX CONTENTS. (6.) Augustine, p. 84. (7.) Pope Gelasius, p. 85, (8.) Facundus, p. 85. Remarks on the context of the passage in Clement of Alexandria, as cited above, p. 85. CHAPTER V. RESPECTING THE LATIN DEFENCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSUBSTAN- TIATION, FROM THE LANGUAGE EMPLOYED BY OUR LORD, p. 88. The bishop of Aire commences his defence of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, by adducing and commenting upon the words of Christ himself, p. 88. I. His defence of the doctrine from Christ's discourse at Caper- naum, p. 88. 1. The bishop's proposed interpretation of our Lord's explanatory words is completely irreconcilable with that adopted m the early church, p. 89. 2. The bishop's interpretation is not, as he contends, required by the behaviour of the disciples, p. 92. H. His defence of the doctrine from the language of Christ at the institution of the Eucharist, p. 93. 1. When Christ ordained that sacrament, his phraseology must have recalled to the minds of the disciples the language which he had previously held in the syna- gogue at Capernaum : but the question is, how such language was understood by them, p. 93. 2. The bishop's objections to the ancient figurative scheme of interpretation, as revived and adopted by the church of England, p. 94. (1.) His objection, that bread had never, before the institution of the Eucharist, been taken as a sign of Christ's body, p. 94. (2.) His objection founded on 4:he denial of the alleged homogeneity of apparently homoge- neous passages, p. 96. CHAPTER VL RESPECTING THE LATIN DEFENCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSUB- STANTIATION, FROM THE SECRET DISCIPLINE OF THE EARLY CHURCH, p. 98. The bishop of Aire proceeds in his defence of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, by entering into a discussion of the secret discipline of the early church, p. 98. I. His argument to prove, that the doctrine of Transubstantia- SK-S^^^NB?- CONTENTS. XXI tion was the sole and grand secret of the christian mysteries, p. 100. 1. The true doctrine of the Eucharist was not the exclu- sive secret of the ancient christian mysteries, p. 101, 2. The true doctrine of the Eucharist was not even the ^rawc^secret of the ancient christian mysteries, p. 101. (1.) Proof from the catechetical lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem, p. 102. (2.) Proof from the testimony of Jerome, p. 105. f3.) Proof from Origen, p. 105. (4.) Proof from Augustine, p. 108. (5.) Proof from the Philopatris, p. 108. 3. So far from the doctrine of Transubstantiation being either the sole or the grand secret of the mysteries, it was, in truth, not taught by them at all, p. 110. (1.) Since the catholic church of the five first cen- turies recognised no change in the elements save a moral change; it is impossible, that the doctrine of a physical change could have been taught in the mysteries which seemed to have been instituted in the course of the second century, p. 111. (2. ) This position is fully established by the remark- able circumstance, that none of the ancient pagans ever ridicule the doctrine of Transub- stantiation, though they frequently ridicule the genuine mysterious doctrines of Christianity, p. 112. II. The bishop's argument in favour of Transubstantiation, from the allegations of the pagans, that the christians in the celebration of their mysteries devoured human flesh and drank human blood, shown, from the explicit denial of the christians themselves, to be altogether untenable, p. 116. CHAPTER VII. RESPECTING THE LATIN DEFENCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSUB- STANTIATION, FROM THE LANGUAGE OF THE ANCIENT LITURGIES, AND FROM THE PHRASEOLOGX OF THE EARLY ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS, p. 121. The bishop of Aire completes his defence of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, by adducing the language of the ancient liturgies and the phraseology of the early ecclesiastical writers. In prosecuting this part of his subject, he diligently quotes, in the sense of a physical change of the elements, passages, which speak only of their moral change. Mean- while, he suppresses the passages which make directly against his system. At their existence, indeed, he faintly hints; but. XXll CONTENTS. while he attempts, thoug^h unsuccessfully, to invalidate them; he g-ives his English laic correspondent no opportunity of judg-ing" for himself by an ocular inspection of such passag-es, p. 121. I. His first line of argument proceeds on the ground, that the type and the antitype, or the thing symbolizing and the thing symbolized, may be perfectly identical: a mode of reasoning, by which we may clearly demonstrate the smy^ bolizing woman Hagar to be identical with the symbolized mount Sinai in Arabia, p. 122. II. His second line of argument, which is palpably inconsistent with his first, proceeds on the ground, that the old fathers were in two different stories, as they severally addressed the Catechumens and the Mystse, p. 124. 1. This argument is confuted by the explicit language of Augustine's Enarrations, which were certainly addressed to the Mystse, p. 125. 2. The true key to the occasional language of the ancient liturgies and of the early ecclesiastical writers, is the doctrine of a moral, as contradistinguished from a PHYSICAL, change, p. 126. CHAPTER VIII. RLSPECTING THE RISE AND PROGRESS AND FINAL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION, p. 128. An historical sketch of the rise and progress and final establish- ment of the doctrine of Transubstantiation; as it gradually sprang up, by an increasing departure from the old doctrine of a MORAL change, to the new doctrine of a physical chang-e, in the consecrated elements, p. 128. I. In the fifth century, Eutyches constructed an argument, in favour of his own peculiar speculation respecting the trans- formation of Christ's human nature into the divine sub- stance, upon the hitherto unheard-of doctrine of a physical change wrought in the elements by virtue of consecration, p. 128. 1. The premises of his argument were immediately denied by Theodoret, in the same century, p. 129. 2. They were also denied by Pope Gelasius in the same century, p. 131. 3. And they were again denied by Ephrem of Antioch, in the sixth century, p. 132. II. In the year 787, the second Council of Nice, reversing the decree of the Council of Constantinople in the year 754, ratified the new doctrine of a physical change, p. 133. IH. In the niath century, the present doctrine of Transubstan- tiation was first regularly drawn out and digested by Paschase of Corby, p. 134. CONTENTS. XXm IV. In the year 1079, that doctrine was maintained by Pope Gregory VII. agahist Barenger, who adhered to the old doctrine of a moral change: and, in the year 1215, it was finally established by Pope Innocent III. in the fourth Council of Lateran, p. 135. V. When Paschase, in the ninth century, started the present doctrine of Transabstantiation, it was immediately opposed by Raban of Mentz, and many others, as an error of late origin, and of only partial adoption, p. 135. CHAPTER TX. THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMASTISIM IN RESPECT TO AUmcULAR COlSr- FESSIOX, AS IMPOSED AISTD El^FORCED BY THE CHURCH OF ROMEj p. 139. The church of England allows auricular confession to a priest: _ the church of Rome enforces it, p. 139. I. The bishop of Aire attempts to prove the religious necessity of auricular confession, by inductive reasoning from Scrip- ture, p. 139. 1. His argument stated and considered, p. 139. 2. Remarks on the fallacy involved in the terms em- ployed by him, p. 141. II. The bishop of Aire further attempts to prove his point from ecclesiastical antiquity, p. 142. 1. Clement of Rome, p. 143. 2. Irenaeus, p. 143. 3. Tertullian, p. 143. 4. Socrates and Sozomen, p. 144. 5. Practice of the West. Ambrose of Milan, p. 145. CHAPTER X. THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMAISTISM IJ!ir RESPECT TO THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION, p. 148. The bishop of Aire's statement of the Romish doctrine of satis- faction, p. 148. I. His statement is unsatisfactory, because irreconcilable with Scripture, p. 149. II. Opinions of the fathers, p. 152. III. To appease the anger of God and to satisfy Ms justice are not phrases of the same import, p. 153. IV. The evidence, adduced by the bishop, is insufficient, p. 154. XXIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM IN RESPECT TO INBtTLGENCES, p. 156. The origin and perversion of indulgences, p. 156. I. The bishop of Aire's attempt to deduce indulgences from the authority of St. Paul, p. 157. II. The sale of indulgences at the time of the Reformation, p. 158. III. The doctrine of Supererogation as now held by the church of Rome, p. 159. CHAPTER XII. THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM IN RESPECT TO PURGATORY, p. 161. The bishop of Aire confesses, that the existence of purgatory cannot be proved from Scripture, p. 161. I. Hence he attempts to prove it inductively from the untena- ble doctrine of Satisfaction, p. 161. II. The bishop claims all antiquity ^ as being in his favour: but then, according to the tenour of his citations, all antiquity commences about the middle of the third century, p. 163. 1. All antiquity commences with Cyprian: and Cyprian, though cited by the bishop as favourable to his cause, is directly hostile to it, p. 163. 2. All real antiquity is against the bishop: as we may learn from Clement of Rome, Poly carp, Ignatius, Irenseus, Athenagoras, and the old writer in the works of Justin Martyr, p. 165." CHAPTER XITI. THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM IN RESPECT TO PRATERS FOR THE DEAD, p. 167. Holy Scripture is perfectly silent respecting the duty or benefit of prayers for the dead, p. 167. I, The insufficiency of the bishop of Aire's proof, from the Mac- cabaean history, shown by the canon of Cyril of Jerusalem, and his direct testimony against the authority of the Apocrypha, p. 168. II. The bishop's allegation, that the duty of praying for the dead is taught by the silence of Christ, p. 169. III. The bishop's attempted proof from the fathers, that prayers for the dead are pious and profitable, p. 170. 1. Omitting the earliest ecclesiastical writers, the bishop begins with Tertullian, p. 171. (1). The meaning of the phrase, oblations for the dead, as used by Tertulhan, p. 171. CONTENTS. XXV (2.) Tertullian's speculation respecting prayers for the dead, p. 172. 2. The bishop further adduces Cyprian, Chrysostom, and Augustine, p. 173. CHAPTER XIV. 1.2T HISTORICAL SKETCH OP THE RISE OF PRATERS FOR THE DEAD AND OF THE DOCTRINE OF PURGATORY, p. 174. The rise and progress of prayers for the dead, and of the con- nected doctrine of Purgatory, p. 174. I. Tertullian, p. 174. II. Cyril of Jerusalem, p. 174. III. Augustine, p. 175. 1. Hesitation of Augustine, p. 176. (1.) Exemplified from one of his treatises, p. 176. (2.) Exemplified from one of his sermons, p. 176. (3.) Exemplified from another treatise, p. 177. (4.) Exemplified from another discourse, 177. 2. Striking and essential diflTerence between the purga- tory of Augustine and the purgatory of the modern Roman church, p. 178. 3. Augustine's exposition of 1 Corinth, iii. 10 — 15. was unknown to his predecessors Tertullian and Origen, p. 179. CHAPTER XV. THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM IN RESPECT TO THE INVOCATION OF THE SAINTS, p. 180. The case made out by the bishop of Aire for the invocation of the saints, p. 180. I, Even on the alleged ground, that the invocation of the saints is merely intercessory, the practice, not being authorized by Scripture, and manifestly tending to idolatry, is utterly unjustifiable, p. 181. 1. We might well be satisfied with the simple fact alone, that Scripture, while it allows us to ask the inter- cessory prayers of the living, does not authorize us to ask the intercessory prayers of the dead, p. 181. 2. But, of this striking circumstance, it is not very diffi- cult to ascertain the rationale , p. 182. (1.) The nature and origin of the pagan hero-wor- ship, which was adopted by the apostate Israel- ites, p. 182. (2. ) St. Paul's prophecy of the christian apostacy was supposed, in the early church, to foretell the worship of canonized dead men, p. 183. XXVI CONTENTS. (o.) To ask the intercessory prayers of the living could not lead to idolatry: hence, in Scripture, it is allowed. To ask the intercessory prayers of the dead has a direct tendency to produce idolatry: hence, in Scripture, it is no where authorized, p. 184. 11. The avowed ground, on which alone the bishop of Aire defends the invocation of the saints, is, that they are merely requested to give us their intercessory prayers, p. 185. 1. Yet he himself confesses that his statement is not perfectly accurate, p. 185. 2. Its inaccuracy is yet further shown even by his own citations from certain of the later fathers, p. 185. 3. Its inaccuracy is additionally shown by the authorized prayers of the Latin church, in which not merely the intercession of the saints is requested, but in which they are implored to grant such gifts and graces and blessings as God alone can bestow, p. 189. III. The bishop, as usual, in his appeal to antiquity, quotes only the later fathers, in whose time corruption had begun to invade the church. For obvious reasons he refrains from adducing the really primitive fathers, p. *194. CHAPTER XVI. THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM IN RESPECT TO THE WORSHIP OF RELICS, p. 193. The case made out by the bishop of Aire for the worship of relics, p. 193. I. He professedly rests the whole matter upon the alleged fact, that relics are simply used in the Latin church as recorda- tory aids to devotion, p. 194. II. His statement shown to be inaccurate, p. 195. III. His account of the worship of relics unsatisfactory, p. 198. IV. His proof of the legality of relic-worship, from miracles said to have been wrought over the relics of the saints, p. 199. V. His attempt to trace relic- worship to the age of the apostles, -^p. 200. 1. First proof, p. 200. 2. Second proof, p. 200. 3. Third proof, p. 201. 4. Fourth proof, p. 201. CHAPTER XVIL THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM IN RESPECT TO THE VENERATION OF IMAGES, p. 202. The case made out by the bishop of Aire for the veneration of images, p. 202. CONTENTS. XXVll I. The decision of the second Council of Nice, as adduced by the bishop, p, 202. n. The decision of the second Council of Nice, as understood and expounded by James Naclantus, bishop of Clugium, p. 202. 1. The decision of the council given in full, p. 202. 2. The exposition of James of Clugium, as published in Italy, during the sixteenth century, without any censure from the church of Rome, p. 203. III. The bishop's defence of image-worship, on the plea of the difference between absolute-worship and relative-worship, p. 204. IV. The apprehension of protestants respecting image-worship, though censured by the bishop as groundless, has been too well justified by the event, p. 207. 1. The danger, in the case of new converts from pagan- ism, is allowed by the bishop himself, p. 207. 2. But this danger, in countries which have been long converted to Christianity, he deems chimerical, p. 208. (1.) Singular incongruity in the language adopted by the bishop, p. 209. (2.j Specimen of authorized Roman devotion, p. 210. (3.) Pope Gregory and Serenus of Marseilles, p. 212. V. The bishop adduces the fathers on his behalf: but, as before, he prudently adduces not one of the really ancient or earliest fathers, p. 216. CHAPTER XVIII. THE DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM IN RESPECT TO THE ADORATION 07 THE CROSS, p. 219. The case made out by the bishop of Aire for the adoration of the cross, p. 219. I. The decision of the second Council of Nice, p. 220. IL The bishop, as a member of the church of Rome, is pledged either to defend the adoration of the cross, or to censure the decision of the council, p. 220. 1. The insufficiency of the plea, which the bishop attempts to set up on the ground of the difference between religious worship and civil homage, p ,220. 2. Inconclusive reasoning of the bishop from Galat. vi. 14. p. 221. 3. The bishop's defence of the adoration of the cross, from its alleged remarkable property of silencing pagan oracles, p. 222. 4. The bishop claims the ancient fathers of the primitive church, as favourable to the adoration of the cross; but, as usual, he adducces only the later fathers; in XXVlll CONTENTS. whose time, a superstition, unknown to their pre- decessors, had crept into^the church, p. 222. (1.) Cyril of Alexandria, being* evidently unable to deny the allegation of Julian, that christians even in the middle of the fourth century worshipped the material cross, proves more, in the fifth century, than can be quite agreea- ble to the bishop, p. 222. (2.^ TertuUian, at the end of the second and at the beginning" of the third century, is not in the bishop's favour; and says nothing, in the least degree, to the purpose, p. 223. (3.) Minucius Felix, at the beginning of the third century, is directly against the bishop, p. 224. III. A sketch of the rise and progress of cross-worship, drawn out from materials furnished by the bishop himself, p. 225. BOOK IT. THE DIFFICULTIES ATTENDANT UPON THE CHURCH OF ROME IK REGARD TO HER CLAIM OF UNIVERSAL SUPREMACY, p. 227. CHAPTER I. RESPECTING THE POLITY OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH, p. 229. To demonstrate, that the form of ecclesiastical polity, which has been adopted by the church of England, was of divine appointment, nothing more is requisite than the Bible, illustrated by the attestation of two of the oldest fathers to a naked matter of fact, p. 229. I. The testimony of Irenseus, the scholar of Polycarp, the disciple of St. John, p. 230. II. The testimony of Clement of Rome, the friend and companion and fellow-labourer of St. Paul, p. 232. 1. His testimony respects a fact, which was occurring in his own time, p. 233. 2. The theory, that the primitive bishops and presby- ters were identical, is irreconcilable with the testi- mony to facts, borne by TertuUian and Irenseus and Clement of Rome, p. 236. III. The testimony of Scripture, as interpreted by the attestation of Iren^^^ 36 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. The connecting link will be wanted : and, let such doc- trines and such practices have been introduced when they may, still, since they cannot be shown to have existed from the beginning, they stand convicted of novelty ; and, on that specific ground, they must, agreeably to the canon of Tertullian, be rejected as spurious. li the cldiim o{ ini?mit ability Jrom the very age of the Apostles could, indeed, be substantiated, every dissident from the Latin church would forthwith incur the just charge of manifest heresy. But here lies the grand difficulty of Romanism : a claim is preferred, which never has been, and which never can be, substantiated. The very circumstance of such a claim having been preferred, brings the whole matter to a question of naked historic fact; and, by the resolution of that question, the church of Rome is clearly found guilty of innovation. II. In considering the difficulties attendant upon the Latin system of theology, I should be sorry to appear in the light of a captiour and unfais objector. I wish to give the system every advantage; and, for that purpose, I would select as my text-book, not the unfavourable representation of a protestant contro- versialist, but the flattering delineation of a professed Roman advocate. Certainly, it is the most equitable to hear a Latin plead his own cause, and exhibit his own scheme of doctrine; nor is such a plan less ad- vantageous than equitable. If, when the cause as pleaded by hi7nself s\\d\\ have been fairly heard, the difficulties of his system still appear insurmountable, he can have no reason to complain of having experi- enced controversial injustice. Meanwhile, if that system shall prove to be untenable, even when managed by all the dexterity of a practised advocate, what must be the condition of such a scheme, when viewed through a less flattering medium? III. The composition which I have chosen as my text-book, is a very able work, recently published by INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 37 the present excellent Bishop of Aire, under the title of " Jin Amicable Discussion respecting the Jin- glican church in particular^ and the Reformation in generaL^^^ In an epistle prefixed to it, this important work is dedicated to the clergy of all the Protestant commu- nions; but it is specially addressed, in the form of letters, to an English traveller, who is described by the bishop as having stated to him certain doubts that had sprung up in his mind, with respect to the canonical legitimacy of his own church, and as hav- ing requested him to facilitate his honest research after theological truth. The desire of the traveller, whether real or fictitious, is granted; and the pro- duction of the bishop's work is the consequence. IV. Of this work the main object is evidently the proselytism of the English laity. Such being the case, it was necessary, on the one hand, to attack the principles and the authority of the Anglican church: while, on the other hand, it was equally necessary to vindicate and to recommend the peculiar doctrines and practices of the church of Rome. A work of this description I judged to be singu- larly adapted to the purpose which I had in view. The respectable author of the Amicahle Discus- sion is a prelate of the Latin church: he has under- taken to exhibit the peculiarities of his communion as they really exist, not as they are alleged to have * Discussion Amicale sur I'Eglise Anglicane et en g-eneral sur la Reformation, dediee au Clerge de toutes les Communions Vto-^^J testantes, et redigee en forme de Lettres, par Monseigneur /T^ L'Eveque d'Aire. A Paris, chez Potey, Rue de Bac, No. 46. — / \ Let me be permitted to remark, that it is not merely the talent evinced in this publication which is likely to give it success; the personal character of the bishop himself must, of necessity, with all those who are fortunate enough to enjoy his acquaintance, add a tenfold weight to his writings. His character, says the English gentleman who transmitted to me his work from France, is well known here ; he is one of the very best of men, I deem it a privi- lege to adopt the work of such a man as my text-book. D ob INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. been disfigured by protestant misrepresentation; and in his high episcopal character, he may be viewed as one who speaks with a full measure both of know- ledge and of authority. Under the hands of the exemplary Bishop of Aire, Romanism appears in its most captivating habiliments: whatever might offend the prejudices of an English layman is gracefully and decorously explained: doctrines and practices, which he had been taught to view with unutterable dislike, are shown, on the professed score of primi- tive antiquity, to be not only innocent, but even venerable and obligatory: and that alone catholic church, which the distempered imagination of panic- struck protestantism had pourtrayed as a misshapen and ferocious monster, proves, upon a candid exami- nation, to be no other than a meek and harmless Hind.* If, then, Romanism, even as exhibited by such an advocate as the Bishop of Aire, still pre- sents insuperable difficulties, the sober laic inquirer will at least pause, before he ventures to adopt a theological system thus unhappily circumstanced. Nor did I deem the work useful to me solely on the ground of its professedly giving a true and un- garbled statement of the Latin faith. Since it attacks the church of England no less than it vindi- cates the church of Rome, I am thence enabled, by the aid of this valuable text-book, at once to point out the difficulties of Romanism, and to place before the eyes of the English laic the impregnable ground on which his own truly apostolic church has taken her lofty station. * The rest amazed, Stood mutely still, and on the stranger gazed; Surveyed her part by part; and sought to find The ten-horn'd monster in the harmless Hind, Such as the wolf and panther had design'd. Drxden's Hind and Fanther, Part i. ON INFALLIBILITY. 39 CHAPTER II. The Difficulties of Romanism in regard io the Cla im of In fa nihility . If the infallibility of the Latin church could be clearly established, no person could rationally object to her theological decisions: for it were palpable madness in a fallible being to contend against ac- knowledged infallibility. Hence I have ever thought, that the es^tahlishment of infallibility is the very nucleus of the Roman controversy; and hence I have always been specially desirous to hear the arguments which could be adduced in its favour. Having never yet met with any thing satisfactory on the subject, I felt gratified at perceiving it dis- cussed by such a man as the eminently learned Bishop of Aire; and I entered, with no ordinary in- terest, upon the perusal of his vindication.* I. The prerogative of infallibility, or (what amounts to the same thing) the prerogative" of entire freedom from all doctrinal error, is, I believe, unani- mously claimed by the Latins on behalf of their own particular church. For they claim the privilege on behalf of the church catholic; and they exclusively identify the church catholic with the Latin or Roman church of the great western Patriarchate. That the privilege, then, of infallibility resides in the catholic church, is strenuously maintained: but, as to the precise quarter where it is to be found, * Discuss. Amic. Lett. iii. 40 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM there is not the same unanimity. Let it be sought, however, where it may, I greatly fear that its disco- very will prove to be a hopeless impossibility. 1. The Jesuits and those high Romanists who bear the appellation of Transalpines^ unless my informa- tion be wholly incorrect, contend for the personal infallihility of the pope, when on any point of faith he undertakes to issue a solemn decision.^ If this theory be adopted, I perceive not how we can reconcile the authoritative declaration of Gregory the Great, respecting an article of no small doctrinal importance, with the completely opposite declarations of the popes, his successors. Whoever claims the universal episcopate^ said Gregory about the latter end of the sixth century, is \ the forerunner of Antichrist, ^ Such is the decision of Gregory: yet this identical universal episcopate, as we all know, has been subse- quently claimed by numerous pontiffs who have sat in what they deem the chair of St. Peter.f Hence it plainly follows, that, if the decision of Gregory be received as an infallible truth, his suc- cessors in the pontificate are the forerunners of Anti- christ; while on the other hand, if his successors in the pontificate be not the forerunners of Antichrist, the decision of Gregory must be viewed as erroneous. 2. A protestant, however, may well spare himself the trouble of formally confuting the theory, by which the pope is decorated wdth the attribute of personal infallibility: for the low Romanists, who are distinguished by the name of Cisalpines, not only deny this infallibility of the pope, but even hold * Butler's Book of the Rom. Cath. Church, p. 121-124. \ Ego fidenter dico, quod quisquis se Universalem Sacerdo- tem vocat, vel vocari desiderat, in elatione sua, Antichristum prsecurrit. — Gregor. Magn. Epist. hb. vi. epist. 30. % Quod solus Romanus Pontifex jure dicatur Universalis. — Gre- gor. sept, dictat. Epist. lib. ii. epist. S5, Labb. Concil. Sacrosanct, vol.x. p. 110. ON INFALLIBILITY. 41 that he may be deposed by the church or by a gene- ral council for heresy or schism.''^ Under such cir- cumstances, if the prerogative of infallibility belong to the church, we must seek its residence elsewhere than in the person of the pope. In what favoured region, then, shall we find this exalted privilege? The moderate Romanists, w^ho claim infallibility for the catholic church collectively, suppose it to be lodged, as a sacred deposit, with each general council viewed as the legitimate organ and representative of the catholic church. This hypothesis, in the abstract, is not devoid of plausibility; but, if we resort to facts, it will turn out to be not more tenable than the last. From faithful history we learn, that general councils, upon points both of doctrine and of practice, have decided in plain and avowed opposition to each other. The Council of Constantinople, for instance, con- voked in the year 754, unanimously decreed the removal of images and the abolition of image-wor- ship; but the second Council of Nice, convoked ^ in the year 787, decreed the re-establishment of image-worship, and anathematized all those who had concurred in its abolition. I have simply stated* a mere historical fact; but the result from it is abundantly manifest. Two dis- cordant councils cannot both be in the right; and, if a single council be pronounced by the counter-deci- sion of another council to have erred, the phantom of infallibility forthwith vanishes.! * Butler's Book of the Rom. Cath. Church, p. 121-124. f The variations of the Church, relative to the single point of imag-e-worship, are so extraordinary, that they well deserve the attention of those who contend for her infallibility. I. The ancient Council of Elvira, which sat during" the reig-n of Constantine, and therefore, in the early part of the fourth cen- tury, strictly enjoined^ that neither painting's nor imag-es, repre- senting the person whom we adore, should be introduced into churches. For this striking and undoubted fact the Bishop of Aire would l>2 J 42 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM 3. To rid themselves of this difficulty, the theolo- gians of the Latin church contend, that the decisions of no council are to be deemed infallibly true, unless they shall have received the approbation of the holy account, on the principle, that the Elviran Fathers dreaded lest the new converts from paganism should unfortunately mistake Christian image-worship for pagan idolatry. Discus. Amic. vol. ii. p. 350. Let his solution avail, as far as it may avail: the fact he fully acknowledges. II. In the early ages, then, of Christianity, not only was the worship of images and pictures miknown, but their very intro- duction into churches was expressly disallowed. Matters, however, did not long continue in this state. Images and pictures in direct opposition to the Council of Elvira, having at length been unadvisedly admitted on the plea that they were a sort of books for the unlearned, the idolatrous worship of them soon followed. About the end of the sixth century, a transaction of this nature took place at Marseilles; and, in consequence of it, Serenus the bishop wisely removed and destroyed the images. Hereupon, Pope Gregory the Great praised him for the stand which he had made against idolatry; but, under the fond pretext of their utility to the unlearned, blamed him for destroying the images. Wretchedly injudicious as was the latter part of this decision, Gregory, at least, speaks fully and expressly against ANT adoration either of pictures or of images. Omne manufadum adorari non licet: — Adorari imagines, omnibus modis, veta. — Gregor. Magn. Epist. lib. xi. epist. 13. aliter 9. III. Thus stood the question at the close of the sixth century; but, as might easily have been anticipated from the idolatry of the Massilians, the introduction of images soon led to their adoration. This gross abuse was strenuously opposed by the Emperor Leo the Isaurian; but, as it still continued to increase, his son Con- stantine assembled a council at Constantinople in the year 754, which formally condemned Siwd forbade it. IV. The Council of Constantinople, though it agreed in its con- demnation of image-worship both with the decision of Pope Gre- gory the Great and with the yet more ancient decision of the Council of Elvira, was yet, on that very account, disowned as a legitimate council by the innovating successors of Gregory; and the cause of idolatry rapidly acquired such a degree of strength, that the second Council of Nice, which sat in the year 7 S7^ reversed the decree of the Council of Constantinople, pronounced it to be an illegitimate council, and ordained the adoration of images in language which strikingly contrasts with the express prohibition of Pope Gregory. / confess, and agree, and receive^ and salute, and ABOiiE, the unpolluted image of our Lord Jesus Christ our true Godf and the holy image of the holy mother of God, who bore him ON INFALLIBlLlTr. 43 see. Now, the Council of Constantinople did not receive the approbation of the holy see, while the second Council of Nice did receive it. Therefore, the Council of Constantinople being a spurious coun- without conception of seed, — Concil. Nicen. secund. act. i. Labb. Concil. Sacrosanct, vol. vii. p. 60. V. Having thus wholly departed from her former self, the Church, speaking" throug-h the mouth of a g-eneral council, had now decreed the orthodoxy and leg'ality of imag'e-worship : but this decree was not long" suffered to remain undisputed either in the West or in the East. 1. In the year 794, Charlemag'ne assembled at Frankfort a council of three hundred bishops, who reversed the decision of the second Nicene Council, and who with one voice condemned the worship of images. 2. Such was the solemn judgment of the West? and that of the East speedily followed it. For, in the year 814, the Emperor Leo, imitating the conduct of Charlemagne, assembled another council at Constantinople^ which, like that of Frankfort, rescinded and abolished the decrees of the second Nicene Council relative to the worship of images. VI. Thus, as both the East and the West had concurred in establishing image-worship, through the medium of the second Council of Nice; so did both the West and the East concur in condemning image-worship, through the medium of the Councils of Frankfort and Constantinople. But we have not yet reached the end of this strange eventful history of multiplied variations: we must prepare ourselves for yet additional changes of opinion on the part of a professedly un- changeable and infallible church. In the year 842, the Empress Theodora, during the minority of her son, convened yet another council at Constantinople; and this assembly, differing entirely from its immediate predecessor, reinstated the decrees of the second Nicene Council, and thus re- established image-worship. VII. Meanwhile, the Church of the Western Patriarchate con- tinued to maintain, that the second Nicene Council had erred in its decision: for, in the year 824, Louis the Meek assembled a Council at Paris, which confirmed the decrees of the Council of Frankfort, and which strictly prohibited the payment of any, even the smallest religious worship to images. > VIII. The church, however, of tlie Eastern Patriarchate, sub- sequent to the year 842, persevered in declaring, that the deci- sion of the second Nicene Council was an orthodox decision, and that images ought to be devoutly worshipped by all good Chris- tians. To establish this point, therefore, an additional council was held at Constantinople in the year 8r9; and the Fathers of 44 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM cil, and as such being justly denied by its Nicene suc- cessor to be the seventh oecumenical council, its discrepance with the second Council of Nice, which was undoubtedly a legitimate council, affords no satis- factory proof that the catholic church is fallible.* The soundness of this argument plainly depends upon the legitimate existence of the alleged prero- gative of the pope. Before its soundness, therefore, can be admitted, the Latin theologians must demon- strate that, hy unquestionable divine rights while the approbation of any other see is wholly super- fluous^ the approbation of the see of Rome is necessary to constitute the validity of a general council. Until this position can be established, it is mere trijfling to deny the legitimacy of a discordant council, simply because it has not received the sanc- tion of an Italian prelate. Let it be proved, that the bishop of Rome possesses by divine right the power of a veto; and the argument now before us will be perfectly conclusive. But, unless this vital point shall that Synod decreed the undoubted obllg'ation of image -worship, and confirmed and renewed the decrees of the second Council of Nice. Their decision gave such entire satisfaction to the Greeks, that they ascribed it to the peculiar interposition of heaven, and commemorated it by a yearly festival, which they appropriately called the Feast of Orthodoxy, IX. Nor did the Latins long withhold their assent. The deci- sions of the Councils of Frankfort and Paris have been consigned to the owls and the bats; and the second Council of Nice, which enjoins the adoration of images, is now universally acknowledged to have set forth the true faith and practice of the gospel. X. Such have been the multiphed variations of the church, in regard to the single point of image -worship; and yet, says the learned Bishop of Meaux, The church, which professes to declare and to teach nothing save what she has received^ never varies; but heresy, on the contrary, which began by innovation, perpetually in- novates, and never changes its nature. — Hist, des Variat. pref. § v. * In using this argument, the Latin theologians are clearly jus- tified by the decision of Pope Gregory the Seventh, if indeed his authority be sufficient to decide the question. Quod nulla Synodus absque praecepto ejus (scil. Pap?e) debet generaHs vocari. Gregor. sept. diet. Epist. lib. ii. epist. 55. Labb. Concil. Sacros. vol. X. p. 110. ON INFALLIBILITY. 45 be previously established, the argument which is con- fessedly built upon it must, without doubt, be alto- gether insecure and inconclusive.^ I have no need, however, to press the matter; the fallibility of the church may be independently de- monstrated, from the fact^ that the church of one age has contradicted the church of another age. In the year 1215, the fourth Council of Lateran decreed the truth of that doctrine oi di physical ohdiUg^ ) in the eucharistic bread and wine, w^hich was then \ first distinguished by the technical name of transub- i stantiationA Now this council received the full ap- probation of the holy see, at that time occupied by Pope Innocent the Third. Through it, therefore, as through her strictly canonical organ, the catholic church, according to the theory of the Latins, must be viewed as having spoken with the voice of un« doubted infallibility. Such being the case, since the catholic church of the thirteenth century has pronounced the doctrine of d. physical change in the consecrated elements to , be a true doctrine, if the catholic church be really \ infallible, she must invariably have taught and main- ' tained that identical doctrine from the very hegin- . ning, ^ But we have positive historical evidence, that, during at least the five first centuries, the catholic church, so far from teaching the doctrine of a phy- sical change, positively and explicitly, and even con- , troversially, denied the occurrence of ^wy physical \ change in the elements by virtue of the prayer of ; consecration. ' Therefore, since the catholic church during one * In order to establish the pope's, divine right to a veto, it will be necessary to establish his divine right to an universal controlling supremacy. But that this cannot be done, is fully demonstrated below.— See book ii. chap. 3. f Concil. Later, iv. can. 1. Labb. ConciL yol. xi, par. 1. p. 143. 46 DIFFICULTIES OP ROMANISM period has denied the doctrine oi di physical change, while during another period she has enforced and in- culcated it; the catholic church, having successively- maintained two directly opposite dogmas, is thence incontrovertibly demonstrated to be not infallible. That the catholic church of the early ages denied the doctrine of 2i physical change, and that she ac- knowledged no change in the consecrated elements, save a moral change only ; a change, for instance, avowedly declared to be similar to that which takes place in a man, when, by virtue of the prayer of con- secration, he ceases to be a laic and becomes a priest; that such was the decision of the church of the early ages,may be easily shown, by direct evidence, beyond the possibility of contradiction.* The fact is invin- cibly established by the united testimony of Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, Atha- nasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret of Cyrus, Pope Gelasius, Facundus, Ephrem of Antioch, and others who might easily be enumerated. t For not only is d^ny physical change in the elements expressly denied, while the occurrence of nothing save a moral change is allowed ; but some of these writers, among whom pope Gelasius in the West, and Theodoret and Ephrem in the East, may be specially mentioned, even argue copiously and professedly against the identical doctrine, which in a subsequent age, the church, speaking through the fourth Council of La- * See below, book i. Chap. 4 — 8. t Clem. Alex. Paedag. lib. i. c. 6. p. 104, 105. lib. ii. c. 2. p. 156, 158. Tertul. adv. Marcion. lib. i. § 9. p. 155. lib. iii. § 12, 13. p. 209. Tertul. de Anim. p. 653. Cyprian. Epist. Coecil. Ixiii. p. 153, 154. August, cent. Adamant, c. xii. oper. vol. vi. p. 69. Enarr. in Psalm, iii. xcviii. oper. vol. viii. p. 7, 397. Athanas. in illud evan. Quicunque dixerit verbum contra filium hominis. Oper. vol. i. p. 771, 772. Gregor. Nyssen. de Baptism, oper. vol. iii. p. 369. Theodor. Dial. i. ii. oper. vol. iv. p. 17. 18, 84, 85. Gelas. de duab. Christ, natur. in Biblioth. Patr. vol. iv. p. 422. Facund. Defens. Concil. Chalced. lib. ix. c. 5. oper. p. 144. Ephrem. Antioch. cont. Eutych. apud Phot. Cod. 229. . ON INFALLIBILITY, 47 teran, pronounced to be an undoubted scriptural verity. Nor can it be said, that these authors spoke only in their individual capacities, and that the catho- lic church must not be made answerable for their er- rors. Such a solution of the difficulty is, in every point of view, inadmissible. In the first place, the early church never condemned the doctrine which they taught and maintained ; but this she assuredly would have done, had she herself received and held the directly opposite doctrine from the very begin- ning. In the second place, nothing can be more evi- dent, from the whole turn of their language, than that they are not hazarding any novel speculations of their own, but that they are propounding the well known and familiar doctrine of the period during which they flourished. In the third place, this matter is put out of all doubt, both by the high rank of certain of the writers, and by the avowed character controver- sially assumed and sustained by others of them. When pope Gelasius undertook to write against the then nascent doctrine of a physical change, we may be morally sure that his pen set forth the universally- received sense of the entire catholic church; and, when his contempory, Theodoret, in the East harmoniously opposed the same doctrine of di physical change, un- der the specific title of the orthodox defender of the genuine faith, we may again be morally certain, that he could never have made his Orthodoxus argue against transubstantiation, while transubstantiation is defended by the \i^T^\A(t Eranistes, had he not well known that the catholic church would readily acknow- ledge Orthodoxus as her accredited champion. Thus it is manifest, that at two different periods the catholic church has taught two opposite and irre- concileahle doctrines. Whence it follows, that the catholic church cannot be infallible.* * I need scarcely observe, that every innovation, which contra- dicts the doctrine and practice of the early church, furnishes an 48 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM 4. The alleged infallibility of the church, however, is not only disproved by her own internal variations; it is yet additionally disproved by the fact, that coun- cils^ received as ecumenical^ and thence deemed in- capable of error ^have actually promulgated decrees^ which stand directly opposed to the unequivocal declarations of Holy Scripture, (1.) We are repeatedly assured by the voice of inspiration, that an oath is most imperiously binding upon the conscience, that those who love false oaths are hated by the Lord, that whatever goes forth from a person^s lips under the obligation of an oath must be kept and performed, and that an oath must be re- ligiously observed, even though the observation of it may be disadvantageous to the interest of the juror.* Yet, in defiance of language thus clear and explicit, the third Council of Lateran, which is acknowledged as the eleventh ecumenical council, has ventured to decree, that all oaths which are adverse to the utility of the church must in no wise be performed; but, on the contrary, with whatever solemnity and appa- rent good faith they may have been taken, they must be unscrupulously violated, inasmuch as they are to be deemed perjuries rather than oaths. t Thus, while God, who has been invoked as a wit- ness, and while Holy Scripture, which solemnly declares the inviolable sacredness of an oath, even additional proof, that the church, under whatever aspect it be viewed, is mutable and fallible. In the sequel we shall find so many of these contradictory innovations fully developed, that the Roman church, which in the nomenclature of the Latins is always identified with the catholic church, instead o^ never varying" from primitive antiquity, may be chiefly characterized by its singular love of innovation. * Numb. XXX. 2. Levit. xix. 12. Deut. xxiii. 23. Zechar. viii. 17. Psalm XV. 4. Rev. xxi. 8. f Non enim dicenda sunt juramenta, sed potius perjuria, qux contra utilitatem ecclesiasticam et sanctorum patrum veniunt in- stituta,— Concil. Lateran. tert. can. xvi. Labb. Concil. Sacrosanct. vol. X. p. 15ir. 1 ON INFALLIBILITY. 49 though it be to a person's own damage, are alike disregarded when placed in competition with the power and aggrandisement of ambitious ecclesiastics: the obligation or non-obligation of an oath is made, by the third Council of Lateran, to depend solely upon its utility or non-utility to the interests of the church, as those interests shall be understood and explained by the governors of the church for the time being.^ * The exemplification of this extraordinary principle, in the case of John Huss, is well known. Huss had received a safe-conduct from the Emperor Sigismond. But the oath of that prince was adjudged, by the existing gover- nors of the church, to be contra utilitatem ecclesiastlcam. Whence, as being no oath, but rather an act of perjury, he was bound in duty to break it. Respecting the present transaction, much has been warmly said and written; but, it the infallibility of the church be admitted, I see not how we can justly blame either Sigismond or the Council of Constance. By the third Council of Lateran, the obligation of destroying heretics had been imposed upon the faithful; and, by the same ecumenical Council, the doctrine, that all oaths ^ which are against ecclesiastical utility, become ipso facto, null and void, had been fully established. — Concil. Lateran. tert, can. xxvii. xvi. Labb. Concil. Sacros. vol. x. p. 1522, 1517. Such being the case, no person who holds the infallibility of the church, can consistently censure either Sigismond or the Council of Constance. For, had they acted otherwise in the mat- ter of Huss, they would, by impugning the decisions of the third Council of Lateran, have virtually denied the infallibility of the church. I repeat it, therefore, that all who maintain the infallibility of the church, stand pledged to vindicate the conduct of Sigismond and the Council of Constance. In truth, they themselves stand pledged to act in the same man- ner, should they ever be placed in the same circumstances; nor is it possible for them to deny this obligation without a/50 denying the infallibility of the church. Let the Romanist tie himself by ever so solemn an oath, still, if the governors of his church pro- nounce that oath to be contra utilitatem ecclesiasticam, he is re- ligiously bound by the sixteenth canon of the third Council of Lateran forthwith to violate it. Should he, like an honest man, indignantly disclaim any such obligation, he then most assu- redly contradicts the decision of the eleventh ecumenical council, E 50 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM (2.) So again, we are distinctly taught by an in- I spired apostle^ that marriage is honourable in all, whether the married individuals be clerks or laics: and, in strict accordance with this decision, the mar- riage of the clergy, whatever may be their special order, is expressly mentioned by the same apostle with full and entire approbation.^ Yet the second Council of Lateran, which is ac- knowledged as the tenth ecumenical council, strictly prohibits the marriage of ecclesiastics, down to the rank of the subdiaconate inclusive; and, by way of making the prohibition more effectual, it forbids the laity to hear mass performed by any priest who shall have dared to violate this enactment.! In excuse for such a determined opposition to God's own word, it is commonly said by the modern Romanists, that the enforced celibacy of the priest- hood is only a point of discipline, that it stands upon the same footing as the observance of any mere rite or ceremony, and that it may be enjoined or remitted at the good pleasure of the church. J So may the Romanists apologise for the infatuated rashness of the council; but such an apology, even to say nothing of its glaring insufficiency, upon their own shewing, is itself founded upon a gross mis- tatement. The second Council of Lateran prohibits the marriage of ecclesiastics, not on the simple ground of mutable and temporary expediency^ but on the lofty ground of immutable^ and eternal^ and inhe- and thus by a necessary consequence denies the church to be in- falUble. The third Council of Lateran, in short, has reduced every Ro- manist to the following' most unsatisfactory dilemma: — He must either maintain, that no oath, pronounced to be against ecclesiastical uiil'ty^ is binding"; or he must at once deny the in- fallibility of the church. * Heb. xiii. 4. 1 Tim. iii. 2,4, 8, 11, 12. f Concil. Lateran. secund. can. vi. vii. Labb. Concil. Sacrosanct, vol. X. p. 1003, 1004. \ Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 403, note. ON INFALLIBILITY. 51 rent unholiness. Ecclesiastics are forbidden to marry, not because such prohihition^ under certain circumstances of the churchy may he convenient as a point of discipline; but because^ as the council assures us, it is an unworthy deed/ that those per- sons who ought to be the holy vessels of the Lordj should debase themselves so far as to become the vile slaves 0/ chambering and uncleanness."^ Thus speaks and thus argues the second Council of Lateran with respect to the marriage of ecclesiastics. The case, therefore, between Scripture and the council, stands in manner following: Scripture both allows and recom^mends the mar- riage of the clergy; but the council disallows and prohibits it. Scripture declares, that marriage is honourable in ALL men^ whether they be clerks or laics; but the council pronounces, that the m^arriage of the clergy is an unworthy deed, being in truth no better than a state of base thraldom to chambering and UNCLEANNESst. * Cum enim ipsi templum Dei, vasa Domini, sacrarium Spiritus Sancti, debeant et esse et dici: ixdigxuzm est eos cubilibus et ixMu^DiciTiis deservire. — Concil. Lateran. secund. can. vl. Labb. Concil. Sacrosanct, vol. x. p. 1003. f Pope Gregory the Seventh had already caused the marriag-e of the clergy to be prohibited in the thirteenth canon of the first Roman Council, which v/as convened in the year 10T4. — See Labb. Concil. Sacrosanct, vol. x. p. 326-328. The effect produced by this inhibition is too remarkable to be pretermitted in silence. When it was published by the papal legates in Germany, the clergy, so far from peaceably submitting, appealed to scripture, and CHARGED Gregory axd his cou2^cil with cotradicti^^g St. Paul. The same opposition, on the same ground, was made also at Milan; and the only individual who there yielded obedience was Luitprand. How the charge of coxtradictiox to St. Paul can be re- moved, I do not distinctly perceive. — See Lamb. Schasnaburg. Hist. German. A. D. 1074. p. 201. Sigebert. Gembloc. Chron. A. D.. 1074. Matt. Paris in Gulielm. I. Aventin, Annal. Boiord, lib. \ 52 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM Hence it is evident, that in each of these two cases, the decisions of ecumenical councils have directly contradicted the decisions of Scripture ; and hence also it is evident, that, by the indisputable fact of this direct contradictoriness, we are irresistibly driven to the following very unpleasant alternative. If the church, speaking through an ecumenical council, be infallible, then the decisions of Holy Scrip- ture are erroneous ; and, conversely, if the decisions of Holy Scripture be essential truth, then the church, speaking through an ecumenical council, is undoubt- edly fallible. From this alternative there is no possibility of evasion. Holy Scripture says one thing, and the second and third Councils of Lateran say another thing; therefore Holy Scripture cannot stand with the second and third Councils of Lateran. II. I have rested my entire argument upon naked facts; and these facts are, that the church both in her doctrine and in her practice has directly con- tradicted herself and likewise that the church both in her doctrine and in her practice ^ has directly contradicted the inspired decisions of Holy Scrip- ture, Such being the case, it is utterly impossible that the church should be infallible. The fond notion of her perfect freedom from all error is confuted by the invincible evidence oi naked facts; and, against naked facts, no mere abstract reasoning, however plausible and ingenious, can be allowed to stand good. Here, then, I might fairly close the present dis- cussion ; yet, as I would not appear deficient in re- spect to the exemplary prelate of Aire, I shall notice, though I deem it a work of supererogation, the argu- ments which he has advanced. 1. The bishop contends, that, from the very reason of the thing, Christ must have left us some infallible V. p. 564, cited in Stillingfleet's Discourse on the Church of Rome, chap. v. p. 369. ON INFALLIBILITY. 53 mode of determining the truth, and thereby of pre- serving and maintaining ecclesiastical unity. Whence he concludes, that Christ actually has left us this . requisite infallible mode of determination. In matters which respect the Deity, I am not very fond of the adventurous a priori reasoning adopted by the bishop. It is dangerous to argue that God has done what we conceive he 7nust have done. Had I discovered the actual existence of a living infallible umpire in points of faith and practice, I should have felt assured that such a dispensation of the truth was most wise and most fitting; but I should hesitate to maintain with the bishop, that this dispensation must needs actually exist, because to myself it ab- stractedly appeared most fitting and most wise. This latter method of reasoning is, I think, too insecure to be adopted by any prudent theologian; and of its danger we have recently had a very striking example. The respectable bishop of Aire, simply from his own private view of the divine attributes, has ventured to maintain, that infallibility Tnust reside in the catholic *church. Yet, if we can submit/ to introduce into dogmatical theology the rational r Newtonian principle of experiment^ we shall find the / direct opposite of the bishop's conclusion established ] by naked facts. 2, The bishop further argues in favour of the in- fallibility of the church, from the interpretation which he himself puts upon various promises and expres- sions of our blessed Saviour. On the one side we have facts; on the other side we have/Ae bishop^ s proposed interpretation of our Saviour^ s language. That our Lord made certain promises and employed certain expressions, no per- son will deny; but, when the bishop's interpretation of his language is found to be contradicted hy facts ^ I see not what conclusion we can rationally draw, save that the interpretation is erroneous. Christ him- self cannot err; but it is very possible that the par- E 2 54 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM 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 en- tirely different exposition of them; and, by our exposition, (into which it is assuredly quite irrele- vant 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 interpre- tation, just diS 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 west- ern Latin church, cannot err in her doctrines, because they have regularly descended to her, step by step, from the apostles themselves, whose inspired infal- libility is acknowledged by all. This argument is an extension of the well-known argument from /;re5crzp^/on, employed so success- fully by Irenseus and'Tertullian in the second cen- tury. Doctrines, they contend, received through the medium of only two or three links from the apos^es 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, Irenaeus, 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 Hege- sippus, who, about the middle of the second century, ON INFALLIBILITY. 55 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 Irenasus and Tertullian ; and the conclusion which they deduce from it is, the moral impossibility of the catholic system, of the- ologlf heing 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 dark- ness and violence and superstition. That various innovations ivould 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 prescrip- tion^ 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 Irenseus and Tertul- lian; because we still possess their writings; and, consequently, for all controversial purposes with heretics, ice occupy the identical place which they occupied. But the argument from prescription, as employed in the nineteenth century for the purpose * Iren. adv. hser. lib. i. c. 2, 3. lib. iii. c. 1, 3, 4. Heg-esip. Apud. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. c. 21. Tertull. de prsescript. adv. hxer. oper. p. 95-117. 56 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM of establishing those various unscriptural tenets which the bishop propounds seriatitn 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%itrO- duction; and, if in any case we cannot specify the absolutely precise era (for the growth of error is fre- quently gradual), we can at least point out 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 subse- quently to the apostolic age, the connecting chain is effectually broken; and they stand forth as convicted novelties. Whatever is firsts is true; whatever is more recent, is spurious. The argument from pre- scription, in the hands of Irenseus 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, reve- lation, me must evidently begin with rejecting every ON INFALLIBILITY. 57 doctrine and every practice built upon such doctrine, which have clearly no foundation in Holy Scripture. This process will at once sweep aw^ay 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 re- moved, 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; Con- sult the catholic churchy the sole judge and deposito- ry 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 confirm- ed 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 rea- sons 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 * Chilling'wortli's Relig. of Protest, chap. iii. p. 147. 58 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM 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 pro- testants, 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 exer- cised, 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 illegiti- mate private judgm^ent. To a certain extent the bishop of Aire will allow, that private judgment m,ust be exercised. Thus, I cannot read his lordship's very able work and come to a conclusion upon it, without so far exer- cising 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 expla- nation can throw any additional light upon the seve- ral prohibitions of murder and theft and adultery, which occur in Holy Scripture. We read those pro- hibitions 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 ON INFALLIBILITY. 59 these matters, and in various others which might easily be specified, I hold private judgment lo be strictly legitimate; and I feel persuaded that the bishop of Aire will not disagree with me. But, although there is such a thing as legitimate private judgment in matters of religion, there doubt- less is such a thing also as illegitim^ate private judg- ment. Now this last modification I would define to be private judgment^ in the interpretation of litigated passages of Scripture, exercised after a perfectly independent or insulated manner. Against this exercise of private judgment, which is a lamentable abuse of the reformation, all prudent and judicious men must strenuously protest. It assuredly can only be the fruitful parent of discord and error. For if, without using those means of ascertaining the truth which God has put into our hands, this man and that man, after a simple inspection of a litigated text, shall dogmatically and independ- ently pronounce that such or such an interpretation m^ust set forth its true meaning; we shall doubtless have small prospect of ever arriving at a reasonable certainty in regard to the mind of Scripture. The absurdity of such a proceeding is self-evident; for, if each individual, disdaining all extrinsic aid, is to be his own independent expositor, we may well nigh have as many expositions of litigated texts, as there exist rash and ignorant and self-opinionated individ- uals; and, accordingly, we must not dissemble, that, from the illegitimate exercise oi insulated private judgment, sects, rivalling each other in presumptuous unscriptural folly, have sprung up like mushrooms. Thus acted not the wise reformers of the church of England. I greatly mistake if, in any one instance, they can be shown to have exercised that insulated private judgment which I agree with the bishop in heartily reprobating. In fact, they possessed far too much theological learning, and far too much 60 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM sound intellect, to fall into the palpable error now before us. (3.) Omitting then the mere dogmatism of the Latin church on the one hand, and the wanton exercise of illegitimate private judgment on the other hand, the practice of those venerable and pro- found theologians, who presided over the reformation of the Anglican church, will teach us, that the most rational mode of determining differences is a recur- rence to first principles^ or an appeal to that primitive church which ivas nearest to the times of the apostles. Certainly the inspired apostles of the Lord must have fully known the genuine doctrines of Christianity. What was the true sense of the written word, on all important points, they would assuredly explain to their immediate disciples. Their conversations and their compositions could not disagree. Hence their immediate disciples, thus carefully taught and cate- chized, would teach and maintain the same doctrinal system that the apostles taught and maintained. In process of time, error and corruption might doubtless creep into the church; but the introduction of error is not instantaneous; experience shows its progress to be gradual. On these perfectly intelligible grounds, some considerable period must have elapsed, before any material inroad was made into the apostolic doctrine within the pale of the catholic church her- self; and a yet longer period must have been evolv- ed, before any considerable doctrinal error became I the prevailing opinion, Polycarp of Smj'rna w^as a I hearer of the apostles, and especially of St. John, who f seems, through God V providence, to have been pre- served alive after all his brethren, for the purpose of authoritatively determining the truth against the growing heresies of the times. Irenasus of Lyons was the scholar of Polycarp, the disciple of St. John ; and from him he professed, in common w4th all the ON INFALLIBILITY. 61 churches of proconsular Asia, to have received his theology. Justin Martyr calls himself a disciple of the apostles; by which, according to the phraseology of the day, we must understand him to have been a pupil of those apostolical men who were placed in the several churches by the apostles themselves; and, ac- cordingly, since he flourished only about forty years after the death of St. John, he must, by the very necessity of chronology, have conversed with the scholars of the apostles. Clement .of Alexandria professed to be the pupil of Pantenus, who by some of the ancients is said to have been a disciple of the apostles, and who doubtless had heard the fathers denominated apostolical. Contemporary with Clem- ent was Tertullian ; and to these succeeded Origen and Cyprian; one generation of early teachers still following another.^ The several writers here enumerated, though but few out of many, form a chain which reaches up to St. John and the apostles. Hence, if we can be morally certain of any thing, we may be sure, that, in their exposition of Scripture, so far as the great leading doctrines of Christianity are concerned, they would proceed, either on direct apostolic authority, or at least according to the then universally known * Clement of Alexandria, who flourished toward the latter end of the second century, expressly tells us, that some of the disci- ples of Peter and James, and John and Paul, had lived even down to this time, regularly conveying to that generation, like sons from their fathers, the true apostolic doctrine. — Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. i. p. 274, 275. Colon. 1688. — In a similar manner Justin Martyr declares, that he and the men of his own eccle- siastical generation had been instructed, in the joint worship of the Father and the Son and the prophetic Spirit, by the catechists of the generation which preceded him, and which itself must inevitably have conversed with St. John. — Justin. Apol. i. vulg. ii. oper. p 43. Sylburg. 1593. — Clement flourished about forty years later than Justin. Hence, on chronological principles, Clement, I imagine, must in his youth have conversed with the apostolical men whom he notices ; just as his partial contempo- rary Irenseus describes himself to have conversed with Polycarp. — ^Iren. adv. hser. lib. iii. c. 3. § 3. F 62 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM analogy of apostolic faith. Can we believe, for instance, if John and the apostles had diligently- taught the bare humanity of Christ and the imper- sonal unity of the Godhead, that their immediate disciples, and the scholars of their immediate disci- ples, would agree in expounding a variety of texts after the precise manner in which they are expounded by the Trinitarian ? Would not the very reverse have proved to be the case? Should we not have found all these litigated texts distinctly and unani- mously interpreted by them, not after the mode adopted by the modern trinitarian, but after some such mode as that which is recommended by the modern anti-trinitarian?* Here then, I apprehend, we have a rationally satis- factory method of determining those differences in regard to the import of Scripture, which must ever spring up from the illegitimate use of insulated private judgment. Where, in her yet existing documents, the primi- tive church is explicit, we must, so far as I can judge, on the principles of right reason, submit ourselves to her decision ; where she is silent or indefinite or ambiguous, we must, I fear, be content still mutually to differ in opinion. * On this topic I venture to speak with positiveness and decision. From my own personal examination I can attest, that the passages in the New Testament, htigated by trinitarians and an ti -trinitarian s, are constantly understood and interpreted by the fathers of the three first centuries in the same manner as they are now understood and interpreted by modern trinitarians. The work, denominated The New Testament in an improved version, is the most perfect example of the illegitimate exercise of insulated private judgment with which I am acquainted. Totally opposing itself to the decisions of the catholic church nearest to the times of the apostles, it exhibits interpretations of the litigated texts, framed upon the mere independent dogmata of Dr. Priestley and Mr. Belsbam, but altogether unknown to the ecclesiastics of the three first centuries. I adduce this production, to exemplify what I mean by the illegitimate use of insulated private judgment. If we ask a reason, why the litigated texts are thus expounded, no answer can be giveuj save the good pleasure of the editor. ON INFALLIBILITY. 63 It will readily be perceived, that the bishop's mode of settling differences varies from mine in the import- ant article of extension. He would carry tKecKain down to the present time: /deem it more prudent to stop in the primitive ages. Perhaps it may be asked, where I would draw the line? To this captious, but fallacious, que^stion, I judge it sufficient to give the following answer : — Where a writer propounds a doctrine which rests not upon the firm basis of Scripture, I would reject it as a commandment of men, let the writer flourish when he may; and, where a later writer differs from an earlier writer in his exposition of a litigated doc- trinal text, I should generally deem the authority of the earlier writer preferable, inasmuch as he stands nearer to the fountain-head of apostolic purity. Such a method of checking the license of private judgment, and of attaining to the truth with as much moral certainty as God has been pleased to allow, seems, in the main, unobjectionable. To the ancient ecclesiastical writers I ascribe not the infallibility of inspiration; but, as evidences of the doctrine of the primitive church, and thence ultimately as evidences also of the doctrine of the inspired apostles and of our Lord himself, they may justly be deemed in valuable. 64 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM CHAPTER TIL The Difficulties of Romanism in regard to tra- dition and the doctrinal Instruction of the Church. The bishop of Aire^s remarks on the authority of tradition and on the doctrinal instruction of the church, I have been led, by the necessary course of my argument, in a great measure to anticipate; my few additional observations upon them will not, therefore, extend to any very great length.* No accurate investigator can read the bishop's remarks on these topics, without being struck with the singular fallacies which pervade them. I. The Latin church, as we all know, has handed down to the present time various doctrines and various practices. Some of these are received by protestants ; others of them are rejected. Now this eclectic process is censured by the bishop: and he requires us, as we value the praise of consistency, either to receive the whole mass or to reject the whole mass.t His argument, when thrown into a regular form, w^ill run, I apprehend, as follows. The Latin church has handed down to the present time the several doctrines of the trinity, the Godhead of Christ, the incarnation, the atonement, transubst^n- tiation, purgatory, and the invocation of the^saints. But protestants receive the doctrines of the trinity, the Godhead of Christ, the incarnation, and the * Discuss. Amic. Lett. iv. v. f Discuss. Amicp vol. i. p. 196« ON TRADITION- 65 atonement: therefore they are bound also to re- ceive transubstantiation, purgatory, and the invoca- tion of the saints. Such is the bishop's argument ; but I am unable to discover the link by which he binds his conclusion to his premises. The first class of doctrines we certainly receive; because we find them in Scripture, both according to its natural interpretation, and as it was invariably understood by the primitive church nearest to the times of the apostles: the second class of doctrines we certainly reject; because we find them neither ( in Scripture nor in the creed of the earliest church, j Under such circumstances, because weBiffer from the^ modern Latin church on some points, we discern no reason why we should differ from her on all points. It is to her praise that she has faithfully handed down the great essential doctrines of our common Chris- tianity : it is to her dispraise that, from a higher or lower comparative antiquity, she has also handed down an accumulated mass of wood and hay and stub- ble.* Because we receive the Jormery are we to be censured as inconsistent on the ground of our reject- ing the latter? I see not the justice of the charge. It tacitly implies, that the two classes of doctrines j rest upon the same authority. But here is the fal- lacy: they do not rest upon the same authority. II. The bishop quarrels with the principle of our English church, that Holi/ Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that^ whatsoever is not read therein^ nor may he proved thereby j is not to he required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation,\ With this principle the bishop quarrels; and he thinks that he can reduce us to an absurdity, not to say a contradiction. Our article, we are told, while * 1 Corinth, iii. 12. f Art. vi. F 2 66 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM it claims to make Scripture its special basis, flatly contradicts Scripture itself. For, in the second Epistle to the Thessalonians, the observance of ver- bal, no less than of written, tradition is enjoined by St. Paul.* But the article maintains, that written tradition, as contained in Holy Scripture, is alone to be received. I am unable to discover the contradiction alleged by the bishop. He seems to forget that our article respects the Bible as it stood in the sixteenth century^ not as it stood when St. Paul addressed his second Epistle to the Thessalonians. Now, at the time when that epistle was written, the canon of the New Testament was so far from being completed, that most probably not one of the four gospels, most certainly not all the four gospels, had been published. At the same period also, the Acts of the Apostles, the Re- velation, the Epistles to the Corinthians, and Romans, and Colossians, and Ephesians, and Hebrews, and Timothy and Philemon, by St. Paul; the second Epis- tle by St. Peter, the Epistle by St. James, and the three Epistles by St. John, were not in existence. In short, when St. Paul charged the Thessalonians to hold the traditions which they had been taughtj whether by word or by his epistle, the canon of the New Testament, even upon the most liberal allowance, could not have contained more than the following books: the Gospel of St. Matthew, the first Epistle of St. Peter, the Epistle to the Galatians, the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, the Epistle to Titus, and the Epistle of Jude. This being the case, it is no very chimerical supposition, that the matters, ver- bally delivered by St. Paul, were afterward, in the course of God's providence, committed to faithful writing. Whence it would follow, that the position contained in the sixth article of the Anglican church, though not strictly true when the apostle wrote his * 2 Thess. ii. 15. iii. 6. ON TRADITION. 67 second letter to the Thessalonians, may yet in the six- teenth century have been an incontrovertible verity. After all, I doubt not that the church of England will readily make a large concession to the bishop of Aire. Notwithstanding the very different states of the canon at the present day, and at the time when the second Epistle to the Thessalonians was written, let his lordship prove that the traditions of the mo- dern Latin church are the identical verbal traditions of St. Paul; and the Anglican church, I feel assured, will forthwith receive them. III. In the judgment of the bishop, tradition is of such vital importance, that the very canon of Scrip- ture itself depends upon it. By renouncing, there- fore, the tradition of the Latin church, we effectively invalidate the authority of the canon of Scripture. From the frequency and confidence with which this objection is adduced, one might almost imagine, that our Latin brethren deemed us altogether ignorant of the very existence of the early ecclesiastical writers. For the settling of the canon, we resort, not to the naked dogmatical authority of the see of Rome, but to the sufficient evidence borne to that ef- fect in the yet existing documents of the primitive church. Were the candlestick of the Roman angel removed to-morrow, the totally independent testimo- ny, on which the English church receives the canon, would remain altogether unaffected. 68 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM CHAPTER IV. The Difficulties of Eomanism in respect to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation. The disagreement between the church of England and the church of Rome, in regard to the doctrine of the holy Eucharist, chiefly respects the supposed pro- cess denominated transubstantiation. On this point, the church of England teaches that the consecrated bread and wine symbolically represent the body and blood of our Saviour Christ; while the church of Rome contends, that they are actually so transmuted in their essential qualities, as to cease being any longer literal bread and wine, and as henceforth to become his strictly literal and proper, and substantial and material flesh and blood. Here, if I mistake not, is the main disagreement between the two churches. With respect to the doctrine of the real presence, they both hold it; but, as we might naturally antici- pate, it severally assumes in those two communions its specific colour from the opinions with which it is severally connected. The church of England be- lieves Christ to be really, though spiritually, present with all devout and faithful communicants; so that, although his body and blood be verily and indeed^ for every saving and beneficial purpose, taken and received by the faithful in the Lord^s supper; yet the body of Christ is given and taken and eaten in the holy supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner^ the mean whereby it is so re- ceived and eaten being faith,^ On the other hand, * Church Catech. on the Euch. and Art. xxviii. ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 69 the church of Rome believes Christ to be not only really, but also corporeally and materially, present in the Eucharist; whence of necessity she maintains, that every recipient, good or bad, faithful or unfaith- ful, partakes of the proper and literal flesh and blood of the glorified Saviour. In regard then to the real presence, the two churches differ only in their opinions respecting the mode; but, in regard to the change produced in the bread and wine by the words of consecration, their disagreement is utterly irreconcileable, A Tuoral change the Anglican church allows to be produced; the bread and wine ceasing to be common bread and wine, and henceforth being sanctified and set apart to the most solemn office of our religion; so that to reserve and to use the consecrated elements, for any mere secular purposes, were sacrilege and profana- tion of the most revolting description. But any such physical change, as that which our Latin brethren call transubstantiatiouj she most certainly denies altogether. Hence, as I have already observed, the disagreement between the two churches mainly respects the alleged process thus denominated. While arguing upon this subject, or while inci- dentally mentioning it, some persons, I regret to say, have been far too copious in the use of those unseemly terms, absurdity and impossibility. To such lan- guage the least objection is its reprehensible want of good manners: a much more serious objection is the tone of presumptuous loftiness which pervades it, and which (so far as I can judge) is wholly unbefitting a creature of very narrow faculties. Certainly, God will do nothing absurd, and can do nothing impossi- ble; but it does not, therefore, exactly follow, that our view of things should be always perfectly correct and wholly free from misapprehension. Contradic- tions we may easily /a/zcy, where in truth there are none. Hence, before we venture to pronounce any particular doctrine a contradiction, we must be sure 70 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM that we perfectly understand the nature of the matter propounded in that doctrine; for, otherwise, the contradiction may not be in the matter itself^ but in our mode of conceiving it. In regard to myself, as my consciously finite intellect claims not to be an universal measure of congruities and possibilities, I deem it both more wise and more decorous to refrain from assailing the doctrine of transubstantiation on the ground of its alleged absurdity or contradictori- ness or impossibility. By such a mode of attack, we in reality quit the true field of rational and satisfactory argument. The doctrine of transubstantiation, like the doctrine of the trinity, is a question, not of abstract reasoning, but of pure evidence. We believe the revelation of God to be essential and unerring truth. Our business, therefore, most plainly is, not to discuss the abstract absurdity and the imagined contradictoriness of transubstantiation, but to inquire, according to the best means which we possess, whether it be indeed a doctrine of Holy Scripture. If sufficient evidence shall determine such to be the case, we may be sure that the doctrine is neither absurd nor contradictory: if the evidence be insufficient, we require not the aid of irrelevant abstract reasoning, for we then reject the doctrine because we have no sufficient evidence of its truth. Receiving the Scripture as the infalli- ble word of God, and prepared with entire prostra- tion of mind to admit his declarations, I shall ever contend, that the doctrine of transubstantiation, like the doctrine of the trinity, is a question of pure evidence. I. I greatly incline to think, that, even inde- pendently of other sources of information, we may, by the aid of Scripture alone, arrive at a moral cer- tainty, that the doctrine of transubstantiation, as received in the Latin church, must needs be erro- neous. For, if it can be shown, not only that such doctrine is incongruous with the general analogy of ON TKANSUBSTANTIATION. 71 sacred tropical language, but also that it is irrecon- cilable with the very terms in which the institution of the Eucharist has been recorded, and that it directly contradicts other inspired declarations; the erroneousness of the doctrine will, I apprehend, have been demonstrated with as much moral certainty as the nature of unmathematical evidence can admit. 1. In the abstract, the expressions. This is my body^ and this is my bloody are doubtless capable, either of the interpretation put upon them by the church of England, or of the interpretation put upon them by the church of Rome: for, as no one will deny, that, on the strictest principles of grammar, they m.ay be understood literally; so no one, who is in the least degree conversant with the phraseology of Scripture, can deny that, on the strictest princi- ples of rhetoric, they m^ay be understood figuratively. Hence, so far as this part of the argument is con- cerned, the only question is, which mode of expo- sition best accords with the general analogy of sacred tropical language, and whether on any legitimate ground the Latin exposition can be admitted con- sistently with such analogy. I need scarcely remark, that the Bible abounds with expressions, which by common consent are allowed to be plainly metaphorical. God is said to be a sun, and a shield; Christ styles himself a vine, and a door, and a loay. Such language we instinc- tively perceive to be tropical: no one contends that it ought to be understood literally. Now, to the catholic of the Anglican church, these expressions appear strictly analogical to the expressions, This is m.y body, and this is m>y blood. Hence he conceives, that all the several expressions ought to be interpreted homogeneously. If the expressions. This is m^y body, and this is my blood, must needs be under- stood literally ; then, so far as he can discern, the various apparently analogical expressions, / am, a vine, and I am, a door, and I am a ivay^ must needs 72 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM be understood literally also. And, conversely, if the latter set of expressions must needs be understood figuratively; then, so far as he can perceive, homo- geneity plainly requires the figurative exposition also of the former set of expressions. Unless this first principle of interpretation be admitted, he appre- hends, that the exposition of Scripture becomes altogether arbitrary. Christ does not more explicitly say, of the bread and the wine, This is my body, and this is my blood, than St. Paul says of the rock, whereof the Israelites drank in in the wilderness. The rock loas Christ,^ If, therefore, the catholic of the Roman church may be allowed, simply because it suits his humour, to interpret the two former expressions literally; it is difficult to say, why the catholic of the English church must not be allowed, should it haply suit his pleasure, to interpret the lat- ter expression literally also. For, if once we depart from the fixed principle of homogeneous interpreta- tion, a door is opened to the wildest expository licen- tiousness; and the Bible itself becomes a field, upon which every theological adventurer must be allowed to try his unholy experiments. The principle of homogeneity , then, is the basis of the exposition advocated by the church of Eng- land; while the principle of arbitrary variation is the basis of the exposition advocated by the church of Rome. If the soundness of the latter principle be admitted, the Roman catholic may still be able to plead this soundness in favour of his own opinion; but, if the soundness of the former principle be absolutely undeniable, then an easy victory awaits the Anglican catholic; for, unless the figurative language of Scripture be altogether interpreted literally, the literal interpretation of the expressions. This is my body, and this my blood, cannot but be untenable. * Compare Matt. xxxi. 26, 28, with 1 Corinth, x. 4. ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 73 2. In his doubts as to the tenability of the Latin interpretation, the catholic of the Anglican church is confirmed by the very terms in which the institution of the Eucharist has been recorded. The Roman catholic builds much upon the alleged expressness of our Lord^s phraseology, This is my body J and this is my blood; whence he infers, that the elements, after consecration, altogether cease to be literal bread and literal wine, and that they be- come henceforth the literal flesh and literal blood of our Saviour Christ. Now, to the Anglican* catholic such an interpreta- tion seems plainly at variance with the terms in which the institution of the Eucharist has been recorded both by St. Matthew^ and by St, Paul. (1.) At the institution of the Eucharist, as recorded by St. Matthew, Christ is represented as saying of the liquor contained in the cup subsequent to its conse- cration, I will not henceforth drink of this fruit of the vineJ^ Such are the words of the Lord himself. What then was the specific nature of the fluid contained in the cup after this first consecration of the elements? The Roman catholic assures us, that the liquor was not literal wine; on the contrary, he maintains that it was literal human blood. Christ, however, though he had previously said of that liquor, this is my bloody immediately afterward most abundantly explains the true meaning of his language, by adding, I ivill not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine. Here we have our Lord^s own explanation of his own language. The liquor, which he had called his blood, he still denominates, even after consecration, THIS fruit or offspring of the vine. If, then, the liquor, even after consecration, was still the ofispring of the vine; the Anglican catholic ♦ Matt. xxvi. 29. G 74 DIFFICULTIES OF R0MANIS3I is unable to comprehend how that identical h*quor can have been literal human blood. For Christ does not more explicitly say this is my bloody than he deno- minates the consecrated fluid, this offspring of the vine, (2.) Exactly the same result is brought out from the strictly analogous language employed by St. Paul. Speaking of the material substance on the patin after consecration, he twice denominates it this breadJ^ Now what, after consecration, was the specific na- ture of that substance? The Roman catholic assures us, that the substance in question was not bread, but hu- man flesh. St. Paul assures us, that the substance in question was not human flesh, but bread. The Anglican catholic cannot reconcile St. Paul and his Roman brother. If the Latin interpretation be adopted, the apostle is placed at direct variance with his divine Master. For, in such case, that iden- tical substance, which Christ declares to be his own literal flesh, Paul unreservedly pronounces to be bread. 3. In addition to this incompatibility of the Latin interpretation with the terms in which the institution of the Eucharist has been recorded, it appears, so far as the Anglican catholic can judge, directly to contra- dict other declarations of Holy Scripture. (1.) St. John has preserved to us a very remarkable discourse of our Lord, which vvas delivered in the synagogue of Capernaum, both before the assembled Jews and before his own disciples. On the subject of his feeding the church with his own flesh and blood, his language was so strong, that the disciples murmured, and that the Jews indignantly asked. How can this man give us his flesh to eat?\ From the tenor of the narrative, it is evident that • 1 Corinth, xi. 26, 27. t John vi. 52, 60, 61. ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 75 both the disciples and the Jews understood him lite- rally; but then it is no less evident, that he corrected their mistake, and that he taught them to understand him figuratively. It is the spirit that quickeiieth, said he in mani- fest explanation of the words which had given so much offence; the flesh profiteth nothing. The ivords that I speak unto you,, they are spirit o.nd they are life,^ Our Lord himself teaches us, we see, that his lan- guage is to be mier^iveiedi figuratively, not literally. But the Roman catholic maintains, that his language is to be interpreted literally, not figuratively . The exposition of the Roman catholic, therefore, directly contradicts an inspired declaration recorded in Holy Scripture. (2.) Nor is this the only declaration of Scripture which clashes with the Latin theory. It was foretold by the prophet David, that God would not suffer his Holy One to see corruption,^ Now, St. Peter, speaking by undoubted inspiration, teaches us infallibly, that this prediction related to the circumstance of the flesh of Christ not seeing corruption according to the general lot of humanity: for, agreeably to the purport of the sacred oracle, he rose again on the third day, ere corruption had taken place.J The special privilege, then, of the human nature of Christ was, that his flesh should never see corrup- tion. He would mysteriously unite the godhead to the manhood; and, as man, he would suSer and die on our behalf: but still, corruption should never in- vade that holy flesh, w^hich, without confusion of sub- stance, had been assumed into God. Thus ran the prophecy ; and thus, as St. Peter assures us, was it accurately accomplished. But, by the Latin interpretation, the purpose of God, in * Joljn vi, 60, f Psalm xvi. 10. t Acts ii. 22—32, 76 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM regard to the human nature of Christ, is completely- frustrated. So far from the Holy One of God never seeing corruption, the literal flesh and blood of Christ, if the doctrine of transubstantiation be true, see cor- ruption again and again, by the necessary process of digestion, every revolving year and month and week. (3.) There is yet another plain contradictoriness to Scripture, which is fatally involved in the doctrine of transubstantiation. If we adopt the figurative scheme of exposition, we may innocently call the celebration of the Eu- charist a spiritual sacrifice; for even our very pray- ers are allegorical sacrifices offered up to God ;* but, if we adopt the literal scheme of exposition, we im- mediately produce a direct contradiction to Holy Scripture. The doctrine of the Latin church is, that, in the celebration of the Eucharist, the priest offers up the literal body and blood of Christ to God, as a true and proper expiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead, Christ, therefore, according to the decision of the Latin church, is repeatedly offered. But, in Holy Writ, we are positively assured, that Christ was offered only ONCE.t Hence, so far as I can see, the Latin church and Holy Writ, through the agency of the doctrine of transubstantiation, are placed in direct variance with each other. The term once bears a sense immedi- ately opposite to the term repeatedly. According to Scripture, Christ is once offered; according to the Latin church, Christ is repeatedly offered. This variation can only be reconciled by proving, that the term once and the term repeatedly are equipollent. Such are the glaring contradictions to Scripture^ * Hos. xiv. 2. t Heb. ix. 28. x. 10. 1 Pet iii. 18. ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 77 which inevitably attend upon the doctrine of tran- substantiation. How a doctrine so circumstanced can be true, it is difficult to comprehend; but, if the doctrine be erroneous, the exposition, upon which the doctrine is founded^ must certainly be erroneous also. The literal interpretation of our Lord's words, This is my body and this is my blood, cannot, by any conceivable hermeneutic mechanism, be esta- blished as the true interpretation. But, if the literal interpretation be thus displaced by the very neces- sity of Scripture itself, the figurative interpretation must inevitably be adopted. IL Though the figurative interpretation of our Lord's words be thus plainly required by Scripture when compared with Scripture, yet so great is the authority ot the catholic church nearest to the times of the apostles, that we cannot but be anxious to ascertain the interpretation which she was led to prefer and to adopt. What the apostles taught, relative to the Eucharist, must assuredly for many years have been the doc- trine of the church. Through the lapse of ages, error might gradually creep in; but it could not have sub- sisted from the beginning. If then, during the term of several centuries, we shall find that the figurative interpretation was the interpretation adopted by the early catholic church, we shall possess a moral cer- tainty of its truth. For, after we have been driven to the scheme of figurative interpretation by the very necessity of Scripture itself, if we find this identical scheme of interpretation adopted by the early catholic church, I see not what more decisive evidence can be reasonably desired. Li that case, let the literal scheme have crept in when it may, it must inevitably stand forth as an unauthorized and convicted novelty. Whatever is first, is true; whatever is more recent, is spurious, 1. It must be confessed, that the early ecclesiasti- cal writers frequently use language respecting the G 2 78 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM Eucharist, which may easily either mislead the super- ficial theologian, or seduce the interested polemic into the iniquity of partial citation. Thus, even in the second century, Justin remarks, that ''We receive not the elements as common 'bread or as common wine: but, in what manner, ' Christ our Saviour, being made flesh through the ' word of God, took flesh and blood for our salvation; ' in like manner also we are taught, that the aliment, ' from which our blood and flesh are nourished by ' transmutation, being received with thanks through ' the prayer of the word instituted by himself, is the ' flesh and the blood of that Jesus who was made ' flesh/'^ Thus also, in the fourth century, Cyril of Jerusa- lem teaches the catechumens who had been recently baptized: "When Christ himself hath declared and ' spoken concerning the bread, This is my body; who 'shall henceforth dare to hesitate? And, when he ' hath peremptorily pronounced and asserted. This is ' my blood; who shall venture to doubt, saying that ' it is not his blood ? He once, at the marriage-feast 'in Cana of Galilee, changed the water into wine; ' shall we not then give him credit for changing the ' wine into blood ? If, when called to a mere corpo- ' real marriage, he wrought that great wonder; shall ' we not much rather confess, that he hath given the ' fruition of his own body and blood to the sons of ' the bridegroom ?'M' * Justin. Apol. i. vulg. ii. p. 7^^ 77. f Cyril. Catech. Mystag. iv. p. 237. Lutet. Paris. 1631. I have selected this passage, because, so far as I know, it is the strong- est which can be produced from antiquity in favour of the Latin doctrine of transubstantiation. Its strength consists in an appa- rent comparison between the changing of the water into wine at Canat and the changing of the wine into blood by the prayer of con- secration ,- whence an argument may immediately be constructed, that, since the change in the sacramental elements is compared to the confessedl}^ physical change of the water at Cana, the change in the sacramental elements must itself be physical also. ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 79 These and other similiar passages, which might easily be accumulated, appear at first sight to put it out of all doubt, that the early church held a doctrine at the least very closely allied to the Latin doctrine I. This argument would indeed be most powerful if the appa- rent comparison were a real comparison. But let us carefully examine the passage in Cyril; and the imagined comparison will rapidly disappear. In the passage itself, even as it stands in an insulated form, I will be bold to say, that, upon a close inspection, no comparison whatever can be detected. Cyril does not compare the one change to the other change; but he simply argues from the mira- cle performed at Cana, just as he might argue from any other miracle, that, if the Lord could work miracles transcending the power of man, why should we doubt that he could also change the bread and wine into his own body and blood ? Such is the argument, not the comparison ; and it leaves the matter still un- decided, whether the change in the bread and wine be physical or moral. II. Thus would I say, even if Cyril had never written any thing on the Eucharist save the passage now before us; but, in truth, he elsewhere institutes a real comparison, which demonstratively proves, that the change, acknowledged by him in the consecrated elements, was simply moral, and in no wise physical. ** Ye are anointed," says he, '* with ointment, and ye have be- ' come partakers of Christ. But take care, lest you deem that * ointment to be mere ointment. For, as the bread of the Eucha- ^rist, after the invocation of the Holy Spirit, is no longer mere * bread, but the body of Christ; so this consecrated ointment is * no longer mere or common ointment, but the free gift of Christ ' and the presence of the very Godhead of the Holy Spirit ener- * getically produced. Hence ye are symbolically anointed upon * the forehead and upon the other organs of sense. For with * visible ointment the body is anointed; but by the holy and vivi- ^ fying Spirit the soul is sanctified." — Cyril. Catech. Mystag. iii. p. 235. In this passage, the change produced in the sacramental elements hy consecration is directly and avowedly compared to the change produced in the ancient chrism hy consecration. Now, confessedly, no change was ever thought to be produced in the ancient chrism by consecration, save a moral change; that is to say, the chrism ceased to be common ointment, and henceforth became holy oint- ment, which was supposed eminently to confer the graces of the Holy Spirit. Such being the case, since the change in the conse- crated elements is avowedly and illustratively compared to the change in the consecfrated chrism, and since the change in the conse- crated chrism is most undoubtedly a moral change onlyf it clearly 80 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM of transubstantiation ; and, accordingly, places of this description are copiously adduced by Roman contro- versialists: but, in truth, if we can command patience enough to hear her explain herself, we shall find that the change in the elements, which she recognised, was a moral change by which they were converted from a secular to a holy purpose, not a physical change^ by which they were literally transmuted into human flesh and blood. 2. That such was the doctrine of the early church, is abundantly evident from the multiplied compari- sons which were employed by way of illustration. The change, wrought by consecration in the ele- ments, is discribed, by Cyril and Irenseus, and the ancient Homilist in Jerome, and Gregory of Nyssa, as being similar in nature, to the change wrought by consecration in oil, or in an altar, or in a church, to the change wrought in our mortal bodies by their being made capable of immortality, to the change wrought in a layman by sacerdotal ordination, and to the change wrought in the unregenerate by the mighty efficacy of spiritual regeneration.* follows, that, in the judgment of Cyril, the consecrated elements experience no change save a moral changes that is to say, in the language both of Justin and of Cyril, we receive not the elements as common bread or as common wine; for, after the invocation of the Holy Spirit, the bread of the Eucharist is no longer mere bread, but bread henceforth set apart from secular use to a high and sacred purpose. I will venture to say, that no man, who thought with the mo- dern Latins, could ever have illustratively compared the change in the consecrated elements to the change in the consecrated chrism: for, had Cyril held the doctrine of transubstantiation, he must incon- gruously have compared 2i physical change to a moral change. * See Cyril. Catech. Mystag. iii. p. 235. Iren. adv. Hasr. lib. iv. c. 34. § 6. Homil. de Corp. et Sang. Christ, in Hieron. oper. vol. ix. p. 212. Gregor. Nyssen. de Baptism, oper. vol. iii. p. 369. Asa specimen of the mode in which the earl)^ fathers illustrate the change wrought in the sacramental elements by the prayer of consecration, I subjoin the passage from Gregory of iXyssa referred to above. "This altar, before which we stand," says he, "is physically * mere common stone, differing nothing from the stones with ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 81 Now, it is difficult to comprehend, how illustrative comparisons of this sort could ever have been used by persons who held the favourite doctrine of the modern Roman church. According to the Latin theologians, the change, produced in the elements by- consecration, is PHYSICAL : yet the ancients compar- ed this change to a great variety of changes, which are purely moral. Hence, by a necessary conse- quence, it seems to follow, that the change, which the ancients believed to take place in the elements by virtue of consecration, was moral, not physical. * which our hotfses are built : but, after it has been consecrated by * benediction to the service of God, it becomes a holy table, a sanc- * tified altar. In a similar manner, the eucharistic bread is * originally mere common bread ; but, when it has been consecra- * ted in the holy mystery, it becomes, and is called the body of * Christ. Thus also the mystic oil and the wine, though of small 'value before the benediction, work wonders after their sanctifi- * cation by the Spirit. The same power of consecration likewise * imprints a new and honourable character upon a priest, when ' by a new benediction he is separated from the laity. For he, * who was previously nothing more than a common man, is * suddenly transformed into a teacher of religion, and into a stew- ' ard of the holy mysteries. Yet this great mutation is effected * without any change in his bodily form and appearance. Exter- * nally, he is the same that he already was ; but, internally, by * an invisible and gracious operation, a mighty change is effected * in his soul.'' So far as I can understand Gregory, whose language perfectly accords with that of Cyril and Irenseus, and the ancient author of the Homily in Jerome, he seems to have acknowledged no change in the bread and wine by virtue of consecration, save such a change as that which is wrought in a layman when by virtue of consecration he becomes a priest. Now, the only change in the layman, as indeed Gregory most carefully informs us, is a moral change. Therefore, the only change in the bread and wine, to which this change in the layman is expressly compared, must clearely be a moral change also. No person, who held the doc- trine of a PHYSICAL change in the elements, could possibly compare that physical change to a variety of other changes, every one of which is purely moral. Hence it is evident, that the primitive church acknowledged only a moral change in the elements ; and hence nothing can be more nugatory than the conduct of the Roman controversialists, who perpetually quote the Fathers as speaking of a physical change, when they most indubitably speak only of a moral change. 82 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM 3. With the avowed doctrine of the early church, that the change, wrought in the elements by conse- cration, is not PHYSICAL, but MORAL, the language employed respecting the elements themselves will be found exactly to correspond. Whenever the fathers descend to the strictness of explanatory definition, they plainly tell us, again and again, that the consecrated elements are only the types, OY figures^ or symbols^ or allegorical images of the body and blood of Christ; and, not unfrequently, as if anxious to remove all possibility of misapprehen- sion, they assure us, in express terms, that we do not- eat the literal body, and that toe do not drink the literal blood of Christ, when we participate of the blessed Eucharist. The subject is so important, that they must be allowed to come forward, and in their own words to bear their own testimony, (1.) "Inasmuch,^' says Clement of Alexandria, in the second century: *' Inasmuch as Christ declared, 'that the bread which I give you is my flesh; and •inasmuch as flesh is irrigated by blood; therefore *the wine is allegorically called blood.* For 'the word is allegorically designated by many ' different names, such as meat and flesh and nourish- 'ment, and bread and blood and milk ; for the Lord 'is all things for the enjoyment of us, who have ' believed in him. Nor let any one think that we 'speak strangely, when we say, that milk is alle- ' GORicALLY CALLED the blood of the Lord : for is 'not wine likewise allegorically called by the ' very same appellation ?t The Scripture, then, has ' named wine a mystic symbol of the Holy blood. J ' For be well assured, that Christ also himself partook 'of wine; inasmuch as he also was a man. He 'moreover blessed the wine, saying, Take, drink; * Clem. Alex. Pacdag. lib. i. c. 6. p. 104. t Ibid. p. 105. t Ibid. lib. ii. c. 2. p. 156. ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 83 ^this is my blood, the blood of the vine. The con- ^secrated liquor of exhilaration, therefore, allegori- ' cally represents the Word, who poured himself out ' on behalf of many for the remission of sins/'* (2.) " God, in your Gospel,'^ says Tertullian, who flourshed at the latter end of the second, and at the beginning of the third century, '' has so revealed the ' matter, calling the bread his own body, that you ' may hence understand how he gave bread to be the ^figure of his own body : which body, conversely, the ^prophet has figuratively called bread, the Lord 'himself being afterward about to interpret this sacra- * ment.t For we must not call our senses in question, ' lest we should doubt respecting their fidelity even in < the case of Christ himself. Because, if we question ' the fidelity of our senses, we might peradventure be ' led to say, that Christ delusively beheld Satan pre- * cipitated from heaven, or delusively heard the voice ^ of his Father testifying of him, or was deceived when ' he touched Peter's mother-in-law, or smelt a different ^ odour of the ointment which he received for his * sepulture, or tasted a different flavour of the wine ' which he consecrated in memory of his own blood. J ' Christ reprobated neither the water of the Creator * with which he washes his people, nor the oil with ' which he anoints them, nor the fellowship of honey * and milk with which he feeds them as infants, nor < the bread by which he represents his own body: * for, even in his own sacraments, he needs the beg- * garly elements of the Creator.^^§ (3.) *'By water,^' says Cyprian, in the third cen- tury, speaking of the ancient custom of mingling water with wine in the eucharist: "By w^ater, we ' perceive, that the people is intended; but, by ' wine, we may observe, that the blood of Christ is * Ibid. lib. ii. c. 2. p. 158. t Tertull. adv. Marcion. lib. iii. <^ 12, 13. p. 209. t Tertull. de Anim. in cap. de qiiinque sens. oper. p. 653. § Tertull. adv. Marcion. lib. i. § 9. oper. p. 155. 84 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM ' shown forth. Hence, when water is mingled with « wine in the cup, the people are united to Christ, ' and the whole crowd of believers are linked and ^joined to him in whom they have believed. For, ^ if wine only be offered, the blood of Christ is with- ^ out the people; and, if water only be offered, the ^ people is without Christ. But, when both are ' mingled and united together, then the spiritual and ' heavenly sacrament is coinplete."^ (4.) ^^ With all assurance,'^ says Cyril of Jerusa- lem in the fourth century, " let us partake as of the ' body and blood of Christ. For, under the type ' of bread, his body is given to thee; and, under the 'type of wine, his blood is given to thee: that so ' thou mayest partake of the body and blood of Christ, ' being one body and one blood with him.^^f (5.) ^' Under the name of flesh, ^^ says Chrysostom in the fourth century, '^Scripture is wont alike to ^ set forth both the mysteries and the whole church: ' for it says, that they are each the body of Christ.J ' Wherefore let there approach no Judas, partaking ^ of the poison of iniquity; for the Eucharist is ' spiritual food.^^^ (6.) ''The Lord," says the great Augustine, in the fourth century, '' when he gave the sign of his ' body, did not doubt to say. This is my body. || In ' the history of the New Testament, so great and so ' marvellous was the patience of our Lord, that, bear- ' ing with Judas, though not ignorant of his purpose, ' he admitted him to the banquet, in which he com- / mended and delivered to his disciples the figure of ' his own boJy and blood.lT Christ instructed his * Cyprian. Epist. Cxcil. Ixiil. p. 153, 154. Oxon. 1682. t Cyril. Catech. Mystag. iv. p. 217. \ Chrysost. Comment, in Epist. ad Galat. c. v. oper. vol. ix. p. 1022. Commel. 1603. § Chrysost. de Prodlt. Jud. Serm. xxx. oper. vol. v. p. 464. II August, cont. Adimant. c. xii. oper. vol. vi. p. 69. Colon. 1616. Tf August. Enarr. in Psalm, iii. oper. vol. viii. p. 7. ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 85 ' disciples, and said unto them, It is the spirit that ' quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words, * which I speak unto you, are spirit and life. As if ' he had said: Understand spiritually what I have ^ spoken. You are not about to eat this identical ^body, which you see; and you are not about to ^ drink this identical blood, which they who crucify * me will pour out. On the contrary, I have com- ' mended a certain sacrament unto you, which will ' vivify you if spiritually understood. Though it ' must be celebrated visibly, yet it must be under- ' stood invisibly.'^^ (7.) "Certainly/^ says Pope Gelasius in the fifth century, " the sacraments of the body and blood of ' the Lord, which we receive, are a divine thing: ^ because by these we are made partakers of the divine ^ nature. Nevertheless, the substance or nature of ' the bread and wine ceases not to exist; and, ^ assuredly, the image and similitude of the body ' and blood of Christ are celebrated in the action of ^ the mysteries.^'f (8.) "The sacrament of adoption,^' says Facundus in the sixth century, '^ may be called adoption: just ' as the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, ' which is in the consecrated bread and wine, we are ' wont to call his body and blood. Not, indeed, that ' the bread is properly his body, or that the wine is ^properly his blood, but because they contain the * mystery of his body and blood within themselves. ' Hence it was, that our Lord denominated the con- ' secrated bread and wine, which he delivered to his ' disciples, his own body and blood. ^^J 4. It were easy to multiply extracts of a similar description; but these may suffice. Respecting the greater part of them, it is superfluous to offer any * August. Enarr. in Psalm, xcviii. oper. vol. viii. p. 397. f Gelas. de duab. Christ. Natur. cont. Nestor, et Eutych. in Biblioth. Patr. vol. iv. p. 422. i Facund. Defens. Concil. Chalced. lib. ix. c. 5. oper. p. 144. H 86 DIPFICULTIES OP ROMANISM remarks. They speak for themselves; and their force cannot be heightened by the observations of a protestant commentator. One, however, of the cited passages may possibly be rendered even yet more striking and satisfactory by a word of explanation. Clement of Alexandria, in a manner which cannot easily be misunderstood, informs us, as we have seen, that the consecrated wine allegoric ally repre- sents the blood of the divine Word,^ In the cita- tion, nothing save this bare statement appears: a statement quite satisfactory no doubt; but still a bare statement. From a simple extract, the argument^ contained in the context, of necessity vanishes; yet that argument^ when connected with the statement, renders it doubly forcible and efficacious. Hence I must not withhold it from those who may not have an opportunity of consulting the original. In the days of Clement, certain sectaries, who bore the name of Encratites, contended that the use of wine was unlawful. Against these enthusiasts, Clement brings a variety of arguments; and, among them, he takes occasion to construct one very power- ful argument upon the use of wine in the Eucharist. His argument is to the following effect: — Christ himself consecrated true and proper ivi7ie in the institution of the Eucharist, This conse- crated wine he himself commanded his disciples to drink. Therefore, on the invincible authority of our Saviour Christy the use of wine cannot but be lawful. Thus runs the argument of Clement against the Encratites, in the context of the passage where he tells us, that the holy wine allegoric ally repre- sents the blood of Christ, Now, according to the scheme of figurative interpretation adopted by the church of England, the argument is perfectly conclu- sive; but it is grossly inconclusive, according to the * Clem. Alex. Psedag. lib. ii. c. 2. p. 158. ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 87 scheme of ///era/ interpretation adopted by the church of Rome. Had Clement held with the Latin catholic, that the consecrated liquor, drunk by the disciples was NOT ivine, hut proper and literal human hloodj he plainly could never have argued, from the fact of the disciples having drunk literal human bloody that the use of wine was strictly lawful. On the supposi- tion, at least, of his having been a transubstantialist, he must actually have reasoned as follows: — Whatever Christ ordains is laiofuL But the disciples^ by Chrisfs special ordination, drank literal human blood. Therefore the use of wine is lawful. Between such premises and such a conclusion, there is evidently not the least connexion; and yet, if Clement were a transubstantialist, this most assuredly must have been the mode in which he reasoned. But no man of common sense could argue with such gross absurdity. Hence we may be certain, that Clement never did thus argue : and hence, finally, we may be certain also, from the very tenor of his own argument against the Encratites, that, he w^as not a transubstantialist. His argument and his statement, in short, perfectly accord. From the authorized use of wine in the Eucharist, he demonstrates the lawfulness of the use of wine in general; and, in strict agreement with such an argument, he tells us, that the conse- crated wine, not literally is, but allegorically REPRESENTS, the blood of Christ. An argument against the Encratites, when built upon this statement, is doubtless invincibly conclu- sive: but then Clement himself, without incurring the least censure from his contemporaries, will sym- bolize, in the doctrine of the Eucharist, with the church of England, not with the church of Rome. 88 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM, CHAPTER V. Respecting the Latin Defence of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation from the Language em- ployed by our Lord, Were the doctrine of Transubstantiation capable of defence, the task would have been accomplished by the bishop of Aire. If its cause fail in the hands of such a master, we must indeed pronounce that cause to be desperate. The bishop's first argument in favour of the doc- trine of transubstantiation is drawn from the words of Christ himself, as recorded in Holy Scripture.* I. Previous to the specific institution of the Eucha- rist, Christ is said by St. John to have delivered, in the synagogue of Capernaum, before the Jews and his own disciples, a very remarkable discourse, in which he declared the necessity of eating the flesh of the Son of Man and of drinking his bloodA It may perhaps be recollected, that upon this iden- tical discourse was built one of my own arguments from Scripture, against the doctrine of transubstan- tiation. J Yet so very differently does the same pas- sage sometimes strike different persons, that the bishop has constructed upon it what he deems a con- clusive argument in favour of that doctrine. When Christ declared the necessity of eating the flesh of the Son of Man and of drinking his blood, both the Jews and the disciples understood him in a * Discuss. Amic. Lett, vi, vii. f John vi. 26-— 65. t See above, Book i. chap. 4. § I. 3. (1.) LATIN DEFENCE OP TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 89 literal sense; and, accordingly, they were vehemently offended. Now, as they understood our Lord at the time when the discourse was delivered, the bishop contends that we also ought to understand it at the present day. 1. His lordship is far too able a controversialist not to perceive, that the main question hinges upon a subsequent most important declaration of our Saviour. Certainly, the Jews and the disciples understood our Lord to speak literally: but, before we adopt their opinion, we must have some evidence of its pro- priety. Now, Christ^s own exposition of his own words fully demonstrates, in the judgment of many persons, that the Jews and the disciples had hastily taken up an erroneous opinion. Finding that his auditors understood him literally^ he assured them that they were mistaken, and that he meant to have been ww^eYsioodL figuratively. It is the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh pro- fiteth nothing : the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.^ In this manner did our Lord explain the words which had given so much offence ; and, if his expla- nation be understood as protestants commonly under- stand it, the passage, adduced by the bishop in support of his cause, is in truth decidedly adverse. Hence, as we might naturally expect from so intelli- gent a writer, he sets himself to discover a sense for Christ's explanation, which shall not compel him to relinquish the advocated doctrine as altogether unte- nable. It is well known, he remarks, that, in the ordinary style of Scripture, the flesh often signifies the corpo- real senses, or the carnal and corrupt reason of man; while the spirit denotes the grace of God, or the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Our Lord, then, • John vi. 63. H 2 90 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. here declares, that the flesh or the corrupt reason of man profits nothing to discover and to believe that which he has announced. The real manducation of his literal flesh and blood is a matter at which the carnal or natural man has ever stumbled. Such a doctrine can be received by the spirit alone. The words spoken by Christ are indeed spirit and life; but then they are spirit and life solely to that spiritual man, who, renouncing the flesh or corrupt reason, is enabled by the grace of God to understand them literally.* I must confess, that the present appears to me a somewhat extraordinary description of the two states of the carnal man and the spiritual man. If we may believe the bishop of Aire, the carnal man displays his carnality by adopting the spiritual interpretation of our Lord's phraseology; while the spiritual man evinces his spirituality by preferring the carnal interpretation. Such a description may perhaps be thought para- doxical; and such a gloss will, I fear, satisfy none, except those who are already satisfied. The true meaning of our Lord's explanation will still be liti- gated : nor do I perceive how the matter is to be decided, save by the calling in of an umpire. Let that umpire then be the primitive church, speaking through the mouth of certain of her most eminent doctors. To such an arbitration, the bishop, who repeatedly claims ecclesiastical antiquity as his own, cannot reasonably object ; and to such an arbitration I myself am perfectly willing to submit our dif- ference. What then say the early writers of the church, as to the true purport of our Lord's explanatory decla- ration? Do they understand it, as the bishop of Aire is willing to understand it; or do they interpret it as it is commonly interpreted by protestants? * Discuss. Amic. vol. i. p. 265 — 267, LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 91 Assuredly they prefer the protestant interpreta- tion ; for we find Tertallian, Augustine, Athanasius, and Clement of Alexandria, all concurring in the supposition, that our Lord meant to correct the mis- take into which the Jews and the disciples had fallen, and to teach them that his words ought to be under- stood, not literally^ hut figuratively , On this point, these great doctors of the church are full and ex- plicit and unambiguous. They all quote our Sa- viour's declaration ; and, expounding it precisely as we protestants expound it, they all pronounce upon the strength of it, that his antecedent language, re- specting the necessity of eating the flesh and drink- ing the blood of the Son of Man, ought to be inter- preted, not literally and carnally, but figuratively and spiritually,^ * Tertull. de Resur. Cam. § xxvili. oper. p. 69. August. Enarr. in Psalm, xcviii. oper. vol. viii. p. 397. Clem. Alex. Psedag*. lib. i. c. 6. p. 104. Athan. in illud Evan. Quicunque dixerit verbum con- tra filium hominis. Oper. vol. i. p. 771, 772. Commel. 1600. That it may be the more distinctly seen how widely the ancients differed from the bishop of Aire, I subjoin, as a specimen, the gloss of Athanasius. ** When our Lord conversed on the eating of his body, and * when he thence beheld many scandalized, he forthwith added, * Doth this offend you? What if ye shall behold the Son of Man * ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; ' the flesh profiteth nothing. The words which I speak unto you * are spirit and life. Both these matters, the flesh and the spirit, * he said respecting himself: and he distinguished the spirit from < the flesh, in order to teach men, that his sayings are not carnal * but spiritual. For to how many persons, think you, could his *body have literally been food; so that it might become the ali- * ment of the whole world? But, that he might turn away their ' minds from carnal cogitations, and that they might learn that the 'flesh which he would give them was heavenly and spiritual food; ' he, on this account, mentioned the ascent of the Son of Man to * heaven. The words, said he, which I speak unto you, are spirit * and life. As if he had intimated: My body shall be given as food 'for the world; but then it must be imparted to each one only * after a spiritual manner, that so to all it may be an earnest of the 'resurrection to eternal life.'' The gloss of Augustine is equally full and explicit against the bishop of Aire. I have already given it at large. See abore. Book i. chap. 4. § 11. 3. (6.) 93 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. Such authorities place the bishop of Aire in a situ- ation which is in no wise enviable. If he retain his own gloss of our Lord's explanatory declaration, he contradicts four of the most eminent doctors of the early church: if he adopt the gloss, propounded alike by those ancient doctors and by modern protestants, he must inevitably give up the theory of transub- stantiation. 2. But, though the gloss projected by the learned prelate enjoys not the high sanction of the ancients, still he contends, that its propriety, however modern it may be, is evinced by the very behaviour of the disciples. Had they been satisfied (he argues) with our Lord's explanation of the hard saying which had given them so much offence, they would have remained with him. But we are told, that from that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more.* Therefore (the bishop infers) they were not satisfied with his explanation; and, consequently, the purport of his explanation cannot be, that his flesh and his blood w^ere to be received only after a spiri- tual manner. The argument is more ingenious than conclusive. His lordship assumes, that the stubborn Jews and the apostatizing disciples would have been quite satisfied, if they had understood our Lord's explanation as Tertullian and Clement and Augustine and Atha- nasius understand it. Whence he argues, that they did not so understand it, because they w^ere not satisfied. Now, the justice of this assumption, which forms the very basis of the bishop's argument, I must take leave to doubt. The idea of the precepts of a teacher being spi- ritually meat and drink was perfectly familiar to the Jews ; and, as such, it would clearly have given • John vi. 66. LATIN DEFENCE OF TRAN SUBSTANTIATION. 93 them no offence i"^ but the idea of the teacher HIMSELF becoming the aliment of his disciples must have been altogether new to them; and I strongly suspect, that, from their prejudiced minds, the offence of such a doctrine would not be removed even by a spiritualizing explanation. According to the rules of just reasoning, the bishop must establish the validity of his assumption before he can be allowed to argue from it. For my own part, I deny its validity altogether: for I believe, that, even when our Lord had given a spiritualizing explanation of his offensive language, the Jew^s and the apostatizing disciples were still scandalized at the strange and novel idea of A teacher becoming the aliment of his pupilsy however that idea might be softened to them. It may be added, what the bishop wholly overlooks, that our Lord's discourse contained much to offend them, beside his asserting the necessity of their eating his flesh and drinking his blood ; and I take it, that the general impression left upon their minds was, that he was a dealer in unintelligible paradoxes, from whom much offence and little useful instruction could be received. Under the mingled operation of these feelings, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. II. From the preparatory discourse at Capernaum, the bishop passes to the specific institution of the Eucharist. 1. On this subject he justly remarks, that, when Christ ordained that sacrament, his phraseology could not but have forcibly recalled to the minds of his dis- ciples the language which he had previously held in the synagogue at Capernaum. Whence he argues, that, as they understood him literally on the one * See Ezek. lii. 1—11. Prov. ix. 5. Ecclus. xxiv. 21. Phil. Jud. Leg. Alleg. lib. ii. p. 90. 94 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. occasion, they would also understand him literally on the other occasion. The conclusiveness of the present argument de- pends entirely upon the establishment or the non- establishment of the bishop^s opinion relative to the matters which occurred at Capernaum. Now the totally different views of that question taken by his lordship and myself, bring us of necessity to totally different views of the language employed by Christ in the institution of the Eucharist. The bishop, maintaining that Christ was from first to last literally understood by the disciples in the synagogue at Ca- pernaum, maintains also, that he was literally unAeY' stood by them at the institution of the holy supper. I, on the contrary, maintaining, on the ground of Christ^s own explanation as interpreted and received in the early church, that he was at length figuratively understood by the disciples at Capernaum, maintain, that he was also figuratively understood by them at the institution of the Eucharist. Under this aspect, therefore, the matter resolves itself into the question, which of the two litigants has most satisfactorily established his opinion in regard to the purport of Christ's language at Capernaum. 2. While the bishop thus argues, with whatever cogency, in favour of the literal interpretation of the language employed by Christ in the institution of the Eucharist, he brings forward also certain objections to that figurative interpretation of it which is pre- ferred and adopted by the church of England. (I,) He urges, that, previous to the institution of the Eucharist, bread had never been taken as a sign of our Lord's body. Whence he contends, that the consecrated bread cannot be legitimately viewed as a sign or type, or image or symbol."^ With the ostensible premises of this argument I am little concerned. They may be very true, as the • Discuss. Amic. vol. i. p. 293, 294. X LATIN DEFENCE OF TRAN SUBSTANTIATION. 95 bishop thinks: or they may be very false, as the early fathers of the church believe.^ With the ostensible premises I concern not myself: my business is with the conclusion. Now that conclusion strikes me as altogether unwarrantable. Let the objection of the bishop be disguised as it may, when thrown into a regular form, it will run as follows: — Unless a word has already been used figura- tively, we have no right so to interpret it in any particular instance. But the word bread was never used figuratively as denoting Chrisfs body^ previous to the institution of the Eucharist, Therefore the figurative interpretation of it, in the case of the Eucharist^ is inadmissible. Such, when regularly drawn out, is the bishop^s argument In his own statement of it, the true pre- mises are altogether concealed; and certain spurious premises, which may be very accurate or which may be very inaccurate, so far as matter of fact is con- cerned, are alone brought forward to notice. The bishop makes his conclusion to depend upon the alleged circumstance, that, previous to the institution of the Eucharist^ bread had never been taken as a sign of our Lord^s body: whereas the conclusion re- ally depends upon the proposition, that unless a laord has already been used figuratively, we have no right so to interpret it in any particular instance. Now the utter falsehood of this proposition must be plain to the very meanest capacity. If it be received as true, it will indeed make short work with the whole family of metaphors: for it is quite clear, that, \i pre- vious use by earlier writers be necessary to consti- * To a person so well skilled as the bishop in the works of the ancient fathers, I do not think it necessary to point out, by a formal adduction of instances, how perpetually they consider bread and wine, when mentioned in the Old Testament, to be sig*ns or figures of our Lord's body and blood. Two of the most favourite passages, adduced for this purpose, are Gen. xiv. 18. and Gen. xlix. 11. 96 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. tute a legitimate metaphor, no metaphor whatsoever can be in existence; inasmuch as, at some period or other, every metaphor must have been used for the first time. (2. ) The bishop attempts to show, that the expres- sions, / a7n the door and / am the vine^ are not homogeneous with the expressions, This is my body and This is my blood. Whence he contends, that the homogeneous scheme of interpretation, insisted upon by the church of England, is certainly unte- able.* I am unable to comprehend the force of the rea- soning, by which he would disprove the homogeneity of those several expressions. To members of his own communion, who may perceive what I unfortu- nately cannot perceive, his reasoning will doubtless appear valid; but it will have small weight with those, who have not been already convinced through some other medium. I claim not to be a very profound rhetorician ; but, after all the labour which the bishop has bestowed upon the subject, the expressions, I am. the door and I am the vine^ and This is my body and This is my blood, strike upon my own apprehension, as being strictly homogeneous, and as being alike figurative or metaphorical. In the construction of them I can see no difierence. The fault may be my own; but such is the fact. When Christ says, I am the door; both the bishop and myself understand him to speak figuratively: when he says of the conse- crated bread, This is viy body; I am unable to per- ceive, why I MUST NOT understand him to speak figuratively, and why I must understand him to speak literally.! * Discuss. Amic. vol. i. p. 295. f The bishop of Meaux, much in the same manner as the bishop of Aire, attempts to make out a case, that, while the expression I am the vine must be figuratively interpreted, the expression This is my blood must be literally interpreted. Hist, des Variat. livr. ii. § 26, 27. LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 97 His case works no conviction in my own mind; and, apparently, it would have met with no better success, had it been propounded to the ancient fathers. The speaker, at least, in Theodoret's Dia- logues, who bears the characteristic name of Orthodoxus, and who argues against the doctrine of a physical change in the consecrated elements then first propounded by the Eutychian heretics, con- tends, that our Lord honoured the visible symbols with the name of his body and blood, because he had previously called himself a vine. Hence it is clear, that the orthodox church of the fifth century understood the two expressions, lam the vine and This is my hlood, in the same sense : that is to say, she alike understood them figuratively or metaphorically. See Theodor. Dial. i. oper. vol. iv. p. 17, 18. Lut. Paris, 1642. The reader will find the entire passage cited below, Book i. chap. 8, § 1. 1. 98 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. CHAPTER VI. Respecting the Latin Defence of the Doctrine of Transubstantiationj from the secret Discipline of the early Church. There are few matters of theological antiquity- more curious and extraordinary, than the secret dis- cipline ef the early Christian church. "^ Assuredly, as the bishop of Aire most justly re- marks, those persons greatly err, who would place the rise of this institution no higher than the fourth century. Origen, in the third century, perpetually refers to it; and its existence in the second century may clearly be gathered from the writings of Tertul- lian and Clement of Alexandria. I am myself unable to trace it, at least distinctly, any higher than those fathers. Justin mdij possibly allude to it: but I can- not venture to hazard an assertion respecting the words of that ancient author.* The bishop thinks, that this, discipline originated with the apostles themselves; and he attempts, by various authorities, to make good his opinion. I more than doubt, whether he has succeeded. He shows indeed, what we all knew, that the primitive christians, from a lawful wish to escape persecution, conducted their worship secretly in regard to the pagans: but this is a very different thing from that discipline of the early church, which was conducted secretly in regard to the catechumens. The rise of * Discuss. Amic. Lett. viii. , f See Justin. Apol. i. vulg". ii. p. SS, LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 99 the last, I incline to think, cannot be placed higher than about the middle of the second century; and both its mechanism and its phraseology show, not obscurely, its true origin. St. Paul, more especially when writing to the Gentile churches^ often alludes, with great felicity, to the rites and ceremonies of the pagans. Among other matters, he, again and again, refers most point- edly to the ancient mysteries."^ This last illustrative idea was caught up, more eagerly than wisely, by the governors of the church, apparently^ as I have said, about the middle of the second century. The pagans had their venerable mysteries, into which none were admitted unless they had passed through a long pre- vious novitiate: St. Paul might be supposed to coun- tenance the establishment of yet more venerable Christian mysteries. Accordingly, the church soon determined to have an institution of this nature, into which none should be admitted without passing through the long probationary stage of catechumen- ism. Henceforth then, with an ill-advised imitation of gentilism, the bishop or officiating presbyter was made to correspond with the hierophant; the deacon, with the daduchus; the catechumen, with the aspir- ant; and the baptized communicant, with the illumi- nated epopt. Such was the mechanism of this singu- lar institution; and the man must be ill-versed in the compositions of the early ecclesiastical writers, who has not observed a studied adaptation of language plainly enough borrowed from the phraseology of the pagan mysteries.t * Rom. xi. 25. xvi. 25—27. 1 Corinth, ii. 4—8. xv. 47—51. Coloss. i. 26—28. ii. 1—4. iv. 2^5. Ephes. i. 9, 10, 16—18. v. 31, 32. t See Tertull. Apol. adv. Gent. p. 821. Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. V. p. 574 — 579. Origen. in Levit. Homil. ix. Comment, in Johan. Oper. vol. ii. p. 97, 98. Lactant. Instit. lib. vii. § 26. Cyril. Hieros. Praefat. in Catech. p. 3, 6, 7, 8, 9. Chiysost. Sanct, Miss, in Oper. vol. iv. p. 607, 100 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. Now the theory of the bishop, as might be antici- pated from the purport of his work, is this. The secret discipline of the primitive church had for its sole cause the doctrine of transubstantiation: for, in the very nature of things, it could not possi- bly have had any other cause than that which is thus assigned to it. Hence it will follow, that the grand^ and exclusive^ and special secret of the Christian mysteries was the doctrine of transubstan- tiation.* I. It is easy to exhibit a favourite theory under a plausible aspect; and to his own theory this service has been rendered, in an eminent degree, by the deeply-learned bishop of Aire. In the primitive church, he argues, a most extra- ordinary system of secret discipline was established. The sole object of this discipline was to conceal, from the pagan on the one hand, and from the cate- chumen on the other hand, the true doctrine of the Eucharist. What then could be that single doctrine, which was exclusively guarded with so much jealous care, while every other doctrine was freely exposed to the public gaze? Could it have been the doctrine of the Eucharist, according to the Anglican interpre- tation of our Lord's phraseology? The supposition is incredible: for no satisfactory reason can be given, why such a doctrine should have been so jealously concealed from the uninitiated. Nothing then re- mains but the conclusion, that the real secret of the Christian mysteries was the doctrine of the Eucha- rist, according to the Roman interpretation of our Lord's phraseology. Admit this opinion; and the whole conduct of the primitive believers becomes lucidly intelligible. Reject this opinion; and their * Or je me flatte a present, Monsieur, que vous voyez claire- ment que la discipline du secret sur I'Eucharistie a eu effective- ment le dogme de la realite pQur cause, et n^ajpu en avoir d^ autre* Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 2. LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 101 whole conduct is a tissue of unaccountable inconsis- tencies. Thus argues the bishop of Aire; and such is the impression which he would leave upon the mind of his reader. Yet I can safely say, that, if his work produces such an impression, it produces an im- pression which but ill accords with the testimony of the ancients. Let us, however, proceed to a discussion of the theory, which, with no small dexterity, his lordship has undertaken to advocate. 1. The bishop asserts, as the very basis of his argument, that the true doctrine of the Eucharist, whatever that doctrine might be, whether it were the doctrine taught by the church of England or the doctrine taught hy the church of Rome, was the sole and exclusive secret of the ancient Christian myste- ries.* I acknowledge the force of the bishop's reasoning from this position: but, unfortunately, the position itself rests not upon any solid foundation. His argu- ment is avowedly built upon the alleged fact, that the true doctrine of the Eucharist was the exclusive secret of the Christian mysteries. Now^, for the allegation of this pretended fact, the bishop has no authority w^hatever. Let the true doctrine of the Eucharist be what it may, that doctrine was not the exclusive secret of the Christian mysteries. On the contrar}^, as we shall soon learn from positive evidence, the mysteries propounded many secrets; and those many secrets were no other than the whole circle of the higher and peculiar doctrines of Christianity. Thus perishes the argument from the alleged fact of exclusiveness. 2. Still it may be said, that, although the myste- ries were not instituted exclusively for the purpose of concealing from the profane the true doctrine of * Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 2. I2 102 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. the Eucharist, yet, at all events, they were mainly ^KiA principally instituted for that purpose. So it may be said; but for such a supposed asser- tion there is no foundation. The true doctrine of the Eucharist was neither the exclusive secret of the mysteries, nor yet even their principal secret. (1.) Perhaps one of the most curious works which have come down to us from ecclesiastical antiquity, is a volume containing the catechetical and mystago- gical lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem. His catecheti- cal lectures were delivered to the illuminated, or to that higher class of catechumens who were on the point of being admitted into the church by the rite of baptism : his mystagogical lectures were delivered to those who had been recently baptized, and who were preparing themselves to partake of the blessed Eucharist. Now these lectures, as Cyril's own preface or in- troduction expressly tells us, contained the develop- ment of those secrets or mysteries, which it was the object of the arcane discipline to conceal from the lower classes of the catechumens."^ ^' When the catechism is recited/' says he, '^ if a ^ catechumen shall ask you what the teachers said, ^ tell nothing to him that is without. For we have ' delivered to you the mystery and the hope of the ^ future contest. Keep then the mystery to him who ^ will repay you: and regard not, if any one shall ^say; What great harm can there be, should I also ' learn? Know, that sick men ask for wine : yet, if ' it shall be unseasonably given to them, it produces ^frenzy; and two bad consequences thence result, ' the sick man dies, and the physician is blamed. In * The Auditorum tyrocinia, as Tertullian speaks. TertuU. de Poenit. Oper. p. 481. One of the appellations of the Catechu- mens was Auditores or Hearers ; and over them presided an offi- cer styled a Catechist or Teacher^ who was appointed by the bishop of the see, and who acted under his authority. See Cyprian. Epist. xxix. p. 55, LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 103 ' like manner, the catechumen, if he hear the myste- ^ries from the faithful, becomes phrenetical: for he ' understands not what he hears, and the faithful is ' condemned as a betrayer.* When you were a cate- ' chumen,! did not reveal the mysteries to you: and, ' when by experience you shall have learned their ^ sublimity, you will then perceive that the catechu- ^ mens are unworthy to hear them.t These cateche- ^ tical lectures of the illuminated you may indeed ' communicate, either to those who are approaching ' to baptism, or to the faithful who have been already ' baptized: but reveal them not in any wise, either to ' the catechumens, or to those others who are not ^Christians; lest you should thus make yourself ac- ' countable to the Lord."§ Nothing can be more explicit than this statement. We clearly learn from it, that the series of lectures, which it introduces, were delivered for the purpose of developing those mysteries which the system of the secret disciple concealed from the catechumens. Would we then ascertain the mysteries, we have sim- ply to read the lectures. Exclusive of the preface or introduction, the cate- chetical lectures are eighteen in number; and they are followed by five mystagogical lectures, addressed to the competentes who had been recently baptized. Of the eighteen catechetical lectures, the three first relate to baptism and its necessary qualifications ; and the last treats of the holy catholic church, the resur- rection of the body, and the life everlasting. All the intermediate lectures, fourteen in number, dis- cuss the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, viewed as branching out into its various subordinate and con- nected doctrines of the godhead of Christ, the incar- nation, the atonement, the operations of he spirit, and the like. In the whole series, I do not recollect * Cyril. Praefat. in Catech. p. 6. t Ibid. p. 6. § Ibid. p. 9. 104 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. that more than a single short hint is given of the doc- trine of the Eucharist; and it is couched in language not very favourable to the theory of transubstantia- tion. If the Lord shall deem thee loorthy, thou shall hereafter know^ that the body of Chinst^ ac- cording to the gospely sustained the type of bread,^ It is difficult to say what these words can mean, if they do not intimate, that the bread is a type or sym- bol or figure or representation of Christ's most pre- cious body. They contain, however, a promise, that the subject shall hereafter be resumed; and, accord- ingly, it reappears in the mystagogical lectures. These, as I have observed, are five in number. The two first treat of baptism, which the persons address- ed had recently received : the two next treat of the Eucharist: the last is chiefly practical, save that it con- tains an allusion to prayers for the dead; which had then begun to be partially introduced, which Cyril owns were objected to by many, and which he attempts, though not very cogently, to defend and vindicate. From the brief, though accurate, account of Cyril's lectures to the illuminated and to the initiated, let any impartial person judge, what must in common equity be deemed ihe principal secret of the christian mysteries. Certainly, it was the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Accordingly, Cyril himself reduces every subordinate and dependent doctrine under that grand and ineffable mystery, viewing it, and speaking of it, as the common centre of the whole circle of Chris- tianity. '^ These mysteries,^' says he, ^'the church commu- ' nicates to him who is quitting the class of the cate- ' chumens. For it is not customary to reveal them * to the heathens: nor do we propound to a heathen ' the mysteries concerning the Father and the Son ' and the Holy Ghost. Neither yet do we openly • Cyril. Catech. xiii. p. 130, 131. LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 105 ' speak concerning them to the catechumens : but we ^ often speak many things covertly; in order that the ^ faithful who know them may understand us, and in ' order that the catechumens who are ignorant of them 'may not be injured/'* (2.) The result, to which we have been brought by this examination of the lectures of Cyril, is confirmed by the authority of Jerome. That eminent father, when mentioning the ancient practice of revealing the mysteries to the illuminated, during the course of the forty days which imme- diately preceded their baptism at Easter, is so absorb- ed by the idea of the j?;a/mary secret, that he notices that secret alone^ as if it were exclusively the subject of the arcane discipline, '^We have a custom, ^^ says he to Pammachius, ' of publicly delivering to those who are about to be ^ baptized, during the forty days which precede their ' baptism, the mystery of the holy and adorable ' Trinity.'''^ To this custom of the probaptismal lectures being delivered during Lent, antecently to the celebration of baptism at Easter, Cyril, as we might well antici- pate, specially alludes. "You must pardon me to-day for my prolixity,^^ says he to the illuminated: "your attention may ' perhaps be fatigued; but the holy festival of Easter ' is now approaching. ^^j (3). With Cyril and Jerome agrees Origen, the learned catechist of Alexandria in the third centurj^ No one can have perused the commentary on St. John by this great writer, without perceiving that, from first to last, it is absolutely full of references to the arcane discipline of the early church. § What * Cyril. Catech. vi. p. 60. •J- Hieron. Epist. Ixi. ad Pammach. c.4. Oper. vol. i. p. 180, ^ Cyril. Catech. xvii. p. 201. § See Orig. Comment in Johan. p. 6, 8, 9, 18, 25, 30, 51—54, 57, 97, 125, 126, 203. 106 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. then, according to Origen, was that grand secret of the mysteries, which so threw every minor secret into the background, that the catechist was tempted, like Jerome, to mention it, as if it were in a manner the only secret? " This,^^ says he ^^it was fit to know, that, as the * law affords a shadow of good things to come, made ' manifest by the law which is preached according to ^the truth: so likewise the gospel, which is fancied ^ to be understood by all those who indiscriminately ^ address themselves to it, teaches only a shadow of ' the mysteries of Christ. But what John calls the ' everlasting gospel, or what might fitly be styled the ^spiritual gospel, clearly sets forth, to those who * really understand it, all things, even before their 'very faces, concerning the Son of God; wherefore ' it is necessary to Christianize, both spiritually and ^corporeally: and, where indeed it is fit to preach ^ the coporeal gospel, saying to the carnal, that we ^ know nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified; ^ this must be done: but, when they shall have ^ become firmly compacted in the spirit, and when ^they shall bring forth fruit in it; then, as loving ^ the heavenly wisdom, we may safely impart to ' them the hidden doctrine respecting the ascent of ' the incarnate Word to the state in which he was ^ with God in the beginning.'^^ I need scarcely remark, that, in this passage, as the whole of its previous context shows, the carnal are the yet uninitiated and imperfectly instructed cate- chumens; while the lovers of heavenly loisdom are the competentes or illuminated, to whom, as prepa- ratory to their baptism, the mysteries were about to be revealed. These two different classes are treated after a very different manner. To the former, gene- ral truths are alone propounded, through the medium of what Origen calls the corporeal g'ospel: to the * Orig. Comment, in Johan. p. 9, LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 107 latter, through the medium of what he denominates the spiritual gospel, the divinity of the incarnate Word, and his eternal union with the Father and the Spirit, are unreservedly imparted as the sum and substance of the Christian myteries."^ * It may be useful to remark, that this passage, and two other parallel passages in the same commentary (Comment, p. 49, 52), have been adduced by Dr. Priestley for the express purpose of demonstrating, that, in the days of Origen, the great multitude of Gentile Christians were generally anti-trinitarians, who rejected loith abhorrence the doctrine of our Lord's Divinity. Hist, of Early Opin. book iii. chap. 13, sect. 2. Works, vol. vi. p. 483. In a professed historian, such a total ignorance of ecclesiastical antiquity is indeed most lamentable. Dr. Priestley, incredible as such an error may well seem, has actually mistaken avery peacea^ hie body of primitive catechumens^ to whom, in the course of their religious institution, the higher mysteries of Christianity had not as yet been communicated : Dr. Priestley has actually mistaken these primitive catechtimens, for a mighty army of strenuous and volu- ble anti-trinitarian confessors ! Scarcely less extiaordinary is another closely-connected error, which, in the same section of his work, the historian has fallen into, relative to a passage in Tertullian. For the avowed purpose of showing, that, in the time of that father^ the majority of believers were anti-trinitarians, who held the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ in abhorrence; Dr. Priestley adduces a place, in which Tertullian, after tritely remarking that the bulk of believers must, in the very nature of things, be ALWAYS composed of ignorant men, proceeds to censure the then novel heresy of the Patripassians. Now, according to Dr. Priest- ley, the persons, censured by Tertullian, were a mighty majority, who held the doctrine of Christ's Godhead in abhorrence. Whereas, in truth, these very persons, whose majority Tertullian never asserts, absolutely identified the Son with the Father and the Spirit,- and thence contended, that our Lord, by whatever economical name he might be distinguished, was himself God exclusively. — Hist, of Early Opin. book iii. chap. 13, sect. 2. Works, vol. vi. p. 486, TertuU. adv. Prax. § ii. iii. Oper. p. 406. The mischief which results from productions of such a stamp as Dr. Priestley's two Histories, is almost incalculable. That author bears a high name among persons of his ownrehgious sen- timents; and, by the unlearned or half-learned of his party, all hds strange errors are greedily swallowed without any further exami- nation. Of this indiscriminating appetite we have a remarkable instance afforded us, in a small book, lately published under the title of Letters in Defence of Unitarianism, by another Barrister. 108 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. (4.) We are still brought to the very same position by the great Augustine of Hippo. Like Cyril of Jerusalem, that luminary of the fourth age has bequeathed to us a course of lectures, addressed to those more advanced catechumenS; who were styled the illuminated^ and who were prepar- ing themselves to receive the sacrament of baptism. The work is comprised in four books; and, with the exception of three brief allusions to, not explana- tions of, the doctrine of the Eucharist, it is wholly occupied in developing the grand secret of the Holy Trinity, with those other subordinate mysteries which depend upon that grand secret.* (5.) With the evidence afforded by the fathers of the church agrees also the te^stimony borne by the gentiles. When we recollect the various apologies and other controversial works produced by the early ecclesias- tical writers, in which they distinctly propound the doctrines of Christ's Godhead and the Trinity, we shall not wonder, that the principal secret of the mysteries was more or less known even to the Full of the most unsuspecting simplicity, the heedless au- thor of this book has implicitly copied from Dr. Priestley all that historian's mistakes relative to the passages in Origen and TertuUian. With the anonymous barrister, as with the ecclesias- tical historian, Origen's uninitiated catechumens are zealous sysie- matic anti-trinitarians : while Tertullian's patripassian worship- pers of Christ as God exclusively, assume the unlooked-for aspect o^ persons who held the doctrine of Christ's Godhead in abhorrence. Nor is the barrister the only writer, who has been so unhappily misled by Dr. Priestley. The manifold errors of the unskilful historian have been industriously repeated by various other infe- rior workmen; and, on the insecure authority of Dr. Priestley, the saying, that, in the days of TertuUian and Origen, religionists ^ who abhorred the doctrine of Chrisfs Divinity, were the greater part of Christians, is commonly reported among the unitarians until this day. * August, de Symbol, ad Catech. Oper. vol. ix. The three brief allusions to the Eucharist will be found in lib. ii. c. 1, p. 260, hb. ii. c. 6, p. 263, lib. iii. c. 5, p. 268. LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 109 pagans."^ In fact, though the early church adopted a system of secret discipline, she still knew and judged wisely, that there might be times when it became her to speak aloud, plainly and unreservedly. Under such circumstances, even pagan testimony, in regard to the grand secret of the Christian mysteries, may be adduced not unprofitably. Among the works of Lucian is usually printed a very curious dialogue, entitled, Philopatris, Its author is unknown; but, in regard to the time of its composition, Gesner seems to have proved, so far as matters of that kind can be proved, that it was writ- ten during the reign of the Emperor Julian.t Hence it must have been composed much about the same period as that during which flourished Cyril of Jeru- salem. In this dialogue, the speakers are Triephon and Critias: the former a Christian, the latter a Pagan. Critias, playing the buffoon, amuses himself vv^ith assuming the character of a catechumen; and, in that mock capacity, solicits instruction from Triephon. The wretched humour of the piece consists in the circumstance of the simulated catechumen's real paganism perpetually, and as it were unguardedly, betraying itself. Critias, at length, swears by Jupi- ter; and this is the moment, which Triephon is made to select for the purpose of initiating him into the grand secret of the Christian mysteries. What then is the secret now revealed.^ Does the mode of its communication favour the opinion of the * See Justin. Apol. i. vulg*. ii. p. 43. Dial, cum Tiypb. p. 198. Athenag". Leg-at. § ix. xi. xxii. p. 37, 38, 41, 96. Tertull. Apol. adv. Gent. p. 850. Tertull. adv. Prax. p. 405, 406. Melit. Apol. apud Chron. Pascli. in A.D. 164, 165. Clem, Alex. Protrep. p. 5, 6, 66y 68. Orig-en. adv. Cels. lib. iii. p. 135, lib. iv. p. 169, 170. Arnob. adv. Gent. lib. i. p. 23, 24. Minuc. Pel. Octav. p. 280, 281, 284. Lucian. de Mort. Peregrin. Oper vol. iii. p. 333, 334, 337, 338. t See Gesner. Disput. de ^tat. et Auctor. Philop. in Oper. Lucian. ad calc. vol. iii. Reitz. Amstel. 1743. K 110 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. bishop of Aire; or does it support the opinion, which I have been led to advocate? The secret is unfolded by Triephon the catechist in the manner following: — ^' The lofty, the great, the immortal, the celestial ' God: the Son of the Father; the Spirit proceeding ' from the Father: one from three, and three from one: ^Deem these things Jove: reckon this to be God.^'* 3. I have now shown, in opposition to the bishop of Aire, that the doctrine of transubstantiation was nei- ther the exclusive secret, nor even the principal sq- cret, of the ancient christian mysteries; and, to that precise extent, therefore, I have invalidated his very ingenious theory. Still, however, it may be urged by his lordship, that, although neither the exclusive secret nor the priiicip a I secret , it was, at any rate, an e7ninent secret of the mysteries : and, in proof of such an opinion, he may adduce the language of that very Cyril, whose lectures I have specially employed for the purpose of demonstrating that the grand se- cret was the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Cyril, it may be argued by the bishop, devotes two of his mystagogical lectures to the doctrine of the Eucharist; and, in those very lectures, he propounds to the initiated, most clearly and most distinctly, as an eminent secret of the mysteries, the dogma of transubstantiation. " The bread which we behold,^^ says he, '^ though ^to the taste it be bread, is yet not bread, but the ^body of Christ: and the wine, which we behold, ' though to the taste it be wine, is yet not wine, but ' the blood of Christ.'^t Here, then, it may be urged on the authority of the catechist Cyril himself, the doctrine of transubstan- tiation is unreservedly set forth to the baptized mys- tae, as one of the grand secrets preserved and handed * Philop. in Oper. Lucian. vol. iii. Reitz. Amstel. 1743. f Cyril. Catech. Mystag. iv. p. 238, 239. LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. Ill down from the beginning by the arcane discipline of the church. This, I apprehend, when divested of its various inaccuracies, is the best and most plausible form, un- der which the theory of the bishop can be exhibited: and, as I wish not to take any unfair advantage, I have myself very honestly, in the present statement, given his theory every possible chance of success. I shall now, therefore, finally proceed to show, that, as the doctrine of transubstantiation was neither the exclusive nor ihe principal secret of the myste- ries; so, notwithstanding the apparently decisive lan- guage of Cyril, it was not taught at all in the mysteries, even under the form of the very smallest and least important vsecret. A doctrine, which existed not in the early church, assuredly could not be taught by the secret discipline of that church. Now it can be shown from evidence, both christian and pagan, that the doctrine of transub- stantiation existed not in the church of the first ages. Therefore, a doctrine, thus circumstanced, could not possibly have been a secret of the mysteries. (1.) On the subject of christian evidence, I have already been so copious, that this branch of my argu- ment is completely anticipated. Fully supported by the authority of Ire n sens, Ter- tullian, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Augustine, Gelasius, Facundus, the ancient homilist in Jerome, and even Cyril of Je- rusalem himself, I have stated, that the church of at least the five first centuries recognised no change save a moral change in the consecrated elements; that she expressly denied our participation of the literalhoAy and blood of Christ, and that she esteemed the bread and wine to be only types or figures or symbols or images of those awful realities which they were em- ployed to represent.^ * See above, Book i. chap. 4. § II. 112 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. Such being the case, the doctrine of transubstantiation could have had no existence in the church of the five first centuries: and, if it existed not, it clearly could not have been made, in any, even the smallest degree, the subject of the mysteries. (2.) From christian evidence, then, I may be allowed, without further repetition, to pass to the consideration of pagan evidence. This latter evidence is of a na- ture so remarkably strong, that, even alone, it is am- ply sufficient to decide the question. Through its instrumentality, we may demonstrate, beyond the possibility of confutation, that the doctrine now be- fore us was totally unknown to the church of the first ages: whence, of course, it will inevitably fol- low, that it never could have been a secret of the an- cient mysteries. Every person, moderately versed in the documents of antiquity, is well aware, that the pagans again and again pleased themselves with ridiculing the well- known christian worship of the Saviour as God: and, in the dialogue Philopatris^ we find them similarly scoffing at the catholic doctrine of the trinity.* Such ridicule proves the existence of those doctrines in the primitive church: and, by a parity of reasoning, if they had scoffed at the doctrine of transubstantiation, they would equally have established the existence of that doctrine. But, so far as I know, they never deride the doctrine of transubstantiation. Yet, had that doctrine formed one of the secrets of the mys- teries, they must, in all human probability, have come to the knowledge of it; for we find demonstratively, that they were not ignorant even of the grand and palmary secret : and, had they known the doctrine * **Thou art teaching me arithmetic," says Critias, when the secret of the mysteries is imparted to him: '*thy oath is purely 'arithmetical: verily, in the science of numeration, thou rivalest *Nicomachus the Gerasenian. I know not what thou art saying*. * One, three; three, one! Certainly thou art dealing with the * tetractys, or the ogdoad, or the triad of Pythagoras," LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 113 of transubstantiation, we cannot doubt that it would have similarly experienced their ridicule. But they never even so much as mention it. From their very silence, therefore, we may learn, that in the early church no such doctrine existed. It may be said, that the pagans might possibly have learned the doctrines of Christ^s godhead and the trinity, and yet that they very possibly might not have learned the doctrine of transubstantiation : for it does not follow, that, because they had learned some of the secrets of the mysteries, they must, therefore, have learned them all. Hence the argu- ment from their silence is defective in conclusiveness. Be it so: but my argument does not stop short at this point; nor, had such been the case, should I have ventured to describe it as incapable of confu- tation, I can produce the negative evidence of a pagan, who flourished in the middle of the fourth centur)^, who delights to ridicule all the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, who must have been ac- quainted with the doctrine of transubstantiation, had it then existed; who certainly would have scoffed at it if he had been acquainted with it, and who yet never once mentions it, or even so much as alludes to its very existence. The pagan, whom I thus characterize, and whom I summon as an unexceptionable witness, is the Emperor Julian. That extraordinary man was once, in profession at least, a christian : but, hating the light of the gospel, he apostatized to paganism. Now Julian, be it care- fully observed, had been, not merely an uninitiated catechumen^ but a baptized christian,^ As a bap- tized christian, he must have heard the preparatory lectures of the catechist : as a baptized christian, he * Sozomen. Eccles. Hist. lib. v. c. 2. According* to Sozomen, Julian attempted to wash out his mark of baptism with the bJood of victims sacrified to the averruncan demons. The fact of Ms baptism is sufficient for my arg'uraent. K 2 114 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. must, according to the discipline of the church, have been regularly initiated into the mysteries. If, then, as the bishop contends, transubstantiation were the secret doctrine most especially taught in the mys- teries, Julian must have been well acquainted with the existence of that doctrine : and, if acquainted with its existence^ a man of his humour would not have failed to make it the subject of his bitter ridicule. How then stands the case with the imperial apos- tate, who, having been baptized, had indisputably been initiated into all the secrets of the mysteries? In the work against Christianity, which has been substantially preserved, and which has been regularly answered by Cyril of Alexandria, Julian ridicules the adoration of Christ; the godhead of Christ; the birth of Christ from the Virgin ; the conception of Christ by the Holy Ghost; the doctrine, that Christ was the creator of the universe; the doctrine, that Christ is the Word of God, the Son of God, God from God of the substance of his Father ; the doctrine of the trini- ty, which is the basis of the doctrine of Christ's god- head : he amuses himself likewise with what he deems the incurable absurdity of the purification of sin by the mere element of water in baptism : and, approx- imating to the very subject of transubstantiation, if any such doctrine had been then held in the church, he laughs at the Galileans for saying, that Christ had once i3een sacrificed on their behalf, and that, conse- quently, they themselves offered no sacrifices. But yet NEVER, on any occasion, or by any accident, though eagerly bent upon catching at everything in Christi- anity which he might turn to derision, does he mention^ or even so much as remotely allude to, the Latin doctrine of transubstantiation. "^ Exactly the same remark applies to Julian's other * See Cyril. Alex. cont. Julian, lib. v. p. 1 59. lib. vi. p. 191, 213. lib. viii. p.' 253, 261, 262, 276. lib. ix. p. 290, 291, 314. lib. x. p. 327, 333. Ibid. lib. vii. p. 245. Ibid. lib. ix. p. 305, 306. lib. x. p. 354. Lipsi2e, A. D. 1696. LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 115 works. Again and again he ridicules the Galileans, their agapse and ministrations at tables, their base superstition, their acknowledgment of Christ's god- head: Moses also, and the prophets come in for a due share of his vitupeAtion : Athanasius is reviled as the enemy of the gods, and as the artful inveigler of noble women to receive the sacrament of baptism : and, through the side of the first christian Emperor Constantino, the gospel is vilified, as encouraging universal profligacy and dishonesty and licentious- ness, by its doctrine of cheaply purifying ablution and free pardon on condition of repentance. Yet NEVER does the emperor even once please himself, either by ridiculing, or by simply noticing, that doctrine which the bishop of Aire maintains to be the grand and exclusive secret of the ancient mysteries. "^ I may be mistaken in estimating the strength of this argument: but it strikes upon my own apprehen- sion, as being perfectly irresistible. Let any reasonable being consider the complete knowledge which the baptized apostate powssessed of the doctrines of Christianity, his utter hatred of the gospel, his perpetual recurrence to the detested Gali- leans and their more detested theology, his humour of turning into ridicule whatever in Christianity he thought capable of being made ridiculous : let any reasonable being consider these several matters ; and then let him judge, whether, if transubstantitation had been a doctrine of the early catholic i?hurch, it could possibly have been passed over in -total silence by such a man as Julian. The complete taciturnity of the profane emperor, in everything that regards the doctrine of transub- * See Julian. Imper. Oper. Orat. vi. p. 192. Orat. Frag-ment. p. 305. Misopog-. p. 363. Epist. vii. p. 376. Epist. xlii.p. ^423, 424. Epist. xlix. 429 — 431. Epist. li. p. 432—435. Epist. lii. p. 435 —438. Epist. Ixii. p. 450. Epist. Ixiii. p. 453, 454. Ibid. Orat. Fragment, p. 289, 295. Ibid. Epist. vi. p. 376. Epist. xxvi. p. 398. Epist. li. p. 432, 435. Ibid. Caesar, p. 336. Lips. A. D. 1696. 116 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. stantiation, is, I think, as complete a negative proof of its non-existence in the fourth century, as can be either desired or imagined. Repeatedly does he scoff at all the peculiar doctrines of Christianity : but he NEVER ridicules the LatinMogma of transubstanti- ation. II. As I have now sufficiently shewn the total erroneousness of the bishop's theory, I might here be well permitted to conclude. Since, however, by way of establishing his speculation respecting the object of the ancient secret discipline, he claims to bring an argument from a recorded fact^ I am un- willing to close the present subject without paying all due attention to that argument. It is well known, that the pagans, from a very early period, were accustomed to charge the christians, sometimes with devouring the flesh and drinking the blood of a slaughtered man, and sometimes with first murdering and then feasting upon the mangled limbs of a young child. This is Xh^fact^ on which the bishop would frame an argument in favour of his system; and the argu- ment itself is to the following purport: From the very first, christians were accused of celebrating a Thyestean banquet in their accursed mysteries. To elicit the truth, they were frequently and violently tortured. Invariably , however, they denied the charge, Noiu,, if they had esteemed the elements in th^ Eucharist purely symbolical, why did they not give an explanation of the rnatter, which would at once have liberated them from tor- ture? Yet, in no recorded instance, did they give any such exposition. Therefore they must consci- ously have held the doctrine of transubstantiation, I have given the bishop's argument with as much strength and compactness as I am able : and, after weighing it with all care and attention, it strikes me as being so very paradoxical, that I marvel at its adop- LATIN DEFENCE OP TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 117 tion by a man possessing the acuteness of the respected prelate of Aire. From his lordship's premises, according to my own notions of accurate reasoning, I should have been brought to a directly opposite conclusion. The re- corded y«c/ I should have deemed utterly yh/a/ to his system : and, purposing myself to bring it forward against him when a convenient opportunity should offer, I was not a little surprised, as I advanced in the perusal of his work, to find, that he had anticipated me, and that he had preoccupied as his ground what I had innocently supposed to be mine. Had not the bishop thus got the start of me, I had intended to ar- gue as follows : — Through a recorded misapprehension of the true nature of the Eucharist, the pagans fancied, that the early christians literally devoured human flesh and literally drank human blood. To procure a confession of this enormity, they applied the torture : but the christians invariably denied the existence of any such abomina- tion in their religious ceremonial. Now they could not ivith truth have denied its existence, if they had held the doctrine of transubstantiation : for, in that case, they must have been conscious, that, according to their full knowledge and belief, they were in the constant habit of literally devouring human flesh and of literally drinking human blood. Yet, under the most severe torments, they invariably and totally de- nied the fact. Therefore, by denying the fact, they of necessity denied also the doctrine of transubstan- tiation. Such, had I not been anticipated by the bishop, w^as my intended argument : and, as its basis was that identical fragment of Irenseus, to which his lordship has referred less amply than I could have wished, I shall subjoin the fragment itself, as it has been pre- served to us by Ecumenius. The fact, as the bishop justly observes, took place during the persecutian at Lyons in the year 177. 118 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. ^^ The pagans, wishing to ascertain the secret cere- ' monial of the christians, apprehended their slaves, ' and put them to the torture. Impatient of the pain, ^and having nothing to tell which might please their '.tormentors, the slaves, who had heard their masters ' say that the Eucharist was the body and blood of ^ Christ, forthwith communicated this circumstance. ' Whereupon the tormentors, fancying that it was ' literal blood and flesh which was served up in the mys- ' teries of the christians, hastened to inform the other ' pagans. These immediately appehended the martyrs, ' Sanctus and Blandina : and endeavoured to extort ' from them a confession of the deed. But Blandina, ' readily and boldly answered. How can those, who ^ through piety abstain even from lawful food, be ca- ' pable of perpetrating the actions which you allege ' against them?'^^ Now, after a full and impartial consideration of this passage, I am compelled to conclude and to reason from it as follows : — The pagans, misapprehending the testimony of the * Iren. Fragment, apud CEcum. in 1 Pet. ii. 12. A further ac- count of these matters is g-iven in the epistle from the churches of Vienna and Lyons to the churches of Asia and Phrygia, as pre- served by Eusebius. The same accusation is made against the christians; and the same explicit denial is given, not only by Sanctus and Blandina, but by all the faithful. According to the statement given in this epistle, Blandina was a christian slave of a christian mistress, while Sanctus was a deacon of the church of Vienne. The latter, therefore, as an ecclesiastic, must certainly have well known the real doctrine of the Eucharist. With these the epistle mentions Epagathus a youthful believer, Maturus a re- cently-baptized mysta, Attalus the very column and basis of the church, Bybhs a christian woman, Ponticus a boy of fifteen years, and the venerable bishop Pothinus, stooping under the burden of more than nine decades. Young and old, male and female, bond and free, ecclesiastic and laic, they all equally denied the partici- pation of literal human flesh and literal human blood in the cele- bration of the Eucharist. Under such circumstances, by what ima- ginable possibility they could all have been transubstantialists, exceeds my powers of comprehension. See Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. V. c. 1. LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 119 slaveSj charged the christians with literally eating the flesh and with literally drinking the blood of a man whenever they celebrated the Eucharist. But the christians flatly denied the existence of any such practice. Therefore, if the christians denied the practice, when thus, in avoived connexion with their celebration of the Eucharist, explicitly charged up- on them, they must, to all intents and purposes, have denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. The bishop however contends, that, had the chris- tians of Lyons deemed the elements to be only sym- bols, they would readily have freed themselves from the torture by giving to their persecutors this easy explanation of the charge brought against them. But no such explanation did they give. Therefore they virtually acknowledged the justice of the charge, in so far as the Eucharist was concerned. I wonder to see so able a man argue, in every point of view, with such utter inconclusiveness. In the first place, the charge of eating literal human flesh and of drinking literal human blood in the celebra- tion of the Eucharist was, as we have already found, constantly and explicitly denied by them: and, in the second place, it is difficult to conceive, under their circumstances, what possible benefit could have re- sulted from a formal explanation of their doctrine. They were tortured for the express purpose of forcing a confession, that, in the celebration of the Eucharist, they devoured literal human flesh and drank literal human blood. Now any such explanation, as the bishop would have us expect from them, would plainly amount to a denial of the charge; which de- nial they had already made in so many words: and it would be further attended only with the efiect of making their persecutors view them in no better light than that of specious but dishonest equivocators. Where then would have been the utility of the re- quired explanation? Torture was applied for the pur- pose of extorting a confession. The explanation 120 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. required by the bishop, would have been considered by the pagans as an equivocating denial And, accord- ing to the avowed philosophy of the rack, confession not having been extorted, the torture would have been continued or increased. Where then, I may again ask, would have been the utility of the required ex- planation? The sum and substance of the account, given by Irenaeus, is this. On the evidence of their slaves, who had heard their masters say that the Eu- charist was the body and blood of Christ, the christians of Lyons were tortured in order to extort a confes- sion, that they literally ate human flesh and literally drank human blood in the celebration of the eucha- ristic mysteries. Such, in form, was the charge brought against the christians. But this charge, even upon the rack, they uniformly and constantly and firmly denied. From these unpromising materials, the bishop of Aire has constructed an argument, by which he under- takes to prove that the primitive christians certainly held the doctrine of transubstantiation. LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 121 CHAPTER VII. Respecting the Latin Defence of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, from the Language of the ancient Liturgies^ and from the Phraseology of the early Ecclesiastical Writers, Nothing can be more easy and simple, than the method of dealing with the ancient liturgies, and with the phraseology of the early ecclesiastical writers^ which has been adopted by the bishop of Aire.* The passages which speak of the consecrated ele- ments being changed into the body and blood of Christ, he adduces with a copiousness which may well perplex an unsuspecting English laic. But not a single place does he cite, in which this change is delared to be purely morale in which the elements are pronounced to be mere symbols^ or in which we are explicitly told that we do not eat the literal body and that we do not drink the literal blood of our Saviour Christ. Respecting passages of this latter description, though they fully explain all passages of ihe former description, the bishop displays a prudent reserve. If produced, they would be fatal to his system. Hence his lordship, more judiciously than equitably, keeps them in the background.! * Discuss. Amic. Lett, ix, x. f The passag-es, suppressed by the bishop, 1 have already brought forward; and I desire nothing" more, than that any Eng-lish layman, who peruses his lordship's citations, will peruse also mine. See above, Book I. chap. 4. § ii. L 122 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. I have said, and I say it with deep regret, that the bishop has cautiously withheld from the eyes of his English correspondent those passages^ ivhich, if produced, would have given an effectual death- blow to his own speculations. The passages have NOT been produced BY HIS LORDSHIP. Yet he was too deeply learned in the fathers to be ignorant of their existence: and he was too skilful a polemic to venture upon the hazardous experiment of suppressiilg all allusion to them. What then was to be done? Instead of fairly producing at full length the identical passages themselves, so that the English laic might be able to form a just and accurate estimate of the litigated question, the bishop informs him, that in the early ecclesiastical writers there are indeed places, which a dexterous special pleader may turn to some little account: but, at the same time, he assures him, that, when those writers speak of the consecrated elements being symbols or figures of the body and blood of Christ, they mean no such thing as a careless or superficial observer might rashly fancy them to mean. To establish this position, the bishop has adopted two distinct and certainly unconnected lines of argu- ment. I. He admits, that the consecrated elements are described by the early ecclesiastical writers^ as being figures or symbols or images or types of the body and blood of Christ. This he admits: for, in goocj sooth, the denial of a naked fact was impossible. But then he assures the English laic, that the cir- cumstance of their being symbols does not prevent the circumstance of their being also realities. Sym- bols, no doubt, they are of Christ's body and blood; but then, at the same time, they are also Christ's body and blood their own literal proper selves. I have rarely met with a more singular experiment upon the presumed obtuse intellect of a simple laic, LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 123 than this which has been adventured by the learned bishop of Aire. An acknowledged symbol or image of a thing^^ if we may credit a very able divine of the Latin church, may be at once both a sym^hol of the, thing m ques- tion^ and yet the identical thing itself which it is employed to symbolize! By what new figure of rhetoric, or on what prin ciple of plain common sense, the bishop reaches this paradoxical consummation, I presume not to conjec- ture. Assuredly, his proposed solution of the pre- sent difficulty overturns every notion, which we had previously been led to form respecting the nature of type and symbol, of metaphor and allegory. The Serpent^ says Horapollo, ivas^ am^ong the Egyptians^ a symbol of the world,^ Hence, on the bishop^s new rhetorical arrangement, the serpent is at once, both a symbol of the world, and the literal identical world which it symbolizes. Hagar, as w^e learn from St. Paul, allegoricallj^ represented Mount Sinai in Arabia.t Therefore, if we adopt the bishop's principle, Hagar was not only a symbol of Mount Sinai, but the proper substantial Arabic mountain itself. The consecrated wine, as we are assured by Cle- ment of Alexandria, allegorically symbolizes the blood of Christ.J Hence, as the bishop maintains, the consecrated wine is at once, both the symbol of Christ^s blood, and the identical literal blood which it symbolizes. § * Ho rap. Hierog, lib. i. c. 2. f Galat. iv. 24, 25. i: Clem. Alex. Pxdag-. lib. ii. c. 2. p. 158. § The bishop of Meaux had already attempted to manage the stubborn fact, that the early fathers perpetually call the conse- crated elements types or signs or symbols or figures of the body and blood of Christ: but he has so completely failed, that the bishop of Aire, probably on that account, neither refers to him nor adopts his line of argument. By the Romanist, the point to be established is, that the acknow- ledged sign or symbol of a thing may not only be the symbol of the 124 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. II. To imagine, that a man of the bishop's supe- rior attainments could himself admit such a tissue of rhetorical absurdities, whatever he might think of the less subtle intellect of his English correspondent, is perfectly out of the question. Internally ^ his thing symbolized, but also that it may additionally be the identical thing which it is employed to symbolize. For, in the application of this extraordinary principle to the sacrament of the Lord's Sup- per, the ancient fathers compel him to allow, that the consecrated elements are symbols of the body and blood of Christ; and he himself contends, that they are likewise additionally that identical body and blood of Christ which yet they are employed symbolically to represent. How then does the bishop of Meaux deal with a paradox, which apparently bids defiance to the whole system of rhetoric? He tells us, that the acknowledged existence of a sign or symbol by no means forbids the actual presence of the thing signified or sym- bolized; and he illustrates this position by stating*, that the signs of life imply the actual presence of life, and that the temporary human forms assumed by angels imply the actual presence of the angels. Hist, des Variat. livr. iv. § 11. All this is perfectly true, but, unfortunately, it bears not in the slightest deg-ree upon the paradox now before us. The point, which the bishop had to establish, was, that any given matter might be at once both the symbol of a thing and the thing symbolized. Now his illustrative arg-ument plainly establishes no such incon- gruous position. Were I disposed to be severely precise, I might fairly say, that his lordship plays the sophist, and that he illeg'itimately tampers with the word sig7i. For, when the fathers speak of the consecrated elements being" signs of Christ's body and blood, by the word ^i^w they mean a type or figure ov symbol.' but, when the bishop speaks of a healthy pulse being a sign of life, or of a temporary human body being the sign of an angel's presence, he uses the word sign, not in the sense o^ a symbol, but in the sense of a token or indication. Let this, however, pass: let his lordship have the full benefit of his own sophistical illustra- tion; and what follows? Has he established the position, which he undertook to establish? Nothing of the sort. A healthy pulse is a sign of life; but is not identical with the life which it indicates. The temporary bodies, assumed by angels, were signs of the presence ofthose aiigels; but the temp Drary bodies were not the angels themselves. Thus, evidently, is the whole illustration of the bishop quite foreign to the assertion; that the consecrated elements are, at once, both symbols of Christ^s body and blood, and the identical body and blood of Christ which they are employed to symbolize^ LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 125 lordship no more admitted it, than I do; and, exter- nally^ he has in effect confessed this to be the case, by additionally adopting a totally different line of argument, the very principle of which inevitably destroys the principle of his last argument. In the secret discipline of the early church, argues the bishop, the mystery of transubstantiation was communicated only to the faithful: while, with the most anxious jealousy, it was concealed alike from the pagans and the catechumens. Such being the case, we must not wonder to find the ancient ecclesiastical writers in two directly opposite stories. To the mystae, they declare, without reserve, the grand secret of transubstantiation : to the pagans and to the catechumens, they propound the symbolical or alle- gorical nature of the consecrated elements^ assuring them, that these elements are only types or figures or representations of the body and blood of Christ. By this contrivance, and at no gigeater expense than that of a direct falsehood, every thing continued as it ought to be. Pure unmingled truth attended upon the initiated: while, by a holy untruth, the profane curiosity of the pagan and the catechumen was effectu- ally baffled. 1. What degree of obligation the fathers would feel to the bishop of Aire for this account of their theological dexterity, could those venerable men start out of their graves, it is not for me to estimate : I shall content myself with the much easier task of shewing, that his lordship's account of the matter is totally void of all foundation. The great Augustine wrote Enarrations, intermin- gled with discourses, on all the hundred and fifty psalms of the ancient Hebrew church. Now the bishop of Aire, I presume, will not maintain, that these Enarrations were composed for the exclusive benefit of pagans and catechumens. Lest that, however, should turn out to be the case, I shall begin with demonstrating, that they must have been writ- L 2 126 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. ten for the edification of the baptized or the mystx or the initiated. From Jerome and Origen and Cyril of Jerusalem we learn, that the high doctrines of Christ's godhead and the Holy Trinity were not revealed to the cate- chumens until the forty days which immediately pre- ceded their baptism; when they passed, from the lower class of the junior catechumens, to the upper class of the competentes or illuminated."^ Now Augustine's Enarrations on the Psalms explicitly and unreservedly set forth those high doctrines.! There- fore Augustine's Enarrations must have been written for the benefit of the mystse, who had been initiated into all the arcane doctrines of the secret discipline, and who consequently must have well known the doctrine of transubstantiation, had it really been num- bered among those arcane doctrines, Augustine's Enarrations, then, were assuredly written for the benefit of the viystse. Consequently, even on the bishop's own statement of the matter, we may be certain, that, whatever he says in his Enarrations respecting the Eucharist, is the true and unveiled doctrine of the early catholic church. Now it is in these identical Enarrations, clearly written for the benefit of those who had been initiated into the mysteries, that Augustine not only calls the consecrated elements the figure of our Lord^s body and blood; but also unambiguously declares, that in the Eticharist we do not eat and drink the literal body and blood of Christy for the words of the Saviour in the institution of that sacrament are to be SPIRITUALLY understood.% 2. What then, it may be asked, is the meaning of those various strong passages, which the bishop has * See above, Book I. chap. vi. § I. 2. f August. Enart. in Psalm, xliv. vulg. xlv. Oper. vol. viii. p. 144, 145. ^ August- Enarr. in Psalm, iii. Oper. vol. viii. p. 7. Enarr. in Psalm, xcviii. Oper. vol. viii. p. 397. LATIN DEFENCE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 127 produced with such learned copiousness from the ancient liturgies and the early fathers? The key to such passages is furnished by the fathers themselves; and I have already produced it with quite sufficient evidence. While Augustine tells us, that the consecrated elements are only the figure of Christ^s body and blood; and while he assures us, that we do not eat the Lord's literal flesh, and that we do not drink the Lord's literal blood in the blessed Eucharist: the early ecclesiastical writers intimate, after a manner which cannot be mistaken, that the change in the consecrated elements, whereof they speak so repeatedly and so strongly, isa change^ Xioi physical, but moraL^ * See above,. Book I. chap. iv. ^ II. 1, 2, 128 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. CHAPTER VIII. Respecting the Rise and Pt^ogress, and Final Establishment of the Doctrine of Transubstan- tiation. I HAVE shown that the early fathers, from the very necessity of the illustrations which they em- ploy, could have recognized no change in the conse- crated elements, save a moral change : I shall now show, that the same conclusion must inevitably be drawn from the nature and purport of their argu- ments; for they actually argue against the doctrine of a physical change, in favour of the doctrine of a moral change. This very curious part of my subject I the rather take up, because it gives me an opportunity of briefly stating the rise and progress, and final establishment of the novelty denominated transubstantiation, I. In the course of the fifth centur}^, sprang up the heresy, which owed its birth to the fertile brain of Eutyches. Availing himself of the language, which, though w^ith abundant explanation of its real meaning, had been employed in the ancient liturgies and by the earlier fathers, this speculatist ingeniously contrived to make it the basis of the doctrine which he wished to introduce. The language in question he chose to interpret, as it had never been previously understood, in the sense of its teaching the doctrine of a physical change in the consecrated elements. Whence, according to RISE AND PROGRESS OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 129 Theodoret, his argument, in favour of the heresy from himself denominsited JE 7^ fi/chiams7?i, r^n in manner following: — tds the symhols of the Lord^s body and blood are one things before their consecration by the priest; but, AFTER their consecration, are physically changed and become quite another thing: so the material body of the Lord, after its assumption, IV as physically changed into the divine substance!^ Thus ran the argument of Eutyches, as placed by Theodoret in the mouth of Eranistes, an imaginary Eutychian speaker in one of his dialogues. 1. Now, against this same Eranistes. by way of exhibiting orthodoxy as orthodoxy stood in the fifth century, Theodoret brings an opponent^ whom he characteris-tically denominates Orthodoxies, Eranis- tes propounds his argument, as I have given it above^ built professedly on the dWeged physical change in the consecrated elem.ents: but Orthodoxus imme- diately demolishes it by an explicit denial of the premises on which it is founded. " You are caught,^^ says he, " in the net which you ' yourself have woven. For the mystical symbols^ 'after consecration, pass not out of their own ^nature: inasmuch as they still remain in their 'original substance and form and appearance; 'and they may be seen and touched, just as they ' were before consecration. But they are understood ' to be what they become : and they are venerated, as ' being those things which they are believed to be, ' Compare, therefore, the image with the archetype; ^and you wall perceive their resemblance: for the 'type must needs be similar to the truth,^^^ Such is the replication of Orthodoxus, propounded, as his very name implies, on behalf of the orthodox catholic church of the fifth century: and I wholly ♦ Theod. Dial. ii. Oper. vol. iv. p. 84. Lut. Paris, 1642, t Theod. Dial. ii. p. 85. 130 DIFPICULTIES OF ROMANISM. mistake its purport, if, while Eutychianism is defended on the principle of a physical change in the conse- crated elements, orthodoxy be not defended on the directly opposite principle of a moral change alone in the consecrated elements. I am the less fearful of misapprehending the import of the rejoinder framed by Orthodoxus, because I find the doctrine of a moral^ as contradistinguished from a physical, change, expressly maintained by the same speaker in yet another of Theodoret's dialogues. " Jacob,^^ says Orthodoxus, "called the blood of ' the Saviour the blood of the grape. For, if the ' Lord be denominated a vine, and if the fruit of the ' vine be called wine, and if from the side of the ^ Lord fountains of blood and water circulating through ' the rest of his body passed to the lower parts; well ' and seasonably did the patriarch say, He washed his ' garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of ' grapes. As we then call the mystic fruit of the ' vine, after its consecration, the blood of the Lord: ^ so he called the blood of the true vine the blood * of the grape. — Oiir Saviour, indeed, changed the * names : for to his body he gave the name of the ^ symbol, while to the symbol he gave the name of ^ his blood: and, having called himself a vine, he ' thence consistently applied the appellation of his * blood to the symbol. — But the scope of such lan- ^ guage is perfectly familiar to those who have been * initiated into the mysteries. For our Lord required, ' that they who partake of the divine mysteries should ' not regard the nature of the things which they see, ' but that in the change of names they should be- ' lieve that change which is wrought by grace. In- ^ asmuch as he, who called his own natural body ' wheat and bread, and who further bestowed upon ^himself the appellation of a vine: he also honoured ' the visible symbols with the name of his body and RISE AND PROGRESS OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 131 * blood, not changing their nature^ 1mm adding ' grace to natiire.^^^ The passage which I have here adduced is one of singular importance. In every point of viev^, it is fatal to the cause which the bishop of Aire has un- happily been led to espouse. The bishop denies the homogeneousness of the two expressions, / am the vine^ and This is my blood: whence he contends, that although the former ought to be interpreted figuratively, the latter ought doubtless to be interpreted literally.t But Ortho- doxus, in the fifth century, positively asserts their homogeneousness: for he teaches us, that the reason, WHY Christ denominated the sacramental wine his oion bloody was, because he had previously denomi- nated himself a vine. The bishop strenuously maintains the doctrine of a physical change in the consecrated elements. But Orthodoxus, even in so many words, denies it. Christ, says he, did not change the nature of the elements. The bishop assures us, that the doctrine of di phy- sical change was the grand secret of the mysteries. But Orthodoxus declares, that the language, which inculcates the doctrine of a7?zora/change,is perfectly familiar to, and well understood by, all those who have been initiated. 2. In these latter days of unscriptural innovation, it is pleasing to behold a Roman pontiff, who flourished in the same centurywithEutyches and Theodoret, add- ing the sanction of his voice to that primitive doctrine of a moral change, which, so far as I know, was first impugned by a convicted and acknowledged heretic. In the attack upon the then germinating speculation of Eutychianism, Gelasius of Rome joined himself to Theodoret of Cyrus : and, as he had to oppose the * Theod. Dial. i. Oper. vol. iv. p. 17, 18. f Discuss. Amic. vol. i. p. 295. 132 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. self-samdjpecious argument built upon the alleged circumstance of a physical change, he wisely op- posed it with the self-same weapons. '' Certainly/^ says he, " the sacraments of the body ' and blood of the Lord, which we receive, are a Mivine thing: because by these we are made par- ^ takers of the divine nature. Nevertheless, Me sub- ' stance 07^ nature of the bread and wine ceases not ^ to exist : and, assuredly, the image and similitude ' of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the ' action of the mysteries.'^^ Here again we may observe, that Gelasius, while he speaks of the elements being the image and simili' tude of Christ's body and blood, expressly denies the doctrine of any physical change. "The sub- stance or nature of the bread and wine,'^ says he, " ceases not to exist.'' 3. Unhappily, the sound declarations of Theodo- ret's Orthodoxus, though supported by all the author- ity of Pope Gelasius, do not seem to have had any effect on the Eutychians. They still retained their novel doctrine of a physical change; and they still employed it as an argument to demonstrate the physical change of our Lord's material body into the substance of the godhead. Hence, about the middle of the sixth century, Ephrem of Antioch was com- pelled to resume the weapons of Theodoret and Gelasius. ^'No man of common sense," he observes, " will ^ assert, that the nature of things palpable and im- ' palpable, visible and invisible, is the same. Thus ' the body of Christy which is received by the faith- 'fulj does not depart from its own sensible sub- ' stance, though, by virtue of consecration, it is ' united to a spiritual grace : and thus baptism, ' though a spiritual thing itself, yet preserves the * Gelas. de duab. Christ. Natur. cont. Nestor, et Eutych. in Biblioth. Patr. vol. iv. p. 422. RISE AND PROGRESS OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 133 ' water which is the property of its sensible sub- ^ stance; it loses not what it was before.^^"^ The same doctrine of a moral change only in the elements, and the same strenuous opposition to the novel Eutychian doctrine of a physical change, pre- vailed, we see, in the time of Ephrem, as well as in the time of Theodoret and Gelasius. Ephrem, on the true principle of analogical homogeneity, brings the two holy sacraments into immediate comparative juxtaposition. The symbols of bread and wine, he argues, are no more physically changed into the body and blood of Christ, than the symbol of water is physically changed into the inward moral grace of baptism. In neither case do the material elements depart from their own sensible substance or nature. They are severally united^ indeed, by virtue of con- secration, to a spiritual grace; but the spiritual grace is superadded to the material symbols. As for the symbols themselves, they experience no physical change. The bread and wine, in the one sacrament, still remain bread and wine: just as the water, in the other sacrament, still remains water. II. From this determined opposition at its com- mencement, we might well have imagined, that the doctrine of 2. physical change could never have esta- blished itself in any branch of the catholic church: but the event has demonstrated the possibility of the fact. Although the doctrine of a physical change was first started by a heretic, and although it was strenu- ously opposed by a Roman pontiff, it gradually worked its. way into ecclesiastical favour. In the fifth and sixth centuries, the doctrine of EutycheSj in regard to a physical change, was condemned as heretical: but, in the year 787, having now attained the respectable antiquity of about three hundred years, it was decreed to be orthodox by the fathers • Ephrem. Antioch. cont. Eutych. apud Phot. Cod. 229. M 134 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. of the second Council of Nice. Reversing the deci- sion of the seventh Ecumenical Council, that the only legitimate image or representation of Christ ivas the consecrated bread and wine in the Eucha- rist; reversing this decision of their predecessors, who met at Constantinople in the year 754, and de- nying to their synod the very name of a council, for no better reason than because they themselves dif- fered from it in opinion, the fathers of the second Nicene Council pronounced, that the Eucharist is not the Tnere image of Christ^s body and blood, but that it is Christ^s body and blood their own literal and proper and physical selves."^ *» III. Still, however, though at length sanctioned by a council, the doctrine was in a rude and indi- gested state: it had received many severe blows, dur- ing its rugged infancy, from Theodoret and Pope Gela- sius5 and it had with difficulty passed through the period of a sickly and precarious childhood, branded wdth the impress of heresy, and disowned alike by the West and by the East. A brighter day, however, was now beginning to dawn upon it. An ecumenical council, though at the expense of contradicting another council, had recog- nised the orthodoxy of its general principle : but to Paschase of Corby, in the ninth century, must justly be ascribed the honour of having first reduced it into a compact and well-arranged system. If not, in ab- solute strictness of speech, its original parent, he may certainly vindicate to himself the praise of hav- ino; been its careful and tender foster-father. Pas- chase^ says Cardinal Bellarmine, was the first who wrote seriously and copiowsly concerning the truth of Christ^s body and blood in the EucharistA * 1 cannot understand the words of the council in any other sense: and, of course, every Romanist will ag'ree with me. — See Concil. Nicen. secund. act. vi. Labb. Concil. Sacros. vol. vii. p. 448, 449. f Bellarm. de Scriptor. Eccles. RISE AND PROGRESS OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 135 IV. Such was the gradual progress of the tenet, from its first invention by Eutyches, to its final com- pletion by Paschase. Nevertheless, many years elapsed, before the church of Rome ventured to im- press upon it, in its matured state, the seal of indis-r putable verity and the obligation of universal belief. In the year 1079, indeed, Pope Gregory the Seventh, in a synod then assembled at Rome, com- pelled Berenger, who had opposed the Eutychian novelty, to acknowledge, that the bread and wine, placed upon the altar, are substantially and physi- cally changed into the true, and proper, and literal flesh and blood of Christ by virtue of the prayer of consecration. But it was not until the fourth coun- cil of Lateran, in the year 1215, that Pope Innocent the Third finally enjoined and imposed upon the whole body of the faithful, as a necessary article of Christian faith, the present doctrine of transubstan- tiation.* V. It is worthy of note, that, as Theodoret and Pope Gelasius opposed the doctrine of a physical change, when it was first started by Eutyches ; so Raban Maurus, archbishop of Mentz, equally opposed it, when it was revived and digested by Paschase of Corby. " Some persons^ of late^'^^ says that prelate, '^ not ^entertaining a sound opinion respecting the sacra- ^ ment of the body and blood of our Lord, have ^ actually ventured to declare, that this is the identi- ' cal body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ ; the ' identical body to wit, which was born of the Virgin * Mary, in which Christ sufiered upon the cross, and ' in which he rose from the dead. This error we * have opposed with all our mighty^ * Before the fourth Lateran Council, says Tonstal of Durham, men were at liberty as to the manner of Chi^isfs presence in the sa- crament.— Tonsil}, de Euchar. lib. i. p. 146. f Raban. Maur. Epist. ad Heribald. c. xxxiii. The bishop of Aire makes a very siiig-ular mistake in roundly asserting, that the 136 DIEFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. The language of the archbishop is very remarkable in three several points of view. doctrine of transubstantiation was, for the first time^ directly at- tacked by Bereng'er in the eleventh century. — Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 120. His lordship does not seem to have been aware of the zealous opposition made to this identical doctrine, in the ninth century, by Raban of Mentz, and many other assertors of what> until my evidence be set aside, I shall venture to call the old faith. On the disagreements among Luther and Calvin and Zuingle respecting the doctrine of the Eucharist, the bishop is superflu- ously copious. I see nothing extraordinary in the fact, that, when men first open their eyes from a deep slumber, their vision should for a season be defective in clearness. Be this, however, as it may, we of the Anglican church are no way bound to answer for the diffe- rences of the continental reformers. AVe are neither Lutherans, nor Calvinists, nor Zuinglians : we have received our appellation^ as Chrysostom speaks (Homil. xxxiii. in Act. Apost. xv. Oper. vol. viii. p. 680.),f7'om the faith itself : we are catholics of the An- glican church, no less than the bishop of Aire is a catholic of the Gallican church. Certainly we honour both Luther and Calvin and Zuingle for their works' sake : but the bishop greatly errs, if he imagines that we erect any one of them into our spiritual master. Yet, though I feel myself no way pledged to act as an umpire between these three eminent foreigners, I cannot quite so readily pass over the attack, which the bishop of Aire has made upon one of our own most venerable English prelates. On the authority of Smith, bishop of Chalcedon, his lordship informs us, that Bishop Jewel charged his chaplain to publish to the world after his death, that all which he had written against the Romish doctrine had heen written against his conscience and the truth, and that he had thus acted purely to pay his court to the queen^ and to prop up the religion which she had introduced. — Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 135. Thus condescends the respectable bishop of Aire to calumni- ate an English prelate on the testimony of a man, who published his pretended facts, not in the reign of Elizabeth, and in England; but in the year 1654, and at Paris; thus condescends the bishop to mislead an English layman, forgetting, or ignorant, that this very Jewel, before the accession of Elizabeth, and during the reign of her sister, had been ejected from all his preferment for his stout adherence to the primitive catholic faith, and had him- self escaped the flames only by a timely flight to the continent. Jewel is not the only EngUsh divine whom the bishop has un- dertaken to misrepresent. He further claims, as favourable to RISE AND PROGRESS OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 137 Without the slightest hesitation, he pronounces the doctrine to be an error, which he himself was strenuously opposing: by the use of the word some, he clearly testifies, as a naked matter of fact ^ that, in his time, the doctrine was held only by a few ad- venturous admirers of Paschase: and, by the expres- sion OF late, he no less clearly indicates, also as a naked matter of factj that the doctrine, though its outlines might have been traced by Eutyches, and recognised by the second Nicene Council, was, in the ninth century, resisted as a palpable innovation."*" the doctrine of tr an substantiation, Forbes and Thorndike, and Montague and Parker. — Discuss. Amic. vol. i. p. 333 — 336. Bishop Forbes merely says, what I have myself said, that he would not undertake to pronounce the doctrine of transub- stantiation an impossible absurdity : and as for Thorndike, Mon- tague, and Parker, they simply maintain, what the church of England has ever maintained, a change produced in the elements by virtue of consecration. For this doctrine they refer to the fa- thers ; and, with good reason, do they thus refer. The fathers, like themselves, held the doctrine of a change indeed : but that change was a moral, not a physical one. Such controversial stratagems, in a work professedly addressed to the English laity, are unworthy of the bishop of Aire. His lordship must surely have known, that the divines of the Angli- can church hold the doctrines of a real presence, and of a change in the consecrated elements, after a totally different manner from the divines of the Latin church. A layman, however, not con- versant in these topics, might easily be perplexed by his state- ment. * The bishop of Meaux roundly asserts, that, both in the East and in the West, the doctrine of transubstantiation was unani- mously adopted from the words of our Lord, without causing the least trouble or opposition: and he adds, that those who believed it were never marked by the church as innovators. — Hist, des Variat. livr. ii. § 36. Greatly did I marvel when I read this extraordinary passage. Is it possible, then, that the mass of evidence to the direct contrary^ which I have now produced, can have been utterly unknown to such a man as the learned Bossuet? Is it possible that he can have been ignorant, that Pope Gelasius in the West, and Theodoret of Cyrus in the East, synchronically, and with one accord, opposed the new doctrine of a physical change in the consecrated elements, when it was first started by the Eutychians in the fifth century ? Is it possible, that these and the other facts which I have brought forward, can never have come within the cognizance of this very m2 138 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. Raban of Mentz, as we might well expect, was not the only opponent of the Paschasian novelty. It was equally impugned by Heribald of Auxerre, Amalar of Triers, Bertram of Corby, Walafrid Strabo, Christian Druthmar, Drepanius Florus, and John Scot Erigena. able and acute Latin prelate ? To omit what a Romanist would deem the inferior authorities of Theodoret and Ephrem and Fa- cundus and Raban of Mentz, a direct censure upon the palpable novelty of Si physical ch^iuge was specially pronounced by the pre' siding pope himself, Gelasius, the lawful head of the universal church for the time being, expressly declared, with the full con- currence of that church, and even in controversial opposition to the then new dogma of a physical change, that the substance or nature of the bread and wine ceases not to exist. Yet does the bishop of Meaux fearlessly assert, that the doctrine of transubstantiation was unanimously adopted, both in the East and in the West, without causing the least trouble: yet does he intrepidly pronounce, that those who beheved it were never marked by the church as inno- vators upon primitive antiquity! AURICULAR CONFESSION. 139 CHAPTER IX. The Difficulties of Romanism in respect to Auricu- lar Confession^ as imposed and enforced by the Church of Rome. Auricular confession to a priest the church of England a//oi^^, and in some csises reconiTnejids: the church of Rome not only allows diud recoTnmends it; but, also, as a matter of strict religious obligation, imposes and enforces it. Such being the case, if the bishop of Aire wish to convict the Anglican church of error, it will be his business to shew, that auricular confession to a priest is, not merely a point of option, hut apoint of strict religious duty and absolute necessary obligation. Accordingly, his lordship undertakes to perform this task, partly from Scripture, and partly from the practice of ecclesiastical antiquity.* I. To discover in Scripture any explicit command either of Christ or of his apostles, that we should regularly make auricular confession to a priest, was a thing altogether impracticable. The bishop, there- fore, does not attempt it. Yet, what cannot be proved explicitly, may be proved, he thinks, induc- tively. 1. "The power of the keys, or the right of abso- * lution and retention,^' he argues, " has been given < by Christ to his apostles and to their lawfully con- * Discuss. Amic* Lett. xL 140 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. ^ secrated successors. "^ But this power cannot be * effectively exercised without auricular confession. * Therefore^ by a necessary consequence from Holy ^ Scripture, the religious obligation of auricular con- ^ fession has been demonstrated/^ Of this syllogism I am willing to allow the con- clusiveness, whensoever the bishop shall have proved, that the power of the keys cannot be effectively ex- ercised without auricular confession as practised in the church of Rome. That important point he labours, no doubt, to prove ; because he is conscious, that, without such proof, his syllogism is invalid. But, even upon his own principle of the power of the keys, as that power is interpreted by himself he has laboured in- effectually. The granting or the withholding of sacerdotal ab- solution, the bishop reasonably makes to depend upon the actual dispositions of the sinner. t Hence the question is, How these actual dispositions are to be ' ascertained ? Now, as the bishop truly remarks, spiritual judges can no more read the thoughts and hearts of sinners, than any other persons. What then is to be done in order to a just absolution or retention ? The bishop says, that we must needs have auricu- lar confession. For, without auricular confession, we cannot ascertain the actual dispositions of sinners: and, unless the actual dispositions of sinners be as- certained, the granting or the withholding of sacer- dotal absolution cannot be rightly and effectually exercised. Such, in full, is his lordship's argument from Scripture. The point, wherein it fails, is the defect of proof, that we cannot ascertain the actual dispo- sitions of sinners without auricular confession. * Mat. xviii. 18. John xx. 21—23. t Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 144. AURICULAR CONFESSION. 141 2. There is a fallacy in the terms employed by the bishop, which may very possibly have escaped even himself. He speaks of auricular confession ; but he does not define what he means by the phrase. Yet, to the validity of his argument, an accurate definition is of the first importance, Jiuricular confession simply means confession into the ear of a priest. But such confession may be either general or particular. That the auricular confession, defended by the bishop, \s particular di\JiT\Q,\i\Bx confession, cannot be doubted ; for this is the species of confession imposed and enforced by the church of Rome. In his argu- ment, however, we hear nothing of particular con- fession. Had confession been thus defined, the utter inconclusiveness of his reasoninig would immediately have appeared : for, in truth, a particular confession of sins is no way necessary for the ascertaining of the actual dispositions of sinners. This will suffi- ciently appear from the following brief comparative statement : — ■ On the one hand, then, a man may dtily and ex- actly confess all his sins to a priest, without any concealment or extenuation ; and he may express the utmost degree of sorrow for what he has done, with full purposes of amendment. Yet, in the actual dispo- sitions of his mind, he may be a mere superstitious hypocrite, who has unhappily taken up the delusive notion, that a priest, under any circumstances, must possess the absolute and unconditional power of con- ferring an irrecoverable absolution. On the other hand, without a single specification in detail^ a man may bitterly confess to his sacerdo- tal friend, that he has deeply sinned against God, that he has offended in numerous instances against his most holy laws, that his besetting sin weighs heavily upon his conscience. And all this he may do with such fervency and anguish of spirit, as to evince the true penitent, unto whom the remembrance of his 142 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. misdoings is grievous, and the burden of them is in- tolerable. Here we have two cases of confession : the one, constructed upon the principle of the Latin church, which requires confession in detail ; the other, con- structed upon the principle of the English church, which demands no confession of particulars beyond what the penitent is willing to make of his own free accord. Now the bishop's argument, if it would at all serve the cause which he has been led to espouse, must prove, that we cannot ascertain the actual disposi- tions of sinners without hearing a particular and specific confession of all their sins. But this it does NOT prove. For nothing can be more clear, than that those dispositions may be ascertained, so far as fallible man can ascertain them, just as well from a general confession of sinfulness, as from ihdXparticu- lar confession of every distinct sin which the church of Rome requires in order to a just absolution. II. Since the bishop has thus totally failed of prov- ing, from Scripture, the religious obligation of auricu- lar confession, as enforced and practised in the Latin church, I see not how it is possible to establish the point from any mere human ordinance. Yet, even if this were granted, which never can be granted, still the bishop will again be found to have totally failed on his own selected ground of ecclesiastical anti- quity. ^ It will be recollected, that the dispute between his lordship and myself respects neither the existence nor the lawfulness of auricular confession, whether ge- neral or particular : our dispute simply respects its alleged necessity and religious obligation upon the conscience. Hence, in recurring to ecclesiastical an- tiquity, it was the business of the bishop to establish the latter point which is denied^ not the former point which is admitted, !2!ow, to establish the latter point, the point with AURICULAR CONFESSION. 143 which ALONE he was concerned^ he has not brought even so much as the shadow of a proof. 1. His oldest evidence is the venerable testimony of the Roman Clement, the friend and fellow-labourer of St. Paul. I subjoin it, precisely as given by the bishop himself; and, if it prove the point which he has undertaken to establish, I acknowledge myself to be a vanquished disputant. So long as lue continue in this world, says the holy Clement, let its repent sincerely of all the evil which we have committed in the flesh, For^ ivhen once ice quit the worlds no further opportunity is afforded us either of confession or of penitence.^ His next oldest evidence is Irenaeus, who flourish- ed chiefly during the latter half of the second century: for as his lordship produces not the testimony either of Polycarp or Ignatius or Justin, I conclude that no such testimony could be discovered. To Irenseus I have carefully followed him, accord- ing to his own two references ; but Irenaeus says not a single syllable to his purpose. In the first of the two passages, we have an account of an impostor named Mark^ who seduced many silly women to join his party, and whose conduct was not remarkable for its correctness. The greater part of these women, having been at length happily reclaim- ed, confessed, that the impostor had strangely gained their aflections, and that he had infamously abused the influence which he had acquired.f From the second of the two passages we learn, that the heretic Cerdon, in his better days I suppose, often went to church and made confession: but, whether he confessed particularly to a priest, or whe- ther he joined in a general liturgical confession of his sins to God, Irenaeus does not inform us.J 3. The bishop's next witness, as adduced in chron- * Clem. Epist. ad Corinth, ii. § 8. f Iren. adv. Hccr. lib. i, c. 9. ^ Ibid, lib, iii, c. 4. # 144 DIFFICULTIES OP ROMANISM. ological order, is Tertullian ; who lived at the latter end of the second and at the beginning of the third century. I have followed his lordship to Tertullian: but the testimony of that learned father strikes me as being rather adverse, than favourable, to his cause. Doubtless Tertullian speaks of confession revealing a crime, of confession being the counsel of satisfaction, of a penitent falling prostrate before the presbyters and altars of God, of a penitent bending low at the knees of his brethren, of the impossibility of conceal- ing our sins from the Lord though we may hide them from men; of all these several matters he doubtless speaks in a style somewhat verbose and declamatory: but then, in the very passage wherein he speaks of them, he describes confession as being made, not to a priest^ but to the Lord,^ 4. The bishop's most promising evidence, which therefore I have reserved to the last, is that of Socrates and Sozomen. But the matter, which they notice, even if we make the most of it, comes too late by about three hundred years: for a mere canon of the church, at the end of the fourth century, can- not religiously bind upon the conscience, what St. John, the last surviving apostle, by his silence left a matter of option at the end of the first century. I have followed the bishop to both those ecclesias- tical historians; and small, I fear, is the emolument which his cause can derive from either of them. The story, which they tell, is this. In the reign of Theodosius, aboutt he end of the fourth century, a canon of the church removed the presbyters, who had been wont publicly to hear the confessions of the penitent: for this discipline, which plainly enough originated from the public confessions of the lapsed ere they were readmitted into the bosom of the church, was found to be intolerable as an ordi- * TertuU. de Pcenit. § ix. p. 483. AURICULAR CONFESSION. 145 nary practice. In the room of these displaced pres- byters, another canon enjoined, that in each city there should be appointed a certain discreet presby- ter, to whom a secret might be safely entrusted, and who henceforth should hear confessions privately. For a short time, the new machine worked tolerably well; but an unhappy affair soon occurred at Con- stantinople, the particulars of which I think it no way necessary to detail. The culprit was, of course, immediately degraded; but the indignation of the people, not very reasonably, was directed against the whole body of the priesthood. Reasonably, however, or unreasonably, still, in matter of fact, it was so directed ; and Nectarius, the archbishop or patriarch, was not a little perplexed what to do. In this emer- gency, the presbyter Eudemon gave him advice, which Socrates censures, but which Nectarius fol- lowed. The new plan of auricular confession to a priest was abolished ; and each person was freely ad- mitted to the holy communion, according as, in the presence of God, he judged himself to be in a fit state of preparation.* Such is the joint narrative of Socrates and Sozo- men. If it can at all further the bishop's object, I have no wish to deprive him of its full benefit. 5. But the bishop will say, that, although abolished in the East ere it had well commenced, the practice, by the very testimony of Sozomen himself, still pre- vailed in the western churches, and more especially in the Roman church, t Certainly it did : but, so far as I can discern, this is no satisfactory proof of its absolute necessity and of its religious ohligation upon the conscience; the matter, if I mistake not, whic^ his lordship has undertaken to establish. Yet, even in Italy, for the disgraceful truth must be confessed, the new system * Socrat. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. c. 19. Sozomen. Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. c. 16. t Sozomen. Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. c. 16. N 146 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. was far from meeting with universal acceptance. Ambrose of Milan patronised it: but, as the bishop remarks, it is too true, that already, even in his time, some insensates, under a pretext since developed at the reformation, refused to submit to this ministra- tion of the priests. Their refusal, it seems, was grounded upon a deference to the supreme majesty of God, who (as they imagined) could alone pardon sins; and, according to the bishop, they were fully confuted by Ambrose: but they do not appear to have been themselves Q.Qx\V\nQ.^di by that learned pre- late's argument.^' They conceived, I apprehend, that absolution, pronounced by a priest, was only conditional and declarative: conditional, as the bishop himself seems to admit; declarative, as the church of England additionally inclines to conjecture. Hence, if sacerdotal absolution could be procured only on the rack of auricular confession, they ventured to think, that the absolution of God, after such a con- fession to the Lord as Tertullian defines primitive * Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 187. The bishop, I regret to observe,' condescends to make, as it were, a Scriptural doctrine, that strange distinction between repentance and doing penance, which is one of the many unaccountable delights of the Latin church. Repentance, he tells us, is the principle of the reformation: but this is not sufficient: we must also confess and do penance. Now I beg to ask. Where is there a single passage in the whole New Testament, which enjoins the performance of a Latin penance as necessary to eternal salvation?. An uneducated Romanist will tell us, that penance is enjoined ag'ain and again in Holy Scripture; but the bishop of Aire is not an uneducated Romanist. He knows perfectly well, that the expressions /?e??«??ce and to do penance, which perpetually occur in tlie Romish versions of the New Testament, do not exhibit the true idea of the original words /uirdvoia and ^AiTAvoiiv. Those words, from the very necessity of their etymology, relate, not to the outward austeritiefwiiich the Latin church enjoins under the name o^ penance, but purely and exclusively to that moral change of mind which we denominate repentance. By this lamentable, and (T fear) systematic, mistranslation of the Greek original, thousands and millions may have been se- duced into a scheme of mere unauthorized and mis-deemed meri- torious will-worship. AURICULAR CONFESSION. 147 confession to have been, might peradventure be equally beneficial and efficacious."^ * Exomolog'esis est, qua delictum Domino nostrum confitemur, non quidem ut ig-naro; sed quatenus satisfactio confessione dis- ponitur, confessione pocnitentia nascitur, poenitentia Deus mitig-a- tur.— Tertull. de Poenit. § ix. p. 483. 148 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. CHAPTER X. The Difficulties of Romanism in regard to the Doctrine of Satisfaction. The Romish doctrine of satisfaction is stated by the bishop of Aire in manner following: — We are all sinful creatures; and we might justly have been devoted to endless punishment. But Christ laid down his life for us upon the cross; and, through the alone meritorious efficacy of his death and sufferings, we are exempted from the dreadful penalty of everlasting woe. Yet, although the Sa- viour, by the infinite value of his blood, might no doubt have delivered us both from eternal punish- ment and from transitory punishment; in matter of fact J it has pleased him to deliver us only from the former. The latter, as justly due to our sins, he has left us still to undergo. Whence, consequently, we must undergo it, either in the present world, or in the next world, or jointly in both worlds. Now the undergoing of this transitory punishment is what the Latin church denominates a making of satisfaction to the justice of God,^ The moral efficacy, then, of Christ's death, so far as I can understand the bishop's statement, may be thus briefly specified. Our Lord^s meritorious pas- sion on the cross delivers us, indeed, from the eternal punishment of sin : but it does not avail to deliver us from its temporal punishment. * Discuss. Amic. Lett. xii. DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 149 I. I wish that his lordship had been a little more explicit, in defining the precise idea which he would attach to the word satisfaction. Had he done that, some degree of trouble might have been saved. If, by the word satisfaction^ he means only to describe an undoubted fact^ ivhich presents itself daily before our eyes; certainly the most hardy dis- putant would not incline to controvert his statement. In the course of God's moral government, as we all know, effect is so suspended upon cause, that vice perpetually receives a temporal punishment. The deepest repentance and the most exalted piety of later life will not restore a constitution destroyed by early depravity. Pardon, indeed, through Christ, is accord- ed to the penitent sinner: but he is not, on that account, exempted from temporal punishment. To the hour of his death he pays the penalty of his long- forsaken and lono:-abhorred transo;ressions. Now, if this naked matter of fact be all that the bishop would express by the word satisfaction; or if he would include in the \di^^ punishments of sin ^ like that of David^ sent specially , and not in the mere ivay of cause and effect^ from God, I appre- hend, that, throughout all the protestant churches, he w^ould not find a single opponent. From much eloquent declamation, employed by the bishop in this precise line of argument, I had begun to hope, that one at least of our differences had originated from simple misapprehension: but my hope became more and more faint, as T advanced in my perusal of his lordship's discussion. Instead of viewing temporal punishment, either as a righteous retribution, or as a fatherly chastise- ment — the only two modes in which lean find it represented throughout Holy Scripture — the bishop, not content with gratuitously carrying it into the next world, seems evidently to consider it in the light of a meritoi-ious expiation made on our part, w^hen we either devoutly submit to it as sent from N 2 150 DIFFICULTIES OF ROxMANISM. God, or when we freely and artificial!)^ inflict it upon ourselves. ^ I may be mistaken; and I hope that I am mistaken in my estimate of his lordship's theory: but, from his occasional intimations, though he never explicitly defines the word satisfaction^ I find it difficult to form any other conclusion.^ In my fear that I am not mistaken, I am painfully confirnjed by yet another mode in which the bishop seems inclined to view the Latin doctrine of satisfac- tion. It is not always^ he apprehends, that a man makes satisfaction to the justice of God by temporal suffer- ing: much also, he conceives, may be done in that way by w^hat he denominates satisfactory ivorks; such as, agreeably to his own express enumeration of them, abstinence, and fasting, and the care of widows and orphans, and alms giving, and the visitation of the sick; works, he observes, which in the Latin church are reckoned among the most important satis- factions.! The excellence^ and (under one aspect) the neces- sity^ of these good deeds, we of the reformed churches most fully allow, but this is not precisely the question. The bishop clearly deems them meri- torioiis: for, unless that be the case, I perceive not how they can make an expiatory satisfaction to God for our transgressions. Now it is under this precise idea of their alleged merit oriousness^ that the lan- guage and doctrine of our Latin brethren are thought by us to be objectionable. IVe acknowledge^ says the accurate Hooker, a dutiful necessity of doing well: but THE meritorious dignity of doing well * I give the bishop's own words. Satisfaire, autant qa'il est en nous, a la justice, de son Pere. — Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 211. Parce que nous sommes hors d'etat d'acquitter la dette entiere, serions nous dispenses de faire quelques efforts pour entrer en paiement suivant nosfacultes et nos moyens? — Ibid. p. 216. L*ob- lig-ation de satisfaire et apaiser le ciel par des oeuvres expiatoires. —Ibid. p. 221. f Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 222. DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 151 we utterly renounce.* This, I believe, is the doc- trine, not only of the church of England, but of all the reformed churches; the doctrine, not only of the reformed churches, but of that venerable and most ancient church, w^hich, by a long line of succession connecting itself immediately with the primitive ages, may claim the high and extraordinary praise of not being a reformed church, simply because it required not reformation. With the depressed, but unextinguishable, church of the Piedmontese valleys, we all, if I mistake not, agree in this important point. We confess the duty, but not the merit, of good works: and, viewing them under that aspect, we thence consistently deny the possibility of their mak- ing any expiatory satisfaction to God for our trans- gressions. The same principle we, of course, extend to every species of temporal punishment. When sent from God, we would humbly submit to it: and, as the apostle speaks, we would deem it the fatherly chastise- ment of the Lord, '' at present, indeed, not joyous ^ but grievous, nevertheless, afterward yielding the < peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are ^ exercised thereby.'^! But, with such a view of the question, in the language of our own Hooker, '' We dare not call God to reckoning, as if we had ' him in our debt-books. The little fruit which we ^ have in holiness, it is, God knoweth, corrupt and ^unsound. We put no confidence at all in it: we ' challenge nothing in the world for it. Our constant ' suit to God is and must be, to bear with our infir- ^ mities, and to pardon our offences. ^'f In this lowly estimate even of our best perform- ances, we hold ourselves to be justified, not only by the express decision of Scripture, but by the entire * Hooker's Disc, of Justific. § vii. t Heb. xii. 5—11. \ Hooker's Disc, of Justific. § vii. 152 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. analogy of the Christian faith. So far from calculat- ing a proportionable correspondence between vierit and reward; we deem it more seem! 37-, to adopt the words which our Saviour Christ hath prepared for us, and to confess that when we have done all, we have done nothing more than our bare duty:"^ in- stead of ascribing to our works any even remote pos- sibility of making satisfaction to God for our many evil deeds; the whole analogy of faith, as propounded luminously by the great apostle himself to the church of Rome, compels us to take up a doctrinal system diametrically opposite.! The doctrine of vierit^ and the doctrine of duty^ in short, lie at the very root of the differences between the church of Rome and the church of England. II. As usual, the bishop quotes the fathers in favour of his speculation: and it must be owned, that Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine, all speak of our making satisfaction to God by the tem- poral pains which we endure. If they use the term in his lordship's apparent sense, I shall have no hesitation in saying, that their grossly unscriptural language merely shows how soon and how easily a specious and flattering corruption crept into the church. But I greatly doubt, though I would speak under correction, whether their mean- ing has not been altogether misapprehended. We all know, that, in the idiom both of the Greek and of the Latin, the same phrase indiflerently signifies to give satisfaction and to suffer punishment. This very simple circumstance, I strongly suspect, is the true key to the phraseology employed by certain of the fathers. When they spake of a man making satisfaction to God for his sins by any measure of temporal suffering, they meant not, I apprehend, to intimate, that his pains were meritorious, and that they were capable of expiating his transgressions; * Luke xvii. 10. f Rom. ili. 19—28. v. 16—21. xi. 6. DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 153 but they meant merely to say, that we must expect sin to be attended by merited punishment. Be this, however, as it may, if we are to be guided by the authority of the primitive doctors, I should certainly prefer the very ancient testimony of St. PauPs own fellow-labourer, the Roman Clement, to the much later evidence of Tertullian, or Cyprian, or Ambrose, or Augustine. '' All are glorified and magnified, not through ^ themselves, or through their own works, or through ' the righteous deeds which they have done, but ' through the will of God. We, therefore, iDeing ' called through his will in Christ Jesus, are not jus- ' tified through ourselves, or through our own wis- ' dom, or intellect, or piety, or the works which we ^have wrought in holiness of heart; but through ^ faith, by which the Almighty God hath justified all ^from everlasting. To him be glory and honour ' through all ages. What then shall we do, brethren? ' Shall we be slothful from good deeds, and shall we ^ desert the faith? The Lord forbid such to be our ^case! Rather let us hasten, with all vehemence ' and alacrity, to accomplish every good work.'^^ So far as di positive argument will go, it is diiEficult to believe, that the man who wrote thus could hold the doctrine of a meritorious satisfaction to be made to God either by holy deeds or by acute sufferings: and, so far as we may build upon a negative argu- ment, the total silence of Clement, in regard to any such satisfaction as that maintained by the bishop, affords much reason for suspecting, that in his days the catholic church knew nothing of the doctrine. JEqually difficult, unless I greatly mistake, will his lordship find the task of extracting his theory from the remains either of Polycarp or of Ignatius. III. The bishop asks, whether to appease the * Clem. Roman. Epist. ad Corinth, i. § 32, 33. 154 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. anger of God^ and to satisfy his justice^ do not ultimately come to the same thing.^ I readily answer, no. The difference consists in the total dissimilarity of ideas conveyed respect- ively by those two phrases. Sincere repentance, offered up through the alone merits of Christ, is no doubt available to appease God^s anger^ when we have sinned against him: but such repentance does nothing to satisfy his justice in the way of making a meritorious expiation. To talk, indeed, of the expiatory meritoriousness of repentance is a plain contradiction in terms. By the very act of repent- ance we acknowledge ourselves to be sinners: but what possible expiatory meritoriousness can there be in a sorrowful acknowledgment and direct confession that w^e are great and undeserving offenders? Clearly there can be none: unless, indeed, we are prepared to maintain the actual existence of that moral para- dox, a meritorious sinner or a holy transgressor^ IV. It has been confidently asserted by the bishop, that Christ made satisfaction for our sins only so far as to exempt us from eternal punishment, and that we ourselves must supply the defect by undergoing temporal punishment, or by performing certain me- ritorious actions in the way of an expiatory satis- faction to God for our transgressions. This doctrine his lordship boldly avows to be the undoubted mind of Christ; and he claims to prove it, both from Scrip- ture and from the primitive church. Ineach line of argument he has completely failed. The earliest church is decidedly against him: and * Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 222. f The bishop claims, as an ally, the proem of our commination office. It seems to me, when viewed in connexion with the whole tenor of our articles and homilies, merely to import, that penitence and fasting" are a useful mean of putting* our souls in a proper posture to meet their God. I cannot perceive any thing in it, which at all assimilates to the doctrine of meritorious expiatory satisfaction. DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 155 his meagre proof from Scripture is limited to the mourning of Job on account of his trials, to the repentance of David, and Ahab, and the king of Nineveh, and to a singular perversion of a very plain passage of St. Paul, wherein the apostle speaks of the afflictions of Christ the head being filled up in the afflictions of his mystical body, the church. "^ How - these are to demonstrate, that either sufferings or good deeds can make temporal expiatory satisfac- tion to God for our varied transgressions,^ I am unable to comprehend. There is not so much as the slightest perceptible coherence between the bishop's premises artd his conclusion. When thrown into the form of a syllogism^ his whole argument runs in manner following: — Job m,ourned on account of his trials: Bavid^ and Ahab^ and the king of Nineveh^ repented in sackcloth and ashes : and the afflictions of Christ are still prolonged in the afflictions of his body^ the church. Therefore teinporal punishments and holy deeds are able^ by their expiatory meri- torious?iess, to satisfy the strict Justice of our hea- venly Father, In laying his foundation, the bishop has altogether failed; and the natural consequence will be the down- fall of his superstructure. As he himself is perfectly aware, for the whole plan of his discussion evinces it, the connected doctrines of indulgences, and purgatory, and prayers for the dead, all rest ultimately upon the basis of meritorious satisfaction. The basis being unsound, the superstructure cannot stand. * Coloss. i. 24. 156 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. CHAPTER XL The Difficulties of Romanism in respect to Indulgences. Indulgences sprang out of the penitential disci- pline of the primitive church. Persons, who had lapsed into idolatry, or who had been guilty of any scandalous crime, were separated by ecclesiastical authority from the body of the faithful : nor were they re-admitted, until, by a course of austere penitence, they had sufficiently evinced their sincerity and their amendment. The church, however, which, like every other well-organized society, possessed and exercised the power of ejecting or receiving members, was in- duced, when she had well-grounded reason to believe repentance sincere, occasionally to relax the severity, or to shorten the time of this required probation. When that was done, the grace, accorded to the peni- tent, was naturally styled an indulgence. Such, and such only, were the indulgences of the primitive church : and I know not what objection can be rationally taken to the system of her moral disci- pline. But, when the unscriptural notion of a meritorious expiatory satisfaction to God was annexed to the ancient probationary penance required by the church, the same idea infected also the simple primitive in- dulgence. If self-inflicted punishment for sin, or punishment inflicted by ecclesiastical authority, could make an expiatory satisfaction to the divine justice: then the power of remitting such punishment was equivalent to the power of declaring, that the church, INDULGENCES.' 157 according to her own good pleasure and discretion, could assign to the divine justice a smaller measure of expiatory satisfaction than thai justice would other- wise have claimed. Now this extraordinary specula- tion, in pursuance of which the church undertook to determine, that God not unfrequently was and ought to be satisfied with a lighter degree of expiation, than his own justice, if left to itself, would have exacted from the offender: this extraordinary speculation sprang naturally and of necessity from the new doc- trine of an expiatory satisfaction to God engrafted upon the primitive very harmless, or rather laudable, discipline of penance and indulgence. The revolting arrogance of so strange a speculation, when plainly exhibited in its true colours, and when no longer decorated or disguised by the specious elo- quence of the bishop of Aire, must, I think, shock every well regulated mind.* To imagine that the divine justice would agree to be satisfied with a smaller quantity of expiation than the amount of its original requirement, and that each priest enjoyed the singular privilege of adjusting the terms of this yet more singular bargain between God and his creature, is contrary alike to Scripture and to every consistent idea which we can form of the divine attributes. Yet this theory was but the legitimate offspring of the new doctrine of satisfaction as superadded to the old penitential discipline of the church. I. We are assured, however, by the bishop of Aire, that indulgences, viewed (be it observed) under the present precise aspect, rest upon the authority of St. Paul. That great apostle, says he, teaches us positively, that to the church belongs the double right of pre- scribing and of mitigating satisfactory punishments.! For the establishment of this position, the bishop refers to two connected passages in the two epistles to the Corinthians : but, in neither of those passages, * Discuss. Amic. Lett. xiii. f Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 227. 158 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. can I discover the slightest vestige of any punishments, which, in his lordship's sense of the word, can be de- nominated satisfactory,^ According to the ancient and godly discipline of the primitive church, the Corinthians, as St. Paul ex- presses himself, had delivered an incestuous member of their community unto Satan for the destruction of the fleshy that the spirit might he saved in the day of the Lord Jesus A This they did under the im- mediate sanction of the anxious apostle: and afterward, when they were satisfied as to the sincerity of the man's contrition, they pardoned him the disgrace which he had brought upon the church, and read- mitted him to the enjoyment of his former privileges as a baptized christian. The circumstance and the ground of his readmission were communicated to St. Paul; and St. Paul, in reply, informs them, that, as they had forgiven the offender, so likewise did he for their sakes in the person of Christ.± Such was the very simple transaction, from which the bishop has learned, that, by the special authority of St. Paul, to the church belongs the double right of both prescribing and mitigating satisfactory punish- ments: punishments, that is to say, according to the bishop's avowed doctrine, which should be able to make a meritorious expiatory satisfaction, not merely to the outraged church viewed as a body-corporate, but even to the divine justice itself. Yet, where is there a single syllable about any such meritorious satisfaction being made to the justice of God, from the beginning to the end of the entire narrative? II. Bad, however, as indulgences may be when viewed under the present most unscriptural aspect, their evil admitted of a still higher degree of subli- mation. The bishop of Aire, himself a most respectable ecclesiastic, has no hesitation in pronouncing, with or without the consent of his church, that the validity * 1 Corinth, v. 1—5. 2 Corinth, ii. 6—10. \ 1 Corinth, v. 5. % 2 Corinth, ii. 10. INDULGENCES, 159 of indulgences^ like the validity of absolutions^ entirely depends upon the dispositions of the sin- ne?\^ This, no doubt, is making the best of the matter: but a lamentable story yet remains to be told. His lordship treads lightly over ground, which he is too good and too sensible a man to deem hallowed. What was the crying abomination, which first roused the indignant spirit of the great and much-calumniated Luther? 'The pope actually drove a gainful pecuniary traffic in ecclesiastical indulgences! Instruments of this description, by which the labour of making a fancied meritorious satisfaction to God by penance or by good works was pared down to the dwarfish standard that best suited the purse of a wealthy offender, were sold in the lump, to a tribe of monas- tic vagabonds, by the prelate, who claimed to be upon earth the divinely-appointed vicar of Christ. These men purchased them of the pope, by as good a bargain as they could make; and then, after the mode of travelling-pedlars, they disposed of them in retail to those who affected such articles of commerce, each indulgence of course bearing an adequate pre- mium. The madness of superstition could be strained no higher: the Reformation burst forth like a torrent; and Luther, with theBible in his hand, has merited and obtained the eternal hatred of an incorrigible church. IIL It is worthy of observation, that the bishop is wholly silent as to the imaginary fund, whence the inexhaustible stock of papal indulgences is supplied. Whether he was himself ashamed of the doctrine of supererogation, or whether he thought it imprudent to exhibit such a phantasy before the eyes of his English correspondent, I shall not pretend to deter- mine. From whatever motive, the bishop omits it altogether. His lordship^ s defect, however, is abun- dantly supplied by the authoritative declaration of the reigning pontiff. ^' We have resolved,^^ says pope Leo in the year * Discuss, Amic. vol. ii. p. 229. 160 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 1824, " by virtue of the authority given to us from ^heaven, fully to unlock that sacred treasure, com- ' posed of the merits, sufferings, and virtues, of Christ ' our Lord, and of his virgin mother, and of all the ' saints, which the author of human salvation has ' intrusted to our dispensation — To you, therefore, ' venerable brethren, patriarchs, primates, arch-bish- ' ops, bishops, it belongs to explain with perspicuity ^ the power of indulgences: what is their efficacy in ' the remission, not only of the canonical penance, ' but also of the temporal punishment due to the * divine justice for past sin; and what succour is ' afforded out of this heavenly treasure, from the ' merits of Christ and his saints, to such as have 'departed real penitents in God's love, yet before ' they had duly satisfied by fruits worthy of penance ' for sins of commission and omisvsion, and are now ' purifying in the fire of purgatory, that an entrance ' may be opened for them into their eternal country * where nothing defiled is admitted/^^ From a stock of merits, which the pope claims to have at his disposal, indulgences are issued, which shall not only remit the canonical penance imposed by the church, but which shall also liberate the for- tunate possessors from the temporal punishment due for past sin to the divine justice, and w4iich shall open the doors of purgatory to those suffering spirits who departed without having made full satisfaction for their iniquities by fruits worthy of penance. These then, it seems, are the avowed doctrines and practices of the Latin church, not merely during the dark ages of barbarous credulity, but in the full light of the nineteenth century : these are the high behests of that church, which, according to the ex- plicit declaration of its visible head to every protestant community, is the mother and mistress of all other churches, and out of which there is no salvation.* * Bull for the observance of the Jubilee, a. d. 1825. PURGATORY. 161 CHAPTER XII. The Difficulties of RGinanisrn in respect to Pur- gatory. For his mode of treating the subject of purgatory, I feel it impossible not to honour the bishop of Aire.* Instead of vainly labouring to establish the doc- trine on some one or two misinterpreted texts of the New Testament, he fairly and honestly confesses, that we have received no revelation concerning it from Jesus Christ. Hence he judiciously wastes not his time in adducing passages of Holy Writ which are altogether irrelevant. "Had it been necessary for us,'^ says he, "to be ' instructed in such questions, Jesus would doubtless ' have revealed the knowledge of them. He has not ' done so. We can, therefore, only form conjectures ' on the subject more or less probable.^'t The doctrine, then, of purgatory is confessedly NOT a matter of revelation: whether it be true or false, we confessedly cannot ascertain from any- thing that Christ has said on the subject. This difficulty would have startled an ordinary theologian: but, though Christ himself has not re- vealed the doctrine, the bishop of Aire can clearly demonstrate its truth by an easy and simple inductive process. I. We must make, argues his lordship, an expiatory satisfaction to the divine justice, either in this world or in the next. Few men, however, make a full expiatory satisfaction in this world : therefore they * Discuss. Amic. Lett. xiii. f Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 242. N 2 162 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. must make it in the next. Now, in the next world, they can no longer pursue good works, no longer distribute alms, no longer offer any compensatory reparations to heaven. One only method of making satisfaction remains to them: that, to wit of suffer- ing. But, if suffering be the sole method of making satisfaction which remains to them hereafter, then, indisputably, there must be a place where this suf- fering is undergone. Now the place, which has been thus proved to exist, is, by the Councils of Florence and Trent, conventionally denomin^ited purgatory.^ With the name appropriated to this scripturally unknown land, I am no way disposed to quarrel : for anything that I can see to the contrary, it is very appropriate and expressive. The name is unexcep- tionable ; but the demonstration is faulty. As De- mosthenes says, the war itself will discover the weak points of Philip. The whole demonstration of the existence of pur- gatory, as set forth by the bishop of Aire, rests upon the primary position, that we miLst make an expia- tory satisfaction to the divine justice^ either in this ivorld or in the next. If that position fail, the de- monstration fails with it. Now I have already shewn, on the fullest evidence, that the doctrine of an expi- atory m,eritorious satisfaction^ to be made by man to the divine justice^ through the medium either of good works or of penal sufferings: I have already shewn, that this doctrine is altogether false and * Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 242 — 244. The bishop attempts to perplex the English layman by reminding him of the separate abode of departed spirits, during the interval which elapses be- tween death and judgment. " You believe,'* says he, "the existence of such a place, though * its local position is unknown to you. Rest then assured of the « existence of purgatory, though we may not be able to define *its strict local position." Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 242, 243. Note. If any Englisli layman be perplexed by such an argument, he must certainly have forgotten, that the point at issue is not the LOCALITY, but THE EXISTENCE, of purgatory. PURGATORY. 163 unfounded. Such being the case, the attempted de- monstration of the existence of purgatory, which avowedly reposes upon it, must needs be wholly inconclusive. But the bishop has confessed, that the doctrine of purgatory has not been expressly revealed: and I have shewn, that he has failed to demonstrate its truth by inductive reasoning. Therefore, so far as I can discern, we have no proof whatsoever of the truth of the doctrine of purgatory. IL The case might now^ well seem entirely hopeless: but the bishop has yet another argument in reserve. "All antiquity/^ says he, '^speaks of an inter- ^ mediate place, where souls, before they enter into * heaven, must be purified from the slightest stains of ^ iniquity. ^^^ 1. On a point, confessedly not revealed in Scrip- ture and incapable of proof by inductive reasonings I should not be disposed very greatly to defer to antiquity, even if all antiquity were in one story, which the bishop declares to be the case. His lord- ship's own references, however, tacitly correct the largeness of his phraseology. Cyprian, who flourished about the middle of the third century^ chronologically ushers in the period which the bishop denominates all antiquity: and this very Cyprian, comparatively late as we must pronounce his testimony, is not for him, but aguinst him. This father mentions, as a practice of the Christians in the third century, that, as often as they comme- morated the passions of the martyrs on the anniversa- ries of their martyrdoms, they always ofiered up sacrifices for them: and he also speaks with praise of an episcopal arrangement, by which it was ordained, that, in the case of persons under certain specified circumstances, no sacrifice should be celebrated for their repose.t * Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 243. Note. f Cyprian. Epist. xxxix. p. 77. Epist. i. p. 3. 164 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. Such is clearly the language of Cyprian; and, by such language, the bishop has no less clearly been deceived. The sacrifices, offered up for the martyrs and for other pious members of the church on certain anni- versary days, were not, as the bishop imagines, prayers for the liberation of their souls from pur- gatory: but they were sacrifices of praise and thanhs giving to Mmighty God^ like those of more than one of our canonical Jinglican prayers^ on the ground that these pious men had now departed out of this life in the faith and hope of Christ,"^ It is possible, that the bishop may urge against me a passage in the Epistle to Antonianus, where the holy father speaks of persons being long purified in fire for their sins, ere they are admitted into the bliss of heaven. t I am fully aware of the existence of that passage: but I deem it no proof, that Cyprian held the modern Latin doctrine of purgatory. Had the bishop read the note of Rigaud on the place, he must at least have acknowledged, that, in the abstract, Cyprian's language is ambiguous. To my own apprehension, the learned commentator has fully established, that Cyprian speaks only of the allegorical fire of penitential austerities through which the lapsed were required to pass by the early discipline of the church. Not only does the context of the passage demonstrate Rigaud to be in the right; but another passage also, not noticed by him, clearly evinces the propriety of his interpreta- tion. ^' When once we have departed hence,'^ says Cy- * See the prayers in the communion service, the burial service, and the fifty-fifth canon: and compare Heb. xiii. 15. f Cyprian. Epist. Iv. p. 109. I am unable to say, whether the bishop means to refer to this passage or not: for he and I use two different editions of Cyprian. His only reference is to Epist. ii. But, in this Epistle, as it stands in the Oxford edition of 1682, which is the edition used by myself, there is no mention made either of purgatory or of prayers for the dead. PURGATORY. 165 prian, ^^ there is no longer any place for repentance, ' no longer any effectiveness of satisfaction. Here, ^ life is either lost or held: here, we may provide for ' our eternal salvation by the worship of God and the ' fruitfulness of faith. Let not any one, then, be ' retarded, either by sins or by length of years, from ' attaining to salvation. To a person, while he ' remains in this world, repentance is never too late. ' Those, who seek after and understand the truth, may ' always have an easy access to the indulgence of God. ' Even to the very end of your life, pray for your ^sins: and, by confession and faith, implore the one ' only true Deity. To him, who confesses, pardon is ^freely granted: to him, w^ho believes, a salutary in- ' dulgence is granted from the divine pity: and, imme- ' DIATELY AFTER DEATH, HE PASSES TO A BLESSED ' IMMORTALITY.'^^ 2. In the large phraseology of the bishop of Aire, ALL antiquity commences with Cyprian, who flou- rished about the middle of the third century. Yet, I pray, was Cyprian the ve^y earliest of the fathers? Why did not his lordship cite, in favour of the doctrine which he advocates, Clement of Rome, and Polycarp, and Ignatius, and Justin, and Irenseus, and Athenagoras, and the old anonymous winters, whose works are usually printed along with those of Justin? Why were not these much more ancient fathers adduced, as unanimously vouching for the doc- trine of purgatory? If we attend to their testimony, w^e shall discover the reason of the bishop's prudent preterition. On the supposition, then, that all antiquity teaches the doctrine of purgatory^ how came Cle- ment to be totally silent respecting it, even when ex- pressly treating of death and the resurrection?! How happened he so entirely to forget it, as to declare, that * Cyprian, ad Demetrian. p. 196. See also Epist. xii. p. 27, 28. t Clem. Epist. ad Corinth, i. § 23—27. 166 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. when once we shall have departed this life, there is no room for ics in another^ either to C07ifess or to repent,^ Why did Polycarp avowedly discuss the resurrec- tion of the dead, and yet wholly pretermit the doc- trine of purgatory?! Why did Ignatius assert, that two states only in the future world, a state of death and a state of life, 2X^ set before us ; so that every one, who departs, shall depart to his own proper place: and why did he not set forth that yet additional MzW state, which, under the name oi purgatory, makes so conspicuous a figure in the theology of the Latin church?]: Why did Irenseus, without presuming to say a wot-d about purgatory, content himself with simply intimating, that the souls of the dead shall depart into an i7ivisible place prepared of God for them, where they shall abide in constant expectation of the resurrection and reunion of the body?^ Why did the old writer, in the works of Justin Martyr, pursue a train of reasoning, on the pardon of the lapsed under the dispensation of grace, which is wholly incompatible with a belief in the doctrine of purgatory? II Why did Athenagoras professedly write an entire treatise on the resurrection of the dead ; and yet, not- withstanding the nature of his subject, leave the state of purgatory wholly unnoticed and unmentioned?ir But I forbear. The English laity will ere now, I trust, be sufficiently convinced, that all antiquity does not speak of an intermediate place, where souls, before they enter into heaven, must be cleansed from their smallest pollutions in the fire of purgatory. * Ibid. ii. § 8. f Polycarp. Epist. ad Philip. § il. vii. t Ignat. Epist. ad Magnes. § v. § Iren. adv. H^r. lib. v. c. 26. § 2, 3. 11 Quxst. et Respons. ad Orthod. in Oper. Justin, quesest. xcvii. p. 350, 351. t Athenag. de Resurr. Mort. in Oper. p. 143 — 219. PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. 167 CHAPTER XIII. The Difficulties of Bomanism in respect to prayers for the Bead. Respecting the existence of purgatory, by the bishop of Aire's very candid acknowledgment, Holy Scripture is perfectly silent. Equally silent also is it respecting the obligation or the benefit of prayers for the dead offered up by the living. Neither the one nor the other does it mention : to neither the one nor the other does it even make so much as the very slightest allusion. Concerning hoth^ on the supposi- tion of the truth of the one and the duty of the other^ it maintains a reserve most singularly unnaccount- able."^ It is true indeed, that, from the few and indistinct notices of a future state which occur in the Hebrew Scriptures, we might not have much reason to be sur- prised at their silence on the present topics: but, when we recollect that it was a special office of Christ to illuminate life and iminortality through the Gosjjelj^ it is utterly incredible, that the light-giving Saviour should have vouchsafed us no sort of revela- tion concerning purgatory and prayers for the dead, had the former really existed, and had the latter been a pious and profitable duty. On the awful truths of the next world, our Lord is copious and distinct, alarming and consolatory. We have the whole fearful machinery of the last day placed, as it were, visibly before our very eyes: the sheep on the right hand of the Judge ; the goats * Discuss. Amic. Lett. xiii. f 2 Tim. i. 10. 168 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. on the left hand. We hear, as it were with our very- ears, the irreversible doom of weal or woe. The doors of the adytum are thrown open : the mystery, hidden or but dimly perceived through a long succes- sion of ages, is unreservedly declared to the whole universe. Yet, respecting purgatory and prayers for the dead, the great and all-knowing hierophant is profoundly silent. I. In place of any proof, either from the Hebrew Scriptures, or from the Scriptures of the New" Testa- ment, that prayers for the dead are the duty of the livings the bishop produces a meagre and scanty attestation from the apocryphal history of the Macca- bees, which his church has taken upon herself to pro- nounce canonical. " If Judas had not hoped, '^ says the author of that history, " that they who were slain should have ^ risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray 'for the dead.''* The poverty of the bishop I blame not. He has done what he could: and mortal man can do no more. Proof from the genuine Scriptures he was unable to bring: and we cannot reasonably censure him for not accomplishing an impossibility; we cannot equitably impeach him for not producing a nonentity. Christ, it is true, is silent on the subject: but what Christ has not taught, we may learn from Judas Maccabeus. This is no time for discussing the canon of Holy Scripture: nor shall I enter upon a topic, which has already been handled most sufficiently by persons far more competent than myself. Yet, since the bishop has thought it good to inform the English laic, that the reform^ers of the sixteenth century removed the Maccabssan history from the canon, purely to rid themselves of the evidence which it bears to mor- tuary supplications, and thence implicatively to the doctrine of purgatory :t it may not be improper to • 2 Mace. xii. 44. f Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 246. PRATERS FOR THE DEAD. 169 remind his lordship of the language employed by an author, with whom he is intimately acquainted, and who certainly had no concern in the evil deeds of the sixteenth age. ^' Have nothing in common with the Apocrypha," said Cyril of Jerusalem, in the fourth century, to the Competentes, who were preparing themselves for baptism: " Have nothing in common with the Apo- ^ crypha, but study those books which we read in ^ the church. The apostles and the ancient bishops, ^ who delivered those books to us, were much wiser * than you. As children, therefore, of the church, set ^ not upon her authorized documents the adulterat- * ing seal of a false impression."* The canon of the Old Testament, as propounded by Cyril to his pupils, differs not from the canon re- ceived by the innovators of the sixteenth century, save that it inserts the book of Baruch; which book, as it exists not in the Hebrew, the Jews, who might be supposed to have some slight acquaintance with their own canon, have nev^r recognised. Subsequent more careful examination led Augustine, and the Greek church, and the Councils of Carthage and Laodicea, to reject from the canon this book, which CyriPs list includes in it: the fathers of the Council of Trent best know the grounds on which they rein- stated that composition. As for the Maccabsean his- tory, which has rendered such essential service to the bishop of Aire, it is among those proscribed apo- cryphal books, which the archbishop of Jerusalem exhorts the illuminated most diligently to renounce, on the ground that it was not delivered to the church by the apostles and the ancient bishops. II. His lordship, however, meets us with a nega- tive, as well as with a positive argument. If Christ did not teach us the duty of praying for the dead by his wordsy he assuredly taught it no less forcibly by his silence. * Cyril. Catech. iv. p. 37. 170 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. This is not so great a paradox, as, at first sight, it might well be deemed: and the bishop has contrived to make out a very plausible case from very unpro- mising materials. '^The language of Judas Maccabeus, or of his his- ' torian,'^ argues the bishop, " proves indisputably that ' the practice of praying for the dead prevailed among ' the Jews. Now Christ never censures this practice; ^ THEREFORE he tacitly sanctions it.^'* We must confess, I fear, that Christ never censured the practice in so many precise words; yet his apostle John received a communication, which can scarcely be reconciled with the ordinance of praying for the dead, that their souls might be liberated from the fire of purgatory. / heard a voice from heaven^ saying unto me: Write; blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the spirit, that they m,ay rest from their labours; and their works do follow theni^ The dead in the Lord, then, are .blessed: and, whensoever they depart hence they rest from their labours. Now, if it were necessary for them to enter into purgatory, ere they were admitted into a state of beatitude; which according to the bishop, ALL must do, since the fire of purgatory must cleanse us even from our slightest stains :J they would not^ immediately after death, rest from their labours ; for his lordship himself being judge, purgatory does not hold forth to its inmates the accommodation of a bed of roses. Therefore, by an inevitable consequence from the plain words of Holy Writ, they enter not into a purgatory, from which they may be prema- turely liberated by the suffrages of the living. III. What the bishop cannot prove from Scripture either positively or negatively, he hopes to prove from the respectable human authority of the old fathers. * Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 248. f Rev. xlv. 13. 4: Doivent etre purifiees de leurs moindres souillures. Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 243. Note. PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. 171 1. Among these, the most ancient, that he produces, is Tertullian ; who flourished at the end of the second, and at the beginning of the third, century: for his lordship, doubtless because he found in them nothing to his purpose, carefully pretermits the earliest eccle- siastical writers. From the bishop's small success w^ith Cyprian, whom Tertullian chronologically preceded, we shall not anticipate much benefit to his cause through the agency of Tertullian.* (1.) ^^On a certain annual day/' says that father, '^ \\Q make oblations for the dead and for nativities.^'t By the w^ord nativities^ as employed by Tertul- lian, we are to understand, according to the phraseo- logy of the primitive church, not the literal birthdays of the living, but the allegorical birthdays of the dead; the days, that is to say, on which the departed saints were born out of this present evil world into a new and better state of existence. Now the same oblations, we see, were made both for the dead themselves^ and for these their allegori- cal nativities. Hence, plainly, the oblations must have been made for each under the very same aspect, and under the influence of the very same idea. But, for the allegorical nativities of the departed saints, it is evident, that the figurative sacrifice oi prayer could not have been made: because, even were we so inclined, we cannot pray for the death of those who are already dead. The oblations, therefore, men- tioned by Tertullian, must have been oblations, not of prayer^ but of thanksgiving. Such being the case, his oblations for the dead^ being assuredly of the same nature as his oblations for the allegorical nativities of the rfea^, are not, as the bishop imagines, jc^rayer^ for the dead, whereby they may be extricated from the fire of purgatory : but, on the contrary, they are thanksgivings for the * See above. Book i. chap. 12. § IL 1. f Tertull. de Coron. Mil. ^ iii. p. 449. 173 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. dead, analogous to those mentioned by Cyprian ; in Other words, they are thanksgivings to Almighty God for having taken unto himself the souls of the departed brethren. This, I think, is plainly the meaning of the sacrifices and oblations for the dead, mentioned by Cyprian and Tertullian. They were strictly eucharistic and com- memorative: eucharistic for the pious dead in general; commemorative, of the martyrs in particular, whose names were on these occasions publicly recited."^ (2.) But, though such be clearly enough the meaning of the oblations noticed by Tertullian, we must not dissemble, that, under one particular aspect, ew^n prayers for the dead are certainly, in his indi- vidual capacity, sanctioned by that father. At the conclusion of his treatise on the soul, he advocates a notion, that the abode of a departed spirit in the prison of the intermediate state might be pro- longed, and that its final resurrection might be delay- ed, on account of the smaller sins which it had com- mitted in the flesh. t This notion, having been once adopted by the speculative African, forthwith pro- duced the additional idea, that prayers might be advantageously offered up by the living, both for the comfort of a soul in hades, and for its participation of * See Cyprian. Eplst. xii. p. 27, 28. The language of Justin Martyr sufficiently explains the true nature of the oblations and sacrifices mentioned by Tertullian and Cyprian. Writing about the middle of the second century, he assures us, that christians, in their form of worship, recognise no oblations and sacrifices save the purely spiritual oblations and sacrifices of prayer and thanks- giving. Apol. i. vulg. ii. p. 46. Dial, cum Tryph. p. 270. Now, that the ancient oblations for the dead were not prayers^ I have fully shewn. Therefore they must have been thanksgivings. I have cited Justin lest any one should contend, that the oblations for the deadme2t.n what the Latins call the sacrifice of the mass, in which the priest is said to offer Christ both for the quick and for the dead. The testimony of this early father, to the specific nature of the ancient Christian oblations and sacrifices, is utterly fatal to any such speculation. t Tertull. de Anim. Oper. p. 689. PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. 173 the first resurrection without experiencing a procras- tination to the second resurrection.* Prayers, then, for the dead, under such an aspect, he doubtless recommends: but these prayers, even to say nothing of their resting on the mere authority of a fanciful individual, bear not the slightest resem- blance to those prayers, by the instrumentality of which, according to the theory of the Latin church, the souls of the defunct are liberated from purgatory. 2. With Tertullian the bishop adduces Cyprian and Chrysostom and Augustine, as being all favourable to the doctrine of purgatory and to the practice of praying for the dead. Cyprian I have already disposed of.t As for Chry- sostom and Augustine, who flourished at the latter end of the fourth and at the beginning of the fifth century, I freely allow (and the bishop may make the most of my concession) that, in their time, prayers for the dead and the notion of a purgatory (though by no means identical with the purgatory of the modern Latins) had crept into the church, now rapidly declining into unscriptural superstition. f * Tertull. de Monogam. § ix. Oper. p. 578. f See above, Book I. chap. 12. § II. 1. ^ For the sentiments of Chrysostom himself, the bishop refers to his sixty-ninth Homily to the people of Antioch: and he ex- hibits him as there saying, that The apostles vrdh good reason en- joined the commemoration of the dead, whenever the mysteries are celebrated; for they well knew, that the dead thence derived both utility and profit. Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 251. His lordship and myself may probably have used different editions of Chrysostom, in which his Homilies are differently ar- ranged: but certainly, in the edition nowbefore me, (Lutet. Paris. 1609), no such passage occurs in the sixty-ninth Homily, though its opening treats of the commemoration of the martyrs. Where the apostles enjoin the commemoration of the dead at the celebration of the Lord's Supper, on the ground that the dead are benefitted by such a practice, I am constrained to pro- fess myself altogether ignorant. P 2 174 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. CHAPTER XIV. An Historical Sketch of the Rise of Frayers for the Dead and of the Doctrine of Purgatory. To trace the rise of such speculations, as the doc- trine of purgatory and the duty of praying for the dead, is a matter of mere curiosity; nor shall I attempt any thing beyond a bare sketch. The whole is gratuitous and altogether unnecessary to my argu- ment : it may be viewed, as strictly a work of liberal supererogation. I. Prayers for the dead, that they might be com- forted in the separate abode of departed spirits, and that without any penal delay they might be made partakers of the first resurrection, were recommended by Tertullian at the latter end of the second century.^ This crude phantasy, then (so far as I know) first started by an imaginative individual, though in itself wholly unconnected with the doctrine of a purgatory, was not suffered to rest under the form in which it had been originally exhibited: and the hint of the African father was at length expanded into a theory, which in his time could have been but little anticipated. II. Of prayers for the dead, on a principle which at least approximates to the pur gat or ian principle, the earliest distinct traces, which have come within the compass of my own reading, occur in the mysta- gogical lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem.! * TertuU. de Anim. Oper. p. 689. Tertull. de Monogam. § ix. Oper. p. 578. I There is a prayer for the dead in the Apostolic Constitutions: but, in this prayer, the existence of any purgatory is neither men- tioned nor even supposed. The prayer merely supphcates, that God would pardon all the sins of the dead and would forthwith receive them into glory. Constit. Apos. lib. viii. c. 41. The prayer is followed by some directions respecting the commemora- tion of the dead. Ibid. c. 42. Prayers for the dead are also mentioned by Epiphanius of Sala- DOCTRINE OF PURGATORY. 175 This author, it is true, does not precisely mention purgatory; neither does he say any thing as to a fire, which is appointed to purify men from their sins, and from which they may be liberated sooner than they otherwise would have been by the suffrages of the living: but, in his language, a place of penal though not of eternal separation from God, whence departed spirits might be extricated by the prayers of surviv- ing friends, is certainly implied and understood. The souls of the dead, he thinks, are greatly benefited by the prayers of the living, offered up during the celebration of the Eucharist: and he illustrates the condition of such souls, by the supposed case of a king, who had banished certain of his rebellious subjects from his presence, but who had afterward been per- suaded at the instance of their friends and relations to remit their punishment. That both the speculation and the practice, how^- ever, were then in their infancy, the language of Cyril clearly demonstrates : for he himself mentions the opposition which was made to them, not by ^ few merely, but by many.* III. Such was the state of matters in the time of Cyril : and it is evident, I think, that the earliest cor- mis, who flourished contemporaneously with Cyril of Jerusalem: but they are not connected with any thing which bears the least resemblance to a purgato^3^ Epiphanius expresses himself with much indignation against the heretic Aerius; who, objecting to the custom of reciting the names of the dead in the office of the Eucharist, inquires, how the dead can be benefited by the prayers of the living; and remarks, that the adoption of such a practice can only tend to promote immorality, because a wealthy offender may always take care to purchase the venal suffrages of a survivor. Yet, when he himself in reply comes to state his own views of the subject, he is totally silent as to the existence of any purgatory: and, instead of intimating that the prayers of the living are effectual to liberate the souls of the dead from a place of this description, he contents himself with comparing prayers for the dead to prayers put up on behalf of a friend when engaged in taking along journey. In fact, so far from intimating that the subjects of these prayers are in purgatory, he expressly speaks of them as existing and living with the Lord. Epiph. adv. Hxr. lib. iii. haer. 75. * Cyril. Catech. Mystag. v. p. 241. 176 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. ruption, engrafted upon the original fanciful speculation of TertulliaUjWas the transmutation oi the old thanks- giving for the pious dead into prayers fo?' the souls of the dead in general; or rather, to express myself somewhat more accurately, prayers for the souls of the dead in general were superadded to the old thanksgivings for the happy departure of the pious dead. But, when we reach the days of Augustine, we find incontrovertible proof, that both prayers for the dead and the notion of a purgatory had become familiar to a now unhappily degenerating church. 1. There is a very odd sort of hesitation in Augus- tine respecting the whole matter, w^hich clearly enough indicates, that in his days the superstition had not been perfectly digested, though it gradually acquired strength and consistency. (1.) In a work, which professedly treats of the care that ought to be taken for the dead, that great father refers to the well-known passage of the Mac- cabsean history, where prayers and sacrifices for the souls of the defunct are mentioned and vindicated :^ but, unable to produce any legitimate sanction of the practice from canonical Scripture, he finally winds up the whole disputation with the prudent remark, that many things may profit us if we know them^ but that our ignorance of them can do us no very serious mischief. On this secure conclusion is built the doctrine, that it is best to pray for the souls of all the regenerate collectively ; lest any departed person, who might be benefited by our orisons, should unfortunately be omitted : and the reason assigned is, thatzY is far more eligible^ that souls, who will be neither the better nor the worse for our prayers, should have too m^uch ; than that souls, who\m.ay really be bene- fited by them, should have too littleA (2.) Thus speaks Augustine, in his treatise on the * 2 Mace. xii. 43—45. f August, de Cur, pro. Mort gerend. c. i. xvii. Oper. vol. iv. p. 255, 261. DOCTRINE OF PURGATORY. 177 care of the dead : but, in one of his sermons^ we find him waxing somewhat bolder. '^ Beyond all doubt/^ says he, " the dead are assist- ^ ed by the prayers of holy church, and by the salutary ' sacrifice, and by the alms which are given for the ' repose of their souls ; so that the Lord may deal ^ more mercifully with them than their sins deserve : ' for this has been handed down by the fathers, and ^ is observed by the whole church. Such exercises ' most assuredly profit the dead : but then those persons ' only are benefited, who have so lived before death, ^ that these things may be useful to them after death.'^^ (3.) So again, in his treatise on the eight ques- tions of Dulcitius, he half inclines to think, that the fire, which St. Paul mentions as burning the de- fective works of a christian, though the christian himself is saved as by fire, may perhaps be a purga- tory: through the fire of which all must pass alike, whether they have built upon the true foundation gold and silver and precious stones, or whether they have only accumulated upon it wood and hay and stubble.f That some such thing as this occurs after the pre-- sent life^ he observes, is far from being incredihle.% (4.) But, when he comes to treat directly oi pur- gatory itself though still relying for his scriptural proof upon the self-same passage of St. Paul, he speaks with almost as much positiveness, as if the silence of Christ had been subsequently remedied by a special revelation from heaven to himself. "By that transitory fire,^' he remarks, '^ concern- ' ing which the apostle says, He himself shall be saved ^ yet so as through fire; not deadly, but only minute, ^ sins are purged. — Whoever is conscious that any ' deadly sin rules within him, that person, unless he ' shall have worthily reformed himself, and (if space ' be aflforded him) shall have done penance for a long ^ time, and shall have been bountiful in alms-giving, * August. Serm. de Verb. Apost. xxxli. Oper. vol. x. p. 138. 1 1 Corinth, iii. 10—15. % August, de Oct. Dulcit. Quaest. Oper. vol. iv. p. 250. 178 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. ^ and shall have abstained from his sins: that person * cannot be purged in the transitory fire concerning * which the apostle speaks; but the eternal fire will ' torment him without any remedy. As for minute * sins, though they cannot slay the soul, yet they so ' deform it by a sort of leprosy, that, with difficulty, ^ or at least with great confusion, they suffer it to ' receive the embrace of the heavenly bridegroom. * Let such sins then be redeemed by continual prayer, * and by frequent fasting, and by larger alms, and ^ above all by the forgiveness of our enemies; lest, * when accumulated, they should sink the soul into ' perdition. But, whatever of those sins shall not ^ have been thus redeemed, it must be purged in the ^lire mentioned by the apostle. — On this principle, ' if we thank God for depriving us of our friends or * of our substance, confessing with true humility that 'we suffer less than we deserve; our sins will be ^ purged in this present world, so that in the future * world that purgatorial fire shall find either nothing, ' or certainly but little, to burn away. But, if we 'neither give thanks unto God in tribulation, nor * buy off our sins by good works; we must, under ' such circumstances, remain in the fire of purgatory 'just so long a time, as it may require to burn away ' our smaller sins, like wood and hay and stubble.^^^ 2. Thus, after much vacillation, Augustine seems finally to have adopted, so far as principle is con- cerned, the identical dogma of a future purgatory which is now held by the church of Rome. Yet, though in principle the purgatory of Augustine is the same as the purgatory of the Latins, in its m^range- ment it differs very widely and essentially. According to the theory of the Roman church, the soul, iinmediately after its separation from the body, passes into a present purgatory: yet the duration and intensity of its sufferings in that place of torment may be abbreviated and relaxed by the prayers of the living. But, according to the theory, of Augustine, the * August, de Igne Purgat, Serm, iv. Oper. vol. x. p. 382. DOCTRINE OF PURGATORY. 179 purgatorial fire, through which the soul must pass, is the fire which consumes the world at the day of judgment: whence it would follow, that the prayers for the dead, recommended by that father, are not prayers by which the soul may be liberated from a present purgatory ; but^thatthey are prayers, which may avail to give the soul a better passage through the yet future transitory fire at the general con- summation,'^ The difference is striking: and, when united both with the previous vacillation of Augustine and with the total silence of the fathers of the three first cen- turies, it clearly shews, that the doctrine of purgatory, as now held by the church of Rome, was completed only by slow degrees, and in the lapse of a consider- able period. 3. Augustine, we see, rests his proof of a purgatory upon a text of Holy Writ, which the bishop of Aire has had the good sense and prudence not to adduce.! The doctrine being a novelty, the exposition of the text is obviously a novelty also. Though Augus- tine could at length, after much hesitation, extract from it the tenet of a purgatory, his chronological predecessors, Tertullian and Origen, in the second and third centuries, were not quicksighted enough to discover in it any such extraordinary dogma.f Their more ancient expositions of the text differ en- tirely from the more recent gloss of Augustine. * August. Enarr. in Psalm, ciii. cone. 3. Oper. vol. vlii. p. 430. August, de Civit. Dei. lib. xx. c. 26. Oper. vol. v. p. 253. It is not improbable, that Augustine may have borrowed this notion from a conjectural hint, which had been previously thrown out by Origen. See Orig. adv. Cels. lib. iv. p. 168, 169. lib. v. p. 240, 241. lib. vi. p. 292, 293. The idea itself seems to have been ul- timately taken from those successive purgatorial catastrophes of the worldy whether by a deluge of water or by a deluge of fire, which constitute so conspicuous a feature in many of the ancient systems of theological philosophy, both oriental and occidental. See Orig. adv. Cels. lib. iv. p. 173. lib. v. p. 244, 245. t 1 Corinth, iii. 10—15. i: See TertuU. adv. Marcion. lib. v. § 11. p. 304. Griff, adv. Cels. lib.iv. p. 168, 169. 180 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. CHAPTER XV. The Difficulties of Romanism in respect to the In- vocation of the Saints. We are informed by the bishop of Aire, that the invocation of the saints, as recommended and prac- tised in the Latin church, is nothing more than a simple request of their intercessory prayers on our behalf ^ Planting himself upon this ground, he certainly exposes, with much felicity, the weakness of some very common, though very inefficient, protestant objections. If it be lawful, argues the bishop, to solicit the prayers of our living friends, how can it be unlawful to solicit the prayers of our dead friends ? If the in- tercessory prayers of our living friends trench not upon the high speciality of Christ's prevailing media- tion; why should the intercessory prayers of our dead friends be inconsistently charged with the impiety of any such encroachment? If a knowledge of distant transactions, and even a power of reading the human heart, might be communicated to Elisha and Peter upon earth ;t why may not the same power, to any extent which God shall deem expedient, be communicated to the saints in heaven ? To say, that the omniscience of God is invaded by the communi- cation of this knowledge, and that the circumstance of its communication must thence be physically im- possible, is most nugatory and most inconclusive. For, if to a saint in heaven w^ere communicated a knowledge so large that he could hear at once the invocation of all living men in all parts of the world: still that knowledge would be immeasurably distant * Discuss. Amic. Lett. xiv. f 2 Kings v. 26. vi. 12. Acts v. 3. INVOCATION or THE SAINTS. 181 from the omniscience of God. No reasonable man, therefore, can venture to say in the abstract, that the communication of such knowledge is a virtual impos- sibility.^ Thus argues the bishop of Aire: but, as the strict accuracy of his premises may well be doubted, so the true principle of objection, even to that miti- gated invocation of the saints which he has under- taken to defend, he has never once mentioned. I. By the voice of revelation itself, we are express- ly authorized to solicit the intercessory prayers of our living friends: but Scripture no where enjoins or even sanctions the practice of soliciting the interces- sory prayers of our dead friends. Such being the case, when we ask the prayers of our living friends, we act in strict conformity with God's word, and we are therefore assured that we are acting properly: but, when we ask the prayers of our dead friends, we gratuitously turn aside from the royal highway, and we know not into what devi- ous paths we may ultimately be permitted to wander. 1. Were we unable to give any satisfactory rea- son for the singular and alarming difference which I have pointed out; still, even in that case, it would be quite sufficient to say, that such a difference actually subsists. God, in his infinite wisdom, has thought fit to put a marked difference between our soliciting the in- tercessory prayers of the livings and our soliciting the intercessory prayers of the dead. The former action he has expressly allowed: the latter action he has not expressly allowed. Respecting the one, he speaks permissively; respecting the other, he is totally silent. Such a difference, we may be sure, he would not have placed between two apparently homogeneous actions without some very good and sufficient reason. Here, then, it is our duty and our wisdom to rest; certain that, in all his matters, God never acts lightly and fortuitously. * Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 265—275, Q 182 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. 2. But, while the mere existence of the difference would be an amply-sufficient landmark for our con- duct; still, though with the deep humility befitting worms of the earth, we may not unfrequently discern the very principle of the divine proceedings. Such, I apprehend, is the case in regard to the present topic. Why did God authorize us to solicit the prayers of the living, and yet did not authorize us to solicit the prayers of the dead. The reason seems to have been this: When we solicit the intercessory prayers of our living friends, we are in no danger of lapsing into any undue or superstitious veneration of them : but, when we soli- cit the intercessory prayers of the departed saints, we are in very considerable danger of falling into habits altogether irreconcilable with the undivided allegiance which we owe to the Creator. (1.) This danger is by no means chimerical. Ex- perience of the past, and prophetic anticipation of the future, might alike have taught the waning church its dire reality. Of the Gentiles, the entire polytheism consisted in the worship of the demon-gods, most curiously asso- ciated with sabianism and materialism: and these demon-gods, as we are explicitly assured by the best- informed pagans, were no other than the departed souls of canonized mortals.* Such was the worship, into which the apostate Israelites declined, when they joined themselves unto Baal-peor, and ate the offerings of the dead.t It was not that they ever absolutely renounced the adoration of Jehovah : but, apparently deeming him far above out of their sight, while they distantly viewed him with a decent, ineffective reverence, they addicted themselves to the more palpable funereal orgies of Thammuz, or Adonis, or Baal, or Osiris. Such also is the worship, into which, according to the sure word of prophetic revelation, certain mem- bers of the church catholic would lapse in the latter • See my Origin of Pagan Idol. Book I. chap. i. f Psalm cvi. 28 INVOCATION OF THE SAINTS. 183 times. The Spirit^ says St. Paul, speaketh expressly j that in the latter times some shall apostatize from the faith, giviiig heed to seducing spirits and doc- trines concerning demon-gods,^ (2.) Possibly the bishop of Aire may say, that this exposition of the apostle's prophecy is a mere pro- testant gloss, excogitated for the evident purpose of imprinting a stigma upon the Latins. Should the bishop so say, he would err. I speak not at present of the conduct of the Latins, whether it be justifiable or unjustifiable : I put the church of Rome entirely out of the question: I am concerned only with the abstract interpretation of the prophecy: I meddle not with its particular application. Now the abstract interpretation of the prophecy, as given above, was not devised by some protestant ex- positor, for the mere purpose of serving a turn in controversy. This identical abstract interpretation of the prophecy was, in truth, the abstract interpreta- tion received by the early church, certainly twelve centuries, probably more than twelve centuries, before the era of the Reformation. The primitive believers, as we learn from Epiphanius, understood St. Paul to have foretold an apostasy in the christian church to the worship of canonized mortals, which should be strictly analogous to the apostasy in the ancient Hebrew church to the worship of Baalim or departed hero-gods. t * 1 Tim. iv. 1. f The passage, whence I collect that such was the interpreta- tion of the prophecy adopted in the early church, is too remark- able to be omitted. *' Some persons,'* says Epiphanius of Salamis, who flourished in the earlier half of the fourth century, '^are mad enough to honour ' Virgin as a sort of goddess. Certain women have transplanted * this vanity from Thrace into Arabia. For they sacrifice a bread- * cake in honour of the Virgin: and, in her name, they blasphe- * mously celebrate sacred mysteries. But the whole matter is a * tissue of impiety, abhorrent from the teaching of the Holy Spirit: * so that we may well call it a diabolical business and a manifest ^ doctrine of the spirit of impurity. In them is fulfilled this pro- *phecy of St. Paul: Certain persons shall apostatize from the * faith, attending to fables and doctrines concerning demon-gods. 184 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. (3.) On the whole, when we consider the strong tendency in human nature to lapse into a supersti- tious veneration of the illustrious dead, and when we further recollect ihe actual existence of a prophecy that certain branches of the catholic church would apostatize into this identical superstitious vene- ration; we shall find no great difficulty in develop- ing the principle, on which God has allowed us to request the prayers of our living friends, while he has given us no authority to implore the prayers of the departed saints. The former practice could not lead us into idola- try: the latter practice mighty and most prohably would, produce that result. * For the purport of the apostle's declaration is this: They shall * pay divine worship to the dead, even as men formerly paid sach ' worship in Israel. In like manner also, the g'lory due unto God * has been changed into error by those who see not the truth. * For the natives of Neapolis still sacrifice to a g-irl, whom I take 'to have been the daughter of Jephthah: and the Egyptians 'honoured Thermutis, Pharaoh's daughter, as a goddess: and * many such things as these have happened in the w orld to the * seduction of those who are seduced. But we christians must *not indecorously honour the saints; rather ought we to honour * him, who is their sovereign Lord. Let, then, the error of sedu- ' cers cease. The Virgin Mary is no goddess. To the peril, 'therefore, of his own soul, let no one make oblations in her 'name." Epiph. adv. Hser. lib. iii. haer. 78. From the passage before us it is indisputable, that, by the early church, the apostle's demonia were understood to mean, not devils^ but demon-gods: that is to say, his demonia were thought to be the souls of canonized mortals. Equally indisputable is it, that the prophecy was explained, as announcing a lamentable apostasy in the christian church to the worship of dead men, who during their lives had been revered on account of their virtues or their services. The same apostasy to the worship of dead men is clearly fore- told also by St. John; who adds some additional particulars, by which the predicted apostates might be the better distinguished whenever they should be developed. And the rest of the men, which were not killed hy these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands^ that they should not worship demon-gods and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood, which can neither see nor hearnor walk. Rev. ix. 20. The predicted worshippers of dead men, were also, it seems, to be worshippers of images; which they would fabricate to them» selves out of various materials. INVOCATION OF THE SAINTS. 185 For, since the idolatrous worship of the dead \s foretold, as about hereafter to creep into the church, we can scarcely conceive a more likely mean for its introduction, than this precise unauthorized\iVdiQ.i\Q.e of invoking the departed saints and especially the blessed Virgin to intercede with God on our behalf. II. The basis, upon which rests the entire argu- ment of the bishop of Aire, is the position, that, If it be lawful to ask the intercessory prayers of our living friends J it cannot be criminal to ask the in- tercessory prayers of our dead friends. Such being the case, it is evident, that the bishop defends the practice of invoking the saints solely and EXCLUSIVELY on the ground, that nothing more is requested from them than the benefit of their in- tercessory prayers. Hence we must obviously conclude, that, in the judgment of the bishop, genuine orthodoxy permits not a single iota beyond a request to the saints that they would intercede for us with God, For, since the invocation of the saints is defended upon this special ground alone ; the bishop tacitly confesses, that on any other ground it is indefensible. The avowed premises, then, of the bishop are these: In their invocation of the saints, the Latins merely and solely request the benefit of their intercession. Now, of these very premises, which avowedly form the basis of the entire argument, I more than doubt the accuracy. 1. That they are Moi perfectly accurate, is openly acknowledged even by the bishop himself. " If any one of our doctors,^' says he, " pushed on ' by a blind zeal, has gone so far as to ascribe to the ^ saints a degree of power and efficacy which belongs ' only to Jesus Christ ; know, that we vindicate not ' his excess : and it were unjust to make the catholic < body in general responsible for certain exaggerations ' in particular.^^^ * Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 274, 275, ^2 186 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. Doubtless such treatment of the collective Latin church were unjust: yet, if an unauthorized and un- scriptural practice bring forth the evil fruits of certain exaggerations injurious to the high dignity of our only Lord and Saviour, I should think, that this cir- cumstance does not speak much in favour of the prac- tice. Be this, however, as it may, though the bishop's reluctant confession be warily thrown into the hy- pothetical form, it clearly amounts to an acknowledg- ment, that certain of the Latin doctors^ pushed on by a blind zeal, have gone so far as to ascribe to the saints a degree of power arid efficacy which belongs only to Jesus Christ, Hence, according to the bishop's own confession, there have been doctors in the Roman church, who, not content with merely asking the saints to intercede for them^ have invo- cated those imaginary patrons in such a manner, as to imply of necessity that they possess a degree of poiver which belongs to God incarnate alone. Such conduct his lordship tenderly denominates an excess: I am myself unable to distinguish it from idolatry, 2, But, while the bishop professes not to vindicate this conduct, and while he avowedly rests his defence of hagiolatry upon the exclusive innocence of begging the mere intercession of the saints ; he himself shews, by the very adduction of his own selected authorities, that he is prepared to ^o far beyond di simple request that they would intercede for him in prayer to the Almighty. In vindication of the Latin practice, he adduces Irenaeus, Origen, Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory Nazian- zen, Ambrose, Gregory of Nyssa, Asterius, Ephrem, Athanasius, and Cyril of Alexandria : and he says, doubtless very truly, that he could have filled a whole volume with such citations. Of whatever these fa- thers maintain, therefore, the bishop, by the very circumstance of his adduction, professes his full and entire approbation. What then is it, which these fathers do maintain? In their invocation of the saints, do they confine INVOCATION OF THE SAINTS. 187 themselves to a simple request, that those saints would intercede for them? Or do they advance far beyond any such narrow and limited and insipid petition? The oldest of them, Irenasus, says not a word about any invocation whatsoever:* others of them merely * Irenaeus calls the Virg^In Mary the advocate of the virgin Eve: whence, I presume, the bishop is willing- to infer that, if in the judg-ment of Irenccus an advocate^ Mary might in the judgment of Irenseus be safely invocated. Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 279. Such implied reasoning, even if we choose to understand Ire- naeus literally, is altogether inconclusive. It is neither impossible nor improbable, though in truth we know nothing about the mat- ter, that glorified saints in heaven may pray for the well-being of the church upon earth: but, on such a supposition that the Vir- gin Mary is thus our advocate, I perceive not how we are thence authorized to solicit her intercession. The conclusion does not legitimately follow from the premises. I wish, however, that the bishop had compared Irenseus with Irenaeus, ere he had produced with so much confidence the authority of that father. ** As Eve/' says Irenseus in the passage defectively cited by the bishop: **As Eve, by the discourse of a fallen angel, was seduced 'to apostatize from God, disobeying his word: so Mary, by the * discourse of a good angel, was evangelized, that she sliould bear * God in her womb, obedient to his word. And, as the former was * seduced to disobey God: so the latter was persuaded to obey * God^ in order that the Virgin Mary might thence become the * advocate of the virgin Eve. Thus, as the human race was doomed * to death through a virgin: so the human race might be delivered * also through a virgin; the balance being equally held, between *the disobedience of one virgin, and the obedience of another." Iren. adv. Haer. hb. v. c. 16. § 3. From a tasteless love of unmeaning antithesis, Irenaeus amuses himself with running a laborious parallel between the virgin Eve and the Virgin Mary: and, as man fell through the disobedience of Eve and was restored through the obedient parturition of Mary, he chooses, in the course of it, rhetorically to denominate the lat- ter the advocate of the former. What he means, is plain enough from his own concluding explanation; which, however, the bishop has chosen totally to omit: but, if any one doubt the meaning of Irenaeus, let him turn to another passage, where that father luns the self-same parallel with a distinct and explicit statement of its purport. "As Eve, by disobedience, became the cause of death both to •herself and to the whole human race: so Mary, though having * a predestined husband, yet being obedient as a virgin, became * the cause of salvation both to herself and to the whole human race, * — Thus did the knot of Eve's disobedience receive its solution * through the obedience oF Mary: for what the virgin Eve bound 188 DimCULTIES OP ROMANISM. request the intercessory prayers of the saints^ according to the mode which the bishop has pre- scribed as the standard of Latin orthodoxy: but others of them, again, so far as I can judge, certainly as^ cribe to the saints a degree of power and efficacy ivhich belongs to God incarnate alone. Gregory Nazianzen, as cited approbatively by the bishop, beseeches Cyprian and Athanasius and Basil, now called to their everlasting rest, that they would cast down their regards upon him from on high, that they would govern his discourse and his life, that they would conjointly feed his flock, that they would give him a more perfect knowledge of the Trinity, that they would draw him'^where they themselves are, and that they would place him in the midst of them and their assemblies."^ Asterius, as also cited approbatively by the bishop, supplicates the martyr Phocas, that he would pray for the sufferings and maladies of surviving christians, as he himself had prayed to the martyrs his predecessors: and he further begs, that Phocas, in the plenitude of his power, would give to his survivors those blessings which he himself possesses.! Basil, as likewise cited approbatively by his lord- ship, advises that, whoever is in trouble, he should address himself to the saints; whoever is in joy, he should do the same: in the first case, that he may be delivered from his troubles; in the second, that he ma}^ be secured in his prosperity.J Cyril of Alexandria, as finally cited by the bishop with full approbation^ prays to St. John the apostle, that he would open to him the mystery of the Word of God descending into this nether world, that he would teach him something grand and sublime, that * by her unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed by her faith." Iren. adv. Haer. lib. iii. c. 33. § 2, 3, 4. No person, I think, can compare these two passages together without perceiving, that, when Irenaeus calls Mary the advocate of Eve, he simply means to say, that, as death came into the world by E^ve, so life was restored toEve and all her posterity, not excepting the virgin-mother herself, through the rhetorical advocacy of Mary. • Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 282. f Ibid. ^ Ibid. p. 285. INVOCATION OF THE SAINTS. 189 he would remove the stone and discover to him the well of life, that he would give him power to draw water from it after his own example, and that he would conduct him to the proper source.^ The bishop defends the invocation of the saints, on the express ground, that to ask their intercessory prayers cannot be criminal; and he declares, that he vindicates not the excess of any exaggerating doctor, who, pushed on by a blind zeal, has gone so far as to ascribe to the saints a degree of power and efficacy ivhich belongs only to Jesus Christ : yet does he cite, with entire approbation, four wri- ters, who, so far from limiting themselves to a bare request for saintly intercession, actually beseech the saints to grant to them various graces and blessings and benefits which God alone can bestow. Cyril of Alexandria erects St. John into a second Holy Ghost : Gregory Nazianzen prays, for illumination and di- rection, to Basil and Cyprian and Athanasius : Basil invocates the saints for deliverance in adversity, and for grace in prosperity : and Asterius beseeches Phocas to grant to him an abundant entrance into the king- dom of heaven. If the hhhoY^ justifies this ofiensive idolatry, then he relinquishes the plea, that nothing is requested froin the saints except their friendly intercession: if he condemns it, then he has incongru- ously quoted Gregor}^ and Asterius and Basil and Cyril against his own certainly more reasonable opinion. 3. Hitherto I have shewn the inaccuracy of the bishop's premises, partly from his own acknowledg- ment that some of the Latin doctors have ascribed to the saints a degree of power which belongs only to God incarnate, and partly from his own approbative citation of four of the early ecclesiastical writers : I shall now shew it yet more fully from various Latin prayers addressed to the saints, not for the purpose of simply requesting their intercession, but for the purpose oi receiving from them ivhat God alone is able to bestoiv. The bishop claims, that the catholic body in gene- * Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 285, 286, 190 DirFICULTIES OP ROMANISM. ral should not be made answerable for the excesses of a few indiscreetly-zealous doctors in particular.*" I have no wish to controvert the justice of his * It would have been well, if the bishop, in his treatment of pro- testants, had always borne in mind the principle of his own claim. I. His lordship exults over the discrepances of the continental reformers in regard to the invocation of the saints. Discuss. iVn^ic. vol. ii. p. 291—298. Yet, if we quote against him an idolatrous passage from a Latin author, we are then gravely told, that the Romanists do not vin- dicate those blindly-zealous doctors who ascribe to the saints a degree of power which belongs only to Christ, and that it were unjust to make the catholic body in general responsible for cer- tain exaggerations in particular. Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 274, 275. Why the bishop should be at liberty to exult over the discre- pances of the continental reformers when slowly emerging from the darkness of many centuries, while it were palpable injustice in a protestant to allege the acknowledged discrepances of the Ro- manists in the matter of saint-worship, I am unable to discern. II. Against the reformers of our own church, the bishop, on this point, has not pretended to bring any charge of discrepance. Omitting every thing of the kind, he is satisfied with merely citing our excellent twenty-second Article. From the works of Bishop Montague, however, he produces what he would exhibit, as a discrepance from the doctrine of the Anglican church, and as au honest acknowledgment of the inno- cence and propriety of the Latin practice. Now, even had his lordship been accurate^ still he ought to have remembered the principle of his own claim, and to have refrained from the injustice of making the Anglican body in general re- sponsible for Bishop Montague's exaggeration in particular. But, in truth, he is altogether inaccurate : and, had he been careful to consult the English prelate himself, instead of borrowing his information at second-hand from some dishonest controversialist of older times ; he would fully have acquitted Montague of ro- manizing. I am not sufficiently skilled in the works of Latin writers, even to form a conjecture as to the faithless author, who, by the iniquity of fraudulent citation, has thus unhappily misled the respectable bishop of Aire : but I think it evident, that the same culprit, who has misled Mr. Butler in England, has also misled the bishop of Aire in France. Mr. Butler and the bishop alike produce Montague, for the self-same purpose, and in the self-same manner. But such a coincidence cannot be accidental: they certainly must have equally borrowed from the same source of misrepresentation. That the unprincipled author, whom at second-hand they have incautiously followed, has exhibited Mon- tague under totally false colours, is a fact of which any person may satisfy himself by a bare inspection of the original. It is, however, superfluous for me to say any more on the subject: the matter has already been fully discussed by Dr. Philpotts. See Letters to Butler, p. 55—60. INVOCATION OF THE SAINTS. 191 claim: but what will he say, should it turn out, that the injurious exaggerations to which he darkly alludes, are the property, not of mere foolish individuals^ but of the Latin church herself? The following documents are extracted from the collects and hymns to the saints, in the Hours accord- ing to the liturgical use of the church of Salisbury, as printed at Paris in the year 1520:—- Holy mother of God, who hast worthily merited to conceive him whom the ivhole world could not comprehend; by thy pious intervention wash away our sins, that so, being redeemed by thee, we may be able to ascend to the seat of everlasting glory ^ where thou abidest with thy Son for everJ^ Comfort a sinner; and give not thy honour to the alien or the cruel, I pray thee, O queen of heaven^ Have me excused with Christ thy Son, whose anger I fear and whose fury I vehemently dread: for against thee only have I sinned, O Virgin Mary, full of celestial grace, be not estranged from m.e. Be the keeper of my heart: sign me with the fear of God: confer upon me soundness of life: give me honesty of m^anners: and grant m,e at once to avoid sins and to love that which is just, O virgin sweetness, there neither was nor is thy fellow A O singularly special Virgin, mild among all having delivered us from our sins, make us mild and chaste. Grant to us a pure life: prepare for us a safe journey: that, seeing Jesus, we may always rejoice together,\ Holy Mary, succour the m>iserable, assist the pusillanimous^ cherish the mourners, pray for the people^ interjjose on behalf of the clergy, intercede for the devout female sex,^ Let our voice first celebrate Mary, through whom the rewards of life are given to us, O Queen, thou who art a m^other and yet a chaste virgin, pardon our sins through thy Son, May the holy assembly * Collect, in Hor. ad usum Sarum. Paris. 1520. fol. 4. in Bur- net's Hist, of the Reform, vol. ii. p. 143. t Ibid fol. 44. \ Ibid. fol. Z3. § Ibid. fol. SO. 192 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. of the an^els^ and the illustrious troop of the arch- angels^ now blot out our sins by granting to us the high glory of heaven."^ O George, renowned martyr , praise and glory befit thee^ endowed as thou art with military glory. By thee, the royal maid, existing in sorrow before the ivorst of dragons, was preserved. In our soul and inmost heart, we beseech thee, that, ivith all the faithful, we, being washed from our sins, Tnay be joined to the citizens of heaven: that so, together with thee toe may joyfully be in glory, and that our lips ivith glory may render praises to Christ, \ O martyr Christopher, for the honour of the Saviour, make us to be in mind worthy of the love of God, ^According to ChrisV s promise, for thou obtainest what thou demandest, grant to thy sor- rowful people the gifts which thou hast demanded by dying. Confer comfort, and remove heaviness of mind: and cause, that the examination of the Judge m,ay be mild toward all,\ O William, thou good shepherd, father and patron of the clergy, cleanse us in our agony; grant us aid; remove the filihiness of our life) and grant the joys of a celestial crown,\ O ye eleven thousand glorious maids, lilies of vir- ginity, roses of martyrdom, defend me in life by affording to meyour assistance: and shew yourselves to me in death by bringing the last consolation,^ * Collect, in Hor. ad usum Sarum. Paris. 1520. fol. 80. in Burnet's Hist, of the Reform, vol. ii. f Ibid. fol. 77. + Ibid. fol. 78. § Ibid, fol. 80. Bishop Burnet has given the Latin originals of all these extraordinary prayers. He adds another, not easily sur- passed in blasphemous absurdity. The votary supplicates Christ to save him by the blood of Thomas a Becket, sometime archbishop of Canterbury I and the Lord is reminded, how he has crowned this same Becket with glory and honour, and how he has placed him above all the works of his hands; that so, through the merits and prayers of the said Becket, he may be delivered from the fire of hell, ibid. fol. 12. No modern Romanist can condemn these prayers, with- out at the same time condemning the approved liturgy of the entire church of Salisbury, itself in full and uncensured communion with the church of Rome, immediately before the Reformation in Eng- land. When such rituals were approved and commonly used in the JLatin church of the West, was^ or was noty a reformation necessary ? INVOCATION OP THE SAINTS. *193 The documents now before us are not the mere in- sulated and unauthorized productions of some indis- creet doctor, who, as the bishop speaks, pushed on by a bh'nd zeal, has gone so far as to ascribe to the saints a degree of power and efficacy which belongs only to Jesus Christ: they are not the productions of a rash individual, for whose exaggerations in particu- lar the catholic body in general must not be made responsible. No such comparatively unimportant character do the documents now before us sustain. On the contrary, they form parts of a regularly-au- thorized liturgy, according to the use of the church of Salisbury : and, that they met with very general acceptation among what the bishop styles the catho- lie hody^ seems abundantly evident, from the circum- stance of the book, whence they are extracted, having been printed at Paris. All doubt, however, of their acknowledged orthodoxy is removed by the express stamp of papal approbation. To the industrious re- peaters of that prayer to the Virgin, which stands the second in the preceding collection, Pope Celes- tine was pleased to grant three hundred days of pardon : and, as that prayer is one of the most objec- tionable in the whole number, we may be morally certain that he would be little inclined to condemn the others. Here, then, we have a collection of prayers to the Virgin and to the saints^ publicly used in the liturgical service of the Latin churchy and sanctioned by the high authority of the pope himself But these prayers, thus circumstanced, go far beyond a mere request, that the Virgin and the saints loould offer up for us at the throne of grace their intercessory supplications: because they idola- irously beseech creatures to grant to creatures those gifts and graces and blessings and benefits^ which the Mmighty Creator himself is alone able to be- stow. The case, therefore, so far as respects the ar- gument professedly and spontaneously adopted by the bishop of Aire, stands, I apprehend, in manner following : — *194 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. If his lordship honour the preceding documents with his approbation: then, he at once vindicates the most revolting idolatry, and relinquishes the ground freely chosen by himself; for he has professed to de- fend the invocation of the saints, solely and exclu- sively on the principle, that, since it is right to ask the intercessory prayers of the livings it cannot he wrong to ash the intercessory prayers of the dead. But, if he mark the preceding documents with his indignant reprobation, as grossly and disgustingly idolatrous : then he censures the authorized practice of his church : and thus by unequivocally declaring that this alleged infallible church both may err and has erred, becomes tainted with what the Latins deem heretical pravity. III. An English laic, not much versed in ecclesi- astical antiquity, may perhaps be somewhat startled at the bishop's copious adduction of authorities from the early fathers in favour of hagiolatry; for, if such were the practice of the primitive church, and if this practice (at least as inculcated by Asterius and Basil, and Cyril of Alexrndria, and Gregory of Nazianzum) be idolatrous, we shall be compelled to charge idola- try upon the church of Christ, even in that age of purity which immediately succeeded the teaching of the apostles themselves. Thus may an unversed English layman be well startled by an appalling consequence, which seems inevitably to flow from the bishop's copiousness of citation: nor has his lordship thought it expedient to furnish his correspondent with any clue, by which he may extricate himself from his perplexity. On the contrary, he leaves his Anglican friend to infer, that the primitive church up to the very time of the apostles^ was wont toinvocate deadm,en andwomen^ not only to intercede ivith God on behalf of sur- vivors^ but even to bestow upon them what the Deity alone is able to give. Such being the case, I shall supply that explanation of the apparent mystery, which the bisWop has left unsupplied. INVOCATION OF THE SAINTS. *195 The oldest authority cited by the bishop, is Origen, who flourished about the middle of the third century: for, in regard to Irenaeus, whom he likewise cites, and who lived about the year 180, this father, as I have already observed, says not a single word relative to any invocation either of the Virgin or of the saints. His oldest authority, then, flourished about the mid- dle of the third century: and all the others flourished considerably later^ when apostatic corruption was now rapidly invading the church. As for the really ancient fathers, such as Justin and Polycarp and Igna- tius and Clement of Rome, the bishop altogether pre- termits them. Perhaps the English layman may be curious to know the reason of this pretermission. Nothing, in good truth, can be more simple. From the really ancient fathers we hear not a syllable as to the invocation of dead saints: and the bishop clearly could not quote from them, in favour of the practice, declarations which never existed. So far as my own knowledge extends, the bishop cannot produce A SINGLE authority, FOR THE INVOCATION OF THE SAINTS HOWEVER MODIFIED, FROM THE TWO FIRST CENTURIES."^ The English layman will now under- * Dr. Priestley, I must allow, has discovered, that Justin Mar- tyr, if not precisely a worshipper of the saints, was at least a wor- shipper of the angels. But it is no disparagement to the learned bishop of Aire, that he has not studied Greek in the same school as Dr. Priestley. This circumstance will perliaps enable us to ac- count for the fact, that his lordship has not cited Justin as a witness. The bishop, I suspect, pretermitting* the translation of Dr. Priest- ley, is content to render Justin's Greek in the same manner as myself. Lest, however, any inferior Latin theologian should be tempted, in an evil hour, to supply the bishop's apparent defec- tiveness of citation, and should thence produce Justin as a primi- tive advocate of angel-worship, I shall subjoin the original passage, accompanied by the Latin version of Langus, and by Dr. Priest- ley's, and my own English translations. 'AXX' 'Exsn/ov ts, xoli tov ^af aurou ^Tiov sX^ovra xolI 5l5a^avTa Yi\ka^ tolvtol xai tov tojv ccXXgov znto^khitiv xcd s^o^O' loufxsvcov a^adwv ayysXwv tflparov, nvsu/uia ts to 'jr'po^TiTixov, cfs^ofJiiS^a y.0Li 'TTpotfxuvoufXSv, Xoyw xa/ oKyi&sia ed, because it was deemed a representation of Jupiter himself : but still the image is worshipped; and, let that wor- ship be relative or positive, the worship in question is identical with the worship rendered to God incarnate. * Amob. adv. Gent, lib. vi. p. 103. See also Clementin. Homil X. § 21. s .906 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. Let the bishop shift and explain as he will, this is the point to which we shall always be ultimately con- ducted: and, so long as the second Nicene Council is the standard of Latin orthodoxy, James of Clugium must ever be esteemed an honest and consistent ex- positor. With the Scripture in their hands, it is really mar- vellous, how the Nicene fathers could have dared to establish idolatry, and to disfranchise'' the genuine seventh ecumenical council which had expressly con- demned this horrible abomination.* ' Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, ^ or the likeness of that which is in heaven above, or ^in the earth beneath, or in the water under the * The language of the Nicene fathers is so extraordinary, that it ought not to be withheld from our English laity. 'The venerable images, both of the dispensation of our Lord 'Jesus Christ as he became man for our salvation, and of our * unpolluted lady the holy mother of God, and of the god-like ' angels, and of the holy apostles and prophets and martyrs, and ' all the saints, I salute and embrace and adore, according to their * just degrees of honour, rejecting and anathematizing, from my * whole soul and intellect, that synod, which was congregated ' through madness and folly, and which has been denominated ' the Seventh Council: though, by persons who think rightly, it 'is lawfully and canonically styled a false synod, as being aliena- ' ted from all truth and piety, and as having rashly and boldly and * atheistically barked ag-ainst the heaven-delivered ecclesiastical ' legislation, and as having insulted the holy and venerable ' images, and as having commanded them to be removed from ' the holy churches of God — Anathema to the calumniators of ' Christians ! Anathema to the breakers of images ! Anathema ' to those who apply to images the scriptural denunciations ' against idols ! Anathema to those who refuse to salute the holy ' and venerable images ! Anathema to those who call the holy 'images idols! Anathema to those who aid and abet the dis- * honour ers of the holy im.ag'es!' — ConciL Nicen, secund. act. i. Lahh. Condi Sacros. vol. vii. p. S&, 57. The atheistical council, upon which all these curses are impre- cated, and upon which all this torrent of rancorous abuse is poured, was guilty of no crime, save that of scripturally con- demning gross idolatry. To have a full conception of the mys- tery of iniquity, a person ought, like myself, to have perused the acts of the second Nicene Council. VENERATION OF IMAGES. 207 *' earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, ^nor serve them.^^ Where, in the awful word of Jehovah thundering from Mount Sinai, is there any idle distinction be- tween relative worship and positive worship? In the book of God I read not such vain subtilties: their existence was never dreamed of in the ancient church of Israel. The command is positive^ explicit^ nni- versal. If the wisdom of the Lord hath made no ex- ceptions, shall the puny dexterity of quibbling school- men dare authoritatively to propound them, and under an anathema to enforce them upon the catholic church of Christ? If God hath spoken unlimitedly, shall a presumptuous council dare to set limits to his decision? The adoration of images is enjoined by the second Nicene Council, in express opposition to the sound and scriptural determination of its imme- diate Constantinopolitan predecessor: and this adora- tion, lamentable to say, is justified and vindicated by a Latin prelate of the nineteenth century, to whose general excellence report bears ample testimony. Yet all adoration of images is straitly prohibited by that jealous God, who is the sovereign Lord both of hea- ven and of earth. From one end of the Bible to the other, not a hint is breathed of the bishop's vain dis- tinction between relative worship and positive wor- ship. The adoration of images, under any pretence, is altogether forbidden. ' Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them^ nor serve them.^ IV. Notwithstanding the decision of the second Council of Nice, and the approved comment of James Naclantus, the bishop esteems the apprehensions of protestants, relative to the mischief which may flow from image-worship, to be purely chimerical. t Neither his own statement of its alleged principle « nor absolute matter of fact, will allow me to adopt his opinion. 1. The extreme danger attendant upon the unholy * Exod. XX, 4, 5. t Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 359. 20S DIPPICULTIj:S OF ROMANISM. practice, in the case of recent converts from pagan- ism, he himself, very fully, though perhaps not very discreetly, allows. According to his own confession, image-worship bears such an unhappy resemblance to pagan idolatry, that it were easy for recent converts to mistake the one for the other. On this ground he is willing to account for the otherwise unaccountable conduct of the ancient Council of Elvira, which strictly forbade images and pictures to be introduced into churches: and, on the same ground, he inclines to explain the extraordinary though acknowledged fact, that the apostles and their early successors did not adopt the ^doration of images. These primitive and holy men, if we may credit his lordship, had no unseemly dis- like to image-\vorship in the abstract: but they thought it prudent, in their own particular case, to abstain from the practice, because they reasonably dreaded lest the new converts from paganism, should mistake orthodox Christian image-worship for unor- thodox heathen idolatry.* Whether the true reason of the fact be assigned, may admit of some dispute. The fact itself, that the apostles and their early successors did not wor- ship images, I agree with the bishop in esteeming most certain.! 2. But, whatever danger of a mistake there might * Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 350. \ The use of images, however, though they certainly were not worshipped by the apostles, was at least o? apostolic antiquity: yet I doubt whether this circumstance will much benefit the cause which has been espoused by the bishop. We learn from Irenseus and Epiphanius, that the Gnostics, who flourished in the age of the apostles, worshipped with misplaced devotion both pictures and images of Christ. The manufacturer of these sacred imple- ments is said to have been Pontius Pilate. Whether from this circumstance they were conceived to derive any peculiar sanc- tity, we are not informed. Be that as it may, image-worship seems to have been first associated with Christianity by the Gnostics, and from them to have been adopted as a most sound and edify- ing practice by the fathers of the second Nicene Council. — Iren. adv. Hser. lib. i, c. 24. § 9. Kpiph. adv. Hser. lib. i. hser. 27^ VENERATION OF IMAGES. 209 he in the case of new converts from paganism, his lordship, in full accordance with the Council of Trent, deems the matter quite altered, when, by lapse of time, the place of new converts shall have been supplied by those more experienced believers^ whom the Spaniards denominate old Christians. Pagan idolatry having altogether ceased to exist, image-worship now becomes, not only exempt from all danger, but even in a very high degree useful and edifying. For, since Christianity has reigned among us during so many ages; and since, from their earliest childhood, the faithful learn to put no trust in images, and to ask from them no favour; there cannot possi- bly be any danger in the use of such implements.* (1.) In the latter part of this defence, even on the supposition of its containing an accurate statement, there seems to be a very singular species of incoii« sistency. According to the bishop, the faithful^ from their earliest childhood^ learn to put no trust in images^ and to ask from them no favour. Now, if this statement be accurate, it is impossible to refrain from asking, Where then can be the benefit or utility of adoring images? The second Nicene Council curses all persons who refuse to worship such puppets: and James Naclantus declares, that the faith- ful worship, not only before each imitative image, but even each imitative image itself ; adoring the image with the self-same adoration that is rendered to its prototype. Yet the bishop of Aire assures us, that, from their earliest childhood^ they learn to put no trust in images^ and to ask from them no fa- vou7\ Truly, if this be the case, the adoration of images, as prescribed by the second Nicene Council, and as practised by the rfiembers of the church of Rome, seems to be a nrost unaccountably unreasonable service. Our Latin brethren are required, under the • Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 351. S 2 210 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. pain of a curse, to worship images: nevertheless, if we may credit the bishop of Aire, they are carefully taught that this adoration will do them no manner of good ; for they learn, from their earliest childhood^ to put no trust in them, and to ask no favour from them. Certainly, the learned prelate, in his zeal to defend his church from the imputation of idolatry, inadver- tently charges her with an almost incredible measure of fatuity. The worship of images she strenuously enforces: but its total inutility she diligently incul- cates. Images, indeed, we must adore; but then we must put no trust in them, and ask from them no favour. (2.) It may be doubted, however, whether the bishop's statement be perfectly accurate: it may be doubted, whether the second Nicene Council, when it enjoined the adoration of images, meant to teach that we can derive no benefit from the practice. The following specimens, at least, of Romish devo- tion, extracted from the book of the Hours of the Vir- gin, for the use of the church of Salisbury, as printed at Paris in the year 1526, do not seem quite exactly to accord with the bishop's statement of the matter. ' To all them that be in a state of grace, who de- ' voutly say this prayer before our blessed Lady of ^ pity, she will shew them her blessed visage, and ^warn them of the day and hour of death: and, in ^ their last end, the angels of God shall yield their souls ^ to heaven. Such a person shall obtain five hundred ' years, and so many lents of pardon, granted by five < holy fathers, popes of Rome. ^Our holy father, Sixtus the fourth, pope, hath < granted to all them that devoutly say this prayer ^before the image of ©ur Lady, the sum of eleven < thousand years of pardon. « These be the fifteen Go's, which the holy virgin ^ St. Bridget was wont to say daily before tJie holy ^ rood in St. Paul's church at Rome. Whoso says VENERATION OF IMAGES. Sll ^ this a whole year, shall deliver fifteen Souls of his ^next kindred out of purgatory, and shall convert ^ other fifteen sinners to a good life: and other fifteen ^ righteous men of his kind shall persevere in a good o^ 336. X 242 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. which could not be done, and would not be tolerated, in the present day. But I see not how the submis- sion, which she exacted from her clergy, can aJBTect the merits of the present question. If we grant, that she exacted, and that they submitted, further than was justifiable, still the point cannot be finally and legitimately determined by the conduct of mere indi- viduals. The true doctrine of the Anglican church, on the topic of royal authority, must be obviously learned from her own declaration, as set forth, in the j'ear 1562, by the archbishops and bishops and clergy of both provinces: a declaration, approved and ratified by Elizabeth herself, and again confirmed by the uni- versal subscription of the whole clerical body in the year 1571. In what manner, then, does the church of England, with the consent of this very Elizabeth, whose arbi- trary conduct is made the basis of an objection, express her sentiments on the topic now before us ? ^The king's majesty hath the chief power in this realm of England and other his dominions, unto whom the chief government of all estates of this realm, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, in all causes doth appertain ; and is not, nor ought to be, sub- ject to any foreign jurisdiction. Where we attribute \o the king's majesty the chief government, by which titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended; we give not to our princes the ministering either of God's word or of the sacra- ments, the which thing the injunctions also lately get forth by Elizabeth our queen do most plainly tes- tify : but that only prerogative, which we see to have been given always to all godly princes in Holy Scrip- ture by God himself; that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil doers. '^ * Art. xxxvii. OBJECTIONS TO THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 243 It might be thought, that nothing could be more plain and explicit than this solemn and authoritative declaration: the bishop, however, contends, that we clergy of the Anglican church derive all our spiritual powers ultimately from Elizabeth; whence he main- tains, that our church is built upon human sanctions alone, and that a link is effectually broken in the chain which ought to unite us to the apostles. From the crown we certainly derive our temporali- ties; from the crown also we receive a legal sanction to exercise our functions, whether as bishops or as presbyters, within the limits of certain regularly- defined dioceses or parishes: but I am at a loss to per- ceive, how this circumstance either snaps the chain of apostolic succession or causes our church to be built upon human sanctions alone. For let us suppose, that we were deprived of our present legal establishment: what would be the consequence ? Should we lose our spiritual authority as bishops or as presbyters ? Such, I apprehend, would by no means be the result. We should simply be brought to the state of our venerable clerical brethren of the protestant episcopal churches of Scotland and America. What the crown gave, it may resume: what the crown did not give, it cannot take away. From the apostles we derive our spiri- tual power of order: from the crown we derive our temporal power of jurisdiction. The continuance of the former, in the church general, is independent of any mere human ordinance: the continuance of the latter, within certain prescribed geographical limits, depends upon the law of the land. Doubtless, it may please God to remove our candlestick altogether: but the spiritual power of our clergy depends neither upon our Idng nor upon our parliament. The spiritual power of order we assuredly derived not from Eliza- beth; hence, of that power no present or future sove- reign of England can deprive us.=^ * There are some excellent remarks, on this frequently-misun- derstood subject, in a speech of tke present bishop of Durham before the House of Lords, p. 8 — 13. 244 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. II. Yet, says the bishop of Aire, we owe every- thing in our ecclesiastical constitution to Elizabeth: and the chain of apostolic succession is thence of ne- cessity broken. His lordship, in making such an assertion, forgets what he himself has stated respecting the measures adopted by this identical Elizabeth. In order to prove, that our spiritical power of or- der is derived from that great princess, it would, I apprehend, have been necessary to shew, that the bishops, whom she introduced as fathers into the re- formed church of England, were all solemnly conse- crated by herself. Could this fact have been ascer- tained, the bishop would clearly have gained his point: but, in truth, his own statement nullifies his own assertions. Elizabeth, conscious that she possessed no power of conferring spiritual authority upon any man, undertook not the preposterous task of herself consecrating the new bishops: on the contrary, as the bishop of Aire very truly states the matter, she called in, for that purpose, Hoskins, Scory, Barlow, and Coverdale; ail of whom, as he allows, had been cano- nically consecrated to the episcopate.* Now, it is impossible to conceive a stronger prac- tical confession on the part of Elizabeth, that the church of England derived not from her any spiritual authority, than the fact which has been adduced by the bishop of Aire himself According to his own shewing, the spiritual authority of the Anglican church, let it be valid or invalid, was derived, not from Elizabeth, but from the four regularly conse- crated bishops, Hoskins, Scory, Barlow, and Cover- dale. These four ecclesiastics were themselves, con- fessedly, in regular episcopal orders: they^ not the queen^ consecrated Parker to the metropolitan see of Canterbury: and, when this matter had been accom- * Barlow was bishop elect of Chichester; Scory, bishop elect of Hereford; Coverdale, late bishop of Exeter; and Hoskins, or Hodgkins, bishop suffragan of Bedford. OBJECTIONS TO THE ENGLISH CHXJIICH. 245 plished, Parker, as primate, presided at the consecra- tion of all the other new bishops."^ Thus, according to the bishop's own account, the Anglican church derived not an atom of spiritual au- thority from Elizabeth: on the contrary, the spiritual authority of that church has been confessedly received from four prelates, who had themselves already been canonically consecrated to the episcopate by other ca- nonical bishops, their predecessors. In what manner, then, we may well ask, are v/e a church of mere human institution? In what manner is the chain of succession, which ultimately binds us to the apostles, snapped asunder? The bishop of Aire objects to the validity of our orders. On what ground does he make the objection? ^ The following is a somewhat more detailed account of the whole transaction: and it may serve to show the anxious care which was taken by Elizabeth, that the bishops of the reformed Anglican church should be regularly consecrated by men who had themselves received episcopal consecration. The bishops of Durham, Wells, and Peterborough, who hM been included in the first warrant under the great seal, refused to concur in the consecration of Parker. A new warrant therefore was issued, directed to Barlow, bishop elect of Chichester; Scory, bishop elect of Hereford; Coverdale, late bishop cf Exeter; Hodgkins, bishop suffragan of Bedford; John, bishop suffragan of Thetford; Bale, bishop of Ossory, and the bishop of Llandaff^, that they, or any four of them, should consecrate him. Accord- ingly, on Dec. 9, 1560, Barlow, Scory, Coverdale, and Hodgkins, met at the church of St. Mary-le-bov>^, where the Conge d'elir@, and the election, and the roy?J assent to it, were read before tliem; witnesses appearing to establish the legahty of the elec- tion, and an opportunity being afforded to any person who might be disposed to object. This preliminary ceremonial having been performed, Parker, on Dec. 17, 1560, was consecrated by the four bishops in the chapel at Lambeth, according to the form of ordinations made in the time of King Edward. Parker, having been thus consecrated to the primacy, joined afterwards in con- secrating bishops for the other sees. it is evident, that the hinge of the wliole matter entirely turns upon the previous episcopal consecration of the four bishops. This fact is not denied by the bishop of Aire. Nothing, therefore, can invalidate their consecration of Parker, save the loss of their own episcopal character. %2 246 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. Hoskins, he tells us, was only a suffragan bishop; whose short-lived see of Bedford had been suppress- ed, and had never been re-established: Scory, Barlow, and Coverdale, had been canonically deposed, in the preceding reign of Mary, on the ground that they had entered into the holy estate of matrimony: and, even if none of these irregularities had existed, still the consecration of Parker to the primacy was invalid; because neither the patriarch of the West, nor the bishops of the province acting by his authority, as re- quired by the fourth canon of the first Council of Nice, had ordained and confirmed such consecration. To complete the bishop's demonstration, that the orders of the reformed Anglican church are invalid, nothing is wanting, save the establishment of a few, perhaps, not unimportant particulars. When he sjiall have satisfactorily shewn, that a suf- fragan bishop forfeits his episcopal orders upon the suppression of his see by royal authority; when he shall have clearly demonstrated, that a bishop in Eng- land may be lawfully deposed for the alleged crime of marriage by the authority of a bishop in Italy; and when he shall have fully proved, that a council, which sat in the year 325, had a right to make null and void the ancient simple mode of the consecration of bishops by bishops, and to impose, as a matter of ne- cessity, the intervention of a patriarch: then, but not until then, the bishop of Aire will have made good his position, that the English chain of apostolic succes- sion has been snapped asunder in the midst. RESPECTING THE REFORMED CHURCH. 247 CHAPTER III. Respecting the alleged Schism of the Reformed Church of England. While the bishop of Aire demonstrates, at consi- derable length, the excellence and advantages of ec- clesiastical unity, he charges the reformed church of England with the crime of schism: whence he takes occasion to urge a speedy reconciliation with, or ra- ther a complete submission to, the church of Rome. * The advantages of ecclesiastical unity, where it can be conscientiously obtained, I readily admit: nor can the Latin bishop of Aire more strenuously deprecate causeless schism, than the protestant church of Eng- land. But I am not aware, that a perfectly indepen- dent national church can be justly charged with schism, simply because, deriving her theology from the Bible and primitive antiquity, she denies the su- premacy of another equally independent national church which groundlessly claims to possess the right of universal spiritual domination. If, in resistance to this pretended right of domination and in the in- ternal arrangement of her own private concerns, she incur the fierce indignation and fall under the pre- sumptuous anathema of the lawlessly usurping church: when a separation is thus produced, the guilt of schism rests, not with the church which vindicates her own just liberties, but with the church which arrogantly * Discuss, Amic. Lett, ii. 248 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. seeks to invade them, and which makes absohite sub- mission the price of christian communion. At least, the invading church cannot legitimately tax the inva- ded church with schism, because she resolutely main- tains her own independence; until it shall have been satisfactorily shown, that the invading church pos- sesses a divine right of spiritual domination. The ground on which a case of schism is made out by the invading church of Rome against the invaded church of England may be stated, I believe, in man- ner following: — ^ St. Peter as the primate of the apostolic college, ^ and the line of the Roman bishops, his successors in * place and prerogative, constitute the divinely-ap- * pointed head of the catholic church and the divinely- ^ appointed centre of ecclesiastical unity. Such being ^ the indisputable fact, those national churches, which ^are in submissive comm.union with the see of Rome, ^are sound branches of the church catholic: while ^ those national churches, which are not in submissive ^ communion with the see of Rome, though collec- ' tively they may count up as many, or possibly even * more, members than the national churches different- < ly circumstanced, are cut off ipso f ado from the only < genuine catholic church; and must thence be viewed, < as existing in a state of unhallowed schism or heresy, ^ or both. Now, in this condition, the national church ^ of England has undeniably placed herself. There- < fore, the national church of England, even to speak < the most gently of her, is clearly in a state of schism ^from the only genuine church catholic,^* * Quod Romana Ecclesia a solo Domino sit fundata: quod solus Romanus Pontifex jure dictatur Universalis: quodille solus possit deponere episcopos vel reconciliare : quod legatus ejus omnibus episcopis prsesit in concilio, etiam inferioris gradus, et adversus eos sententiam depositionis possit dare: quod absentes possit Papa deponere: quod cum excommunicatis ab illo, inter caetera^ nee in eadem domo deb emus manere: quod illi liceat imperatores deponere : quod nulla synodus absque praecepto ejus debet gene- RESPECTING THE REFORMED CHURCH. 249 The basis of this favourite Latin argument is the alleged fact, that ^ St. Peter as the primate of the apos- *to]ic college, and the line of the Roman bishops his ^ successors in place and prerogative, constitute the ^ divinely-appointed head of the catholic church and * the divinely-appointed centre of ecclesiastical unity.' Let that alleged fact, then, be substantiated; and the argument, I readily admit, will be conclusive: but let it fail of being substantiated; and the argument, which altogether rests upon it, will doubtless be incon- clusive. Hence our sole business is, to look to the basis of the argument. I. Since the basis of the argument is a declared HISTORICAL FACT, we must obviously try and examine it as we would do any other fact in history. Now, in the sacred inspired volume, we have a detailed narrative of the early actions of the apostles subsequent tQ the ascension of their divine Lord and Master: and, appended to this narrative?, w^ haV6 Se- veral epistolary documents, which throw a very con- siderable degree of light upon those primitive matters. Hence it is natural and reasonable, in the first in- stance, to examine these ancient historical records; in order that we may so determine, simply as a point of PACT, whether they do, or do not, establish the basis of our argument. 1. We must begin, then, with inquiring, whether any special primacy seems, in practicejio have been dutifully and religiously conceded to St. Peter by the other inferior members of the apostolic college. rails vocari: quod sententia illius a nullo debeat retractari, et ipse omnium solus retractare possit: quod a nemine ipse judicari de- beat: quod Romana Ecclesia nunquam eri'avit, nee in perpetuum, testante Scnptura, errabit: quod Romanus Pontifex, si canonice fuerit ordinatus, meritis beati Petri indubitanter efficitur sanctus: quod illius prsecepto et licentla subjectis liceat accusare: quod absque synodati conventu possit episcopos deponere et reconci- liare: quod catholicus non habeatur qui non concordat Romanae Ecclesise: quod a fidelitate iniquorum subjectos potest absolvere, Dictat. Papse Gregor. sept, in Epist. lib. ii. epist. 55* Labb, Con=' cil. Sacros. vol. x. p. 110, 111, ^50 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. It will, of course, be understood, that I speak not of mere communion. The inquiry before us respects, not mere communion^ but authoritative primacy. Doubtless, the inspired apostles were in full com- munion with each other; but this is not the present question: the present question is, ' whether they were * in communion as the equal delegates of their com- * mon divine superior, the great universal shepherd *and bishop of souls; or whether they were in com- * munion as suffragans, dependent upon and canoni- ^cally obedient to their* divinely-appointed and con- * scientiously acknowledged primate St. Peter/ Now, so far as I can read and understand the his- torical documents before us, we have ample proof of the former fact, but we have no adequate proof of the latter fact: and it will be recollected, that our inquiry regards an alleged naked fact only. (1.) Shortly after the ascension, we find St. Peter apparently taking the lead in the important business of appointing a successor to the miserable Judas. He acts at least as a sort of prolocutor; and, in so far, he might seem to have some kind of pre-eminence: but, as we advance in the narrative, the phantom of an absolute primacy flits away from our grasp and van- ishes into impalpable ether. Had Peter been the divinely-appointed vicar of Christ upon earth; he, no doubt, acting as the Lord^s special representative, would have appointed, by his own exclusive sovereign authority, the new suffragan apostle: for, in regard to such elevated rank, it were plainly inconsistent to come to any other conclusion. But, in point of fact, we do not find, that this was the case. They, not he, appointed two candidates for the vacant office: and when that preliminary step had been collectively taken, most probably by the votes of the majority, the matter was referred, by lot, to the supreme head of the church himself. =^ * Acts i, 13—26, RESPECTING THE REFORMED CHURCH. 251 From these recorded circumstances I infer, that the prolocution of the zealous and warm-hearted Peter was rather incidental than official. (2.) The next time that we hear of Peter is on the day of Pentecost. All the apostles equally speaking with tongues, the strangers in Jerusalem are not a little amazed. Whereupon Peter, standing up with the eleven, explains to them the fact and nature and object of the miracle. Now the substance of the speech, ascribed by name to Peter, must certainly, both from the turn of the expression and from the necessity of the narrative, have been alike delivered by all the apostles. Had Peter alo7ie spoken in a single particular tongue, a small part only of the multitude would have under- stood him. Doubtless, therefore, the same matters were delivered by the other apostles in other tongues to other divisions of the multitude: and, accordingly, we read, not that Peter stood up solely ^ but that he stood w"^ jointly with the eleven; not that the multi- tude in return addressed Peter exclusively ^ but that they spake unto Peter and unto the rest of the apos- tlas."^ (3.) Soon after this transaction, we find St. Peter, not acting the primate, but submitting with St. John to the collective authority of the apostolic college. ^ When the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard ^ that Samaria had received the word of God, they ^ sent unto them Peter and John.^t It is easy to conceive that Christ's vicar might send two of his dependant suffragans, in the quality of his legates, upon an ecclesiastical errand: but it is very difficult to explain, how the dependant suffragans took upon themselves to send Christ's vicar and their own lawful primate upon the business of the church. This circumstance alone, I fear, will greatly endanger the basis of our argument. * Acts ii. 1—37. t Ibid. viii. 14. 252 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. (4.) In course of time, the Gentiles, no less than the Jews, received the word of God from the honoured hand of Peter. But this circumstance displeased those of the circumcision: and they forthwith proceeded to contend with their primate. Yet that high officer, most unaccountably, did not silence them by the di- vine authority of his vicariate. So far from it, he was content to vindicate himself on the very sufficient score, that it was not for him to withstand God. Satisfied by this rational process, the gainsayers held their peace and glorified the Lord: it is evident, how- ever, that they submitted, not to Peter's primatic mandate, but to the very ample reason which he gave for his conduct.* (5.) We next have an account of what is usually called the first Council at Jerusalem. In this assembly, after much previous disputation, Peter is said to have risen up and spoken. He was followed by Barnabas and Paul. And the business was finally closed by James: who, apparently as the president of Ihe synod, gave his ultimate sentence. Barsabas and Silas were then sent to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, not however by Peter in his sup- posed capacity of primate, but by the apostles and elders in conjunction -with the whole church; Peter himself not being even so much as once mentioned in the decretal letter, which runs in the general name of the apostles and presbyters and brethren.! From such a narrative if we could collect anything specific, it would be, that James, not Peter, was the primate of the apostolic college: but, in truth, we learn nothing as to the primacy of either. James seems to have presided on the occasion: but, if that were the case, he was a mere temporary president. The de- cree of the council avowedly rests on the general col- lective authority of the apostles and presbyters, acting in harmonious conjunction with the whole church. * Acts xi. 1—18. f Ibid. xv. 4—31. RESPECTING THE REFORMED CHURCH. 253 Neither Peter, nor Peter's legate, ruled the assembly : nor do the concurrence and sanction of Peter seem to have been at all more necessary than the concur- rence and sanction of any other apostle, in order to make the decree of the council valid and canonical. This primitive council, in short, furnishes no warrant for any of those arbitrary and fanciful rules, by which the church of Rome, in the midst of jarring synods, vainly attempts to preserve a shadow of chimerical infallibility. {€,) After this, in the volume of the Acts, we hear much of Paul, but nothing of Peter. The imaginary primate disappears from the historic stage altogether. Not once more is he mentioned to the very end of the book. Paul evidently labours in perfect indepen- dence of him and without the slightest reference to his supposed authority. In equal communion indeed, and in christian amity, these two great apostles no doubt lived: but, as for any primacy in the church, Paul was no more subject to Peter, than Peter to Paul. Not a hint on the topic is dropped in any part of the history: nor is Peter throughout his two epistles, or Paul throughout his fourteen epistles, at all more communicative. The tone of Peter's epistles argues no superiority over his apostolic brethren: and the almost only epistle of Paul, wherein Peter is men- tioned, is fatal to the notion of a primacy. Paul care- fully, and (as it were) jealously, intimates, that he derived his authority neither from Peter nor from James nor from any other of the apostles, but by re- velation of Jesus Christ alone: and, agreeably to this claim of perfect independence, when he met Peter at Antioch, he loithsiood him^ as he assured the Gala- tians, to hisface^ because he was to be blamed,^ (7.) Equally silent on the subject of that primacy, which the Latins so greatly extol, are the epistles of James and John and Jude: nor do we find the least * Galat. i. 11—24. ii. 1 16. Y 254: DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. degree of light thrown on the topic in any part of the Apocalypse. Now, if the doctrine had been so essential as the Romanists contend, how are we to account, not only for this extraordinary total preterition, but (what is yet more remarkable) for the absolutely incompatible language of St. Paul } If the theory of the Latin church be valid, if canonical submission to St. Peter and his alleged successors in the see of Rome be abso- lutely necessary to ecclesiastical unity; I perceive not, how we can exempt from the charge of schism even the great apostle of the gentiles himself. 2. Since then, in the apostolic practice and writ- ings, we can discover no vestiges of the primacy of St. Peter, we shall not be very sanguine in our hopes of detecting any recognition of the primacy of St. Peter^s alleged successors. The documents, which w^e are the most naturally led to examine for this purpose, are the two Epistles of St. Peter, and St. PauPs Epistle to the Romanf. I need scarcely point out the reason. St. Peter, one might well imagine, when writing two general epis- tles, would not fail to urge upon his readers, where- soever scattered, the great and religious importance of acknowledging, as a divinelj^-appointed centre of unity, both his own primacy and that of his Roman successors. Such an admonition would the more na- turally flow from his pen, since he has been thought to have written at least his first epistle from Rome.^ Be that however as it may, if the doctrine be so vitally important as the Latins assert, we can hardly suppose that Peter would have been altogether silent on the subject. Yet silent he is, though not unpro- fitablj^ His silence speaks volumes. Much the same remark applies to St. PauPs Epistle to the Romans. * 1 Peter v. 13. There is no reason to suppose, that Peter ever resided in the literal Babylon. Hence the figurative Baby- lon, whence he dates his letter, has been thought not unreasona- bly to be Rome. See Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. c. 15. RESPECTING THE REFORMED CHURCH. 255 That letter is by no means a short one. The apostle treats largely in it both of doctrine and of practice. Yet, in no one part of it, does he give the slightest hint as to either the existence or necessity of any pri- macy in the church of Rome. This, I think, could scarcely have happened, more especially when we re- collect that the epistle was destined for im.mortality, had St. Paul symbolized with the Latin doctors. In fact, if St. Peter and his alleged Roman succes- sors had been the divinely-appointed primates of the catholic church, we shall encounter, even at the very first descent of the office, a most singular chronologi- cal difficulty. According to Irena^us, the church of Rome was jointly founded by the two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul: and the bishop, w^hom they appomted in the first instance, was Linus.^ Now Peter certainly died before John, and probably before several other of the apostles. Such being the case, a most extraordinary inversion of all ecclesiastical order must, according to the Latin theory, have in- evitably followed. If Peter himself were the first primate, and if his primacy was ordained to descend to his alleged Roman successors; then, upon the death of Peter, the existing bishop of Rome, whoever that bishop might be at the death of Peter, w^ould become the canonical primate of the entire catholic church. St. John,however,wasundoubtedly alive when Peter died. Hence, as John had been a sufiragan of the primate Peter, he would plainly, on the death of Peter, be- become a sufiragan of the new Roman primate who was Peter^s legitimate successor in the primacy: and thus, at length, we shall be brought to the goodly conclusion, that an inspired apostle of the Lord owed canonical obedience to an uninspired bishop of Rome. II. Upon what then, it w^ill naturally be asked by the English laic, who (as w^e learn from the bishop of Aire) has fallen into the sickly humour of being dis- * Iren, adv. Haer. lib. iii, c. 3. § 2, 256 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. contented with his own church: upon what then rests the claim of Rome to the primacy of the church catholic ? It rests, let the English laic know, upon the follow- ing passage in the gospel according to St. Matthew: — ^ When Jesus came into the coasts of Csesarea Phi- Mippi, he asked his disciples, saying: Whom do men ^say that I, the son of man, am ? And they said: ^Some say, that thou art John the Baptist; some, 'Elias; and others, Jeremias or one of the prophets. ^ He saith unto them: But whom say ye that I am ? < And Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art the ^ Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus an- ^swered and said unto him: Blessed art thou, Simon ^Bar-Jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it ^ unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And ^ I say also unto thee,- that Thou art Peter: and upon Uhis rock I will build my church; and the gates of ^ hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give ^ unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and, ^ whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound < in heaven; and, whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, ^ shall be loosed in heaven.^* The process of inductive reasoning, by which the supremacy of the see of Rome is extracted from the present passage, maybe stated in manner following: — ^ Christ declares Peter to be the rock, upon which ' he would build his church: and he communicates * also to him the power both of binding and of loosing. ' Now, in this figurative but perfectly intelligible lan- ' gnage, Christ grants to Peter the primacy of the uni- ' versal church, and constitutes him the centre of * ecclesiastical unity. But Peter was a mortal man: ^and the office of primate, having been divinely ap- ^ pointed as the preservative of ecclesiastical unity, ^ was destined to be perpetual. Hence, as the office ' could not die with Peter, it must clearly descend to ^Peter^s successors. Who, then, are the canonical * Matth. xvi. 13—19. RESPECTING THE REFORMED CHURCH. 257 'f successors of Peter? Undoubtedly, they are the ^bishops of Rome. For, since Peter was the first ' bishop of Rome, all succeeding bishops of Rome are ^his canonical successors: and, since they are his * canonical successors in the bishopric, they only can ^ be his canonical successors in the primacy. Whence •it follows, that those who are not built upon the rock •^ Peter, or (in other words) those w^ho render not ^ canonical obedience to the supreme universal pri- ' mate, are manifest schismatics and convicted aliens ^from the catholic church of Christ.^ It is evident, that the whole of the present argu- ment rests ultimately upon the two following posi- tions: that ^Peter was the first bishop *of Rome;' and that ^Christ, by declaring Peter to be the rock ^ upon which he would build his entire church, con- ' ferred upon that apostle and his successors in the see ^ of Rome the divine vi9^ of an universally-control- Ming primacy.^ Such then being the case, before we admit the con- clusiveness of the argument, we^must carefully exam- ine, whether the two main positions, upon which it rests, be themselves tenable. 1. Whatever may be the precise nature of the grant made by our Lord to Peter, it is clear that the bishops of Rome can propound no valid claim to the inheri- tance of that grant, unless they can establish the alleg- ed historical fact, that Mey are the canonical succes- sors of Peter. But the medium, through which they would establish this alleged historical fact, is the cir- cumstance, that Peter ivas the first bishop of Rome. Therefore, the circumstance, that Peter was the first bishop of Eome, is the point to be proved by them. Now the position, that Peter was the first bishop of Rome^ rests not even upon the shadow of a foun- dation. All that we know, respecting the early history of the Roman see, is derived ultimately from Irena^ug, who flourished in the second century: for Eusebius Y 2 258 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. professedly gives the whole of his statement on the authority of Irenaeus.^ Does Irenseus then inform us, that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, and that he handed down his divine prerogative (whatever it might be) to his suc- cessors in that paramount diocese ? Certainly we receive no such information from that ancient father: and, if we receive it not from him, I know not from what other authentic source we can learn it. According to Irenseus, the two most glorious apos- tles, Peter and Paul, were the co-founders of the church of Rome: and he informs us, that, when they had thus jointly founded that church, they jointly delivered the episcopate of it to Linus. With respect to eiihe?' of the two co-founders ever having been himself bishop of Rome, Irenoeus is totally silent. He simply states, that Peter and Paul, by their joint authority, founded the church of Rome: and he adds, that, when they had so founded it, they forthwith, still by their joint authority, delivered the episcopate of it to Linus.t Such is the narrative of Irenseus: and I see not %vhat we can learn from it, save that Linus was the first bishop of Rome^ and consequently that neither of the two co-founders of that church ever presided over it in the capacity of a diocesan bishop. To this conclusion we are, in fact, irresistibly dri- ven, both by the general argument, and by the par- ticular statement, of Irenseus. His general argument is, that ^ the tradition of the ^ apostles must exist in all the apostolic churches; be- ^ cause each church possessed an accurate list of her * See Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iil. c. 2. 4. lib. v. c. 5, 6. See also a note by Cotelerius on Constit. Apost. lib. vii. c. 46. j f Fundantes igitur et instruentes beati apostoli (Petrus et Pau- lus) ecclesiam (Romanam), Lino episcopatum administrandae ecclesiae tradiderunt. — Succedit autem ei Anacletus. Post euin, tertlo loco ab apostolis, episcopatum sortitur Clemens. Iren. adr. Haer. lib. iii. c. 3. § 2, RESPECTING THE RErORMED CHURCH. 259 ^bishops, beginning with him to whom the episco- * pate had been originally committed by the apostles < themselves.^ His particular statement is ^ the episcopal succes- ^ sion of the Roman church, which he gives as an ^avowed specimen of all other episcopal successions.' If then the first bishop of each apostolic church was the person, to whom in ih^Jirst instance the aposto- lic founder of that church committed the episcopate of it; Linus, being the person to whom in the first in- stance the two apostolic founders of the Roman church committed the episcopate of that church, must clearly have been the^r^^ bishop of Rome. Accordingly, the catalogue of the Roman bishops, as given by Irenseus, is plainly constructed upon this identical principle. He begins with specifying the two co-founders of the church,. Peter and Paul: and, when that has been done, he gives a list of twelve successive bishops down to his own time; the frst of whom, Linus, he describes as having received the episcopate from the hands of the two apostolic co-founders themselves. Nor is this the only difficulty which impedes the Latin speculation, that Peter was the first bishop of Rome. Had Peter been the sole founder of that church, a plea, though a very weak plea, might have been set up, that he w^as also its first bishop. But, in truth, Peter and Paul were the J oi?it founders of the Roman church: whence it is evident, that Peter does not stand alone in the degree immediately before Linus, but that Peter and Paul stand jointly in that degree. No plea, therefore, can be advanced for the primary Roman episcopate of Peter j which may not be equally advanced for the primary Roman episcopate of Paul.* * It is worthy of note, that, in the Apostolic Constitutions, the person who appointed Linus the first bishop of Rome, is said to have been St. Paul. Constit. Apost. lib. vii. c. 46. This state- ment, though it varies from the more full account given by Ire- n^eus, yet does not absolutely contradict it. For, if Linus were 260 DIFFICULTIES OP ROMANISlVf. Under such circumstances, it is perfectly clear, ac- cording both to the general argument and to the particular statement of Irenaeus, that the bishops of Rome are no more, in any peculiar and exclusive sense, the successors of Peter, than the bishop of any other ancient church in the founding of which Peter was similarl}^ concerned. The bishops of any church, founded by Peter, may, in a general sense, be called the successors of Peter ; but, why the bishops of Rome, more than the bishops of any other church similarly circumstanced, should claim to be specially and exclusively the successors of Peter, we most as- suredly receive no information from Irenseus. Thus untenable is one of the main positions, upon which is built the papal claim to an universal control- ling supremacy. Even if our Lord had intended to constitute Peter the ruling primate of the apostolic colLege and the alone centre of ecclesiastical unity, still his supposed high prerogative would not descend to the line of the Roman bishops, more than to the line of any other bishops, unless the Roman bishops can demonstrate themselves to be his special and exclusive successors in the primacy. appointed the first bishop of Rome by Paul and Peter, he was doubtless so appointed by the authority of Paul; thoug-h Paul, in transacting the business, did not act singly hMt jointly. Yet the circumstance is remarkable: for since the name of Peteii could be luliolly omitted m. an account of the foundation of the Ro- man church, and since the consecration of Linus could have been nakedly ascribed to another person; such a circumstance clearly shews, how little stress could have been laid in the early ages upon the imagined primacy of Peter and his alleged Roman suc- cessors. On the supposition, that the Roman church was jointly founded hy Peter and Paul, and on the additional supposition, that the sentiments of the early ages respecting the primacy ofF^i^u corresponded ivith the sentiments of the modern Latins, it is evident, that, in common parlance, though Linus would often be said to have been simply appointed by Peter, he would never be said to have been simply appointed by Paul. The language of the . Apostolic Constitutions would never, 1 apprehend, be adopted by a zealous Latin of tlie present day. RESPECTING THE REFORMED CHURCH. 261 2, As the bishops of Rome are, in no eminent or peculiar sense, the successors of St. Peter: so antiquity recognised nothing of the claim to a dominant su- premacy, preferred by the present pontiffs and their adherents, on the strength of our Lord^s declaration, that he would found his church upon a rock, and would give to Peter the power of the keys. To say nothing respecting the fact, that all the twelve apostles are equally declared to be foundations of the church, and that the power of binding and loosing is equally conferred upon the whole collective body;^ to say nothing respecting this important fact, the passage now before us is abstractedly capable of no less than three interpretations. The rock, spoken of by Christ, may either be Peter individually or it may be Peter and his successors col-* lectivelyj wherever those successors are to be found: or it may be the open confession of our Lord'^s divini" ty, which had just been made by Peter, and which in effect was the precise matter that led to Christ's re- markable declaration. So far as the bare phraseology of the passage is concerned, auT/ one of these three expositions is per- fectly tenable. The church of Rome, therefore, can- not be allowed to build a most important doctrine upon her own mere arbitrary and interested interpre- tation of an ambiguous passage. With whatever degree of reason, the bishop of Aire claims the early ecclesiastical writers, as his spe- cial friends and allies. To these writers, then, as unexceptionable umpires, let the matter now under litigation be referred. I have stated, that, so far as Tnere phraseology is concerned, the passage is capable of three interpreta- tions. Now, it is a curious circumstance, that not one of the early ecclesiastical writers, so far as I have had an opportunity of examining them, adopts the in- * See Rev. xxi. 14. John xx. 23. 2S2 BIFFICULTIES OP ROMANISM. terpretation preferred by the modern Latins. The mos^ early fathers suspiciously pass the text over in total silence; and, when at length it begins to be pro* duced, some pronounce the rock to be the individual Peter; others declare, that it can only be Christ him- self or (what amounts to the same thing) Peter^s con- fession of Christ^s divinity; 7ioney so far as I know, distinctly and uniformly declare it to be Peter and his alleged Roman successors conjointly.* Clement and Ignatius and Polycarp never once mention the passage: and, although their treatment of a common subject, particularly when that subject is in the hands of the Roman Clement, might well lead to a distinct statement, that the bishop of Rome is the centre of ecclesiastical unity and the divinely appoint- ed primate of the entire catholic church; not a single \vord do they say respecting (if we may believe the Latins) this vitally important doctrine.t * If there be any semblance of exception to this statement, it is afforded by Jerome, who flourished at the latter end of the fourth century. The language in one of his epistles to Pope Damasus, is so worded, that it maybe understood, either as iden- tifying the rock with the see of Kome viewed under the aspect of the special see of St. Peter, or as identifying the rock with Christ, the alone primate of the church catholic. Ego, nullum primum nisi Christum sequens, beatitudini tux, id est cathedrae Petri, communione consocior. Super illam pe- tram xdificatam Ecclesiam scio. — Hieron. Epist. Ivii. ad Damas. Oper. vol. i. p. 163. In this ambiguous passage, the question is, whether Jerome meant to refer illam petrain to nullum primum, nisi Christum or to cathedrse Petri. The Romanist will of course maintain the lat- ter: and doubtless he might do it with much plausibility, had not Jerome elsewhere distinctly pronounced the rock to be Christ. Sicut ipse lumen apostolis dona\'it, ut lumen mundi appella- rentur; cxteraque ex Domino sortiti sunt vocabula: ita et Si- moni, qui credebat inpetram Christum, Petri largitus est nomen. — Hieron. Comment, in Matt. xvi. 18. lib. iii. Oper. vol. vi. p. 33. The interpretation of Jerome in this last passage will carry the greater weight, because it occurs in a professed commentary upon the text itself. Hence it may be doubted, whether that father ever meant to affirm, that the rock was the see of Rome. f Clement of Rome wrote to the Corinthians to settle their ' RESPECTINa THE REFORMED CHURCH. 263 Justin, viho flourished during the middle part of the second century, is, if I mistake not, the earliest ancient who cites and explains the text. But how does he explain it? Does he favour the modern in- terpretation of the ^church of Rome: or does he view the passage under a totally different aspect? Truly he makes the rock to be, neither Peter himself exclu- sively, nor Peter in conjunction with his imaginary Roman successors: on the contrary, this primitive expositor supposes the rock to be Peter's confession. ^ Christ,^ says he, ^bestowed upon Simon the name ^ of Peter: because, by the revelation of his hea- dlfferences: but this he did, as he himself informs us, purely at their own desire, and not by virtue of any divine universal pre- eminent authority attached to his see. — Clem. Kom. Epist. ad Co- rinth, i. § -1. Such authority Clement no where vindicates to the church of Rome: and, in a passag-e where he must have men- tioned it bad he supposed himself to possess it, we find him no less silent than Peter and Paul had been before him. Under the Israelitish names of High Priest and Priests and Levites ^ he dis- tinctly specifies the three holy orders of bishops and presb3^ters and deacons, and he teaches us, how the apostles regulated and provided for the spiritual government of the church, previous to their own removal to glory. — Ibid. § 40-44. But, though his sub- ject thus plainly and (as it were) inevitably led him to the grand arrangement of the authoritative primacy in his own see of Rome, he passes on to other topics without saying anything on the sub- ject. The same remark applies to those writings of Ignatius of Anti- och, which in the main are received as g-enuine. He dwells much and repeatedly on the canonical government of the church by the three orders of bishops and presbyters and deacons; and he is very copious on the evil of schism. But, though he thus treats spe- cifically of ecclesiastical polity, and though he often alludes to his journey to Rome for the crown of martyrdoni, he throws not out the slightest hint of the existence of any Roman primacy.—- Ignat. Epist. ad Ephes. § 2, 5, 6, 20. Epist. ad Mag*nes. § 3, 6. Epist. ad Trail. § 2, 3, 7. Equally silent is Polycarp of Smyrna. In his epistle to the Philippians, he touches on the subject of ecclesiastical discipline: but, as for the duty of ultimate submission to, or special commu- nion with, the alleg-ed Roman successors of Peter, he gives us no Information. — Polycarp. Epist. ad Phifip. § 5. 264 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. ^venly father, he confessed him to be the son of ^ God/* Such is the oldest extant interpretation of the pas- sage: but as we descend, we shall find, that some of the fathers suppose the individual Peter to have been the rock, while others adopt the more OvUcient inter- pretation of Justin Martyr. Irenseus cites the text: but he merely cites it, with- out giving any exposition of it, either one way or another, t * Jastin. Dial, cum Trypli. p. 255. Sylburg. 1593. f Iren. adv. Hser. lib. iii. c. 11. This eminent person has been claimed as a stout advocate for the primacy of Rome: and, though he does not seem to have discovered any such doctrine in the text which speaks of the rock, he certainly allows the church of that city some metropolitan superiority at least in Italy. But his language, I think, cannot be legitimately construed, as setting forth the religious necessity of an universal agreement with, and submission to, the see of Rome. The Latins, I am aware, so in- terpret it: but they bring out their interpretation, partly by an arbitrary rendering of one particular word, and partly by an omission of the holy father's own exposition of his own meaning. * To the Roman church,^ says Irenseus, ' on account of its more * potent principality, it is necessary that every church should re- * sort; that is to say, those of the faithful who dwell on every * side of it. For in it, by those who are on every side of it, is * thus preserved the tradition which hath descended from the * apostles. '—Iren. adv. Haer. lib. iii. c. 3. § 2. The latter or explanatory part of this passage the Latins are wont to omit in their citation of it: and the former part they are accustomed to translate as follows. * With the Roman church, on account of its more potent princi- * pality, it is necessary that every church should agree.' I subjoin the entire original, in order that the reader may thus be enabled to form his own judgment. * Ad banc ecclesiam, propter potentiorem principalitatem, * necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam; hoc est, eos qui sunt * undique fideles: in qua semper, ab his qui sunt undique, con- * servata est ea quae ab apostolis traditio.' — Iren. adv. Haer. lib. iii. c. S.§3. Irenseus is not inculcating the necessity of an universal submis- sive agreement with the church of Rome : but he is teaching the best mode of ascertaining the truth, to which the immediately cir- cumjacent inferior churches could, in his time, resort. At Rome was preserved the authentic autograph of St, Paul's epistle to RESPECTING THE REFORMED CHURCH. 261 Tertullian and Cyprian contend, that Peter indivi* dually is the rock: and, while Tertullian is very warm and violent against any extension of the privilege be- yond the individual Peter; Cyprian^s friend and cor- respondent Firmilian sneers at Stephen of Rome for idly claiming to be the successor of Peter, sets him down as a second Judas, and calls him an arrogant and presumptuous and manifest and notorious fool.^ that church; probably also the autograph of at least the first epis tie of St. Peter. In the days of Iren?eus, moreover, the apostolic traditioir, which he himself derived from St. John through his master Polycarp, woidd be peculiarly exact and vigorous in a church, founded, as he tells us, by the two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul. On the satisfactory ground, then, of the more potent principahty of a church thus circumstanced, Irenaeus re- commends it to the circumjacent inferior churches, that, in the case of any doctrinal difficulty, they should resort to Rome, partly to inspect the venerable autographs of the apostles, should the strict accuracy of their own copies be suspected, and partly to learn the system of the gospel as it was well known to have been explained by the apostles themselves. On this topic a flood of light is thrown by Tertullian, the par- tial contemporary of Irenaeus. He mentions, that in all the great apostohc churches were preserved the authentic letters of the apostles which had been addressed to them: and he thence takes occasion to advise the very practice, which the occidental Irenasus specially recommends to those of the faithful who were in the vicinity of the "Roman church. But Tertullian dreams not of any peculiar resort to Rome alone. On the contrary, let those ivho are near Corinth, go to Corinth; those, who are Tiear Philippi, go to Philippi; those who are near Ephesus, go to Ephesus:, those who are near Rome, go to Rome; and those who are near Thessalonica, go to Thessalonica. In each of these principal churches, where the apostohc autographs are lodged, and where the pure apostohc tradition eminently flourishes, those, who are in difficulties, may best seek genuine information. — See Tertull. de Pr^escript. adv. Hxr. § xiv. p. 108, 109. * In the time of Tertullian, w^hose life extended into the third century, a considerable advance had* plainly been made by the see of Rome in the claim of the primacy. TertuUian calls the bishop of that church the supreme pontiff , and dignifies liim with the authoritative appellation of the bishop of bishops. — Tertull.de Pudic. p. 742. Yet, though a style, ahke unknown to the apos- tolic college and to the earhest fathers, had now begun to be adopted, Tertullian derives no argument in its fa\ our from the z 262 DIFFICULTIES OP ROMANISM. Chrysostom, in one place, supposes Peter indi- vidually to have been the rock: but, what very cu- riously shews the great uncertainty which prevailed in the early church relative to the true meaning of this famous text, in another place, he pronounces the rock to be Peter's confession of faith, and explicitly condemns the idea that Peter himself could have been intended.! Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome, and Au- gustine, all agree in preferring the old interpretation which was first given by Justin Martyr. ' The ' church,' says the great Augustine, ^ is founded upon '■arock: whence Peter derived his name. For the M'ock was not so called from Peter; but Peter, from ' the rock: just as Christ is not so called from a chris- 'tian; but a christian from Christ. Accordingly, the ' reason why our Lord said, Upon this rock I will ' build my church, was, becaUw«Je Peter had said, ' Thou art the Christ the son of the living God. Upon ' this rock which thou hast confessed, he means to *say, I will build my church. For the rock was ' Christ, upon which foundation Peter himself was text now under discussion. He supposes the rock to mean Pe- ter: but he carefully restricts the character to Peter as an indi- vldual; he deems the privilege to be altogether joer^OTia/,- and he flatly denies, that it can be construed as belonging to what then began to be esteemed Peter's church, — Tertull. de Pudic. p. 767, 768. For the opinion of Cyprian and his friend Firmilian, see Cy- prian, de Unit. Eccles. p. 106-108. Cyprian. Epist. Plebi Uni- vers. xliii. p. 83. Firmil. Cyprian. Epist. Ixxv. p. 218, 225. In the second of the places here referred to, Cyprian speaks of one chair founded upon Peter hy the voice of the Lord, This the Latins of course understand to mean the see of Rome. But the whole t^nor both of Cyprian's language and of Cyprian's conduct de- monstrates, that, by this chair, he meant, not the see of Rome in particular, but the chair of the collective united episcopate in gene- ral. Compare Cyprian, de Unit. Eccles. p. 108: and little doubt, I think, will remain as to the true import of the one chair, f Chrysost. Homil. Ixix. in Petr. Apost. et Eliam. Proph. Oper. vol. i. p. 856. Serm. de Pentecost. Oper. vol. vi. p. 233. KESPEC^ING THE REFORMED CHURCH. 263 < built: inasmuch as it is said, Other foundation can Mionian lay than what is laid, that is, Christ Jesus.'"" Thus untenable is the second of the two positions, upon which is built the papal claim to an universal supremacy. The primitive church no more recog- nised any such claim, than Holy Scripture: and, when it began to be propounded by Stephen of Rome in the third century, it was immediately, with the utmost contempt, opposed, as a silly innovation, by Cyprian and Firmilian. Lofty as were Cyprian^s ideas respecting the authority of the collective episco- pate, his actions, no less than his words, most abun- dantly showed, that he was little inclined to pros- trate himself before a pretended Roman successor of Peter. In the dispute concerning the rebaptiza- tion of heretics, Stephen and Cyprian took opposite parts: and neither of these resolute controversialists would yield, in the slightest degree, to his antago- nist. Regardless of the vain anger and the impotent excommunication of the intemperate Italian, Cyprian assembled a synod of the African bishops: and, in this synod, the independent prelate of Carthage, sup- ported by his own suffragans, decreed to adopt the opinion of the Asiatics. III. The Latin argument, deduced from the cele- brated passage which has now been brought under discussion, rests ultimately, as we have seen, upon two vital positions. Both those positions have been shewn to be untenable. The argument, therefore, deprived of its supporters, becomes a mere nullity. Hence, from what has been said, it is obvious, that * Athan. Unum esse Christ. Oral. Oper. p. 519, 520. Cyril. Catech. vi. p. 54. xi? p. 93. Hieron. Comment, in Matt. xvi. 18. lib. iii. Oper. vol. vi. p. 33. August. Expos, in Evan. Johan. Tract, cxxiv. Oper. vol. ix. p. 206. I have mentioned Cyril among those who hold Peter's confession to be the rock. Such strikes me as being most naturally his meaning. I will not, how- ever, be positive: he may mean the individual Peter. At any rate, he never once thought of interpreting the rock to denote Peter's imaginary successors in the see of Rome. 264 DIFFICULTIES OF KOMANiSM. we may safely pronounce, by right as well as by fact^ the perfect independence, both of the Anglican church and of every other national church, upon the bishop and see of Rome. 1. Such being the case, even if we loholly agreed with the Roman church in our general doctrinal sys- tem, and even if there were no reason whatever why we might not be in perfect communion with her; still that circumstance would give her no sort oi au- thority over the church of England. According to the principle of Cyprian, that the episcopate is one indivisible hody^ and that the church catholic is spiritually an unit^ though con- sisting of many distinct visible portions: according to this principle of Cyprian, any union of the church of Rome and the church of England, even if such an union were doctrinally practicable, must needs be an union of equal concordance, not an union of rule on the one side, and of submission on the other.* The very fact indeed of the perfect mutual inde- pendence, though entire theological agreement, of the holy apostles, draws after it, by a plain necessity, the perfect mutual independence of all national churches. For, if the apostles themselves were mutually inde- pendent, no very intelligible reason can be assigned, why a church founded by James or by John should be subject to a church founded by Paul or by Peter. 2. It may be said, that the church of England is a daughter of the church of Rome, and that as such she ought to be subject to her spiritual mother. If this theory were admissible, it might prove the schism and rebellion of the Anglican church, but it would not prove the schism and ji'ebellion of the Greek church, which yet, as we all know, is equally insisted upon by the uncanonically-encroaching La* tins. The theory, however, is palpably inadmissible. * See Cyprian de Unit. Eccles. p. 108, nESPE<3TlNa THE REFORMED CHURCH. 265 By an easy figure of speech, we very naturally, in ecclesiastical matters, talk of the relation of mother and daughter: but it were grievously inconclusive reasoning to demonstrate, from a trope of rhetoric^ the literal subjugation of the allegorical daughter to the allegorical mother. The episcopal churches of Scotland and America are two hopeful daughters, whereof their mother, the church of England, has no reason to feel ashamed: yet it were passing strange, if the parent should, as a parent, claim any spiritual domination over her children. Happily, the mother and her daughters are in perfect communion : and long, for their mutual benefit and spiritual edification, may such continue to be the case! But their com» munion is an union of equal concordance, not an union of rule and submission: and, if there unhappily exist not the same communion between Rome and England, the fault, we venture to think, is in the mo- ther, not in the daughter. 3, The Vatican, then, can claim no canonical su- periority to Lambeth, even on the supposition that there existed the most perfect doctrinal harmony be- tween the two churches. Some protestants, not quite so well informed as they might have been in the ancient genuine princi- ple of ecclesiastical union; that principle, which has been so happily revived in the case of the three epis- copal churches of England, Scotland, and America: some protestants, it seems, have unguardedly argued with the bishop of Aire, that their avowed indepen- dence of Rome is no schism, if the Latins be idola- ters. His lordship, whose acuteness will not suffer an opponent to make a slip with impunity, takes these paralogists at their word, and rapidly assails them on their ov/n most erroneous principle. You confess yourselves to be schismatics, says he, if we Latins be not idolaters : for upon our al- leged idolatry alone you avowedly rest vour argu- z 2 266 DIFFICULTIES OF KOMANISM. ment. Now we Latins are 7iot idolaters. Therefore^ on your own principle, you are convicted schis- matics.* ^ Without entering, even in the slightest degree, in- to the question, whether idolatry be justly or unjustly imputed to the Church of Rome, I deny the very premises of this syllogism, on the ground which I have already explained quite sufficiently. We should cordially rejoice, if the doctrine of the church of Rome were in all points identical with the doctrine of the church of England: but we should not, on that account, the more perceive why the church of Eng- land ought to be subject to the church of Rome. * Discuss. Amic. vol. li. p. 301. ON AN UNION OF THE CHURCHES. 267 CHAPTER IV. Respecting the Practicability of an Union of the Church of Rome and the Church of England. It is remarked by the bishop of Aire, that he might have copiously discussed the errors taught by protestants, respecting the number of the sacred books, the number of the sacraments, the communion under both kinds, the reservation of the consecrated host, and other matters of importance. On these topics, hov^ever, he is silent. I, therefore, shall be silent also: for my purpose has been, not so much to volunteer an attack, as to accept a challenge. But a projected plan of union, between the church of Rome and the church of England, v^ears no face of hostility: and it is refreshing, toward the close of a controver- sial composition, to hear the long-forgotten sounds of peace and amity. ^ I. The bishop's scheme of union, between the two churches, may be stated briefly, in manner following: ^ Once defined, the principles of the Latin church * are irrevocable. She herself is immutably chained ' by bonds, which at no future period can she ever ^rend asunder. 't In regard, therefore, to doctrine^ any concession is plainly impossible. Yet, as the bi- shop undertakes to promise for her, she will cheerfully do every thing that in reason can be expected. Let the church of England adopt all the doctrines of the * Discuss. Amic. Lett, xviii. t Discuss, Amic. vol, ii, p, 324, 268 DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANISM. church of Rome: and the church of Rome, on her part, will be disposed to make grand concessions on points of discipline. Such concessions her principle of IMMUTABILITY docs not forbid. Hence, in return for the sacrifice which we make on doctrinal points, she will freely concede to us communion under both kinds, the marriage of ecclesiastics, divine service in the vulgar tongue, all the ceremonies, all the vest- ments, all the sacerdotal ornaments, all the decora- tions of the altars and churches. By this arrange- ment, as the bishop justly observes, matters would seem precisely the same as before. The change would be absolutely invisible. It would be a simple altera- tion of our faith, which resides only in the intellec- tual part of our nature: w^hile the external worship would strike the eye, exactly as it did before the union was thus happily effected.^ * In England,' says the bishop, ^ the Reformation ^deprived public worship of its ancient forms, and * stripped ecclesiastical ceremonies of all their majesty. < At one fell swoop, it abolished the merit of ' satisfactory works, the doctrine of purgatory, pray- ^ ers for the dead, invocation of the saints, honour ' paid to relics and to images and to the cross. The < ritual, the liturgy, the mass with its sacrifice, the ^real presence with transubstantiation, all were swept ^ ^ ^ « /- > , « ^/^ - . 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